Expectant Princess, Unexpected Affair. Jules Bennett

doesn’t matter. He’s out of the picture,” Anne insisted.

      “And that was his choice?” Aaron asked.

      Anne bit her lip.

      “Anne?” Chris asked, and when she remained silent he cursed under his breath. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

      “Trust me when I say, he’s better off.”

      Melissa made a clucking noise, as though she were thoroughly disappointed in Anne.

      “That is not your decision to make,” Chris said. “I don’t care who he is, he has a right to know he’s going to have a child. To keep it from him is unconscionable.”

      She knew deep down that he was right. But she was feeling hurt and bitter and stubborn. If Sam didn’t want her, why should he be allowed access to their child?

      “Sam may be a politician, but he’s a good man,” Chris said.

      Once again, mouths fell open in surprise, including her own. She hadn’t told anyone the father’s identity. Not even Louisa. “How did you—”

      “Simple math. You don’t honestly think Melissa and I could go through months of infertility treatments and a high-risk pregnancy without learning a thing or two about getting pregnant? Conception would have had to have occurred around the time of the charity ball. And do you really think that Sam’s sneaking out in the middle of the night would go unnoticed? “

      No, of course not. They were under a ridiculously tight lockdown these days. “You never said anything.”

      “What was I supposed to say? You’re a grown woman. As long as you’re discreet, who you sleep with is your business.” He put both hands on her shoulders. “But now, you need to call him and set up a meeting.”

      “Why, so you can have a talk with him?”

      “No. So you can. Because it’s not only unfair to Sam, it’s unfair to that baby you’re carrying. He or she deserves the chance to know their father. If that’s what Sam wants.”

      “He’s right,” Louisa said. “Put yourself in Sam’s place.”

      “You should definitely tell him the truth,” Aaron said.

      She fiddled with the hem of her sweater, unable to meet Chris’s eyes, knowing he was right. If not for Sam, then for the baby’s sake. “I’m not sure what to say to him.”

      “Well,” Melissa said. “I often find it’s best to start with the truth.”

      Sam had just ended a call with the Secretary of State of DFID, or what the Brits called the Department for International Development, when his secretary, Grace, rang him.

      “You have a visitor, sir.”

      A visitor? He didn’t recall any appointments on the calendar for this afternoon. This was typically his time for any calls that needed to be made. Had Grace scheduled another appointment she’d forgotten to mention? Or maybe she had entered information incorrectly into the computer again.

      He was sure at one time she had been an asset to his father’s office, but now she was at least ten years past mandatory retirement.

      “Do they have an appointment?” he asked her.

      “No, sir, but—”

      “Then I don’t have time. I’ll be happy to see them after they schedule an appointment.” He hung up, wishing he could gently persuade his father to let her go, or at the very least assign her to someone else. But she had been with the office since the elder Baldwin was a young politician just starting out and he was as fiercely loyal to her as she was to him. Sam may have suspected some sort of indiscretion had it not been for the fact that she was fifteen years his father’s senior, and they were both very happily married to other people.

      There was a knock at his office door and Sam groaned inwardly, gathering every bit of his patience. Did Grace not understand the meaning of the word no? “What is it?” he snapped, probably a bit more harshly than she deserved.

      The door opened, but it wasn’t Grace standing there. It was Anne. Princess Anne, he reminded himself. Spending one night in her bed did not give him the privilege of dispensing with formalities.

      “Your Highness,” he said, rising from his chair and bowing properly, even though he couldn’t help picturing her naked and poised atop him, her breasts firm and high, her face a mask of pleasure as she rode him until they were both blind with ecstasy. To say they’d slept together, that they’d had sex, was like calling the ocean a puddle. They had transcended every preconceived notion he’d ever had about being with a woman. It was a damned shame that they had no future.

      He must have picked up the phone a dozen times to call her in the weeks following their night together, but before he could dial he’d been faced with a grim reality. No matter how he felt about her, how deeply they had connected, if he wanted to be prime minister, he simply could not have her.

      He had accepted a long time ago that getting where he wanted would involve sacrifice. Yet never had it hit home so thoroughly as it did now.

      “Is this a bad time?” she asked.

      “No, of course not. Come in, please.”

      She stepped into his office and shut the door behind her. Though she was, on most occasions, coolly composed, today she seemed edgy and nervous, her eyes flitting randomly about his office. Looking everywhere, he noticed, but at him.

      “I’m sorry to just barge in on you this way. But I was afraid that if I called you might refuse to see me.”

      “You’re welcome anytime, Your Highness.” He came around his desk and gestured to the settee and chair in the sitting area. “Please, have a seat. Can I get you a drink?”

      “No, thank you. I’m fine.” She sat primly on the edge of the settee, clutching her purse in her lap, and he took a seat in the chair. She looked thinner than when he’d last seen her, and her milky complexion had taken on a gray cast. Was she ill?

      “Maybe just a glass of water?” he asked.

      She shook her head, her lips folded firmly together, and he watched as her face went from gray to green before his eyes. Then her eyes went wide, and she asked in a panicked voice, “The loo?”

      He pointed across the room. “Just through that—”

      She was up off the settee, one hand clamped over her mouth, dashing for the door before he could even finish his sentence. It might have been comedic had he not been so alarmed. He followed her and stood outside the door, cringing when he heard the sounds of her being ill. There was obviously something terribly wrong with her. But why come to him? They barely knew one another. On a personal level at any rate.

      He heard a flush, then the sound of water running.

      “Should I call someone for you?” he asked, then the door opened and Anne emerged looking pale and shaky.

      “No, I’m fine. Just dreadfully embarrassed. I should have known better than to eat before I came here.”

      “Why don’t you sit down.” He reached out to help her but she waved him away.

      “I can do it.” She crossed the room on wobbly legs and re-staked her seat on the settee. Sam sat in the chair.

      “Forgive me for being blunt, Your Highness, but are you ill?”

      “Sam, we’ve been about as intimate as two people can be, so please call me Anne. And no, I’m not ill. Not in the way you might think.”

      “In what way, then?”

      She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m pregnant.”

      “Pregnant?” he repeated, and she nodded. Well, he hadn’t seen that coming. He’d barely been able to look at another woman