“She didn’t know that.”
“How could she not know that! It’s been all over the papers!”
“We weren’t letting her see the papers.”
“What! Why?”
“Because she had the baby the first day we were in here.”
This time, Dom fell to a chair in disbelief. Absolutely positive he had not heard right, he looked up at his dad. “She had the baby?”
“Yes.”
His kept his voice deceptively calm as he said, “And you didn’t think to tell me.”
“Duty comes before family.”
Anger coursed through him. “But I notice you had your phone.”
“I did.”
“You talked to staff.”
“Quite often. I had to keep track of the baby. Because he was born too soon, he was small. They monitored him. I made decisions.”
The anger in Dom’s blood went from blue to white hot. “You made decisions.”
“You were at war. And duty comes before family.”
Dominic bounced from his chair and punched his father in the mouth so hard the king flew into the wall behind him.
Fifty military men and ten bodyguards drew their weapons.
His dad burst out laughing. He waved his hands at the military and bodyguards. “Stand down.”
But nobody dropped his weapon.
Not giving a damn about the sixty-plus guns trained on him Domini roared, “You think this is funny!”
“No. I think it’s about time.”
He grabbed his father’s collar and yanked him off the floor.
“Dominic, you’re the one who’s always said duty comes before family.”
“So you kept my baby from me!”
“I was showing you that what you were doing with your life was wrong. What you thought you wanted didn’t work.” He calmly held Dom’s gaze even as Dom tightened his hold on his collar. “I’d tried hundreds of things over the years to get you to see that you couldn’t live the life you had all planned out. I thought Ginny would break you. When she couldn’t and the sheikh took our port and then Ginny went into labor, I saw a golden opportunity.”
Dominic cursed and squeezed his eyes shut.
“I loved my wife, your mother. And I was neglectful of my duties but I never dropped them the way you were so sure I had. All those months, we were in private negotiations, trying to avoid a confrontation with the pirates, trying to keep from going to war. Because of your mother’s death, they did get a few extra weeks. But in the end, I didn’t attack until I knew it was the right thing to do. Loving somebody didn’t make me weak. Your mother’s love made me strong. And you’re a fool if you think you can do this alone.”
“So you took my baby from me, made Ginny go through labor and childbirth alone.”
“For years I’d been talking to you and for years you’ve ignored me, treating me like somebody who only deserved respect because I had a title. I had to do something drastic or know you would ruin your life.”
He released his dad as if he were poison he didn’t want to touch.
“Maybe the lesson I learned, Father—Your Majesty—is that I no longer want to be connected to you.”
His dad very calmly said, “Go after, Ginny. Bring the baby home.”
“And then what? Let you torture him the way you tortured me and Alex?”
“When you see the lesson in this, you’re going to apologize. Not just for hitting me but for not trusting me.”
Dom sincerely doubted it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GINNY’S CONDO HAD long ago been sold. And because her mom had decided to move to Xaviera for the two years Ginny would live there, her mom’s house had also been sold. But the new owners hadn’t taken possession yet, so that was the sanctuary Ginny targeted. Unfortunately, when her bodyguard unlocked the front door, they found two women and a man, packing her living room lamps.
“Excuse me, this house has sold.”
Ginny patted her baby’s back. “I know. It was my mom’s. It doesn’t close for a few weeks. Until then I can use it.”
“Your mom hired us to sell the furniture.”
“Well, I’m sure by next week I’ll have my own house and you can do that. Until then, the house is mine.”
The tall woman looked ready to argue, but when she looked at Ginny with her twelve bodyguards and very tiny baby, she sighed.
“Fine.” Disgruntled, the two women and one angry man headed for the back door, clipboards in hand.
Ginny turned to Artemus, the leader of her detail. “I don’t even know if there’s food in the house.”
“I have credit cards. I’m authorized to get you anything you want.”