Pregnant with a Royal Baby! (11 page)

Ginny’s gaze snapped around to meet Dom’s. From the surprised expression that came to his face, she could tell he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

“It’s okay. You can talk to me. We’re a team, remember?” She motioned from herself to Dom. “In this together.”

“Yes. But we don’t want to go too far.”

She turned on her seat, her taffeta gown ruffling and rustling, suddenly wondering if this was her moment. Everybody at the table was deep in conversation. Her bridesmaids chatted up Dom’s brother. The king and her mother were so engrossed, there might as well not have been anybody else at the table.

The best place for her most private conversation with him might just be in this crowded dining room.

She took a breath, caught his gaze. “Why not? We’re in a mighty big charade. I think it’s going to be impossible for us to set limits on how close it makes us.”

“I told you that we don’t want to get close because I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You think you’re going to hurt me over a few shared comments? I’m not asking you to divulge state secrets. I’m just saying the charade works better when we’re talking.” She smiled slightly. “We haven’t talked in weeks.”

“And it’s my fault?”

She shook her head. “Dom. Dom. Dom. You’re so uptight. I’m not placing blame. That’s the beauty of forming a team and maybe even the beauty of knowing this team doesn’t have to last. We’re only going to be together for two years or so. After that, we are the parents of your country’s next heir who must get along.”

Totally against the rules of etiquette, Dom picked up a fork and tapped it lightly against his plate. “So?”

She could think she made him nervous enough to do something out of line. Or she could see she made him comfortable enough to do something totally out of line.

She liked the second. She
believed
the second.

“So, I honestly, genuinely believe that if we would simply allow ourselves to be friendly—maybe even to get close—in these next few years, the rest of our lives would go a lot smoother.”

He peeked over at her. “Really?
That’s
what you think?”

“Look at it logically. How does it benefit us to never speak? It doesn’t. It makes the charade more difficult and opens the doors for us to make mistakes.”

“True.”

“But if we talk at dinner and lunch, debrief about our days—”

This time when he peeked at her, he sort of smiled. “Debrief?”

“Sally and Joshua are rubbing off on me. I just mean we should talk about our days with each other.”

“Ah.”

“Then we won’t make as many mistakes.”

“It seems to me that just a few weeks ago,
you
were ignoring
me
.”

“I was figuring everything out.”

“And now you think you understand the whole situation?”

“I really do.”

“And your answer is for us to debrief.”

She met his gaze. “It’s more than that.”

His eyes darkened. “How much more?”

“I think we need to tell each other our reading interests, where we’ve been on vacation, a bit or two about our jobs. I think I need to fix your cuff links. You need to let me straighten your tie. I think we should be talking baby names and colors for the nursery.”

He held her gaze. “That’s going to take us into some dangerous territory.”

She took a long breath and with all her strength, all her courage, she kept eye contact. “I’m a big girl. I’m also a smart girl. I sort of like knowing that this relationship will end.”

His eyes searched hers. “So you’ve said.”

“My dad was an alcoholic who made promises he never kept. He was his most charming when he wanted to manipulate me. If there’s one thing I can’t trust, it’s people being nice to me. How am I ever going to create a relationship that leads to marriage if niceness scares me?”

He laughed unexpectedly. “You’re saying you think a relationship with me will work because I’m not nice?”

“I’m saying this is my shot. Do you know I’ve never fantasized about getting married and having kids? I was always so afraid I’d end up like my mother that I wouldn’t even let myself pretend I’d get married. So I’ve never had anything but surface relationships.” She sucked in a breath. Held his gaze. “This baby we’re having will probably be my only child. This marriage? It might be fake to you, but it’s the only marriage I’ll ever have. I’d love to have two years of happiness, knowing that I don’t have to trust you completely, that you can’t hurt me because we have a deadline.”

“You really don’t trust me?”

“I’ll never trust anyone.”

He glanced around the table at her bridesmaids, who were chatting up his brother, his dad and her mom, who clearly weren’t paying any attention to them, and suddenly faced her again.

“No.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HE
CATHEDRAL
IN
which Dom would marry Ginny was at least a thousand years old. It had been renovated six times and almost totally rebuilt once after a fire. The pews were cedar from Israel. The stained glass from a famous Italian artist. Two of the statues were said to have been created by Michelangelo, though no one could confirm it. And the art that hung in the vestibule? All of it was priceless.

But when Ginny stepped inside, her hand wrapped in her mom’s, every piece of art, every piece of wood, every famous, distinguished and renowned person seated in the sea of guests, disappeared from Dom’s vision.

She looked amazing.

She’d let her hair down. The yellow strands billowed around her beneath a puffy tulle veil. The top of her dress was a dignified lace with a high collar and snug lace sleeves that ran the whole way from her shoulders, down her arms, across the back of her hand to her knuckles. The skirt started at her waist, then flowed to the floor. Made of a soft, airy-looking material, it was scattered with the same shimmering flowers that were embroidered into the lace top, but these flowers stood alone, peeking out of the folds of the fabric and then hiding again as the skirt moved with every step Ginny took.

She’d managed to look both young and beautiful, while pleasing his father with a very dignified gown that took Dom’s breath away.

His brother leaned forward and whispered, “I know you weren’t happy about this marriage, so if you’d like to trade, you can have your princess back and I’ll raise your love child.”

Any other time, Dom would have said, “Shut up, you twit.” Today, mesmerized by the woman who had already seduced him once, and if he’d read her correctly the night of the formal dinner with her bridesmaids, wanted to seduce him again, he very quietly said, “Not on your life.”

Ginny and her mom reached the altar. Rose kissed his bride’s cheek and then walked to her seat. Ginny held out her hand to Dom and he took it, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. Because in a way he hadn’t. He’d seen her silly and happy and playful the night of their date. He’d seen her dressed in jeans and T-shirts and even beautifully, ornately, for the night with the ambassador. But today, in this dress that was as beautiful as it was bridal, she was a woman offering herself to a man, as a bride.

Caught in the gaze of her pretty blue eyes, he was floored by the significance of it. Especially after their conversation about making their marriage real for their time together.

The minister cleared his throat. Their hands joined, Dom and Ginny turned to the altar and the service began. As the solemn words and decrees were spoken by his country’s highest-ranking religious official, Dominic reminded himself that this wedding wasn’t real. Even when they said their vows and exchanged jewel-encrusted rings, he told himself they were words he meant, truly meant, for a limited time.

But when the minister said, “You may kiss the bride,” and she turned those big blue eyes up at him, his heart stuttered. She wasn’t just a woman in a white dress, helping him to perpetuate a charade that would give legitimacy to Xaviera’s next heir. She was an innocent woman, a bride...

She was his now.

She whispered, “You don’t want to kiss me?”

His heart thundered in his chest and he realized he’d been standing there staring at her. In awe. In confusion. She wasn’t just an innocent. She was someone who’d been hurt. Someone who couldn’t trust. If he agreed to make this marriage real, no matter how much she protested that it wasn’t true, he would hurt her. He
knew
he would hurt her. Because as much as he hated the comparison, it seemed being royal had made him very much like her dad. He was his most charming when he needed to get his own way, and selfish, self-centered, the rest of the time.

Still, he held her gaze as his head lowered and his lips met hers. He watched her lids flutter shut in complete surrender. Total honesty. His heart of stone chipped a bit. The soft part of his soul, the place he rarely let himself acknowledge, shamed him for being so strict with her.

They broke apart slowly. She smiled up at him.

He told himself she was playing a part. The smile, the expression meant nothing. If she was smart enough to realize she didn’t trust anyone, she was also smart enough to play her role well. Smart enough to see he was doing what needed to be done not just for the next heir to the throne, but for
his child
.

The child in her stomach.

They turned to the congregation and began their recessional down the aisle to the vestibule, where they were spirited away to a private room while their guests left the church. They endured an hour of pictures before they walked out of the church, beneath the canopy of swords of his military’s honor guard.

Dressed in black suits and white silk shirts and ties, his bodyguards whisked them into the back of his limo, to a professional photo studio for more pictures.

And the whole time Ginny smiled at him radiantly. Anyone who looked at her would assume—
believe—
this wedding was real. Because he was beginning to get the feeling himself. She wasn’t such a good actress that she was fooling him. What she’d said haunted him. She wanted this to be real. At least for a little while. Because this, this sham, was as close as she’d ever get to a real marriage.

Her mother rode in the limo with his dad. Her bridesmaids rode with his brother and a distant cousin who served as his best man and groomsman.

Alone in their limo, he turned to her. Struggling to forget the bargain she’d tried to strike and come up with normal conversation, he said, “You look amazing.”

She smiled, reached over and straightened his tie. “You do, too.”

He shifted away, afraid of her. Not because he worried she was going to hurt him or cheat him. But because he knew she wasn’t.

“Dominic, the straightening-the-tie thing is important. A piece of intimacy everyone expects to see. You need to be still and let me do it.”

Because of her suggestion that they make this marriage real, and his desperate need not to hurt her, he was now the one who might ruin their ruse. “I suppose.”

She shrugged, her pretty yellow hair shifted and swayed around her. “No matter what you decide, I intend to be a good wife for these two years.”

His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. What did that mean? That he’d find her in his bed that night?

He remembered that yellow hair floating around them their one and only night together, remembered the softness of her skin, and wondered just how a man was supposed to resist that honesty or the sexual tug that lured him into a spell so sweet, another man would have happily allowed himself to be drawn in.

But he wasn’t just any man. He was a prince, someday a king. Someone held to a higher standard. He did not deliberately hurt people.

They arrived at the palace. Bodyguards ushered them into the main foyer. They stopped in his father’s quarters to have a toast with her mother and his dad and their wedding party. Then they took an elevator to the third floor of his dad’s wing of the palace and stood on the balcony, waving to well-wishers.

A young woman edged her way through the crowd to the space just in front of security. She waved and called, “Toss your bouquet!”

Dom said, “That’s odd.”

Ginny laughed. “She’s American. We have a tradition that whoever catches the bride’s bouquet will be the next person to be married.” She gave him a smile, then winked, before she turned and tossed the spray of fifty roses with strength that would have done any weight lifter proud.

The flowers bowed into a graceful arc before beginning their descent. The crowd gasped at Ginny’s whimsy. The people closest to the woman who’d called realized they could intercept the bouquet and they scrambled forward, but it landed in the young girl’s arms. As the crowd pressed forward to grab flowers from the bouquet, security surrounded her.

Ginny faced him. “Have her brought up for an audience.”

He laughed. “Seriously?”

“Yes.” She bowed slightly. “My lord,” she said, her eyes downcast, her tone serious.

Those crazy feelings of wanting her rippled through him again. He raised her chin. “You don’t have to bow to me.”

“The etiquette books say I do.” She smiled. “And I’m asking for the wedding favor the book also says I get. I’d like to meet the woman who wants so desperately to be married that she’d risk arrest.”

Dom faced his bodyguard. He made a few hand gestures. The crowd called, “Kiss the bride,” and he did. But he did so now with curiosity that nudged his fear of hurting her aside. He liked being able to do something for her.

When they returned to the king’s receiving room, the young woman awaited them.

Ginny walked over and hugged her. “I hope the whole bouquet thing works out for you.”

Their guest laughed nervously. Her big brown eyes stayed on Ginny’s face. “I never thought you’d do it.”

“I waited years for my prince. I know what you’re feeling.” She squeezed her hand and said, “Good luck.”

Dominic nodded, the security detail motioned her to the door and she left with a quick wave. But the way Ginny had said, “I know what you’re feeling,” struck him oddly. She didn’t say, “I’ve known what you feel.” She said, “I know what you’re feeling.” He heard the sorrow there, maybe even a loneliness that almost opened that soft place in his soul again. But he hung on. He could not let sentiment destroy his plan. He could not become his dad.