Pregnant with the Prince's Child (12 page)

“Yes, of course. It all sounds very exciting and sometimes people get swept away by that. They can often use a bit of wise counsel, which is just what I pride myself in supplying.”

“Yes. I trust the people here at the castle and all they’re doing, but I think it would be best if he had someone looking after his interests, just to be sure. And since I won’t be with him after today…”

“I have some things to wrap up, but I’m at your service. Will tomorrow morning do?”

“I would so appreciate that.” She explained where Mykal was and then left the attorney, feeling satisfied.

She knew what she was doing. She was tying up loose ends after all, just not the ones she’d come seeking to tie up. She’d wanted Mykal to sign their divorce papers. He would probably do that on his own. And she’d wanted him to sign away parental rights. He would never do that. She would have to go and hide where he couldn’t find her. But since she wasn’t going to be here to help him through all this, she was glad she’d found someone who could do a lot of it for her. One more item off her list.

She still had one of the hardest ones to go. Before she left, he had to know about her family. That might make all this easier for him. Once he wove all that into the background of their relationship tapestry, he would know why she had to go. He would understand.

After all, he was starting on a journey, going somewhere that was beyond her reach. How could she even contemplate going with him when she knew the sort of people she came from? Her uncle—her father’s brother—was Max Gorgonio, Ambria’s most notorious mobster and the man who had almost ruined Mykal’s parents all those years ago. A man who was right now sitting in the royal prison, sentenced to life. His was a name known, feared and despised, all through the country. It was a name she’d been born with. And that was something she could avoid for short periods of time, but ultimately she couldn’t run away from.

She stopped into the coffee shop to get an iced mocha drink, and there was Rolo, sitting with her cousin Jasper, both looking glum.

“Janis!” Rolo cried when he saw her. “Thank God. I heard you were here. I’ve been looking all over for you. We need help.”

Her shoulders sagged. Rolo always needed help. This was the first time she’d seen him since the secret police had marched her out of his apartment, and all he could do was ask for help.

She shook her head. “Rolo, I just can’t deal with it right now. I need a rest.” She saw the shocked expression on his face. He wasn’t used to big sister not being there for him. She relented, feeling like a fool. “Oh, why don’t you come to my room around three this afternoon. I’ll see what I can do.” She told him where she was staying and hurried away with her drink. She was going to lie down and think about Mykal. She wouldn’t waste one thought on her brother until she had to.

But that only worked for a short time. Eventually she had to think about what Mykal had said about Rolo, and how adamant he’d been that he wouldn’t have called out the secret police. She wanted to believe him.

She met Pellea coming out of Mykal’s room as she was going in.

“How is he?”

Pellea was beaming. “Tired, but great.”

That startled Janis. “Tired? How tired? You don’t mean groggy, do you?”

“No, not at all.” The queen shrugged. “I assume it’s still from the operation.”

“Oh. Of course.”

Pellea seemed concerned, but she was in a hurry. “I’ve got a meeting with the ball committee,” she said. “You do know there’s a royal ball next week?”

“Oh.” Too bad she was going to have to miss it.

“Yes. We need to work on a ball gown for you.” Pellea laughed. “Originally we thought we were going to be parading a lot of young beauties for Mykal to pick from for his bride. But now I understand that is not an issue.”

“Oh.” That surprised her. “What did Mykal tell you?”

“Nothing, darling,” she said, giving her a hug. “But I can tell by the look on his face when your name is mentioned. We’re going to have to have a long talk before we start doing any matchmaking.”

Janis pretended she didn’t know what the queen was talking about. “As long as he’s healthy,” she said vaguely, not sure what that meant, but it filled an awkward pause and that was what she used it for. Young beauties? It made her gag to think of it. Still, it was probably good that he begin to think of other women. She was sure the handpicked ladies the crown would bring in for the ball would be perfect in every way. Unlike her.

Pellea went off and Janis went in to see Mykal, steeling herself for the visit. This time, she was going to tell him about her family.

The nurse waved her on through and she went into the room he’d been assigned to.

“Hi,” she said, smiling at him lovingly, but not sure what her reception would be.

“Hey.” He turned to look at her. For a moment, he didn’t smile, as though he was compiling all the new things he knew about her and deciding how to respond. Finally, he smiled back but he seemed sleepy. “You look prettier every time I see you,” he said. “I would think just the sight of you should jog my memory back. How could I forget loving you?”

“Amnesia is a tricky thing.”

He took her hand in his. “There are so many things I don’t know. Where did we live? How long were we married? Did we have a cat?”

She laughed. “No cat. But we did have a lizard that we named Ferdinand. He lived in the courtyard.”

He pulled her onto the bed beside him. “Did we live by the ocean? Did we go for long walks in the sand? Did we make love on rainy afternoons?”

“All those things,” she said with a sigh, curling into his embrace. “We were so very happy.”

“Until…”

“Yes. Until that awful day.”

He held her close, his face buried in her hair. “Forget that day,” he murmured. “Leave it behind. Let’s go on without it.”

She turned and kissed him. “We can’t forget it. You heard what I did. You know you’ll never feel the same way about me.”

He looked pained. “How can I know if I don’t feel the same about you when I don’t remember how I felt in the first place?”

“When you get your memory back, I think you’ll realize…” She took another breath. This was hard to get out. “I think you’ll realize that you hate me.”

“I hate you?” He shook his head in derision. “Janis, I’ve felt a lot of things about you since you showed up on my doorstep, but hatred is not one of them.”

She sat up, frowning at him. “I don’t think you fully understand what I did.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I betrayed you. It was unforgiveable.”

“Yes. And I can’t forgive it. But I can understand it. You weren’t thinking about me. You were trying desperately to help your younger brother. I’ll bet you’d been trying desperately to help him most of your life. You followed a known pattern. It’s a pattern you’re going to have to work on breaking. But I can understand it.”

“Mykal…”

“Enough.” He put a finger to her lips to stop her. “Let’s put it behind us and go forward.”

“We can’t. Don’t be happy yet. There’s more.” She steeled herself, ready to begin the tell him about the Gorgonios.

“I don’t care,” he said. “Come here.”

His blue-eyed gaze was mesmerizing. It always had been. She was in his arms and kissing him again, and she knew she wasn’t going to tell him about her family. Not yet. This was just too wonderful to forfeit at the moment.

By the time Rolo arrived at her door, she was angry.

“Okay, Rolo. I want the truth,” she said as she let him in. “Why did the secret police come for me? Mykal has told me he didn’t call them and I believe him.”

Rolo looked pained. She could almost see the thoughts going through his head as he tried to decide what part of the truth he should give her.

“Yeah, you’re right. See, it was a trap. When I turned over those papers you gave me, they wanted to know where I’d gotten them. I wouldn’t tell them.”

“And?” she asked coldly.

He threw out his hands as though beseeching pity. “They tortured me, Janis. What could I do?”

“You told them it was me.”

“I…yeah, sort of. I couldn’t help it. They were torturing me.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” She didn’t see any marks on him. They’d probably threatened to withhold his video-game-playing time.

“And you told them I was at your apartment.”

“No.” On this he was adamant. “I wouldn’t tell them where you were. Honest.”

“Even though they tortured you?” she said sarcastically.

“No, see, what happened was, they followed me back to the apartment. I should have been more careful, I guess.”

She remembered that sick, horrible feeling of looking out and seeing that the secret police had surrounded the building.

“Rolo, why didn’t you tell Mykal? Why didn’t you let him know where I was?”

“Mykal?” He looked surprised. “I thought he was the one you were running from. I didn’t think you would want him to know.”

She closed her eyes and smiled bitterly. It was a trap, all right. But she was the one who fell into it.

“And anyway, I actually did tell him a couple of days later.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. He found out where I lived and he came over and…” He glanced at her furtively. “Well, he sort of made me tell him. He can be a real jerk sometimes.”

“And then what did he do?”

He shrugged. “And then he went off to find you and blew up on that motorcycle of his.”

Janis closed her eyes and folded her arms over her chest and rocked herself for a moment. He’d been looking for her. All that time she’d been so angry that he hadn’t lifted a finger to help her, he’d been looking for her, and then he’d been injured. It wasn’t that he hated her. He couldn’t help it. She was amazed at how much this changed things. A certain happiness that had died two months before had just sprouted new leaves. He tried to find her. Hallelujah.

She wanted to be alone, wanted to hold this new information to her and revel in it, but her brother was still here and he wouldn’t stop talking. She frowned at him, wishing he would go.

“So anyway,” he was saying, “all I need is for you to vouch for me. The guard is beginning to ask questions and I know what’s coming next. They’re going to want to kick me out of here. So if you could just tell the queen I’m okay.”

Tell the queen he was okay? Tell her he was her criminally inclined brother, a great example of what could come out of the Gorgonio family. Tell her just to trust him anyway. Yeah, the way she did.

It was hard. She turned and looked at him. He wasn’t a baby anymore but she could see those baby features hidden by the mustache and the unpleasant expression on his face. She was crying inside, crying for the loss of the sweet little boy he’d once been. It was painful.

“No,” she said sadly. “Sorry, Rolo. Not this time. The only thing I’ll tell the queen is that you’re untrustworthy.”

He didn’t believe her at first. “You…you can’t do that to me. We’re family.”

“We all make choices. You’ve chosen badly.”

“But…”

“I’m choosing to look ahead to a bright and honest future. You would rather look back at a disreputable past and copy it. We’re going to have to have a parting of the ways, I’m afraid. You’d better go.”

He pleaded for another few minutes, then got angry, but she was adamant. Mykal was a prince here now. She was just as protective of what happened inside these castle walls as anyone.

“Goodbye, Rolo. Maybe we’ll meet again some day, but I don’t think it will be soon.”

He cursed her as he left, but she hardly heard him. She needed to get back to Mykal. She needed to tell him about what he’d done. She also had to tell him about the Gorgonio family before someone else did. Although, if Kylos had been there, she might already be too late.

Mykal lay on his hospital bed, feeling frustrated and impatient. He knew it was going to take some time for recuperation, but he wanted it over with. It was time to get on with his life. He wanted to move.

But right now was not the time. He was exhausted. The physical therapist had arrived about an hour ago and had him up and walking laps in the hallways, no matter how hard he protested. And that was a good thing. He might complain, but he knew getting up and getting back to normal was the best thing he could be doing right now. He didn’t want to be babied. He wanted to heal so he could face his future.

But most of all, he wanted to understand his relationship with Janis. Waves of warmth swept through him when he thought of her. His mind might not remember her, but his heart and soul responded as though nothing was wrong.

He knew as strongly as he knew anything that he wanted her. He wanted her in his life, he wanted her in his bed, he wanted her in his corner. The past was over and gone. No matter what ugliness had come between them, all he had to do was look into her face to know they could overcome anything.

Looking at the IV pumping fluid into his arm, he contemplated yanking the needle out and getting up and going after Janis right now. But that was probably a bad idea. He’d been warned again and again that doing anything of the sort would only make his recuperation last longer, and probably do other damage as well. Besides, a half hour with the physical therapist had totally wiped him out. Trying to go off on his own would probably kill him. He grunted and lay back, angry all over again. He wanted to get out.