AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Brooke didn’t realize she’d gotten to her feet until the gazebo began to sway around her. She clamped a hand over her mouth as the unsettled feeling in her stomach increased. She couldn’t throw up. Not now. Not here. Sweat broke out on her body. She was about to ruin Ariana’s gorgeous dress in an inglorious way the palace would be talking about for weeks. Brooke blinked and gulped air to regain her equilibrium. But she was too hot. Too dizzy.
“I have to...” Go. She didn’t belong here. She’d been unbearably rude to Nic’s mother, who was the queen of a nation. But she could no longer tell in which direction lay escape.
“Dr. Davis, are you all right?” The queen sounded very far away.
Brooke tried to focus on the queen’s voice but she stumbled. Abruptly a wood column was beneath her fingers and she clutched the rough surface like a lifeline as darkness rushed up to claim her.
* * *
Nic exploded through the green salon’s French doors and raced toward the gazebo as soon as Brooke stood and began to weave like a drunken woman. For the past fifteen minutes he’d been positioned by the windows that overlooked the garden so he could observe the exchange between his mother and Brooke and step in if things appeared as if they were going badly. Like Brooke, he’d expected his mother to diplomatically encourage her to leave as soon as possible and he was worried that Brooke might say something she’d immediately regret. Never could he have predicted that he’d be just in time to catch Brooke’s limp body before it hit the gazebo floor.
“What happened?”
For once his mother looked utterly confounded. “She was going on and on about you and the rocket and then she turned bright pink and collapsed.”
Nic scooped Brooke into his arms and headed toward the palace. Whereas she’d been flushed a moment earlier, her skin was now deathly pale. He entered the green salon and crossed the room in several ground-eating strides. His heart hammered harder in his chest each time he glanced down at Brooke’s unconscious face. What was wrong with her? As far as he recalled she’d been sick a mere handful of times and it had certainly never been this drastic. A cold. Sinus infection. Once a bad case of food poisoning.
He didn’t realize his mother had followed him until he pushed open the door to Brooke’s suite and carried her to the bed.
“Is there something wrong with her that caused her to pass out?” the queen demanded, sitting on the bed to feel Brooke’s skin. “She’s clammy.”
“She’s perfectly healthy.” He pulled out his phone, unsure if this was a true emergency. “She was anxious about coming here, but seemed all right at dinner last night. What did you say to her at breakfast? She seemed agitated before she passed out.”
“You were watching us?”
“I was worried about how you two would get along. Seems I was right to be.”
“I merely told her that I thought you believed yourself in love with her.”
Nic closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “What would possess you to tell her that?”
“I needed her to understand that what was between you wasn’t real.”
“How would you know? You barely know her and I haven’t been around for ten years so you scarcely know me, either.”
His mother looked shocked. “You are my son. I raised you.”
With effort, Nic reeled in his temper. “None of this is helping Brooke. She hasn’t awakened yet. I think she needs a doctor.”
He was texting Gabriel when a single word from his mother stopped him.
“Wait.”
“Why?”
She pointed at a package of crackers on the nightstand. “How long has she been eating these?”
“I have no idea.” And what did it matter? “Do you think there’s something wrong with them?”
“No, but when I was pregnant I used to eat crackers to fight nausea.” His mother looked thoughtful. “She barely ate any of her dinner last night and she was picking at breakfast today. Pregnancy could explain her fainting spell.”
“Pregnant?” Nic shook his head to clear the sudden rushing in his ears. “Impossible.”
“Impossible because you haven’t been intimate or because you thought you were being careful.”
The blunt question shocked him for a moment before comprehension struck. Of course his mother knew he’d been involved with Brooke. They hadn’t kept their relationship secret and no doubt Ariana had mentioned that he was seeing someone in California.
“We’ve been very careful.”
“Then perhaps she has someone else in her life.”
Nic glared at his mother. “There’s no one else.”
