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“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.
