Claiming His Pregnant Princess

He wasn’t letting bygones stay back in England, where she’d left him some seven-hundred-odd days ago. But who was counting? Numbers meant nothing when everything about his demeanor told her it was the witching hour. Time to confront the past she’d never been able to forget.

* * *

“Since when does Italy’s most pampered princess get her own supplies?”

The comment held more rancor than Jamie had hoped to achieve. He’d been aiming for a casual “fancy meeting you here,” but he’d actually nailed expressing the months of bitterness he’d been unable to shake since she’d left him. True, he hadn’t put up much of a fight, but she had made it more than clear that her future was in Italy. With another man.

It had blindsided him. One minute they were more in love than he could imagine a couple ever being. The next, after that sudden solo trip to Venice, her heart had belonged to another.

He’d not thought her so fickle. It had been a harsh way to learn why they called love blind.

When their gazes connected the color dropped from Beatrice’s face. A part of him hated eliciting this bleak reaction—another part was pleased to see he still had an effect on her.

Ashen faced with shaking palms wasn’t what he’d been hoping for... Seeing her at all hadn’t been what he’d been hoping for...but no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many corners he’d turned since he’d left England, he didn’t seem to be able to shake her. This was either kismet or some sort of hellish purgatory. From the look on her face, it wasn’t the former.

Self-loathing swept through him for lashing out at Beatrice. A woman who’d done little more than proactively pursue the life she wanted. Which was more than he could say for himself.

“What are you doing here, Beatrice? Aren’t you meant to be on honeymoon? Or is this part of it? Dropping in to local clinics to grace us with your largesse before embarking on a shopping spree. Dubai, perhaps? Turkey? Shouldn’t you be buying silver spoons for the long line of di Jesolos yet to come into the world?”

Jamie hated himself as the vitriol poured out of him. Hated himself even more as he watched Beatrice’s full lips part only to say nothing, her features crumpling in disbelief as if he’d shivved her right then and there rather than simply pointed out everything the tabloids had been crowing about. The engagement. The impending wedding. The royal babies they were hoping would quickly follow the exotic and lengthy honeymoon.

A month ago he’d refused to read anymore. He’d endured enough.

He looked deep into her eyes, willing her to tell him something. Anything to ease the pain.

As quickly as the ire had flared up in him, it disappeared.

You’re not this man. She must’ve had her reasons.

Jamie took a step forward, his natural instinct to put a hand on Beatrice’s arm—to touch her, to apologize. As he closed the space between them the handful of gel packs and silver dressings she’d been holding dropped from her fingers. They knelt simultaneously to collect them, colliding with the inevitable head bump and mumbled apologies.

Crouching on the floor, each with a hand to their forehead, they stared at one another as if waiting for the other to pounce.

By God, she is beautiful.

“You’ve grown your hair,” she said finally.

She was so close he could kiss her. Put his hand at the nape of her neck as he’d done so many times before, draw her to him and...

She was talking about haircuts.

A haircut had been the last thing on his mind when she’d left. Work. Work had been all he’d had and he’d thrown himself so far into the deep end he’d been blind to everything else. Got too involved. So close he’d literally drained the blood from his own body to help ease the pain of his patient.

Elisa.

That poor little girl. They’d shared a rare blood type. Foolishly he’d thought that if he saved her life he might be able to save himself. In the end his boss had made him choose. Take a step back or leave.

So here he was in Italy, just when he’d thought he was beginning to see straight again, eye to eye with the woman who had all but sucked the marrow from his bones.

“It looks nice,” Beatrice said, her finger indicating the hair he knew curled on and around his shirt collar. What was it she’d always called him? Hay head? Straw head? Something like that. Something that brought back too many memories of those perfect summer months they’d shared together.

He nodded his thanks. Blissful summers were a thing of the past. Now they were reduced to social niceties.

Fair enough. He glanced at his watch. The chopper would be leaving in five. He needed to press on.

“C’mon. Let’s get these picked up. Get you back to your patient.” No matter how deeply he’d been hurt, patients were the priority.

She reached forward, sucking in a sharp breath when their fingers brushed, each reaching for the same packet of dressings.

“I’m not made of poison, you know.”

Beatrice’s gaze shot up to meet his, those rich brown eyes of hers looking larger than ever. He couldn’t tell if it was because she’d lost weight or because they were punctuated by twilight-blue shadows. Either way, she didn’t look happy.

“No one knows who I am here,” she bit out, her voice low and urgent as she clutched the supplies to her chest. “I would appreciate it if you could keep it that way.”

A huff of disbelief emptied his chest of oxygen. Flaunting the family name was the reason she’d left him, and now she wanted to be anonymous?

She met his gaze as she finished scanning his uniform. “Since when do pediatricians wear high-octane rescue gear? I thought life in a children’s ward was all the excitement you needed?”

“Snide comments were never your thing.”

“Pushing boundaries was never yours.”

Jamie’s lungs strained against a deep breath, all the while keeping tight hold of the eye contact. He wanted her to see the man he’d become.

After a measured exhalation he let himself savor the pain of his teeth grating across his lower lip. He turned to leave, then changed his mind, throwing the words over his shoulder as if it were the most casual thing in the world to lacerate the woman he loved with words.

“People change, Dr. Jesolo. Some of us for the better.”

* * *

Ten minutes later and the sting of his comment still hadn’t worn off. Perhaps it never would.

And hiding in the staff room with her friendly Aussie colleague had only made things worse. He was a messenger with even more bad news.

Jamie Coutts was not just back in her life—he was her boss.

“Wait a minute, Teo.” Bea held up a hand, hardly believing what she was hearing. “He’s what?”

Teo Brandisi gave Bea a patient smile and handed her the cup of herbal tea he’d promised her hours earlier in the busy shift.

“The big boss man. The big kahuna. Mayor of medics.”

“But you hired me.”

“He was out in the field. He hands over the reins to me when he’s away.”

“But—”

“Quit trying to fight it, sweetheart. He’s le grand fromage—all right? I wouldn’t be working here without his approval, so if you’ve got a bone to pick with him, I’m recusing myself. He has my back. I have his. You got me?” Teo continued in his broad Australian accent.

Bea shook her head and waved her hands. “No, it’s not that. I’ve nothing against Dr. Coutts.”

Liar.

She cleared her throat, forcing herself to sound more neutral. “I just don’t understand why he had to approve appointing you but not me.”

“Foreign doctor.” Teo pointed at himself. “We can’t just swan in and take all the choice jobs. Even though he’s English, he’s been qualified to practice here for over a year.”

He’d been in Italy for a year and she hadn’t known.

Well...she’d done a whole lot of things he didn’t know about, so fair was fair.

“My advice?” Teo was on a roll. “You have to suck up to people like James Coutts.”

“James?”

“Yeah... Why?”

Teo scrunched up his nose and looked at her as if she was giving proof positive she was losing her marbles. Maybe she was. And if Jamie was James, and she’d shortened her name to Bea, then the only thing that was clear was that they were both trying to be someone new.

A reinvention game.

Only games were meant to be fun. And everything about seeing Jamie again was far from fun. Confronting what she’d done to him was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done.

“Anyhoo...” Teo continued. “James has got the whole British-reserve thing going on big-time.” A glint of admiration brightened his blue eyes. “The man’s like an impenetrable fortress. Impossible to read. Well done!” He clapped her on the shoulder. “A gold star to Dr. Jesolo for getting under the Stone Man’s skin!”

“The Stone Man?”

“Yeah. We all take bets on how many facial expressions he actually has. I’m going with three. Contemplative. Not happy. And his usual go-to face—Mr. Neutral. No reading that face. No way, no how.”

Bea hid her face in the steam of her tea for a minute. Her kind, gentle Jamie was an impenetrable fortress? That wasn’t like him. Then again...she was hardly the same. Why should he be?

“It’s most likely a fluke. That or he doesn’t like blondes?”

Teo gave her a sidelong glance as if he already knew the whole story. Could tell she was just making things up. Covering a truth she wasn’t yet ready to divulge.

“Fair enough.”

They stood in an awkward silence until Bea launched into a sudden interest in removing her herbal tea bag from her mug.

If Teo had known she was pregnant, she could have just blown the whole thing off as a bout of pregnancy brain. Not that she even knew if pregnancy brain hit this early. Sharp bouts of fatigue certainly had. And morning sickness. She’d never look at a hamburger the same way again! At least when she’d been on her brother’s yacht she’d managed to fob off the nausea she’d felt as seasickness. Now that she was up here in the mountains she couldn’t do that. It was meant to pass soon. And by the time her contract was up she’d be off to hide away the rest of her pregnancy somewhere else.

“So, on a day-to-day basis you’re my boss?” She kept her eyes on her tea, wincing at the note of hope in her voice.

“Nope. Dr. James Coutts is your actual boss,” Teo continued, after taking his shot of espresso down in one swift gulp.

Classic Italian. She would be amazed if he went back to Australia. He might be second generation in Australia, but the man had Italy in his bones.

“I step in when he’s out on rescue calls, like today. The fact I was on duty when we held your interview was just a coincidence.”

“So...he knew I was coming?”

The interview had been a week ago. Start date today. He’d had a whole week to come to terms with things and yet she was sure she’d seen shock in his eyes. The same shock of recognition that had reverberated through to her very core.

“He knew someone was coming, but he’s been tied up training the emergency squads.”

Her Jamie? Better-safe-than-sorry Jamie?

She’d always thought she was a solid rock until she’d met him. But no one had been more reliable, more sound than him.

“He’s pretty good about not breathing down your neck.” Teo pulled open a cupboard and began to look around for some biscuits. “And he lets staff make decisions in his absence. He’s a really good guy, actually. Don’t let the whole Dr. Impenetrable thing get to you.”

Her lips thinned. Jamie was better than a good guy. He was the kindest man she’d ever met.

Strangely, it came as a relief to hear his bitterness seemed to be solely reserved for her. Deservedly so. How she could have dumped him just to make good on an antiquated match between her family and the Roldolfos was beyond her now. Family loyalty meant altogether different things when your blue-blooded mother was trying to uphold hundreds of years of tradition. Pass the princess baton...even if it came at her daughter’s expense.

She heard Teo sigh and looked up to catch him lovingly gazing at a plate of homemade biscotti. Someone’s grandmother’s, no doubt. There was a lot of bragging about grandmothers up here. She missed hers. No doubt she would have had some wise words for the insane situation Bea was in now.

“Did you hear the crew earlier? Sounds like it was a pretty intense case,” Teo continued, oblivious to the turmoil Bea was enduring.

“I didn’t see any patients come down from the helipad.” She shook her head in confusion.

“They dropped the patient off in Switzerland. A little kid. Five, maybe six years old—broke his leg. Compound fracture. Tib-fib job. Massive blood loss. The mother nearly lost the plot. She was attacking the staff, threatened to kill one of them if they didn’t let her on the helicopt—”

“All right, all right.” Bea held up a hand, feeling a swell of nausea rise and take hold as he painted the picture. “It’s obvious someone’s a bit jealous that he wasn’t out on the rescue squad today.”

“I’m on tomorrow.” Teo gave his hands a quick excited rub. “You can sign up, too, if you like. We do it on rotation, because summers are so busy up here, but you’d probably have to do your first few with James. The man is a right daredevil when’s he’s wearing the old rescue gear. Biscotti?” He held out a plate filled with the oblong biscuits.

“No, grazie. Or, actually...” Maybe it would help settle her stomach. She took one of the crunchy biscuits and gave him a smile.

He gave the door frame a final pat and then was gone.

Bea sank into a nearby chair. As far as she was concerned, Teo could have all her emergency-rescue shifts. About eight weeks, two days and...she glanced at her watch...three hours ago she would have been all over them. High-octane rescues and first-class medical treatment? Amazing experiences.

Experiences she would have to miss now.

Compromising the tiny life inside her while the former love of her life looked on...

She let her head sink into her hands.

Clinica Torpisi wasn’t going to be the healing hideaway she’d been hoping for.

More like hell on earth.

CHAPTER TWO

HE SAW HER across the piazza. Jamie wondered now, having adjusted to the platinum blond hair, how he hadn’t noticed her instantly. He certainly had when she’d walked into Northern General. How could he not have when he’d entered the clinica?

Fathomless chocolate-brown eyes straight out of the Italian-nymph guidebook. Slender. The darkest chestnut hair he’d ever seen. Short, but thick enough to lose his hands in when he wanted to put his fingers against the nape of her soft, swan-like neck. Perfect raspberry-red lips. Olive skin. Carrying herself like royalty.

She was royalty.

He shook his head again.

Little wonder he hadn’t recognized her straight off. He hadn’t wanted to.

A bit of shock.

A splash of denial.

Hope, pain, love, despair... All those things and more made up the roiling ball of conflict burning in his heart. Most of all he just wanted to understand why.

He hitched his trousers onto his hips. She wasn’t the only one who’d lost weight in the past couple of years.

Stop apportioning blame.

The closer he got, the more he wondered what the hell he was doing.

No. That wasn’t true. Ripping off the bandage had become his modus operandi since she’d left. He might as well stick true to his course. Life wasn’t sweet. Might as well get used to it.

“Mind if I join you?”

Beatrice started, as if her thoughts had been a thousand miles away. When she’d pulled him into focus he watched as she searched his face for signs of enmity. He couldn’t say he blamed her. After his performance in the supplies room earlier in the day he’d hardly made a good show of the manners his mother had drilled into him.

“Please...” Beatrice pushed aside a small plate of antipasti and indicated the chair beside her. One from which he could enjoy the stunning lakeside view. One that would seat them side by side, where they wouldn’t have to look into the other’s eyes.

He sank into the chair, grateful for this reprieve from animosity. Perhaps a few hours apart had been what they’d each needed. Time to process.

“Is that a spritzer you’re having?” He pointed at the bright orange drink on the table, the glass beaded with condensation as the final rays of sunlight disappeared behind the mountain peaks beyond the lake.

“No.” She shook her head. “I never liked spritzers. Too...” Her nose crinkled as she sought the right word. “Aftertasty,” she said finally, her lips tipping up into the first suggestion of a smile he’d seen. “Orange soda is my new guilty pleasure. I don’t seem to be able to drink enough of it.”

He was about to launch into the lecture he gave all his patients—too many fizzy drinks were bad for the bones, bad for the brain, bad for the body—but just seeing the tension release from the corners of her eyes as she lifted the glass, put her lips around the red and white stripes of the straw and drew in a cool draught made him swallow it.

He hadn’t come here to deliver a lecture. He had questions. Thousands of questions.

A waiter swooped in, as they all did at this time of day, keen to get as many people as possible their drinks before the early-dining Americans began infiltrating the wide square in advance of the Europeans.

He and Beatrice both bit back smiles at the waiter’s terse “Is that all for signor?” after he’d settled on a sparkling water.

“Going back to the clinic?” Beatrice asked.

“That obvious?”

“Mmm, ’fraid so.” Beatrice looked out toward the square as she spoke. “It would be a glass of Gavi di Gavi if you were finished, wouldn’t it? If...” She hesitated. “If memory serves me right.”

He nodded. Surprised she’d remembered such a silly detail. Then again, there wasn’t a single detail he’d forgotten about her. Maybe...

He rammed his knuckles into his thigh.

Maybe was for other people. He was all about sure things. And Beatrice wasn’t one of them.

Jamie scrubbed a hand along his chin, then scraped his chair around on the stone cobbles until he faced her head-on.

“What are you doing here, Beatrice?”

“Well, that’s a nice way to—” She stopped herself and lifted a hand so that he would give her a moment to think. Say what she really meant to.

Despite himself, he smiled. She’d always been that way. A thinker. Just like him. The more they’d learned about each other, the stronger the pull had been. Interns hadn’t been meant to date residents—but try telling that to two people drawn to each other as magnetically as iron and nitrogen. Weighted and weightless. He’d felt both of those things when he’d been with her. Secure in himself as he’d never been before, and so damn happy he would have sworn his feet hadn’t touched the ground after the first time he’d tasted those raspberry-ripe lips of hers.

“You have read the papers lately, haven’t you?” Beatrice asked eventually.

“I have a hunch that world peace is a long way off, so I tend to steer clear of them.” Jamie leant forward in his chair, elbows pressed to his knees. “C’mon, Beatrice. Quit throwing questions back at me. Why are you in Torpisi?”

She shook her head in disbelief. “You are the one person in the world I wish had read the tabloids and you haven’t!” She threw her hands up in the air and gave a small isn’t-the-world-ridiculous? laugh.

When their eyes met again there was kindness in hers. A tenderness reserved just for him that he might have lived on in a different time and place.

“I never got married.”

She took another sip of her soft drink and looked away as casually as if she’d just told him the time. Or perhaps it was guilt that wouldn’t let her meet his eye.

Jamie blinked a few times, his body utterly stationary, doing its best to ingest the news.

Despite his best efforts to remain neutral, something hardened in him. “Is this some sort of joke?”

She shook her head, seemingly confused about the question.

“Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” It was her turn to look bewildered.

“Oh, well...let’s see, here, love. Quite a few things, now that I come to think of it.”

He spread out his fingers and started ticking them off, his tone level, though his message was heated.

“Up and leave me for a man you didn’t love. Ruin the future we’d planned together. All that to never even see it through?”

He pulled his fingers into tight fists and gave his thighs a quick drumming.

“Is this some sort of cruel game you’re playing, Beatrice?”

He pushed back in his chair and rose, no longer sure he could even look her in the eye.

“If you’re here to rub it in and make sure you made your impact, you can count me out.”

* * *

“Jamie! Wait!”

Bea’s voice sounded harsh to her own ears. As quickly as she’d reached out to stop Jamie from leaving she wished she’d rescinded the invitation, tightly wrapping her arms around herself to brace herself against the shards of ice coursing through her veins.

She’d betrayed too much by calling out to him. Jamie would know better than anyone that there had been pain in her voice. The ache of loss. But what was she going to do? Explain what a fool she’d been? That she’d gone and got herself pregnant at an IVF clinic in advance of her wedding so her family, the press and the whole of Italy could coo and smile over the Prince and the Principessa’s “honeymoon baby”?

She was the only one in the world who knew that her fiancé—her ex-fiancé—was infertile, apart from a doctor whose silence had been bought. She was surprised he’d even told her. Perhaps their family get-togethers had begun to rely a bit too heavily on talk of children running around the palazzo, in order to cover up the obvious fact that neither of them were very much in love.

Their one joint decision: an IVF baby. Keeping it as quiet as possible. A private clinic. More paid-off doctors and nurses. An anonymous donor.

The less anyone knew, the easier it had been to go ahead with it.

Her sole investment in a relationship she had known would never claim her heart. A child... A child who had been meant to bring some light into her life.

Now it just filled her with fear. Confirmation that she’d been a fool to agree to the plan. She no longer had the support of her family and, worse, she would be a single mother in a world where it was already tough enough to survive on her own.

It hadn’t felt that way when she’d been with Jamie. With him she’d felt...invincible.

Relief washed through her when Jamie sat down again, pressing his hips deeper into the chair, his back ramrod straight as he drained his water glass in one fluid draught before deigning to look her in the eye.

“I’m in trouble, Jamie.”

As quickly as he’d tried to leave, Jamie pulled his chair up close, knees wide so they flanked hers, fingers spread as he cupped her face in both his broad hands, searching her eyes for information.

“Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”

No, but I hurt you.

He used an index finger to swipe at a couple of errant locks of hair so his access to her eyes was unfettered. Against his better judgment—she could see that in his eyes—he traced his finger along the contour of her jawline, coming to a halt, as he had so many times before, before gently cradling the length of her neck as if he were about to lean in and kiss her.

It was like rediscovering her senses all over again. As if part of her had died the day she’d told him she was returning home to marry another man.

She blinked away the rising swell of tears.

Part of her had died that day. The part that believed in love conquering all. The part that believed in destiny.

“Beatrice,” Jamie pressed. “Did he hurt you?”

I was a fool to have left you.

She shook her head, instantly feeling the loss of his touch when he dropped his hands, sat back in his chair and rammed them into his front pockets, as if trying to hide the fact that his long surgeon’s fingers were balled into tight fists. For the second time in as many minutes. Twice as many times as she’d ever seen him make the gesture before.