Pregnant with a Royal Baby! (18 page)

His father walked over to where Dom sat in front of a computer, staring at the feed of the port, feed that hadn’t changed in twenty-four hours.

His father sat. “What do you think they’re doing?”

“Undoubtedly, trying to figure out how to distance themselves from the sheikh since he seems to have deserted them.”

“Should we give them a chance to surrender?”

He caught his father’s gaze. There was a look in his eye that told Dom this was a test. A real-life hostage crisis for sure, but a chance for his father to test him.

“I’d say we offer them generously reduced prison terms for surrender and testimony against the sheikh, and go after the sheikh with both barrels.”

“You want to kill him?”

“I’d rather arrest him and try him for this. I think making him look like a common criminal rather than a leader who’d started a war he couldn’t finish sends a stronger message to the world.”

His dad laughed unexpectedly. “I agree.” He bowed, shocking Dominic. “Now what are you going to use to negotiate terms?”

He pointed at his father’s cell phone. “This might be appropriate. Except I think we should get hostage negotiators from our police to do that. Once again making it look more like a criminal act that a military one.”

“Agree again.”

Dom called Xaviera’s police commissioner and within the hour the rebels had surrendered, all hostages safe. The sheikh was in hiding, but he was too accustomed to luxury to stay underground for long. Dominic had every confidence they would find him, and when they did, he would stand trial.

The fifty military and security personnel in the war room cheered for joy when they received the call that all rebels were safely in jail.

But Dominic didn’t want to stay around for the party. He might not be able to love Ginny, but she was pregnant with his child and not feeling well. He needed to get back to her.

He tapped his dad’s shoulder. “I’m going to get going.”

“Tired?”

“And I need a shower but I need to see Ginny.”

As Dom turned to walk away, his dad stopped him. “Dom, there are a few things you need to know.”

Expecting more details or facts about their problem, he faced his dad again.

“Ginny has gone home.”

“What? Of course, she’s home. She’s in the apartment.”

“No. She’s gone back to Texas.” He shrugged. “Some women can’t handle war. She got a helicopter to take her to a safe airport this morning and took a jet back to her old hometown.”

He gaped at his dad. “She’s never mentioned wanting to leave before. She was committed—”

“Like I said, some women can’t handle war. We’ve never been at war when she was with us.”

“This is absurd. This was hardly a war. It was an ill-conceived attempt to take over our country by a guy who we clearly gave too much credit to.”

“She didn’t know that.”

“How could she not know that! It’s been all over the papers!”

“We weren’t letting her see the papers.”

“What! Why?”

“Because she had the baby the first day we were in here.”

This time, Dom fell to a chair in disbelief. Absolutely positive he had not heard right, he looked up at his dad.
“She had the baby?”

“Yes.”

His kept his voice deceptively calm as he said, “And you didn’t think to tell me.”

“Duty comes before family.”

Anger coursed through him. “But I notice you had your phone.”

“I did.”

“You talked to staff.”

“Quite often. I had to keep track of the baby. Because he was born too soon, he was small. They monitored him. I made decisions.”

The anger in Dom’s blood went from blue to white hot.
“You made decisions.”

“You were at war. And duty comes before family.”

Dominic bounced from his chair and punched his father in the mouth so hard the king flew into the wall behind him.

Fifty military men and ten bodyguards drew their weapons.

His dad burst out laughing. He waved his hands at the military and bodyguards. “Stand down.”

But nobody dropped his weapon.

Not giving a damn about the sixty-plus guns trained on him Domini roared, “You think this is funny!”

“No. I think it’s about time.”

He grabbed his father’s collar and yanked him off the floor.

“Dominic, you’re the one who’s always said duty comes before family.”

“So you kept my baby from me!”

“I was showing you that what you were doing with your life was wrong. What you thought you wanted didn’t work.” He calmly held Dom’s gaze even as Dom tightened his hold on his collar. “I’d tried hundreds of things over the years to get you to see that you couldn’t live the life you had all planned out. I thought Ginny would break you. When she couldn’t and the sheikh took our port and then Ginny went into labor, I saw a golden opportunity.”

Dominic cursed and squeezed his eyes shut.

“I loved my wife, your mother. And I was neglectful of my duties but I never dropped them the way you were so sure I had. All those months, we were in private negotiations, trying to avoid a confrontation with the pirates, trying to keep from going to war. Because of your mother’s death, they did get a few extra weeks. But in the end, I didn’t attack until I knew it was the right thing to do. Loving somebody didn’t make me weak. Your mother’s love made me strong. And you’re a fool if you think you can do this alone.”

“So you took my baby from me, made Ginny go through labor and childbirth alone.”

“For years I’d been talking to you and for years you’ve ignored me, treating me like somebody who only deserved respect because I had a title. I had to do something drastic or know you would ruin your life.”

He released his dad as if he were poison he didn’t want to touch.

“Maybe the lesson I learned, Father—
Your Majesty
—is that I no longer want to be connected to you.”

His dad very calmly said, “Go after, Ginny. Bring the baby home.”

“And then what? Let you torture him the way you tortured me and Alex?”

“When you see the lesson in this, you’re going to apologize. Not just for hitting me but for not trusting me.”

Dom sincerely doubted it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

G
INNY
’
S
CONDO
HAD
long ago been sold. And because her mom had decided to move to Xaviera for the two years Ginny would live there, her mom’s house had also been sold. But the new owners hadn’t taken possession yet, so that was the sanctuary Ginny targeted. Unfortunately, when her bodyguard unlocked the front door, they found two women and a man, packing her living room lamps.

“Excuse me, this house has sold.”

Ginny patted her baby’s back. “I know. It was my mom’s. It doesn’t close for a few weeks. Until then I can use it.”

“Your mom hired us to sell the furniture.”

“Well, I’m sure by next week I’ll have my own house and you can do that. Until then, the house is mine.”

The tall woman looked ready to argue, but when she looked at Ginny with her twelve bodyguards and very tiny baby, she sighed.

“Fine.” Disgruntled, the two women and one angry man headed for the back door, clipboards in hand.

Ginny turned to Artemus, the leader of her detail. “I don’t even know if there’s food in the house.”

“I have credit cards. I’m authorized to get you anything you want.”

“Really? I ran away with the next heir to the throne and they’re feeding me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She glanced around at the small house that wouldn’t sleep herself and twelve bodyguards. Plus, she didn’t have a crib. And she was beginning to feel bad about taking the baby from Xaviera before Dom even saw him.

Worse, she missed Dom.

She wondered if her rash decision hadn’t been caused by postpartum depression, but reminded herself that her husband hadn’t wanted to see his child. He’d never loved her, didn’t want to. And he planned on bringing their child up to be just like him. She couldn’t let that happen.

Still, that didn’t mean this was going to be easy.

“This is a mess.”

Artemus agreed. “Yes, ma’am.”

Just as her mother said, she hadn’t really thought this through. But she had to forget about everything except setting up a household. She’d worry about Dom, what she would say to him, how she’d keep her baby safe from his ridiculous rule, when she had the house set up with beds and food.

“I guess I should feed the baby and get on the phone to find a crib.”

Artemus nodded. “And I’ll send two guys out for groceries.”

She took the baby into her mother’s small bedroom, breast-fed him and then made a bed for him out of a drawer from her mother’s dresser. With the baby secure, she went online and ordered a crib to be express delivered the next day, along with linens, baby clothes, diapers and some sweatpants and T-shirts for herself. Then she started exploring the real estate sites, looking for a house. The baby woke up twice and she fed him once, changed him the other time. Artemus came in and offered her food, but she refused it. She couldn’t eat until she got at least something in her life settled.

* * *

Dom showered on his father’s private jet. Taking the plane had been another way he’d vented his anger, but though he was bone tired he couldn’t sleep in the luxurious bed.

Even after a few hours for his dad’s duplicity to sink in, Dom still wanted to punch him. He couldn’t believe his father had treated Ginny so cruelly, but unexpectedly realized
he’d
been treating Ginny cruelly all along.

And what would he have done while she was in labor? Coached her? Helped her? Or held himself back because he didn’t want to give her false hope? He’d have ruined that moment for Ginny every bit as much as his father had ruined it. Maybe more because she’d see him there, but feel the distance between them, the tangible reminder that he didn’t want her in his life.

Which was a lie.

He did want her in his life. The feeling of fury that thundered through him when he realized what his father had done hadn’t just shocked him. It had been so pure, so total that Dominic hadn’t had a chance to mitigate it. In that moment of blazing-hot anger that resulted from white-hot pain, he knew what it was like to miss out on something so important he couldn’t even describe it.

His father was right. Dom never would have felt this if his dad hadn’t orchestrated it. He’d have covered, hidden, pretended, postured—whatever it took to fool himself into believing he was fine.

But faced with the raw truth of having those moments snatched away from him—he felt it all. The pain. The loss.

And he knew that pain, that loss, that horrible empty feeling truly was the result of the life he’d built.

He also knew that if he wanted Ginny back, all he had to say was that his bastard father had kept him from seeing the baby’s birth, from being with her, and he’d be free in her eyes. She loved him. She’d believe him. She’d take him back with open arms.

He fell to the corner of the big, big bed in the outrageous jet that he could use because he would someday be a king.

The only problem was his dad was right. Even if he’d known his baby was being born, he wouldn’t have rushed to Ginny’s side. He might have seen the final few minutes of the baby’s birth. But even then he would have raced back to the war room.

But what his father had done hadn’t just opened his eyes. It had changed him. And he didn’t want Ginny to take him back on something that wasn’t quite a lie, but was a way to get out of being honest.

He had to be honest with her. He wouldn’t even hint that she should come home—that he intended to love her—if he didn’t know for sure he wouldn’t hurt her again.

And that he couldn’t promise.

* * *

After hours of combing through real estate sites, Ginny heard Artemus enter her room again. Staring at the computer screen, she said, “How big of a house should I get? I mean, should there be rooms for all of you or does the crown pay for separate quarters for you?”

“We pay for separate quarters.”

Hearing Dom’s voice, she spun around on her seat. His chin and cheeks bore dark shadows, evidence that he hadn’t shaved in days. His eyes looked pale and hollow from lack of sleep—even though he’d just had a ten-hour flight, which was perfect for catching up on sleep. But the killer was that he wore jeans and a T-shirt.

The desire to tease him almost outweighed the desire to jump into his arms and weep. Except this was the man who didn’t love her. Who hadn’t thought enough of her to come out of a bunker when apparently he could have. Who hadn’t been with her for the birth of their child.

This was also the man she’d have to fight for their child. If he thought he’d just fought a war, he was in for a rude awakening because she was about to show him what real war was.

“Get out.”

He peered beyond her to the bed, where their son lay in the bottom drawer of her mom’s dresser. “Is that my son?”

His voice was soft, reverent.

She tensed her face to stop the muscles from weakening or tears from forming in her eyes. She would not be weak in this fight. Her child would not grow up afraid to love.

Still, they might ultimately get into a battle over this child, but Dom also had a right to see his son.

“Yes. That’s our baby.”

He caught her gaze. “You didn’t name him.”

“I didn’t think James Tiberius Kirk was your final answer.”

He laughed. She didn’t.

He took a few steps closer to the bed. “Oh, my God. He’s so little.”

She had to fight the tremor of emotion that ripped through her at the awe in his voice.

“You would know that if you’d been there for his birth.”

He took another step toward the bed. “My father didn’t tell me you were in labor.”

That sucked the air out of her lungs. “What?”

He paused and faced her, preparing to answer her, but her heart ached for him. His ridiculously pompous dad had kept his baby from him? She saw the anguish on his face. Knew there might be bigger reasons he hadn’t shaved, hadn’t slept and suddenly wore blue jeans and a T-shirt.