Royal Match Read online

  Caroline’s pleasant goodbye drifted into the background and we ended the call. I’d somehow maneuvered my way into the bedroom cabin and found that I was already horizontal. Dylan was removing my shoes and running his large hand up my calf in warm rhythmic strokes. “Caroline?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

  I nodded, threw my arm over my forehead, and let my head sink back into the pillow. “I’m her matron of honor.”

  Dylan looked at me, confused. “But the wedding is in three weeks, and you’re—”

  I just nodded in confirmation and looked up to see Dylan’s expression morph into some combination of protectiveness and anger. “Has she gone completely mad?” he said, close to shouting. “Absolutely not. This is not happening She knows you’re about to deliver. The stress alone…She’s out of order, and it’s not happening.” His voice was frantic, and his thumbs were digging deeper into the soles of my feet, and even if it was because of mounting frustration, it was great. Note to self: Get Dylan all riled up before he gives you a foot rub.

  “It wasn’t Caroline’s call. You know that,” I said, and I nudged his hand with my toe, silently urging him to continue to rub my feet. He understood better than anyone that the queen called the shots. “It’s okay, knighty. I got this.”

  “What if you go into labor?” he asked, looking at me as though I’d gone completely mad.

  “I won’t. I just…can’t.”

  “Has she any understanding of how this works? Is she under the impression that you can simply hold the baby in, or some such thing? Do you?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. Of course this bugged me, of course I knew this was a bad idea for a hundred different reasons. But I also knew that if I let Dylan cycle through his own disbelief, he’d come to the same conclusion I had: It really didn’t matter what Caroline or I or Dylan or anyone else thought. This was happening.

  I sat up and inched closer to the headboard, and Dylan followed me, continuing his massage. “Babe,” I said, reaching forward and grabbing his hand. I was now the one who had to calm him down. “It will be fine. I mean, I’ll look like a whale in front of the whole world, but it will be fine.” I rubbed the top of my belly and was momentarily sad for our unborn daughter. I had imagined that her last few weeks in my womb would be spent accompanying me while I leisurely checked minor things off lists and enjoyed a steady diet of pastries and Netflix. Instead, she’d be involuntarily toted around town as I balanced in high heels and attempted to curtsy. I shrugged my shoulders and swallowed back a yawn.

  He sighed, and I could see resignation relax his stiff, angry brow. “You’re incredible, you know that?” Dylan leaned forward and kissed my nose, so gently, with so much care, that I wasn’t even sure it had happened. But my body registered the touch the way it always did, with little bolts of lightning flittering across my skin. “Daft, but incredible.” Then he backed off the bed. He ducked out into the main cabin, probably to tuck the children in and check on his mother, and when he came back, he locked the narrow door behind him.

  I shifted to my side, nestled my head onto a pillow, and locked my gaze on him. I was exhausted and now I was distracted by this whole wedding thing. And even though I knew exactly where his mind was, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to rally for the attentions he was clearly about to bestow. Stretching his tanned muscular arms upward, he pulled the shirt over his head from behind. He kicked off his shoes, unbuttoned the top button of his well-worn, perfectly fitting jeans, and ran his hand through his dark brown hair, which had grown unruly in his weeks away from his barber. He looked sexy as sin, and he looked at me like he knew I was resisting, like maybe I’d choose the foot rub over what was coming next. Smart man. I could also see the determination in his eyes—he was up for the challenge.

  Without saying a word, Dylan crawled up the bed. He kept his eyes on mine while running his palms up my legs in long strokes, with each one getting tantalizingly closer to the top of my legs, but with each stroke not quite reaching. I lay still, smiling, loving the feel of him, but there was no way we could have sex right now.

  “Babe,” I said, part apology, part reminder that we had things we needed to do on our flight, and part begging him to settle my mind about this wedding. I pulled myself back up into sitting position and effectively stopped his progress.

  He collapsed on the bed and groaned in frustration. His head was by my hip, and he wrapped his arm around my leg, exhaling audibly. ”I know,” he said, resigned. “I need to work on that project.” His words were muffled into the side of my body, and I ran my fingers through his hair, using my nails to scratch as I went.

  He moaned a little. “Keep doing that, damsel. I’ll marry you forever if you keep doing that,” he said as he drew quiet comforting circles on my leg with his palm.

  I laughed. “We’re already married, you idiot.” I paused my hand on his head.

  “I’ll marry you again,” he replied, and he took my hand in his own and started to rub my fingers through his hair, making me laugh. I resumed my lazy head rub for a few more minutes, and eventually he lifted his head and pulled himself up to sit beside me.

  “I’m going to look like a whale on television, aren’t I?” I said. There was, of course, only one answer to this question, but I didn’t care. I needed to hear him say it.

  He curled his body towards me, and put his palm against my far cheek, drawing my face to his. He kissed me firmly on the lips and locked eyes with mine. “Lydia, you are more gorgeous now than you have ever been. More of a woman. More elegant. More capable, sexy, and strong.” He placed his hand over my belly and rubbed it affectionately. Then his lips returned to right by my ear. “You’ll steal the show. I just wish you didn’t have to.”

  I nodded and kissed him back.

  “That’s my girl,” he said sweetly. Then his smiled turned just that much more lascivious. “Plus, your tits are fucking stunning right now.”

  I took the pillow from behind me and swatted him playfully. “Dylan!”

  * * *

  A couple of hours later, we’d both done the work we’d been hoping to do—Dylan needed to work on his proposal for a series of zero-energy schools his firm was building in Africa, and I needed to write the wrap-up for a two-year contract I’d had with the British Fashion Council to train designers about tech and social media promotion. We were both taking four months off of work when the baby came, and we needed to prepare.

  But at that moment, thirty thousand miles in the air, somewhere between ten p.m. eastern and four a.m. Greenwich mean time, I was still awake, restless, and Dylan was sound asleep. His arm was wrapped around my belly, his head on my shoulder, and his soft sleeping breaths warming my neck. The sound of the plane hummed in the background, and the night sky was murky and black outside the windows. The children would be asleep on the flatbeds in the main cabin. As would Charlotte. I looked at my watch and saw that we still had a few hours before we’d land back home.

  I thought about home, about the London awaiting us.

  It was going to be crazy.

  When Dylan and I had first gotten married, the media wasn’t able to get enough. I couldn’t really blame them. We gave them every ingredient for a scandalous romantic news story—a photo of me kissing another guy (long story), a photo of Dylan talking to another woman (it was nothing), an elopement (everyone thought I was pregnant), a big, over-the-top aristocratic wedding, and then a real pregnancy. The paparazzi had been all over it. Especially since Dylan was a duke who happened to have once been engaged to Princess Caroline. Yeah, we were tabloid fodder.

  There’d been another flare-up when Eleanor was born, another wave of interest when I was pregnant with Aiden, but for the most part it had calmed down. It turned out that a settled, married couple taking their children to nursery school or pushing a stroller around Mayfair after a sleepless night didn’t sell as many papers. And we were so grateful. Dylan had promised me the press would lose interest once we got married, and they had.

  But no newspape
r would be able to resist this: the American duchess playing matron of honor to Princess Caroline…on her due date. I knew that there would be no escaping it. The media would be more insatiable than ever. I would, without a doubt, be walking right back into the eye of the storm.

  Chapter Two

  Nineteen days until the big day

  Well, Your Grace, you’re headed into the eye of the storm. So to speak. Are you ready?” What kind of OB said that to a pregnant woman?

  The doctor didn’t even look up from her notes when she spoke to me. She just stood there, all thin and well coiffed, while I lay exposed on the table before her. Dylan held my hand, as he always did during these exams. We’d only been back in town for two days, but after being away we’d wanted to check in with the doctor as soon as possible.

  When I didn’t answer, she continued. “Aiden was early, of course, and you’re over thirty-seven weeks now. Really, it could be any day.” She began jotting down more notes. The doctor sat on the rolling stool between my legs, and then there was the sound of snapping gloves onto her hands. “Your blood pressure is normal,” she said, resuming her checklist. “Heartbeat sounds good. Your weight’s on target.” She shifted around at the end of the table. I had a tendency to stare at the ceiling during these appointments or look mostly at Dylan. It was easier than trying to make eye contact over the hill of my belly.

  Now I could only see the top of her head between my legs, and Dylan’s grip on my hand had gotten tighter. Thankfully, the doctor was extraordinarily efficient. “All looks well, Your Grace. I suspect I’ll see you at hospital any day now.”

  Could she please stop with the “you’ll go into labor any second” talk? Sheesh. I looked at Dylan, who was already giving me some kind of death stare. He clearly felt all the more vindicated that my participating in this wedding was a bad idea. Although what he thought I could do about this situation was beyond me.

  “Please. Call me Lydia.” I’d corrected her at least fifty times over the previous five years, but this woman loved her titles. I’d correct her, and without a doubt she’d go right on ignoring me. “If you had to give your best guess, do you really think I’ll go into labor before my due date?”

  The doctor let her glasses fall to the bridge of her nose and looked at me over them, stone-faced. “Forgive the observation Your Grace, but I did…well, I did read in the newspaper that you are scheduled to participate in the royal wedding?”

  “It was in the newspaper already?” I asked her and looked from her to Dylan for confirmation. We hadn’t even told his sister or mother this was happening yet.

  “Yes, Your Grace. The Evening Standard.” Christ, the palace moved fast when it came to the press. I suppose they couldn’t get poor Annabel out of the wedding fast enough. “And it did not escape my attention that the wedding is on your due date. I imagine you’re hoping for an assurance that the arrival of your daughter won’t interfere with this event?”

  Yes, exactly. Please. That would be great. But not because I was some kind of vain monster who actually thought a royal wedding is more important than my child or health or whatever. But because I didn’t have a choice.

  “I can’t provide any such assurance, I’m afraid,” she said, still looking at me like a schoolmarm scolding a student. “However, I do recommend you pack your bag for hospital, and be prepared for the possibility that your daughter will join you earlier than expected. Also, keep your feet up if at all possible. Drink plenty of water. Get plenty of rest. And as with your other two children, this one will come when she’s ready.”

  Thanks, lady. Not exactly the reassurance I was looking for.

  “Are you in the wedding party, Your Grace?” The doctor looked to Dylan, and I swear to god I saw her bat her eyelashes. Was she actually flirting with my husband?

  “I will be with my wife, wherever she’ll be,” Dylan replied with about as much warmth in his voice as there would be if he were talking to a door-to-door insurance salesman.

  I fell back on the exam table, somewhat disgusted by my physician and somewhat defeated by her seeming conviction that I’d be going into labor any minute. I tucked the paper gown around my body, and finally removed my legs from the stirrups and let them dangle off the end of the table. “Thank you, Doctor. That will be all.”

  “Your Grace,” she said as way of goodbye as she looked at me. She said it again to Dylan on the way out.

  “This is bloody ridiculous, you know that, don’t you?” Dylan began pacing at my side.

  “What? That even my OB seems to want you?” I asked, poking him playfully in the ribs from my reclined position. I’d taken to teasing him anytime someone flirted with him in public. It was just too easy not to.

  He rolled his eyes by way of denial and continued his rant. “I honestly can’t believe the queen is asking this of you. I have it in my mind to intervene, and I will, if—”

  “Dylan, you know you won’t.”

  “I goddamn will if you go into labor. I don’t give a toss…I…” His hands were on his hips, and his suit jacket was bunched at his waist. He was getting flustered.

  “She’s the queen. I couldn’t very well say no, Dylan.”

  He came to my side and took my hand in his. “Of course not, but I’m concerned that scrambling to do this will be the very thing that puts you in labor. It’s far too much stress.” He was annoyed. Frustrated. He felt out of control—it wasn’t a look I saw often on Dylan. It reminded me of the moment, when we’d just started dating, when I’d run away from him at a jewelry shop in Primrose Hill, when we didn’t know where our relationship could possibly go. That particular furrowed brow, tousled hair, and slight look of panic. I squeezed his hand back.

  “You’re just mad because you’d planned to keep me chained to the bed until the minute the contractions started.” I smiled a particular brand of smile that said I know you, Dylan Hale.

  “Can you blame me? We should be under the duvet for hours, maybe going to the cinema or out for early dinners with the children, not fannying about and risking your health! I’m not leaving your side until this wedding is over, and I don’t want to hear one thing about my being a caveman or overprotective.” Yep, one hundred percent freaking out, desperate for control.

  “Dylan,” I said in the most soothing voice I could muster.

  He sighed the kind of sigh that I knew meant he was swallowing some choice words.

  “Dylan,” I said again, pleading with my eyes. “I’ll be fine. We live in London, not the third world. I won’t go into labor, and if I do, I’ll go to the hospital. We’ll have a baby, I won’t be in the wedding, there’ll be some scandal about Caroline not having a matron of honor that will die down in two seconds, and it will be fine. But as long as I am still pregnant and not in labor, I need to do this. And, ideally, we don’t disappoint Her Majesty.” He was silent, thinking, and stroking my arm with his fingers. “Baby, I’ll be okay.” I tried to sound as convincing as possible.

  Another moment passed. “All right then. I won’t accompany you everywhere.” He paused for a moment, becoming more resolute. “Frank will.”

  “Dylan.”

  “Lydia, listen to me.” He had a look in his eyes that was so determined, so intense, and for once, not at all sexual. “Let’s be clear. What I’d really like to do is whisk you away to the country, lock the door, and keep you safely by my side until I drive you to hospital myself. But if you go into labor this week or next, and I’m not with you, do you understand the hell I’m going to be in knowing you’re having to wait while Lloyd negotiates traffic to get to you? Or, god forbid, knowing you’re hailing a taxi on the high street with no one but Fiona by your side.”

  The look on Dylan’s face was pure determination. There may not have been a pair of handcuffs in sight, but in some ways, this was the most dominant he’d ever been.

  “So yes, damsel,” he continued. “Frank or I will be with you. And there’ll be a hospital bag in the car. I don’t give a flying fuck about this
wedding—you are more important. If it all goes off without a hitch, so be it, but you and our daughter are my only concern.”

  I doubted he even realized that he’d moved closer to me, that he’d perched himself on the edge of the examining table, braced himself on his arms and nestled his hands next to my rib cage. He was hovering, protecting, claiming with his eyes, his body, and his words. His blue eyes were alive with possession, and those dark locks of hair hung just a little loose.

  “Okay,” I said quietly. Because it was okay. I liked feeling cared for, looked after. I felt free to do what I needed to do, because he’d never let me fall. “I’ll go along with this, along as it’s within reason.”

  He raised his eyebrow just a hair, clearly not expecting my quick acquiescence, and I saw his look shift into a far more sinful, naughtier version of determination, and his hand shifted right along with it, drifting around my belly, circling, teasing my skin.

  “Glad that’s sorted,” he said quietly, glancing at the door. “Don’t suppose that door locks, does it?” He pushed the top of my paper gown away, exposing my breast, and he cupped it gently in his palm, stroked my nipple until it hardened under his touch.

  I put my hand over his, stopping his movement.

  “Dylan,” I warned. There was no way I was going to have an orgasm in the doctor’s office.

  “Damsel,” he said, warning back. “I thought we just established that I was in charge here.” He freed his hand from my grip, and flipped it to grab my wrist in his hand. He held my wrist firm and slipped his other between my legs. Christ, that felt good—just feeling his palm on my inner thigh. If I’d been able to move with any speed or dexterity, I would have sat up immediately and thwarted him. This was crazy and totally taboo, but as it was, with me pretty much moving at the pace of a sloth, his hands were up my thighs before I was able to stop them. And by that time, I felt all my blood barrel towards my center, could feel my pulse between my legs. That skin on skin was a shot of adrenaline, a shock of electricity to my system. I was internally debating letting him do this, letting him seduce me in my goddamn OB’s office, just because it felt so damn good.