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“Really? I ran away with the next heir to the throne and they’re feeding me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She glanced around at the small house that wouldn’t sleep herself and twelve bodyguards. Plus, she didn’t have a crib. And she was beginning to feel bad about taking the baby from Xaviera before Dom even saw him.
Worse, she missed Dom.
She wondered if her rash decision hadn’t been caused by postpartum depression, but reminded herself that her husband hadn’t wanted to see his child. He’d never loved her, didn’t want to. And he planned on bringing their child up to be just like him. She couldn’t let that happen.
Still, that didn’t mean this was going to be easy.
“This is a mess.”
Artemus agreed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Just as her mother said, she hadn’t really thought this through. But she had to forget about everything except setting up a household. She’d worry about Dom, what she would say to him, how she’d keep her baby safe from his ridiculous rule, when she had the house set up with beds and food.
“I guess I should feed the baby and get on the phone to find a crib.”
Artemus nodded. “And I’ll send two guys out for groceries.”
She took the baby into her mother’s small bedroom, breast-fed him and then made a bed for him out of a drawer from her mother’s dresser. With the baby secure, she went online and ordered a crib to be express delivered the next day, along with linens, baby clothes, diapers and some sweatpants and T-shirts for herself. Then she started exploring the real estate sites, looking for a house. The baby woke up twice and she fed him once, changed him the other time. Artemus came in and offered her food, but she refused it. She couldn’t eat until she got at least something in her life settled.
* * *
Dom showered on his father’s private jet. Taking the plane had been another way he’d vented his anger, but though he was bone tired he couldn’t sleep in the luxurious bed.
Even after a few hours for his dad’s duplicity to sink in, Dom still wanted to punch him. He couldn’t believe his father had treated Ginny so cruelly, but unexpectedly realized he’d been treating Ginny cruelly all along.
And what would he have done while she was in labor? Coached her? Helped her? Or held himself back because he didn’t want to give her false hope? He’d have ruined that moment for Ginny every bit as much as his father had ruined it. Maybe more because she’d see him there, but feel the distance between them, the tangible reminder that he didn’t want her in his life.
Which was a lie.
He did want her in his life. The feeling of fury that thundered through him when he realized what his father had done hadn’t just shocked him. It had been so pure, so total that Dominic hadn’t had a chance to mitigate it. In that moment of blazing-hot anger that resulted from white-hot pain, he knew what it was like to miss out on something so important he couldn’t even describe it.
His father was right. Dom never would have felt this if his dad hadn’t orchestrated it. He’d have covered, hidden, pretended, postured—whatever it took to fool himself into believing he was fine.
But faced with the raw truth of having those moments snatched away from him—he felt it all. The pain. The loss.
And he knew that pain, that loss, that horrible empty feeling truly was the result of the life he’d built.
He also knew that if he wanted Ginny back, all he had to say was that his bastard father had kept him from seeing the baby’s birth, from being with her, and he’d be free in her eyes. She loved him. She’d believe him. She’d take him back with open arms.
He fell to the corner of the big, big bed in the outrageous jet that he could use because he would someday be a king.
The only problem was his dad was right. Even if he’d known his baby was being born, he wouldn’t have rushed to Ginny’s side. He might have seen the final few minutes of the baby’s birth. But even then he would have raced back to the war room.
But what his father had done hadn’t just opened his eyes. It had changed him. And he didn’t want Ginny to take him back on something that wasn’t quite a lie, but was a way to get out of being honest.
He had to be honest with her. He wouldn’t even hint that she should come home—that he intended to love her—if he didn’t know for sure he wouldn’t hurt her again.
And that he couldn’t promise.
* * *
After hours of combing through real estate sites, Ginny heard Artemus enter her room again. Staring at the computer screen, she said, “How big of a house should I get? I mean, should there be rooms for all of you or does the crown pay for separate quarters for you?”
