by Holly Rayner
The elevator zipped to the top of the building, and the two of them stepped into sudden sunshine. The rooftop of the Manhattan building offered a beautiful garden, with views over the city. They perched next to each other on a stone bench, Lisa sighing heavily.
“Sorry. I can’t move so quickly these days, let alone stand,” she said, gesturing. “But boy, is this a beautiful view.”
Before them, all of Manhattan stretched beneath the sunshine, its buildings glowing in the late-afternoon sun. From that far up, they couldn’t hear the rushing traffic below.
Lisa pointed, without stopping herself. “I can see your place from here. Just around that corner, no?”
“That’s exactly it,” the Prince said softly. He paused, allowing the silence to stretch between them. “So. Since you’re here, looking like that, I’m assuming the baby. It’s—”
“It’s yours. Of course it’s yours,” Lisa breathed, her eyes turning toward his. “I thought Princess Rose told you. She—”
“You met with her?” Francesco asked, frowning. His voice had hardened.
“Absolutely. I wanted to contact you. It seemed like you had cut me off completely. Finally, I tried your driver. Sergio.”
“Ah, Sergio,” he said, nodding his head, a flicker of a smile forming. “That bastard. He’ll do anything for a buck.”
“Why couldn’t I contact your offices? Why was it so difficult?”
“You know why,” the Prince replied. “I couldn’t trust you. Not after I found out who you were.”
Lisa didn’t speak for a moment. Her brain bucked at the knowledge that the Prince hadn’t known about the pregnancy. He’d been left in the dark, as his three babies had grown within her, as she’d listened to their heartbeats for the first time, and as Princess Rose had schemed to take them from her.
“I’m expecting triplets,” she said finally. She flung her hair behind her shoulders, gesturing to her stomach. “There are three babies in there. Do you want to feel?”
“Am I allowed?” he asked, a glimmer of hope flashing in his eyes. “You must hate me. You must have come here to tell me exactly that.”
Lisa shrugged. “You had every reason to act the way you did, Francesco. I lied about who I was, and I betrayed your trust. The important thing, now, is that these babies are half yours, and I want you in their lives. I want you in our lives.”
Francesco eased his palm over her belly, then, and gazed up at Lisa, feeling light kicks within her abdomen. He shook his head, incredulous. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything more wonderful in my entire life,” he whispered. “They’re ours. I—I can’t—”
Lisa felt a slight breeze kick up, giving the back of her neck reprieve from the heat. She knew she had to tell Francesco about Rose’s baby-buying plot, but the words sounded strange coming from her mouth.
“The Princess offered to buy the baby. I didn’t yet know that I was expecting triplets, and she wanted to give me a hefty check to give my baby to her, and then go far, far away.”
The Prince’s jaw opened wide. He turned his face to the horizon, his palm still upon her stomach, processing the information. “I knew she was a wretched human. I did. But this is far too much to bear,” he murmured.
“What should we do?” Lisa breathed.
“I don’t know yet,” the Prince answered. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
They sat that way for several moments more, each enjoying the calmness that the other provided. For the first time in months, Lisa didn’t feel alone. She sensed that the Prince was processing the information as best as he could, diving from one plot point to the next, until his arrival here, on the top of this Manhattan building, with a very different future opening up before him.
“I never wanted to have kids with Rose,” he whispered. “I’ve seen the way she interacts with children. She’s so cold and calculating with my nieces and nephews. I could only imagine the lack of compassion she’d show to her own.”
Lisa nodded. She rose from the bench, sighing. “I’m sorry for bulldozing my way into your life, Francesco. Know that it wasn’t my intention. I was just a silly girl that night. A silly girl with a dream.”
But the Prince rose before her and placed his fingers over her cheek. “You’re a gorgeous human, Lisa. And I am a better man for meeting you. And our children will have the best of everything. I know how much you’ve struggled. And you, more than anyone else I know, deserve to relax, now. To breathe.”
Lisa laced her fingers through his, then, and they walked toward the elevator, armed with new purpose. The Prince composed his thoughts as they rushed to the ballroom floor. With his jaw set, and his tone forceful, he told Lisa: “It might get ugly over the next few minutes. Don’t think you have to stay.”
“No,” Lisa breathed. “I want to see this.”
They entered the ballroom, then, to find Princess Rose in uproar once more. She stabbed her finger toward the chef’s chest in time with her words. “This. Is. Not. Dutch. Cuisine. This. Is. Garbage. Do you hear me? Garbage.”
The man looked oddly bored with her words. Having been a chef for years, he was clearly used to insults. As he stood, his eyes shifted toward the Prince, who still clung to Lisa’s hand. A smile stretched over his face.
“What are you smiling about?” Princess Rose asked, screeching. “Eyes on me, you little punk. You don’t want to be fired minutes before my rehearsal dinner, do you? You’ll never work in this industry again. You can mark my words.”
The chef pointed toward the Prince, then. He muttered, “Good luck with that,” before he turned on his heel, removing his chef’s hat. He began to whistle “The Times They Are a-Changin’” before bolting back into the kitchen, without a care.
Princess Rose spun around, her eyes alert, like a caged animal’s. As she stood, a few photographers entered the ballroom from the back, preparing to head to their seats. They stood stock still, like birds on the wire, as they took in the sight before them. Something was happening. The air was tense.
“What the hell is going on?” the Princess asked, her expression turning to one of dread, rather than one of anger. She tapped forward on her heels, gazing at the two of them holding hands. Clearly, this kind of compassion was foreign to her.
“I think I should ask you the same thing,” the Prince said, his dark eyebrows rising high on his forehead. “You knew about this, Rose. Why the hell did you keep it a secret?”
“She’s pregnant, and it’s his—” A paparazzo began to take pictures, whispering harshly to the side. “Oh my God.” The photographers were in sudden uproar, drawing closer to them.
Lisa wanted to hide her head beneath Francesco’s suit jacket, or else waddle from the premises and hide back in her apartment, safe from the hubbub. But she supposed everything in her life had been moving toward this moment. She had to sit it out, now.
“Darling Francesco,” Princess Rose began, stuttering. “I don’t think this is an appropriate place to speak about this. Even your little bimbo knows better than to speak in public. Don’t you, little home-wrecker?” she asked, pointing an accusing finger forward. “The press should know you only as the ‘other woman.’ You’re trash, nothing more.”
Several tabloid reporters began to scribble down notes, realizing that this would become a front-page story within the hour. And they were there. Ready to break it.
“No. I’m going to hash this out, right here, right now,” Francesco declared. “I don’t care if they write about it. It would be good if they wrote the truth, for once.”
Lisa felt Francesco’s grip tighten around her hand. She began to sweat profusely, hating everyone’s eyes upon her. She smiled grimly, knowing this was her fifteen minutes of fame—and that she was about fifty pounds too large for it.
“Why on earth would you buy someone else’s baby from them?” Francesco demanded then. “That’s disgusting, Rose. More disgusting than when you shoved that homeless girl to the ground in Greece, even.”
“She wa
s in the way,” Rose interrupted, her eyes wide. “And I told you never to bring that up again.”
“Oh, but here we go. We aren’t lying anymore, Rose,” he growled. “You know I never loved you. You know I never wanted to be with you. And yet, you’re forcing me into this marriage through my father. Why don’t we tell the people about that?”
Princess Rose shot forward, stabbing her finger at the Prince’s chest. “How dare you, Francesco. We’ve been betrothed since we were teenagers. You can’t just ‘get out’ of being betrothed.”
“This isn’t the Middle Ages, Princess,” Francesco said. A flash of light from a camera made his face look too bright, frozen in anger. “We’re supposed to love who we love, with or without our parents’ approval. I don’t care a lick about your kingdom. And let’s face it: you don’t care about mine, either.”
The Princess could sense she was losing. She turned toward the paparazzi, her lower lip wobbling slightly. She lifted an ivory-colored napkin to her eyes and mopped up crocodile tears, pandering to the cameras.
“The wedding’s off, Rose,” the Prince announced, gesturing with fiery, Mediterranean passion. “I can’t believe I spent so much of my life with you, just trying to satisfy my parents’ wishes. And now that I’m thirty, I can finally begin living. With a wonderful woman who appreciates the world, and all the things in it.”
As Francesco spoke, Lisa felt a sudden, stabbing pain in her abdomen. She cut from Francesco’s grip and bucked back from the confrontation, her hands upon her belly. She blinked rapidly, realizing something was off. Something was happening. But because of the display of anger and emotion before them, no one in the room noticed her pain. She clenched her teeth together and gripped at the fabric of her dress, trying to not cry out in agony.
The Prince and Princess continued to argue, airing all of the times the other had wronged them. But Lisa couldn’t hear it, anymore. She leaned heavily on a chair to the side, concentrating on her breathing, and realizing that she hadn’t yet read all the “appropriate” books about birth, to prepare herself. She’d been too worried about how she was going to support herself, and the babies, to worry about how she’d get them out of her in the first place.
She began to feel dizzy, then. The world fluttered with bright lights, and with noises she could no longer discern the meaning of. She began to fall back—something she would remember like falling into a cool, summer pool—and she crumpled at the feet of a photographer, who immediately turned his lens to her and took a photograph.
She was news.
The Prince rushed toward her as soon as he heard her fall. He wrapped his hands around her and he cooed to her, his eyes soft. “Oh my God, baby. I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “We’re going to make sure you’re okay. You’re going to be just fine.”
All the while, Princess Rose stormed through the ballroom, inviting reporters to talk to her, to get “the true story.” Sensing she was getting nowhere, she glared at them, before bolting from the ballroom and down the street. But by that point, Francesco and Lisa had forgotten about her—casting her image far from their minds. They had babies to save. They had to help these three little lives come into the world without trauma.
Lisa came to moments later, blinking at the Prince’s handsome face, hardly able to acknowledge this dream as reality. “It hurts so much,” she breathed. “I don’t think I can walk any longer.”
“It’s all right, baby,” the Prince said, kissing her fingers with soft lips. “We’ve called an ambulance. You’re going to be all right, Lisa. And we’re going to make sure our babies are healthy and safe. I promise.”
In that moment, the EMTs burst through the door, carrying a stretcher between them. They eased Lisa’s writhing body upon the gurney, and carried her swiftly back to the ambulance.
The Prince followed closely behind, diving into the ambulance and addressing the swarming reporters. “Tell the real story, this time,” he warned them. “Tell them I love who I love. Lisa Garcia. Of the Daily Sneak.”
The EMT slammed the doors in the reporters’ faces, and then the ambulance was off, skidding through traffic, revving toward the Upper West Side hospital.
All the while, Lisa’s breath came in shudders, and her skin turned pale and clammy. But she clamped her fingers around Francesco’s, and she stared up into his eyes, knowing he was her paradise island, in a stormy sea. He would help guide her to shore.
Chapter 15
They reached the hospital minutes later, Lisa breathing heavily on the gurney. The EMTs took her straight to the delivery floor, where a doctor and several nurses began to check her vital signs and assess how advanced her labor was. Lisa’s eyes were panicked, filling with tears at every surge of pain, and she squeezed onto Francesco’s hand for dear life—scarcely able to believe that he was there, beside her.
“It hurts so much,” she whispered, as a nurse rushed from the room, on the hunt for a specialist. “It feels like something’s a little off. I don’t know. I feel like such a wimp.” She laughed weakly, but soon devolved to tears. “Damn. I used to be such a strong woman, when you met me. Now, I’m a sweating, weepy ball of sadness.”
“Shh,” Francesco said, trying to hide the fear in his eyes. “Don’t talk like that. These babies are going to grow up knowing that you’re the strongest, most wonderful woman in the world—and that even me, a prince, couldn’t hide my love for you.”
“Now you’re getting cocky, Prince Charming,” Lisa teased, still clenching her teeth. “I don’t know how much longer I can stand it,” she muttered.
Another specialist raced in, then. He knelt down, speaking to Lisa in soft tones. “Hi, Lisa. I wanted to tell you that I’ve consulted with the other doctors, and we’ve decided to perform a C-section to get these babies out in the fastest, safest way possible. We’re going to move you to surgery immediately and get this rolling. You’re about to be a mother.”
Lisa’s eyes grew wide, but she nodded calmly, knowing that this was the path to healthy babies, and that she had to be brave. She felt the bed wheel down the hallway, then. And soon, as the anesthetic took effect, she allowed herself to devolve from consciousness.
Before she knew it, Lisa was back, blinking awake in a brightly-lit room, a massive weight lifted from her stomach, a seemingly unending amount of fatigue in her arms, legs, and heart.
Then, she saw the babies, all tucked away in white blankets in three cradles beside the bed, sleeping. Two of them wore blue bonnets, and one wore pink, and the sight of their olive skin, perfect eyes and tiny fingers nearly broke her in two.
Francesco appeared, then, wearing scrubs. A nurse was with him, smiling brightly. “Hello, Lisa,” she said. “Do you want to meet your babies?”
Lisa nodded, tears leaking from her eyes. She felt sheer delight at being handed two babies, a boy and a girl, as Francesco accepted the second boy. The nurse bowed her head, sensing that they needed some space. “I’ll leave you two alone. And know that the paparazzi downstairs don’t have a chance of getting up here. Our security guards are top-notch.” She winked, and then spun around, her sneakers squeaking as she marched down the hallway.
Lisa and Francesco shared an intimate look with each other before allowing their eyes to dive back down to their babies. The babies slept calmly, making contented breathing noises.
“I can’t believe they’re all okay,” Lisa whispered. “I was so panicked on the way here. I thought maybe all the stress, and the moving around I did had hurt them. I felt like the worst mother in the world.”
“I knew you’d pull through, Lisa,” Francesco breathed. “It seems like you always do. No matter what.”
Lisa eyed him tentatively, then, noting the way he tapped his finger ever-so-slightly against his son’s nose. This must have been an endless whirlwind for him. Just the previous day, he’d been enduring the rehearsal of his wedding to a princess. He’d thought that the map of his life had been plotted.
Now, the questions came swiftly to Lisa’s mi
nd, bringing with them fresh fears for the future. She cleared her throat, knowing she couldn’t remain in the dark for long. There, holding their three children between them, she knew the rest of her life hinged upon the next few moments.
“Francesco. I need to ask you something,” she whispered.
“What is it?”
“I wondered if—if we have a future together, the five of us?” Her eyelashes fluttered. She shifted the babies slightly, her shoulder blades pushing into the pillow behind her. “I need to know, because, if not, I need to go back to Detroit. Don’t feel any pressure. I know it’s been a strange time for you. And I’ve had eight months to prepare for this conversation.” She swallowed, sensing they were dipping into awkward territory.
Francesco didn’t speak for a long time. He slid his hand over the baby boy’s head, gazing at the softness of his features. “We have a future together, Lisa,” he murmured, finally. “I can’t imagine any other future right now, now that I hold our son in my arms. And I know that the five of us will stay together, forever.”
Lisa grinned brightly, relief washing over her. She hesitated, sensing he had more to say.
“I’m so, so sorry, Lisa,” Francesco said, his voice cracking slightly. “You must have felt so alone, so frightened, all these months. It can’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t,” Lisa whispered. “When I found out I was pregnant, I wanted you to be there, every step of the way. But when I couldn’t speak to you, when I thought you knew about the baby but were ignoring me, my sadness was eclipsed by anger.”
“Of course,” Francesco agreed, placing a tender kiss upon her forehead. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. But now that I am, I’ll spend the rest of my days trying to make it up to you, and to our children. The three of them.”
Lisa leaned toward him, then. Francesco’s eyes filled with emotion, and he placed his lips on hers in a long overdue, passionate kiss, that seemed to throttle through her, filling her with intense love, and resolution.
