The Princess Predicament (14 page)

Maybe old Tonio had been afraid of telling the woman the truth—that he just didn’t want to marry her. Whit opened his mouth to draw the woman’s attention to him and away from Gabriella.

But then Gabby was speaking again. “Whit Howell is a hero,” she said. “He was a hero during his deployments with the U.S. Marines, and he was a hero protecting his clients. And he saved my life more than once.”

“Zeke Rogers assured me that no one would,” Honora said. “I paid him a lot of money to make sure you would never return to St. Pierre.”

“He died trying to do the job you hired him to do,” Gabby said—with apparent sympathy for a man who’d intended to kill her.

How could she be that selfless? That good? Especially given how no one had ever given her the love and concern that she freely offered to everyone else. She was just innately good. More people like her were needed in the world—not fewer.

Honora shrugged off any responsibility. “Your barbarian killed him.”

Zeke’s death had been an accident. Whit had wanted him alive, so that he would be able to tell them who had hired him. But he’d pushed him too hard...

“Whit is not a barbarian,” Gabriella said. “He’s a good man.”

How could she say that about him? How could she see in him what he had only seen in her?

“You really are in love with a bodyguard,” Honora remarked as if horrified.

“Yes,” Gabriella said—as if proud of the declaration.

Could she actually love him?

No. She was probably just trying to convince the crazy lady that she was no threat to her relationship with the prince. Gabriella St. Pierre was far smarter than anyone had given her credit for being—including this jilted fiancée.

“Then you’re stupider than people think,” the woman replied. “Your father will never approve. In fact he just fired the man.”

Gabby gasped now. “He fired Whit?”

The woman uttered a cackle of pure glee. “Guess he didn’t approve of the hired help getting his daughter pregnant.”

King St. Pierre hadn’t actually explained his reasons for terminating Whit’s employment. He’d just bellowed that he was done here and had only hours to leave the palace and St. Pierre.

Honora was probably right that the man had wanted better for his daughter than a bodyguard. And he wasn’t wrong. Her other fiancés had been able to offer her palaces and countries. Whit didn’t even have a home to call his own.

Never had...

That was why he hadn’t argued with King St. Pierre. He’d only nodded in acceptance and walked out. He’d figured it was for the best—for Gabriella and for their baby.

Whit couldn’t give them what the prince could. But he could give them what the prince couldn’t: his protection. He lifted his gun.

But he had to get Gabriella’s attention to let her know that she would need to get out of the way when bullets started flying. She needed to drop to the marble floor or jump into the marble tub. He had to make sure that neither she nor their baby was hit.

But Honora was still talking, still taunting Gabby with knowledge she must have gained from spreading money around to servants or from listening at doors herself. “And Howell packed his bags and left without ever bothering to come say goodbye.”

“That’s not true,” he corrected the woman. “I came to say goodbye. But you first, Honora...” Hoping that the woman turned toward him, with her weapon, his finger twitched on the trigger.

He had to make this shot count. Had to kill her before she killed Gabby. And he had to make damn sure he didn’t miss and kill the woman he loved himself.

Chapter Fifteen

“Stop!” Gabriella yelled but not at the woman who held the gun on her. “Don’t shoot her!”

She had only just noticed Whit when, with his gun drawn, he’d stepped through her bathroom doorway. So she had no idea how long he had been standing there.

Long enough to realize that Honora was mentally ill?

Long enough to learn that Gabriella was hopelessly in love with him?

Whit held his fire—probably out of instinct more than his actually caring what she’d said. “You tell me to shoot on an airplane but not in your bathroom. Afraid I’ll break the mirror and get seven years of bad luck?”

The mirror was already broken—the bad luck all hers. Or maybe not.

Honora swung toward him with her gun drawn.

“Don’t shoot him, either,” Gabriella said. “You don’t want to kill him.”

“Because you love him?”

“Yes,” Gabriella said. “And because he’s an amazing shot. He will kill you, and then you will never have a future with Prince Tonio.”

“I have no future with him now!” Honora trembled with rage. But instead of firing at Whit, she turned back to Gabby. “Because of you!”

Gabby shook her head—as a signal for Whit, and Charlotte and Aaron who’d snuck into the room behind him, not to shoot Honora. “I don’t want to marry your fiancé,” she reiterated. “The only man I will ever marry is the man I love.”

And that was what she had intended to tell her father when she met with him. Now she may never get the chance to talk to him.

“All I want is to marry the man I love,” Honora said. The facade on her thin face cracked like the mirror behind Gabriella. “But he doesn’t love me...” She lifted the gun again, but this time she pressed the barrel of it to her own temple.

“Don’t!” Gabriella said. “Don’t do it!”

Honora’s finger trembled against the trigger as her whole body shook. “Why not? I have nothing to live for.”

“What you feel isn’t real love—real love is reciprocated.”

Gabby needed to remind herself of that—that what she felt for Whit wasn’t real. It wasn’t what Aaron and Charlotte had. She may have gotten pregnant the same night Charlotte had, but that was all their situations had in common.

While the woman appeared to contemplate Gabby’s declaration, she was distracted enough that Whit reached out and snapped the gun out of her hand.

“Noooo...” Honora cried, and she crumpled into a ball on the floor.

Gabriella reached out and touched her hair; it was as brittle as the woman herself. “You’ll be okay,” she said. “We’ll get you some help. It’ll get better.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice breaking with sobs. “So sorry...”

“Get her help,” Gabby told the others.

“I’m not leaving you alone with her,” Whit said, stepping closer as if he intended to step between them.

But Honora was no threat. With her arms wrapped tight around herself, she was barely holding herself together.

Outwardly Gabriella probably appeared calm. But inside, she was shaking as badly as her would-be killer. She realized she’d taken a risk in not letting Whit just shoot the woman. But too many people had already died. She hadn’t wanted anyone else to lose their life.

And although she and her baby had escaped harm, she was shaken at how close a call she’d had.

“I’ll stay while you get help,” Charlotte offered. “I’ll make sure they’re both okay.” She looked at Gabby as if she knew that nerves and emotions swirled tempestuously beneath the surface. And she knew that Gabby needed Whit gone so that she wouldn’t fall apart and fall at his feet, begging him to love her back.

“You need to talk to the king anyway,” Aaron told Whit.

Had Honora been telling the truth? Had he been fired? And was he going to just leave without saying whatever he must have come here to say to her?

He walked out without a backward glance. And Gabriella’s heart cracked like the mirror.

* * *

“I
FIRED
YOU
,” King St. Pierre reminded Whit of their conversation only an hour ago. “Then I told Aaron to make sure you had left my property. Instead he found you saving my daughter’s life.”

“She saved her own life.” Because if he’d shot Honora as he nearly had, she might have fired, too. And if a bullet had struck Gabby or the baby...

The king’s brow furrowed, as if he tried to fathom how the princess could have protected herself. “Did she use the maneuvers her sister taught her?”

So he really was claiming his oldest as his daughter, too, now.

“No, Gabby used her innate talent—the one no one taught her,” Whit said and with a pointed stare at the king added, “and the one no one managed to destroy.”

Anger flashed in Rafael St. Pierre’s dark eyes. “What do you mean?”

“No matter how cruel your wife was to her or how disinterested you were, she never grew bitter or selfish,” Whit said, amazed at the strength that had taken Gabriella, even as a child, to remain true to herself. “She stayed sweet and caring, and it was those qualities that saved her life. She talked Honora out of hurting her and out of hurting herself.”

The king sucked in a breath of surprise. “Gabriella did that—on her own?”

Whit nodded. “Despite my interference, she calmed Honora down.” He flinched as he remembered how the woman had reacted to his presence. Maybe if he’d stayed quiet, if he’d trusted Gabby to take care of herself, she would have reached the woman even sooner.

The king uttered a heavy sigh of regret. “Are you sure it was Honora who paid Zeke Rogers to kill Gabriella?”

“She confessed to all of it.” Actually she had bragged about it, but he suspected now that that bravado was part of her illness.

Gabby had been right to save her. The woman could be helped, and he knew his sweet princess would make sure she got help.

The king stared at Whit. “You may need to testify to what you heard.”

He nodded. “Fine.” He wanted the woman put someplace where she couldn’t hurt herself or anyone else again.

“So you will need to remain on St. Pierre until her trial.”

“I thought you wanted me out of your country,” Whit reminded him now.

“Perhaps I reacted before I had time to understand the situation.”

The fact that Whit had gotten his daughter pregnant while she was engaged to another man, a man who was now really free and ready to commit to someone else—was that the situation the king had needed time to understand?

Whit needed more time because he still didn’t understand it, had no idea why Gabriella would even look at him much less let him touch her. Make love to her...

He had nothing to offer her. Nothing like her other fiancés. But maybe he had something...

Maybe he had the one thing no one else had ever given her...

“You have my permission to explain yourself,” the king said, as if issuing a royal decree.

“You’re not the one I need to explain myself to,” Whit said, only just realizing himself what he had to say and to whom.

The king’s face flushed with fury as he slammed his fist onto his desk. “If you intend to continue in my employ, you will damn well answer to me.”

The fist pounding didn’t intimidate Whit in the least. In fact it amused him how a grown man could act so like a spoiled child. “You already fired me.”

“That was precipitous of me. If you explain yourself, I will reinstate you,” the king said, offering another royal decree.

And Whit chose to ignore this one, too. “I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear,” he said, “so you might as well fire me again. Or still.”

“Young man—”

“You know what—it doesn’t matter if you’ve fired me or not,” he said. “I can’t work for you any longer. I quit.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Aaron asked the minute Whit slammed open the door and stalked into the hall. He must have nearly knocked his old friend over with the door, for Aaron had jumped back. “You can’t just walk away from this job.”

“I can’t work for him.” It didn’t matter what King St. Pierre thought of Whit and what he had to offer his daughter. It mattered more to Whit what the king had never offered Gabby—his love or respect. And he couldn’t work for a man so stupid and cruel.

“Why not?” Aaron asked. “You two are awfully alike. And I do mean awfully.”

If he wasn’t so damn tired—physically and emotionally—Whit might have swung his fist into the other man’s face for uttering such an insult. “I am nothing like that man.”

“You’re both stubborn and selfish and think you’re always right and you appoint yourself to decide what’s right for other people.”

Whit flinched at the anger and resentment in his friend’s voice. Aaron might as well have physically struck him because the hit was that direct. And probably that accurate.

Maybe he’d been a fool to think that Aaron could ever forgive him, that their friendship could ever be repaired after Whit had betrayed him.

“I thought you were done being mad at me.”

“I am,” Aaron said. “But if you leave here,
she
will never get over being mad at you.”

“Gabriella?” Whit chuckled. “She just forgave the woman who tried to have her killed.”

“Honora may have threatened her, but she never really hurt her,” Aaron explained. “You’ve hurt her. I saw it on that cliff—when you wouldn’t let her hug you. And I saw it in her rooms when you turned and walked away—like you’re walking now.”

He was actually tempted to run as he headed toward his room in the employee’s wing. This time he would finally pack up his things. There was nothing for him here.

“I can’t believe you’re being so stupid,” Aaron said, following him like a dog nipping at his heels. “You already know how hard it was to find a job like this but you just willingly gave it up.”

“There are other jobs,” he said. “Hell, I could re-enlist if I can’t find anything else.”

Aaron sucked in a breath of shock. “You’d go back to active duty?”

“Why not?”

“I can give you two reasons—Gabby and your baby,” Aaron said. “You might be able to find another job, but you’ll never find another woman who loves you like she does.”

He had never found anyone who loved him at all—let alone like Gabby had claimed to love him. “She was just saying those things to Honora,” he insisted, “to make the woman think she was no threat. To make her think she has no intention of marrying Prince Malamatos.”

“You think she does intend to marry him?” Aaron asked.

He shrugged. “As his ex-fiancée said, the man’s quite a catch. A real prince of a guy.”

“She’s crazy,” Aaron reminded him, “and so are you if you walk away from a woman like Gabriella.”

“You’ve thought me crazy before,” Whit said with a shrug, as if his friend’s opinion didn’t matter. But it mattered a lot—especially that Aaron believed she loved him.

But then Aaron had never been the best judge of character—because, like Gabby, he always saw the best in everyone. Even Whit.

Conversely, Whit always saw the worst in everyone—even himself. Except for Gabby—because there was only good in her.

And if he was the man she and Aaron thought he was, he would walk away and give her a chance at the life she deserved—that she had been born to live.

* * *

“Y
OU
FIRED
the man who saved my life!” Gabby accused her father the moment she stepped inside his rooms.

His shoulders drooping, he sat behind the desk in his darkly paneled den. His hands cradled his head, as if he had a headache or was trying hard to figure something out. Veins popped on the back of his hands and stood out on his forehead. He looked stressed and weary, as if he’d aged years in the six months she and Charlotte had been gone.

Despite her anger and resentment with him, affection warmed her heart. No matter how he had treated her and those she cared about, he was her father and she loved him. She nearly opened her mouth to tell him so, but then he lifted his gaze.

Instead of looking at her face, he looked at her belly—at the child she carried. And she thought she glimpsed disappointment on his face.

That was all she had ever done with him and the queen. Disappoint them.

“Whitaker Howell quit,” her father corrected her.

She shook her head. “I heard that you fired him.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted with a slight nod of acquiescence, “but then I gave him the chance to stay, and he chose to leave.”

Of course he chose to leave. Now that she was safe, he had no reason to stay. He had done his job. And that was all she must have been to him.

She blew out a ragged breath of pain and regret that he hadn’t tried to stay, that he hadn’t at least tried to love her and their baby.

Take a risk on me...

She had risked everything—her heart, her future, her baby’s future. And she’d lost him.

“But Prince Malamatos is here,” the king continued. “He refuses to leave until he sees you and makes certain you have survived your ordeal.”

“Ordeal?” she asked. “I hope you’re talking about recent events and not the six most useful and productive months of my life.”

“At the orphanage?” he asked, with a brow raised in skepticism. “I can’t believe Charlotte sent you there to hide.”

“I’m glad she did,” Gabby said. “Otherwise I might have never learned the truth.”

The king’s mouth drew into a tight line of disapproval. Had he never intended to tell her the truth?

“I was referring to the country she sent you to,” he clarified, “and how dangerous it is.”

“Yet I was in no danger until everyone learned where I was.” And then because she had to know, she asked him, “Would you have ever told me?”

“About your mother?” he asked and then uttered a heavy sigh. “I promised the queen that I would never...”

Because then Gabriella might have realized that it hadn’t been her fault the woman hadn’t loved her... The woman had been cruel right up until the end. “After she died, you could have told me.”

He sighed again. “But your biological mother had already died, so there seemed no point in dredging up ancient history.”

And probably his embarrassment over his affair with a con artist.

“No point in my getting to know my sister and my aunt?” Perhaps he hadn’t wanted her to get to know and emulate two of the strongest women she had ever met—because then she wouldn’t blindly obey him. His efforts to keep her ignorant had been futile. It didn’t matter how short a time Gabriella had known them; she was still going to emulate them. He was done controlling her life.