Annie O'Neil - Claiming His Pregnant Princess

She glanced up at Jamie. His eyes were steady...patient... She knew as well as he did that he would wait all evening if he needed to.

She lifted her gaze just in time to see the topmost arc of the sun disappear behind the mountain peaks.

“Maybe we could walk?” she suggested.

He nodded, unlacing his fingers from hers as he rose.

She curled one hand around the other in a ridiculous attempt to save the sensation.

He pointed toward the far end of the piazza. “Let’s go out along the lake. Have you been to the promenade yet? Seen the boats?”

She shook her head. She’d had enough of boats and morning sickness over the past few weeks to last a lifetime. She agreed to the route anyway. It wasn’t as if this was meant to be easy.

* * *

Every part of Jamie itched to reach out and touch Beatrice. Hold her hand. Put a protective arm around her shoulder. There was something incredibly fragile about her he wasn’t sure he’d seen before. She was nursing something more than a chink in her pride. And all the rage he’d thought would come to the fore if he ever found himself in her orbit again... It was there, all right. It just wasn’t ready to blow.

Instinct told him to take things slowly. And then start digging. A verbal attack would elicit nothing. As for a physical attack... If that man had laid one finger on her—

“How are you settling in here? Everyone at the clinic helping you get your bearings?”

Beatrice nodded enthusiastically. “I love it. All one day of it, that is.”

He smiled at the note of genuine happiness in her voice. Excellent. The staff were making her feel at home. He fought the need to press her. To get her to spill everything. Explain how she’d found it so easy to break his heart.

“Your contract is...?”

“For the rest of the summer. I guess one of the early-summer staffers left before expected?”

“No.” He shook his head. “She had a baby. Worked right up until her due date.”

“Ah...”

Beatrice’s gaze jumped from boat to boat moored along the quayside. Families and groups of friends were spilling out onto the promenade to find which restaurant they’d eat in tonight.

“I suppose she’ll be coming back, then, after maternity leave. Although I did tell your colleague, Dr. Brandisi, that I would be happy to extend if the clinic loses any essential staff after the season ends.”

“It waxes and wanes up here. There’ll be a time when the summer wraps up where we hit a lull, and then ski season brings in another lot. It’s usually all right with just the bare minimum of hands on deck.”

Beatrice threw a quick smile his way, her lips still pressed tight, so he continued. “Mostly Italians to start, then Swiss, German, Austrian... A complete pick ’n’ mix at the height of the season.”

That was why he liked it. Nothing stayed the same. Change was the only thing keeping him afloat since he’d finally faced facts and left Northern General. Everything about that place had reminded him of Beatrice. And then, after Elisa... That had been the hardest time of death he’d ever had to call.

He swallowed and pushed his finger through a small pool of lake water on the square guard railing, visibly dividing it in two.

Everything leaves its mark. And nothing stays the same.

Those were the two lessons he’d learned after Beatrice had left. Now was the time to prove it.

He rubbed his hands together and belatedly returned her smile. “So! What sort of cases have you had today? Anything juicy?”

They might as well play My Injuries Were Worse Than Yours until she was ready to talk.

The tension in Beatrice’s shoulders eased and she relaxed into a proper smile. “Actually, all my cases have been really different to what I treated at home in Venice. With all the recreational sports up here I’m seeing all sorts of new things. It’s made a great change.”

He felt his jaw shift at the mention of “home.” Home—for a few months at the end of their relationship, at least—had been their tiny little apartment, around the corner from the hospital. The one they’d vowed to stay in until they could afford one of the big, rambling stone homes on the outer reaches of the city. One of those houses that would fall apart if someone didn’t give it some TLC. The kind of house where there’d be plenty of room for children to play. Not that they’d talked about the two boys and two girls they’d hoped to have one day. Much.

Let it go, Jamie. It was all just a pipe dream.

“Were you still working in trauma? When you came back to Italy?” he added.

“Off and on.” She nodded. “But mostly I was working in a free clinic for refugees. So many people coming in on boats...”

“With all your language skills you must’ve been a real asset. Were you based in Venice?” He might as well try to visualize some sort of picture.

“Just outside. On the mainland.” She stopped farther along the railing, where the view to the lake and the mountains beyond was unimpeded by boats, and drew in a deep breath, curling her fingers around the cool metal until her knuckles were pale.

The deepening colors of the early-evening sky rendered the lake a dark blue—so dark it was hard to imagine how deep it might be. Fathomless.

“It was relentless. Working there. The poverty. The sickness. The number of lives lost all in the pursuit of a dream.”

“Happiness?” he asked softly.

“Freedom.”

When she turned to him the hit of connection was so powerful he almost stumbled. It was as if she was trying to tell him something. That her moving back to Italy had been a mistake? That she wished she could turn back time as much as he did?

“Do you miss it? Working at the refugee clinic?” he qualified.

If she was going to up and leave again, he had to know. Had to reassemble the wall he’d been building brick by brick around his heart only to have the foundations crumble to bits when she’d walked back into his life.

She turned her head, resting her chin on her shoulder, and looked at him.

“No.” Her head shook a little. “I mean, it was obviously rewarding. But I don’t miss being there. Venice...”

Something in him gave. His breath began filling his lungs a bit more deeply.

“What drew you up here to our little Alpine retreat?”

He leant against the railing, unsurprised to see her give him a sideways double take.

Nice one, Jamie. Super casual. Not.

“I used to come up here to one of my cousins’ places. Skiing. The next valley over, actually,” she corrected herself, then continued, her eyes softening into a faraway smile. “One year I brought Fran with me. Remember Francesca? My mad friend from America? I don’t think you met her, but she was—” Beatrice stopped, the smile dropping from her eyes. “We saw each other recently. She’s getting married.”

“Ah.” Jamie nodded.

What was he meant to say to that? Congratulations, I wish I was, too? He elbowed the rancorous thoughts away and reharnessed himself to the light-banter variety of conversational tactics.

“Wasn’t there something about finishing school and a giggle-laden walk of shame before the term was out? Mussed-up white gloves or something?”

“We snuck away one day.” Beatrice feigned a gasp of horror. “Away from the ‘good’ set.”

“You mean the ‘crowned cotillion crowd’?” he asked without thinking twice.

Beatrice had been so contemptuous of them then. The group of titled friends and extended family who seemed to drift across Europe together in packs. Hunting down the next in place, the next big thing so they could put their mark on it, suck it dry, then leave. The exact type of person she’d left him for. Oh, the irony.