Claiming His Pregnant Princess

He’d aged in the years since she’d seen him last. Nothing severe, as if he’d been sick or a decade had passed, but he had changed. His was a proper grown-up male face now, instead of holding the hints of youth she had sometimes seen at the hospital, when he’d caught her looking at him and smiled.

It felt like a million years ago. Hard to believe it was just two short years since he’d been thirty-three and she twenty-eight.

“Just a young lass, you are,” he would say, and laugh whenever she whined about feeling old after a long shift. “Perfect for me,” he’d say, before dropping a surreptitious kiss on her forehead in one of the busy hospital corridors. They’d been little moments in heaven. Perfect.

She closed her eyes against the memory, gave them a rub, then forced herself to confront the present. It was all of her own making, so she might as well see it for what it was. Payback.

A painful price she knew she had to pay when all she really wanted was for him to love her again as he once had.

Impossible.

Sun-tanned crinkles fanned out from Jamie’s eyes, which she still wasn’t quite brave enough to meet. The straw gold of his hair was interwoven with a few threads of silver. At the temples, mostly. More than she thought a man of thirty-five should have.

But what would she know? When she grew her dyed hair out again it might all be gray after the level of stress she’d endured these past few weeks. It was a wonder she hadn’t lost the baby.

Her hands automatically crept to her stomach, one folding protectively over the other.

“Did he hurt you?” Jamie repeated, the air between them thick with untold truths.

“Only my pride,” she conceded. “He didn’t want me.”

The explanation came out as false, too chirpy. She hadn’t wanted Marco either. What she most likely really owed him was a thank-you letter.

“Can you believe it?” She put on a smile and grinned at the real love of her life, as if having her arranged marriage grind to a halt in front of some of Europe’s most elite families had been the silliest thing to have happened to her in years.

“He should be shot.”

“Jamie...” Bea shook her head. “Don’t be—” She huffed out a lungful of frustration, then unfolded her arms from their tight cinch across her chest, visible proof she was trying her best to be honest with him. Open. Vulnerable. “Mi scusi. I’m sorry. I don’t have any right to tell you what to feel.”

“You’re damn right you don’t,” he shot back, but with less venom than before.

Something in her gave. He deserved to vent whatever amount of spleen he needed to.

“Serves you right” was probably lurking there in his throat. Along with a bit of “now you know how it feels” followed by a splash of “what goes around comes around” as a chaser.

She deserved the venom—and more.

After a moment had passed, with each of them silently collecting their thoughts, Jamie reached across and took one of her hands in his, weaving their fingers together as naturally as if they’d never been apart.

A million tiny sparks lit up inside her. A sensation she’d never once felt with her ex-fiancé.

Obligation didn’t elicit rushes of desire. She’d learned that the hard way.

“Talk to me, Beatrice.”

His voice was gentle. Kind. His thumb rubbed along the back of her hand as his features softened, making it clear he was present—there just for her.

In that instant she felt he was back. The man she’d met and fallen in love with in the corridors of a busy inner-city hospital tucked way up in the North of England. Their entire worlds had been each other and medicine.

She vividly remembered the first time she’d seen him. So English! Male. He’d exuded...capability. So refreshing after a lifetime of worrying about etiquette and decorum and the thousands of other silly little things that had mattered to her mother and not one jot to her. Surviving finishing school had been down to Fran. Without her... She didn’t even want to think about it.

She glanced up at Jamie. His eyes were steady...patient... She knew as well as he did that he would wait all evening if he needed to.

She lifted her gaze just in time to see the topmost arc of the sun disappear behind the mountain peaks.

“Maybe we could walk?” she suggested.

He nodded, unlacing his fingers from hers as he rose.

She curled one hand around the other in a ridiculous attempt to save the sensation.

He pointed toward the far end of the piazza. “Let’s go out along the lake. Have you been to the promenade yet? Seen the boats?”

She shook her head. She’d had enough of boats and morning sickness over the past few weeks to last a lifetime. She agreed to the route anyway. It wasn’t as if this was meant to be easy.

* * *

Every part of Jamie itched to reach out and touch Beatrice. Hold her hand. Put a protective arm around her shoulder. There was something incredibly fragile about her he wasn’t sure he’d seen before. She was nursing something more than a chink in her pride. And all the rage he’d thought would come to the fore if he ever found himself in her orbit again... It was there, all right. It just wasn’t ready to blow.

Instinct told him to take things slowly. And then start digging. A verbal attack would elicit nothing. As for a physical attack... If that man had laid one finger on her—

“How are you settling in here? Everyone at the clinic helping you get your bearings?”

Beatrice nodded enthusiastically. “I love it. All one day of it, that is.”

He smiled at the note of genuine happiness in her voice. Excellent. The staff were making her feel at home. He fought the need to press her. To get her to spill everything. Explain how she’d found it so easy to break his heart.

“Your contract is...?”

“For the rest of the summer. I guess one of the early-summer staffers left before expected?”

“No.” He shook his head. “She had a baby. Worked right up until her due date.”

“Ah...”

Beatrice’s gaze jumped from boat to boat moored along the quayside. Families and groups of friends were spilling out onto the promenade to find which restaurant they’d eat in tonight.

“I suppose she’ll be coming back, then, after maternity leave. Although I did tell your colleague, Dr. Brandisi, that I would be happy to extend if the clinic loses any essential staff after the season ends.”

“It waxes and wanes up here. There’ll be a time when the summer wraps up where we hit a lull, and then ski season brings in another lot. It’s usually all right with just the bare minimum of hands on deck.”

Beatrice threw a quick smile his way, her lips still pressed tight, so he continued. “Mostly Italians to start, then Swiss, German, Austrian... A complete pick ’n’ mix at the height of the season.”

That was why he liked it. Nothing stayed the same. Change was the only thing keeping him afloat since he’d finally faced facts and left Northern General. Everything about that place had reminded him of Beatrice. And then, after Elisa... That had been the hardest time of death he’d ever had to call.

He swallowed and pushed his finger through a small pool of lake water on the square guard railing, visibly dividing it in two.

Everything leaves its mark. And nothing stays the same.

Those were the two lessons he’d learned after Beatrice had left. Now was the time to prove it.

He rubbed his hands together and belatedly returned her smile. “So! What sort of cases have you had today? Anything juicy?”

They might as well play My Injuries Were Worse Than Yours until she was ready to talk.

The tension in Beatrice’s shoulders eased and she relaxed into a proper smile. “Actually, all my cases have been really different to what I treated at home in Venice. With all the recreational sports up here I’m seeing all sorts of new things. It’s made a great change.”

He felt his jaw shift at the mention of “home.” Home—for a few months at the end of their relationship, at least—had been their tiny little apartment, around the corner from the hospital. The one they’d vowed to stay in until they could afford one of the big, rambling stone homes on the outer reaches of the city. One of those houses that would fall apart if someone didn’t give it some TLC. The kind of house where there’d be plenty of room for children to play. Not that they’d talked about the two boys and two girls they’d hoped to have one day. Much.

Let it go, Jamie. It was all just a pipe dream.

“Were you still working in trauma? When you came back to Italy?” he added.

“Off and on.” She nodded. “But mostly I was working in a free clinic for refugees. So many people coming in on boats...”

“With all your language skills you must’ve been a real asset. Were you based in Venice?” He might as well try to visualize some sort of picture.

“Just outside. On the mainland.” She stopped farther along the railing, where the view to the lake and the mountains beyond was unimpeded by boats, and drew in a deep breath, curling her fingers around the cool metal until her knuckles were pale.

The deepening colors of the early-evening sky rendered the lake a dark blue—so dark it was hard to imagine how deep it might be. Fathomless.

“It was relentless. Working there. The poverty. The sickness. The number of lives lost all in the pursuit of a dream.”

“Happiness?” he asked softly.

“Freedom.”

When she turned to him the hit of connection was so powerful he almost stumbled. It was as if she was trying to tell him something. That her moving back to Italy had been a mistake? That she wished she could turn back time as much as he did?

“Do you miss it? Working at the refugee clinic?” he qualified.

If she was going to up and leave again, he had to know. Had to reassemble the wall he’d been building brick by brick around his heart only to have the foundations crumble to bits when she’d walked back into his life.

She turned her head, resting her chin on her shoulder, and looked at him.

“No.” Her head shook a little. “I mean, it was obviously rewarding. But I don’t miss being there. Venice...”

Something in him gave. His breath began filling his lungs a bit more deeply.

“What drew you up here to our little Alpine retreat?”

He leant against the railing, unsurprised to see her give him a sideways double take.

Nice one, Jamie. Super casual. Not.

“I used to come up here to one of my cousins’ places. Skiing. The next valley over, actually,” she corrected herself, then continued, her eyes softening into a faraway smile. “One year I brought Fran with me. Remember Francesca? My mad friend from America? I don’t think you met her, but she was—” Beatrice stopped, the smile dropping from her eyes. “We saw each other recently. She’s getting married.”

“Ah.” Jamie nodded.

What was he meant to say to that? Congratulations, I wish I was, too? He elbowed the rancorous thoughts away and reharnessed himself to the light-banter variety of conversational tactics.

“Wasn’t there something about finishing school and a giggle-laden walk of shame before the term was out? Mussed-up white gloves or something?”

“We snuck away one day.” Beatrice feigned a gasp of horror. “Away from the ‘good’ set.”

“You mean the ‘crowned cotillion crowd’?” he asked without thinking twice.

Beatrice had been so contemptuous of them then. The group of titled friends and extended family who seemed to drift across Europe together in packs. Hunting down the next in place, the next big thing so they could put their mark on it, suck it dry, then leave. The exact type of person she’d left him for. Oh, the irony.

When he looked across to see if his comment had rankled he was surprised to see another small cynical smile in Beatrice’s dark eyes.

Huh. Maybe she’d softened. Saw things now she hadn’t before. Not that he and Beatrice had ever “hung with the crowd.” Nor any crowd, for that matter. They had been a self-contained unit.

It had never once occurred to him that she was keeping him at arm’s length from the affluent, titled set she’d grown up with. He’d never considered himself hung up on his low-income upbringing. The opposite, if anything. Proud. He was from a typical Northern family. Typical of his part of the North anyway. Father down the mines. Mother working as a dinner lady at the local primary school. Brother and sister had followed suit, but he’d been the so-called golden boy. Scholarships to private schools. Oxford University. An internship at London’s most prestigious pediatric hospital before he’d returned to the part of the country he’d always called home.

Meeting and falling in love with Beatrice had just been part of the trajectory. Local boy falls in love with princess. Only that hadn’t been the way it had played out at all. He hadn’t known about Beatrice’s past for—had it been a year? Maybe longer. Those two years at Northern General had been like living in a cocoon. Nestled up there in the part of the country he knew and loved best, hoping he’d spend each and every day of the rest of his life with Beatrice by his side.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry—you were saying about your friend?”

“Si—yes.” Bea gave her head a shake, as if clearing away her own memories. “She’s staying in Italy. Fallen in love with an Italian.”

“Happens to the best of us.”

Beatrice looked away.

He hadn’t meant to say that. Not in that way. Not with anger lacing the words.

“It’s a magical place up here. I’m glad I came,” she said at last.

He nodded, turning to face the view. Despite the summer, snow still capped the high Alpine ridges soaring above the broad expanse of blue that was one of Europe’s most beautiful high-altitude lakes.

“You know there’s a little island out there?”

“Really? Uninhabited?”

“Quite the opposite. There’s a group of monks. A small group living there... It’s quite a beautiful retreat. Stone and wood. Simple rooms. Cells, they call them.”

“Sounds more like a prison than a place of worship.” Beatrice’s eyebrows tugged together, but her expression was more curious than judgmental.

“No. The simplicity is its beauty. Gives you plenty of time to think.”

He should know. He’d spent long enough in one of those cells, just staring at the stone walls until he could find a way to make sense of the world again. The friary was the reason he’d chosen to come here in the first place. He’d needed to hide away from the world for a while and atone for—he still didn’t know what.

Failing himself?

Not fighting hard enough for Elisa’s life?

Not fighting hard enough for Beatrice?

Those two years they’d spent together in England felt like a lifetime ago. He’d felt...vital—full of the joys of life. In his prime. When she’d told him she didn’t want him anymore he’d just shut down. “Fine,” he had said, and pointed toward the door. What are you waiting for?

He sure as hell hadn’t found any answers when she’d taken him up on his offer.

And he was certain there hadn’t been any when Elisa had died.

He’d found a modicum of peace when he’d gone out to that tiny island friary.

When one of the monks had fallen ill he’d brought him to the clinic here on the lakeside, had accepted the odd shift and found himself, bit by bit, coming back to life. Part of him wondered if the monk had been faking it. And when the clinic “just happened” to mention they needed full-time staff he’d thrown his hat into the ring. He’d been there almost a year now and—as strange as it sounded for a village several hundreds of years old—he felt a part of the place.

“They make some sort of famous Christmas cake—a special sort of panettone. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.”

“The Friars of Torpisi!” Beatrice clapped her hands together, her eyes lighting up as the dots connected. “Of course. I had some last Natale.”

Again that faraway look stole across her face.

What happened to you, my love?

Jamie scrubbed a hand through his hair before stuffing both hands into his pockets again.

Perhaps some questions were best left unanswered.

CHAPTER THREE

“HOW CAN YOU do that?” Bea asked, finally pressing herself into the entire point of the walk. Laying her cards on the table.

“Do what?”

Jamie glanced over at her, his green eyes actively searching her face while the rest of his body remained turned toward the lake.

“Be so forgiving.”

“I hardly think I’m being forgiving. We’ve got to work together. It’d be a shame to lose a good doctor because of water under the bridge.”

Jamie’s hands disappeared behind his back. Whether he was crossing his fingers to cover the lie or polishing a fist to take it out on a wall later, she didn’t know. Either way it was a hard hit to take.

Water under the bridge.

No chance of reconciliation. Not that she had done a single solitary thing to earn his love, much less earn it a second time.

Even so...would it be crazy to take it as an olive branch?

“So you’re not going to fire me?”

He looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “Is that what you think this is about? I may be a lot of things, but I’m hardly a sadist, my love.”

A surprised laugh escaped her throat. “I can think of a thousand other things you could call me besides—” She stopped, finding herself completely unable to repeat the words.

My love.

A thousand times she’d said them once. More. An infinity of moments she’d closed down all in the name of tradition.

“Why aren’t you married?”

Shocked at the bluntness of his question, Bea froze as her mind raced for the right answer. The truth might push him away even further. Yank back his olive branch.

Just tell him. You owe him that much.

“The most immediate answer is that he was cheating on me.”

Color flooded Jamie’s face. The show of emotion meant more to her than she could say.

She continued before she could think better of it. “So I gave him back his ring and told him the wedding was off.”

Jamie’s shoulders broadened as he pressed himself to his full height. “He’d better have left the country if he knows what’s good for him.”

“He has.” She had to laugh. “He’s taken his new lover on our honeymoon.”

“The tabloids must be loving that.”

Jamie laughed, too, but she could see he was far from amused.

“I’ve been doing my best to avoid the tabloids.”

“Probably just as well.”

“Why? Have you heard something?”

“No, no.” He held up his hands. “I hate those things as much as you do. They’re...toxic.”

“You’ve got that right.”

He leant against the railing, his back to the view, and folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t seem that upset for someone whose fiancé has ripped her future into tatters.”

It’s so much more complicated than I ever imagined it would be.

“I think you and I both know I never loved him.”

There it was. The real truth. Whether or not it would make Jamie hate her more, or ultimately find a way to forgive her, only time would tell.

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