The Princess Predicament. Lisa Childs

on the phone with his friend. But Charlotte was already worried about Princess Gabriella; he didn’t want to upset her any more.

      She settled onto the airplane seat across from him. After her trip to the restroom, her eyes were dry and clear. She’d composed herself. But how much would it take for her to break again?

      She’d already been through so much—kidnapped and held hostage for six months. And she was pregnant, too, with his baby.

      Aaron’s heart filled with pride and love. But fear still gripped him. He wasn’t like Whit; he couldn’t hide his emotions. Whit usually hid them so well that Aaron had often doubted the man was even capable of feeling. But he’d heard it in his voice—his fear for Princess Gabriella’s safety—once he’d realized she was also where the shooting was.

      “I know something’s wrong,” Charlotte persisted, but she pitched her voice low and glanced toward the back of the jet where the king had retired to his private room. “Tell me.”

      Aaron uttered a ragged sigh of resignation and admitted, “I heard shots …”

      Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Someone was shooting at Whit? He wouldn’t have had time to get a gun yet. He won’t be able to defend himself.”

      On more than one occasion, Aaron had seen Whit defend himself without a gun. But he hadn’t been injured then. “Whit wasn’t the one getting shot at.”

      She gasped. “Gabby? Was it Gabby?”

      “I don’t know,” he said. But from the way Whit had reacted to the news that the princess was pregnant, too, he was pretty sure that it was her. “It’s a dangerous country. It could have been rebel gunfire. It could have been anything …”

      “Call him back!” She reached across the space between them and grabbed for the cell phone he’d shoved in his shirt pocket.

      But Aaron caught her hand in his and entwined their fingers. “He won’t answer,” he told her. “He needs to focus on what’s happening. And there’s nothing we can do from here anyway.”

      That was why he hadn’t wanted to tell her. She would want to help, and that wasn’t possible from so many miles away. That feeling of helplessness overwhelmed Aaron, reminding him of the way he’d felt when Charlotte had been missing. He’d been convinced that she was out there, somewhere, but he hadn’t been able to find her.

      Now Whit needed help—Whit, who’d so often stepped in to save him—and Aaron was too far away to come to his aid.

      Panic had tears welling in her eyes. “We can have the pilot change course—”

      “We’re almost to St. Pierre,” Aaron pointed out. “We’ll be landing soon.”

      Panic raised her voice a couple of octaves. “Once we drop off the king, we can leave again—”

      “No,” he said. “There’s a doctor meeting us at the palace. You need to be checked out.” Even after he’d rescued her from where she’d been held hostage, she’d been through a lot.

      She shook her head, tumbling those long tresses of golden brown hair around her shoulders. “I need to protect Gabby.”

      He knew it wasn’t just because she was the princess’s bodyguard. But he had to remind her, “You need to take care of our baby first.”

      “We shouldn’t have let Whit go alone,” she said. “He’s hurt too badly to protect her.”

      “We hadn’t thought she would need protecting,” Aaron reminded his fiancée.

      “We did,” Charlotte insisted, squeezing his fingers in her distress. “Six months ago someone left her that note threatening her life. That’s why I sent her into hiding.” And set herself up as a decoy for the princess. Her plan had worked. Too well.

      “But nobody knows where she is.” Or the paparazzi would have found her, no matter where she’d been. And there would have been photographs of Princess Gabriella on every magazine and news show, as there had always been.

      “If those shots were being fired at her,” Charlotte said, her beautiful face tense with fear, “then someone must have figured it out.”

      “How?” he asked. “Nobody but you and I and Whit know where she is.”

      She glanced to the back of the plane. “After I talked to my aunt and confirmed that Gabby was actually still with her at the orphanage, I told the king. I thought he had a right to know.”

      “Was he furious?” Aaron asked. Charlotte had done much more than just violating protocol as a royal bodyguard.

      “He called St. Pierre and sent out another plane with a security team as Whit’s backup.” She drew in a deep breath, as if trying to soothe herself. “They should be there within a few hours.”

      Aaron had heard the shots. He wasn’t reassured. In fact he was disheartened. He had wasted so many years being mad at Whit for something that hadn’t been the man’s fault. Had he repaired his friendship only to lose his friend?

      If Princess Gabriella had been involved in the shooting, then Whit would have stepped in and done whatever was necessary to try to save her life—including giving up his own.

      By the time the security team made it to where Whit and Gabriella were, they would probably be too late to help. With Whit injured and unarmed, it was probably already too late.