The Prince's Secret Baby (15 page)

The talk shifted to Rule and the progress on his various projects. It was a bit formal, Sydney thought. But in a nice, getting-to-know-you sort of way.

She was so proud of Trev. He sat quietly on Rule’s lap for a while, watching the adults, big dark eyes tracking from one face to another. Both Adrienne and Evan seemed taken with him. They kept sending him warm looks and smiles.

Slowly, Trev was drawn in. After twenty minutes or so, during a slight lull in the conversation, he held out his arms to Adrienne. “Gamma. Hug, please.”

Adrienne reached for him and Rule passed him over. She wore a gorgeous designer jacket and a silk dress underneath. Sydney worried a little that Trev would drool on Her Highness’s lovely outfit.

But Adrienne didn’t seem concerned. She hugged him and kissed his cheek and he allowed it, all shyness fled.

Lani appeared about half an hour into the visit, ushered in by the thin woman. After a brief introduction, she took Trevor with her back to their rooms.

The rest of them went in to dinner, where they were joined by two of Rule’s brothers—Maximilian, the heir apparent, who’d come up from his villa to meet Rule’s bride, and Alexander, the one who’d been a prisoner in Afghanistan.

Sydney liked Maximilian from the first. He was almost as handsome as Rule and he seemed to her to be a kind man, and very charismatic. He had sad eyes, though. She remembered what Rule had told her, about Max losing his wife in a water-skiing accident, and wondered if he was still grieving the loss.

It was difficult to like Alex. He was darkly handsome like the rest of the family, but more powerfully built and very quiet. He seemed…angry. Or perhaps sunk in some deep depression. Sydney supposed his attitude wasn’t all that surprising. She imagined that being kept prisoner by terrorists would give anyone a bad attitude. But she could easily see why he and Princess Lili didn’t get along. Sydney doubted that Alex got along with anyone.

Rule’s other brother, Alex’s twin, Damien, was something of a jet-setter. He was off on a friend’s yacht. Two of his sisters, the youngest and second-youngest, Rory and Genevra, were away at school. Alice and Rhiannon were at an event in Luxembourg. And the oldest sister, Arabella, had gone to Paris. When they were home from school, Rory and Genevra still lived at the palace. The three older sisters had their own villas.

Dinner was several courses. The food was delicious. There was wine. Excellent French wine. As she’d done since she first suspected she might be pregnant, Sydney took care to drink very little of it.

Later, back in their own apartment, she and Rule celebrated her move to Montedoro by making love—twice. Once, while standing up against the tall, beautifully carved bedroom doors. Very well hung, those doors, she’d teased, as he was moving so deliciously inside her. Those doors didn’t rattle once no matter how enthusiastic they became.

Eventually, they got into bed, where they made love the second time. It was after that second time, when she lay tucked close against him, that she told him, “Your mother says there’s a large library here at the palace. A lot of books on Montedoran history. She also says the palace librarian can answer just about any question I might have about your country.”

He stroked her arm in an idle, thoroughly distracting way. “Going to become a Montedoran scholar, are you?”

“I need to catch up, to understand how things work here, so I can begin to consider the kind of work I want to do, to discover where and how I can be most useful to my new country.”

“So ambitious.” He said it admiringly as he caressed her breast.

“You know I lose IQ points when you do that…”

He covered her breast with his warm hand. “I love your breasts.”

“Good. You’ll be seeing a lot of them as the years go by.”

He caught her nipple between his fingers and squeezed. She sighed. He said, in a gentle, careful voice, “I believe they are fuller than they used to be.”

It was the perfect opportunity to tell him that there was a reason her breasts were bigger: she was having his baby. But instead, she elbowed him in the ribs. “Oh. You like them because they’re
bigger.
”

He nuzzled her hair. “
Are
they bigger?”

She got up on one elbow, where she could see his eyes. “Yes.” She knew then. She could see it in his face, in the breathless way he looked at her.
He
knew already. She gave him a teasing smile. “My breasts are bigger. It’s a miracle.”

He asked, almost shyly, “Sydney…is it possible that you…?”

She smiled even wider. “That I
what,
Rule?”

“Don’t tease me. Please.” His eyes had gone dark as the middle of the night. It was a soft, yearning sort of darkness. He really, really wanted to know.

And her heart just…expanded. It felt suddenly twice as big as a moment before, as if it were pushing at her ribs, trying to make more room inside her chest. “I think so,” she whispered. “I think we’re going to have a baby.”

He held her gaze, steadily, surely. “You
think?
”

“All the signs are there. The same ones I had with Trev. And my period is almost three weeks late. I haven’t taken the home test I bought yet, though.”

He touched her chin, brushed his thumb across her lips. “When will you take it?”

She smiled against his touch. “How about tomorrow morning?”

“Sydney…”

“What?”

“That’s all. Just Sydney. Sydney, Sydney, Sydney…” He took her shoulders and pulled her close so he could kiss her. A long kiss, so tender. So thorough. So right.

She settled back onto his chest again, her chin on her arms. “So. You’re happy?”

He stroked her hair. “I am. I can’t tell you how happy.”

“You’re a good father. Trev is crazy about you.”

He smoothed her hair, guided it behind her ear. “Trevor is everything I ever wanted in a son. And you are everything I ever dreamed of in a wife.”

She remembered his mother’s reaction at her first sight of Trev and smiled to herself. “Did you see how surprised your mother was when she met Trev? I’m guessing she noticed the uncanny resemblance between you two.”

His hand stilled on her hair. “What makes you think that?”

Had something changed in his eyes?

She asked herself the question—and then decided it was nothing. He was stroking her hair again, regarding her so tenderly. She said, “I thought she looked pretty stunned when she saw him—you didn’t notice the look on her face?”

“Hmm. Yes, I suppose…”

She asked, “Did you see it, or didn’t you?” At his shrug, she frowned. “It was only there for a second and then gone. I guess I might have imagined it… .”

He framed her face between his hands. “Come here. Kiss me.”

She pretended to consider. “Well, now. That’s a pretty tempting offer.”

“Come here. Let me show you
how
tempting… .”

She lifted up over him and then, with a happy sigh, settled her mouth on his. He was right. The kiss tempted her to kiss him some more.

Kisses led to more caresses and they made love again. Slowly. Beautifully.

She gazed up at his unforgettable face above her and thought how it just kept getting better between them. How there was nothing, ever, that could tear them apart.

* * *

An hour later, Rule lay in the dark staring up at the ceiling, listening to his wife’s even, relaxed breathing beside him.

His pregnant wife…

He was sure of it. And so was she. The test in the morning was only a formality. She was having his baby.

His
second
baby.

And yes. He’d seen that look on his mother’s face, too.

His mother had known that Trevor was his. One look at the boy and she’d had no doubt.

Very soon now, Her Sovereign Highness would be summoning him for a private talk. She was going to want to discuss the startling resemblance between him and his supposed stepson.

She would also be going after his father, working on the poor man. She would be insisting that her Prince Consort tell her the truth if he knew
anything
about what was really going on with Rule and his new wife and the child who was the mirror image of Rule at that age. One way or another, Adrienne would get to the bottom of it.

And as soon as she knew the truth, she was going to be after Rule to come clean with his wife. His mother was as much about integrity and truth in life and marriage as his wife was.

Rule felt the day of reckoning approaching. He had everything now: the woman he’d almost given up on finding; a healthy, happy, perfect son—and a second child on the way.

The only real question was how much he was going to lose when Sydney finally learned the truth.

* * *

Sydney’s hands were shaking.

She turned her back to the test wand she’d left on the corner of the serpentine marble counter and held both hands out in front of her. Yep. Her fingers trembled like leaves in the wind.

“Silly,” she whispered. “So silly…” With a low moan, she lifted her hands and covered her face with them.

Really, there was no reason she should be such a bundle of nerves over this. She was either pregnant or not—and she just knew that she
was.
In a moment, the timer would go off and she would have proof.

No reason to be freaked out over it. No reason at all.

Rule tapped on the bathroom door. “Sydney? Are you all right in there?” As if in response to his question, the timer she’d set on the marble enclosure around the ginormous sunken tub started beeping. “Sydney! Are you all right?”

She went over and flipped the switch on the timer. It fell blessedly silent.

Rule didn’t. “Sydney, my God!” He pounded on the door.

She whirled, stalked to the door, twisted the lock and flung it wide. He stood there looking fabulous, wearing nothing but a worried expression. Through clenched teeth she informed him, “I am
fine.
Get it? Fine.”

He held out his arms.

With a cry, she threw herself into them, wrapped her arms around his lean bare waist and held on tight. She buried her face against his beautiful hard chest. “It’s time,” she said into that wonderful trail of hair that started between his perfect pectoral muscles and went on down, all the way to heaven. “I can’t look.”

“Sydney…” He said her name in that special way that only he could, so tenderly, so reassuringly. He stroked her back and then he took her chin and tipped it up. His dark eyes were waiting. “We both know what the test will say.” He brushed a kiss across her lips.

Her mouth trembled. Sheesh. She was a trembling fool. She bit her lower lip to make it stop and then she said, “I
know
we both know. But what if we’re wrong?”

He drew in a slow breath and dared to suggest, “Only one way to find out.”

She shoved her face into his chest again, feeling like Trevor, the day before, clinging to his precious
Roo
upon meeting his new grandparents. “
You
look. I can’t do it.”

He chuckled. Oh, wasn’t that just like a man? To chuckle at a time like this. He chuckled, and then he kissed the top of her head and then he gently took hold of her arms. “You will have to release me if you want me to be the one to look.”

Reluctantly, with another soft cry, she let go of him and stepped out of his way. “Do it. Now.”

He indicated the wand on the edge of the marble sink counter and slanted her a questioning glance.

She nodded.

He went to it, picked it up, frowned at it.

What? Suddenly, he couldn’t read? She said, “The little window, it either says ‘pregnant’ or ‘not pregnant.’”

He made a big show of squinting at the wand. “Well, now, let’s see here…”

“I am going to grab that thing and hit you on the head with it. Just see if I don’t.”

He waved his free hand in a shushing kind of gesture. “All right, all right. It says… Well, what do you know? It says…”

“Rule. Stop it. I mean it. You stop it right now.”

And then he dropped the wand in the sink, turned and grabbed her, lifting her high, spinning her around. She squealed and then she laughed. And then he was letting her down, slowly, the short silk nightie she wore catching, riding up, leaving her bare from the waist down. Her feet touched the floor toes-first.

Finally, he leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Pregnant.”

Pregnant.
The magic word.

She threw her arms around him. “Oh, I can’t believe it. It’s true. It’s really true. We’re having a baby. We really, really are. How amazing is that?”

“Extremely amazing,” he agreed.

And then he scooped her high in his arms and carried her back to the bed where they celebrated the positive test result in their favorite way.

* * *

Later, Sydney asked Rule if he would mind keeping the news about the baby to themselves for a while. She was only a few weeks along, after all. No one else needed to know for another month or so, did they? She wanted a little time to have it be just between the two of them.