A Royal Baby Surprise (The Sherdana 2)

And then he caught sight of her and the possessive glow of his gaze melted the chill from his features. Brooke’s heart exploded in her chest and she abandoned Ariana with a quick apology, slipping through the party guests in Nic’s direction before she considered what she would say. When she’d drawn to within five feet of him, her path was blocked by a petite brunette in a shimmering black mini.

“Nicolas Alessandro, I heard you returned home.” The woman’s cultured voice stopped Brooke dead in her tracks.

She turned aside and spotted French doors leading onto a terrace. Moving in that direction with as much haste as she dared, Brooke chastised herself. What had she been thinking? She and Nic couldn’t act as friends or even acquaintances at this public event. All eyes were on the returning prince. During her self-imposed incarceration, she’d pored over the local gossip blogs and read several news articles speculating on Nic’s abrupt return. The media were having a field day detailing all the women who’d been invited to the royal wedding the following week and speculating on who might be the front-runner to become the next Sherdanian princess.

Not one of the news sources had mentioned a girl from California. For that Brooke was grateful, but if she threw herself at Nic during this party, how long would it be before someone started wondering who she was.

Brooke had about five minutes of solitude on the terrace before she was joined by Olivia.

“Are you all right?” the princess inquired, her concern bringing tears to Brooke’s eyes.

“I almost made a huge mistake out there. I saw Nic and raced through the crowd to get to him.” Her story came out in uneven bursts as her heart continued to pound erratically. “If someone hadn’t beaten me to him, I don’t know what I would have done.” Brooke braced herself on the metal railing as hysterical laughter bubbled up, making her knees wobble. “I am such an idiot.”

“Not at all. You are in love. It makes us behave in strange and mysterious ways.”

Brooke loved Olivia’s British accent. It made even the most impossible statements sound plausible. Already calm was settling back over her.

“I’m so glad I had the chance to get to know you,” Brooke said. “Ariana, too. Nic is lucky to have you.”

“He’d be lucky to have you as well if only you wouldn’t be so eager to rush off.”

“I know you mean well.” Brooke shook her head. “But Nic needs me to go.”

“What if instead he really needs you to stay? He’s been locked in the library since yesterday morning. His mind is a hundred miles away from anyone trying to have a conversation with him. He called Christian and could be heard yelling at him to get home all the way across the palace.”

That didn’t sound much like the Nic she knew, but then he’d been through a lot in the past month. Was it any surprise that having his entire world turned upside down would cause a crack in his relentless confidence?

“It’s my fault,” Brooke said, her own confidence returning. “I dropped a huge bomb on him yesterday when I said I was going back to California without consulting him.”

“You should speak to him. He wants badly to do right by everyone and it’s tearing him apart.”

As it had torn Brooke apart, until she’d concluded that Nic would be better off not knowing about her pregnancy. “But I’m leaving in the morning. It will have to be tonight.” Brooke considered. “Ariana’s friend has a club opening tonight and she wants to go. I’ll have her drop me at the palace. If you’ll let Nic know, I’ll be waiting for him in the library at midnight.”

She didn’t want him to leave the party early. His mother would expect him to spend the evening getting acquainted with all the available women there. Brooke turned to go, but Olivia stopped her.

“If Nic could marry you, would you accept?”

The princess asked the question with such poignant sincerity that Brooke faced her and answered in kind. “I love him with everything I am. Which is why it’s both incredibly simple and impossibly hard to let him go so he can be the prince his family needs him to be.”

Olivia wrapped her in a fierce hug and whispered, “If he asks you to stay, please say yes.”

Brooke smiled at the beautiful princess without answering and then squared her shoulders and went to find Ariana.

* * *

Trapped in a tedious conversation with one of Christian’s former girlfriends, Alexia Le Mans, Nic watched Brooke exit the ballroom for the less populated terrace and was just extricating himself to go after her when Oliv­ia beat him to it. He’d only come to the party tonight in the hopes of seeing Brooke and demanding they have a conversation about the child she carried. He might not be able to marry her, but he’d be damned if the child would disappear out of his life. Nic had seen Gabriel’s regret at not knowing his daughters during their first two years and Nic wasn’t going to let that happen to him.

Ten minutes after Brooke left the room, she was back, and almost immediately he lost her in the crush. He moved to intercept her, but was stopped three times before he reached where he thought Brooke had been headed.

“Nic.”

He turned at Olivia’s voice and saw that she and Gabriel were coming up behind him. “I can’t talk right now, I’m looking for Brooke.”

Olivia exchanged a wordless look with her husband. “Ariana was heading to a club opening and she offered to give Brooke a lift back to the palace. But before she left, she gave me a message for you. She said she’ll be waiting to speak to you in the library at midnight.”

“Thank you.” Nic had no intention of waiting until then to talk with Brooke. “And thank you for all you’ve done for her.”

“No need to thank me,” Olivia said, her smile affectionate. “She’s lovely and I’ve enjoyed being her friend.”