Читать книгу The Prince's Baby - Lisa Laurel Kaye - Страница 9

The moment Drew had been dreading for years had arrived at last, and it was far worse than she had feared.

All of her maternal instincts screamed at her to protect Lexi at any cost. Warring with them was her conscience, which protested that, no matter what the consequences, Whit had a right to know the truth.

Her inner battle raged until she heard Whit speak again. This time his voice was rough with emotion.

“Drew, tell me. Is Lexi my daughter?”

The word that would change three people’s lives forever came out as barely a whisper.

“Yes.”

It had come down to no decision at all, for Drew. It was one thing not to have sought Whit out to tell him about Lexi. It would be something else entirely to stand there and answer his direct question with a lie.

She watched the reactions play across his face and was relieved when he settled on anger. That gave her back the strength to face him.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.

“You weren’t here,” she reminded him. It still hurt to remember. Safe in his love, she had dared to dream for the first time in her life—-foolish, foolish girl. She had built them a lovely castle in the sky, and when her prince had walked away, it had come crashing down all around her. After he’d left her, she’d found out she was pregnant. Day by day, challenge by challenge, she had survived. She would survive this day, this challenge, too. Taking a deep breath, she returned Whit’s stony stare.

“I had no reason to suspect you might be pregnant when I left,” he said, his expression as hard as the rocky shoreline they stood above. “How did it happen, anyway?”

Drew raised one eyebrow eloquently.

“You know what I mean,” he said, his voice warning that his patience was being stretched to its limits. “We always took precautions.”

As the daughter of an unwed mother, who had left her to be raised by her grandmother, Drew had often vowed that the last thing she would ever do was repeat her mother’s mistake. Whit had been her first lover—her only lover—and as hot as the lovemaking they’d shared that golden summer was, he had taken full responsibility for protecting her. She had seen that as yet another proof of his love; which only showed that a person could make two mistakes at the same time.

“No method is foolproof,” she said. And there was no bigger fool in the world than she had been that summer. “We’re not the only two people that this has ever happened to.”

“That’s right. It took two of us,” he snapped. “Okay, I wasn’t here—but you knew how to find me. Why didn’t you even try?”

She looked him right in the eye. “Why didn’t I?” she flung back.

He looked away then, but before he did, she thought she saw a spasm of emotion cross his face. For a moment she felt for him, automatically starting down a well-worn path of caring that had long been blocked off. Don’t go that way, Drew, she warned herself. Let him sweat this out. Just let him! His silence told her that he must have some memory of the day he had shattered her dreams.

After a moment he swung his glance back to her; it was as hard as granite. “I still think you should have told me about the baby.”

Like she hadn’t thought about that, for endless hours. Her pride would keep her safe from him—she didn’t need to learn a painful lesson twice—but the baby was another matter entirely. She’d had to decide which was worse for Lexi: no father at all, or a man who didn’t want to be a father, who might up and leave again at any time, as he had left her. The rambling ways of the Prince of Hearts had been documented enough by the media over the ensuing years to make Drew sure she’d done the right thing.

“Well, I didn’t,” she said, looking up at him in defiance. “And if you hadn’t figured it out on your own, I still wouldn’t”

“Your secret’s out now, Drew, and that changes everything,” he said, his voice taut with warning.

Fear wrapped its icy fingers around Drew’s throat. “What do you mean?” she asked, unable to keep a note of desperation from creeping into her voice.

“You’ve played God for seven years, Drew. No more.”

“But no one else knows, Whit—I swear! No one knows we were lovers, and I’ve never told anyone who Lexi’s father is. I’ll never expose you publicly or bring a suit against you or anything like that! If I’d wanted that, I would have done it long ago. Lexi and I are doing fine. Nothing has to change. We go our way, and you go yours.”

Whit stared at her. “Do you expect me to just turn my back and forget I have a daughter?”

No. Even through her anger Drew could see that there was a world of difference between the nineteenyear-old who didn’t want to be a family man and the grown man who’d just discovered he had a child of his own. But his feelings weren’t her concern. Lexi was. She looked up at him. “Whit, please. For Lexi’s sake, don’t do anything about this.”

He set his jaw and said tightly, “I am most definitely going to do something.”

Determination to protect her daughter gave Drew a backbone of steel. “Just what are you going to do, Your Highness?” she demanded, hands on hips.

“How the hell do I know?” he shot back. “But I’ll think of something, with or without your cooperation.”

Drew didn’t feel like cooperating! What she felt like doing was belting him. “My first choice is for you to leave, just like you did seven years ago. But since you seem determined to be difficult about this, you had better believe that I will darn well have a major say in how this affects my daughter,” she said. She lowered her voice and added, “All I care about is what’s best for Lexi.”

Whit’s flare of anger seemed to be spent. “You might not believe it, but so do I,” he said feelingly. “We need to figure this out, together.”

Drew took a step backward, holding up her hands. “Look, Whit, I can’t talk about this now. I have to get to work.” What she really needed was to get away from him, to think.

“All right,” he conceded. “Tonight. I’ll come to your house.”

“No!” She almost shouted it.

The line of his mouth was grim. “At the castle, then. Can you get someone to watch Lexi?”

“Yes,” said Drew, unable to keep the disappointment of defeat out of her voice. “I’ll be there at eight.”

After the limo dropped Drew off at her car in the school parking lot, Whit ordered the driver to go back home. It sounded funny to say that. He was a citizen of the world, as the saying went, and he’d always had more roam than home in him. But for the foreseeable future, he would be living right here in Maine, in the castle at the tip of Anders Point that had been owned by his family for years. Not that it was his decision to be stuck on this finger of land on the Maine coast. He was here on his father’s orders.

He sat back in the seat, and a crackling sound reminded him of the crumpled piece of paper that nestled in his pocket. Finding it stuck in the big iron gate when he’d arrived at the castle had not only sent him to the school, it had sent his life into turmoil. His thoughts turned to the beautiful little girl he’d met today—his little girl. A lump thickened in his throat as he remembered her features—so very like his own. How could Drew have kept his daughter from him?

“Phone call for you, Your Highness,” the driver said, interrupting Whit’s chaotic thoughts.

It was Whit’s father. “I wanted to see how you were doing since you left Isle Anders,” King Ivar said.

“You mean, since you sent me away,” Whit clarified. For the past months, following his father’s heart surgery, Whit had been shouldering the major responsibility for ruling the kingdom. But now King Ivar’s recovery was complete and Whit’s older brother, Prince Erik, had returned from his honeymoon with his bride, Julie. The king decided that Erik, his elder son and heir to the throne, should resume his former duties. And he wanted Whit to move on to the next in a long string of different jobs he had given him.

“Yes. Since I sent you to Anders Point,” the king agreed.

Whit had learned long ago that he couldn’t argue with his father’s reasoning where his ever-changing assignments were concerned. And right now, he had more important things on his mind than his next royal duty, not that he was going to discuss those things with his father. Telling the king about Lexi would only confirm his father’s feeling that his second son knew nothing of duty and responsibility. “Have you decided what you want me to do?” he asked.

“What would you like to do?”

Whit held his hand over the mouthpiece and swore. He was in no mood to play games. “Your Majesty, I stand ready to perform whatever duty you assign me,” he said. “As usual.”

The king was silent for a moment, as if thinking. “I have been considering giving you some time off.”

“Time off? Why?”

“I had a hiatus during my surgery, Erik had a honeymoon. Why shouldn’t you take a little vacation, too?”

“I don’t need a vacation, Your Majesty.” What he needed was his usual fast-paced life-style—fast enough to use up some of his boundless energy, too fast to allow any introspection. “What would you like me to do while I’m here?”

The king paused, as if choosing his words carefully. “Just do what comes naturally,” he said.

“As a prince?” Whit gave a derisive laugh. That was one thing that didn’t come naturally to him, as his father very well knew. One of his botch-ups had nearly made the whole country grind to a halt. Whit wasn’t like his father, or even like his responsible older brother. From the get-go he was the sort who colored outside of the lines, not a prime qualification for a role that’s heavy on tradition. Whit was a prince by birth, a rebel by trade, and he’d walked an uneasy line his whole life—never disobeying a royal command, but never living up to his father’s expectations either.

“Do what needs doing, my son, and trust that all things unfold in the fullness of time,” the king said, unperturbed.

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” Whit said, swearing again as he hung up the phone. His father loved to talk like that, and it drove him crazy.

The limo bumped up the gravel road that led to the castle, stopping at the iron gate, which this time had no ragged piece of paper stuck in it. A lifetime had gone by since he’d found that note, which at a cursory glance he’d been ready to tear up. Then at second glance he saw that it wasn’t written in red lipstick, but red crayon. This wasn’t the usual tawdry proposition, but a missive with words of hope and longing written in a child’s unschooled hand.

His child’s, he now knew. Was that why it had beckoned him, so irresistibly, to the school?

After opening the gate, the driver pulled the limo up to the steps leading to the front door.

“Which room would you like your bags in, Your Highness?” he asked.

“I don’t care,” Whit said.

“The north suite has a lovely view this time of—”

“Fine, fine. Whatever.”

“After that, is there anything else you’d like me to—”

“Yes,” said Whit. “Get lost.”

The young man stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Sloane. Get lost.”

Sloane blinked. “Do you mean permanently? When your father hired me, he told me my services would be needed at least until the end of the year.”

Whit looked at him. He was young—about nineteen, the age when young men make stupid, selfish mistakes. He was also handsome, cocky and, it seemed, chatty—all of which Whit found unspeakably irritating right now. “What’s your real name, kid?”

“Sloane.”

Whit glared at him.

“Okay, that’s my last. name. It’s Gary Sloane, but Gary didn’t sound right for a chauffeur,” the young man said amiably, adding, as an afterthought, “Your Highness.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

Bingo. “Listen, Sloane,” Whit said. “When I want to fire you, I’ll say, ‘You’re fired.’ When I want you to get lost, I’ll say, ‘Get lost.’ Do you see the difference?”

“Yes, Your Highness. Absolutely.”

“Good.” Whit took the steps two at a time and yanked open the front door.

“Your Highness.” Sloane’s voice from behind stopped him.

Whit turned back around. “Aren’t you lost yet, Sloane?”

“Yes. No. I mean, almost. But I wanted to know how long you want me to stay lost for.”

“Until tomorrow morning.”

Sloane was taken aback. “But, Your Highness, I live here at the castle. The king hired me to be the caretaker, too, since Julie used to do that before Prince Erik married her and—”

Whit held up his hand. “Do you have somewhere else to stay?”

Sloane’s youthful brow frowned in thought. “Well, I suppose I could stay at my sister’s. She’s—”

“Good. Do it. Get lost until tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Oh, and Sloane?”

“Yes?”

“Where I go, what I do and with whom I speak are my own business. Not yours or your sister’s or anyone else’s. Is that clear?”

“Like crystal, Your Highness,” Sloane said, and gave him a snappy salute.

With a groan, Whit went into the castle and slammed the heavy wooden door shut behind him.

Luckily no emergency calls came into the sheriff’s office the rest of the afternoon, because Drew could do nothing but worry about what had happened.

Whit knew. He knew.

Her fears tormented her. What if he tried to take Lexi away from her? He was rich and powerful. Surely, if it came down to any battle between them, he would win easily. How could she live without Lexi?

The thought was too horrible to contemplate. Whit wouldn’t, couldn’t, do that to her—to them. Anyway, it made no sense for a playboy like him to want a child around, cramping his style. Her worries on that front subsided, only to be replaced by more realistic, and therefore, more haunting, ones.

Lexi was very needy right now. And no one would fit the bill for what she needed—at least, on the surface—except Whit. First of all, he was charming. No female, no matter how old or young, was immune to that charm. Second, he had rescued her. The look of worshipful gratitude on her face had reached Drew way in the back of the gym. But most of all, he was a prince. Of course Lexi would love him!

But where would that leave her daughter? Drew wondered. In the same place Whit had left her—all alone with the shattered fragments of her beautiful dreams?

* * *

Whit spent the afternoon pacing for miles along the stone-walled corridors of the castle.

He had been totally and completely thrown by the news he’d gotten that day. He had a daughter. A daughter!

The unexpectedness of it had sent him into turmoil, and the color of his reaction was as ever-changing as a kaleidoscope. He would pace by the refrigerator and get an inexplicable urge to pop open one of the champagne bottles left from Erik and Julie’s wedding. Then he’d pace into his father’s library and want a shot of something stronger from the liquor cabinet to fortify his jangling nerves. When he passed a telephone, his fingers itched to dial his brother or his friend Prince Lucas for moral support. When he passed one of the windows that overlooked the town, he would stop and wonder what his daughter was doing. When he passed a mirror, he’d wonder what he was doing. When he passed the big clock, whose hands moved in slow motion, he’d wonder how he was going to last until eight o’clock, when Drew would come.

He’d never had any father fantasies. They were too far from reality for him, starting as they did with a minister saying, “You may kiss the bride,” and gradually progressing to a doctor saying, “Congratulations, it’s a—”

It was a girl. He felt a sudden, irrational guilt that he hadn’t paid more attention to her the first time he had ever seen her, at Erik and Julie’s wedding here at the Anders Point castle. But the littlest guest at the wedding had been rather preoccupied with his father, the king, charming him out of his crown with her beguiling smile.

And Whit had been preoccupied with Drew. That occasion had been the first time he had seen her in seven long years, and the power of the attraction he had always felt for her had hit him full force. And that was without even speaking to her, because Drew had pointedly avoided him. He himself was painfully aware of the memory of having broken her heart by leaving. So while he had respected her obvious wishes and steered clear of her, even from across the ballroom it had been impossible to keep his eyes off her.

Finding out that the little blond girl was her daughter had been a shock. He remembered feeling a stab of jealousy that Drew had replaced him so quickly. Well, why not? He had stepped aside and left her with the hope that she would find the kind of family man she was looking for—a marrying man, steady and responsible, whom she could depend on to stand by her and give her the children she wanted and the happiness she deserved. Then he’d discovered that there was no husband to complete the family picture.

The idea that this replacement lover had left Drew alone to raise his child had filled Whit with anger. It had never dawned on him that there was a chance that Drew’s little girl might be his, because he had figured Lexi to be four or five at most. When she had announced this morning that she was in first grade, it had been his first hint at the truth. Then, when she had looked up at him, the resemblance he’d seen had told him the rest.

Drew’s little girl didn’t have a daddy because he was her daddy.

There would be no nine-month waiting period for Whit. Fatherhood had been thrust upon him. And he knew precious little about first-grade girls in general, and even less about his daughter in particular. Lexi had done six years of growing up without him, and already had her own set of likes and dislikes, quirks and charms, fears and strengths, none of which he knew anything about.

He thought about that, and decided it wasn’t quite true. He knew she was fascinated by royalty; seemed to think, in fact, that she was a princess, without knowing that it was true. He knew she had her mother’s courage and stubbornness, having seen her facing a crowd of dubious peers with nothing but the strength of her own conviction. He knew she was vulnerable, too. That was why he had come to her rescue, before he had even known she was his. Something more than the words in red crayon had spoken to him when he’d read that note.

Had she needed rescuing in the past, when he wasn’t there to do it? Would he get to do it again, to feel that rush of protectiveness, to bask in the warmth of a gap-toothed smile that made him feel ten feet tall?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know where Drew would want to go with this; not only had she kept Lexi a secret from him all this time, but she had also made no secret of why. What’s more, he didn’t know where he wanted to go with this. It was too new to him, too foreign to his life, too earthshaking.

But from the first moment the discovery had rocked his world, one fact had remained unshaken, solid to the core. He had first put this immutable fact into words for Drew: he could not walk away and forget he had a daughter. Beyond that, everything else was still trembling from the aftershocks. If things ever fell into place, he might have a clue as to what he was going to do.

By late afternoon Whit was beginning to feel like a tiger in a cage. He had to go somewhere—anywhere. Grabbing his battered leather jacket, he slammed out of the castle and let habit take his feet around back, to the outbuilding.

The distant rumble of a motorcycle through her office window, a sound out of place in Anders Point, captured Drew’s attention. Life in crisis or not, she was the sheriff; and although here in this small New England town that meant more paper pushing than outlaw chasing, she still would have to find out which local teenager had gotten himself a new toy and then lecture him about not launching himself off the edge of the bluff by taking a curve too fast.

And it could happen, Drew knew. When she was a teenager, she herself had ridden the curvy roads overlooking the ocean on the back of a motorcycleWhit’s motorcycle. Somehow she had survived those wild and carefree days.

These days, Drew had a hard time remembering she had ever been wild and carefree. Mature and responsible had been her style for the past six years, since Lexi had been born. If her job as the town’s only elected official wasn’t quite what she had aspired to once upon a time, at least it provided a steady income. If that income was just enough to get by on, at least her hours were flexible. If the demanding life of a single mother wasn’t her fairy tale come true, the rewards of having Lexi made it all worthwhile. Luckily she had the help of her friend Annah, for moral support as much as for emergency baby-sitting. All in all, she was managing. She had hardly wasted time these busy years wishing for her prince to come back to her. Far from it. But like it or not, here he was.

She had to try her best to hang on to her disappointment and hurt, her down-to-earth realism and down-East practicality, because coming face-to-face with her past was too much to handle without them. Without them, she was very much afraid that the awareness she’d felt earlier, during that first unguarded moment when she’d looked at Whit, might spring up in their place.

And that would be a mistake she couldn’t afford to make, for her sake and for Lexi’s.

As it turned out, the prince was all that the kids talked about after school, as Drew stopped traffic for them during crossing guard duty. The younger ones were wide-eyed; the sixth-grade girls jabbered excitedly about how “cute” the prince was; even the boys decided that the whole thing had been “way cool.”

From where Lexi sat on the curb, waiting, Drew could see her eyes shining. After she had taken the last group across, Drew went over and sat next to her.

“Mommy, did you hear what happened today?” Lexi asked.

“Actually, I saw it,” Drew told her.

“You were there? You saw the prince appear, like magic?”

With a wistful smile, Drew pulled her little girl onto her lap and enfolded her in a hug. After a few minutes Lexi shifted restlessly, so Drew set her back on the curb.

“There was no magic,” she said gently. “This is real life, Lexi, not a fairy tale. And Whit Anders is a real man.”

“A real prince,” Lexi said decidedly.

Drew clamped down on all the responses unfit for six-year-old ears. Instead she said, “Your teacher told me about your behavior over the past few days.”

Lexi looked at her with big green eyes. “I know, and I’m sorry. It was just so important, Mommy.”

“I trust that this won’t happen again?”

“Oh, no,” Lexi assured her happily. “Because now the prince finally came.”

Ugh. Drew bit back her frustration and asked, “Lexi, why don’t you tell me why the prince came to your school?”

Lexi’s expression turned earnest. “Well, you see, I needed a prince. So I wrote a note to King Ivar.”

No surprise. Lexi had taken a shine to the king at Erik and Julie’s wedding. “You asked King Ivar for a prince?”

“Yes, in a note, and I put the note in the gate when we walked up the castle road to pick flowers. And a prince did come! I just knew he would, Mommy.”

Drew sighed. “Lexi, why do you need a prince, anyway?” she asked.

“To be my champion, of course,” Lexi said seriously.

“Your champion?”

“Like the knights that ladies have in stories. My prince will be like that.”

Her prince. Her little girl didn’t have a father, so she wanted a prince to champion her, someone strong and fearless to stand beside her and fight for her. Drew’s heart ached. She took Lexi’s hand, and they walked to the car and got in.

Drew pulled away from the school. “And you think Whit is going to be your prince?” she asked, fearing the inevitable.

To her relief, Lexi frowned. “I don’t know if he’s the one yet. He has to prove himself. This is very important, you see.”

Remembering the stories they had read, Drew felt as if she was finally catching on. “Lexi, are you going to test him, to see if he’s worthy of being your prince?”

“Yes.”

Great. Since his appearance that morning, he was certainly off to a rousing start, in Lexi’s eyes. Drew, who’d had her life so well ordered, had the feeling that parts of it were breaking off and spinning out beyond her reach. Hanging on to part of it that wasn’t—the need for food—she parked the car. “Here we are at McCreedy’s.”

They walked up to the small, family-owned grocery store that served Anders Point. Lexi went first, as usual, jumping on the black rubber mat at the entrance.

“Open…in the name of Princess Lexi,” she commanded, pointing at the door. When it did, she giggled and called for Drew to catch up.

Drew did, and after they went in she turned and pointed back at the door. “Close…in the name of the law,” she said. It did, Lexi giggled, and Drew wondered how many such simple, comfortable rituals in their everyday life together were about to be destroyed.

Whit had found his old motorcycle where he’d left it in a corner of the outbuilding seven years ago, the last time he’d been at the Point for any length of time. After giving it a cursory tune-up and fill-up, he had slung his leg over the leather seat and taken off, faster than he knew he should, down the castle road, which curved its way to town along the bluff that dropped off straight into the Atlantic Ocean. But he could never go fast enough to outrun those old memories. There were reminders everywhere he looked.

The first house he’d passed was hers.

He’d known Drew almost all his life. When they were kids, they’d played together with Julie, during the summers that he spent on the Point. But that summer seven years ago, Julie hadn’t been around, and he and Drew had had a secret romance. What they’d had was powerful, which was what had made it so damn scary. It was real love, Whit knew now, because it had been unselfish. She had wanted a dream, but he’d wanted what was best for her—and that wasn’t a man like him, with his ponytail, motorcycle and crown that didn’t seem to fit. Not wanting to fail her, he had left her.

After cruising the back roads most of the afternoon, he cut his speed as he entered the town, chugging along the quiet streets. A lot of road had disappeared under his wheels since he’d left town seven years ago. He wasn’t proud of his footloose reputation, but he had always been sure he had done the right thing by leaving Drew.

Now he wasn’t sure about anything.

He had just pulled into the only gas station in town when he heard a now-familiar voice.

“Look, Mommy! It’s the prince!”

He looked at the little grocery store next door, and first met Drew’s eyes, which went wide with dismay, before he saw Lexi. She was grinning up at him over a paper bag she hugged to the front of her while she stood on the sidewalk, her homemade crown still perched on her head.

An urge to sweep her into his arms made a sudden, sneak attack on him. Instead, he got off of his cycle and bowed to her as he had earlier. “Princess Lexi, would you do me the honor of allowing me to carry your bundle?”

Momentarily shy, she nodded and surrendered the grocery bag. Before Drew could protest, Whit took the bag she was carrying, too.

“Which way to the royal carriage?” he asked.

Lexi skipped ahead, pointing out a compact car that had seen better days, and lots of them. Whit felt a shaft of regret, thinking of all he could have provided for them, as Drew opened up the trunk.

Lexi had apparently found her voice, for she began peppering him with questions.

“Where did you come from?” she began.

He stowed the bags in the trunk. “I rode here on my motorcycle from the castle. That’s where I’m staying, here at the Point.”

She registered that information, then continued questioning. “But where did you come from in school this morning?”

“I found your note in the gate.”

“But were you under a spell? Was my kiss magic? Did it turn you from a frog into a prince?”

Whit glanced at Drew, who was biting her lip. He went with his instincts.

“I was already a prince, so your kiss couldn’t turn me into one,” he told Lexi honestly. When her face fell, he couldn’t help adding, “But I’ll be darned if it didn’t look like those frogs were smiling when you kissed them.”

Lexi giggled, then abruptly asked him another question. “Are you a stranger?”

When he hesitated, Drew interrupted. “Lexi, it’s time for us to go.” She slammed the trunk closed.

“Could you wait a minute, please, Mommy? I just have to know this one thing,” Lexi told her firmly, but not impolitely. “Are you?” she asked Whit again.

He thought about it. It was a complicated question, far more complicated than she could know. He was a stranger, yet he was bound to her by one of life’s closest connections.

“Why do you want to know?” he finally asked her, hunkering down so that he was at eye level with her.

“Because if you’re a stranger, I can’t do something I really want to do.”

“You’d better ask your mommy, princess.”

Lexi lost no time in appealing to Drew. “Is he, Mommy?”

Whit watched a thousand shadows roll across the eyes of the woman he had once known so intimately, who was now a stranger to him.

At last she swallowed and said, “I’ve known Whit since I was your age. He’s not a stranger.”

That was all Lexi needed. She straightened her glitter-covered crown and, without hesitation, came up right beside him. He could smell the sweet fragrance of baby shampoo in her silky hair as she leaned toward him with a smile as innocent as youth, as wise as time. Then she planted her puckered lips on his cheek and left a tiny, damp kiss there.

She and her mother were gone before he straightened up from his crouch. No doubt Drew had seen how shaken he was.

Frogs aside, Lexi’s kiss was indeed magic.

It had turned him into a father.