Free The Princess Predicament by LISA CHILDS Page B

with Gabby’s.
    Aaron snorted. “That shouldn’t be a problem since Whit rarely trusts anyone.”
    “That’s what’s kept him alive for the past thirty years,” Charlotte pointed out. But the problem was that he was traveling with a woman who trusted everyone, who always saw the good in people no matter what they’d done. Gabby would forgive Charlotte—eventually. But she wouldn’t be able to do that unless Whit could keep her alive.
    * * *
    S IX MONTHS AGO Whit had been willing to let her marry another man, but today he had barely let the doctor speak to her before he’d ushered Dominic Delgado back to his Jeep. Dominic was an irrepressible flirt. Was Whit jealous?
    Hope fluttered in her heart—and in her belly as the baby kicked with excitement. Could Whit care enough to feel jealousy?
    He strode back through the doorway. “We have to leave now. The royal jet may have already landed.”
    So he hadn’t been jealous at all. Just impatient to carry out his orders to bring her back to St. Pierre and her father. Disappointment quelled her flash of hope. But then she didn’t want him to be jealous of her. Because if Prince Linus had been acting of his own accord and not his father’s, then it must have been his jealousy that had cost Charlotte six months of her life.
    She doubted he’d acted alone, though, because she doubted he’d cared enough to be jealous of her.
    “You really want to bring me back to St. Pierre?” she asked. And her disappointment grew.
    She had been right to leave him six months ago. Despite that night they’d shared, he hadn’t cared anything for her—not enough to stop her from leaving. Not enough to stop her from marrying another man.
    “You need to go back to St. Pierre,” he stubbornly insisted. A muscle in his lean cheek, beneath the couple of days’ worth of stubble and above his tightly clenched jaw, twitched.
    “Why?” she asked. Nobody on St. Pierre genuinely cared for her—at least not enough to have ever been honest with her. “So my father can force me to marry Prince Tonio Malamatos?”
    “That is not the reason why the king wants you home,” Whit said.
    She wasn’t foolish enough to entertain any flutters of hope this time. Her question was more rhetorical than curious; despite the secrets he’d kept, she still knew her father well. Too well. “So he’s broken that engagement for me, too?”
    Good thing her question had been rhetorical because he didn’t answer it. That muscle just twitched in his cheek again.
    “Maybe Prince Tonio took my disappearance as a rejection and resumed his engagement to my cousin?” Actually Honora Del Cachon wasn’t her cousin since Gabby wasn’t really the queen’s daughter. Like the queen, Honora had never liked Gabby, either. The night of the ball—when she’d been publicly humiliated—instead of blaming the king, Honora had glared at Gabby with such hatred that she shuddered even now, remembering it. “They could actually be married by now.” And she fervently hoped that they were.
    Whit shook his head. “Prince Malamatos refused to break your engagement until he had proof that you were dead.”
    “He waited for me?” she asked. Unlike Prince Linus, he didn’t even know her. They had only met a few times over her lifetime, and had rarely spoken more than a couple of words to each other. So his loyalty wasn’t personal.
    Was her country that important to him?
    Whit jerked his chin up and down in a rough nod. And for a second she wondered if he’d read her mind. But he probably only meant that the prince had waited for her.
    “So he still intends to marry me when I return?” Panic rushed up on her now, so that she struggled to draw a deep breath. “And my father will expect me to obey his royal command and marry the prince.”
    “You can talk to him this time,” Whit said, “instead of running away.”
    His words stung her pride. “You think I ran away six months ago?”
    He gave a sharp nod. “I know