The Princess and the Billionaire (23 page)

They pulled into a rutted driveway and rolled to a stop next to a beat-up VW bug.

“Last stop,” said Matty.

“Okay, Pop. The joke’s over. What in hell’s going on?”

“Get out.” Matty leaned across and opened the door. “I have a plane to catch.”

“You’re gonna pay for this, Pop.” Daniel climbed out of the Lincoln. He grabbed his jacket and bag from the backseat. “How do I get back from here?”

“Don’t worry about it, Danny. I don’t think you’re gonna want to.”

With a beep of the horn, Matty backed out of the driveway and disappeared down the road.

Daniel took a look at the simple A-frame house. He thought about the princess. No way could he bring the two images together. Whatever his father had up his sleeve, there was no way it included Isabelle. Not here.

He strode up the path and knocked on the door. No answer. Terrific. He knocked again and listened. He heard the sound of a radio or television inside, then the sound of slow, deliberate footsteps heading toward the door.

“I’m on my way. Just be patient!” That throaty voice, the half-aristocrat, half-siren accent. That mane of dark hair—the sleek little body—

The door swung open. She was more beautiful than he’d remembered. That perfect tittle face with the high cheekbones and those big dark eyes that had haunted his dreams the last few months.

“Oh my God!” Her beautiful eyes widened in surprise, then brimmed with tears. “Bronson!”

She threw herself into his arms. “Whoa, princess! You’re—” He stopped. She met his gaze. His entire life passed before him.

She took his hands and placed them on her belly. “Welcome home, Daddy.”

S
ometimes a man doesn’t know what he wants until it’s staring him right in the face.

For Daniel, thirty-four years of living finally made sense the moment Isabelle placed his hand against her belly and he felt their baby move. Everything she was, everything he wanted to be—all of it was right there beneath his palm, growing stronger and larger every day within the nurturing darkness of her body.

At another time in his life and with another woman, his surprise would have been shock, colored by anger and reluctance. Now he was surprised rather than shocked. He would have felt trapped before; now he experienced a sense of rightness that gave depth and meaning to every breath he took, every beat of his heart from this moment forward.

He drew her into the circle of his arms and kissed her deeply, hungrily, wishing he could find the words to tell her what was in his heart.

She broke his kiss. “Say something, Bronson. You have to be surprised.”

“That doesn’t begin to cover it.” He cupped her belly again, trying to comprehend a miracle. “When were you going to tell me, princess?”

“I tried,” she said, brushing a lock of hair off his forehead with her hand. “It isn’t the type of announcement that lends itself to long-distance phone conversations.” A furrow appeared between her brows. “How on earth did you find me here? Why aren’t you in Japan?” She peered out the living room window. “And how did you get here?”

“Matty.”

She started to laugh. “And I’ll wager I know who told him.”

“Maxine?”

“She has threatened on more than one occasion to tell you about the baby herself.”

“I wish she had.”

Isabelle shook her head. “No. It was better this way.”

“I should’ve been here with you.”

“If you were with me, nothing would have changed between us, Bronson. We wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d still be looking for you to do my bidding.”

“I’ve never been much for taking orders.”

She waved her hand in the air. “Yes, but I had many years of practice in getting what I want from people. It was not one of my more endearing traits, as you’ve pointed out on many an occasion.”

He stepped back and took a long look at her. “You’ve changed.”

Her face lit up with a smile. “You’ve never seen my hair in a ponytail before.”

“And I’ve never seen you in maternity pants, either. It’s something else.”

“Eighteen extra pounds can change a woman.”

But it was more than that. She was more womanly, more centered, as if she’d lived a lifetime in the few months they’d been apart. She told him where the bathroom was, and he went to wash up while she made some coffee. It was a tiny room with a stall shower and a simple sink and vanity. Her red plastic toothbrush hung from the holder. A bright pink plastic drinking cup rested next to the biggest crystal bottle of perfume he’d ever seen. The room smelled of Comet and Chanel No. 5, and he laughed out loud as he thought of the little princess cleaning the toilet.

“I made tuna fish salad this morning,” she said as he entered the kitchen. “I haven’t mastered anything too terribly complicated yet, but I handle the basics quite well.”

“Come here,” he said, sitting down at the table.

She dried her hands on a paper towel and walked toward him. Her gait was measured, as if her center of gravity changed with each step. She was dressed simply: black tights, a white sweater with the sleeves pushed up to the elbow, and the bracelet he’d given her for Christmas. Her breasts were rounder than before, their fullness swaying beneath the soft fabric of her sweater. Her belly was an act of God. She wore no makeup. He knew he would never see a more beautiful woman.

He motioned for her to sit on his lap.

“I might hurt you,” she said, cheeks reddening.

“I’ll take my chances.”

She eased herself down and looped her arms around his neck. “You couldn’t possibly know how much I’ve missed you, Bronson.”

“I think I can.

“I hope you enjoyed your freedom, princess, because it’s over for both of us. From here on, we’re in this thing together.”

She bristled. Just enough so he was reassured the real princess wasn’t hidden away in a pod in the basement. “I have my trust fund now and before long I’ll have a real income from my venture with Ivan. I don’t need anyone’s help in caring for the child.”

“I need to be part of this, princess. My kid’s not going to grow up wondering who his father is or why he’s not around.”

“If we could be half as successful as your parents have been, I would consider myself blessed.” She held his face in her hands, her dark gaze intent, as if she were hungry for the sight of him. “Every night I have the same dream, that we’re together in a beautiful house on top of a mountain with three beautiful children and family all around us.”

“I can go for all of it except the mountain.”

She laughed and nuzzled against the side of his neck. “All right, we’ll substitute the ocean.”

“Perfect.” He paused. “Three kids?”

She nodded. “And not a one will go to boarding schools or have to make an appointment to talk to us.” Her voice broke. “I never want them to feel they can’t count on their family the way I did. I want them to know so much love that it will warm them for the rest of their lives and give them strength.”

“I’m not going to leave you, princess,” he said as the loving yoke of commitment settled itself across his shoulders. “You’ll always be safe with me.”

They sat together in the kitchen, arms around each other, as the long shadows of afternoon fell across the tiled floor. She listened to the beating of his heart against her ear. He felt the movement of their child beneath his hand and he knew that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep them safe from harm.

* * *

Juliana was delivered of a girl on the fifth of May. Her labor was long and arduous, and she begged her doctor for something that would dull the agony. “Better for the child if you do not,” the doctor had said while crushing pain wracked her body.

“I don’t give a bloody damn about the child,” she cried. “The child is nothing.”

Neither the doctor nor his nurse mentioned her outburst, but each recognized that it was not the usual ragings of a woman in transition.

They said Allegra was a beautiful infant with her fair curls and cornflower-blue eyes, but her mother saw nothing but failure each time she looked at her. Eric was attentive and loving, but Juliana saw the disappointment on his face, and she felt that disappointment through to her marrow.

Her mother-in-law, Celine, sent flowers from her villa on the Mediterranean and a note saying she would return to Perreault in July when she intended to shower the child with grandmotherly affection.

Honore, however, was on hand for the birth and the christening. He held the child while Father Guilbeaux baptized Allegra as he had baptized three generations of Perreault royalty. No one could know by looking at Honore that he had suggested that Juliana abort the child just six short months before. After the service, he took Juliana aside and pressed into her hands the deed to one hundred acres of French farmland.

“There is a clinic in Geneva,” he said, linking her arm through his, “that performs miracles in gender selection. There is no reason to allow fate to make these decisions for you.”

He looked so disappointed in her. She couldn’t allow him to feel that way when he alone controlled her happiness, her future with his son. “I want the name of the clinic and the address,” she said. “I intend to waste no time.”

The look in his eyes was worth the prospect of enduring another nine months of torture.

There was no way to avoid the necessity of another timely pregnancy. Not with Isabelle big with child, a son only eight weeks from being born.

Lately, Isabelle was never far from her thoughts. The fool probably had no idea that the son she was carrying would be the rightful heir to the throne. Not that it was of any consequence. Isabelle was an acquisitive little creature. She would never endanger her precious trust fund by taking a jaunt across the Atlantic to visit her family. All Juliana needed was the time to produce a male heir of her own. Certainly her own child, the issue of her marriage to Eric, would be more desirable than the bastard offspring of her sluttish sister, no matter the dates of their birth.

* * *

Isabelle and Daniel spent an amazing two weeks in Ivan’s Pocono hideaway, discovering that even without the balm of sex, they enjoyed each other’s company immensely. The chalet was smaller quarters than either one of them was accustomed to, but somehow neither found the closeness anything but delightful. Isabelle wondered if the day would ever come when she would take for granted the miracle of companionship, of feeling cherished and protected.

What she enjoyed most was the ordinariness of it all. The minutiae of daily living filled her heart with joy: seeing Daniel’s face the last thing at night, awakening in his arms as the first light of day streamed through the bedroom windows; long walks down country roads, planning their child’s future right down to what college she would attend. All these were small joys to be savored.

They had their spats—silly, heated arguments about toothpaste caps and breakfast choices—but in all of the important matters they were in perfect accord. The happiness they’d found together mattered, and they were both willing to work hard to hold onto it.

At the end of the second week, Daniel decided it was time for them to move back to the city, and reluctantly Isabelle agreed. Their baby was due in six weeks, and a two-hour drive to the hospital didn’t seem prudent to either one of them.

Maxine welcomed them back with open arms and an impromptu party. Ivan was thrilled to see the embroideries Isabelle had worked on since his last visit. Her unexpected pregnancy had thrown advertising for the Princess line into a state of confusion; the dresses she had worked on while in the Poconos helped soothe his frazzled nerves.

Of course, Matty had spread the word about the baby, and Isabelle fielded a score of happy telephone calls from various Bronsons. “Beware,” Cathy Bronson-Bernier warned her over a giggly lunch at Serendipity. “My family believes in the guerrilla-ambush style of baby shower. You won’t be safe between now and your delivery date.”

Isabelle laughed so hard that tears ran down her cheeks as Cathy detailed the bizarre yet touching rituals that surrounded the American baby shower. “I can’t escape this tradition?”

“It’s inevitable,” said Cathy, “and it’ll happen when you least expect it. I was waltzed right out of my office by two women in fake nurses’ uniforms. They put me in a stretch limousine and whisked me off to a beautiful little inn near Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island where everyone I’ve ever known and everyone I’m related to jumped out from behind the potted palms and yelled, ‘Surprise!’”

There was little Isabelle could say in response. The whole thing was so far beyond her experience that it sounded like fantasy. When she went home that evening, she related the story to an amazed Maxine and a very amused Daniel.

The idea of living separately was no longer an option for Isabelle and Bronson. His apartment was spacious but needed considerable work to make it suitable for a family.
Tante
Elysse had delayed her return to Manhattan until September, and Isabelle hoped that the redecorating would be finished by then. When she told Maxine there would be a suite of rooms for her, Maxine shocked Isabelle by announcing that she was moving in with Ivan as soon as Isabelle was settled back home after delivery.

Love was in the air. Isabelle teased Maxine that the wonderful romance novels she adored had transferred their magic to their lives. Maxine just smiled. The sparkle in her eyes, however, told the tale.

* * *

Despite her best intentions, Juliana found herself growing more obsessed with Isabelle as the days wore on. A small story in French
Vogue
had awakened the sleeping monster of jealousy, and Juliana felt the nip of its fangs in the soft flesh of her heart. Who but her sister, her blessed-by-the-gods sister, could turn a schoolgirl’s recreation into a successful endeavor? Every young woman in Perreault could wield a needle with equal skill. It was a commonplace art, almost vulgar in its accessibility. Well suited to Isabelle, all things considered.

She ripped the page, complete with a photo of a radiantly pregnant Isabelle, from the magazine and tossed it into the wastebasket beside the desk. Even her dreams of late had been filled with images of the dark-haired princess. She glanced toward the locked desk drawer where she kept Marchand’s reports. She didn’t have to see the photos of Isabelle and Eric again to call to mind each and every nuance of expression and gesture. If only she could remember how many trips abroad Eric had made last year after Bertrand’s death. It seemed as if he’d been away much more than he was at home, traveling to all of the major cities where Malraux International kept an office.

How many other times had her husband and sister been together when a camera had not been present? In Paris after Isabelle left Perreault? In London when she stayed with that Gemma creature? Or New York—over and over and over? All along Juliana had assumed that the child her sister was carrying had been fathered by that American businessman. But in truth that child could belong to anyone. Surely Isabelle had not confined her amorous athletics to two men. The child could be Gianni Vitelli’s or any number of men who had squired Isabelle during the months after Juliana and Eric announced their engagement.