Marion Lennox - Her Royal Baby

She cradled him until he slept and then finally, reluctantly, set him down in the hotel cot. He needed toys, she thought. He needed-something. There hadn’t been a single toy in that cold, huge room.

She could hardly bear to take her eyes from him.

But it was six-thirty. Reluctantly she showered and changed into clean jeans and a T-shirt, which was all her backpack provided, then hauled a comb through her washed curls and settled down to wait for Marc.

And to read her letter.

It was from Lara. Written four months ago, it had been stuffed in the suitcase and left unread for all this time.

It was important.

She was re-reading the letter for the third time when a knock at the door announced Marc’s arrival.

For a moment she considered not answering, but then…he had brought her here, she thought. He had paid for a nanny for Henry. If it hadn’t been for Marc, then Tammy might never have learned of Henry’s existence. The letter might have stayed unread for ever.

Henry’s fate didn’t bear thinking of.

She set down the letter and crossed to open the door, fury still her overriding emotion.

But the man on the other side of the door took her breath away. For a moment she forgot all about her anger. Whew!

His Royal Highness, Prince Regent of Broitenburg, dressed in royal regalia, was really something. But just plain Marc, casually dressed in jeans and an open-necked shirt, was something else entirely.

His hair was now ruffled and curled. His grey eyes were smiling, the laughter lines on his tanned face creasing into deep and delicious crinkles. His smile was questioning, and his eyes searched the room until he found the sleeping Henry.

Whew, indeed! He made her want to take a step back…

Or maybe he made her want to take a step forward-but she wasn’t going into that.

‘Henry’s asleep already?’ He was still smiling, and it was a smile that made a girl’s heart do crazy things in her breast. It was some smile.

‘Yes.’ Her voice was more brusque than she’d intended, and she fought for something polite to say. ‘Come in.’

‘Thank you. I brought something for Henry.’ He lifted his hands and there was a soft golden teddy bear. He smiled at the expression on Tammy’s face and her confusion tripled.

‘How…how did you know that’s what he needs?’

‘I’m not totally insensitive,’ he said gravely. ‘No matter what you think of me.’

Whatever she’d thought of him had suddenly changed. This was a sure-fire way to defuse anger.

‘It’s perfect.’ She took the stuffed toy from Marc’s hands and eyed the bear with wonder. There were teddies and teddies, but this one… He was small, and built so he was deliberately sort of scraggy. His stuffing was soft. His arms and legs were a bit loose and skinny-just perfect for a little one to hold on to. He had a lopsided grin and already he had a much loved look about him. For the first time since she’d met Marc, Tammy felt herself smiling.

‘Where did you find him?’ she asked.

‘On my twenty-second toy store,’ he told her. ‘Or maybe not that many but it sure felt like it. Did you know there are a whole heap of very unsatisfactory teddies in the world?’

‘There are indeed,’ she said unsteadily, trying to swallow her emotion. She carried the teddy across the room and placed it next to the sleeping Henry. ‘He’s just perfect. Oh, Marc…’

But Marc was distracted. The room he’d entered wasn’t to his liking.

‘Suites have separate bedrooms,’ he said, looking round in disapproval. This room had a bed and a cot, and a tiny table and chairs tucked into an alcove by the window. As a dining room it was hardly satisfactory. ‘The phone call I made…I thought I made it clear to the management that you needed a suite.’

‘I changed the booking,’ she said brusquely. ‘I want this one.’

‘But I’m paying.’

‘No.’ She bit her lip, her pleasure from the teddy fading as the conflict re-emerged. ‘I told you. I’m paying. I’m not being any more beholden to you than I need to be.’

He stared at her as if he’d never met her like in his life. She met his look head on, unflinching, and tilted her chin in an almost unconscious gesture of defiance.

And a glint of laughter flashed behind those deep grey eyes. Prince Marc of Broitenburg was amused. The peasants were clearly revolting, and royalty was pleased to indulge such idiosyncratic ways.

‘Um…maybe we could get a hotel babysitter and go down to the dining room?’

His laughter only had the effect of increasing her tension-making anger surge. ‘I’m not leaving Henry,’ she told him, and watched his smile die. It was all very well for the peasants to revolt, it seemed, as long as it didn’t interfere with this man’s plans.

‘The dining room would be more sensible,’ he told her.

‘No.’

‘Miss Dexter…’

‘You’re not taking him,’ she whispered, and they were no longer talking about where they intended eating dinner. ‘I don’t care who you are, and I don’t care how many teddies you buy him. He’s staying with me.’

‘It’s imperative for the country that he returns.’ Marc’s laughter had disappeared entirely.

Tammy hadn’t been laughing in the first place, and she wasn’t laughing now. ‘It’s imperative for him that he stays with me,’ she told him. ‘He’s ten months old and he hardly knows what human contact is.’

‘I can provide the very best in childcare.’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she snapped. ‘You can’t buy someone to love a child. I don’t have your resources, but…’

But he wasn’t listening. His needs were urgent, and he wasn’t interested in the issues driving her. He couldn’t allow himself to be. ‘Look, if it’s a matter of money…’

‘It’s not.’

‘I’m extremely wealthy,’ he told her, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘If I’m prepared to guarantee his welfare, to have child psychologists give him continuous assessment, and to give you this…’

He held out a slip of paper. A cheque. Tammy looked down at it-and stared.

How many zeroes? This was more wealth than she believed possible.

What on earth was happening here? This man might be so good-looking he made her gasp, and he might have a smile to melt ice, but all she felt was fury.

She thought back to the letter she’d just read, and a cold, hard knot of anger settled and stayed deep within. Money. This had all been about money from the first. Henry himself was the result of a desire for money and prestige and power, and here was this man offering more.

‘You could retire on what I’m offering,’ he was saying. ‘You could stay in places like this all the time. You’d never have to work again,’

She took a deep breath, and breathed again. Then her eyes flickered from the cheque to his face-and he was smiling. The man actually had the gall to be smiling !

He expected her to accept.

And at that the knot of pain and fury stretched and snapped. She lifted the cheque he was holding out, read it carefully as if she needed to memorise the crass insensitivity of his action, and then ripped it into a thousand pieces. She let them fall onto the luxurious carpet. She stomped on them with her bare toes and then she stared up at him, her face a mixture of hostility and defiance.

He still didn’t get it. He was staring back at her as if he didn’t understand, and her fury was still there. The knot was coiling again and there was nothing else for it.

She lifted her hand and she slapped.

She’d never slapped a man in her life. She’d never slapped anyone. And now… In the course of three hours she’d thrown baby formula all over him and she’d hit him.