The Prince's Scandalous Baby (9 page)

THIRTEEN

Inventing an American news network was easy enough. It was enjoyable, even. Juliette had thought about going to school for theater, and had even taken a few drama courses freshman year. It was amazing how easily it all came back to her.

Standing at the welcome desk at the grand concert hall, Juliette found that bypassing security was simple; all she had to do was commit and act insulted that her badge hadn’t been made and wasn’t waiting for her. The staff checked the internet for her credentials, found a website she had mocked up using the skills she’d gained putting together her freelance translator webpage, and voila!

In the end, a very nervous and confused intern, who was being unfairly blamed for the whole thing, was given a directive to go print her a badge. With that, she had access into the main areas of the event, as well as a slot to interview the Prince once all the other networks had had their chance.

She considered, momentarily, actually doing the interview. That would be some revenge—asking the Prince on live television why he thought it was OK to take no responsibility for his own child. Doing it in an auditorium in front of masses of adoring children and their equally adoring parents would only make it sweeter.

But then she remembered that she’d made up her network, and didn’t actually have any cameramen or a TV channel to air it on, and almost laughed at herself.

No, she would tell someone that she needed a private moment with the Prince before her interview, in her appointed slot. Once she’d gotten the information—or the chance to rant—that she’d come for, she’d tell them she’d had some technical issues and that her interview wouldn’t be going ahead. No muss, no fuss. Come the next day, she would most likely be leaving the county.

All she had to do was wait. But that was harder than she first expected. For the last couple of weeks, she’d been thinking of the child growing inside her in abstract terms—a connection to a far-off man that she’d met for one night and then left forever. But now, surrounded by all these children, she couldn’t help but start thinking of the child growing inside her for what it would become.

She felt guilty. All this time, she’d been thinking only of herself when she was considering whether or not she wanted the Prince to be in her and her child’s lives. But taking the money would mean more than that. It would mean never allowing her child to know who his or her father was.

She scanned the crowd, her eyes looking for fathers with their children. She was being masochistic, she knew, but she wanted to see what she was seriously considering letting her child miss out on.

She shook her head to try and clear the thoughts away. This was the pregnancy hormones doing her thinking for her, she thought. Just because her child couldn’t have its biological father didn’t mean that it couldn’t end up with another father. Someone good, and honest. Someone who wouldn’t pawn her off and send her packing; just the latest conquest in a long line of forgotten women.

The anger welled up in her again and she went into the auditorium. The ceremony was just getting started.

Juliette stood in the press section, watching the crowd. There were some introductions, mostly giving information about the program that everyone in the room (except Juliette) already knew. The children were antsy, fidgeting in their chairs.

“When is the Prince coming?” she heard one child nearby ask.

But then he was introduced, and thunderous applause filled the auditorium. Many of the children stood.

Juliette didn’t want to look. As much as she’d come here specifically to see him, a part of her hesitated, now. Would she fall in his thrall the way she had before?

She scanned the faces of those cheering and clapping for him. They admired him. They thought he was wonderful.

She looked down sharply. They didn’t know him. Why did it matter what they thought? Maybe she would be doing all these people a favor by revealing that Prince Giancarlo wasn’t the man they thought he was. Maybe that was her responsibility.

And then the crowd quieted, and she heard his voice. She breathed in sharply. She’d remembered how it had affected her when he’d spoken to her the first time, but she hadn’t been prepared for it to happen again. Now, as she listened, those same feelings came rushing back to the surface.

The music. The depth. He was speaking in Italian and it was even better than when she had heard his English. She could already feel herself slipping away, forgetting so easily what he had done to her and how he’d just tried to deny her and their child.

She tried to keep her eyes glued to her phone, pretending to take notes the way the reporters surrounding her were doing. But she couldn’t stop her gaze from slipping back up to the podium.

As she’d come to expect, the Prince was sharply dressed. He looked like he had done when he’d been at the fountain and she was pulling away in the back of the cab. She’d have that image of him seared into her mind for the rest of her life. And, now, she’d have this one seared in there, too.

Juliette was only dimly aware of what the Prince was saying as he congratulated the students on their achievements and told them they should be proud of themselves. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she realized he had finished his speech and the auditorium was once again erupting in applause.

Then began the giving of the awards. It reminded Juliette of a graduation ceremony. Each of the students went up to the podium, and the Prince gave each of them a pin. The children smiled bashfully. A couple of them self-consciously remembered their manners and bowed or curtsied, which Juliette couldn’t help but find adorable. For a moment, each child had the Prince’s complete, undivided attention. And they loved it.

“Are you OK?”

The question had come from a gruff cameraman standing next to her. Juliette nodded, bringing her hand up to her cheeks. She hadn’t realized that a few tears had managed to seep out.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said. “Just allergies.”

It was a thin excuse, she knew, but the man wasn’t really interested, so it was good enough.

Juliette couldn’t sit and watch this anymore. Not if she wanted to preserve the anger towards the Prince that he so richly deserved.

She went and waited in the press room, where a little area had been set up for interviews after the fact. She found somewhere to stand near the back, obscured by the various cameras and large pieces of equipment in the room.

After the ceremony, the room flooded with press, and the interviews began as soon as the Prince arrived.

The reporters all asked the same questions, one after another. Juliette got the sense that these were small-town internet and print news sources from each of the places the children had come from. Everyone loved a story about local children getting to meet the Prince, it seemed.

Between each interview there was a little break while the next one got set up—the crews taking pictures and setting up video cameras if they needed them. Sometimes, the reporters who had done their interview left. Sometimes they stayed, and waited to hear if the Prince would say anything of interest in his other interviews.

By the time they had gone through the whole process for everyone else, the room was mostly empty. Juliette had taken to slouching behind a camera so that she wouldn’t be seen. Finally, it was time.

A voice called out for her in Italian.

“Now we have the Americans. ACXN, are you here?”

Juliette took a deep breath in, and let it out. It was the moment of truth.

“Yes,” she said, stepping forward and into the light, so that Giancarlo could see her. She looked him right in the eye.

“I’m here.”

FOURTEEN

His face froze. Juliette didn’t know what she’d been expecting to see there; anger, maybe? Fear? But what she got instead was just a half second of a blank expression before his public persona reasserted itself.

“Always happy to give an interview to our friends across the ocean,” Giancarlo said smoothly. “But I’m surprised that you should take an interest in a small, local competition for children.”

If she hadn’t known better, she would swear he’d never seen her before. If that wasn’t evidence that he was a skillful liar, Juliette didn’t know what was.

“Well, we have our reasons,” she said. “But I’m afraid I need to speak to His Highness in private, before we get started with the interview. Is that all right?”

She didn’t take her eyes off him for one moment, but in her peripheral vision, she saw one of the event organizers nod.

Hoping that her body language didn’t give away the intense nerves she felt, Juliette strode towards the door. She wasn’t sure what was out there, but when she stepped out there, she found an abandoned hallway. That would have to do.

She heard the Prince come out after her and close the door behind him. She turned, her mind reeling through all the things she’d been wanting to say since his father had told her she was just one in a long line of women that he’d used and left in the cold.

But, instead, she felt his arms wrap around her, drawing her up close to his chest and lifting her weight from her toes. She felt like a feather, held up in his arms like that.

“You came back.”

His lips were close to her ears, and she could feel the air that carried his words as she spoke.

Immediately, Juliette was launched into confusion. This was not what she’d been expecting.

Nevertheless, she composed herself quickly. She had a plan, and she was going to follow it. She brought her arms up, gently forcing away his embrace.

He let go, his face awash in confusion. “What’s wrong?” he asked, reluctantly letting go of her.

It had to be a trick, Juliette decided. He had to know that here, in front of all these people, she was a ticking time bomb for his reputation. He was just trying to diffuse the situation by playing dumb.

With this realization, the anger she’d been relying on to carry her through this conversation rose up in her again.

“As if you don’t know,” she spat.

He raised his hands, as though they would defend him from her words. “Please, Juliette, I don’t know. Tell me why you’re so angry. I know that when we first met, I wasn’t upfront about who I was, but…”

A cold laugh emitted from her chest. “This isn’t about that. This is about you getting your father to do your dirty work for you. Couldn’t face the consequences of your actions yourself, could you? Just have daddy fix it. Have him make anything uncomfortable or difficult go away.”

At those words, a change came over the Prince’s face. At the mention of his father, all the confusion was swept away by a tide of rage. He pushed it down immediately, but she saw his lip was twitching.

When he spoke again, he did so with an even, controlled tone.

“What do you think I had my father do for me? What do you think I had him fix?”

With every passing second, Juliette’s conviction was melting. Of the two images she had in her mind of the Prince, the noble, honest one was seeming more and more like the only possible reality. What was more likely, that he was a pathological liar, or that the King was just as awful to his son as he was to strangers?

“I emailed. I tried to call. I tried to tell you…”

Her voice was shaking now, devoid of the righteous indignation that had shored it up just a moment ago. She felt his hands grasp her upper arms in reassurance and rub them gently with his thumbs. He was still furious—that much was clear. But he wasn’t furious at her.

“What did you try to tell me?”

“That night…”

She could feel their hearts beating together. In that moment, nothing existed except the two of them. She wanted to say something clever, or smart. She wanted to find a good way of expressing it. But, in that moment, all she had was the simple truth—the way they should have dealt with each other to begin with.

“I’m pregnant.”

She saw the effect of her wards ripple through his whole body. It started at his eyes, widening and softening them. His mouth dropped slightly open and she saw his chest move as he took in a breath. His hands, that had been so gently stroking her arms, clenched. He was holding her tightly, his vicelike grip almost hurting her, but his mind clearly not even noticing he was doing it.

He pulled himself up straight, and his eyes went off into the distance, as though he couldn’t make sense of what he had just heard.

“A child,” he murmured, not to her or to anyone in particular.

And his expression changed again. It started at his lips, which curled up into the biggest smile Juliette had ever seen. He looked back at her, his eyes dancing. He released his hands from her arms and gently cradled her face in his hands.

“A child,” he said again, this time with a quiet, joyful intensity that made Juliette want to close the short distance between them with a kiss.

He looked down at her belly, as though he expected to see it there.

“I’m very early along…” she said, as though he needed a reminder.

Juliette realized that despite herself, she was smiling right along with him. She’d been carried along with the tide of his joy. When he swept her up into his arms again, this time she wrapped her arms around him as well.

She breathed in deeply. The smell of him took her straight back to that night—the night they’d made their child. She could feel him beside her as they stared up at the stars. She could feel his body in bed with her as they slept. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the scent of him, and how warm, safe and happy it made her feel.

They held each other for what could have been a minute or what could have been five. Juliette couldn’t tell anymore. Time seemed to stretch and distort around them. All she knew was the feeling of his arms and the occasional murmuring from his lips.

“I’m going to be a father.”

“We’re having a baby.”

“A baby…”

After a while, she felt his muscles begin to clench and his heartrate begin to rise. He pulled back from her just enough so that he could look her in the face.

“You said my father did something. What have I been missing?”

The words that she’d come here specifically to say stuck in her throat. She understood how angry it would make him, and, even though the King deserved this anger, she didn’t want to see Giancarlo this way. But she had to. There was no other choice.

“He offered me money, a lot of money, to go away, and raise the child without a father.”

A wave of fury ripped through his body. “He did what?”

For just a moment, Juliette was afraid for the King. As much as she hated the man, she wouldn’t want the fire in Giancarlo’s eyes to be directed at anyone.

Before Juliette could say anything more to try to calm him, a flash of light ripped through the conversation. It was so bright that it made her squint, and she turned her head to see where it had come from.

There, to their right, and blocking the whole of the hallway, was a group of reporters; a writhing school of sharks. The first flash of light from one of their cameras was followed by another, and another. In that moment she knew: they’d been fed today.

Now that the two of them were looking at them, the questions began.

Isolated words filtered through Juliette’s brain as she processed the rapid-fire interrogation: child, pregnant, announcement…

Her eyes shot to the door to the interview room, and she saw now that it was wide open.

“How did they…” she said.

Her blood ran cold as she heard her own words come spilling through the open door.

The microphone. It was still on.

The hateful device was right next to her lips, attached to Giancarlo’s lapel.

“Hello?” she said, slowly and clearly into the device. And, again, she heard her voice spill through the open doorway.

She looked up at Giancarlo, who was looking down at her. He wore much the same expression as she did—panic and surprise.

Their secret was out.