“And I appreciate that. I do. But it’s not just the baby I want.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do mean it.”
“You can’t.” She struggled against his hold, climbing off his lap the second he let her go.
He was up in a second, following her across the apartment—at least until she held up a hand and said, “Stop. Just…stop for a second, please.”
“Yeah, okay.” He froze in place. “Sure.”
She laughed then, and somehow it was the saddest sound he’d ever heard. “Why do you have to be so perfect?” she asked.
“I’m not—”
“You are. I knew it that first night. Everything about you was so, so right for me, and it scared the hell out of me. It sent me running away from you as far and as fast as I could go. And it would have been okay. If you had just stayed gone, everything would have been all right. Instead you’re here and you’re breaking my heart—”
“I don’t want to break your heart,” he told her, crossing to her because he couldn’t not touch her when he told her this. “And I don’t want you to break mine. I love you. I’m in love with you, Desi, and I want to be with you. I want to marry you. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”
“Because no one ever has.”
“Wanted to marry you?” He hoped not. He hated the very idea of her being close enough to another man to even entertain the idea.
“Loved me.”
“That can’t be true.”
She bowed her head, wrapped her arms around her stomach in a move that was so obviously self-protective that it broke his heart. “It is true. No one has ever loved me. I mean, except my mother and she died when I was nine, so…it’s been a while.
“My dad freaked out when she died. He couldn’t handle it and he certainly couldn’t handle me. He was a reporter, too. One of the best investigative journalists in the world. And the day after my mother’s funeral, he parked me with my grieving grandparents and took off to find a war to cover.
“He came back a few months later, just in time to have a fight with my grandmother and take me off her hands. Not because he wanted anything to do with me, mind you, but to punish her for saying he was being a terrible dad. Two weeks later, he dumped me on his college roommate and his wife, and took off again. Six months later he showed back up because they were having their own kid and didn’t want me around anymore. So he brought me to visit his sister and snuck out on her in the middle of the night.
“The night he left, I knew he was going to go. He called me sweetheart when I went up to bed. And I knew. He only ever called me sweetheart right before he left me. My aunt kept me for three months before she shipped me off to my mother’s brother. And that’s pretty much how it went until I graduated high school and left for college.
“And you know the worst part? At the gala last night, I realized I’ve done all this for him. I worked like a dog to get a degree in journalism from Columbia. I’ve spent two years writing ridiculous articles that I don’t care about for the Los Angeles Times. I took the assignment on Bijoux, even knowing that I shouldn’t have, and we all know how that turned out. I did it all, hoping that one day he’d be proud of me. That one day he would come back and see what I’d done and he’d tell me I’d done a good job.” Her voice broke. “How pathetic is that? How ridiculous and pathetic am I?”
“You’re not pathetic at all.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right.”
She wouldn’t look at him. He wanted, so badly, to see her face, but she wouldn’t lift her head. Wouldn’t let him see.
Jesus. He didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to say, how he could talk about this without sounding like a total douche. Sure, he’d had absentee parents—a father who cared more about screwing around with women half his age than he ever did about his family and a mother who cared more about status than she did about her husband screwing around on her—but through it all, Nic had always had a home. He always knew where he was going to be sleeping and what his routine would be like and whom he would see at school. And he’d always, always, had Marc. His brother might be a busybody with trust issues a mile wide, but he was a great big brother. He’d never once been anywhere but in Nic’s corner.
Who had been in Desi’s corner? he wondered as she put on the kettle for tea. Who’d had her back when she’d needed it most? The idea that there had been no one, that the woman he loved had essentially been on her own at the age of nine, wounded him on a visceral level.
“That’s why you kept the baby. So you’d have someone to love you.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged as she put a tea bag in a cup. “I thought about having an abortion but I just…couldn’t. And I could never give him up for adoption. I’d go crazy wondering if he was okay, if he was with someone who loved him or if he was just—” Her voice broke, but she swallowed. Tried again. “Or if he was just being tolerated. I can’t stand the idea of him being anywhere he isn’t loved.”
Nic did cross to her then, did pull her into his arms and let his hands rest on her tummy. On their baby.
“That will never happen to him,” he assured her. “We’ll never let that happen to him. He will know every day of his life that he is loved. And so will you, if you’ll trust me. If you’ll let me love you. I’m not saying I won’t make mistakes, as I’m pretty new to this serious-relationship thing, too. But I promise you, Desi, that if you let me, I will love you forever. I will be there when you wake up and I will be there when you fall asleep and I will be there all the times you need me in between.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know it, Desi.”
Another sob racked her body and she covered her mouth to silence the sound. “Don’t say that,” she said when she could speak again. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
“I never say things I don’t mean.” He got in her face then, circled her upper arms with his hands and waited until she looked up at him. Until she looked him in the eye. “I love you,” he told her. “I will love you tomorrow. I will love you next year. I will love you in twenty years if you’ll let me. I will—”
She stopped him with a kiss, one that stole his breath and most of the brain cells in his head. Which was why, when she finally pulled back, all he could do was stare at her dumbly.
“You should be careful what you promise,” she told him when they both finally caught their breath.
“I’m always careful with my promises,” he answered. “Because I never break them.”
“I know.” She pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “I almost never make promises, either, because I don’t believe in breaking them. But I’ll make a promise to you, if you’ll let me.”
Let her? He nodded eagerly. Too eagerly if her muffled laugh was anything to go by. But he couldn’t help it. He’d die to hear her tell him that she loved him. That she wanted him to be a part of her and the baby’s lives.
“Then it’s my turn to make a promise. And I promise you, Nic Durand, that I will love you for as long as I live. I will live with you in that great big house of yours by the ocean. I will laugh with you. I will raise children with you. And I will love you until I die.”
Tears bloomed in his eyes, too, but when he reached for her, she held up a hand to stop him. “I’m not done yet.”
She’d already told him everything he wanted to hear, so much more than he had imagined her conceding when he’d climbed in that helicopter to chase after her. But he just nodded, and waited for whatever else she had to say.
“Not only all of that, but I also promise to never, ever, ever write another article about you or your brother or your company as long as we both shall live.”
He laughed then, because how could he not? He was getting everything he’d ever wanted, and all he had to do was fall in love with the most wond
erful woman in the world. He kind of felt as if he’d cheated the system, and won. It was a beautiful feeling, one he would cherish for the rest of his life.
And as he swept her into his arms and carried her the twenty-two steps necessary to take her through the living room and into the bedroom, he did ask her for one more thing. A new couch.
He counted it as a sign that she loved him that she laughed only a little…and gave in with only a very little struggle.
* * * * *
If you loved Nic’s story, pick up his brother Marc’s tale:
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HAVING HER BOSS’S BABY
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THIRTY DAYS TO WIN HIS WIFE
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SECOND CHANCE WITH THE BILLIONAIRE
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A Royal Temptation
by Charlene Sands
One
Juan Carlos Salazar II stood at the altar in Saint Lucia’s Cathedral, holding his head high as he accepted the responsibility and honor of being crowned King Montoro of Alma. In a dreamlike state he went through the motions that would bring the monarchy back to what it had once been decades ago. He’d been orphaned at a young age and taken in by his uncle. Since then, he’d lived a life filled with determination and dignity. He’d always known great things would come to him if he worked hard and kept his focus. But king? Never in his life would he have guessed his own true destiny.
With the golden orb and blessed scepter in his hands, he saw the austere ceremony in the cathedral was coming to a close. Prime Minister Rivera had given a speech full of renewed hope for the country, the small set of islands off the coast of Spain that had been ravaged by the now overthrown dictatorship of the Tantaberras. Seventy years of oppression overturned by loyal citizens, who looked to Juan Carlos for the reinstatement of a monarchy that would capture their hearts and minds.
Archbishop Santiago placed the royal robe over Juan Carlos’s shoulders. As he took his seat on the throne, the archbishop set the jeweled crown of Alma upon his head. All of the tradition, ritual and protocol of the coronation had been observed, and he was now King Montoro of Alma, the true heir to the throne. He spoke an oath and vowed to be much more than a figurehead as he promised to restore order and hope to the country.
It was a monumental time in Alma’s history and he was happy to have the support of his cousins, Gabriel, Rafe and Bella. They were smiling and nodding their approval from their seats, Bella with tears in her eyes. They’d all lived and thrived in the United States before this, and forgive him, but heaven knew Rafe and Gabriel, who were once thought to be first in line to the throne but had been disqualified for separate and unique reasons, were not cut out for the rigors and sacrifice of royal life. They were only too glad to see Juan Carlos accept the position of sovereign.
A woman seated several rows behind his cousins caught his attention. Deep cerulean-blue eyes, clear and large, stood out against her porcelain face and white-blond hair. She reminded him of a snow queen from a fairy tale in his youth. And as he was ushered down the aisle after the coronation their gazes locked for an instant and her one eyelid closed in a wink. Was it for him? His lips immediately quirked up at the notion and he forced the smile from his expression. Still, his heart did a little tumble as it had been doing all day, but this time it was the woman, and not the ceremony, that had caused the commotion.
The next hour passed, again in dreamlike wonder, as he was escorted out of the cathedral by Alma’s finest royal guards, to be met with unrestrained jubilation all along the parade route. He sat atop a convertible car and waved with gloved hands, as they made their way toward the palace. And there, on the top steps of Alma’s regal old-world palace, Juan Carlos began his first speech as king.
“Citizens of Alma, as your new king, I promise to honor the sovereignty of our nation, to always put the country first and to work alongside our parliament to restore our democracy. It is a vow I take with an open but steady heart and a determination to see that our freedoms are never threatened again.”
Cheers went up. “Viva Juan Carlos!”
Juan Carlos waited until the crowd calmed to finish a speech that was interrupted three more times by applause.
He left the palace steps energized, instilled with the very same hope he saw in the eyes of his fellow countrymen. He was a foreigner, by all rights, an American, and yet, they’d accepted him and looked to him to help establish a newer, brighter Alma.
He would not let them down.
As austere as his day was, he took a moment to reflect on the coronation and picture the beautiful woman in the light blue chiffon gown, her eyes as vibrant as deep ocean waters. He’d searched for her during the procession, the parade and the speech that followed, only to be disappointed.
She’d been a diversion from the gravity of the day.
Winking at him had brought a smile to his lips.
Who was she?
And would she have his children?
* * *
“Do I need to call you Your Highness?” his cousin Rafe asked as he pumped Juan Carlos’s hand. They stood off to the side in the palace’s grand ballroom. The coronation gala was well underway and the orchestra played lively tunes. An array of fresh flowers decorated the arched entryways, aisles and tables.
“You mean, as opposed to Squirt, Idiot and Bonehead like when we were kids?”
“Hey, I wasn’t that bad.”
“You were a year older and that gave you bullying rights.”
“Okay, guilty as charged. But now you can have me hung by the neck until dead.”
“I could’ve done that to you back then, too.”
“Ha, funny.”
“Call me Juan Carlos or cuz, just like you do now. Your Highness comes into play only on formal occasions or royal business.”
All amusement on his cousin’s face disappeared. “Seriously, Juan Carlos, congratulations. The family is proud of you. You’re the only one of the lot who was cut out for this. You are honoring our aunt Isabella’s final wishes by restoring the monarchy.”
Juan Carlos came to the throne quite by accident, after Bella discovered a secret cache of letters that revealed Rafe, Gabriel and Bella’s late grandfather, Raphael Montoro II, was illegitimate and not the true heir to the throne. As such, neither of Juan Carlos’s cousins would have been the rightfu
l king. The former queen’s indiscretion had been kept hidden all these years until her great-grandchildren had uncovered it.
“Thank you, cousin. I’ve thought about my grandmother these past few weeks and I think she would approve. It means a great deal to me.” He sighed. “I hope to make a diff—” He caught a glimpse of a woman in blue and craned his neck to get a better look.
It was her. She was attending the gala. Only dignitaries, friends and family members along with the royal photographers and journalists had been invited to the party, two hundred strong.
“Hey,” Rafe asked. “What are you stretching your neck to see?”
“She’s here,” he muttered, without shifting his gaze. She was standing near an archway leading to the foyer, looking to make an escape.
“Juan Carlos?”
“Oh, uh, I saw a woman at the coronation and I haven’t stopped thinking about her.”
“This I’ve got to see. Any woman who can take your mind off a day as big as this has got to be something special. Where is she?”
“I’m not going to point. Just look for the most beautiful woman in the room and you’ll find her.”
“Emily is right there, talking to Bella.”
“Spoken like a besotted newlywed. Okay, yes, Emily is gorgeous, now find a woman in blue who is not your wife.”
“If you’d agreed to a formal receiving line, you’d have met her already.”
He hadn’t wanted a stiff, awkward line of people congratulating him. He’d make his way over to his guests and speak with them during the course of the evening. He’d vowed to be a king of the people and for the people and that started right now. “Do you see her?”
“Ah, I do see her now. Very blonde, nice body, great eyes.”
“That’s her. Do you know who she is?”
“No, but apparently she knows Alex and Maria Ramon. They just walked up to her and they appear friendly.”