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The way she’d felt about him the first time he’d kissed her six months ago was nothing compared to the growing connection she felt now. Each day in his presence it grew stronger. How was she supposed to just let him go and move forward? To raise this child on her own? To spend the rest of her life without him? Panic assailed her, causing dark spots in her vision and making it hard to draw a full breath for several minutes.
She rode the paralyzing fear until her emotions calmed. Able to think rationally again, Brooke was mortified by how badly she wanted to cling to Nic and beg him to give up his responsibilities and be with her. Once upon a time she’d prided herself on being an independent woman, capable of living abroad for a year in Italy while she worked on her doctoral thesis on Italian literature. She might make decisions based on emotion rather than logic, but she ruled her finances with a miser’s tight fist and had a knack for avoiding bad relationships.
These days she was a rickety ladder of vulnerability and loose screws. What else could explain why she’d charged a fifteen-hundred-dollar airplane ticket on her credit card to chase after a man who’d vanished from her life without even a goodbye? If she’d picked up the phone and delivered her news about the pregnancy she could have saved herself a bucketful of heartache and said to hell with closure.
Brooke sat up and buttoned Nic’s shirt once more. A sudden bout of nausea caught her off guard. If the positive pregnancy test result had seemed surreal, here was tangible proof that her body was irrevocably changed. Brooke slipped off the bed and fled the room, afraid Nic would exit the bathroom and catch her looking green and out of sorts, then demand to know what was wrong with her.
On her way to the guesthouse, she snagged a bit of bread and a bottle of water. Once there, she nibbled at the crust, put the chilled bottle to her warm forehead and willed her stomach to settle down. As the nausea subsided, Brooke’s confidence ebbed away, as well.
In twenty-four hours Nic was heading home to find a wife. He would be forever lost to her. Maybe she should give up this madness today and run back to California.
Because she still hadn’t done what she’d come here to do: tell Nic she was pregnant.
And yet, on the heels of all she’d learned, did it make sense to burden him with the news that his illegitimate child would be living far from him in California? He was returning home to find a bride and start a family. His future wife wouldn’t be happy to find out Nic had already gotten another woman pregnant.
Then, too, he’d proved himself an honorable man. It would tear him apart to know he wouldn’t be a part of his child’s life? What if he demanded partial custody? Was she going to spend the next eighteen years shuffling their child across the Atlantic Ocean so that he or she could know Nic? And what about the scandal this would mean for the royal family? Maybe in America no one thought twice when celebrities had children without being married, but that wouldn’t sit well where European nobility were concerned.
Yet morally was it right to keep the information from him? It would certainly be easier on her. Nic had turned his back on Glen and their dream of getting Griffin off the ground. Brooke knew she could count on her brother to keep her secret. Her life going forward would be quiet and routine. She would teach at Berkeley or UCLA and throw herself into raising her child. No one would ever know that she’d had a brief affair with a European prince.
Both options had their positives and negatives. And it was early in her pregnancy. So many things could go wrong in the first trimester. She could take another month to decide. The discovery that she was pregnant was only a week old. Maybe if she gave the situation some more thought she could arrive at a decision that she could live with.
Knowing that avoiding a decision was not the best answer, she dressed in black shorts and a white T-shirt. Maybe she would take a hike to the windmills a little later. Although her stomach wasn’t back to normal, she had to act as if nothing was wrong.
Half an hour after her encounter with Nic, she returned to the house and found him standing in the kitchen drinking coffee. He was staring out the window as Brooke drew near and when she saw the expression on his face, all the energy drained from her body.
“Don’t.” Her throat contracted before she could finish.
He swiveled his head in her direction. His gaze was hollow. “Don’t what?”
Hearing his tight, unhappy tone, frustration replaced anxiety. Brooke stamped her foot. “Don’t regret what just happened.”
“Brooke, you don’t understand—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted, despair clutching at her chest. She didn’t need to be psychic to know what ran through Nic’s mind. “Don’t you dare spew platitudes at me. I’ve known you too long.”
