Expectant Princess, Unexpected Affair / From Boardroom to Wedding Bed?: Expectant Princess, Unexpected Affair

She could lie and tell him that she had a flu bug, or a mild case of food poisoning, but at the rate her tummy was swelling, it wouldn’t be long before it was impossible to hide anyway. But she wasn’t sure if she was ready for the truth to come out just yet.

Or maybe he already knew. Had Louisa blabbed? Anne would kill her if that was the case.

Anne stepped into the study, and, shy of her mother, father and the triplets, the entire family was there!

Aaron and his wife, Liv, a botanical geneticist, sat on the couch looking worried. Louisa and her new husband, Garrett, stood across the room by the window. Louisa wore a pained expression and Garrett looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but there. Melissa, Chris’s wife, stood just inside the door, looking anxious. Not five minutes ago they had all been in the dinning room eating supper.

Her first instinct was to turn and walk right back out, but Chris had already followed her in and shut the door.

What a nightmare.

“I don’t suppose I have to tell you why I asked you here,” he said.

Ordered was more like it. Now she was sorry she’d agreed.

“We’re very concerned,” Melissa said, walking over to stand beside Chris. “You haven’t been yourself lately, Anne. For the last couple of months you’ve been pale and listless. Not to mention all the times you’ve dashed off to the loo.”

So they didn’t know. Louisa had kept her secret.

“It’s obvious something is wrong,” Aaron said. He normally wasn’t one to butt into other people’s business, so she knew he must have been genuinely concerned. Maybe waiting so long to tell everyone had been an error in judgment. She didn’t honestly think that anyone really noticed the changes in her or for that matter cared about them.

“If you’re ill—” Melissa began.

“I’m not ill,” Anne assured her.

“An eating disorder is a disease,” Chris said.

Anne turned to him, amused because Louisa had suspected the same thing at first. “Chris, if I were bulimic, I would be dashing off to the loo after supper, not before.”

He didn’t look as though he believed her. “I know something is wrong.”

“It all depends on how you look at it, I guess.”

“Look at what?” Melissa asked.

Just tell them, dummy. “I’m pregnant.”

All through the room jaws dropped. Except Louisa’s, of course.

“If this is some kind of joke, I’m not amused,” Chris said.

“It’s no joke.”

“Of course!” Melissa said, as though the lightbulb had just flashed on. “I should have realized. I just never thought …”

“I would be careless enough to go out and get myself in trouble?” Anne asked.

“I … I wasn’t even aware that you were seeing anyone,” Aaron said.

“I’m not. It was a one-time encounter.”

“Maybe this is a silly question,” Chris said. “But are you sure? Have you taken a test? Seen the family physician?”

She lifted the hem of the cardigan she’d been wearing to hide the evidence and smoothed her dress down over her bump. “What do you think?”

Had his eyes not been fastened in they might have fallen out of his head. “Good God, how far along are you?”

“Fifteen weeks.”

“You’re four months pregnant and you never thought to mention it?”

“I planned to announce it when the time was right.”

“When? After your water broke?” he snapped, and Melissa put a hand on his arm to calm him.

“There’s no need to get snippy,” Anne said.

Ironic coming from her, his look said, the princess of snip. Well, maybe she didn’t want to be that way any longer. Maybe she was tired of always being on the defensive.

“This isn’t like you, Anne,” Chris said.

“It’s not as if I went out and got knocked up on purpose, you know.” Although he was right. She had been uncharacteristically irresponsible.

I’ve got it covered. Brilliant.

“This is going to be a nightmare when it hits the press,” Melissa said. Being an illegitimate princess herself, she would certainly know. Until recently she’d lived in the U.S., unaware that she was heir to the throne of Morgan Isle.

“And what about the Gingerbread Man?” Louisa asked, speaking up for the first time. “I’m sure he’ll use the opportunity to try to scare us.”

The self-proclaimed Gingerbread Man was the extremely disturbed man who had been harassing the royal family for more than a year. He began by hacking their computer system and sending Anne and her siblings twisted and grisly versions of fairy tales, then he breached security on the palace grounds to leave an ominous note. Not long after, posing as housekeeping staff, he’d made it as far as the royal family’s private waiting room at the hospital. Hours after he was gone, security found the chilling calling card he’d left behind. An envelope full of photographs of Anne and her siblings that the Gingerbread Man had taken in various places so they would know that he was there, watching.

He would sometimes be silent for months, yet every time they thought they had heard the last of him, he would reappear out of the blue. He sent a basket of rotten fruit for Christmas and an e-mail congratulating Chris and Melissa about the triplets before her pregnancy had even been formally announced.

His most recent stunt had been breaking into the florist the night before Aaron and Liv’s wedding in March and spraying the flowers with something that had caused them to wilt just in time for the ceremony.

Anne was sure he would pull something when he learned of her pregnancy, but she refused to let him get to her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I don’t care what the Gingerbread Man does,” she said, lifting her chin in defiance. “Personally, I’m all for drawing him out into the open so he makes a mistake and gets caught.”

“Which we have agreed not to do,” Chris said sternly.

Aaron asked the next obvious question. “What about the father of the baby? Is he taking responsibility?”

“Like I said, it was a one-night thing.”

Chris frowned. “He didn’t offer to marry you?”

This was where it was going to get tricky. “No. Besides, he’s not a royal.”

“I don’t give a damn who he is. He needs to take responsibility for his actions.”

“Liv and Garrett aren’t royals. And I’m only half-royal,” Melissa added.

“It doesn’t matter. He’s out of the picture,” Anne insisted.

“And that was his choice?” Aaron asked.

Anne bit her lip.

“Anne?” Chris asked, and when she remained silent he cursed under his breath. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

“Trust me when I say, he’s better off.”

Melissa made a clucking noise, as though she were thoroughly disappointed in Anne.

“That is not your decision to make,” Chris said. “I don’t care who he is, he has a right to know he’s going to have a child. To keep it from him is unconscionable.”

She knew deep down that he was right. But she was feeling hurt and bitter and stubborn. If Sam didn’t want her, why should he be allowed access to their child?

“Sam may be a politician, but he’s a good man,” Chris said.

Once again, mouths fell open in surprise, including her own. She hadn’t told anyone the father’s identity. Not even Louisa. “How did you—”

“Simple math. You don’t honestly think Melissa and I could go through months of infertility treatments and a high-risk pregnancy without learning a thing or two about getting pregnant? Conception would have had to have occurred around the time of the charity ball. And do you really think that Sam’s sneaking out in the middle of the night would go unnoticed? “

No, of course not. They were under a ridiculously tight lockdown these days. “You never said anything.”

“What was I supposed to say? You’re a grown woman. As long as you’re discreet, who you sleep with is your business.” He put both hands on her shoulders. “But now, you need to call him and set up a meeting.”

“Why, so you can have a talk with him?”

“No. So you can. Because it’s not only unfair to Sam, it’s unfair to that baby you’re carrying. He or she deserves the chance to know their father. If that’s what Sam wants.”

“He’s right,” Louisa said. “Put yourself in Sam’s place.”

“You should definitely tell him the truth,” Aaron said.

She fiddled with the hem of her sweater, unable to meet Chris’s eyes, knowing he was right. If not for Sam, then for the baby’s sake. “I’m not sure what to say to him.”

“Well,” Melissa said. “I often find it’s best to start with the truth.”

Sam had just ended a call with the Secretary of State of DFID, or what the Brits called the Department for International Development, when his secretary, Grace, rang him.

“You have a visitor, sir.”

A visitor? He didn’t recall any appointments on the calendar for this afternoon. This was typically his time for any calls that needed to be made. Had Grace scheduled another appointment she’d forgotten to mention? Or maybe she had entered information incorrectly into the computer again.

He was sure at one time she had been an asset to his father’s office, but now she was at least ten years past mandatory retirement.

“Do they have an appointment?” he asked her.

“No, sir, but—”

“Then I don’t have time. I’ll be happy to see them after they schedule an appointment.” He hung up, wishing he could gently persuade his father to let her go, or at the very least assign her to someone else. But she had been with the office since the elder Baldwin was a young politician just starting out and he was as fiercely loyal to her as she was to him. Sam may have suspected some sort of indiscretion had it not been for the fact that she was fifteen years his father’s senior, and they were both very happily married to other people.

There was a knock at his office door and Sam groaned inwardly, gathering every bit of his patience. Did Grace not understand the meaning of the word no? “What is it?” he snapped, probably a bit more harshly than she deserved.

The door opened, but it wasn’t Grace standing there. It was Anne. Princess Anne, he reminded himself. Spending one night in her bed did not give him the privilege of dispensing with formalities.

“Your Highness,” he said, rising from his chair and bowing properly, even though he couldn’t help picturing her naked and poised atop him, her breasts firm and high, her face a mask of pleasure as she rode him until they were both blind with ecstasy. To say they’d slept together, that they’d had sex, was like calling the ocean a puddle. They had transcended every preconceived notion he’d ever had about being with a woman. It was a damned shame that they had no future.

He must have picked up the phone a dozen times to call her in the weeks following their night together, but before he could dial he’d been faced with a grim reality. No matter how he felt about her, how deeply they had connected, if he wanted to be prime minister, he simply could not have her.

He had accepted a long time ago that getting where he wanted would involve sacrifice. Yet never had it hit home so thoroughly as it did now.

“Is this a bad time?” she asked.

“No, of course not. Come in, please.”

She stepped into his office and shut the door behind her. Though she was, on most occasions, coolly composed, today she seemed edgy and nervous, her eyes flitting randomly about his office. Looking everywhere, he noticed, but at him.

“I’m sorry to just barge in on you this way. But I was afraid that if I called you might refuse to see me.”

“You’re welcome anytime, Your Highness.” He came around his desk and gestured to the settee and chair in the sitting area. “Please, have a seat. Can I get you a drink?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.” She sat primly on the edge of the settee, clutching her purse in her lap, and he took a seat in the chair. She looked thinner than when he’d last seen her, and her milky complexion had taken on a gray cast. Was she ill?

“Maybe just a glass of water?” he asked.

She shook her head, her lips folded firmly together, and he watched as her face went from gray to green before his eyes. Then her eyes went wide, and she asked in a panicked voice, “The loo?”

He pointed across the room. “Just through that—”

She was up off the settee, one hand clamped over her mouth, dashing for the door before he could even finish his sentence. It might have been comedic had he not been so alarmed. He followed her and stood outside the door, cringing when he heard the sounds of her being ill. There was obviously something terribly wrong with her. But why come to him? They barely knew one another. On a personal level at any rate.

He heard a flush, then the sound of water running.

“Should I call someone for you?” he asked, then the door opened and Anne emerged looking pale and shaky.

“No, I’m fine. Just dreadfully embarrassed. I should have known better than to eat before I came here.”

“Why don’t you sit down.” He reached out to help her but she waved him away.

“I can do it.” She crossed the room on wobbly legs and re-staked her seat on the settee. Sam sat in the chair.

“Forgive me for being blunt, Your Highness, but are you ill?”

“Sam, we’ve been about as intimate as two people can be, so please call me Anne. And no, I’m not ill. Not in the way you might think.”

“In what way, then?”

She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” he repeated, and she nodded. Well, he hadn’t seen that coming. He’d barely been able to look at another woman without seeing Anne’s face, but it would seem she’d had no trouble moving on. And what reason had he given her not to? Maybe that night hadn’t been as fantastic for her as it was for him. It would explain why she had made no attempt to contact him afterward.

But if she was happy, he would be happy for her. “I hadn’t heard. Congratulations.”

She looked at him funny, then said, “I’m four months.”

Four months? He counted back and realized that their night together had been almost exactly—

Sam’s gut tightened.

“Yes, it’s yours,” she said.

He really hadn’t seen that coming. “You’re sure?”

She nodded. “There hasn’t been anyone else. Not after, and not a long time before.”

“I thought you said you had it covered.”

“I guess nothing is one hundred percent guaranteed.”

Apparently not.

“If you require a DNA test—”

“No,” he said. “I trust your word.” What reason did she have to lie?

They were going to have a baby. He and the princess. He was going to be a father.

He had always planned to have a family someday, but not until he was a bit more established in his career. And not until he met the right woman.

“You’re probably wondering why I waited so long to tell you,” she said.

Among other things. “Why did you?”

“I just … I didn’t want to burden you with this. I didn’t want you to feel … obligated. Which I realize now was totally unfair of me. And I apologize. I just want you to know that I don’t expect anything from you. I’m fully prepared to raise this baby on my own. Whether or not you want to be a part of its life is your choice entirely.”

What kind of man did she take him to be? “Let’s get one thing perfectly clear,” he told her. “This is my child, and I’m going to be a part of it’s life.”

“Of course,” she said softly. “I wasn’t sure. Some men—”

“I am not some men,” he told her firmly. “I hope that won’t be a problem for you or your family.”

She shook her head. “No, of course not. I think it’s wonderful. A child should have both its parents.”

He leaned back in the chair, shaking his head. “I’m. wow. This is quite a surprise.”

“I can relate, believe me. This was not the way I imagined starting a family.”

“I suppose some sort of announcement will have to be made.” He could just imagine what his friends would say. For weeks after the ball they had tried to bully him into explaining his and the princess’s sudden absence from the party, but he’d refused to say a word. Now everyone would know. Not that he was embarrassed or ashamed of what he’d done. “You know that the press will be brutal.”

“I know. When they learn you’re the father and that we’re not … together, they won’t leave us alone.”

If that was some sort of hint as to the future direction of their relationship, he hated to disappoint her, but he was not about to give up everything he had worked so hard for, his lifelong dream, for a one-night stand.

He cared for Anne, lusted after her even, but a marriage was absolutely out of the question.

Three

“The press will just have to get used to the idea of us being friends,” Sam told her.

“I hope we can be, for the baby’s sake.”

“And your family? How do they feel about this?”

“So far only my siblings know. They were surprised, but very supportive. My father’s health is particularly fragile right now, so we’ve decided to wait to tell him and my mother. I have to admit that you’re taking this much better than I expected. I thought you would be angry.”

“It was an accident. What right would I have to be angry? You didn’t force me.”

“Didn’t I?”

He wouldn’t deny that she had started it, and she had been quite … aggressive. But he had been a willing participant. “Anne, we share equal responsibility.”

“Not all men would feel that way.”

“Yes, well, I’m not all men.”

There was a short period of awkward silence, so he asked, “Everything is okay? With the pregnancy, I mean. You and the baby are healthy? “

“Oh yes,” she said, instinctively touching a hand to her belly. “Everything’s fine. I’m right on schedule.”

“Do you know the sex of the baby?”

“Not for another month, at my next ultrasound.” She paused, then said, “You could go, too. If you’d like.”

“I would. Are you showing yet?”

“I have a little bump. Want to see?” She surprised him by lifting up the hem of her top and showing him her bare tummy. But why would she be shy when he had seen a lot more than just her stomach?

Her tummy had indeed swelled and was quite prominent considering how thin she was. He wasn’t sure what possessed him, but he asked, “Can I touch it?”

“Of course,” she said, gesturing him over.

He moved to the settee beside her and she took his hand, laying it on her belly. She was warm and soft there, and the familiar scent of her skin seemed to eat up all of the breathable air. His hand was so large that his fingers spanned the top of her bump all the way down to the top edge of her panties.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Knowing they couldn’t be together didn’t make him want her any less. And knowing that it was his baby growing inside her gave him an almost irrational desire to protect her, to claim her as his own.

And hadn’t he felt the same way the night they had made love?

“Have you felt it move?”

“Flutters mostly. No actual kicks yet. But press right here,” she said, pushing his fingers more firmly against her belly, until he hit something firm and unyielding. She looked up at him and smiled, her mouth inches from his own. “You feel it?”

Did he ever, and it took all of his restraint not to lean in and capture her lips. He breathed in the scent of her hair, her skin, longing to taste her again, to … take her. But a sexual relationship at this stage, with her all hormones and emotions, could spell disaster.

She seemed to sense what he was thinking, because color suddenly flooded her cheeks and he could see the flutter of her pulse at the base of her neck. Without realizing it, he had started to lean in, and her chin had begun to lift, like the pull of a magnet drawing them together. But thank goodness he came to his senses at the last second and turned away. He pulled his hand from her belly and rose to his feet. His heart was hammering and she’d gone from looking pale and shaky to flushed and feverish.

“This is not a good idea,” he said.

“You’re right,” she agreed, nodding vigorously. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“It would be in our best interest to keep this relationship platonic. Otherwise things could get confusing.”

“Very confusing.”

“Which could be a challenge,” he admitted. Total honesty at this point only seemed fair, as she had been forthcoming with him. “It’s obvious that I’m quite attracted to you.”

“There does seem to be some sort of … connection.”

That was putting it mildly. It was taking every bit of restraint he could gather to stop himself from taking her, right there in his office. Pregnant or not, he wanted to strip her naked and ravish her, drive into her until she screamed with release. The way she had that night in her bedroom. He’d never been with a woman so responsive to his touch, so easy to please. He couldn’t help wondering if her pregnancy had changed that. He’d often heard that it made women even more receptive to physical stimulation. And maybe it was true, because he could clearly see the firm peaks of her nipples through her clothes. Her breasts looked larger than they had been before, too. Rounder and fuller. What would she do if he took one in his mouth …?

He swallowed hard and looked away, turning toward his desk, so she might not notice how aroused he was becoming. “You mentioned an ultrasound. Do you know the time and date, so I can mark it on my calendar?”

She rattled off the information and he slid into his chair behind the safety of his desk and made himself a note.

“Maybe we could have dinner this Friday,” she said, then added quickly, “A platonic dinner, of course. So we can discuss how we plan to handle things. Like the press and custody.”

That would give him three days to think this through and process it all. He always preferred to have a solid and well-considered plan of action before he entered into negotiations of any kind.

However, he wasn’t sure he was ready to be thrown in the mix with her family just yet. Not that he didn’t feel as though he could hold his own. He just felt these matters were private, between himself and Anne, and in no way concerned her family.

“How about we eat at my place,” he said. “Seven o’clock?”

“If you don’t mind your residence being swarmed with security. We’re still on high alert.”

He frowned. “Is the royal family still being harassed?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

All he knew of the situation was what he’d read in the papers. “So it’s serious,” he said.

“More than anyone realizes, I’m afraid. There have been threats of violence against the family. I should probably warn you that once we’re linked together, you could become a target, as well.”

He shrugged. “I’m not worried. As far as the baby goes, I’m assuming that until you’ve told your father, there will be no announcement to the press.”

“Of course not.”

“I do intend to tell my family, but they can be trusted to keep it quiet.”

“Of course you should tell them. Do you think they’ll be upset?”

Her look of vulnerability surprised him. He didn’t think she was afraid of anything. Or cared what anyone thought of her. But hadn’t he learned that night at the ball that she wasn’t nearly as tough as she liked people to believe? “I think they’ll be surprised, but happy,” he told her.

He just hoped it was true.

Sam stopped in to see his parents that evening to break the news. When he arrived they had just finished supper and were relaxing out on the veranda with snifters of brandy, watching the sun set. Despite his father’s career in politics, and his mother’s touring as an operatic vocalist, they always made time for each other. After forty years they were still happily married and going strong.

That was the sort of marriage Sam had always imagined for himself. He had just never met a woman he could see himself spending the rest of his life with. Until Anne, he admitted grudgingly. How ironic that when he finally found her, he couldn’t have her.