“I don’t know,” Alexander said simply, facing his friend. “I’ve told no one this, but I trust you, and I need your help. I have no memory of that night at all. It’s all a blank, and I was hoping you could help me clear up some of the mystery.”
Gerard’s jaw dropped. “So you don’t know how you ended up in the water?”
“I don’t remember anything from the trip.” He hesitated. “But it’s worse than that. For an entire week, I had no memory at all. For a week I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know my name.”
“How did you manage?”
“I was rescued by a girl on an island. She saved my life and took care of me.”
“That’s a story.”
“It was like a story,” he agreed. “The Prince and the Mermaid.”
“There is a story like that by Hans Christian Andersen.”
“Does it end happily?”
“For the prince.”
“And the mermaid?”
“She sacrifices herself for him and turns to sea foam.”
“I don’t think I’d like that story.”
Gerard’s brow creased. “I’m worried about you, Alex. If Damian knew this, it could be quite bad for you.”
“I know.” Alexander sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. “I need the missing pieces. I need my memory. And I definitely need the security footage from the yacht.”
* * *
Josephine was sure that once she returned to Khronos, life would be fine. Prince Alexander would be gone and she’d be able to focus on her work again.
She expected some sadness and knew she’d miss his company, but she’d lost her mother and lived, and so she’d survive Alexander’s departure just fine. The tears she cried at night into her pillow were just part of the process of letting him go. And she would let him go. The intense memories would eventually fade, and over time she’d think of him less and less until one day she could remember him with something other than pain.
It was a good plan, and it might have worked out that way if she hadn’t discovered she was pregnant two weeks after his departure for Aargau.
Josephine had suspected within days of Alexander leaving Khronos that she could be pregnant, but she’d told herself she was being dramatic, letting her imagination run away with her, which was why she waited almost two weeks to take an over-the-counter pregnancy test that she bought in Athens when she was there with her father for a foundation meeting.
She’d waited until she was alone to buy the test, and then in her hotel room she followed the steps and told herself everything would be fine, that she didn’t need to panic or worry—
And then came the immediate positive result.
She was pregnant.
And Josephine sat on the side of the bathtub, holding the stick, thinking that she’d known. She’d known because her body felt different. Her breasts were fuller and more sensitive, and she felt nauseous and fatigued.
She couldn’t even pretend to be shocked. They’d made love a half-dozen times and they hadn’t taken precautions. Yes, he’d withdrawn, but it wasn’t true birth control. It was far from foolproof. She didn’t know why they hadn’t discussed it more. She didn’t know why it hadn’t been a more urgent issue. It was stupid. She’d behaved irrationally. She’d behaved as if she was the one with amnesia, not he.
And she wasn’t just pregnant, but pregnant with the child of one of the most fascinating, wealthy royal families in the world.
Josephine felt sick. Heartsick. Disgusted with herself, disgusted by her lapse in judgment.
If she went to her father she knew what he would say. He would say she had three options: terminate the pregnancy and tell no one, keep the child and tell no one, or keep the child but tell Alexander because he had a right to know.
It took little or no thought to eliminate option one: she wasn’t going to end the pregnancy. That wasn’t an option, not for her. She tried to imagine raising Alexander’s child in secret, and that wasn’t a viable option, either. It wasn’t right or fair, not to him or their child. But how could she just show up at the Alberici palace in Roche and demand an audience? Never mind just a week before Alexander’s wedding to Princess Danielle?
Stomach churning, she waited for her father to return from his meeting. “I need to reach Prince Alexander,” she told him. “I need to speak with him about a matter of some...urgency.”
Her father eyed her in silence for a long minute. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“Well, that explains the food poisoning. It wasn’t food poisoning at all.”
“I had hoped.”
“So had I.” He sighed and shook his head. “This is going to change your life. It will never be the same.”
“You don’t think I’ll be a good mother?”
“It’s not that simple. I’m not a monarchist, and I don’t know all the laws in Aargau, but this isn’t just any baby. You’re carrying the future king’s heir.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t tell him.”
“You are as honest as they come, Josephine. You’d never keep the truth from him, or a child from his father. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. So contact the palace security—I have a number, they left it with me when they came for him—but don’t expect this meeting of yours to be easy. Your news could change everything.”
* * *
The return to Khronos was so different from his departure two and a half weeks earlier. When he left, he hadn’t thought he’d see Josephine again and he’d been livid with her, seething the entire trip to Roche. At the time, he didn’t know what had upset him more—the fact that she’d left Khronos without telling him, or that she’d left the island without him telling her who he was.
He’d known that day, and every day since, that he should have told her his memory had returned. He’d been painfully aware that he should have handled things differently.
And now he was to see her again. She’d sent word through his security that there was an urgent private matter, and she’d asked his security how she should best deliver this urgent, sensitive information.
He’d known at once why she was reaching out. It was the only reason she would reach out.
Alexander requested the helicopter and flight crew for the following morning and now they were traveling above the blue-green water. Soon they’d be touching down on Khronos. He wondered if she had any idea he was on his way or that if her news was as he expected, then he’d be taking her back to Aargau with him. Today.
* * *
Helicopters were impossibly noisy, their turning blades impossibly distinctive. Josephine emerged from the small house, her pen still in her hand as she shielded her eyes to look up into the sky. The huge helicopter was flying low and coming directly toward her.
Her heart fell even as her stomach lurched, not a good combination when she was already nauseous.
Her father stepped out from the house, as well. His brow creased as he took in the helicopter dropping even lower. “He must have gotten your message,” her father said.
She swallowed hard, her legs suddenly weak. “Maybe it’s someone else.”
“It’s the same helicopter that came before. If he is any man at all, he’ll be inside it and eager to speak with you.”
Josephine wanted to throw up. She put a hand to her middle to slow the churning sensation that made her feel so sick. “You sound pleased.”
“I’ll be pleased if he comes in person to sort this out with you.” He glanced at her, his expression suddenly critical. “Perhaps you’d like to change and comb your hair.”
“Why? Because he’s a prince?”
“No, because he’s the man you love.”
Josephine refused to change out of her yellow checked sundress, but she did run a brush through her hair and then pulled it back into a smoot
h ponytail, and then she took a seat at the table in the house and waited.
It wasn’t long before she heard his footsteps outside and then his rap on the door that was already open.
She rose, hating how nervous she felt. “Prince Alexander Alberici,” she said, accenting the word Prince. It wasn’t polite, but then, she didn’t feel polite. How could she when she was suddenly blisteringly angry?
“May I come in?” he said formally, still standing on her threshold.
“You know the house. You know your way around.”
He entered, stooping slightly to clear the low doorway and then straightening once he was inside. His gaze swept the stone walls and rugged beams running across the ceiling. “Nothing’s changed,” he said.
“It’s been this way for a hundred years. I expect it’ll remain this way for another hundred.”
He crossed the floor, glancing right and then left. “Your father?”
“Is at his desk in the foundation office.” She struggled to contain her temper. “So no, there is no one here. It’s just you and me. We won’t be overheard.”
“I wasn’t worried about that. I wanted to be polite and pay my respects.”
“How kind of you.”
“You are angry.”