His Pregnant Royal Bride. Amy Ruttan
expecting, she’d been flown out, leaving her free to take over this assignment from her colleague Daniel, who’d sadly just been diagnosed with stage two colon cancer. She’d dreaded telling Dante here, at work, but she respected him and he deserved to know about their child. She also wanted him to know that she didn’t expect anything.
She wasn’t looking for a marriage or even for him to be part of the child’s life if he didn’t want to be.
She knew firsthand what it was like when a man was forced into staying.
Her own father had made that painfully clear to her until the day he’d left her and her mother.
So she knew what it was like to be rejected by her father and she didn’t want that for her child. And that was why she’d been terrified of telling Dante. Terrified he’d reject her and the baby, which would make the next twelve weeks working with him miserable.
Glad to be able to focus for the moment on the job at hand, Shay took the time it took them to make their way to the lecture theatre to chat about the assignment with Dante.
“I think I’m pretty much up-to-date on what Daniel was planning to do and how he was going to implement the simulation and training program,” Shay said as she skimmed through the binder that she’d been given as she’d boarded the plane.
“So, what happened to Daniel?” Dante asked.
“Cancer,” Shay said sadly.
“That’s too bad. I wish him a speedy recovery, but I wish they had told me he wasn’t coming.” Dante rubbed his dimpled chin, and those butterflies that liked to dance around in the pit of her stomach months ago were starting up again. She’d forgotten how he affected her. He was still so handsome, the stubble on his chin suited him and she resisted the urge to tuck back the errant strand of his thick black hair.
“I thought you had been informed that Daniel was no longer coming,” she said.
“Clearly not,” he snapped.
“Dante, you’re clearly not okay with this.”
“I’m fine,” he said, and he took the binder from her, not even looking at her.
She knew he wasn’t. This was not the same man she’d spent a fairy-tale week with in Oahu. Then again, she hadn’t really been herself either. Like when she’d decided to throw caution to the wind and have a one-night stand.
“Okay, you’re fine, then. Shall we go and talk to the trainees? They are waiting.”
“Of course.” Dante didn’t even look at Shay as he opened the door on the far side of the room. It was as if he was angry that she was here.
Can you blame him?
They walked out onto the stage of the small lecture theatre. The first two rows were filled with new United World Wide Health Association recruits, men and women who would be taking a crash course in first response and trauma.
Dante’s job was to teach them trauma surgery and Shay was going to run them through a course of simulations. Based on situations she’d found herself in when she’d first started with the United World Wide Health Association.
She kind of envied all those hopeful faces, the thirty-odd new recruits. Her first days in the UWWHA working the field were some of her favorite times. Before she took this assignment she’d been going to take a field job in the Middle East to help vaccinate refugees.
Only that was before she’d found out she was pregnant. She couldn’t go then and had been weighing up her options, and then this position had become available. The more romantically minded would probably call it fate.
This would be her last foreign assignment for a long time and she was going to make the most of it.
Her career and her unborn child mattered to her. She was going to make sure her son or daughter had a good life and this job in Venice would give her a strong foundation. Even if she had to give up on her dreams for now.
The recruits were from all over Italy and some from Switzerland and France. They could all speak English and French, which Shay understood, and she was glad when Dante started to speak French to them over Italian, which she was still trying to pick up.
If her news had shaken him before, Dante didn’t show it now as he spoke highly of the United World Wide Health Association and the twelve-week training program they would be completing at the hospital under his and Shay’s guidance.
A baby hadn’t been in her plans either, but it had happened and she was going to be a good mother and continue with her career. Even if it was going in a slightly different direction than she’d thought. She wouldn’t pine away after a man who didn’t want her as her mother had done.
“Your dad’ll come back, Shay. You’ll see. I’m his wife. He went to Alaska to work for the crab season. He’ll be back and he’ll take us all up to Alaska.”
Of course, he never did come back.
He was still alive, the last Shay heard, but didn’t want anything to do with her.
He’d moved on and he certainly didn’t care that their house had been destroyed by Katrina and that his wife had died soon after from mold poisoning.
“Shay Labadie will explain the simulation scenarios you’ll be going through.” Dante stepped away from the podium and Shay shook the thoughts of her father from her head.
She was here to do a job.
And she always did a good job. Always saw a position through to the end, no matter what life threw at her.
She got up and explained the simulations that she would be running them through and answered questions. When she was done, the director of the UWWHA took the podium and she went and stood beside Dante. There was tension pouring off him and he barely looked at her.
Not that she could blame him.
She had dropped the fact that he was going to be a father on his lap.
She would’ve been more surprised if he weren’t shocked by the prospect.
Once the director finished talking, there was a mix and mingle session, so that everyone could get to know one another. Shay walked toward the stairs at the end of the stage, but Dante grabbed her arm, holding her back.
“A moment per favore, Shay.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “First, I was serious when I said I would like a paternity test done.”
“Okay.” He’d been right when he’d reminded her that they were strangers who’d slept together, much as it smarted that her word wasn’t enough to convince him that she didn’t sleep around. “Anything else?”
“This is hard for me to say.”
“Dante, you don’t have to do anything. I already told you that I’m not asking for anything.”
“I know you’re not,” he said quickly. “I am.”
“What...I... You’re what?” Shay didn’t know how to take that response. Now she was shocked, so she asked cautiously, “What’re you asking for?”
“Not much. Just that if the paternity test proves that I’m the father—”
“Which it will,” she interrupted.
“If it does,” he said through clenched teeth, “I want you to marry me.”
Of all the things she’d thought he’d say, that wasn’t one of them.
She hadn’t been expecting that.
“YOU WANT...WHAT?” Shay was trying to process what Dante had said and she wasn’t sure that she completely understood him. “Could you repeat