Forced Wife, Royal Love-Child (7 page)

Which was fine, because she didn’t damn well want any
man on those terms anyway
.

Sienna sniffed and sat up, grabbing a tissue to wipe away the moisture on her cheeks and blow her nose. Damn it all. Lying here crying wouldn’t help; she had to pull herself together and get moving. She shoved back the covers and eased herself up to sitting on the side of the bed, swallowing air, waiting until the rocking motion inside her settled before she trusted her feet to hold her up.

Rafe wanted her gone from the island, he’d made that crystal clear, so she would oblige. And, let’s face it, the last thing either he or Montvelatte needed right now was the scandal of an unplanned pregnancy with someone unsuitable. So she would get dressed and fly back to Genoa as soon as this damned nausea settled down. As soon as she’d come to terms with the shock of this latest bombshell.

Except that she was pregnant
.

How was anyone supposed to terms with something like that?

There was a sharp rap on the door before it swung open, revealing the person she least wanted to see in the world. Her heart slammed into his chest as his dark eyes honed in on her, intent but frustratingly unreadable.
Please God, the doctor
had not shared her news!

She was dressed in some kind of white nightgown that fitted over her breasts and then fell softly to her ankles and he gave a silent tick of approval for whoever had released her hair from that damned braid so now it rioted around her face in a mass of colour and curl.

She looked like a virgin on her way to a sacrifice.

And then he took in her wide red-rimmed eyes, the eyes that looked up at him with something akin to terror, and revised the description. She looked like hell.
As guilty as hell
.

‘What are you doing out of bed?’

‘I was just getting up,’ she protested, through lips inordinately pale. ‘Or I was, until you once again decided to invite yourself in unannounced. So if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get dressed.’

‘I thought you were sick.’

‘I’m feeling much better,’ she replied, adding a smile that didn’t go near to erasing the caginess in those hazel eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me back there. I…I must have eaten something that disagreed with me.’

He almost growled. She was still trying to hide the truth. ‘So now you’re accusing my cook of poisoning you?’

‘No! I didn’t mean—’ She gave up trying and shook her head. ‘Look, I’m sorry to put you out, but I’ll be gone soon. So if you wouldn’t mind…’

She gestured towards the door but he wasn’t going anywhere. He stood at the foot of the bed and leant a hand against one of the carved wooden posts. ‘I don’t think so. I really think leaving would be unwise right now.’

Sienna stood up in a rush and sprang away from the bed, a blur of motion as the white gown billowed around her long legs like a cloud, her bare feet pacing the carpet. He could almost see her mind ticking over as her hands busied themselves collecting her hair into a loose pony tail before letting it go to spring back wild around her face again. ‘Look, Rafe,’ she said, turning to him, the colour of irritation high on cheeks that otherwise looked too pale to be human, ‘we’ve been through all this and I’m fed up with the way you think you can push me around. You agreed last night that I could leave today and, quite frankly, it won’t be soon enough. As soon as I’m dressed, I’m out of here.’ She was halfway to the bathroom before he caught up with her, catching her arm and swinging her around.

‘Not with my baby, you’re not.’

He heard her gasp. Smelt her fear. ‘What are you talking about?’ She was still fighting, but the guilt was there, in the defensive sheen in her eyes, in the faint tremor in her lips.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?’

Her breathing was shallow and fast, her chest rising and falling rapidly with the action. ‘I don’t know why you think it’s any of your business, but maybe I didn’t know.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Then maybe it’s not your baby? Did you ever stop to consider that?’

He reeled back as if she’d physically lashed out, but only for a moment, before the feral gleam in his eye returned. ‘You went from my bed to another’s? I don’t believe you.’

‘You threw me out. Why should you care who I sleep with?’

‘I care because I do not believe you. You were hiding it from me and you’re still trying to. It’s my baby, isn’t it? You’re having my baby!’

If he hadn’t sensed her need, if he hadn’t let her go, she
would never have made it to the bathroom in time. There was precious little in her stomach, nothing more than dry toast and some of the same sweet tea she’d had yesterday that had been so soothing at the time. And yet it felt like she was being torn apart from the inside with each violent heave.

And he was there, holding back her hair and steadying her shoulders as she held onto the bowl for grim death.

Oh, God, if it wasn’t bad enough that Rafe should see her like this, the doctor had obviously told him why.

A total disaster had just got worse.

At last it was over; the thrashing of her stomach calmed. She heard the sound of running water, felt the cool press of a flannel against her face and she took it gratefully, pressing it to her tear-stained cheeks and wishing that there was something that could so easily soothe her soul.

The doctor had told him, and Rafe knew!

What the hell was she supposed to do now?

‘Let’s get you back to bed,’ he said, helping her to rise on unsteady legs and steering her from the room. She went with him, the fight gone from her, her strength drained, her mind numb with it.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as he eased her down on the bed, knowing that a terrible wrong had been done, knowing she was at least partly responsible, not having a clue what to say. Having even less idea of how to fix it. ‘I realize this is inconvenient. I’ll go. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.’

And the band that had bound his gut ever since he had heard she was pregnant grew even tighter, until even his lungs felt squeezed with the pressure. Better than any test result, it was the final confirmation he needed, banishing any lingering doubts in an instant. ‘So it is mine!’

Her eyes looked up at him, pained and dull. ‘Nobody will ever know. I promise.’

‘
Merda!
I will know! Or are you already planning on disposing of the “inconvenience”, as you so clinically put it, in order to assure that outcome?’

Her eyes sparked with indignation, their hazel lights suddenly flashing gold as if someone had thrown a switch, though her skin was still deathly pale and her voice was still rough and raw. ‘As it happens I haven’t had a chance to consider my options, but just what kind of person do you think I am?’

‘It doesn’t matter what type of person I think you are. What matters is what you plan on doing with my child.’

‘And I’m supposed to believe you care? Don’t bother. I promise not to go to the papers or get in the way of your precious princess hunt.’

‘No.’

‘What do you mean, “no”?’

‘It means that’s not good enough. I will not allow another generation of Lombardi bastard children to be cast aside as if they are not family. There is only one solution.’

She rolled her head from side to side against the pillow. ‘You can share access, if that’s what you want. I can hardly deny a child access to its father.’

‘I’m glad you understand that. And there is no better way to share access…’ he smiled, amazed at how neatly the whole thing fitted together—a woman he had no trouble desiring, already pregnant with his child, and an end to Sebastiano’s endless round of prospective wife interviews, all rolled into one neat solution ‘…than to make you my wife.’

I
F
S
IENNA
hadn’t been lying down, her knees would have given way beneath her. As it was, the breath was punched from her lungs. He couldn’t be serious!

‘You have to be joking. There’s no reason on earth why I should marry you.’

‘It is the only solution. I need a wife and an heir.’

‘You need a princess, not a pilot. You need someone off that list of titled wannabes.’

‘But you have something they can only promise. You have conveniently proven your ability to conceive.’

‘Forget it. There’s no way I’m marrying you just because I’m pregnant. No way in the world.’

‘You need not be frightened of the royalty angle. You will be coached in our language and history.’

‘I wouldn’t say yes even if you weren’t a prince! A baby is no basis for a marriage. I would never do that to a child.’

‘And yet you would be happy to let that child grow up without its father. How is that fairer?’

‘You can’t force me to do this. Your father never married your mother simply because she was pregnant.’

‘He didn’t think he needed to. He already had his heir and a spare. My sister and I were surplus to requirements.’

‘But your mother—’

‘Had no choice! She received a substantial settlement and an annual pension on the condition she never returned to Montvelatte, and she never told anyone who her children’s father was.’

Sienna threw back her chin. ‘I would be more than happy to comply with the same conditions. For nothing. It wouldn’t cost you a thing.’

He shook his head. ‘You are kidding yourself. There is no way I would allow you to bring up our child in near poverty.’

‘I have a job!’

‘For how long? How can you fly in the condition you found yourself this morning? How long do you think anyone will employ a pilot who could faint at any minute? Who in their right mind would want to fly with you?’

‘I have some savings. I’ll take time off. Morning sickness doesn’t last forever.’

‘And after the baby comes, how do you expect to keep working when you have a child to care for?’

‘Like plenty of other woman in my situation do. I’ll cope.’

‘Not with my child. Simply coping is not an option. How long do you think you’ll keep the origins of your baby secret?’

‘Your mother obviously managed to.’

‘More than thirty years ago when there was still a measure of respect for privacy. Whereas these days, any hint of scandal, any hint of a royal baby born out of wedlock and the paparazzi will come baying at your door. How long do you think you can hide the truth?’

‘I won’t tell anyone if you won’t!’

‘And when I marry and have a wife and a family, and then the truth inevitably comes out because of something the doctor today tells his secretary or his wife, you would be happy to humiliate the woman I married with the news that I
already had a child? How do you think that would look splashed across the gutter press? How do you think this child will feel when he learns that he was the rightful heir of Montvelatte and you denied him that birthright?’

‘Why do you assume it will be a boy?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Girl or boy, you will be denying this child its place in the Montvelattian monarchy.’

‘Only if it finds out. And who is going to tell?’

His arms came down on the bed either side of her, his face bare inches from her own, and it was all she could do not to cower back into the pillows at the anger and pain so starkly reflected in his features.

‘I will tell. Do not think you can deny me access to my child simply because you would rather forget who his father is. I am not like my father. I will not abandon a child I sired or hide it away merely because I was not married to its mother.’

Sienna watched his eyes while he made his speech, watched the way the pain coursed so deeply through them. He’d missed out on having a father all his life. He’d been cast away, exiled with his mother, unwanted by the father who’d sired him.

And he was right. One way or another, no matter how close she played her cards to her chest, there was no way she could shut Rafe out of her child’s life. But in allowing Rafe access to her child, there was no way its parentage could ever be kept secret.

So where did that leave her?

It was all too much to take in. She’d only just discovered she was pregnant, and now he was demanding that she marry him, a man she’d spent one short night with and the last twenty-four hours trying to get away from, a man who would, without a second thought, bully her into a marriage she neither wanted nor needed.

A shotgun wedding, just like her mother’s. Except this
time there were no parents holding a gun to Rafe’s head to persuade him to do the right thing by their daughter. This time it was Rafe holding a gun to her head.

Was it because it was the right thing to do by their child? Or was it simply because it was convenient to him?

Either way, his wanting to marry her clearly had nothing to do with her.

‘You can’t make me do this.’ She’d wanted to sound strong and sure but her voice came out sounding more like a plea.

‘It’s the only thing to do. I’ll inform Sebastiano and have him make the necessary arrangements.’

The necessary arrangements? Rafe had it sounding like a royal wedding was no more hassle than a trip to the local corner store.

‘No! I haven’t agreed to anything. You can’t make me do this.’

‘You have no choice.’

‘I have a choice! I’m leaving and you can’t stop me.’ She scooted to the other side of the bed, swinging her legs over the side and pushing herself off, but he was already there, standing in front of here like a storm cloud, angry and potent and thunderous. But the hand he put to her face was gentle and warm, and she trembled into his touch. His eyes studied her face, his thumb traced the line of her lips, and her heartbeat jagged, and when his words came, it was more a promise than a threat.

‘Leave and I will bring you back. Run and I will catch you. There is no escaping the truth of this, Sienna. You will marry me. You will become my wife.’

She looked up at him, afraid to blink, afraid to breathe, lest she broke this spell he’d somehow woven around her. How long he stood there stroking her face, how long she allowed him to, she didn’t know. And only the sense that she was losing herself, spinning out of control into a place with no
horizons, into a place she had no way of navigating her way out of, shot a burst of fear straight to her heart.

‘There has to be another way,’ she whispered.

His hand cupping her jaw, he dipped his face to hers and pressed the barest of kisses to her lips. ‘There is no other way.’

Sebastiano wasn’t so sure. He took the news of the cancellation of the remaining marriage candidates and the reason with the look of a man heading for the gallows. ‘Are you sure this is wise, Prince Raphael, to marry such a woman? The role of Princess of Montvelatte is a demanding one. What background and training has this woman had in the skills necessary to undertake such a role?’

‘I would imagine the same amount of training that I received in becoming Montvelatte’s Prince. And yet nobody questioned my qualifications.’

‘You have royal blood, Highness. There is a difference.’

‘And she carries it!’

His aide gave a brief cough into his hand, too pointed to miss. ‘You have something to say, Sebastiano?’

‘Merely that I think it would be wise to guarantee that fact before we make any announcements.’

Rafe had no doubt. The way she’d reacted to his accusations, the way she’d apologized and promised to keep it quiet—he had no doubt at all. But Sebastiano needed facts, and it was better that they did the digging before some gossip magazine got there before them. ‘Arrange for whatever tests you need—even a date will help to confirm the truth—and meanwhile find out all you can about her—her past, her boyfriends, and anyone she’s seen apart from me in the last eight weeks.’

Sebastiano nodded, looking more satisfied than he had all day, and gave a little bow. ‘It will be done.’

Rafe watched him take his leave and felt a pang of regret that one had to be so careful, knowing it had to be done, and knowing equally that if there was any dirt to be had on Sienna Wainwright, Sebastiano would dig it out.

He just hoped there was none.

Sienna picked up the telephone in the library and listened for a dial tone, hoping that, unlike the phone in her room, this one would not be switched through to the housekeeper. Satisfied, she nervously dialled the direct number of her boss at Sapphire Blue Charters and waited what felt like agonizing seconds for the call to be answered.

She’d been thinking about it all night. She had no way of getting to the town except by foot and she had no doubt that Rafe would find her and bring her back as promised, even if she’d had the money to buy a fare off the island. And there was no point calling the police, because the palace guard were the ones who’d threatened to arrest her if she didn’t accompany them to the Castello in the first place. Asking for help from the Australian Embassy was tantamount to taking out a full page ad, and that was hardly the way she wanted to slip quietly out of Rafe’s life. But Monsieur Rocher might send a helicopter, once he knew she was being held against her will.

‘
Oui?
’ The grunting voice of the owner-manager of Sapphire Blue greeted her.

She took a deep breath and crossed the fingers of her free hand. ‘
Monsieur Rocher,
c’est
moi, Sienna Wainwright. Je
suis désolé
—’

‘
Bonjour
, Sienna!’

Sienna listened in amazement as the tongue-lashing she was expecting turned into high praise as she learned she had been retained on an ongoing basis as Montvelatte’s private
pilot, and for three times the going rate, in response to which Monsieur Rocher had awarded her employee of the month.

‘
Mais non
—’

But Monsieur Rocher was too full of praise to be interrupted. He wished her well, thanked her for her good work and bade her a hasty, ‘
Au revoir
’, before the line went dead.

‘Can I help you with something?’

Sienna turned, still reeling from the phone call, to find Sebastiano standing in the doorway, his expression looking anything but helpful. Quickly she replaced the receiver, knowing she’d been caught out. ‘I…I was just calling my boss.’

‘So I gathered. And did you find everything to your satisfaction.’

‘I’ve been made employee of the month.’

He gave a slight mocking bow. ‘Congratulations.’

Sienna straightened. It was clear from just his tone that Sebastiano didn’t welcome her presence here, but then little wonder if she’d put paid to his plans of Rafe marrying someone from the noble classes. She could take offence that he clearly thought her unbefitting of the role of Montvelatte’s Princess, or she could use it for her own purposes.

She laced her fingers together and took a step closer. ‘Sebastiano, maybe you
can
help me.’

His eyes honed in on her suspiciously. ‘In what way?’

‘You could help get me off the island.’

This time those eyes narrowed, and he looked around before closing the door behind him. ‘To what purpose?’

‘So Rafe can marry someone more suitable.’ She saw the glimmer in his eyes that betrayed how appealing he found her words.

‘But you are carrying Prince Raphael’s child, are you not?’

‘It’s still me he would be marrying.’

His expression remained guarded, suspicious, while his
eyes looked thoughtful. Then he shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I cannot help you. But if you would like to make any more phone calls, perhaps you should know that all calls to and from the Castello are monitored for security reasons.’

Sienna shivered. So that was how he’d found her. ‘Thank you, Sebastiano. So if I call my landlady to enquire after my apartment?’

‘Please, feel free. But you will discover that your rent has been paid and your personal belongings sent for, to make your stay here more comfortable.’

‘Thank you,’ she said,
I think
, allowing herself to be led away, and feeling the noose around her neck growing tighter by the minute.

The next day under the trellised vines shading the terrace, Sienna daydreamed, thinking back to a time she could only imagine, another time when her mother had discovered she was pregnant, with a marriage to Sienna’s father hastily arranged in that discovery’s wake.

Had her mother felt this terror, this fear of having a new life growing inside her and all the unknowns that went with it? Had she been secretly afraid of the prospect of marrying a man who had blown into town on the tide? Or had love blinded her to those fears, so that the prospect of marrying the man she had fallen head over heels in love with, and of bearing him a child, was so utterly exciting that she’d had no doubts?

She’d been so young, barely eighteen at the time and eight years younger than Sienna was now. Surely she must have had doubts, no matter how much she’d thought she’d loved him? Surely she must have wondered if the wanderlust father of her child could ever really change?

‘It’s time for your ultrasound.’

Rafe’s voice intruded into her thoughts, and she blinked,
the present world suddenly coming back into sharp focus as she looked up and he filled her vision, instantly kicking new life into her heart rate. How he still had that effect on her when she was basically his prisoner here, she couldn’t understand and didn’t want to analyse. She only knew that the sooner she could put a lid on this inner turmoil she felt whenever he so much as looked at her, the better.

To him she might only be the vessel that carried his child, and a convenient solution to a problem that threatened the Principality, but there was no way she could consider marriage to a man like Rafe—a prince—in such clinical terms. And yet if she was going to have to go through with this, she needed to be able to.

A strange fear zipped up her spine. The fact she was even considering marrying Rafe—when had that change in her thinking taken place? And more importantly, why? It was anathema to her—marrying for the sake of a child—and yet she was entertaining the idea as if it were a done deal. Last night again she’d thought about getting help. Why shouldn’t she call the Embassy, and who cared if the calls were monitored? By the time they discovered who she was calling, help could be on its way, and to hell with the fall out. He had no right to keep her here against her will.