by Leanne Banks
“Maybe too much,” she whispered to herself, glancing toward the window, feeling more trapped than she’d ever felt in her life. She rubbed her bare wrist, wondering where she’d left her favorite bracelet. She would search through her luggage again for it.
“Valentina,” Stefan said in his ruler voice. “Where were you?”
In the past, she would have felt intimidated or at the least, guilty for causing trouble. For some reason, this time she didn’t. This time she felt impatient with Stefan’s demands.
“I was out,” she said, meeting his gaze dead-on.
The muscle in his jaw began to tick again. “These next three months, the eyes of the world will be watching our country in anticipation of Fredericka’s wedding. I need you to act with utmost maturity and responsiveness. Ericka will be under enormous pressure now that she’s placed in the spotlight. Of all our family, Ericka will trust you.”
Tina shook her head. “I can’t promise miracles. She needed rehab.”
“But even you talked her into that,” Stefan said. “I need you to be supportive of her. Keep her together.”
“I told you I can’t perform miracles.”
“Just be your best self,” he said. “That’s more than almost everyone else on their best day.”
She couldn’t hold back a semi-smile. “Flattery,” she said. “You must be desperate, your highness.”
Chapter Three
Zach paced the dentist’s office as he waited for his longtime housekeeper to get her broken tooth fixed. Hildie was no wimp. She’d been known to face down two intruders at once with only a frying pan as her weapon. She’d even confronted a brown bear that came a little too close to the house.
Under usual circumstances, Hildie would drive herself to the doctor if she were sick. Hildie had helped deliver babies. She wasn’t squeamish at all. Dentists, however, were her waterloo. She’d procrastinated going to the dentist and now the poor woman winced every time she breathed.
Zach had insisted she go in and Hildie agreed only if he would take her and wait for her. They never knew which sedation the dentist would use. It was all determined by Hildie’s anxiety level, which today, hovered at one hundred on a scale of one to ten.
Bored, Zach sank onto one of the chairs and checked his BlackBerry. His brother wanted him to cover for him in Dallas while he took a scuba diving trip. No problem. Zach was always around. It wasn’t as if anything exciting was going on in his life, and he preferred it that way. Particularly in his personal life.
He couldn’t deny, at least to himself, though, that ever since that night with Tina, he’d almost asked his friends how to get in touch with her. Every time he was tempted, however, he remembered the tragic ending of his marriage.
No. He wasn’t ready to have a woman in his life. He didn’t know if he would ever be ready. Restlessness nicked at his nerve endings and he rolled his neck to release some tension. Desperate to distract himself, he picked up the trashy gossip rag on the table and skimmed the front page.
The theme of the day seemed to be babies. He felt his gut clench at the memory of the loss of his own child, but shook the paper and kept reading. Senator’s love child living in an igloo in Alaska. Movie stars adopt three more children. Dog helps deliver baby. Pregnant Princess? Who’s your daddy?
He almost tossed it back onto the cheap table holding the rest of women’s magazines. But as he flipped through the pages in disgust, an image of something he’d seen before flashed before him. A young curvy woman with brown hair. In the photo, she wore a hat and a loose-fitting dress. Her belly was amplified in a photo insert.
Zach frowned at the photo and quickly read the article. Princess Valentina of Chantaine has stood by the side of her fragile sister bride nonstop during the huge wedding that drew the focus of the entire world. Tina has always been the good girl in the royal family, but maybe she isn’t so perfect after all. Has Tina gained a little weight? Strange that her weight gain isn’t all over…just in her belly. Insiders report Princess Tina fought nausea throughout the wedding festivities. If the princess is pregnant, where is the baby daddy? Or did she give up on her prospects and enlist the services of a sperm bank? Time will tell.
Princess, Zach thought. What the— Princess Tina. She hadn’t mentioned being a princess. What kind of job had she said she had? Something in international relations.
He gave a cynical laugh. Cute, he thought. Real cute. He wondered how in hell Keely was friends with a princess.
Glancing at the slight baby bump, he felt a tight knot form in his chest. She couldn’t be pregnant, he thought. He’d used protection. He mentally flipped through the night they’d spent together. Every time they’d made love. And they’d made love a lot. Had there been one time when he’d forgotten or been too eager to feel her close around him or—
He had a vivid memory of feeling her wet velvet with no barrier.
“Damn,” he muttered, pulling off his hat. Was she pregnant? If so, that baby could be his.
Panic ripped through him. His heart raced, skipping and sinking. A horrible dread tugged at him, sinking to his gut and lower, dragging him down. He swore at himself ten times over. What had he been thinking?
He hadn’t been thinking. He’d been feeling. That was the problem. Feeling always caused problems.
Sucking in a long breath, he stared at her photo and that damned baby bump insert. He would find out if she was pregnant and he would find out if the baby was his. He clenched his fist in determination. It wouldn’t take him long.
For once, Tina’s sister came through for her. It was a huge switch. Although Ericka was happily busy and traveling hither and yon with her new husband, she said Tina could stay at her new home just outside of Paris. Close enough to the city, but far enough from the congestion, the new home was perfect for the respite Tina needed.
Tina had escaped just as her brother began to insist she was due for an examination from the royal doctors. Before her plane landed in Paris, rumors in the gossip rags had exploded. She’d only been away for twenty-four hours and her voice mail box was full. She didn’t even want to look at her e-mail.
She knew her brother was going to freak out, and her security man, Rolfe, was watching her every move. Thank goodness she and her sister had worked out a plan for this very situation. An older woman, Genieve, brought fresh vegetables most every morning and brought pastry treats for the staff. She usually left from the back entrance of the house around noon. Except today. Today Genieve would stay until 4:00 p.m. and watch television with one of the favorite staff members in a room upstairs while Tina dressed in dark clothes with a dark scarf covering her head and drove the woman’s car to a small, out-of-the-way museum with beautiful gardens.
There, Tina could think about her and her baby’s future. There, she could make plans.
Tina told Rolfe she planned to take a nap and didn’t want to be disturbed. As soon as he left her hallway, she took the back stairs to the back entrance and got into the ancient vehicle and escaped.
The July heat was oppressive, but the temperature inside the small museum was cool. She noticed only a few tourists, but an abundance of caution made her keep her head covered. Glancing outside, she saw no one in the gardens and walked outside to a stone bench beside a small pond. Despite the shade from the tree, the heat forced her to pull off her scarf.
She closed her eyes, craving peace and quiet for her mind and soul. She didn’t need panic in this situation. She needed to remain calm. Since everyone else was going to be emotionally jumping out of windows.
Tina could see the headlines now. Unwed Pregnant Princess. She, the one everyone counted on to be scandal-free. She laughed softly to herself, although she still struggled with a twinge of hysteria. Was she prepared to be a single mother? It didn’t matter. That’s what she would be. She stroked her abdomen, feeling protective of the baby growing there.
Tina had always put her loyalty to her position first, but there was no doubt in her mind what was most i
mportant to her now. Her child. Her pregnancy might be unexpected, unplanned and her situation not exactly optimal, but that didn’t change the fact that Tina would make her child her priority.
That solid knowledge released a tension from inside her. She took a deep breath and gave into the temptation to build a perfect little world for her and her baby in her mind. The two of them could live here in France, near her sister. She would lead a simple life raising her child, serving as a patron for her favorite charities and making rare appearances in Chantaine.
Her sisters would pitch in and take over her assignments. That was pure fantasy, she thought. And her brother would marry a woman who would keep him out of her hair. More fantasy.
She inhaled again, lingering over the idyllic image in her mind.
Something fell beside her on the bench. A chain? She opened her eyes and glanced beside her, immediately spotting the bracelet she’d thought she’d lost.
“Been missing that?” a deep male voice that had haunted her dreams said to her.
She glanced behind her, directly into the hard blue gaze of Zachary Logan. Her heart stopped in her chest. Her breath froze in her lungs.
“The baby’s mine, isn’t it?”
Zach didn’t like her color. She’d gone past the pale stage and she looked gray. He handed her his bottle of water. “Here, you look like you need this.”
She stared at him without blinking, seemingly without breathing for another long moment. “Tina,” he said and squeezed her shoulder. “Drink some water.”
At his touch, she finally took a breath and looked away. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” she said. “How did you find me?”
“A combination of Keely and a private investigator. I’ve had a guy watching your sister’s house for every person who came and went. I tried calling your assistant, but she blew me off.”
She looked up at him in alarm. “Did you tell her you and I had—”
“No, but I was tempted,” he said, reining in his frustration from the last several days. “When were you going to tell me about the baby?”
Tina blinked. “I—I wasn’t,” she said with a shrug.
Shock rushed through him. “You what?” he nearly shouted.
Tina glanced around in alarm. “Please keep your voice down. I don’t want to draw attention. I came here to think.”
Zach’s stomach turned. “Are you saying you’re not keeping the baby?”
She looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean? Give the baby up for adoption—”
“No, I meant,” he said and stopped, his throat closing over his words. “I meant end the pregnancy.”
Shock widened her eyes. “Absolutely not.”
Some small something inside him eased and he took a quick breath. “That still doesn’t explain why you weren’t going to tell me.”
She gave a sigh of frustration. “It was a one-night stand. It didn’t seem fair to drag you into it.”
“It’s my child too,” he said in a deadly firm voice.
“Yes, but it’s not just about the baby,” she said and lifted her hands. “Dealing with who I am, who my family is, what’s expected of me and my family. Not many men can handle that. You don’t really even know me. It’s not as if we’re in love. Being involved with the baby and me would turn your life upside down.”
“You don’t think it already has?”
Her lips parted in surprise, as if she had truly believed he wouldn’t be interested in his own child. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I shouldn’t have rushed to the assumption that you would only view this as a burden.”
“There’s a difference between burden and responsibility,” he said.
She nodded. “That’s very true. I’m just not accustomed to dealing with men who know how to distinguish the two.”
“Maybe you’ve been hanging around the wrong men,” he said.
Her lips lifted in amusement. “Maybe so.”
“Do you know what your plans are?” he asked. “Are you going to live in your country?”
Tina looked down at her hands folded in her lap and shook her head. “My brother is going to freak out. He might have expected something like this from my younger sister, but never me. I know he’s in a difficult situation, but I just wish I could go away for a while. I need to get my head on straight about all this and doing that in Chantaine is going to be very, very difficult, if not impossible.”
“I have the perfect place if you need to think. My ranch,” he said.
She blinked at the recommendation. “Your ranch?” she echoed as if that possibility was last on her list.
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “It’s no palace, but most people who visit like it. It’s quiet. You would be able to think. Plus,” he said, “it would give you an opportunity to get to know the father of your child better.”
She met his gaze and a glimmer of the night they’d shared seemed to pass through her eyes. Licking her lips, she glanced away. Zach felt a surprising bolt of sexual awareness stab at him. Where the hell had that come from?
“What do you say?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I hadn’t even considered this until this moment. I can’t make an instant decision.”
“Why not?” he asked. “You have a passport. You’re an adult. You can do whatever you think is best for you and your child.”
At that moment, a group of men with cameras and microphones burst into the garden. “Princess Valentina, tell us the truth. Are you pregnant?”
“Oh, no.” Tina stood and backed away.
Zach automatically stepped in front of her. “Leave her alone,” he said.
“Who are you?” the short, portly reporter continued. “You’re not her regular bodyguard. Are you her lover?” he asked. “The father of her child?”
Cameras snapped and the reporter pressed against him. “Leave us alone. Get out of here.”
The reporter continued to push against Zach, irritating him with his persistence. “You sound American. What’s your name?”
“None of your damn business,” Zach said. “Step aside. You’re bothering Tina.”
The reporter pushed past Zach and began to crowd Tina. “Tina,” the reporter echoed. “Who is this man? How far along are you? Are you getting married?”
Zach pushed his way between the reporter and Tina. “Last warning. Step aside.”
The reporter ignored him and Zach knocked him to the ground. He picked up Tina and carried her out of the garden.
Tina gawked at Zach. “What are you doing?”
“Getting you the hell away from those wackos,” he said, heedless of the stares he drew as he hauled her through the small museum.
“Where are we going?” she asked as he tucked her into a rental car and got into the driver’s seat. He started the engine and put the car into gear.
He glanced at her. “Where do you want to go?”
Her heart dipped at his expression. Her heart, in fact, hadn’t beat regularly since she’d looked up to see him in the museum courtyard.
“Do you want to go back to your sister’s house?” he asked.
Her stomach twisted. “Not really. My bodyguard will insist that I talk to my brother. He may even push me into going back to Chantaine.”
Zach made a U-turn. “Okay, that’s out. We could go to my hotel.”
“So public,” she said. “If you think the paparazzi was bad here…”
He shrugged. “Okay. How about my ranch?”
She gulped, taking in the way his large hand shifted gears. “That would require a flight. That could take some time.”
Zach shifted gears and accelerated. He met her gaze. “Not necessarily. I can have a jet ready in an hour.”
Surprise raced through her. “That would be expensive,” she said, aware of the cost of private transatlantic flights because she usually flew first-class to save the royal family some change.
“I can handle it,” he said with a shrug of his p
owerful shoulders. “I usually fly first-class for the legroom, but the jet’s always at my disposal. But are you sure about this?”
Tina felt another forbidden thrill. Her brother would wring her neck. Her sisters would curse her for leaving them to deal with her brother. She bit the inside of her lip and nodded. “I’m sure.”
Chapter Four
Half a day later, Tina awakened to the sensation of Zach’s jet landing on a runway. Rousing herself from her slumber, she squinted out the window to see the flat landscape surrounding the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
She glanced across the aisle at Zach. He was looking outside the window on his side of the jet. His long lean legs extended before him, his dark hair was mussed. She wondered if he had slept half as much as she had.
She realized again that she had committed to going to his ranch. He was a man she knew intimately. In most ways, however, she barely knew him at all, and he barely knew her.
A knot of nerves formed in her throat. What in the world had she done? Tina took a deep breath. Give yourself a break. You didn’t have a lot of choices.
Zach turned to look at her. “We’re here. I can get a helicopter. Otherwise it’s an hour and a half drive to my ranch.”
“There’s no need for a helicopter,” she said. “I’ve slept most of the flight. A car will be fine.”
“You’re sure?” he asked.
She nodded, smiling. “I’m sure.”
His gaze did things to her. She looked away to gather her things. He ushered her out of the plane and down the steps to the tarmac.
Two armed officers immediately approached them. “Mr. Logan, we need to question you about the kidnapping of Valentina Devereaux.”
Zach blinked. “Excuse me?” he said.
“Oh, no,” Tina whispered. “This is either my brother or my security guard. Or both.” Refusing to be a victim, refusing to allow Zach to be a victim, she went into Princess-mode. “Pardon me, officer, but there’s obviously been a misunderstanding. Mr. Logan graciously allowed me to be a passenger on his jet. I was being pursued by the paparazzi and he provided me with a safe escape.”
