His Pregnant Christmas Princess Page 13

  As he’d expected, Rhys was stopped at the gate while the guard contacted Ana through the security system.

  ‘Her Highness does not wish to see you, Mr North,’ the guard said.

  Rhys nodded. ‘Could you please let Ana know that there is at least one paparazzo photographing me right at this moment?’ he said, nodding towards a woman with a very expensive-looking camera not even ten metres away from him. ‘And then ask her if she would still like me to leave?’

  The gate opened within moments.

  The guard ushered him into a small courtyard edged with several fruit trees, all decorated with tinsel and fairy lights. Had Ana decorated them? He could just imagine it: Ana standing on a stepladder, twining the multicoloured globes amongst the glossy green leaves.

  ‘Mr North.’

  Rhys turned from the trees to see Ana standing in the doorway. She wore jeans and a long-sleeved striped T-shirt, both dusted with what he was pretty sure was flour.

  ‘Ana,’ Rhys said, deliberately ignoring the way Ana’s equally deliberate formality had stung.

  ‘It’s too cold to talk out here,’ Ana said. ‘Come inside.’

  Her invitation couldn’t have been any more reluctant. But he’d achieved his aim: an opportunity to talk to Ana.

  Ana was silent as she led him through the house. Inside, the villa was a mix of old and new, with beautiful travertine tiles, white walls and exposed original beams. A staircase led them to what was clearly the heart of the house—a large kitchen and an open living space. Up here the stone walls were left exposed on two sides, and the original windows along one side provided unimpeded views of the Adriatic Sea.

  The back of the house had a modern extension, with bifold doors that led out to a deck at the rear—not that it would get much use now, in winter. It was a beautiful space, and if Ana hadn’t been leaning against her kitchen bench, her arms crossed, glaring at him, he would have said so.

  ‘I only let you in because it would ruin Mirjana’s plan if I didn’t.’

  ‘I know,’ Rhys said. ‘Thank you.’

  Ana shrugged. ‘Mirjana’s plan is designed to help me. I’d be crazy to sabotage it.’

  Then she straightened and turned her back on Rhys as she picked up a rolling pin and began rolling out a large ball of dough.

  Rhys walked closer but remained a few steps away.

  ‘Are you making those cookies you told me about?’ he asked. ‘Med something, right?’

  She nodded, her attention still on the dough. ‘Medenjaci, yes.’

  Rhys noticed that the oven was on, and that a series of baking trays were already covered in various Christmas-shaped pieces of dough: Christmas trees, candy canes, stars, angels.

  ‘I need to talk to you about last night,’ Rhys said, as Ana just kept on rolling out the dough, thinner and thinner. ‘I hate it that you think I’d abandon our child.’

  Ana’s hands went still. ‘Rhys,’ she said firmly, still not looking at him. ‘It doesn’t matter what you say now, even if you genuinely, truly believe it. I realised last night that I have absolutely no control over how good a father you’re going to be. You could be the best or the worst father in the world, and I get no say in that. And last night I also discovered that you’re capable of walking away from the people you love. Of abandoning—’

  Ana’s voice cracked, and she wiped angry flour-covered fingers beneath her eyes.

  ‘I said it last night, Ana, and I’ll say it again now,’ Rhys said, and his voice was stronger, harsher than he’d intended.

  Ana’s head shot up, as if she’d only just realised he might disagree with what she was saying.

  ‘I did not abandon my family, Ana. I would never abandon my family.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Five years ago I needed to find a way to cope. I needed to find a way to exist. I’d lost my wife, and then I’d lost my career. What you call abandonment I called coping—and, trust me, my family and friends knew exactly what I was doing. They didn’t agree with it, but they understood I needed to do it. They were just glad I had purpose again—that I’d started a business, that I had some form of a life.’

  Ana’s hands fell away from the rolling pin and she turned to face him. But she remained silent, letting him speak.

  ‘You know what you said before? About how you’ve realised you have no control over the type of dad I’ll be? I can see that’s frightened you, and God knows I get it, Ana, after the way your father treated you. And that fear of not having control? I get that too. I so get that. It consumed me. And being alone up in the mountains was the only thing that seemed to silence all those fears I had—that someone else I loved could be snatched away from me without warning and there was nothing I could do to stop it.’

  Rhys realised he’d been staring out of the window as he talked, looking out at the foaming waves beneath the overcast sky.

  When he looked back to Ana, she’d stepped closer to him. Their gazes locked and Rhys hated the compassion in her gaze, her concern for him, her worry, her...

  Wait. Did he hate it? Or was he having to stop himself from moving closer to her?

  ‘I’m sorry, Rhys,’ Ana said softly. ‘I didn’t realise—’

  He shook his head. ‘How could you?’ he said. Then he laughed drily. ‘It does look pretty bad. But I promise you I’m not going to hide way from my son or daughter.’

  Ana’s gaze flicked briefly out to the ocean and then landed back firmly on his. ‘But how can you possibly know that, Rhys? When you’ve just told me that being alone is the only way you’ve been able to live?’

  ‘Because something’s changed,’ Rhys said. ‘My life isn’t just about coping any more. For a long time coping was all I was capable of. But not any more.’ He paused. Swallowed. ‘Not since I met you.’

  ‘No,’ Ana corrected him. ‘You mean since you found out you were having a baby.’

  ‘No, since I met you,’ Rhys repeated, realising it was true.

  Ana’s lips curved into a humourless smile. ‘What’s changed since you met me, Rhys?’ she asked, as if she was testing him. As if she didn’t believe him.

  ‘Since I met you, Ana,’ he began, his gaze unmoving from hers, ‘I’ve wanted more than just to cope. I want to feel, I want to connect, I want to want. You’re the only woman I’ve wanted in five years, Ana. You’re the only thing I’ve wanted viscerally, deep down inside me. The only thing I’ve needed. Wanting you has changed everything.’

  The green in her eyes was almost emerald in the afternoon light, and for a moment her gaze shifted into the look he still dreamed about at night. The look Ana had given him in Castelrotto, when they’d shared cheese, and Chianti, and the most amazing night together...

  But then it was gone.

  ‘How can you know that something won’t happen and you’ll go back to wanting to be alone, Rhys?’

  He hated the worry in Ana’s gaze.

  ‘I don’t,’ Rhys said honestly. ‘But I do know that I emailed two realtors before we had dinner last night. I wasn’t going to tell you yet, but I’ve decided to move to Vela Ada. I want to be a big part of our child’s life, and I can’t do that from a different country.’

  Rhys swallowed.

  ‘I realise that moving here is going to involve a whole lot of goodbyes, given how much I travel for work. But I can honestly say fear didn’t even cross my mind when I decided to do it. And if my anxiety becomes a problem, I’ll deal with it properly this time. Not go hide on a mountain.’

  ‘You weren’t hiding, Rhys,’ Ana said, and Rhys realised she’d stepped even closer. ‘You were grieving.’

  Rhys knew a part of him would always grieve for Jess, for what might have been. But the rest of him wanted to live now. He wanted to experience emotions other than fear and sadness: joy and need and passion and...love.

  Rhys blinked as he digested that realisation. Love. Was i
t even possible for him to love again?

  ‘Rhys?’

  He realised Ana had said something. ‘Pardon me?’

  Ana was looking up at him, and even with her hair in a messy ponytail, and flour dusting her cheeks where she’d wiped away her tears, she was beautiful. So beautiful.

  ‘I asked if you’re really going to move to Vela Ada.’

  He nodded sharply, his mind now on things far more interesting than real estate. ‘Yes. My business is primarily online, and my staff all work remotely, so I can work from anywhere in the world. But I was going to talk to you about it—whether I should buy in the city or countryside. I thought maybe a few acres would be good for a kid? But then, maybe being close to you would be better for school drop-offs and things like that in the future...’

  Rhys didn’t really know what he was saying. His gaze just kept tracing the lines of Ana’s face. How had he managed not to just stare at her these past few days? This close to her, he found it impossible to think of anything but her eyes, her mouth, her lips...

  ‘You wanted to ask my opinion?’ she asked.

  Was her voice lower? Breathier?

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Remember? We’re in this together. We’re an us now.’

  ‘An us...?’ Ana’s forehead crinkled.

  He stepped closer to her and balled his hands into fists to stop himself reaching out for her. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s not just me any more. I mean—’ His brain wasn’t working properly. ‘I’ve deliberately been alone for a long time. I haven’t wanted to be anything different. Yet here I am—by accident. An us.’

  Ana’s gaze sharpened. ‘But not a romantic “us”. Not a relationship “us”.’

  Was she asking for clarification because that was what she wanted? Or because she didn’t?

  ‘I don’t know, Ana,’ he said. ‘Meeting you...and now having a baby with you... My life is upside down. Everything has changed.’

  Ana was breathing faster—he watched the rise and fall of her chest. God knew his own heart was beating a million miles an hour.

  ‘Is that what you want?’ he asked her. ‘A relationship with me?’

  Ana was fiddling with the hem of her shirt, wrapping her fingers in the fabric, lifting it just high enough that he could see a sliver of her belly.

  Was he wrong to be turned on by her naked skin when he’d told her he had nothing to offer beyond wanting her? Needing her?

  ‘I don’t know either,’ Ana said. ‘I don’t really trust my judgement when it comes to relationships at the moment. I know I don’t want to make another mistake...’

  Those words were enough to snap him out of his fog. ‘I can’t promise you I won’t be another mistake,’ he said honestly. ‘I’m not a good bet, Ana.’

  With that, Ana stepped away. She turned her back, her gaze fixated on her cookie dough. Then she swore—something in Slavic, under her breath.

  The next moment she was in his arms.

  * * *

  Oh, she’d missed this.

  It was only weeks since Ana had last kissed Rhys, but to feel his mouth against hers again was everything. Hot and sexy and perfect.

  Even though she knew kissing him was all types of imperfect.

  Rhys kissed her back, in all the delicious ways he always did, but then his hands landed on her waist and moved no further.

  He pushed her from him. Her hands fell away from where they’d been entwined behind his neck. He didn’t push her far—she could still feel his breath on her lips. But it was far enough.

  ‘Ana?’

  She gazed into Rhys’s eyes.

  ‘If the last few days—or even years—have taught me anything, it’s that life can change dramatically in an instant. So I should do the sensible thing here, and not kiss you again. Because we need to be mature grown-ups and raise a child together, and if we end up hating each other, that could be awkward.’

  Rhys’s lips kicked up in a crooked smile. He was utterly gorgeous. He hadn’t shaved today, and his hair was definitely not neatly slicked back like it had been last night.

  She liked this Rhys better—especially this close to her, with his height and broad shoulders making her kitchen feel small, making Ana feel small. He was all strength and power...and so much more.

  ‘I don’t know a lot right now...’ Ana said. Had her voice ever sounded so husky? ‘I don’t know how we’re going to work out this parenting thing, or if Mirjana will pull off her PR coup, or if I’ll be universally hated by the people of Vela Ada. And I definitely don’t know if this’ll be a huge mistake.’ She paused. ‘But I do know that you want me. I do know that I want you. It’s pretty definitive, isn’t it?’

  Rhys’s hands gripped her waist harder, as if he was stopping himself from moving them, pulling her closer. And her own hands shook, she realised, from the effort not to touch him.

  ‘I feel like I want to go with what I know right now,’ Ana continued, ‘rather than what might happen, or what I might know in the future. And I think I want to feel the way you make me feel right now. Because the way you make me feel feels so right.’

  ‘Everything about you feels right, Ana,’ Rhys said.

  His hands started to move, tracing the curve of her waist, her hips, and then curving over her backside as he tugged her close against him.

  Now it was Ana’s turn to grin. She trailed her fingers from the notch at the base of his neck along his collarbone, over the bulk of his shoulder, his biceps...then slid them over to the hard plane of his belly, curving under the fabric of his T-shirt.

  She’d dropped her head to follow the journey of her fingertips and felt Rhys’s breath hot against the sensitive skin behind her ear.

  ‘Wanting you feels right, Ana,’ he said, his words a rumble against her skin. ‘After so many years of everything feeling wrong.’

  His lips were against her neck, hot on her skin, and he was kissing his way to her jaw, tilting her chin upwards with one hand as his other dragged her body flush against his.

  Then his mouth claimed hers again, and she claimed his right back.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ONCE AGAIN RHYS found himself waking in Ana’s bed—before Ana.

  Her bedroom was on the top floor of her villa and it was large and airy, with a four-poster bed draped in sheer white fabric. It was dark outside, although Rhys didn’t think it was all that late. But he’d have to find his phone to check the time, and he had no interest in getting out of bed.

  Now that it was dark the room was lit by—of all things—a Christmas tree. It wasn’t particularly big, and it sat on a small round table in the corner of the room, its simple white globes providing just enough light for Rhys to watch Ana as she slept.

  Last time they’d done this he’d deliberately ended it by calling Ana Your Highness. But, looking at her now, her title was the last thing on his mind. It wasn’t a princess who lay beside him, naked except for the sheet around her middle, her bare arms and legs lovely and golden, but Ana.

  The woman he was having a baby with.

  The woman who’d changed everything.

  Who made him feel right.

  So, no, he wasn’t going to be exiting the bed the way he had back in Castelrotto. At least, not right now.

  But what would happen next? It was all well and good for him and Ana to be open and honest and everything, but what did any of it mean? Was this a one-off?

  As he stared at the woman beside him, that seemed an impossibility.

  The woman he was having a baby with.

  Not for the first time, the enormity of that was almost overwhelming. His entire life had changed in an instant. Again.

  Rhys lay on his side, with the same sheet that was rucked up around Ana’s waist equally haphazardly spread across him. She was facing him as she slept, her breathing slow and regular.

 
It hadn’t been a lie when he’d said it to Ana, but it was only now that his words really settled deep inside him, became irrevocably true:

  Wanting Ana felt so right.

  And also this felt right. Lying here beside her. Beyond the attraction, the lust, their need for each other, this felt right.

  Lying here with her. Being with her.

  So what did that mean?

  Ana shifted in her sleep.

  She was so perfect. And he was such a mess. Five years of mess—a ruined career, isolation and, at his lowest points, bouts of intense anxiety.

  Once, he would have told himself he could never hurt the people he loved. But he’d been doing exactly that for years. If he got out of bed to check the time, he would see yesterday’s missed call notification still waiting for him. He never cleared the notifications immediately, letting them sit there like little guilty thumbtacks pressed into his brain.

  Missed call. Mum.

  But eventually he’d swipe across the screen and the notifications would be gone. At least now he didn’t have the reminder of unread voicemail messages—he’d simply removed voicemail from his phone service.

  That was when his mum and dad had started writing old-fashioned letters. Not emails, but letters—maybe because they’d guessed he wouldn’t be able to throw them away?

  His family did know him well, after all.

  Well, they knew the old version of Rhys. The one from before. Ana had been right to challenge his commitment to their child. Because he wasn’t the old Rhys any more—the one who’d rung his mum every week and never missed a family gathering.

  He’d told Ana he wouldn’t abandon their child and he’d meant it. He would move heaven and earth to be the best father he could be.

  He wanted to do more than just cope now. He wanted to live. He wanted to...love.

  Love his child.

  Love—