The Princess and the Billionaire (20 page)

“You look like hell,” he said, staring at her pale face. “I can’t believe those circles under your eyes.”

“Thank you so much,” she managed, her voice a hoarse whisper. “You look like hell, too.”

He went to sit down on the bed next to her, but she frantically waved him away, muttering something about germs.

“I told you not to come over,” she said. “Believe me, you don’t need to catch this flu.”

“I came to say good-bye.”

Her eyes widened comically and, to his amazement, her mouth actually sagged open.

“It’s January first, princess,” he said. “My plane leaves in four hours.”

“You’re joking.”

He stared at her. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

“You can’t possibly be leaving for Japan.”

This wasn’t going well at all. “This can’t be coming as a surprise to you.”

“Of course it’s a surprise,” she said in what was left of her voice. “I never thought you’d go without me.”

“I can’t postpone it again.”

“You postponed it before.”

“That’s why I can’t postpone it now.”

“I can’t believe you’d leave me.”

“You’ll get over the flu and you’ll come to Japan. It’s not like you’re on the list for a heart transplant.”

She glared up at him through watery eyes. “You could certainly use one.”

“Hey, I’m sorry you’re having a bad time with the flu and you can’t leave with me, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

“You could if you wanted to.”

“I should’ve known,” he said, his temper finally exploding. “You can take the princess out of the castle, but you sure as hell can’t take the princess out of the girl.”

He’d never seen anyone look imperious in a nightgown before, but Isabelle managed to do it. “That, Mr. Bronson, is the most ridiculous statement you have ever uttered.”

“You could fly over in a couple of weeks,” he said, with less enthusiasm this time. “That would give me a chance to get settled.”

“I’d rather spend a week in hell.”

“A week alone should qualify.”

“I hate you,” she said, bursting into tears. “I wish I’d never met you.”

“Right now, princess, I’m thinking the same thing.” Maxine tapped on the door. “Your driver buzzed, Daniel. He said for you to mind the time.”

“Do hurry,” Isabelle said. “I should so hate for you to miss your plane.”

“I’ll call you when I get to Tokyo.”

“Don’t bother,” she snapped, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Great,” said Daniel, turning toward the door.

“Great,” mimicked Isabelle, glaring at his back.

He paused in the doorway and looked back at her. “If you decide you want a man and not a servant, give me a call.”

Isabelle grabbed the first thing she could find on the nightstand. He disappeared down the hallway just as the pitcher of orange juice crashed against the wall. If only it had been his stubborn, insensitive head...

“Y
ou’re pregnant,” said Dr. McCaffree on Thursday morning.

Isabelle lifted her head and tried to peer over her sheet-draped knees. “Are you sure?”

Dr. McCaffree placed one hand on Isabelle’s belly and palpated. “I’m sure.”

Isabelle felt as if her brains had suddenly disappeared and only cold, dead air space remained. “How far along am I?”

“I would estimate that you’re at the end of your first trimester or the very beginning of the second.”

“But I thought pregnant women had morning sickness and strange cravings and...” Her voice, still scratchy from the flu, trailed off miserably.

“You’re one of the lucky ones.” The doctor stripped off her surgical gloves. “Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll talk in my office?”

Isabelle shook her head, clutching the dressing gown close to her chest. “Now, please. This is crazy. I just don’t see how—”

“You’ve been having sex, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then, that’s how, Isabelle. Sometimes nature is stronger than anything modern medicine can come up with to master her.”

“That’s all terribly poetic, Dr. McCaffree, but I think it’s disgraceful that a woman can’t count on something as important as birth control pills.”

McCaffree reached for Isabelle’s chart. “You came to see me the middle of September. That’s when we did a physical and changed your prescription.” She met Isabelle’s eyes. “Were you with anyone then?”

Isabelle shook her head. “The first time was at the beginning of October.”

McCaffree sighed. “And when did you begin the new prescription?”

“The beginning of October.”

“That would explain it.” The doctor said something about fluctuating hormonal levels and other technical niceties, none of which made any impression on Isabelle. McCaffree was quiet for a moment. “Now this is only a guesstimate—we’ll know more after we run a sonogram—but how does June thirtieth sound to you?”

“Dreadful.” She felt the hot flush of embarrassment color her face and throat. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I said that.”

“No apologies necessary. I’ve seen every reaction there is to see when it comes to pregnancy, Isabelle. Mixed feelings are quite common when you’re dealing with a life-altering experience like parenthood.”

“Parenthood?” She buried her face in her hands, feeling dizzy. “I can’t even imagine wearing maternity clothes.”

“If you’re beginning your fourth month, as I suspect you are, you’ll be wearing them very soon.” Dr. McCaffree smiled. “Think of it as a new market, Isabelle: hand-embroidered designer gowns for the mother-to-be.”

Isabelle left the office with a pamphlet of information, an appointment card for a sonogram, and prenatal vitamins. She had also been issued a stern warning to finish her prescription antibiotics because it was important that she regain her strength as quickly as possible.

“Hey, Princess Izzy!” She glanced up to see a cabdriver cruising slowly along the curb. “Need a lift?”

She smiled and waved him on. It wasn’t terribly cold out, and she was bundled up well. She needed fresh air, anything to help her think her way through this mess. The notion of going back to the apartment and facing Maxine’s well-meaning concern was more than she could bear. Dear God, what would Maxi say when she found out Isabelle was pregnant?

And there was Ivan. The poor man had sunk every penny he owned into making a success of the Princess line. Without a real live princess, it was doomed before it debuted.

She refused to think about Daniel. He’d called her twice since arriving in Japan, but both times she’d refused his calls, forcing Maxine to say she was sleeping. Sooner or later she’d have to speak to him, but she wasn’t looking forward to it. How dare he be halfway around the world when she needed him most?

You should be used to that, Isabelle. Has anyone ever been there when you needed help?
Only Maxine, and it was long past time that Maxine had the chance to build a life of her own. Maxine and Ivan were an unlikely combination, but there was no denying the very real affection between the two of them.

A DON’T WALK sign flashed, and she stopped at the corner a block away from the apartment. Two businessmen to her left argued loudly about the Dow-Jones average while a young woman in tights and a bright red leather jacket jogged in place ahead of her. She glanced to her right and found herself looking at the most pregnant woman in the Western Hemisphere. The woman was about Isabelle’s height and age, but there all resemblance ended. Her coat was stretched across a belly that looked as if it had been inflated with a bicycle pump into a cartoon version of pregnancy. Isabelle winced just looking at her.

“If you ask me, I’ll scream,” the woman said, to Isabelle’s shock. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Everyone seems to know what I’m thinking,” Isabelle said. “I’ve been told I have a terrible poker face.”

The woman nodded. “Stay away from Vegas, Princess.”

Did everyone know who she was? Isabelle wished she could help herself, but she continued to stare at the woman’s belly.

“Six months, since you didn’t ask,” said the woman as they started across the street. “Can you imagine what I’ll look like at nine months?”

Frankly Isabelle couldn’t. Her own pregnancy was beginning to seem frighteningly real.

A few minutes later she let herself into the apartment. Maxine was still at work. Dropping her coat over the back of a chair, she walked down the hall to her bedroom, walked across the room to her bed, climbed beneath the covers, and pulled them over her head—as good a way as any to cope with the next six months.

* * *

It was Tuesday night in New York, wasn’t it? Daniel hesitated, his hand on the phone. Maybe it was Tuesday morning. Wait a minute. It was Tuesday morning in Tokyo which meant it was Wednesday—

Forget it.

He slammed the phone back down in its cradle. What the hell difference did it make anyway? She wasn’t going to take his call as she hadn’t taken the two that came before it. Any way you cut it, three strikes and you were out. Or should be, if you had a functioning brain.

On Christmas Day he should have realized that they were on the fast track to the finish line. The way she’d acted about the bracelet would have tipped off a smarter man. But then, a smarter man never would’ve gone back to the apartment lugging Chinese food, ice cream, and flowers like some psychotic, sex-obsessed wise man bearing tribute.

Good word, tribute. Exactly what that spoiled, foul-tempered ersatz princess wanted. He’d known cleaning women who had more compassion for people in their little fingers than Isabelle had in her whole perfect, luscious, incredible body.

“Son of a bitch!” He glanced around the austere hotel room. It was too quiet. Too uncluttered. Too much like his apartment back in New York. Lately he’d found himself craving chaos and noise the way he once craved solitude and silence. The least the hotel should’ve done was install a speedbag for him. Instead, the concierge had looked at him as if he’d asked for an AK-47 and a target.

It always came down to sex. He and Isabelle had their problems, but when it came to what went on between the sheets, they were a match made by the gods. The more he had, the more he wanted. A simple equation, but one that had kept the most unlikely couples together through the ages. Too bad it wasn’t going to be enough for them. No, he thought, pacing the room. He and the little princess had to talk to each other, try to have a relationship, when what they should’ve done was screwed each other’s brains out until the thrill was gone and they could say good-bye and mean it.

If she wanted to talk to him, she could damn well pick up the phone and call him.

He was through.

* * *

“Lost your mind, lovey, that’s what you’ve done. Living in the middle of nowhere in the dead of winter and with you in a family way. ’Tisn’t right, I tell you. Nothing good can come of it.”

“Oh, be quiet, Maxine. If I have to listen to you complain for the next two hours I’ll go mad.”

“I second that,” said Ivan, behind the wheel of his 1976 baby blue Cadillac. “You want to hear complaints, Izzy, come to the office. Complaints she’s got plenty of. Good ideas?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Not so many.”

“Fine,” said Maxine, going all huffy. “I’m no fool. “I’ll not be saying another word about the subject. Any subject.”

Isabelle met Ivan’s eyes, and they both burst into laughter. It was the first good laugh Isabelle had had in the two weeks since she’d discovered she was pregnant. Maxine wouldn’t be able to hold her tongue long enough for them to cross the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.

She patted Ivan’s hand affectionately. What a dear man he was. When Isabelle announced her decision to leave the city for a while in order to think through the tangle her life had become, Ivan had immediately stepped forward and offered the use of his cabin in the Poconos.

“Fancy it isn’t,” he’d said in his inimitable way. “Hot water, cold water, appliances, and a bed. You want the Plaza, don’t come to the Poconos.”

Isabelle didn’t want the Plaza. She didn’t know what she wanted except the chance to be alone. The enormity of her situation had finally hit her, and she’d experienced a blinding flash of revelation. She was pregnant. It didn’t just mean a fat belly and huge dresses and puffing and panting on a delivery table. Inside her body another person was growing bigger every day, a person who was totally dependent upon her for all of his or her needs. Oxygen. Nourishment. Security. Not just for nine months, but for the next eighteen or twenty years.

And she’d have to teach the child so many things—things she had yet to learn for herself.

Was it any wonder she’d stayed in bed for two days with the covers pulled over her head after Dr. McCaffree had given her the news?

Finally it occurred to her that even if she stayed under the covers for the next six months, she couldn’t avoid the inevitable; and so she got up, got dressed, and set about the task of building a life, which wasn’t easy, considering she had no idea where to start.

God must have been watching over her when He’d seen fit to convince Juliana to release the trust fund. Knowing that she had a nest egg to fall back upon did make facing the future a tad less terrifying.

More and more it looked like she would be facing that future alone. Bronson had called twice, and she’d refused to speak to him. She’d been positive he would call again, the way men did in the romantic films she loved, but he didn’t. She’d been tempted to phone his assistant Phyllis for his number in Tokyo, but pride prevented her from doing so. She’d also considered calling Cathy or Matty just to say hello, but they would have seen through that ruse in the blink of an eye.

You have a lousy poker face, princess,
Bronson had said a long time ago, and she finally understood what he meant by that.

* * *

Ivan’s “cabin” was really a small A-frame chalet-style house set at the foot of a mountain. It boasted a view of Lake Wallenpaupack, two working fireplaces, and the most comfortable—if unattractive—furniture Isabelle had ever seen.

“The kitchen’s all electric,” Ivan said, pointing out the stove and refrigerator and dishwasher as if Isabelle wouldn’t recognize the appliances without a guide. “You get into any trouble, you call me.”

Isabelle had purchased a microwave at Macy’s before leaving the city and was sure it would be her passport to culinary delights from the frozen food counter of the local market. “I’ll be fine, Ivan.” She gave him a hug. “I appreciate this more than I can say.” Preserving her anonymity had been important to her given the circumstances. She would decide when or if to tell Bronson about the baby. She didn’t want his family reading about it in some sleazy tabloid publication.

“Are you sure you don’t want me stayin’ with you, lovey?” Maxine asked as she and Ivan made their goodbyes. “’Twould be no hardship on me to live in the mountains.”

“I need time to think, Maxi.” She hugged the woman tightly. “And I need to be alone.” Eric had found her in New York, and Honore had called on New Year’s Day to wish her well. Isabelle had stood near the answering machine, listening to his familiar voice as he left his message. She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to talk to anyone associated with her old life. The only person she wanted to talk to was Bronson, and he was no longer calling.

“We’ll be here every Sunday,” Maxine said as Ivan nodded his head. “If you need it, Ivan’s old Volkswagen is in the garage, and the keys are on the pegboard.”

“And I have the phone numbers of the doctor, the police, the fire department, the nearest neighbor, and the taxi company on the pegboard, too. Don’t worry,” she said, laughing. “I’ll be fine.”

“And what about himself?” Maxine asked, referring to Daniel. “What do I say if he calls?”

Isabelle blinked back sudden tears. “He won’t be calling, Maxi.”

“But if he does?”

She sighed. “Just take his number, and I’ll call him back.” The odds of that happening were a million to one.

Isabelle had a difficult moment when Maxine and Ivan backed out of the driveway, then disappeared down the long dirt road that led to the highway. She wanted to race after them and beg them to stay, throw herself upon Maxine’s ample bosom and cry until she couldn’t cry anymore. But she didn’t. Instead, she stood by the mailbox and waved until she couldn’t see them any longer and then she went inside and cried until she couldn’t cry any longer.