The Prince's Love-Child (The Royal House of Cacciatore 2)

But it was easy to flatten it down again.

Her philosophy on life had developed largely because her job involved a g

reat deal of flying. Accidents did happen occasionally, but there was absolutely no point in worrying about them until they did.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HE COULD be a prince and you could be an air stewardess, but it made no difference—at the end of the day you were still both just a man and a woman, with all the problems that men and women had when they began relationships. Or—in her and Guido’s case—ended them.

And what a problem it was.

Lucy stared at the blue line, as if looking at it long enough and hard enough might somehow change the end result. Her sense of disbelief was tempered by the hysteria which was growing by the moment.

She had gone through anger, concern, outright worry, denial, and now—now the most terrifying thing of all…

Confirmation.

She swallowed, putting the palm of her hand over her still-flat belly as if trying to convince herself that it wasn’t true, that she couldn’t be pregnant.

Could she?

She heard muffled moving around coming from the direction of the sitting room and her head jerked up. Gary was home! So what did she do? Did she tell him?

There was a loud banging on the bathroom door.

‘You in there, Luce?’

She licked her lips nervously. ‘Yes.’

‘Well, are you going to be all day? I’ve got a hot date tonight and I need to beautify myself!’

Normally she would have giggled and vacated the bathroom while he had her in stitches about his love-life. Gary was a fellow steward, sweet and handsome and understanding and gay—and he seemed to spend ten times as long in the bathroom as Lucy did.

She had never felt less like giggling in her life. But she couldn’t hide away in here for ever, and if she didn’t tell someone soon she was going to be sick.

You already have been sick, she reminded herself. Long and retchingly this very morning, and yesterday morning, and for countless mornings before that.

She pulled open the door and was shocked to see the look of horror on Gary’s good-looking face.

‘What the hell is wrong?’ he demanded.

How to tell him? How to tell anyone when she’d only just been able to bear accepting it for herself?

‘I’m…I’m…’

His eyes raked around the floor of their usually immaculate bathroom. ‘Oh, my God—you’re pregnant!’ he yelped.

‘How…how could you tell?’ Did that mean she actually looked pregnant?

He pursed his lips and his eyes flicked to the discarded cardboard box and the plastic strip which was lying in the sink. ‘This may not be quite my scene—but you wouldn’t need to be a detective to work it out. How long ago and who…?’ The look of horror came over his face once again, and momentarily he clapped his hand over his mouth. ‘Oh, God—don’t tell me—it’s the Prince!’

‘Of course it’s the Prince!’ said Lucy tearfully. ‘Who else do you think it could be? And his name is Guido.’ Somehow that made it sound and seem more real. She couldn’t possibly be pregnant by a prince, but she could be pregnant by a man with a real name—even if it was an exotically foreign one.

‘Oh, love,’ said Gary sympathetically, and gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘What on earth are you going to do?’

Tears welled up in her eyes and she scrubbed at them furiously with her fist. ‘I’m going to have to tell him.’

Lucy.