The Best Of February 2016. Catherine Mann
He gritted his teeth. “We could also use this time to chitchat so that when we get out of the car, we’ll already be engaged in conversation the way normal people would be.”
“I know all about being a normal person.” She flicked her gaze to him. “You, on the other hand, are wearing a white shirt out for coffee.”
“I’m a prince.”
“You’re also a person, supposedly out with a woman he likes. A woman he’s comfortable with. White shirt does not say comfortable.”
“Oh, and scruffy jeans does?”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? Scruffy jeans is the very definition of comfortable.”
“You look like you’re going to the trash yard.”
“I look like an American girl on a date with a prince she just met. I am playing the part. As our dates get more serious so will my wardrobe.”
Unexpectedly seeing her reasoning, he sighed. “Okay. I get it. Just don’t make fun of the white shirt.”
“Fine.”
He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw not just the Mercedes with his bodyguards, but also the usual assortment of paparazzi. Satisfied, he finished the drive to the ocean-side coffee shop.
Xaviera’s warm sun beat down on him as he walked around to the passenger’s side and opened the door for Ginny. He took her hand and helped her out, to the whir of cameras. She stepped out, one blue-jeans-clad leg at a time, wedge sandals, short blue T-shirt and big sunglasses, all looking very normal to him in the parking lot of a beach café.
She really had been right about her very casual clothes.
Standing in front of him, she caught his gaze and smiled, and his heart—which had been thundering in his chest from fear of the first step of their charade—slowed down. He hadn’t forgotten how beautiful she was, but somehow or another the sunlight seemed to bring out the best in her rich yellow hair and tanned skin. She might not be royalty or someone accustomed to the public eye, like an actress or model, but she was every bit as beautiful—if not more beautiful because she was genuine.
The cameras whirred again.
She whispered, “What do we do? Do we wave?”
“We ignore them.”
She peeked up at him. “Really?”
He laughed, took her hand and led her to the café door. “Yes. We know they are there. But we also know they are always there, even if, for us, they have no purpose. Unlike an actor or actress, we don’t need them to enhance our visibility. We tolerate them. Thus, we ignore them.”
“Got it.”
He held the door open for her. The press rushed up behind them, but his bodyguards closed the door on them. Two things happened simultaneously. The press opened the door and crammed in behind the bodyguards, their cameras whirring. And Marco, café owner, greeted them.
“Prince Dominic!” He bowed. “It’s an honor.”
“Can I have my usual, Marco? And—” Oh, dear God. First complication. He could not order coffee for a pregnant woman. He faced Ginny. “What would you like, Ginny?”
As soon as he said her name, the reporters began shouting, “Ginny! Ginny! Look here, Ginny!”
She slid off her sunglasses. Doing as he’d told her, she ignored the press. “How about some water? It’s hot.”
The press laughed. “Did you not know our weather was hot?”
“Where are you from?”
“How old are you?”
“How did you meet?”
“How long have you been dating?”
Dominic also ignored them. “Just water? What about that cookie?”
Marco said, “I have a cookie that will make you happy to be alive.”
Ginny laughed. “That’d be great.”
“You sound American.”
He saw Ginny waver. The questions directed at her were hard for her to ignore. And the press began closing in on them. Even with his two bodyguards standing six inches away, the reporters and photographers bent around them, shouted questions and took pictures as Marco made Dom’s coffee, retrieved a bottle of water and wrapped a cookie in a napkin.
Dom took their items and turned to say, “Let’s go out to the deck by the dock,” but, as he turned, he saw her sway. Before he could blink, she began to crumble.
He dropped his coffee, the water and the cookie to the counter and just barely caught her before she hit the floor.
The cameras whirred. A gasp went up from the crowd. Dominic’s bodyguards turned to help him as Marco came out from behind the counter, broom in hand.
“Get out of here!” He waved the broom at the paparazzi. “Get out, you brood of vipers!” He glanced behind the counter. “Antonella. I chase them out. You lock the door!”
Down on one knee, holding Ginny, Dominic cast Marco a grateful look as the coffeehouse owner and Dom’s bodyguards shooed the press out of his shop and Antonella locked the door behind them.
Ginny’s eyes slowly blinked open. “It’s so hot.”
He sort of smiled. She was so fragile and so beautiful, and holding her again took him back to their night of dancing in LA and making love in her condo. A million feelings trembled through him. Brilliant memories. A sense of peace that had intermixed with their fun. The wonderful, almost-overwhelming sensation of being able to be himself because she was so comfortable being herself.
“You’re adding to the heat by wearing jeans.”
“Trying to look normal.”
Her skin was clammy. Her eyes listless and dull. His happy, beautiful one-night stand memories dropped like a rock, as his heart squeezed with fear. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“You’re sending a pregnant woman to the hospital for fainting? You haven’t been around pregnant women much have you?”
“That’s all this is?”
She drew in a breath and suddenly looked stronger. “Heat. Pregnancy. Nerves. Take your pick.”
He said, “Right.” Then nodded at Marco. “Open her water.”
The solicitous shop owner did as he was told. He handed the opened bottle to Dominic, who held it out to her. She took a few sips.
Dominic sighed, grateful she was coming back but so scared internally that he shook from it. His heart had about leaped out of his chest when he saw her falling. “You should probably have a bite or two of the cookie. I told you to eat lunch.”
She smiled. “Wasn’t hungry.”
Antonella brought over the cookie. “You eat.”
Ginny sat up a bit and took the cookie from Antonella’s hands.
“Maybe we should get you to a chair?”
She laughed. “I feel safer down here. No cameras. No one can see me through the windows.”
He felt it, too. Behind the tables and chairs between them and the doorway, he felt totally protected from the press.
She ate a few bites of her cookie, drank the entire bottle of water and held out her hand to him. “We can stand now.”
“We’re going to have to go back to the car though a crowd of reporters and photographers who just saw you faint. If you thought their questions were bad before this—” he caught her gaze “—now they are going to be horrific. A tidal wave of jumbled words and