Читать книгу Royal Baby Collection - Lynn Raye Harris - Страница 10
ОглавлениеTHE FIRST TEXT came an hour after she had returned to her tour group and was followed by a steady stream over the following days.
They spoke at least once a day on the phone, and sent hundreds of texts back and forth in the days before she would be returning to New York.
Kiki’s roaming charges on her mobile were going to be insane, but she didn’t care. Even less so when he met her ferry from Sicily in Civitavecchia and gave her a ride back to Rome in his private car. They spent the night together at her airport hotel, and he promised to come visit her in the States.
Her friends told her not to expect the holiday romance to make it home with her. Everyone but Joni, who told Kiki that—if it was meant to be—it was going to happen. That’s how love worked.
Kiki hadn’t used the L word yet. Neither had Mich, but she thought it was coming. She hadn’t told him her dad was a billionaire, but they’d talked about what really mattered. She knew how he felt growing up the eldest of triplets; she had shared with him how hard it had been to be an only child to parents who had desperately wanted more. How much she adored her small extended family.
He had revealed that his own family wasn’t nearly so small but were just as close. She had gotten the sense that there was more going on there than he’d told her about, but not the important stuff. She knew he really liked his parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and even his cousins.
She also knew he considered his current job freeing, despite the fact it required a lot of travel and rarely limited itself to office hours. She had understood that only too well, having felt more freedom at university than ever before in her life.
They had talked about the fact that they didn’t think either his or her parents meant to put such pressures on them, but life didn’t always allow for personal autonomy and choices. She didn’t know what his story was exactly but had assumed it was something like her own.
Though Mich seemed to find his role a lot more desirable than the one Kiki’s dad wanted for her. She only knew that he understood she wished she could do something different with her degree in psychology than follow it up with an MBA so she could work with her dad.
It was clear that they both loved their parents, and the people relying on their families, too much to try to run from the destinies ordained for them.
No matter what the future held, she missed Mich like crazy and didn’t even care if that made any sense, considering they’d spent less than a full forty-eight hours together.
* * *
Micheli walked up to the sorority house and texted Kiki. Where R U?
Studying in my room. Miss you.
He grinned. Come outside.
What? R U HERE???!!!
Laughing at her exuberant text-speak, he answered. Come outside and find out.
Seconds later the front door of Alpha Chi Omega burst open, and Kiki was there, wearing a pair of sleep pants and a tank top with tiny straps; she looked more beautiful than any woman he’d seen in the six weeks since Rome.
“Mich!” She launched herself at him.
He caught her with a laugh that broke the tight bands that had been constricting his chest for the last month and a half.
Pulling her in close, his gaze fixed on the lips that had haunted his dreams. “Invece. It is so good to hold you again.”
“Yes.”
Then they were kissing. He knew it was a risk, just as his time with her in Rome had been. If pictures of them together hit the tabloids, his family would be furious; but in this moment, as much as Mich was aware of his duty and the repercussions of discovery, he could not have let Kiki go if a whole horde of reporters showed up.
She was necessary in a way no woman had ever been.
“How long are you here for?” she demanded after the first fervid kisses.
“I have business in New York for the next week.”
“A whole week?” she asked, her eyes glistening with emotion that wrapped itself around his heart.
“Sì, invece. A full week.” She just melted against him, hugging him so tight he knew she felt the same.
“I love you, too,”
“What?” He had not told her he loved her.
Though he did.
“I know what invece means. I looked up Sicilian endearments on the Net. Invece means beloved. That means you love me.”
“Sì. T’amu.”
She sighed, contentment pouring off of her. “We’re going to make this work.”
“Somehow.”
She nodded against his chest. “But right now, we’re just going to enjoy each other, right?”
“Right.” She did not graduate for another month.
That was time enough to start looking at solutions, for him to tell her about the part of him that was Principe Vittoro, for them to meet each other’s families. It might be selfish, but he was not yet ready to share Kiki with his family, was not entirely sure they would meet her with open arms.
He was heir to the throne. An unspoken expectation existed that he would marry from within their extensive circle, preferably a woman of Sicilian or Italian heritage. A woman from his own country of Isole dei Re would be even better but not expected.
An American like his aunts? That might be fine for his younger brother or sister but not Principe Vittoro.
Now was not the time to dwell on the problems of the future however. He had one week to spend with the woman he loved, and he was going to make the most of it.
* * *
Kiki curled into Mich’s side. He flew back to Europe tomorrow, but the past week had been the most amazing one of her life. He’d spoiled her rotten. They hadn’t gone out much, neither one of them wanting to share the other with strangers at a theater, or even friends.
The time they had spent together in his suite had been amazing. He’d had special meals catered, rented first-run movies to watch on the drop-down screen of the suite’s main living area.
Kiki had had another reason for keeping things low profile. She hadn’t told her parents about Mich yet and wasn’t ready to, either. Her dad defined overprotective. She didn’t want Miguel Menendez unleashing his people on Mich, doing a background check that made the invasiveness of the paparazzi seem downright friendly in comparison.
She didn’t want to learn things about Mich from a dossier. She wanted to get to know him the old-fashioned way, and so far that was working really great.
They knew the important stuff about each other. They were in love. And when the time was right, they’d bring their families into it.
She rubbed her hand along his flank, wanting to make love at least one more time before he left. She’d gone on the birth control patch when she had returned to New York, and they’d been able to forego condoms after sharing all-clear test results.
It was amazing. Intimate in a way she never would have expected. She’d never realized how different that layer of latex felt psychologically.
Yes, the physical sensations were slightly better, but it was the loss of the mental barrier that made her feel so much closer to him.
* * *
Mich attended Kiki’s graduation, prepared to meet her parents, but worried about the fact she still didn’t know he was a prince. Regardless, reality had to intrude on their relationship at some point if they wanted to go into the future together. And he did.
He’d told her he had something important to discuss, but the time before her graduation ceremony they’d set aside had got taken up by her family. Mich was surprised, but relieved, when she called and asked if he would mind meeting her parents later, in a less stressful environment than the stadium where the ceremony was being held.
“The whole family is going to be here, and I’d rather introduce you to them at Grandfather’s house tomorrow.” She did sound stressed.
He had no problem agreeing. “That is fine. You’ll know I’m here watching.”
“Yes.” There was a wealth of emotion in that one word.
“So, Mom and Dad understand I want to celebrate with my friends tonight,” she said leadingly.
“Sì?”
“Only, well, I’d rather just spend it with you.”
He liked hearing that, and it would give him the opportunity to tell her what he needed to. “It will be my pleasure to help you celebrate your achievement.”
“Sometimes you’re so formal,” she said with a nervous-sounding laugh. “Um...tonight, Mich... We need to talk.”
“I agree.”
“You do?”
“I know what I feel. It is not going to change.” Some things were meant to be. “It is time to settle our future. And I give you full warning, I expect you in mine.”
“I’m really, really happy to hear you say that.”
* * *
Kiki had convinced Mich to let her meet him at his hotel. She didn’t want to have this discussion in a restaurant. It just wasn’t something she wanted to tell him in a roomful of strangers.
He opened the door to his room on her first knock.
She grinned, delight at his eagerness overshadowing her nerves. “You were waiting.”
“I’ve been checking the hall every few minutes,” he admitted.
“You’re amazing, you know that?” She threw herself in his arms, and just like every time she did that, he caught her and pulled her close as if she was the most precious thing in the world.
He led her through to the bedroom, but she held back from the bed. “Wait, we need to talk.”
He stopped and looked at her consideringly. “Would you feel better having this discussion on the sofa in the living room?”
“Yes. Not really, but I think we should.”
He smiled at her indulgently. “Then, by all means, let us return to the outer room.”
They sat on the sofa, and she took several breaths, but the words wouldn’t come.
“I think I know what you want to talk about.” He laid his hand over hers.
“No, no, I really don’t think you do. You think I want to talk about us continuing to see each other and bringing our relationship into the real world. Which I do.” Oh, man, did she.
“But?” He was looking wary.
She grabbed the small clear plastic bag containing the tiny white stick out of her pocket. She handed it to him. “We’re pregnant,” she blurted out.
He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out. He took the stick, stared at it. “Two blue lines means pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. The doctor told me that only eight couples in one hundred will get pregnant while using the patch.”
“That makes us one of the lucky eight percent then.” He smiled at her, his joy blinding.
Tears burned her eyes, choking her, but she hugged him and kissed him hard. “I love you so much, Mich. I didn’t know how you were going to take this.”
“It was not planned, but every baby is a blessing.”
Maybe that was a Sicilian thing, because she was fairly certain her parents weren’t going to be so calm about it. “My dad is going to freak.”
“Because you are pregnant?”
“We aren’t married. Not that I expect you to marry me. We can take our time, make this work. He might not understand, but I do.”
“Why should we take our time? I have known I wanted you for the rest of my future since you walked away from me that morning in Palermo.”
“How could any guy be more perfect than you?”
“Well, this perfect guy has the perfect solution.”
“What?”
“We elope. Tonight. My family has a house in the Caribbean. The island has no waiting period on a marriage license. The local priest and magistrate are indebted to my family. We can be married by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Isn’t that crazy?”
“Isn’t love?”
“But—”
“If we don’t elope, our families will get ahold of this and it will become a circus. It will stop being about us, about the family we’re starting, and be about the families we come from.”
He was so right about that. Relief-driven euphoria and adrenaline poured through her. “Yes, let’s elope.”
She’d never wanted the huge wedding. Had dreaded the day her mother and father got their teeth into that milestone event.
“You know I always wanted something small on the beach. No reporters, no business or political allies. Just me, the man I love and our immediate families.”
His espresso gaze said her dream sounded wonderful to him. “We’ll share our happiness with them after the event.”
“Yes.”
Kiki was so glad she’d prepped her family for meeting Mich in a couple of days, not tomorrow like she’d led him to believe. She’d known she and Mich needed time to formulate a plan in response to the pregnancy. Now she’d have that time to elope before her dad sent the troops after her.
