Scandalous Box Set

by Layla Valentine

  Blakely narrows her eyes. “So, money?”

  I laugh. “Lots of it.”

  I found a small cottage on the edge of town. It’s surrounded by farmland on all sides, offering near-panoramic views along with a two-car garage and an open-concept. The owners of the farmland also own the cottage, and they wanted to rent it out until my checkbook convinced them otherwise. I bought it from them that morning, handing over the check myself, and movers are clearing out the rest of the owner’s belongings as I pack up Jane-Ann’s stuff.

  “Is it because you feel guilty?” Blakely’s tone has shifted to something menacing, and I stop packing up the bookshelf and stand up, feeling like I need to face her for this conversation.

  “Is what because I feel guilty?”

  Blakely waves her arms to encompass the room and all of the boxes. “This. Packing up her stuff. Buying her a house. Are you doing this because you feel guilty? Are you trying to buy your way back into her goodwill?”

  My first night in America was sleepless and exhausting and more than I ever could have imagined, and standing in front of Blakely, I feel every tiring minute begging me to sit down and take a break. But I can’t. Not until I make things right.

  I’d stood outside Jane-Ann’s hospital room for ten minutes, too nervous to go in and see how she would react to seeing me. Would she be excited? Angry? Confused? All three?

  And honestly, part of me had been afraid to go in and see my child for the first time. A child I hadn’t known existed the night before. I didn’t even know whether it was a boy or a girl. How much would my life change once I saw the baby? Would I ever be able to go back? Would I want to?

  All my questions and doubts faded as soon as I walked in and saw Jane-Ann sleeping in the bed, her blond hair a mess of curls around her head. Over the almost nine months we’d been apart, her face hadn’t changed in my memory. Time hadn’t warped a single inch of her. She looked as beautiful as I remembered.

  Then, I saw my child. A tiny baby swaddled in blue blankets. A boy. My boy.

  And all my doubts quieted.

  And as the night wore on and Jane-Ann and I began to learn what it would mean to be parents, my doubts disappeared altogether. I couldn’t imagine a life without Jane-Ann and Tyler in it.

  “Partially,” I admit, wanting to be honest.

  Of course, I feel guilty. I hate that I wasn’t around when Jane-Ann was pregnant, when she had to go on bed rest and lost her job, when she had to move, when she went into labor. I hate that I missed out on the birth of my child. But guilt isn’t what propelled me to get on a plane and fly across the world, and it isn’t what kept me up all night trying to contact the owner of the cottage I knew would be perfect for Jane-Ann and Tyler.

  “But I also care about her.”

  “You don’t know her,” Blakely says sharply, sitting up and sliding to the edge of the stripped mattress. “But I do. And I know that even if she never said so, she’s been waiting for you to show up.”

  “And I did,” I say. “I’ve been wanting to come back ever since I left.”

  Blakely purses her lips and pushes herself to standing. She crosses the distance between us in just a few steps, and even though she’s a few inches shorter than me, I feel like she’s looking straight into my eyes.

  “I’m happy for both of you, but I just want to make sure you understand that, prince or not, if you hurt my best friend, I’ll hunt you down.”

  I’m not sure whether to laugh or cower in fear, but before I can do either, Blakely spins on her heel and marches out of the room.

  Even though Blakely had suspicions about me and my motives, she agreed to keep the cottage a secret for me. I’m sure it was difficult for her, but it’s all worth it when I see the nurse pushing Jane-Ann and Tyler through the automatic doors in a wheelchair, heading straight for where I’m waiting in my rental car. Another princely perk is convincing the rental company to give me a car despite my lack of an American driver’s license. When Jane-Ann sees the white Mustang, she grins.

  “You got a sports car to take our baby home in?” she asks. “Where’s my jeep?”

  Jane-Ann’s jeep is currently transporting what is hopefully one of the last loads of boxes from Blakely’s apartment to the cottage house. But in the interest of maintaining the surprise, I don’t say so.

  “Our son deserves only the best escort home.” I open the door and push the passenger seat forward so she can see the car seat strapped into the back. “And I just left the fire station where the Chief assured me I was a natural at installing car seats.”

  “My favorite quality in a man,” Jane-Ann purrs, making the nurse pushing her wheelchair blush. Then, she tightens one arm around Tyler and holds out her other arm for me. “Now, stop posing next to the car and come help me up.”

  My phone rings and I ignore it, not even bothering to check who it is. I already know.

  I shove the device into my pocket and jog across the sidewalk to wrap an arm around her waist. It’s the closest I’ve been to her since the night our child was conceived. When I look down at Jane-Ann, her lashes flutter and she looks away, focusing on Tyler. I think she may have come to the same realization.

  While I may have been a pro at installing the car seat, installing a child inside of it is a completely different story. It takes fifteen minutes for Jane-Ann to instruct me on how to strap Tyler in. Finally, once I’m sweating and a touch out of breath, I fall into the driver’s seat and pull away from the hospital.

  Jane-Ann keeps glancing over her shoulder to see Tyler’s face in the mirror I installed to hang from the back seat. I want to assure her he is fine and have her relax in her seat, but her nerves are actually doing me a favor. We are on the opposite side of town from Blakely’s apartment before Jane-Ann realizes something is wrong.

  “We’re all turned around,” she says, pointing over her shoulder. “My apartment is that way.”

  I curl the corners of my mouth down. “No. Your house is this way.”

  I feel her eyes boring into the side of my face, but I refuse to look over.

  “What did you do?”

  I lift a shoulder innocently as I turn onto the winding dirt drive that leads to Jane-Ann’s new cottage.

  She’s still pestering me to explain when the trees part and she gets a glimpse of the blue house. Hanging from the porch is a sign that says “Welcome Home.” It is made with lined notebook paper and crayons, but I make a mental note to thank Blakely later.

  “You didn’t.” Jane-Ann looks from me to the house and back again, her mouth hanging open. “Did you?”

  “I did,” I say, reaching across the console to grab her hand. “I know you aren’t the type of woman who wants anyone to take care of her, but I couldn’t sit by and let you and our son cram into a guest bedroom that barely has space for a crib, let alone all of his clothes as well as yours. You both needed your own space, and I wanted to help take care of it. Don’t think of this as a gift. Think of it as my contribution to the pregnancy. You gave birth, I bought a house.”

  “Christian, I—”

  “You,” I say, interrupting her, “have a new house to tour. Blakely told me where to put everything, so if you hate it, you can blame her.”

  Jane-Ann looks at me for a long while, and I can see the wheels in her head spinning. Finally, she wraps her hand around my neck and leans across the console.

  My breath catches in my throat, and I stare at her mouth as it moves closer to mine. I’ve kissed her lips before. I’ve had all of her, yet this feels momentous. I don’t care about my family or Freyja or Sigmaran. Nothing exists outside of this rental car. Just me and her and our son. It is the only thing that is important, and with this kiss, she is telling me the same thing. I take a breath and lean forward, but just before our lips can touch, she turns and presses a kiss to my cheek.

  I’m embarrassed and disappointed, yet a flutter of warmth emanates from where she touched me. From where her lips pressed and where her hand is still wr
apped around my neck.

  “Thank you, Christian,” she whispers in my ear.

  When her hand slips away and she sits back in her seat, the bubble bursts. I’m once again the Prince of Sigmaran. My family matters. My country matters. But so does Jane-Ann and Tyler. And I have no idea how all of those things will work together.

  Chapter 19

  Jane-Ann

  The house is paid for. One hundred percent. Mine.

  We’ve been living in it for a week—me and Tyler and Christian—but it still doesn’t feel real. I keep thinking I’m in a really nice bed and breakfast, and the owner will be around soon to remind me about the checkout time.

  Christian filled me in on the house’s history. It belonged to the same family for years, and I could see that in the notches etched into the kitchen doorway showing how the children grew. I could see it in the scuff marks in front of the hearth where someone had knelt time and time again to light a fire. I could see it in the hand-made porch swing hanging from the front porch and the matching trim hanging next to all of the windows. The house was well loved, and I intended to continue the tradition.

  Blakely had done a great job organizing the few things I had, and over the course of the week, Christian arranged for a dining table, a sofa, and a rocking chair for Tyler’s nursery to be delivered. I wanted to refuse any more gifts because buying me a house was already well beyond the scope of reasonable gifts, but I had cut Christian out of so much of the pregnancy, and it felt wrong to take away something that made him feel useful. Besides, the house was gorgeous, and I never could have afforded it on my own. I have pride, but I’m also not immune to wanting nice things.

  We find an easy rhythm faster than I would have thought possible. Christian sleeps on the couch and is always the first one up and standing at Tyler’s bassinet in the middle of the night. He changes diapers, burps him, and refuses to let me lift a finger while I’m healing from giving birth. Christian reads the newspaper to Tyler, takes him outside every day for a bit of fresh air on the front porch, and falls asleep watching the world news with Tyler on his chest. He is everything a husband should be, and I have to remind myself several times a day that not only is he not my husband, but we aren’t in a relationship at all.

  My mom pads into the kitchen while I’m making a pot of coffee and drops donuts on the counter. “Am I too late? Or has that overprotective mother hen already made you breakfast today?”

  I laugh. “No, I told him you were coming with donuts. He knows not to step on the original mother hen’s turf.”

  “Smart man.”

  My mom grabs a donut and drops onto the barstools at the kitchen island. We don’t look anything alike, but all of my personality has come from her. She loves people really hard—though she doesn’t often express it—we both have sarcasm in our blood, and nothing excites either of us more than a breakfast pastry.

  “Where is he?”

  “Changing Tyler,” I say, stifling a laugh. “And himself. Tyler may have peed all over Christian’s shirt during the last diaper change.”

  She laughs. “Boys will do that. I’ll have to show him how to cover him with the diaper during the dirty diaper to clean diaper transfer. That way he can avoid a lot of accidents.”

  If my mom had any reservations about Christian, she didn’t reveal them to me. As soon as she saw him at the hospital, she observed him for a moment, looking him over as though she were checking a carton of eggs to see if any of them were broken, and then she pulled him into a hug.

  “About time you showed up,” she said with zero animosity.

  Since then, Christian has been a member of the family.

  “I’d like to see that trick, too. One of these days Christian is going to let me change a diaper, and I’ll need to know how to protect myself.”

  She nods. “Good for him for taking care of you. You need to relax and heal.”

  I wave her away. “I’m fine. Tyler was barely over seven pounds. Easy peasy.”

  “Six weeks,” she reminds me, eyebrows raised threateningly. “The doctor said to go easy for six weeks. You don’t get to do anything strenuous until after you’ve been looked over and Dr. Johnson gives you the all clear.”

  “I know, I know,” I say, rolling my eyes. “And you call Christian the mother hen.”

  My mom grabs a donut and slides it across the island, ignoring my comment. “Will Christian be here the full six weeks?”

  Her question hits me like a punch to the chest, and I quickly take a bite of donut to hide my surprise. When I finally swallow, I shrug.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You haven’t talked about it?” she asks, her eyes appraising me.

  I shake my head. “Not yet.”

  She doesn’t say anything but the words sit between us anyway. You should.

  And I know we should. But I’m afraid. Afraid that if I mention Sigmaran and his responsibilities there, Christian will reawaken from this domestic dream and realize he has to leave immediately. He’ll remember that he can’t put his life on hold, and he’ll wish us luck and be gone. And I’m not ready for him to leave. Not yet.

  Maybe not ever.

  I hear Christian coming down the stairs and arrange my face into a pleasant smile I hope doesn’t look too forced. He walks in holding Tyler in the crook of his arm, his eyes wide and shell-shocked.

  “That was an ordeal.” When he sees my mom, he smiles. “Hi, Shelly.”

  She tips her head and gestures to the donuts. “Christian.”

  I reach out for Tyler, and Christian hands him over and moves immediately for the donuts. Tyler is dozing and doesn’t stir during the transfer.

  I didn’t know how I’d feel when my son was born. If the maternal instinct would be immediate or if it would take time to develop. In a way, it has been both. As soon as I saw him, even covered in goo, I thought he was the sweetest thing I’d ever seen. But it felt surreal. I couldn’t really believe he was mine.

  But as each day passes and we slip into a routine, I feel a connection to him that I know will never be severed. It has given me a glimpse into how my parents must feel about me. And helps me understand why my mom is watching Christian move around the kitchen like he might take off his shirt to reveal he is actually a pile of squirrels in a human suit.

  “You seem really comfortable with children,” she says suddenly. “You have other kids?”

  My eyes widen, and I stare at her dumbstruck. Thankfully, Christian only laughs.

  “No. Definitely not. But I have three younger brothers. The youngest is ten, so I changed a lot of diapers.”

  “You didn’t have nannies?”

  “Mom,” I warn.

  “We did,” Christian says without hesitating. “But we’re also a normal family. In some respects, anyway. My parents still took care of us outside work hours.”

  I elbow my mom in the arm. “They’re royal, not aliens.”

  “Same difference,” she says with a mischievous smirk. “To a born and raised Texan like me anyway.”

  When my mom leaves half an hour later, I apologize on her behalf.

  “It’s fine,” Christian says, shrugging off the apology. “She just wants to know more about me.”

  “There are better ways to go about it,” I say. “She sounded really judgey, didn’t she?”

  Christian sits next to me on the couch and reaches out to adjust the swaddle around Tyler’s face. The movement is easy and natural. Then, he turns to me.

  “I’m used to scrutiny, Jane-Ann. I’ve experienced it my entire life. I’ll only be angry if she sells her story to the tabloids.”

  “But she’s family,” I say, brow furrowing. “Family should be different than how the public treats you.”

  When I look up, Christian’s brows are raised.

  “What?”

  “She’s my family?” he asks, his mouth half-turned in a smile.

  “Well, I mean,” I stumble, unsure what to say. Finally, I settle on the truth. “Tyl
er connects us all. You are his dad, and she is his grandmother. That makes you and her…something to one another. Family even if it doesn’t have an official title.”

  He leans closer to me and lays a hand across Tyler’s tiny body. Our baby fidgets from the movement but still doesn’t wake up.

  “We’re a family,” Christian says softly. “I like that.”

  I don’t say anything, but I think it really loudly.

  Me too.

  Chapter 20

  Christian

  My parents must have hired people to spam my phone with calls and texts because they are relentless. I’ve taken to leaving my phone on silent and only checking it once an hour to see what I’ve missed.

  Freyja calls a few times, but she never leaves a message, and I wouldn’t listen to it even if she did. She more than anyone doesn’t care where I am. She only cares that I’m not with her, being photographed at the latest event she has deemed “the place to be.”

  But I will have to answer eventually. Either over the phone or in person. I can’t stay in Texas forever. I have to go home—soon—and I have no idea what I’m going to say when I do.

  No one knows about Jane-Ann or Tyler yet. And I’m not sure if they should. What would happen to their lives if people found out about them? They’d be hounded by the press in Sigmaran at least, but with the American preoccupation with royal families, American tabloids could pick up the story, too. It would change everything for them.

  Eight days after Tyler’s birth, Jane-Ann and I are sitting on the couch, resting during one of our son’s many naps. She doesn’t have her head on my shoulder, but my arm is draped across the back of the couch, and her body fits into the shape of mine. All it would take is for her to scoot another inch closer and me to lower my arm, and we’d look like any normal couple having a normal night-in together. But we aren’t a normal couple.

  Lady Freyja is back home, blissfully unaware of all of this. Though, she is the last person I want to think about with Jane-Ann sitting next to me. And a responsibility to my country. The land mine we’ve been walking around for the last week can no longer be avoided. So, I slide away from her on the couch, pull one of my legs up onto the cushion, and prop my head up on my fist.