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“The president of the United States would be invited?”
“And he’d attend.” Sally smiled. “Our royal family is influential. We don’t just control waterways. We have oil, which gives us a seat in OPEC.”
It was hard enough to adjust to the knowledge that Dominic was a royal. Now she was being told his small, seemingly insignificant country was powerful?
Oh, boy.
Dominic’s hand stealthily slid from the arm of his chair over to her hand. He caught her pinkie with his, linking them.
She swallowed. He’d done that in the limo on the way to the club in Los Angeles. A small, sweet, simple gesture that made her heart catch and her breathing tremble. He recognized that all this information was becoming overwhelming for her. And the pinkie knot? It told her he was there for her.
Damn, but he could be sweet.
“But, as I mentioned, you have choices. And as I understand the situation, you and Dominic plan to divorce two years after the baby is born.”
Dominic quietly said, “Yes.”
The small, sweet gesture suddenly felt empty. Pointless. There was no need for them to be close. They just had to be friendly.
She pulled her hand away.
“In that case, most of your options still apply. Except Dom wouldn’t suffer the negative press of being unable to persuade you to marry him.”
“I could return to the United States.”
Sally laughed. “If, after years of being influential in education, of being someone known to the entire world, someone impacting the world, you still want to go back, then, yes.”
Ginny smiled. Something about the way Sally kept highlighting the good part about staying in the country told her there was a catch, and she knew it had to have something to do with her child. “But the baby would go with me?”
Sally rose from the desk and walked to the front where she leaned against it. Her voice was soft, gentle. “Yes. As I’d said, that is an option. But it will require heightened security and teachers for home schooling unless you can find a private school that passes our tests. Then every time there was a ceremony, a formal dinner, a holiday, he’d have to be flown home.” She shifted against the desk. “Ideally, our future ruler should be raised here. In the palace. It just makes things easier.”
“Right.”
Dominic faced her. “Our child needs to be acclimated into the life of a royal. Not rigidly, but to realize all monarchs and leaders are people, too. Countries are made up of people. Troubles are borne by people. Ruling is about people.”
Caught in the gaze of his dark, dark eyes, she remembered why she’d fallen so hard for him the night she met him. He always knew the right thing to say.
Even if it was a modification of the truth.
Yesterday, he’d been smart enough to let her believe returning home would be possible, when in reality it sounded as if it would be very hard on their child.
He hadn’t out and out lied. In fact, if the option really was available for her to return to the United States, then he hadn’t lied at all. But he was counting on her love for their baby to help her to see that returning home might be an option but it was a poor one.
She couldn’t decide if he was manipulating her or trusting her, but after eighteen years of a bullying, manipulative father, that misstep made her stomach roil.
She rose. “You know what? I’m a bit tired. I think I should go back to the room.”
He bounced to his feet. “Of course.”
She faced Sally. “I’ll need some help with etiquette. I know the basics but the specifics are way beyond what a high school guidance counselor needs to know. Even if I decide not to marry Dominic, I have an entire week here and I don’t want to embarrass him.”
Sally grabbed her calendar. “I’ll make appointments for you.”
“Just let me know when to be where.”
Dominic laughed. “The teachers will come to our apartment. You’re not just a guest of a prince. You’re pregnant. We want to take care of you.”
She ignored his laugh. Ignored the smile on his face. Ignored that he was solicitous about her pregnancy. Her dad had been exceptional at being sweet, being charming, when it suited him. She didn’t want to think Dominic was like her dad, but the facts were out there plain and simple. He’d told her a half-truth the day before.
Still, she could deal with this. She was unfortunately good at dealing with people who told her half-truths.
She straightened her shoulders. “That’s fine. I’m happy to have the sessions in your apartment.”
She held her head high as she walked out of Sally’s office, but her stomach churned.
Why was she even considering marrying a man who was a manipulator like her father?
CHAPTER THREE
DOMINIC HAD TO run to catch up to her. “What was that all about?”
“What?”
“Your sudden need to leave as if Sally had done something wrong.”
“It wasn’t Sally.” She turned on him. “You led me to believe I could go home.”
“The option is yours.”
“Oh, sure, if I want to make our child’s life a miserable succession of plane rides between Texas and Xaviera.”
Not waiting for a reply, she raced to the elevator, punched the button and was inside before Dom had wrapped his head around what she’d said. He jumped into the plush car two seconds before the door would have closed.
“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.
She really had been right about her very casual clothes.
Standing in front of him, she caught his gaze and smiled, and his heart—which had been thundering in his chest from fear of the first step of their charade—slowed down. He hadn’t forgotten how beautiful she was, but somehow or another the sunlight seemed to bring out the best in her rich yellow hair and tanned skin. She might not be royalty or someone accustomed to the public eye, like an actress or model, but she was every bit as beautiful—if not more beautiful because she was genuine.
The cameras whirred again.
She whispered, “What do we do? Do we wave?”
“We ignore them.”
She peeked up at him. “Really?”
He laughed, took her hand and led her to the café door. “Yes. We know they are there. But we also know they are always there, even if, for us, they have no purpose. Unlike an actor or actress, we don’t need them to enhance our visibility. We tolerate them. Thus, we ignore them.”
“Got it.”
He held the door open for her. The press rushed up behind them, but his bodyguards closed the door on them. Two things happened simultaneously. The press opened the door and crammed in behind the bodyguards, their cameras whirring. And Marco, café owner, greeted them.
“Prince Dominic!” He bowed. “It’s an honor.”
“Can I have my usual, Marco? And—” Oh, dear God. First complication. He could not order coffee for a pregnant woman. He faced Ginny. “What would you like, Ginny?”
As soon as he said her name, the reporters began shouting, “Ginny! Ginny! Look here, Ginny!”
She slid off her sunglasses. Doing as he’d told her, she ignored the press. “How about some water? It’s hot.”
The press laughed. “Did you not know our weather was hot?”
“Where are you from?”
“How old are you?”
“How did you meet?”
“How long have you been dating?”
Dominic also ignored them. “Just water? What about that cookie?”
Marco said, “I have a cookie that will make you happy to be alive.”
Ginny laughed. “That’d be great.”
“You sound American.”
He saw Ginny waver. The questions directed at her were hard for her to ignore. And the press began closing in on them. Even with his two bodyguards standing six inches away, the reporters and photographers bent around them, shouted questions and took pictures as Marco made Dom’s coffee, retrieved a bottle of water and wrapped a cookie in a napkin.
Dom took their items and turned to say, “Let’s go out to the deck by the dock,” but, as he turned, he saw her sway. Before he could blink, she began to crumble.
He dropped his coffee, the water and the cookie to the counter and just barely caught her before she hit the floor.
The cameras whirred. A gasp went up from the crowd. Dominic’s bodyguards turned to help him as Marco came out from behind the counter, broom in hand.
“Get out of here!” He waved the broom at the paparazzi. “Get out, you brood of vipers!” He glanced behind the counter. “Antonella. I chase them out. You lock the door!”
Down on one knee, holding Ginny, Dominic cast Marco a grateful look as the coffeehouse owner and Dom’s bodyguards shooed the press out of his shop and Antonella locked the door behind them.
Ginny’s eyes slowly blinked open. “It’s so hot.”
He sort of smiled. She was so fragile and so beautiful, and holding her again took him back to their night of dancing in LA and making love in her condo. A million feelings trembled through him. Brilliant memories. A sense of peace that had intermixed with their fun. The wonderful, almost-overwhelming sensation of being able to be himself because she was so comfortable being herself.
“You’re adding to the heat by wearing jeans.”
“Trying to look normal.”
Her skin was clammy. Her eyes listless and dull. His happy, beautiful one-night stand memories dropped like a rock, as his heart squeezed with fear. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“You’re sending a pregnant woman to the hospital for fainting? You haven’t been around pregnant women much have you?”
“That’s all this is?”
She drew in a breath and suddenly looked stronger. “Heat. Pregnancy. Nerves. Take your pick.”
He said, “Right.” Then nodded at Marco. “Open her water.”
The solicitous shop owner did as he was told. He handed the opened bottle to Dominic, who held it out to her. She took a few sips.
Dominic sighed, grateful she was coming back but so scared internally that he shook from it. His heart had about leaped out of his chest when he saw her falling. “You should probably have a bite or two of the cookie. I told you to eat lunch.”
She smiled. “Wasn’t hungry.”
Antonella brought over the cookie. “You eat.”
Ginny sat up a bit and took the cookie from Antonella’s hands.
“Maybe we should get you to a chair?”
She laughed. “I feel safer down here. No cameras. No one can see me through the windows.”
He felt it, too. Behind the tables and chairs between them and the doorway, he felt totally protected from the press.
She ate a few bites of her cookie, drank the entire bottle of water and held out her hand to him. “We can stand now.”
“We’re going to have to go back to the car though a crowd of reporters and photographers who just saw you faint. If you thought their questions were bad before this—” he caught her gaze “—now they are going to be horrific. A tidal wave of jumbled words and noisy cameras. Are you up for this?”
“I’m fine.”
“Right. As soon as we get home, I’m having you checked out by the doctor.”
“I would expect nothing less from a man accustomed to bossing people around.”
His fear for her wouldn’t recede and she didn’t seem to be taking any of this seriously. “Stop joking. You fainted.”
“On a hot day, after not eating.” She smiled suddenly, pushed herself to her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I’m fine.”
The unexpected kiss went through him like a warm spring breeze. He told himself not to make too much of it, but how could he not when color was returning to her cheeks and she was smiling, really smiling, for the first time since their argument that morning.
Wanting to get her home, Dominic said, “Let’s go.”
But before they could walk to the door, Marco hugged her and then Antonella hugged her. Dominic finally noticed the few stragglers sitting at the café tables, necks craned to see what was going on. One or two whispered, but in general, they’d given them privacy.
Leading her to the door, he addressed them, “Thank you all for your consideration.”
People nodded and smiled and a few said, “You’re welcome.” Then they reached the door. The lock clicked as Antonella sprang it.
He said, “Ready?”
Ginny nodded.
He opened the door to the whir of cameras and shouts of questions. “How are you?”
“Why did you faint?”
“What’s your last name?”
“Are you pregnant?”
Dominic’s steps faltered.
But Ginny slid her sunglasses on her face and smiled at them. “I didn’t eat lunch.” She turned to Dominic and entwined her arm with his. “Dom told me to eat lunch but—” She held out a leg. “Look at these jeans. They are to die for and I wanted them to fit.” She smiled again. “American girls, right? We love our jeans and we want them to look perfect.”
Then she turned them in the direction of his Mercedes. His bodyguards created a path for them to walk.
He opened the door for her.
She slid inside. Before Dom could close the door, she gave a final wave to the press. “I’m fine,” she called out to them. “And, I swear, I will eat before we come out again.”
Walking around the hood of his car, he heard the rumble of laughter. He peeked up to see the smiles of approval on the faces of those in the crowd. And why not? She was beautiful, approachable, likable.
But he also saw a few reporters frowning in his direction. He saw the ones on their cell phones talking feverishly.
He slid into the car. “You know your pregnancy’s out now, right?”
“Yup.” She caught his gaze. “Looks like we won’t need a second date.”
“You’re saying yes?”
She nodded.
He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “Thank you.”
“Oh, don’t thank me. I have a feeling we’re in for one hell of a ride.”
CHAPTER FOUR
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