Claiming His Pregnant Princess. Annie O'Neil
might as well see it for what it was. Payback.
A painful price she knew she had to pay when all she really wanted was for him to love her again as he once had.
Impossible.
Sun-tanned crinkles fanned out from Jamie’s eyes, which she still wasn’t quite brave enough to meet. The straw gold of his hair was interwoven with a few threads of silver. At the temples, mostly. More than she thought a man of thirty-five should have.
But what would she know? When she grew her dyed hair out again it might all be gray after the level of stress she’d endured these past few weeks. It was a wonder she hadn’t lost the baby.
Her hands automatically crept to her stomach, one folding protectively over the other.
“Did he hurt you?” Jamie repeated, the air between them thick with untold truths.
“Only my pride,” she conceded. “He didn’t want me.”
The explanation came out as false, too chirpy. She hadn’t wanted Marco either. What she most likely really owed him was a thank-you letter.
“Can you believe it?” She put on a smile and grinned at the real love of her life, as if having her arranged marriage grind to a halt in front of some of Europe’s most elite families had been the silliest thing to have happened to her in years.
“He should be shot.”
“Jamie...” Bea shook her head. “Don’t be—” She huffed out a lungful of frustration, then unfolded her arms from their tight cinch across her chest, visible proof she was trying her best to be honest with him. Open. Vulnerable. “Mi scusi. I’m sorry. I don’t have any right to tell you what to feel.”
“You’re damn right you don’t,” he shot back, but with less venom than before.
Something in her gave. He deserved to vent whatever amount of spleen he needed to.
“Serves you right” was probably lurking there in his throat. Along with a bit of “now you know how it feels” followed by a splash of “what goes around comes around” as a chaser.
She deserved the venom—and more.
After a moment had passed, with each of them silently collecting their thoughts, Jamie reached across and took one of her hands in his, weaving their fingers together as naturally as if they’d never been apart.
A million tiny sparks lit up inside her. A sensation she’d never once felt with her ex-fiancé.
Obligation didn’t elicit rushes of desire. She’d learned that the hard way.
“Talk to me, Beatrice.”
His voice was gentle. Kind. His thumb rubbed along the back of her hand as his features softened, making it clear he was present—there just for her.
In that instant she felt he was back. The man she’d met and fallen in love with in the corridors of a busy inner-city hospital tucked way up in the North of England. Their entire worlds had been each other and medicine.
She vividly remembered the first time she’d seen him. So English! Male. He’d exuded...capability. So refreshing after a lifetime of worrying about etiquette and decorum and the thousands of other silly little things that had mattered to her mother and not one jot to her. Surviving finishing school had been down to Fran. Without her... She didn’t even want to think about it.
She glanced up at Jamie. His eyes were steady...patient... She knew as well as he did that he would wait all evening if he needed to.
She lifted her gaze just in time to see the topmost arc of the sun disappear behind the mountain peaks.
“Maybe we could walk?” she suggested.
He nodded, unlacing his fingers from hers as he rose.
She curled one hand around the other in a ridiculous attempt to save the sensation.
He pointed toward the far end of the piazza. “Let’s go out along the lake. Have you been to the promenade yet? Seen the boats?”
She shook her head. She’d had enough of boats and morning sickness over the past few weeks to last a lifetime. She agreed to the route anyway. It wasn’t as if this was meant to be easy.
* * *
Every part of Jamie itched to reach out and touch Beatrice. Hold her hand. Put a protective arm around her shoulder. There was something incredibly fragile about her he wasn’t sure he’d seen before. She was nursing something more than a chink in her pride. And all the rage he’d thought would come to the fore if he ever found himself in her orbit again... It was there, all right. It just wasn’t ready to blow.
Instinct told him to take things slowly. And then start digging. A verbal attack would elicit nothing. As for a physical attack... If that man had laid one finger on her—
“How are you settling in here? Everyone at the clinic helping you get your bearings?”
Beatrice nodded enthusiastically. “I love it. All one day of it, that is.”
He smiled at the note of genuine happiness in her voice. Excellent. The staff were making her feel at home. He fought the need to press her. To get her to spill everything. Explain how she’d found it so easy to break his heart.
“Your contract is...?”
“For the rest of the summer. I guess one of the early-summer staffers left before expected?”
“No.” He shook his head. “She had a baby. Worked right up until her due date.”
“Ah...”
Beatrice’s gaze jumped from boat to boat moored along the quayside. Families and groups of friends were spilling out onto the promenade to find which restaurant they’d eat in tonight.
“I suppose she’ll be coming back, then, after maternity leave. Although I did tell your colleague, Dr. Brandisi, that I would be happy to extend if the clinic loses any essential staff after the season ends.”
“It waxes and wanes up here. There’ll be a time when the summer wraps up where we hit a lull, and then ski season brings in another lot. It’s usually all right with just the bare minimum of hands on deck.”
Beatrice threw a quick smile his way, her lips still pressed tight, so he continued. “Mostly Italians to start, then Swiss, German, Austrian... A complete pick ’n’ mix at the height of the season.”
That was why he liked it. Nothing stayed the same. Change was the only thing keeping him afloat since he’d finally faced facts and left Northern General. Everything about that place had reminded him of Beatrice. And then, after Elisa... That had been the hardest time of death he’d ever had to call.
He swallowed and pushed his finger through a small pool of lake water on the square guard railing, visibly dividing it in two.
Everything leaves its mark. And nothing stays the same.
Those were the two lessons he’d learned after Beatrice had left. Now was the time to prove it.
He rubbed his hands together and belatedly returned her smile. “So! What sort of cases have you had today? Anything juicy?”
They might as well play My Injuries Were Worse Than Yours until she was ready to talk.
The tension in Beatrice’s shoulders eased and she relaxed into a proper smile. “Actually, all my cases have been really different to what I treated at home in Venice. With all the recreational sports up here I’m seeing all sorts of new things. It’s made a great change.”
He felt his jaw shift at the mention of “home.” Home—for a few months at the end of their relationship, at least—had been their tiny little apartment, around the corner from the hospital. The one they’d vowed to stay in until they could afford one of the big, rambling stone homes on the outer reaches of the city. One of those houses that would fall apart