Annie O'Neil - Claiming His Pregnant Princess

Ha! Foiled again. Just the way she liked it. They’d had their pound of flesh after the wedding nightmare. Painting a picture of her as if she’d been abandoned at the altar... The cheek! She’d been made of fool of, perhaps, but she’d been the one to pull off her ring and walk away.

The press might have stolen what little dignity Bea had left, but she wouldn’t let them take away her precious Italy. Especially now that returning to England was out of the question.

Her fingers pressed against her lips as the strong sting of emotion teased the back of her nose again.

Ugh. She’d tried her best to shake off those memories. The ones she’d kept locked away the day since she’d agreed to her mother’s harebrained plan. What a fool she’d been!

She’d had a shot of living the perfect life and had ruined it in a vainglorious attempt to please her blue-blooded family. Power and position. It was all they’d wanted.

Well...they’d hit the tabloids, all right, just not in the way anyone had anticipated.

Hopefully the paparazzi were now too busy jetting around the globe trying to find “Italy’s favorite playboy prince” to worry about her any longer.

Bea pulled the used paper off the exam table and stuffed it in the bin. It was her own fault this mess had blown up in her face. If she’d stayed strong, told her parents she was in love with someone else...

Inhale. Exhale.

That was in the past now. She’d made the wrong decision and now she was paying for it.

Bea took a quick scan of the room, then glanced in the mirror before heading out for her next patient, smiling ruefully as she went. Trust an Italian clinic in the middle of nowhere to have mirrors everywhere! She was willing to bet the hospital on the Austrian side of town didn’t have a single one. Practical. Sensible. More her style. Maybe she should have tried to get a job there...

Her eyes flicked up to the heavens, then down again.

Quit second-guessing yourself! It’s day one, and so far so good.

She forced herself to look square into the mirror at the “new” Bea.

No more Principessa Beatrice Vittoria di Jesolo, fiancée of Italy’s favorite “Scoundrel Prince.”

Her eyes narrowed as she recataloged those memories. Everything happened for a reason, and deep in her heart she knew marrying for tradition rather than for love would have been a huge mistake. Even if it would have made her mother happy.

A mirthless laugh leapt from her chest.

She was well and truly written out of the will now!

She shrugged her shoulders up and down, then gave her cheeks a quick pinch.

Saying goodbye to that life had been easy.

The hard part was living with herself after having let things go as far as they had.

“Dr. Jesolo?”

Bea started, and wagged her finger at herself in the mirror.

Self-pity wasn’t going to help either. Work would.

“Si, sto arrivando!”

From today she was simply Dr. Bea Jesolo, trauma doctor to the fun-loving thrill seekers up here in Italy’s beautiful Alpine region.

She tipped her head to the side. Now that she was a bit more used to it, she liked the pixie haircut. The gloss of platinum blond. It still caught her by surprise when she passed shop windows, but there were unexpected perks. It made her brown eyes look more like liquid shots of espresso than ever before. Not that she was on the market or anything. Just get up, work, go to bed and repeat. Which made the short, easy-to-style cut practical. Much better than the long tresses she’d grown especially for the wedding.

She gave a wayward strand a tweak, then made a silly face at herself when it bounced back out of place.

Undercover Princess.

That was this morning’s newspaper headline. She’d seen it on the newsstand when she’d walked into work. There had been a picture of heaven knew who on the front page of Italy’s most popular gossip magazine. A shadowy photo showing someone—no doubt a model wearing a wig—looking furtively over her shoulder as she was swept through airport security in Germany. Or was it Holland? Utrecht? Somewhere she wasn’t.

Undercover Princess, indeed.

She pulled her stethoscope back into place around her neck and shrugged the headline away.

It was a damn sight better than the handful she’d seen before sneaking away to lick her wounds on her brother’s ridiculous superyacht for six weeks, ducking and dodging the press among the Greek islands.

There were perks to having a privileged family. And, of course, pitfalls.

Abandoned by the Wolf!

Prince Picks Fair Maid over Princess!

Altar-cation for Italy’s Heartbroken Princess.

Heartbroken? Ha! Hardly.

Love-Rat Prince Crumbles at the First Hurdle

That was getting closer. Or maybe:

Pregnant Principessa Prepares for First Solo as Mama.

Not that anyone knew that little bit of tabloid gold.

Doctor by day...

Her hand crept to her belly. Though she wasn’t showing yet, she knew the little tiny bud of a baby was in there...just the size of an apple seed. Maybe a little more? Bigger, smaller... Either way she’d protect that blossoming life with every ounce of power she possessed. Hers and hers alone. How she’d go about living the rest of her life once the baby was born was a problem she hadn’t yet sorted, but she’d get there. Because she didn’t have much of a choice.

Bea swiped at her eyes, forced on a smile, then pulled open the curtain. Nothing like a patient to realign her focus.

“Leah Stokes?”

She scanned the room, bracing herself against the moment that someone recognized her, air straining against her lungs. Her shoulders dropped and she blew a breath slowly past her lips as all the patients looked up, shook their heads, then went back to their magazines and conversations. All except a young twentysomething woman, who was pushing herself up from her chair. She was kitted out in cycling gear and... Oh. Ouch!

“Looks like some serious road rash there.” Bea’s brow furrowed in sympathy and she quickly walked over to the woman and put her arm around her waist. “Lean on me. That’s right. Just put your arm around my shoulder and let me take some of the weight.”

“I don’t think I can make it all the way.” Leah drew in a sharp breath, tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks now that help was here.

“Can I get a hand?” Bea called out.

There were a couple of guys in rescue uniforms at the front desk. She called again to get their attention. When the closest one looked up, the blond...

Her breath caught in her throat.

He wasn’t blond. His hair was hay colored—that was how she’d always remembered it... The color of British summertime.

A perfect complement to startling green eyes.

As their gazes grazed, then caught, Bea’s heart stopped beating. Just...froze.

She’d know that face anywhere. It had been two long years. Two painfully long years of trying to convince herself she’d done the right thing, all the while knowing she hadn’t.

Fate had intervened in saving her from a loveless marriage, but what was it doing now?

Taunting her with what she could never have?

She blinked and looked again.

Those green eyes would haunt her until the end of time.

Before she could stop herself she spoke the name she’d thought she’d never utter again.

“Jamie?”

* * *

For a moment Jamie thought he was hallucinating. It couldn’t be her. Beatrice was meant to be on her honeymoon right now. That and no one called him Jamie.

He’d gone back to James the day she’d left. He’d changed a lot of things since then.

“Jamie, is that you?”

For a moment everything blurred into the background as he looked straight into the eyes of the woman he had once thought he would spend his life with.