Expecting the Prince's Baby (Harlequin Romance\Princes of Europe) (14 page)

Carlo’s words penetrated through to his soul. What was the Spanish proverb?
Be careful for what you wish, for you just might get it.

Vincenzo stood there helpless as hot tears trickled down his cheeks.

* * *

“Good morning, honey.”

“Dad—”

“I’m here.”

“This is a different room.”

“That’s right. You’re in a different hospital. You were transported in an ambulance after the delivery.”

“I’m so thankful it’s over and Vincenzo has his baby.”

“Yes. He’s overjoyed. I’ll turn on the TV so you can see for yourself.” Carlo raised the head of the bed a little for her to see without straining.

Abby saw the flash, “breaking news,” at the bottom of the screen. “For those of you who are just waking up, this is indeed a morning like none other in the history of the world. There’s a new royal heir to the throne of Arancia. Last night at six-fifteen p.m., a baby boy was born to Crown Prince Vincenzo and the deceased Princess Michelina Cavelli by a gestational surrogate mother who we are told is doing well. The new young prince has been named Maximilliano Guilio Cavelli Di Laurentis.”

Vincenzo...

“The seven-pound prince is twenty-two inches long.”

“Max is beautiful, Daddy.” The tears just kept flowing. “He’ll be tall and handsome like Vincenzo!”

“According to the proud grandparents, their majesties King Guilio Di Laurentis and Queen Bianca Cavelli of Gemelli, the baby is the image of both royal families.

“We’re outside the hospital now, awaiting the appearance of Prince Vincenzo, who will be taking his son home to the royal palace any minute. A nanny is already standing by with a team to ease Prince Vincenzo into this new role of fatherhood.

“Yes. The doors are opening. Here comes the new father holding his son. We’ve been told he’s not going to make a statement, but he’s holding up the baby so everyone can see before he gets in the royal limousine.”

Darling.
Abby sobbed in joy and anguish.

“This must be a bittersweet moment for him without Princess Michelina at his side. But rumor has it that sometime next year the king will be stepping down and the Principality of Arancia will see another wedding and the coronation of Prince Vincenzo.”

Abby was dying for Vincenzo, who was being forced to face this. “I can’t stand the media, Dad. Couldn’t they let him enjoy this one sacred moment he and Michelina had planned for without bringing up the future?”

“Speculation is the nature of that particular beast. But we can be thankful that for this opening announcement, they played down your part in all this. For such forbearance we can thank the king, who told me to tell you that you have his undying gratitude.”

Abby’s hungry eyes watched the limo as it pulled away from the hospital escorted by security. The roar of the ecstatic crowds filled the streets. Her father shut off the TV.

She lay there, numb. “It’s the end of the fairy tale.” Abby looked at him. “I can’t bear it. I love him, Dad, but he’s gone out of my life.”

He grasped her hands. “I’m proud to be your father. You laid down your life for him and Michelina and he has his prize. Now it’s time for you to close the cover of that scrapbook and start to live your own life.”

“You knew about that?”

Her father just smiled. He wasn’t the head of palace security for nothing.

Abby brushed the tears off her face. “I gave it to him months ago when he told me he didn’t want to be king. I wanted him to look through it and see all his accomplishments.”

Her father’s eyes grew suspiciously bright. “You’ve been his helpmate all along and it obviously did the trick.”

She kissed his hand. “Thank you for keeping him away as long as you could. I didn’t want him to have to go through any more grief, not after losing Michelina. Forgive me for yelling at you at the apartment?”

“That’s when I knew you meant business. As it so happens, I agreed with you, but a man should be at the bedside of the woman who’s giving birth to his baby. Evidently Angelina thought so, too. She’s the one who told him to get to the hospital quick.”

“Bless her. I needed him there.”

“Of course you did.”

“Lucky for me I was blessed to have you there, too, Daddy.”

“Someday you’ll get married to a very lucky man, who will be there when the time comes for your own child to be born. I look forward to that day.”

Abby loved her father, but he could have no conception of how she felt. Vincenzo was the great love of her life. There would never be anyone else and she would never have a baby of her own. But she’d had this one and had been watched over by Vincenzo every second of the whole experience.

Through the years she would watch Max in secret, because he was her son and Vincenzo’s as surely as the sun ruled the day and the moon the night. No one could ever take that away from her.

“Honey? The nurse has brought your breakfast.” He wheeled over the bed table so they could eat together. “Do you feel like eating?”

Abby felt too much pain and was too drugged to have an appetite yet, but to please her father she reached for the juice.

“We haven’t talked about you for a long time.” She smiled at him. “I want to know the real reason you decided to step down and move back to Rhode Island. Is there a woman in the picture you haven’t told me about? I hope there is.”

He drank his coffee. “There has been one, but it was complicated, so I never talked about it.”

“You can talk to me about it now.” Because if there wasn’t, then it meant she and her father had both been cursed in this life to love only one person. Now that she’d lost Vincenzo, both she and her dad would be destined to live out the rest of their lives with memories.

“Can’t you guess? There’s only been one woman in my life besides your mom. It’s been you.”

“Don’t tease me.”

“I’m not.”

She frowned. “Then why did you decide you wanted to leave Arancia?”

“Because I could see the hold Vincenzo has had on you. Otherwise you would never have offered yourself as a surrogate. If you hope to get on with your life, it has to be away from here.”

Abby lowered her head. “I’m afraid he’ll always have a hold on me.”

“That’s my fear, too. It’s why we’re getting out of Arancia the moment you’re ready to travel.”

CHAPTER TEN

V
INCENZO
HAD
SUMMONED
Angelina to his apartment as soon as he’d returned to the palace with his son. He’d spent time examining Max from head to toe. After feeding him the way the nurse had showed him, and changing his diaper, Vincenzo gave Max to the nanny, who put him to bed in the nursery down the hall. Now there was no time to lose.

“Tell me what you know of Abby’s whereabouts, Angelina.”

“I can’t, Your Highness. Please don’t ask me. I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”

“By whom? Carlo?”

“No.”

“The king?”

“No.”

“Abby?”

She nodded.

He knew it!

“Tell me which hospital they took her to.”

Angelina squeezed her eyes tightly. “I don’t dare.”

“All right. I’m going to name every hospital in Arancia.” He knew them all and served on their boards. “All you have to do is wink when I say the right one. That way you never said a word.”

“She’ll hate me forever.”

“Abby doesn’t have a hateful bone in her body. She carried my son for nine months and gave me the greatest gift a man could have. Surely you wouldn’t deny me the right to tell her thank you in person.”

“But she’s trying to honor her contract.”

“Contract be damned! She’s fulfilled it beyond my wildest dreams. If another person had done for you what she’s done for me, wouldn’t you want to thank them?”

“Yes, but—”

“But nothing. That may have been the rule when Michelina and I signed on with her, but the baby has arrived. There’s no more contract. You’re free of any obligation. What if I tell you I won’t approach her in the hospital?”

After more silence he said, “I’ll wait until she leaves. Surely that isn’t asking too much. I swear on my mother’s grave she’ll never know you told me anything.”

Still more silence. He started naming hospitals while holding his breath at the same time. Halfway down the list she winked. His body sagged with relief. San Marco Hospital, five miles away in Lanz. Near the airport and several luxury hotels. It all fit.

“Bless you, Angelina. One day soon you’ll know my gratitude with a bonus that will set you up for life.”

As she rushed away, he phoned his personal driver.
“Giovanni?”

“Congratulations on your son, Your Highness.”

“Thank you. I need you to perform a special service for me immediately.”

“Anything.”

He’d been doing a lot of undercover services for Vincenzo since the pregnancy. “I hope you mean that. My red sportscar is yours if you do as I say.”

His driver laughed. Giovanni came from a poor family.

“You think I’m kidding?”

“You are serious?”

“Do as I say and you’ll find out. I want you to round up all your cousins
pronto
and have them drive to San Marco Hospital in Lanz. Signorina Loretto is there recovering from the delivery. She’s being watched by her father’s security people. Fortunately they don’t know your cousins.

“I want them to cover all the hospital exits leading outside. She’ll be leaving there by private limousine. I suspect it will happen by this evening if not sooner. When your cousins spot the limousine, they’ll follow and report to you when her limo reaches its destination, which I believe will be a hotel, possibly the Splendido or the Moreno. Then you’ll phone me and drive me there. Any questions?”

“No, Your Highness. You can count on me.”

“There’s a healthy bonus waiting for each of them. My life depends on your finding her, Giovanni.”

“Capisci.”

Vincenzo hung up and hurried down to the nursery to spend time with his precious son before his father and sister arrived. He had to stop Abby from leaving the country. If she got away, he’d track her down, but it would be much more difficult with the baby. He wanted her here.
Now!

He played with his baby and took pictures with his phone. While the family took turns inspecting the new arrival, he took a catnap. Bianca and Valentino would be flying in tomorrow morning.

At five in the afternoon, his phone rang. He saw the caller ID and picked up. “Giovanni?”

“We’ve done as you asked. She was driven to the Moreno under heavy guard.”

“I’ll be right down.” After telling Marcello his life wouldn’t be worth living if he told anyone where Vincenzo was going, he put on sunglasses and rushed down to the limo in a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, sandals and a droopy straw hat.

Giovanni took off like a rocket. “You look like all the rich American businessmen walking around the gardens. No one would recognize you in a million years, Your Highness,” he said through the speaker.

He bit down hard. “If I can make it to her room before someone stops me, it won’t matter.”

* * *

Carlo had made Abby comfortable on the couch in their hotel suite. This would be their home for a few more days before they left the country. The painkillers they’d given her were working.

“Is there anything you want, honey?”

She kept watching the news on TV to see Vincenzo and the baby. “Would you mind picking up a few magazines for me to look at?”

“I’ll get them. Anything else?”

“A bag of dark chocolate bocci balls and a pack of cashews.” She’d been starving for foods she couldn’t eat during the pregnancy. They wouldn’t take away her depression, but she needed to give in to her cravings for some sweets or she’d never make it through the next few days.

“I’ll have to go down the street for those.”

“Dad—take your time. I’m fine and you need a break. Thank you.”

A few minutes after Abby’s father left, there was a knock on the door. “Room service.”

She hadn’t ordered anything, but maybe her father had. “Come in.”

“Grazie, Signorina.”

Abby knew that deep male voice and started to tremble. She turned her head in his direction, afraid she was hallucinating on the medicine. The sight she saw was so incredible, she burst into laughter and couldn’t stop.

Vincenzo walked around the couch to stand in front of her. “What do you think?” he asked with a grin, showing those gorgeous white teeth in that gorgeous smile. “Would you recognize me on the street?”

She shook her head. “Take off the glasses.” She was still laughing.

He flung them away and hunkered down next to her. His eyes blazed black fire. “Do you know me now?”

Her heart flew to her throat. “Wh-what are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“You’d be surprised what I had to go through. Giovanni’s my man when I need him. Did you really think I was going to let you go?”

Tears stung her eyes. “Don’t do this, Vincenzo.”

“Do what? Come to see the woman who has changed my entire life?”

She looked away. “You have a beautiful son now. We had an agreement.”

“I hate agreements when they don’t give me the advantage.”

Abby couldn’t help chuckling, despite her chaotic emotions. “Is he wonderful?”

“I’ll let you decide.” He pulled out his cell phone to show her the roll of pictures.

“Oh, Vincenzo—he’s adorable!”

He put the phone on the floor. “So are you. I love you, heart and soul, Abby.”

The next thing she knew, his hands slid to her shoulders and he covered her mouth with his own. The driving force of his kiss pressed her head back against the pillow. His hunger was so shocking in its intensity a moan escaped her throat in surrender.

A dam had burst as they drank deeper and deeper, but Abby’s need for him was out of control. She had no thought of holding back. She couldn’t.

“For all my sins, I love and want you to the depth of my being, Vincenzo, but you already know that, don’t you? I tried not to love you, but it didn’t work. Everything your sister said to me that day in the drawing room was true.”

His lips roved with increased urgency over her features and down the side of her neck to her throat. “I fell for you years ago when you almost drowned, but I would never admit it to myself because a relationship with you was out of the question. No matter how hard I tried not to think about you, you were there, everywhere I looked. You’re in my blood,
bellissima.
”

They kissed back and forth, each one growing more passionate. “It seems like I’ve been waiting for this all my life,” she admitted when he let her up for breath.

“We’ve paid the price for our forbearance, but that time is over. I’m not letting you go.”

Abby groaned aloud and tore her lips from his. “I can’t stay in Arancia.”

“There’s no such word in my vocabulary. Not anymore.”

“She’s right, Vincenzo.”

Her father had just walked in the hotel room, carrying some bags. Her breath caught as she eyed him over Vincenzo’s shoulder.

“Carlo.” He pressed another kiss to her mouth and got to his feet. “I’m glad you’re here so I can ask your permission to marry Abby. She’s my heart’s blood.”

Rarely in her life had she seen her father look defeated. He put the bags on the table and stared at the two of them.

“I don’t want an affair with her. I want her for my wife. Since you and I met when I was eighteen, you can’t say you don’t know me well enough.”

Her father moved closer. “That’s certainly true.” He looked at Abby. “Is this what you want?”

“Yes.” Her answer was loud and instantaneous.

Vincenzo reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I have no idea if the parliament will allow my marriage to a commoner and still let me remain crown prince. If not, then I don’t intend to be in line for the crown and my sister will take over when the time comes.”

“Are you prepared to be the targets of malicious gossip for the rest of your lives?”

“If necessary we’ll move to the States with our son. He
is
our son. One way or another, she and I have been in communication whether in person or skyping. Max is every bit a part of her as he is of me and Michelina.”

Carlo swallowed hard.

“I love Abby the way you loved your wife. The state you were in when you lost her altered my view of what a real marriage could be. If Abby leaves me, I’ll be as lost as you were.”

Vincenzo was speaking to her father’s heart. She could tell he’d gotten to him.

“I know the king’s feelings on the subject, Vincenzo. He was hoping you would follow after him.”

“I was hoping I would fall in love with Michelina. But we don’t always get what we hope for. If it’s any consolation, Gianna always wished she’d been born a boy so she’d be first in line. She’ll make a great ruler when the day comes.”

“Are you two prepared to face the wrath of your mother-in-law?”

Vincenzo glanced at Abby. “We’ll deal with her. When she sees Michelina’s likeness in Max, her heart will melt. I know she’ll secretly be full of gratitude to Abby, who put her life on the line for Michelina and me to give her a grandson.”

“Dad?” Abby’s eyes pleaded with him. “What do you think Mom would say if she were here?”

He let out a strange sound. “She always did say it was sinful that Prince Vincenzo had been born with every physical trait and virtue any red-blooded woman could want. Since she loved films so much, she would probably say yours is one of the greatest love stories of this generation and should be made into a movie. Then she’d give you her blessing, as I give you mine.”

“Carlo...”

Vincenzo was as moved as Abby, who broke down weeping. He finally cleared his throat. “I want her to move back into the palace tonight in her old room until we’re married. Max needs his mother tonight, not a nanny or a nurse.”

“In that case a quiet, private marriage in the palace chapel needs to be arranged within a week or two. Just as soon as you’ve talked to the king.”

“I don’t want you to take that job back in Rhode Island, Dad.”

He broke into a happy smile. “Since I’m going to be a grandpa, I guess I’m stuck here.”

“That’ll be music to my father’s ears.” Vincenzo put his hands on his hips. “Do you feel well enough for the trip back to the palace now?” he asked Abby.

She stared at him. “I feel so wonderful, I’m floating. I want to see our baby.”

“Do what you need to do while I help your father get everything packed up. Then we’ll go out to my limo for the drive back.”

“I’ll just run to the restroom and grab my purse.” Except she walked slowly and looked back at Vincenzo. “I’m waddling like a goose.”

His laughter resonated off the walls.

In a few minutes she was ready. When she came back into the room, she found he’d donned his hat and sunglasses. When she thought he would take hold of her hand, he picked her up like a bride, as if she were weightless.

“You and I have done things differently than most of the world. Now we’re about to cross the threshold the other way.”

“And me looking such a mess.” She didn’t have on makeup and her hair hung loose, without being brushed.

“You’re the most beautiful sight I ever saw in my life.” He gave her a husband’s kiss, hot with desire.

“So are you,” she murmured, resting her head against his shoulder.

Her father opened the door. “The men have the hallway closed off to the exit. Let’s go.”

* * *

After leaving his stunned father and sister in the king’s private living room, where he’d announced he was getting married, Vincenzo headed for the nursery. He found Max sleeping and gathered him in his arms. The nanny left for Abby’s apartment, wheeling the bassinet on its rollers down the hall. He followed and carried his son through the corridors of the palace. One day their little boy would run on these marble floors.

The staff all wanted to steal a look at Max, but Vincenzo was careful not to let them get too close. Dr. DeLuca had warned him to keep Max away from people during the next few weeks. He found Abby on top of the bed with her eyes closed. After fifteen hours in labor, she had to be exhausted. She was wearing a blue nightgown and robe and had fastened her gilt hair back at the nape.

Their nanny put the bassinet with everything they would need to one side of the queen-size bed and left the apartment. Since both were asleep, Vincenzo put the baby in the little crib on his back. Then he got on the other side of the bed and lay down facing Abby.