“A picture is worth a thousand words.” And the pictures showed clearly that the child in question was Prince Rule’s. At least the prince had “done the right thing” in the end and married the mother of his child. Since “all was well that ended well,” The Sun wished the prince and his newfound family a lifetime of happiness.
It was ugly, stupid, insulting and riddled with clichés. Not to mention mostly fiction. However, within the general ridiculousness lurked the all-important twin kernels of truth: that Trevor was in fact Rule’s child. And that Sydney really had used a sperm bank.
And that was why deciding what to do in response to this absurd flight of pseudo-literary fantasy was of the utmost importance. Really, anything he did—from making no statement, to issuing an outraged denial, to suing the paper for slander—could make things worse. And no matter what he did next, some ambitious and resourceful reporter might decide to dig deeper. It was possible that someone, somehow, could unearth the fact that he’d been a donor at Secure Choice. If that happened, and he still hadn’t told Sydney his secret…
No. He couldn’t allow even the possibility that it might go that far.
He was going to have to tell her. Now. Today. And when he did, she was going to be angry with him. More than angry. She might never forgive him. But if she found out in the tabloids, the likelihood was exponentially greater that he would lose her forever.
Rule shoved the tabloid aside, braced his elbows on the desk pad and put his head in his hands. He should have told her by now, should have told her weeks ago. Should have told her at the first… .
Should have told her…
How many times had he reminded himself of that? A hundred? Five hundred?
And any one of those times, he could have told her.
Yes, it would have been bad.
But not as bad as it was going to be now.
He’d made his choice—the wrong choice—a hundred, five hundred, a thousand times. He’d wagered their happiness on that choice. He should have known better than that. Wagers were not a good idea—not when it came to the things that mattered most.
* * *
Half an hour later, Rule and his father met in Evan’s private office. Also in the meeting were Donahue Villiers, a family advocate, or legal advisor, and Leticia Sprague, Palace Press Secretary. Leticia had been a trusted member of the palace staff for over twenty years.
They discussed what their next move should be and decided that Donahue would be in contact with the paper’s legal department to discuss the lawsuit the family intended to file. He would also demand that the paper print a full retraction which, he would assure them, would go a long way toward mollifying Prince Rule once a settlement for damages was under discussion. Leticia suggested that Rule release a statement wherein he refuted the story and made his outrage at such ridiculous allegations crystal clear.
Rule’s father said, “Before we proceed with any of this, there must be a family conference. Her Sovereign Highness must be brought up to speed and given the opportunity to make her wishes in the matter known. So, of course, must Sydney.”
And that was it. The meeting ended. Leticia and Donahue left Rule and his father alone.
Rule and Evan exchanged a long, bleak glance.
And then Evan said, “It’s not the end of the world, son.”
Rule started to speak.
Evan put up a hand. “You will get through this—with your family intact. And you could look on the bright side.”
Rule made a scoffing sound. “So unfortunate that there isn’t one.”
“Of course there is. The article is absurd. The International Sun is going to end up looking very bad.”
“It’s a tabloid. It’s not as though they care if they look bad.”
His father regarded him solemnly for a moment. “What you did, becoming a donor, you did in a good cause. With an honest heart.”
“I was an idiot. It was an act of rebellion against everything I am, everything we stand for as Bravo-Calabrettis.”
Patiently, his father continued, “You would never have found the wife you wanted if not for your ‘act of rebellion.’ There would be no Trevor. And that you finally arranged to meet Sydney, that you pursued her and convinced her to make a family with you, that you became a real father to your son…I find that not only admirable, but truly honorable.”
Rule wanted to grab the crystal paperweight from the corner of his father’s desk and smash it against the far wall. “You don’t understand. Sydney still doesn’t know. I still haven’t told her.”
“Then you will tell her. Right away.”
“I could lose her over this.”
“I don’t think you will. She loves you. She will stick by you.”
Rule said nothing to that. What was there to say? Evan had been for honesty with Sydney from the first. His father wouldn’t rub it in. That wasn’t Evan’s way. But the knowledge that his father had been right all along made this unpleasant discussion doubly difficult.
Evan said, “I think it’s time that you told your mother the truth.”
Rule gave him a scowl. “Wonderful.”
His father said gently, “You can’t put it off any longer. One look at that child and your mother was certain he had to be yours. She asked me what I knew. I told her that you had taken me into your confidence and gotten my agreement that I would keep your secret. I said that if she demanded it, I would tell her everything, I would break my word to you.”
Rule affected an American accent. “Gee, thanks, Dad.”
His father’s chuckle had little humor in it. “Once she saw Trevor, I couldn’t have kept her in the dark if she needed to know. She rules my heart as she rules this land. Maybe that’s beyond your understanding.”
Rule thought of Sydney. “No. I understand. I do.”
“As it turned out, I didn’t have to break my word to you. Your mother said that I should keep your secret for you, that she preferred to respect your wishes in the matter.”
“So she only knows that Trevor is mine.”
“As I said, I never told her the truth outright. She has drawn her own conclusions and kept them to herself. It’s time that you were honest with her.”
“I have to tell Sydney first.”
“Of course you do.”
* * *
Sydney wasn’t in their apartment when Rule entered a few minutes later, the offending tabloid rolled in his hand. Lani told him that she’d gone to the palace library and would return by eleven.
It was ten forty-five.
Trevor tugged on his trouser leg. “Roo. Come. Play…”
His heart like a large ball of lead in his chest, he got down on the floor with his son, set the rolled paper to the side and helped him build a fanciful machine with a set of connectable plastic wheels and gears.
Trevor glanced up, a plastic propeller in his hand. “See, Roo. ’Peller.” He stuck the propeller on a bright-colored stick and blew on it. Then he chortled in delight as it spun. Rule tried to laugh with him, but didn’t succeed. Trevor bent to fiddle with the wheels and cogs some more, leaving Rule to stare down longingly at his dark head. Rule wanted to grab him and hold him close and never, ever let him go, as if by clutching his son tight, he might somehow escape the impending moment of truth.
But there was no escape. He was done with this lie.
It wasn’t long before he heard brisk footsteps approaching from the foyer. And then Sydney was there, laughing, asking Lani how many pages she’d written.
“Three paragraphs,” Lani grumbled, pushing her glasses higher on her nose. “It’s just not coming together.”
“It will,” Sydney reassured her friend. “It always does.”
“Yeah, well. I hope you’re right.”
“Persistence is the key.”
Lani grumbled something else. Rule didn’t make out the words over the rushing of his own blood in his ears as Sydney’s footsteps came closer.
She stood above them. “What ki
nd of fantastical machine is this?”
For a moment, Rule stared at her pretty open-toed shoes, her trim ankles. Then, forcing his mouth to form a smile, he lifted his head to meet her eyes. “You’ll have to ask your son.”
Trev glanced up. “Hi, Mama. I make a machine, a machine with a ’peller.”
“I see that and I…” Her glance had shifted. Rule followed her gaze. The paper beside him had opened halfway, revealing the outrageous headline and half of the pictures. “What in the…?”
He grabbed the paper and swiftly rolled it up again. “We need a few moments in private, I think.”
Both of her eyebrows lifted. And then she nodded. “Well, I guess we do.”
Trev sat looking from Rule to Sydney and back again, puzzled by whatever was going on between the grown-ups. “Mama? Roo?”
Rule laid a hand against his son’s cheek. “Trevor,” he said, with all the calm and gentleness he could muster. “Mama and I have to talk now.”
Trev blinked. “Talk?” He frowned. And then he announced, “Okay. I build machine!”
Lani put her laptop aside. “C’mon, Trev.” She jumped up from the sofa and came to stand over them. “How ’bout a snack?” She reached down and lifted him into her arms.
Trevor perked up. “I want graham crackers and milk. In the big kitchen.” He loved going down to the palace kitchens where the chefs and prep staff doted on him.
“Graham crackers and milk in the big kitchen it shall be.”
“Thank you.” Rule forced a smile for Lani as he rose from the floor.
With a quick nod, Lani carried Trevor to the door. He heard it close behind her.
He and Sydney were alone in the apartment.
She said, “Well?”
He handed her the tabloid.
She opened it and let out a throaty sound of disbelief. “Please. They have got to be kidding.”
“Sydney, I—”
She put up a hand. “Give me a minute. Let me read this garbage.”
So they stood there, on either side of Trevor’s pile of bright plastic wheels and cogs, as she read the damned thing through. She was a quick study. It didn’t take her long.
Finally, in disgust, she tossed the paper to the floor again. “That is the most outrageous bunch of crap I’ve ever read. Do you believe it? The nerve of those people. We’re suing, right?”
“I believe that is the plan.”
“You believe? It’s a pack of lies. Not a single shred of truth in the whole disgusting thing.”
“Well, and that’s the problem, actually. There is some truth in it. More than a shred.”
“What are you talking about?” She regarded him sideways. “Rule, what’s wrong?”
He gulped—like a guilty child caught stealing chocolates. “There’s something I really must tell you.”
“What?” She was starting to look frightened. “Rule. What?”
“You should…sit down, I think.” He tried to take her arm.
She eased free of his grip. “Okay. You’re scaring me. Whatever it is, you need to just go ahead and say it.”
“I will, of course. It’s important and I should have told you long ago, right at the first.”
“Rule.” Now she was the one reaching for him. She took hold of both of his arms and she looked him squarely in the eye. “Tell me. Whatever it is, tell me right now.”
Was there any way to do this gently? He couldn’t think of one. So he went ahead and just said it outright. “I was a donor for Secure Choice Cryobank. It was my profile you chose. Trevor is my son.”
Chapter Thirteen
She still clutched his arms, her fingers digging in. Her face had gone chalk-white. “No,” she whispered.
“Sydney, I—”
She let go of him, jumped away as though she couldn’t bear to touch him. “No.” She put her hands to her mouth, shook her head slowly. “No, no, no. You never said. Ever. I asked you, I asked you directly…” She whispered the words. But to him, that whisper was as loud as a shout. As a scream.
“I know. I lied. Sydney, if we could just—”
“No.” She shook her head some more. “No.” And then she whirled on her heel and she marched over to the sofa where Lani had been sitting. Carefully, she picked up the laptop and set it on the low table in front of her. Then she sat down. “Here.” She pointed at one of the wing chairs across from her. “Sit.”
What else could he do? He went over there. He sat.
There was a silence.
They regarded each other across the low table, across a short distance that seemed to him endless. And absolutely uncrossable. He only had to look at her—the pale, locked-away face, the lightless eyes—to know the worst had happened.
He had lost her.
She asked in a carefully controlled voice, “So you did take my information from Secure Choice, after all?”
“I did, yes.”
“Um. When?”
“Almost three years ago.”
“When I was pregnant? You’ve known since then?”
“Yes. I knew from the first.”
With another gasp, she put the back of her hand to her mouth. And then she seemed to catch herself. She let her hand drop to her lap. “All that time. You did nothing. And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, you were there. Lying to me, pretending it was all just a happy little accident, that you had happened to see me going into Macy’s. That you were so very intrigued by my determination. But it wasn’t an accident. Not an accident at all.”
His throat clutched. He gulped to clear it. “No. It was no accident. I was following you that day.” She pressed her fist to her stomach. The baby. He started to rise. “Sydney. Are you—?”
She stuck out her hand at him, palm flat. “No. Stay there. Don’t you dare get up. Don’t you come near me.”
“But you—”
“I am not ill. I am…there are no words, Rule. You know that, don’t you? No words. None.”
He sank back to the chair, said the only thing he could say. “I know.”
“Why now? I don’t get it. After all the times you might have said it, might have come clean about it, why now?” And then she blinked. He watched comprehension dawn in her eyes. “That stupid article. The pictures. You and Trevor, so much alike. It even mentions that I ‘claim’ to have used a sperm donor. You’re afraid someone might do more digging, and reach the truth. You couldn’t afford to keep me in the dark any longer.”
What could he give her but shamefaced confirmation? “Yes. That’s right.”
“Oh, Rule. I thought it was bad, when you had to rush back here to Montedoro to explain yourself to Lili the morning after our wedding. I was…disappointed in you then. But I told myself that you had never lied to me. That you were a truly honest man, that you didn’t have a lying bone in your body…” Though her eyes were dry, a sob escaped her. She covered her mouth again for a moment, hard, with her palm that time, as though she could stuff that sob back inside. When she had control of herself, she lowered her hand and said, “What a fool I was. How could I have been such a fool? All the signs were there. I saw them, knew them. And still you convinced me not to believe the evidence of my own eyes.”
“I wanted to tell you,” he heard himself say, and then cursed the words for their weakness.
Her sweet, wide mouth curved in a sneer. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”
He said it right out. “At the first? Because I knew I wouldn’t have a chance with you if I did.”
“You couldn’t know that.”
“Of course I knew. After your wonderful grandmother who taught you that honesty was everything. After those bastards, Ryan and Peter…”
She waved her hand that time, dismissing his excuses. “If not at the beginning, why not that night I asked you directly if you’d ever been a donor?”
“We’ve been so happy. I didn’t want to lose that, our happiness. I didn’t want to lose you.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” H
er voice was furious and hopeful, both at the same time.
He longed to reassure her. To give her more lies. But he couldn’t. Some…line had been crossed. All that was left to him now was the brutal truth. “I don’t think so. I kept telling myself I would, but there was always an excuse, to wait a little longer, to put it off. I kept choosing the excuses over telling you what you had a right to know.”
“So, then.” The hope was gone. Only her cool fury remained. “You were never going to tell me.”
He refused to look away. “No. I wasn’t willing to risk losing you.”
“And how’s that worked out for you, Rule?” Her sarcasm cut a ragged hole in his heart.
He answered without inflection. “As of now, I would have to say not very well.”
She sat very still. She…watched him. For the longest, most terrible stretch of time. And then she said, “I don’t get it. It makes no sense to me, that you would become a donor. Why did you? It’s…not like you. Not like you at all.”
“Does it matter now?”
“It matters to me. I am trying very hard to understand.”
“Sydney, I—”
“Tell me.” It was a command.
He obeyed. “My reasons were… They seemed real to me, seemed valid, at the time.” How could he make her see when he still didn’t completely understand it himself? He gave it his best shot. “I wanted…something. I wanted my life to be more than the sum of its parts. I wanted what my parents have together. What Max and Sophia had. It seemed I went through the motions of living but it wasn’t a rich life. Not a full life. I enjoyed my work, but when I came home I wanted someone to come home to.” He shook his head. “It makes no sense, does it?”
She was implacable. “Go on.”
He tried again. “There were women. They were…strangers to me. I enjoyed having sex with them, but I didn’t want them beyond the brief moments of pleasure they gave me in bed. I looked into their eyes and I didn’t feel I would ever truly know them. Or they, me. I was alone. I had business, in Dallas. I spent over a year there.”
“When?”
“Starting a little more than four years ago. I would go down to San Antonio on occasion, to visit with my family there. But it was empty, my life. I had only casual friends at that time. Looking back, I can’t remember a single connection I made that mattered to me other than in terms of my business. Except for one man. He turned up at a party I went to. We’d been at Princeton together. We…touched base. Talked about old times. He’d been a donor. He’d come from an American public school, was at Princeton on full scholarship. He became a donor partly for the money—which, he told me, laughing, wasn’t really much at all. But also because he said it did his heart good. It felt right, he said. To help a couple who had everything but the child they wanted most. That struck a chord with me. It seemed that being a donor would be…something good, that I could do, something I could give—but you’re right. It wasn’t like me. I’m a Bravo-Calabretti all the way to the core. I just refused to see that until it was too late and my profile was available to clients. Until two women had chosen me as their donor.”
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