SUSAN MEIER - Pregnant With A Royal Baby!

“I’m sorry if the truth offends you.”

She turned on him again, poking her index finger into his chest. “The truth? You told me half the truth, so I would get false hope. When the situation looked totally impossible, you held out the offer of being able to return home. Now that I’m adjusting to you, to your family and to people bowing to you, I’m told the option exists, but, oh, by the way, it will make your child’s life suck.”

He caught her finger. “What did you want me to say? No. You can’t ever go home again?”

“Yes! I’m twenty-five years old. I handled two thousand kids for three years. I can handle this!”

The elevator door swished open. She yanked her finger from his hand and headed across the big square marble floor to the regal double doors of his apartment.

He ran after her, but didn’t reach her until she was already in the sitting room of their apartment. When he did, he caught her arm and forced her to face him. “I will not have you be mad at me for something I didn’t do! We didn’t talk a lot yesterday. I gave you your bare-bones options because that’s all you seemed to want to hear. Sally expanded on those options today. If you’d wanted the entire explanation yesterday, you should have stayed for it! Instead you said something about wanting to go to your room. I was fully prepared to talk it all out. You left.”

He could see from the shifting expressions in her blue eyes that she knew what he said was true.

She dropped her head to her hands. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

She shook her head. “No. It isn’t.” She sucked in a breath. “Look, my dad was a hopeless alcoholic who was always lying to me. I have trust issues.”

Glad to have his real Ginny back, Dom breathed a sigh of relief. “We all have trust issues.”

He motioned for her to sit, so they could talk some more, but she shook her head. “I’m fine. Really. Tired, but fine.”

A trained diplomat, he read the discretion in her answer and knew she didn’t want to talk about this. Who would want to talk about a father who drank so much he’d clearly made her miserable? But at least he understood why she’d absurdly said she would have taken his family when she was a child.

“I probably also should have told you that all of this will be set out in an agreement.”

“An agreement?”

“Yes, the legal office will draw up an agreement that sets out everything. Your responsibilities. Our responsibilities. What’s required of you as mother to our future heir.”

“You’re going to put all this into an agreement?”

He chuckled. “You wouldn’t?”

She considered that. “A written agreement would make things easier.”

“It’s one of the few documents that will remain totally secret. Because it’s considered private, no one but you and I, the king and both of our counsels will even know it exists. But your jobs and responsibilities will be spelled out and so will mine. Plus, we can provide you with counsel who can assure you the agreement is fair. If you don’t like who we provide, you can choose your own counsel.”

She nodded.

“We’re not trying to cheat you.”

“Right.”

“Really. And we don’t sign the agreement until the day of the ceremony. So right up until the day we get married, you can change your mind.”

“I’ll just be doing it publicly.”

He shrugged. “Sorry. The press sort of comes with the territory.”

She didn’t answer, but she’d definitely calmed down. A written agreement seemed to suit her, but she still looked tired, worn. “Why don’t you go lie down?”

She nodded and walked into her suite, closing the door behind her.

* * *

He gave her the morning to rest. When she came out at lunchtime, he pulled out her chair and she smiled.

Relieved that she really was okay, he said, “A simple coffee date has been arranged for us this afternoon.”

“Then you’d better get someone up here to help me with wardrobe because I went through the clothes you had sent up yesterday and there isn’t anything in there that I’d actually wear out in public.”

“What about the white pants with the sweater?”

“Seriously? That blue sweater with the big anchor on the front? My mother would wear that.”

“Okay. Fine. Right after lunch I’ll have a clothier come up.”

“Great.” She looked at the food, then sat back as if discouraged.

“You don’t like ham sandwiches?”

“They’re great. I’m just not hungry.”

He sucked in a breath. They’d had a misunderstanding but worked it out, and she’d taken a rest. When she’d come out of her suite, it was to eat lunch. Now suddenly she wasn’t hungry?

“You had an orange for breakfast. You have to eat.”

“Maybe I can get a cookie at the coffee shop.”

He laughed, thinking she was joking. Seeing she wasn’t, he frowned. “Seriously? That’s going to be your food for the day? A cookie?”

“I told you. I’m not very hungry.”

He supposed their situation would be enough to make a normal woman lose her appetite, but being married to him wasn’t exactly the third circle of hell. Everything and anything she wanted could be at her disposal. There was no reason for her to refuse to eat.

“Okay. From here on out, you choose our menus.”

She nodded. He felt marginally better. But what man in the world could possibly like the idea that just the thought of marrying him had taken away a woman’s appetite?

Was she subtly saying he made her sick?

After a visit from the clothier, an hour’s wait for clothing to be delivered and an hour for her to dress, they left the palace in his Mercedes. He drove, surprising her.

“We don’t need a bodyguard?”

“They’re discreetly behind us. This is supposed to look like a casual date.”

“Ah.”

He tried not to let her one-word answer grate against his skin, but it did. She wouldn’t eat around him and her conversation had been reduced to one-word answers. He’d thought they’d resolved their issue, but maybe they hadn’t? Or maybe the reality of marrying a prince was finally sinking in?

“You know you’re going to have to say more than one word to me when we get into the coffee shop.”

“Yes.”

He gritted his teeth. “We could also use this time to chitchat so that when we get out of the car, we’ll already be engaged in conversation the way normal people would be.”

“I know all about being a normal person.” She flicked her gaze to him. “You, on the other hand, are wearing a white shirt out for coffee.”

“I’m a prince.”

“You’re also a person, supposedly out with a woman he likes. A woman he’s comfortable with. White shirt does not say comfortable.”

“Oh, and scruffy jeans does?”

She laughed. “Are you kidding? Scruffy jeans is the very definition of comfortable.”

“You look like you’re going to the trash yard.”

“I look like an American girl on a date with a prince she just met. I am playing the part. As our dates get more serious so will my wardrobe.”

Unexpectedly seeing her reasoning, he sighed. “Okay. I get it. Just don’t make fun of the white shirt.”

“Fine.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw not just the Mercedes with his bodyguards, but also the usual assortment of paparazzi. Satisfied, he finished the drive to the ocean-side coffee shop.

Xaviera’s warm sun beat down on him as he walked around to the passenger’s side and opened the door for Ginny. He took her hand and helped her out, to the whir of cameras. She stepped out, one blue-jeans-clad leg at a time, wedge sandals, short blue T-shirt and big sunglasses, all looking very normal to him in the parking lot of a beach café.