Protecting the Pregnant Princess

Prologue

Heat scorched his face and hands, but Aaron Timmer ignored the pain and ran headlong toward the fire. His breath whooshed out of his burning lungs as his body dropped, tackled to the ground.

You damn fool, what the hell are you thinking? asked the man who’d knocked him down.

We have to save her! As her bodyguards, saving her was their responsibility. But she had become more than just a job to Aaron.

It’s too late. The house—the safe house—they had stashed her in was fully engulfed. The roof was gone, and flames were rising up toward the trees overhead. Leaves caught fire, dissolving into sparks that rained down onto the blackened lawn surrounding the house.

We shouldn’t have left her. But Aaron’s partner, Whitaker Howell, had insisted that she would be fine—that no one could have possibly figured out where she was.

Obviously someone had.

He rolled over and swung his fist right into Whit’s hard jaw. His knuckles cracked and stung as blood oozed from them. He shook off the pain and pushed away Whit’s limp body. Then he turned back to the burning frame of the house, debris strewn wide around the yard from the explosion.

It was too late. She was gone.

Three years later...

BLOOD SPATTERED THE ivory brocade walls of the Parisian hotel suite. Holes were torn through the paper, causing plaster and insulation to spill onto the hardwood floor. Some of the holes were big, probably from a fist or a foot; others smaller and blackened with gunpowder. The glass in the windows was broken, the frames splintered. Shots had been fired. And there had been one hell of a struggle.

Aaron’s heart hammered against his ribs, panic and fear overwhelming him as he surveyed the gruesome crime scene.

A whistle hissed through clenched teeth—not his but Whit’s, the man with whom he’d vowed to never work again after that tragedy three years ago. But a couple of months ago he’d been offered an opportunity too good to pass up. Only after he’d accepted the position as a royal bodyguard had he learned that he was actually going to share that assignment with his former business partner and friend.

That safe house explosion had destroyed whatever bond they’d formed in war, fighting together in Afghanistan. After the fire, they had only fought each other. So Aaron should have walked away from this job. He should have known how it would end.

She put up one hell of a fight, Whit said, his deep voice almost reverent with respect. But there’s no way they survived...

Aaron shook his head, refusing to accept that they were gone. She couldn’t be gone. Charlotte Green was too strong and too smart to not have survived whatever had happened to her.

What the hell had happened to her?

To them? Charlotte Green was also a royal bodyguard for the princess of St. Pierre Island, an affluent nation near Greece.

Aaron and Whit had retraced their steps from their missed flight home, back to the hotel they’d been booked into in Paris. The suite had been destroyed. But despite the amount of blood pooled on the hardwood floor, the Parisian authorities had found no bodies. No witnesses. No leads at all. And no hope for survivors.

King Rafael St. Pierre nodded in agreement with Whit Howell’s statement of resignation. Aaron clenched his fists, wanting to punch both men in the face. He couldn’t strike the king though, and not just because he was paid generously to protect the ruler of St. Pierre. He couldn’t hurt the man because Rafael was already hurting so much that he probably wouldn’t even feel the blow.

Whit, on the other hand...

For the past three years Aaron had wanted to do much more than just strike the man. He had damn sure never intended to work with him again. But when they’d both been hired, separately, to protect the king, neither had been willing to give up the job—a security job they’d been lucky to get after what had happened to the last person they’d protected together.

The king was fine, though. Physically. Emotionally, he was a wreck. The man, once fit and vital, was showing every year and then some of his age in the slump of his back and shoulders and in the gray that now liberally streaked his dark hair. Clearly Rafael St. Pierre was beside himself with grief.

Despite how far he and Whit went back, to a friendship forged under fire in Afghanistan, Aaron never knew exactly what his ex-business partner was thinking. Or feeling, or if Whit was even capable of feeling anything at all.

As dissimilar as they were physically, Whit being blond and dark-eyed and Aaron dark-haired with light blue eyes, they were even more unlike emotionally. Aaron was feeling too much; frustration, fear and grief battled for dominance inside him. But then anger swept aside those emotions, snapping his control. He shouted a question at both men, How can you just give up?

Whit’s head snapped back, as if Aaron had slugged him. And the king flinched, his naturally tan complexion fading to a pasty white that made him look as dead as he believed his daughter and her female bodyguard to be.

Whit glanced at the king, as if worried that the once so powerful man might keel over and die. They could protect the ruler from a bullet but not a heart attack. Or a broken heart. Whit turned back to Aaron, his intense stare a silent warning for him to control his temper.

He had to speak his mind. Charlotte Green is the best damn bodyguard I’ve ever worked with. Before she’d gone into private duty protection, she had been a U.S. Marshal. She could have fought them off. She could have protected them both. She devoted herself to protecting the princess. She went above and beyond the responsibilities of her job.

And to extremes that no other guard could have or would have gone.

It isn’t just a job to her, Aaron continued, his throat thick with emotion as thoughts of Charlotte pummeled him. Her beauty. Her brains. Her loyal heart. She considers Princess Gabriella a friend.

"That’s why she would have died for her, Whit pointed out, and why she must have died with her."

Aaron’s heart lurched in his chest. No...

If they were alive, we would have heard from them by now, Whit insisted. They would have reached out to us or the palace.

Unless they didn’t think they could trust them, unless they felt betrayed. Maybe that was why it was easier for Whit and the king to accept their deaths; it was easier than accepting their own responsibility for the young women’s disappearances.

No matter how fierce a fighter she was, Whit said, Charlotte Green is gone. She’s dead. And if the princess was alive, we would have had a ransom demand by now.

The king gasped but then nodded in agreement.

Aaron shook his head. No. We need to keep looking. They have to be out there—somewhere. He couldn’t have been too late again. Charlotte Green couldn’t be gone.

Chapter One

Six months later...

Like a sledgehammer shattering her skull, pain throbbed inside her head—clouding her mind. She couldn’t think. She could barely feel...anything but that incessant pain. Even her hair hurt, and her skin felt stretched, as if pulled taut over a bump. She moved her fingers to touch her head, but she couldn’t lift her hand.

Something bound her wrist—not so tightly that it hurt like her skull hurt, but she couldn’t budge her hand. Either hand. She tugged at both and found that her wrists were held down to something hard and cold.

She forced open her eyes and then squinted against the glare of the fluorescent lights burning brightly overhead. Dark spots blurred her vision. She blinked over and over in an attempt to clear her vision. But images remained distorted. To her it looked like she had six arms—all of them bound to railings of a bed like an octopus strapped down to a boat deck. A giggle bubbled up with a surge of hysteria, but the slight sound nearly shattered her skull.

The questions nagging at her threatened to finish the job. What the hell happened to me? Where am I? Because she had no answers...

She also had no idea why she was being held down—restrained like a criminal. Or a captive...

She fought against the overwhelming fear. She needed to focus, but her head wouldn’t stop pounding and the pain almost blinded her, like the fluorescent light glaring down from the ceiling. It was unrelenting, and reminded her of the light in an interrogation room or torture chamber.

That light was all she could discern of her surroundings. Flinching against its glare, she looked down, but she couldn’t see more than a couple of feet in front of her—not because of the pain but because she couldn’t see beyond the mound of her belly.

Shock turned her giggle into a sharp gasp. I’m pregnant?

No...

Her swollen belly must have been like her seeing six hands, just distorted and out of focus. She wasn’t pregnant...

In denial of the possibility, she shook her head, but the motion magnified her pain. She closed her eyes against the wave of agony and confusion that rushed over her, making her nauseous. Or was that sick feeling because of the pregnancy?

How far along was she? When had it happened? And with whom?

She gasped again, her breath leaving her lungs completely. Not only couldn’t she remember who the father of her unborn child might be but she couldn’t even remember who she was.

* * *

AARON HELD OUT his phone to check his caller ID, surprised at where the call was coming from. Sure, as desperate as he’d been he’d reached out to everyone he thought might be able to help. He had called Charlotte’s ex-partner with the U.S. Marshals. He’d tried calling her aunt, but there must not have been any cell reception in whatever jungle she was building schools or orphanages. And he’d called this man...

Hello, Mr. Jessup. This man was America’s version of royalty—the ruler of an empire of news networks and magazines and newspapers. Nothing happened anywhere without his knowing about it—unless a more powerful man, like King St. Pierre, had covered it up. Thank you for calling me back.

Aaron was surprised that the man would speak to him at all. He was the last client of the security firm in which Aaron and Whit had been partners. He had hired them to protect the most important thing to him. And they had failed...

Don’t thank me yet, the older man warned him. Not until you see if the lead pans out.

You have a lead?

Someone called in a tip from a private sanatorium in northern Michigan, wanting to sell a story about Princess Gabriella St. Pierre being committed to the psychiatric facility.

From that destroyed hotel room to a private sanatorium? Given what she’d seen, what she must have gone through, it almost made sense. A tip like this was why Aaron had refused to give up. That and a feeling deep in his gut—maybe his heart—that told him Charlotte Green wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be dead—somehow he’d know if she was.

Is she alone? he asked.

She’s got a royal entourage, Jessup said, including a private doctor and nurse.

Royal? But the king swore he knew nothing of their disappearance. And a man couldn’t feign the kind of grief he was obviously experiencing.

And a security detail? Aaron asked. Or at least one very strong woman.

Stanley Jessup grunted. Yeah, too much of it according to the source.

Hope fluttered in Aaron’s chest. Was it possible? Had he found them both? Is one of the guards a woman?

I don’t know. The man sighed. I’m getting this third hand—from the editor of a magazine who got it from an ambitious young reporter. I don’t have details yet, but I’m going to check it out.

Why? The question slipped out.

Stanley Jessup grunted again, probably around the cigar he usually had clamped between his teeth. It’s a story—a damn good one since it involves royalty.

If only Stanley knew the real story...

But the women had been checked into that Parisian hotel under aliases. To prevent the paparazzi from hounding the princess, Charlotte had developed several alternative identities for them. She had been that thorough and that good.

Still was—she couldn’t be dead. Aaron had already lost one woman he thought he might have been falling for—Stanley Jessup’s daughter.

Why call me? Aaron asked the newsman. Why talk to me at all?

I don’t blame you or Whit for what happened three years ago, Jessup assured him. Neither should you.

Stanley, despite grieving for his daughter, might have found a way to absolve them of any culpability. But Aaron hadn’t.

Do you want me to call you back after I get more details? Stanley asked. I’m going to talk to this young reporter to verify he really has a source inside the sanatorium. Then I’ll see if he can get a picture to prove it’s actually her.

No, Aaron replied. He couldn’t trust anyone else to do that. No one else would know for certain which woman she really was. Just tell me the name of this psychiatric hospital.

Serenity House, Stanley divulged freely. I’m going to have that reporter follow up with his source, too, Aaron. Anything Princess Gabby does is newsworthy, and this story is a hell of a lot more exciting than her attending a fashion show or movie premiere. And she hasn’t even hit one of those in a few months—maybe longer. In fact, she’s kind of dropped off the face of the earth.

Or so everyone had believed. But if it really was her...

I know I don’t have any right to ask you for a favor...

You said that when you called the first time, Jessup reminded him, when you asked me if I’d heard anything recently about the princess.

So I definitely don’t have any right to ask you for a second favor, Aaron amended himself.

That’s BS, Stanley replied with a snort of disgust. You can ask me anything, but I have the right to refuse if you’re going to ask what I think you are.

"I’m not asking you not to run with the story, Aaron assured the man. He knew Stanley Jessup too well to ask that. I’m just asking you to run in place until I get there."

So hold off on printing anything?

Just until I get there and personally confirm if it’s really Princess Gabriella.

Stanley snorted again. Since she was ten years old, Princess Gabriella St. Pierre’s face has been everywhere—magazines, newspapers, entertainment magazines. Most of those he owned. Everybody knows what her royal highness looks like.

Everyone did. But unfortunately she was no longer the only one who looked like her. The woman committed to the private sanatorium wasn’t necessarily Princess Gabriella.

Just hold off? Aaron asked.

Stanley Jessup’s sigh of resignation rattled the phone. Sure.

And one more favor—

The older man chuckled. So what’s this? The third one now?

This is important, Aaron said. I wouldn’t have bothered you if it wasn’t... If Charlotte wasn’t missing, he would have never been so insensitive as to contact Stanley Jessup again. He hated that probably just the sound of his voice reminded the man of all that he had lost: everything.

I can tell that this is important to you, the older man replied. So what’s this third favor?

Maybe the most important. If Whit calls, don’t tell him what you’ve told me.

About the explosion not being his fault?

Aaron snorted now. It had been Whit’s fault; he’d convinced him that the safe house was really safe. That was why he couldn’t trust another woman’s safety to his former partner. Don’t tell him about Princess Gabriella.

He’ll read it for himself.

"Let him find out that way, and let me find out first if it’s really the princess." Or Charlotte.

You don’t trust Whit?

Not anymore. Whit had always cared more about the money than Aaron had. Maybe he cared too much. Maybe he’d been bought off—three years ago and now. Both times there must have been a man on the inside. Aaron hated to think that that man was one he’d once considered a friend—a man at whose side he’d fought. But war had changed so many veterans. Whit had changed. Maybe he’d gone from killing for his country to killing for the highest bidder.

Promise me, Aaron beseeched his old client.

Jessup grunted. You make it all sound so life and death. She’s just a spoiled heiress who’s probably been committed to this private hospital to get cleaned up or dried out.

Aaron had only interacted with the princess for a couple of months before her disappearance. Even at parties she’d never had more than a few sips of champagne and she had never appeared under the influence of drugs, either.

If this really was Princess Gabby at Serenity House, she wasn’t there for rehab.

* * *

SHE STARED AT the stranger in the mirror above the bathroom sink. The woman had long—very long—caramel-brown hair hanging over her thin shoulders. And her face had delicate features and wide