Prince Baby (Silhouette Romance)

by Susan Meier

  After changing Owen, Lucy took him downstairs to get a bottle. When she reached the back steps to the kitchen, she smelled the tantalizing aroma of bacon and knew Seth had awakened before her and was already making good on their agreement to work together.

  Stepping off the bottom step, she said, “Good morning.”

  He turned from the stove, spatula in hand and smiled at her. Obviously not wanting to fry bacon in a suit and tie, Seth hadn’t yet dressed for work but wore jeans and a sweatshirt. His short sandy brown hair was sexily tousled. His eyelids still drooped from need of sleep. But even the most handsome European prince had never looked as good to her as Seth looked right now.

  Lucy’s heart stumbled in her chest. The kiss they’d shared the night before came back in vivid detail in her mind, and she realized something important. With the desire that always simmered between them, it was surprising that they’d shared such a simple kiss. Even the day they’d met, they hadn’t had a first kiss filled with expectancy and emotion. They’d shared a lust kiss. Every subsequent kiss they’d shared had been a promise of passion to come or an expression of passion.

  But last night’s kiss had been filled with expectancy and emotion. In that soft meeting of mouths that didn’t make assumptions or push for things that couldn’t be, Seth had told her that he liked her.

  As she came to that conclusion, Lucy’s heart once again stuttered. She’d loved making love with Seth, but all along she’d wanted him to like her. Now he did.

  Still, it didn’t matter. They didn’t have a future. They needed to live separate lives.

  “I made breakfast.”

  Trying to get her bearings and pretending everything could be normal between them, Lucy smiled and carried Owen to the refrigerator where she removed a bottle and put it in a warmer. “Did Owen wake you?”

  “No, I set my alarm. It occurred to me last night that we were more or less counting on Owen to tell us what to do by crying. We’d never set a schedule or tried to beat him to the punch on anything.”

  “It’s a good idea in theory, but so far Owen hasn’t responded to our attempts to get him on a schedule,” Lucy said, almost breathing a sigh of relief that everything between them really could be normal. She extracted the bottle from the warmer and walked to the table with Owen, who seemed comfortable with the quiet interaction of his parents.

  “So Penney and her friends are really teaching you?”

  “A lot! These women aren’t merely bright. They’re crafty. To them, mothering and creating a home are an art. And they know things about babies and houses that you won’t find in any book.”

  Seth chuckled, returning his attention to the bacon he was frying. “I don’t doubt that.”

  “It’s going to be weird to tell them that I don’t need them anymore.”

  Seth faced her again. “Why wouldn’t you need them?”

  Lucy shrugged. “Last night, we made a deal to work together. I didn’t think that included outsiders.”

  “Can you handle Owen without them?”

  “I can do all the day-to-day things with Owen on my own.” She peeked over and caught Seth’s gaze. “But I like their company and I like hearing their stories and I like knowing that if something comes up, any one of them is just a phone call away.”

  “Then let them come over.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Seth shrugged. “Those women are the most likely candidates to help me when I’m alone with Owen. We don’t want to scare them off now.”

  Confused, because last night she had told Seth his visits with Owen would take place in the palace on Xavier Island, Lucy studied him. She’d wondered why he hadn’t reacted the night before but now she knew he hadn’t heard what she’d said, or if he had, he’d missed the part about visiting Owen at the palace.

  Whatever the explanation, it was clear Seth hadn’t fully understood what she told him. She debated outlining the situation again as Owen sucked greedily in the silence.

  Seth brought bacon and toast to the table. “I hope this is a big enough breakfast.”

  “This is great,” Lucy said, reaching with her free hand to pour a glass of orange juice from the carafe already on the table, as a new kind of tension snaked through her. Nothing was ever simple or easy for her and Seth. They had sexual chemistry that could set the world on fire, but had to ignore it because they didn’t fit into each other’s lives. They shared a son, but couldn’t raise him together. Now she had to explain to Seth that he couldn’t even have normal visitation with his son, because Owen Bryant would someday be a king.

  It was no wonder Seth hated their monarchy.

  Seth brought the coffeepot to the table and said, “Can I pour you a cup?”

  With guilt poking at her like nails, Lucy said, “I’ll get some later.”

  Seth sat on the chair across from her and made a sandwich with the buttered toast and bacon. “We might as well decide a few things right now.”

  Knowing she couldn’t live with this guilt, which meant she couldn’t put off making sure Seth understood his limited visitation rights, Lucy took a quick breath, ready to jump into her explanation, but Seth spoke before she got the chance.

  “Since Owen seems to wake at five-thirty, we’ll set our alarms for five. We’ll get up before him and more or less be ready for him.”

  “As soon as Owen hears my alarm go off,” Lucy reminded Seth, “he’ll get up.”

  “Okay, how about this? I’ll set my alarm for five-fifteen, get up and get a bottle warmed. Then we’ll let him sleep until five-thirty when we’ll wake him.”

  “We’ll wake him?” Lucy asked, wide-eyed.

  “We’re putting him on a schedule, remember?”

  “I don’t know. I told you, Seth, we already tried to get him on a schedule and it didn’t work,” Lucy said, not wanting to argue with Seth, who was only trying to be a good dad and who already got so very little say in raising his son. But she also saw any chance that she might get a few extra minutes of precious sleep slipping away.

  The kitchen door opened and Audrey walked in. Her eyes widened when she saw Seth. “Seth! I didn’t know you were here.”

  “It’s okay,” Seth said, motioning her inside. “I know all about you and how you’ve been helping Lucy. In fact, I appreciate it. Want some coffee?”

  Audrey shrugged out of her sweater. “Just juice,” she said and ambled over to the cupboard. Glass in hand, she grinned at Lucy. “Because I’m pregnant!”

  Lucy gasped. Seth turned around in his chair. “Really?”

  Audrey laughed. “Yes, but keep it a secret.”

  “Okay,” Seth said, motioning for her to join them at the table. “We were just discussing setting our alarms to get up before Owen and creating a routine for him,” he said as Audrey took her seat and reached for the carafe of juice. “What do you think?”

  “Mildred’s tried and it failed.”

  “I still want to try again.” Seth turned to Lucy. “We’ll talk about it when I get home.”

  Lucy said, “Okay.”

  Seth rose from his chair. “I’m going to get dressed for work now, but I’ll be down to say goodbye to Owen before I leave.”

  He turned and walked to the back stairway. Lucy and Audrey stared at the wall that hid the steps, listening to Seth’s footfalls and waiting for the sound of his bedroom door to close before Audrey said, “You two talked?”

  “Yeah. He came in last night when I couldn’t get Owen to sleep.”

  “Was it ugly?”

  She shook her head, struggling to hide a smile that arose at the memory. For as much as she knew they had no future, she still treasured every interaction she had with Seth. “No. He was very understanding. I don’t know how I could have forgotten that about him.”

  “Maybe because you only knew him a few weeks?” Audrey suggested with a laugh.

  Lucy shook her head. “I might have only known him a few weeks, but we were together twenty-four hours a day. First at work, then
at my apartment. I saw the way he treated his employees. I knew he was a patient man with a good sense of humor. Now that I’m remembering all that, I’m embarrassed that I wasn’t honest with him in the first place.”

  “I think your nanny argument got in the way of either of you seeing clearly.”

  Lucy nodded. “I guess.”

  “It’ll be better this way.”

  Lucy nodded again.

  Audrey grinned. “We’ll be like one big, happy family.”

  One more time, Lucy smiled and nodded. But inside she was feeling all kinds of crazy things. She’d forgotten so many things about their relationship and incorrectly remembered so many others that she had to wonder if she wasn’t wrong about other things, too—such as his feeling about being married to a royal. Her dad had set it up so she believed that Seth had changed his mind about being married to a royal, but Seth had never really said that. Sure, he hadn’t appreciated her running home when her dad had summoned her, but that was as much as she knew about how he felt because they hadn’t seen each other. So was she jumping to another conclusion when she assumed Seth didn’t want to be married to a royal?

  She stopped her thoughts. Seth was a straightforward, bold guy. If he wanted her back, he would seduce her. The memory of just how easily he could seduce her tightened her chest and filled her with tingles until she remembered the kiss from the night before. If Seth wanted her, he could have had her. But he never took the kiss beyond the bounds of propriety.

  In fact, now that she thought about it, Seth’s kiss from the night before was actually proof that he didn’t want her.

  So she had to stop thinking as if he did.

  Seth arrived at the Bryant Building ready to get back to work if only because being busy would keep him from thinking about Lucy and the impossibility of their situation.

  But he also knew Ty would be angry that Seth had returned from out of town early. So he spent the morning more or less hiding, analyzing materials reports from the estimating department. When Ty’s secretary, Joni, called to schedule lunch that day for Seth and Ty, Seth agreed. It was better to face the music over food.

  At eleven-thirty, he met his brother in the parking lot by Ty’s black SUV and for the next ten minutes sat in silence as they drove to the diner on Main Street.

  Ty waited until they had settled in a rear booth before he said, “So are you going to tell me why you’re back two days early?”

  Seth didn’t hesitate. “I have a son. I have to convince Lucy to let me raise Owen in Porter. I can’t do that in God-Knows-Where, U.S.A. Besides, Lucy and I talked last night. The games are over.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?” Seth asked, totally confused. “You sent me away for five long weeks. Lucy’s been learning to care for Owen that whole time. One of these days, her dad is going to just arrive and take her and Owen back to Xavier Island, and she and I will have nothing settled.”

  “Except that you respect each other.”

  Seth looked at Ty over his coffee cup as an ugly suspicion formed. “You planned this?”

  Ty sighed. “No, Seth. I didn’t. I think the result you got was a happy accident. The way Penney told Madelyn the story this morning, if Owen hadn’t been screaming last night when you got home, you and Lucy probably wouldn’t have talked and you wouldn’t have formed your team.”

  Seth set his cup on the table. “Talk about a gossip network. Penney wasn’t even the one at the house this morning. Audrey was. What do these women do, issue press releases?”

  “I’m guessing it had more to do with e-mail. If our construction teams were half as efficient at communicating as these women are, our projects would never hit a snag.”

  They were quiet for a minute and eventually Seth said, “So you think it’s good that Lucy and I more or less formed a team?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I do, but you just seem…”

  …to have switched sides, Seth thought, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he paused, remembering how Ty’s plan had gone from keeping Seth out of town for blocks of time to keeping Seth away even over weekends. He knew his older brother didn’t do anything on a whim. Something had happened to make him believe that Seth being away all the time would somehow force him and Lucy to talk. But why would he want Seth and Lucy to talk when his original plan had been to keep them apart?

  Suddenly he knew.

  “You’ve spent time with Lucy, haven’t you?”

  Ty sighed. “Madelyn and I would have been rude not to visit while you were away.”

  Seth gaped at his brother as his suspicions were confirmed. “You’re on her side!”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m on her side because there are no sides. This is about Owen, doing the best thing for Owen and the best thing for Owen is to have him raised in Porter.” Ty paused and sighed again. “But we also like Lucy a great deal. She and Madelyn are becoming good friends. When we visited while you were away, I started to feel horrible that we intend to take her baby away from her. Pretty soon, I began to think that wasn’t the right thing to do at all.”

  Angry that Ty had turned traitor, but not about to say anything until he was sure he had heard everything Ty had to say, Seth leaned back on the booth. “Really.”

  “Madelyn and I think that maybe the two of you acted hastily in getting a divorce.”

  “We didn’t get a divorce. Our marriage wasn’t valid in the first place because Lucy was betrothed to someone else.”

  “And now she’s not betrothed anymore. Because she got pregnant by someone other than the prince she was supposed to marry, the betrothal was terminated. The road is clear for you, Seth. You could remarry this woman tomorrow.”

  Seth only stared at his older brother. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, think this through. If you marry her, there’s no custody or visitation to work out.”

  “In the first place, who says she would marry me? In the second, I wouldn’t remarry her on a lost bet! I might like her…” Really like her. Really miss her. Really enjoy having her around. “But she’s a princess, controlled by laws of a country we never even heard of until King Alfredo’s people asked us to bid on building the Miami mansion. They have rules and traditions that bind her. Everything royal would come first.”

  “And you don’t want to be second?”

  “It’s more than that. That monarchy ripped my wife away from me without as much as an apology. Her dad crooked his finger and Lucy ran. I never heard from her again. Not because she didn’t try to contact me and not because I didn’t try to contact her. But because her father has enough power to see his will done. This is not the kind of situation a smart man gets himself into.”

  Ty toyed with his silverware. “So, you don’t even like her anymore?”

  “I do like her,” Seth said, remembering how he’d felt talking to her on the phone in Iowa, remembering how wonderful it had felt when she’d needed him, remembering the kiss. “But I’m not going to let myself fall in love with her because she’s not the person I should be married to.” He paused, drinking in a long breath. “The bottom line is, no matter how sweet Lucy is, or how levelheaded she talks or how wonderful it is to be with her, I have a responsibility to Owen. He’s about to be sucked into the same system that controls his mother and if I don’t hang on to at least a piece of him, he won’t simply lose his childhood, he’ll also be lost to us forever.”

  “Not if you’re a hands-on dad who lives with him.”

  “You’re assuming we would stay in Porter, but we wouldn’t. If I remarried Lucy, I wouldn’t be Seth Bryant anymore. I would become part of that monarchy. Which means that every time I fought for Owen’s rights, I would be the rebel prince. Somebody who’d show up in the tabloids more than the Wall Street Journal simply because nothing would keep me from protecting Owen from being swallowed up by duty and responsibility. It would hurt Bryant Development. It would hurt Xavier Island. But most of all, it would embarrass and hurt Lucy.”

 
Seth rose from the booth. “Her dad might not mind dragging her through the mud. But I won’t hurt her. The best thing for everybody would be for us to go back to Pete’s original suggestions. I need to make Lucy see that the only way her son has a shot at a normal childhood is to live with me.”

  With that, Seth left the diner. He debated walking the mile back to the Bryant Building, which was on the outskirts of town, but decided instead to walk the four blocks to his house and take the afternoon off. He removed his jacket and let the warmth of the late October sun warm the iciness he felt gripping his heart and soul. It went against everything inside him to fight Lucy, but that might be exactly what he could be forced to do because he would not let anyone imprison Owen.

  He entered his front foyer, jacket in hand, and was surprised when Lucy bolted from the kitchen to the hall beside the stairway.

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  She looked adorable in jeans and a T-shirt with her hair pulled into a ponytail, like the one Audrey frequently wore, as if she were adapting to her new community. But Seth knew that was just an illusion. She could pretend to be a part of his world all she wanted, but at her father’s command, she would leave.

  Though Seth had come home for a break, seeing how cute Lucy looked after clearly outlining for his brother why he had to stay away from her, he knew he couldn’t stay here. He suddenly realized that the very thing he needed to do the most for Owen—spend time with Lucy, show her he was a good guy, make her see that giving him custody of Owen assured Owen of at least a span of time of a normal life—was also the very worst thing for him to do. Spending time with Lucy only caused him to remember how much he liked her. The more he liked her, the more chance there was that he might fall in love with her for real. Then it would be hell again when she left. He absolutely refused to go through another four months of missing her so much he couldn’t sleep, didn’t eat and didn’t care about work.