Nurses brought her baby back almost exactly an hour after he’d been taken away. The royal pediatrician came in and told her that her son was in good health, but he was small, so a few precautions would be taken.
The pediatrician returned the next morning and gave her the same report. She squeezed her hands together nervously. With her mom there, security outside her door and very attentive nurses, she shouldn’t feel alone, but she did. They wouldn’t let her see a newspaper so she knew whatever was going on had to be terrible.
She wondered how safe the war room was—how safe the palace was? The sheikh had barrels of money, and money bought weapons and soldiers. She knew very little about Xaviera’s army and worried that Dom would have to bomb his own ports.
The next day she noticed security outside her room had been doubled. That’s when it dawned on her that she hadn’t seen any press. When she got out of bed and looked out her window, the world looked calm. Peaceful. Knowing that everybody in the kingdom was waiting for this baby, it seemed odd that the press wasn’t climbing the walls, trying to get pictures.
She asked her mom about it when she arrived for a visit and her mom said the baby’s birth hadn’t been announced.
She gave Ginny a weak smile. “If anyone knew he’d already been born, he would be a target. The king told Sally he believes it’s for the best that this news not yet hit the press.”
She swallowed, but her fears mounted. “So things are bad?”
“Actually, things aren’t bad at all. The way I understand it, the whole mess involves one port and some hostages. Which is why Sally thinks the king believes it’s so important that we protect the baby. He would be the kind of leverage the sheikh needs to get himself out of this mess.”
“So it’s a standoff?”
“According to Sally, it’s hours of drinking coffee and waiting.”
Incredulous, Ginny gaped at her mom. “They’re waiting, but Dom hasn’t been able to get away to see me...to see his son?”
“Honey, I wasn’t supposed to tell you any of this, but I could tell you were worried and it’s not right for you to worry.”
She fell back on her bed. “No. It’s better for me to feel like a complete idiot.”
Her mom fluffed her pillow. “You’re not an idiot. Anybody would have worried.”
“That’s not the part that makes me feel like an idiot. I’ve been sitting here for three days, waiting for my husband, who apparently doesn’t care to show up.”
“He’s dedicated.”
“So is the king, but he’s talked to Sally, who’s gotten messages to you.”
“Have you checked your cell phone? Maybe he’s tried to call?”
She gasped. “I never thought to take it. I was in so much pain I just left the apartment.”
Her mom pulled out her phone. “I’ll call security and have someone bring it over.”
That brightened her spirits for about an hour. But when the cell phone arrived and there were no calls, they sank like a rock.
“How could he not care?”
Rose busily, nervously, tucked the covers around her. “I’m sure he cares.”
“No, Mom. He doesn’t.” And it took something this extreme to finally, finally get that through Ginny’s head. Her husband did not love her. He probably didn’t really love their child. He most certainly wasn’t curious about their child, who had been born early and who could have had complications.
But a war came first—
Didn’t it?
Not when the war wasn’t really a war. When there were stretches of time and waiting. When her husband wasn’t even king yet. When there was a king who should be doing the decision making but he had time to call one of his staff—not even a family member.
She got out of bed. “Help me pack my bag.”
“Ginny, you can’t go home yet! You just had a baby.”
“My friend, Ellen, had a difficult birth and was home in forty-eight hours.”
“But the baby—”
“Is fine. You heard the pediatrician this morning. He’s gained the two ounces he needed to put him over five pounds.” She grabbed her suitcase and tossed it to the bed. “If he’d been full-term he probably would have weighed eight pounds.”
Her mom put her hand over Ginny’s to stop her from opening her suitcase. “You cannot leave.”
“The hell I can’t. And let them try to stop me from taking my own child.” She motioned around the room. “As long as I take the thirty bodyguards, I’m fine.”
Rose grabbed her cell phone and hit a speed-dial number.
Ginny snatched her phone out of her mother’s hands and disconnected it. “What are you doing? Tattling on me to Sally?”