He wore such a grave expression; for a moment she thought he was going to announce something serious about the King. The royals were always loved by the media—except for her—but she hadn’t seen any recent footage of the King, come to think of it.
But the Playboy Prince wasn’t smiling. Not joking. Not charming them into letting him get away with murder.
“Today I want to speak to you about my wife, Dr. Anais Hayes or, as she’s been known since returning to Corrachlean, Dr. Anna Kincaid. I know you’re shocked, and really we were both surprised to find out the dissolution of our marriage had never been finalized. But it was a happy surprise.”
Her anxiety beast reared up in her belly and started chewing.
“Oh, sweet mercy, don’t do this, Quinn,” Anais whispered, and only remembered she stood in public with foil in her hair when Mom’s hand found hers and made her fingers release the knot she’d twisted her protective cape into.
“What’s he doing?” Mom asked, the question whispered.
“He’s…” Public. They were in public. Even if it were just Mom, Aunt Helen, and a couple of Mom’s friends. She could trust family to keep things quiet, but maybe spilling any secrets in front of friends—no matter how close—wasn’t the best idea.
She tried to force a placid air. “I don’t know what he’s doing. He didn’t tell me he was having a press conference.”
“Since we last saw Anais she’s been in the United States. She took all the pain that came from our parting and channeled it. Made it through medical school with astounding grades—in keeping with the way she tackled university—and over the course of her training specialized in helping those who have served our country and paid the price with their bodies. I can’t think of a more honorable, a more noble mission to dedicate her life to. I’m very proud of her.”
Dammit.
“He’s right,” Aunt Helen said, and Anais couldn’t argue because…what could she say? I made a series of decisions that led to him losing his fingers; the least I could do was help others who suffered a similar fate?
Over the years, his official royal uniform had been remade to fit his broadening frame, and in that time he’d really learned how to wear it. He looked more comfortable in it than she remembered and, even without the decorative epaulettes, his shoulders were broad and square beneath the tailored lines.
“I want to be clear now. The divorce was never finalized because of my inaction. She signed where she was told to sign, and I assumed that someone took care of those things for me and never checked in when I was home on leave. We’ve never had a divorce, and we’re not going to have one now. I’m asking you to give us the space we need to fit our lives back together. I’ll do whatever I need to protect her. I came home to fulfill my duty to my family, and she is my family, so I’m starting with my wife. If we have to leave Corrachlean to have any kind of peace together, to have the family we were always meant to have, we’ll leave. I don’t want that to happen.”
“Did he just threaten to abdicate?” Mom asked, alarm evident, and three other sets of eyes swiveled to Anais.
“He’s not going to be King,” Anais murmured, even though she heard his intention as clearly. “He can’t abdicate, but I think maybe he threatened to renounce his title.”
Why in the name of heaven would he do that?
He seemed done talking, and once again stood stoically for the cameras, waiting.
Then the questions began…
CHAPTER SIX
AFTER THE PRESS conference Quinn changed and nicked a car from the palace garage. Forgoing a driver, he followed his GPS to Anais’s town home.
Nice, quiet, upper middle class neighborhood. The late summer sunshine filtered through the leaves on the tree-lined street, one broad beam of light illuminating a parking place directly in front of her home. His opening gambit in the fight she’d threatened had felt right at the time but, going to face her now, his mind seemed some insane cocktail of worry, pessimism, and straight-up giddiness.
Fortune favored the brave, but he had no idea what it did with the inappropriately giddy. No man should be excited to fight with the woman he loved, but the other evening he’d felt closer to Anais than he had during their whole marriage. It was hard not to look forward to that kind of fire.
He parked the understated black sedan and hurried to her door. The street was quiet and more or less empty, aside from a woman walking her dog down the opposite side. The press seemed to have listened to his request—at least for now. No cars had followed him and he could see no cameras camped at her door.
He rang the bell and slipped a hand into his pocket, feeling the weight of the velvet box he’d retrieved from the crate tucked in there.
The ring she might not accept.
Probably wouldn’t accept.
Might even smash with whatever weapon she had handy…
His pulse increased the longer he stood there. Just stick to the plan. Tell her they were staying married. Explain his plan to seduce the press. Tell her…
Still no one answered the door. He pressed the bell again.
Maybe she’d gone. Fled the country already. Had she had time for that since his announcement?
As he reached for the bell again, the door cracked open. Eyes that had once no doubt been the exact blue-green shade of Anais’s found him, paler but distinctive enough to recognize the mother-in-law he hadn’t seen in years.
“Sharon. Hello. Is…she here?”
“She’s upstairs.” No greeting, but she did let him inside. “She went to bed with a headache, but said to send you up if you came by.”
Expecting him. Perhaps lying in wait with a fireplace poker…
The door closed behind him and she took a moment to engage the locks, something he was thankful to hear as he’d already started up the stairs.
“Last door,” Sharon called after him. “Don’t drive her away again, Quinton Corlow. She needs a home. She was happy here the past month.”
He stopped midflight and looked back down at her, nodding because he didn’t know what to say. But she had already turned and picked up a book she’d obviously been reading before he rang the bell, and sat on one end of the sofa.
From his position, he could see downstairs well enough to realize the stark difference in style between it and the penthouse. Bookshelves everywhere, loaded sometimes two rows deep with books. Furniture he could best describe as fluffy. Comfortable and welcoming, and…not why he was there. Later. He’d keep it in mind later when they looked for alternate housing to the penthouse. Or maybe just lived here… He wanted her to be happy in her home, and the penthouse had obviously failed in that.
Last door upstairs, he reminded himself, and completed the climb.
Stick to the plan.
The white panel door stood silently where indicated, no signs of movement beyond. No light below the door, and it was still daylight. But she was in there. He could feel her inside.
Taking a chance, he bypassed knocking, and instead peeked inside as quietly as the door would allow. Anais lay atop the blankets, eyes closed. Asleep?
* * *
The creak of the door opening brought Anais fully awake, “Mom?” The word came out before she’d even gotten her eyes fully open.
Quinn slipped into the room and faced her. Since his press conference, he’d changed back into the fatigues he’d been wearing most of the time when not in full royal regalia. “Sharon said you weren’t feeling well. Has your head improved?”
“Not entirely. But it doesn’t feel like my skull is being cleaved in two right now. Are you going to make it worse?” She stood up; it felt like the kind of conversation she’d be better able to handle on her feet, and with some light. She switched on the bedside lamp.
“Your hair…”
The wonder in hi
s voice had her looking at him again. As she’d turned to the lamp, he’d crossed to her and now stood less than a foot away, his broken hand suddenly cupping her jaw. While she’d expected him to come by, she’d been unable to come up with a way to handle this thing he’d thrown at her. Now, with his hand on her face and the way his eyes searched her every feature, the pull of him further scrambled her thoughts.
“It’s you. Finally.” He swallowed hard, brows pressed too sharply together; he almost looked in pain, as if he’d just lost her, as if he couldn’t bear to blink and risk her disappearing. The hand cupping her jaw stayed, but his free hand slid into her hair and smoothed the locks between his fingers. He finally looked from her face to the strand to watch the play of the color in the light. “It’s really close. A little lighter than normal, like you’ve been at the beach.”
The words, so at odds with the reverence and pain in his face, yanked her back into herself. “Aunt Helen stripped out the brunette today. Probably took a little extra color with it…”
“You’re beautiful.” A reverent whisper. The heat from his hand on her cheek left a fiery trail down her neck and over the skin bared by the strappy tank top she’d worn for sleep. His eyes followed his hand over her shoulder, then over her chest, concealed by the thin material she wore.
Beautiful, he’d said—the word, his voice, and his eyes said the same. He looked at her with an intensity and longing that twisted at her insides. She drew closer.
“Your skin is so soft.”
Her palms ached and she rested them against his chest, felt the muscle bunch and tighten under her touch, and slid them higher toward his neck, just to feel his skin under her aching hands.
Sweet mercy, what was she doing?
She should move away right now. Take him to another room. She’d just wanted some privacy to talk when she’d told Mom to send him up, to keep her from being dragged further into this mess.
“In the desert, in the heat, everything felt sharp.” He still stroked up and down her arms, speaking so quietly she wasn’t even sure he knew he was speaking. “The wind would come and the sand felt like a million tiny knives. I liked to think about soft things, soothe myself with memories…”
In the wake of his hands, that dizzying tingle returned, following his fingers and spreading out from them like an epicenter for some heart earthquake. Head sparkles and feet like lead came from the worshipful things he said.
“I could never remember anything softer than your skin. Could spend infinity stroking your skin.”
He leaned forward and she lost all will to resist as his lips touched her shoulder—softness framed by the delicious scrape of the day’s beard, scrubbing her mind.
He didn’t kiss—there was no kissing—time stretched out as he simply stroked his warm, full lips feather-light over her shoulder, into the curve of her neck, then up into the hair behind her ear.
“You belong with me,” he murmured, arms sliding around to bring her fully against him. “And I belong with you.”
Yes.
Warmth rolled through her. It was like a drug. He was like a drug.
Her cheek rested against the center of his chest and she leaned against him as he stayed, head curled down, so that his every word was spoken into her skin, like a brand she’d never be able to scrub off.
“I know how to make it work this time. I know how to make them listen, make them love you too. I have a plan.”
If he’d thrown her into Arctic tides off the northern coast he couldn’t have surpassed the shock that lanced through her.
He was doing it again! Distraction. Distraction and sex and sweet words, and she fell for it every cursed time.
She jolted back, an accusing finger jabbing his way to convey the words stuck in her throat.
“Easy now.”
“I’m not a horse!” she blurted out, possibly the dumbest thing she’d ever said in anger. Which was his fault too. Touching him never did anything good for her cognition. “Is this part of your plan? Oh, Anais, you’re so beautiful…”
Two more big steps backward gave her more room to breathe, to think, but Quinn seemed to be amused more than anything. Amused and…exhilarated.
But it passed quickly.
“No.” With the one word, the silk fell from his tone, along with the excited light in his eyes. “I have a publicity plan. They listened today. They’re not loitering at your door. They didn’t follow me here. They’re listening. Our situation has changed.”
Now she remembered what she’d gone to sleep to try and forget—his ridiculous press conference where he’d tried to make the people like her by telling them she was a doctor. “You threatened to renounce your title. That’s why they’re listening. They have to see how serious you are before calling your bluff. That’ll take them at least a day. A week if you’re lucky.”
“You say that like it was an empty threat.”
“You know it was empty. You’re not going to follow through on that. You want to be here or you’d still be serving. Whatever you just said about soothing memories of softness. You didn’t leave the military after your injury, and I know they would have offered it to you.”
“We could argue this all day and you’d still be wrong.” He waved a hand. “That’s not what I was talking about. Our situation is different because you’re different. You’re accomplished, not just a common girl the daft Prince fell for. And there’s nothing people like better than a fairy tale. All we have to do is give them the fairy tale, Cinderella. Do some appearances…”
“Some appearances? You’re talking about more than appearances!”
“We’ll go through with The Sip; I’ve already got someone organizing the invitation lottery on that since the people complained about missing it the first time. They’ll eat it up.”
“Of course they complained. It’s Corrachlean’s centuries-old royal engagement traditional party, and everyone loves free-flowing mead and bad decision-making.” She grunted when her head throbbed again.
“Not you.”
“No, not me,” she replied.
“And then we’ll have the lavish wedding every Cinderella would dream of.” He crossed to her again and leaned past her to pick up a bottle of pain relievers. “When did you last take one?”
“Too recently, even though they’re clearly worthless.” She took a breath, smelled only him, and then took another couple of steps away from him in the other direction so she could try and maintain some semblance of sense. “I don’t want this.”
“And I don’t want a divorce. Besides, I don’t believe you. You were right there with me moments ago. You were right there with me on your office floor. It’s still there. We’re not going to be the first divorce in the history of the royal family. You wanted me to fight for you? This is me fighting for you.”
Her cheeks burned—like she needed to be reminded how easy he could have her. She stammered, “It’s too late for grand gestures.”
“I don’t accept that.”
“Because you say it’s not? I can’t go back to that unforgiving spotlight. I don’t want to be a freaking princess—”
“What’s the alternative?” he cut in. “Tell me what your plan was after our faulty divorce was discovered. Just to wait for the fervor to die down? I tried that once; you lost your mind. You already are a freaking princess, in the most literal sense. Right now. That’s who you are. Princess Anais Corlow, not Hayes, and sure as hell not Kincaid.”
“Legally, I’m Dr. Anna Kincaid.”
“Actually, you’re not. Philip doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally rename a princess and strip her of her title. It’s invalid, like those unsigned divorce documents.”
Shock that she hadn’t considered that sent her scrambling. “Fine! Whatever. I don’t have a plan for any of this. You just threw it at me on liv
e TV. I’ve been trying to figure out how to make this go away; you’re just making it worse.”
“I could make it much worse.”
The quietly delivered statement made her breath catch. That was a threat. By this point in her life she knew a threat when she heard one, and that was a threat. She didn’t even have to take the coldness of his tone into consideration, or the way his deep gray eyes hardened over like ice sheets blowing in from the North Sea. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the press listened to me today. We can give them the fairy tale, or I can give them my heartbreak. How long do you think it will take to die down if I tell them I came home from a war zone to this, that you led me on then broke my heart again?”
She wobbled and staggered backwards until the wall stopped her. Quinn reached for her, but she’d stopped before he could cross the distance to her.
“That’s you fighting for me, or just with me? I think I like the old Quinn better; at least he wasn’t…horrible.” Old Quinn joked, used happy distractions, in retrospect. This Quinn? She didn’t know him.
“I am fighting for us.”
“By lying and manipulating people? You know that’s not what happened.”
“I just told them we weren’t getting divorced and how happy that made me. Two true things.”
“You’re blackmailing me now? I already have one blackmailer; I don’t need two!”
A flash of fire in his eyes alerted her to the words that had flown from her mouth. His long stride ate up the distance between them and his hands on her shoulders kept her facing him, fingers biting into her shoulders enough to trigger an ache, which should’ve blocked out that damnable tingling, but didn’t. “You have a blackmailer?”
She shook her head immediately, desperate for some way to rewind that accidental confession. “No. Kind of. I did have.”
“You had a blackmailer?”
“And, you know, I could have two if you’re joining the ranks.” She laughed bitterly as she sifted through anything she could say to salvage this.
Midwife's Longed-for Baby & the Prince's Cinderella Bride & Bride for the Single Dad (9781488022142) Page 24
