by Annie O'Neil
Her father was on the call, too, but noticeably silent. Tears pricked at the back of Lia’s eyes as she wondered what it would’ve been like if she’d grown up with a father who had actually wanted her around. Who, when she’d been hurting, would have defended her.
She glanced across at Oliver and easily imagined him with a little first-aid kit by his side. One filled with sweeties and plasters. Maybe he still had it. He had, after all, smelt of candy that one magic night that had changed everything.
‘Ready?’ she whispered, bracing herself for a command to fly home or, just as terrifying, prepare for the Princess Faux Pas Posse to arrive.
‘What’s that noise? Are we on speaker? Is he there?’ the Queen asked in their shared native tongue, as if she was asking if a dog had just defiled her throne room.
‘Yes. Oliver’s here. He is fifty per cent of the equation,’ Lia replied in English, with more bravura than she felt.
The Queen cleared her throat, then said in cut-glass English, ‘We’re ready to announce the wedding. End of the month.’
‘But I haven’t agreed to it yet!’
‘I have,’ Oliver said.
Everything in her stilled apart from her eyes, which locked with Oliver’s. What was he doing? Undermining her?
‘The announcement will come out today,’ her grandmother said crisply. ‘We’ve got to act fast to try and blur any confusion about your “premature honeymoon baby”.’
Lia’s hand flew to her stomach, as if shielding her child from her grandmother’s autocratic dictates. ‘You’ve even got the birth story ready?’
Her grandmother made a sound that most people would have thought unbecoming to a queen. ‘That’s what happens when a princess makes mistakes. The palace is here to fix them. Now. I’ve spoken with the Duke and Duchess of Banford, and they’re quite willing to host any sort of engagement parties that might be required—’
Oliver coughed... Or was he choking? Whatever it was his face had gone much paler than it had been a moment ago.
‘Who are the Duke and Duchess of Banford?’ Lia asked.
There was the briefest of pauses—one that gave a microscopic hint that somewhere, lurking beneath all that brusque efficiency, her grandmother might actually be feeling some compassion for her. Or maybe she was smirking. Who knew? They weren’t exactly the sort of family to sit around the kitchen table and play board games together.
‘As you know, the Duke of Banford holds one of England’s most honourable seats...’ her grandmother began.
Lia made a face at Oliver that she hoped said I have no idea what she’s on about.
‘Amelia?’ Her grandmother gave an impatient tut. ‘You do know that the man you had your...dalliance with is to become the Duke of Banford one day, don’t you?’
Oliver shifted uncomfortably.
Oliver was a member of England’s aristocracy? What the hell was this? She felt as if she was being trapped in a vice.
Her eyes began blinking so fast that Oliver looked as if he were caught in the flares of a strobe light. She wasn’t completely au fait with the British gentry, but even she knew that the Duke of Banford was a mainstay amongst the establishment...which meant Oliver was, too.
And the Duke was rich.
Very rich.
So this wasn’t a ‘marry rich to save the poor aristocratic family seat’ thing.
What the hell was it, then?
Why hadn’t he said anything?
As her grandmother continued to talk, she felt as if the words were impaling her. Heir... Country seat... Impressive estate...
The wedding would take place at the Harbour Hotel, as it would keep the ‘awkward nature of the event’ more low-key. The palace would see to the logistics.
‘We’ve scheduled another talk with the Duke and Duchess to settle the matter in an hour.’
Oliver looked everywhere but at her as her grandmother prattled on about how many guests there would be, which socialite magazine would receive exclusive coverage, and on and on.
Lia’s bloodstream turned icy cold. She’d known it. Whatever it was they’d shared had been far too good to go any deeper than the one-night stand they’d agreed on.
Weighted sheets of anger, hurt and confusion fell over her in enormous canopies, pressing the oxygen from her lungs as each one landed.
Shakily, she began to rise from the picnic seat.
Oliver took hold of her arm. ‘Sit down, Lia. Please.’
‘Amelia?’ Her grandmother’s voice broke through the increasingly thick tropical air that normally signalled a rain shower. ‘Perhaps you should ask your...friend to step away? Or take the phone off speaker. I’d rather not have him listen in on our private conversation?’
‘It’s hardly private!’ Lia snapped back. ‘Seeing as he’s going to be family in a month’s time.’
Oliver winced as she ground out ‘family’ as if it were a bad word.
A low buzzing began in her ears as her grandmother handed the conversation over to one of the press secretaries, who rattled off a series of dates. Today for the engagement announcement, then a press statement detailing their ‘love at first sight’ meeting at the gala, where their shared passion for charitable events quickly blossomed into something deeper and, as such, led to their swift decision to marry.
When you knew, you knew—that was the long and short of it.
Lia forced herself to look at Oliver. Had she known the instant she met him that she wanted him?
Yes.
That she loved him?
Her insides crumpled. She didn’t know. Her family was led by a king and queen more in love with their obligations to The Crown than one another. Her father had let the monarchy—his parents—destroy his marriage and bully his wife into a modern-day banishment which had culminated in a depression so deep he’d sent his five-year-old daughter off to boarding school, where she had spent years aching for something she had never really been able to name because she’d longed for something she had never known. A happy family. Love.
So, no. The one thing she definitely didn’t know anything about was love at first sight. And yet here she was, toeing the same line. Fulfilling her royal duty not to embarrass The Crown on behalf of a nation whose moral compass could never be seen to waver.
She trained her eyes on Oliver’s, willing them to tell her something—anything to assure her that, whatever happened, they could weather the storm.
He looked every bit as rattled as she did.
And then, as if a switch had been flicked, his entire physique changed. He rolled his shoulders back, straightened his spine. He practically glowed with an aura of control. He looked taller, stronger. Capable. Able to surmount each and every hurdle that the palace might put in their way—which was when it hit her.
Oliver was rising to the challenge.
Rather than wanting to run away to another, even more remote island, like she did, he was squaring off with his past. Confronting a childhood of being forced into a box he’d never wanted to be in. He was doing exactly what she’d told him she wanted from a man. Becoming someone prepared to fight to the death for her.
And suddenly—desperately—she wanted this to work.
They clicked. The reason she’d felt safe with him that one wild night was because they knew exactly what the other was made of. Sugar and spice and everything royal. Well... That was what little princesses were made of. She wasn’t entirely sure what prospective dukes were made of, but she had four weeks to find out before she married him. If, of course, they came up with an acceptable game plan.
Because that was what this would be. A game of wits. She and Oliver joining forces to fight The Karolinskan Crown for control of their child.
Lia clicked off the phone whilst the press secretary was still in full flow and fixed Oliver with a look that said, This is what you’re as
king to be part of. And by ‘this’ I mean Crazyville.
‘We can do this,’ he said. He took her hands in his and with a soft, kind smile. ‘We can do this for our child. We can play their game and win.’
A flicker of belief lit in her chest. It was faint and wary, and a thousand shades of nervous, but he was right. This was bigger than either of them. She wasn’t just carrying her child. She was carrying their child. And that child’s future was worth fighting for as a team.
It was time to be brave.
She looked up into his eyes. ‘Do you really want to do this?’
‘I really want to do this.’
* * *
Oliver felt both shell-shocked and shot through with single-minded focus.
He was going to get married.
Correction. He was being told to get married, be stripped of his anonymity and likely have zero control over anything beyond his career over the next month.
He should be feeling as though he’d leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire. Lia was from a family like his. Worse, actually, if that phone call was anything to go by. And the fact that he was giving his father another heir meant the pressure would ramp up on him to return home. Assume some of his father’s social duties and, while he was there, take care of the estate.
The bulk of the sprawling estate was tenanted out to farmers, but the manor house was every bit as big as any in those ‘how the other half lives’ series on television he could never quite get himself to watch.
On top of which, arranged marriages had a long and not very successful history in his family. Everyone stayed married because it was what titled people did, but there was no happiness in it. No joy.
But none of it mattered because he was going to be a father, a parent. And with the first woman to make him feel properly alive again in six years.
Lia was tracing her finger round a set of initials that had been carved into the picnic table. Her body language suggested she still wasn’t entirely convinced that getting married was the best of ideas. Without looking up at him, she asked, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were a duke?’
‘I’m not a duke,’ he replied. ‘Yet,’ he added, more honestly.
He moved round to her side of the table so that she had to look at him. If he wanted transparency from her, he owed her the same. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the duke thing.’
Lia huffed and rolled her eyes, murmuring something about honesty being a fairly useful policy. She was right.
‘I don’t like being judged by my title,’ he said. ‘I want people to judge me for who I am.’
‘And just who is that, exactly?’
Oliver ached to pull her in. Soothe her defensiveness away. He was feeling as blindsided as she was, but the shock felt surmountable. Something the two of them could face head-on.
‘I’m a paediatrician who loves his job, doesn’t love the aristocracy, and is insanely happy that we’re going to have a baby.’
There was more, of course. Other chapters in his life that had made him the man he was today.
‘And what makes you think we’ll work...as a couple?’ She turned her hands towards herself. ‘It’s not like you really know me.’
He thought of their shared night of passion. His hands caressing that sweet dip between her ribcage and hip before he slipped his fingers between her legs. How she’d moaned in pleasure when he’d lowered himself into her. How their orgasms had come at the same time and they’d both laughed with disbelief and pleasure.
He knew elements of her. And once again, for the first time in a long time, he was very much looking forward to getting to know her better.
‘That’s why we’re here, eating fish and chips,’ he said instead.
She snorted, clearly not pleased. ‘You think a meal out exchanging favourite colours and comfort foods makes us a match?’
‘No,’ he countered. ‘I think whatever it is that made two people who don’t do one-night stands have one does.’
She looked at him sharply, then covered her face with her hands. He didn’t press. If her brain was whirring as fast as his was, she needed the thinking time.
Eventually, she peeked out at him between her fingers. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘We’re going to get married,’ he said.
They’d each managed to escape the grip of the past before. They would be able to do it again. And, as his favourite headmaster had told him on that first bewildering day at boarding school, ‘You can do anything for ten seconds.’
He’d done a lot of things for ten seconds, and then another ten, and another. It had taught him that he could withstand almost anything that was thrown at him. But he knew he wanted more than anything to be with the mother of his child, and be there to support them both, as a family. To be a father.
Lia was staring at him. ‘How can you sound so certain?’
‘Because I like you,’ he said honestly. Then, more to the point, ‘And I am not going to leave you stranded in this situation. You didn’t get here on your own.’ He swallowed against a surge of emotion. ‘And I want to be there to raise our child.’
‘Don’t you want to—?’ Again, she stopped herself short, swatting away what looked like her own rush of emotion.
Fall in love? Was that what she was going to ask?
Hell’s teeth.
Of course he wanted to love the woman he married. And she was right. He barely knew her. But his hands twitched with a muscle memory that said otherwise. He’d known her body’s secret desires well enough. Could he grow to know her heart’s?
Time and circumstance were not luxuries they could play with. There was only one way to find out if they were a match. Pour their energies into getting to know one another.
He stood up and gave her a courtly bow, just as his parents had taught him when he’d first met the Queen.
‘What do you say we go down to the beach? We can watch the sunset, play another round of Twenty Questions. Do it every hour of every day, if you like. Unless, of course, you have other plans for your evening?’
‘Other than preparing my trousseau...not really,’ she said with a self-effacing laugh.
‘You didn’t grow up embroidering your wedding veil for this very moment?’ he joked, but instantly knew he’d overstepped the fragile weave of their new relationship as her smile slid into a frown.
Lia swept some strands of hair away from her face before she spoke. Her voice was deadly serious as she said, ‘This isn’t a fairy tale. You know that marrying me means an end to your quiet, anonymous life, don’t you?’
‘You’re carrying our child. That takes precedence. You take precedence.’
A flash of something he couldn’t identify flared in her eyes. ‘What if I refuse to marry you?’
A blaze of alpha energy shot through him like lightning. There was no chance he would let this second, precious opportunity to become a father be snatched from him.
It took every ounce of self-control to keep his voice level as he looked her in the eye and said, ‘I will love our child with every fibre of my being. I will respect you and honour you. We have a connection. You know that. The only question is, are we brave enough to find out if we can make it into something that will last a lifetime?’
* * *
Lia’s heart was pounding so hard she could barely register her own thoughts, let alone absorb what Oliver had just said.
He’d look after her. He’d love their child. He’d do his best to care for her.
It wasn’t exactly the outpouring of love she’d one day hoped for...but perhaps this was better. Mutual respect and understanding.
Instinct was telling her she would instantly have rejected any declaration of love after so little time knowing one another. It would have rung false and given his every move a sheen of dishonesty. Of wanting something other than to
accept his responsibility as a parent. The pain of her parents’ rejection had never left her, and heartbreak was something she wasn’t sure she could endure again.
She looked deep into Oliver’s eyes, exploring the rich kaleidoscope of blues framed by pitch-black lashes, and saw something that moved her on a profound level. He already loved their child. In a handful of time—minutes, really—he’d received two huge life bombs. An unexpected pregnancy and decreed-from-above nuptials. Yet somehow he’d managed to absorb the far more pressing truth: they were going to be parents. And his gut response was love.
It shone a completely different light on the future the palace was trying to superimpose on them. If he was strong enough and brave enough to pull his heart out of his chest and put it on his sleeve in this way, he might have the strength to stand up to her family in a way her mother never could.
Did she have the strength to do the same thing?
She looked at him. Really looked at him. His blue eyes were alive with...what was it, exactly? Presence. He was here with her—body and soul—asking her if she would take the same risk he was willing to take in order to ensure their child grew up feeling loved.
She tipped her head to the side, feeling stupidly shy, and asked, ‘How do you feel about a fiancée who can’t cook?’
His eyes lit up. ‘So long as you’re happy with toasted cheese sandwiches and orange slices, I’m fine with that.’
It wasn’t the most obvious way to say, I’m in. Let’s get married, but in another one of those silent exchanges they both knew what had just happened.
They were going to get married.
They gave the moment some air, then Oliver reached his hand out to hers, his fingers weaving through hers as if they’d done it a thousand times before. The gesture spoke volumes. They were a team now. They were going to get married and have a child.
Was it terrifying?
Absolutely.
Was her gut telling her to run for the hills? Become a hermit living in a cave somewhere?
Not anymore.
She’d never met a man willing to confront what he knew would be a difficult future hand in hand with her.
