by Raye Morgan
“Then, why were you following David everywhere?”
He leaned closer and spoke as though in private. “The truth is, I’ve been following David for years, trying to make sure nothing threatened him until he was ready.”
“Ready?” She was getting confused again. “Ready for what?”
He smiled. “I see David needs to explain a few things to you. But I’ll let him do that.” He rose from his chair. “And now that you’re awake, I’ll go back to David, if you don’t mind. Have the nurse contact me if you need anything, my dear.” He nodded his head in her direction and left the room.
She stared after him, still not sure what was going on. When the team of men had driven up in the van and they’d been attacked, she’d thought it was exactly what David had been guarding against all this time. At least, from what he’d told her, that was what she assumed.
But the white-haired man had been a part of that threat—hadn’t he? Now it seemed David had been wrong about that. But she really didn’t understand. How had she let herself get involved, anyway?
She had to get out of here and she had to get Cici out. Rolling out of the bed, she clutched the hospital gown around herself and made her way to the door. She was dizzy, but it wasn’t bad enough to stop her. She had to know how David and Cici really were, not just what someone she didn’t really trust was telling her.
Up and down the hallway all seemed clear and she started toward the room across the hall. In the third room she checked, there was David. He had a big bandage on his head and appeared to be regaining consciousness. The white-haired man was there. But the strange thing was, he was bowed over from the waist and seemed to be kissing David’s hand.
“Your Highness,” he was saying. “I’m at your service, always.”
She pulled back so that she couldn’t be seen and tried to catch her breath.
Your highness? Your highness?
But hadn’t she suspected this? Hadn’t she known it all along? It all fell together. The pieces just fell into place. David was royal. Of course.
The white-haired man left the room, walking off down the hall without seeing where she was standing, half-hidden by a bank of oxygen tanks. She waited until he was out of sight, then slipped into David’s room and approached him.
He looked as though he’d been through a meat grinder. Her heart flipped in her chest as she saw his most obvious wounds.
“Oh, David,” she said, reaching for his hand.
He looked up and tried to smile around a swollen lip.
“Hi, Ayme,” he said. “Hey, nice little frock you’ve got on there.”
She ignored that. “Are you okay?” she asked anxiously.
“I’m okay. I’m still groggy from pain medication, but once I get that out of my system, I’ll be good to go.” His smile was bittersweet and his voice was rough. “I didn’t protect you very well, did I?”
“What?” She shook her head, then grimaced. It hurt to do that. “I’m just so glad you’re not badly injured,” she said. “It all happened so fast.”
“Yes. Thank God for Bernard and his men.”
She looked at him questioningly. “The white-haired man?”
“Yes. He said he’d talked to you.”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you how he and his men swooped in and saved my butt?”
“No.”
He nodded slightly. “Let’s reserve that story for later,” he said, obviously starting to lag a bit. “Just be thankful they were there, keeping an eye on the situation. Without them, we’d be…” He let his voice trail off. He didn’t really want to speculate right now.
“So, let me get this straight,” she was saying. “There were bad guys following us. But there were also good guys following us?”
“That’s about it.”
And that left the question of why. But she knew that now, didn’t she? She studied his face for a moment and then gave him a sad smile.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
His eyes had been drifting shut, but they opened again. “One of whom?”
“The lost royals.” Her heart was hammering in her chest. “Which one are you?”
He closed his eyes and turned away.
“Don’t tell me you’re Darius. Are you?” She wanted to grab him and shake him, but she knew she couldn’t do that. “Are you Cici’s father?” she asked, her voice strangled.
He opened his eyes again and looked at her. “No. That I am not.”
She shook her head, feeling as though she were drowning in unhappiness. “How do you know?”
“Ayme, I never met Sam. Believe me, I’ve thought long and hard about it, just to make sure. It’s not me.”
“But you’re Prince Darius. And at the same time, you’re looking for him? I don’t get it.”
He tried to pull up to a seated position, but it was beyond him at this point. “Don’t you see? I’m not looking for Darius. I know where he is. I’m looking for the man who’s pretending to be me. That’s the one we need to find.”
“Why is he pretending?”
“Why not? If it helps him with the ladies, why not?”
She lowered her head and thought about that. She had to admit, Sam had been just crazy enough to fall for something like that.
“Of course, there’s another theory. He might have been pretending to be Darius in order to try to lure me or any of my siblings who may have survived out of hiding. That’s why we’ve got to find him.”
“So either way, he’s probably a jerk.”
“Looks like.”
Her sigh came from the depths of her soul. “And what if he wants Cici? Do I have to give her up to a jerk who might even be a criminal?” She searched his eyes, desperate for a good answer.
But he didn’t have one for her. He could barely keep his eyes open. She gave up.
“I’m going to go see if I can get checked out of here,” she told him. “I’ll be back later.”
He didn’t answer. He was sound asleep.
A few minutes later she was dressed and ready to leave. Luckily, no one seemed to be paying much attention to her and she’d managed to prepare to check out without having to fill out any forms. All she had to do was find Cici. She started down the hall, then hesitated. David’s room was like a magnet. She wanted to see him one last time. Walking softly, she looked into the room. There was a man she didn’t recognize talking to David.
“You’ve still got the Ambrian girl with you,” he was saying.
“Ayme?” David asked groggily.
“Yes. What do you want me to do about her?”
“Do about her?”
“Your brother, the Crown Prince, has asked that you not bring her to Piasa. He has someone he thinks would make a perfect match for you waiting there to meet you and it would be…”
Pulling back, she began to walk on down the hall, pacing quickly, thinking, thinking. Her mind raced with plans. The pain of being cast aside would overwhelm her if she let it. She had to push it away and ignore it for now.
What was she going to do? She had to get out of here and she had to take Cici with her. It was obvious that she would never have David. She had to shut that off, not think about losing him. She had lost so much lately. And then, as though fate had lead her to the right place, there was Cici, alone in a room with only one little crib.
“Oh, my baby!” she cried as she rushed to hold her.
Was that a smile? Yes! Her heart filled with love as she held the child close and murmured sweet things to her. At the same time her mind whirred with ideas of how she could take her away before people asked questions and began to require official forms to be signed. If she could just get her back on a plane to Texas, she would be in a position to make a claim on her. Once she lost control of her here in Europe, there was no telling what would happen next. She might have no chance of ever getting her back.
At the same time, she knew what she was about to do was probably illegal. If she got caught
, it could be all over for her. But if she just let Cici slip away, the last thing she loved in this world would be gone. Some choice she had. The pit or the pendulum.
She was going to risk it.
David was on the phone with Monte.
“We found him.”
David had to concentrate and be sure he understood. His mind was still fuzzy. “Okay, you’ve got the guy who was pretending to be me? Is that right?”
“Well, in a manner of speaking. He’s dead, has been for a few weeks, but we know who he is.”
“Dead? How?”
Monte’s voice lowered. “It looks like an assasination. He was shot by a sniper.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Yes. We assume whoever shot him thought he was you. He’d been using that story about being one of the lost royals to seduce young women off and on for a couple of years. It finally caught up with him.”
They were both silent for a moment, taking that in.
Finally, Monte said, “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“You tell me.”
“This means that, however much we’re tempted to say ‘aw, forget about it, let’s just go on and live our lives like everyone else,’ that’s not going to work. Because there are people out there who feel threatened by our very existence, and until we find a way to take back our country and get rid of those people, we’re in danger. We’ll never be safe, and neither will the ones we love.”
He was right. David closed his eyes and swore softly. He didn’t have a choice. He was Prince Darius of Ambria and he was going to have to deal with it.
“So, I guess I’ll see you in Piasa on Friday? You’re good to go?”
“Yes. I’ll be there.”
Monte hesitated. “About this Ayme person,” he began.
David was fully awake now. “She’ll be there, too,” he said firmly. “She’s with me.”
There was a pause. “You do realize how important this is,” Monte reminded him. “Every Ambrian who can make it will be there. This is our time to claim our heritage.”
“I understand that, Monte, and I’ll be there right beside you. I’ll fight to the death for you and for our cause. For our place in history. But I’ll be the one to decide on my private life, on what I need and what I don’t.”
Monte let his breath out in a long sigh. “Okay,” he said. “That’s your call. But I wish you’d reconsider.”
David smiled, thinking of Ayme, thinking of Cici. There would be no problem with them keeping the baby now. “I’ve gone beyond the point of no return,” he told his brother. “Take it or leave it.”
“Okay. I’ll take it. See you in Italy.”
David was fully awake now. He looked around the sterile hospital room.
“Enough of this,” he said, ripping the IV out of his arm and easing off the bed. He took it slowly. He was weak and he didn’t want to end up on the floor. But he was going to find Ayme if it killed him.
He found his clothes and put them on, then headed out into the hallway. He knew that finding Cici would be the key to Ayme’s location, and he knew where Cici had been put. He passed three separate nurses and a doctor, each of whom gave him curious looks, but didn’t try to stop him. But when he arrived at his destination, the room was empty.
Alarm shot through him. If she’d already left, would he be able to find her again? He looked out the window. From the third story where he was, he could see Ayme heading down the walkway, Cici in her arms.
He couldn’t run, but he moved faster than he would have thought possible and caught up to her before she got off the grounds.
“What are you doing?” he called to her as he got close.
She whirled, holding Cici to her chest. “Uh…uh…” Her eyes were huge and she looked guilty as hell.
“You’re kidnapping Cici,” he said, trying to keep the amusement hidden in his eyes. “Do you know you could be put in prison for something like that?”
“I’m not!” She gasped. “Oh, no. That’s not what I’m doing.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, David,” she wailed.
“Ayme, darling,” he said, laughing as he pulled her into his arms. “Why are you running away?”
She gazed up at him, tears streaming down her face. “David, I’ve lost everything I ever loved. And now I’ve lost you. I can’t bear to lose Cici, too.”
He looked down into her pretty face. “Why do you think you’ve lost me?”
“You’re royal. I…I’m not from that world.”
“Neither am I. Not really. I didn’t grow up preparing to be royal.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “Oh, Ayme, I want you with me. We can learn about being royal together.”
“But, Cici…”
He pulled back and got serious. “They found Cici’s father. I’m afraid he’s dead.”
Quickly, he told her what Monte had told him.
“So your search is over.” He touched her cheek. “But I’m hoping our journey together has just begun.”
She searched his gaze. “Do you mean that?”
“With all my heart.”
“Oh, David!”
He kissed her, then pulled back.
“Come on. Let’s get a cab and find a nice hotel.”
“But, don’t we need to tell the hospital?”
“Don’t worry about it. This is the good side of being royal. We have people who take care of these little details for us.”
“Like the white-haired man?”
“His name is Bernard. Get used to it. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of him.”
“Really?”
“And that Carl Heissman who first sent you to me? He’s an associate of Bernard’s. He wasn’t sure if Sam’s claim that Prince Darius was Cici’s father would hold up, but he thought it best to send you to me to find out. You see, there are wheels within wheels. I’m sure we don’t know the half of it yet.” He sobered.
“Do you understand?” he asked her. “I love you, Ayme. I want to marry you. But I don’t want to sugarcoat this. It’s something you’re going to have to consider going forward. I want you with me, but you have to be willing to take the risks involved.”
She shook her head, ready to be supremely happy, but warned against it by the tone of his voice. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re about to start a major push on Ambria to win our country back. If we go ahead with it, there will likely be fighting. There will be danger. There may be dying. You will be risking a lot just by being associated with me. You must think this through and decide if it’s worth it.”
Reaching up, she flattened her hand against the plane of his handsome face. “David, my life was over until I met you. Now it’s about to begin again. I’ll risk it. I’ll risk anything to be with you.”
He kissed her again. After all these years of wondering what the big deal about love was, it seemed like a miracle that he had found a woman he couldn’t live without, a woman he had to spend his life with.
“We’ll be together.”
“And Cici?”
As if on cue, the baby gurgled happily. They looked at each other and laughed.
“I think she’ll probably be with us, too.”
Ayme sighed with pure happiness, looking down at the child she’d come to love with all her heart.
“Good. Let’s go to Italy.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7485-7
SECRET PRINCE, INSTANT DADDY!
First North American Publication 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Helen Conrad
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