Royally Claimed - By Marie Donovan Page 0,63
dream wouldn’t return that night.
FRANK STARED AT THE CEILING, forcing himself to breathe slowly and steadily as to not alarm Julia. Julia, his Julia, forced to face down a deadly criminal and kill him herself. None of this, not one bit of this would have happened if he hadn’t been such a coward after they’d parted. He’d taken to his bed like a melancholic poet instead of chasing after her.
He’d handled their break-up poorly, but in his defense, twenty-year-old men were not the most polished creatures. And he’d lost more than only Julia.
He’d let her sleep, let her dream more pleasant dreams. And in the morning he’d make it very clear that he wouldn’t make the same mistake of letting her go again.
THE NEXT MORNING, FRANK had something on his mind, Julia could tell. She’d fixed him chouriço and pancakes topped with honey and pineapple jam again but he’d been unusually quiet. She wondered if he was thinking about her nightmare last night. “More coffee?” she offered.
He shook his head. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Julia looked out the window at the gray clouds scudding along. An Atlantic storm was blowing in, but she was used to them. “Promise me we’ll head back before we get blown to the mainland.”
“It won’t take long.” He handed her a slicker and put one on himself.
She didn’t quite know what to make of that but it sounded as if he wanted to have a relationship chat. Not what she was looking forward to, but inevitable. Her life and career was back in Boston, and his was at his Portuguese estate.
She suppressed a sigh and walked out the kitchen door in front of him. They crossed the stone terrace and descended onto the lush green lawn.
The lawn ended at the rocky cove near the boat dock, but he kept going over the rocks until they were out of sight of the house, a raised bluff at their backs and the ocean at their feet.
“We never did talk about why we broke up eleven years ago,” he said.
“We’ve talked about the past somewhat, Frank. Why do we have to dwell on it?”
“Because our problems lie in the past.” He took a deep breath. “We both remember why we broke up back then.”
Blood rushed to her face. “A misunderstanding.”
“You were pregnant, Julia.” His expression was as serious now as it had been eleven years before. “And then you weren’t.”
“Shut up, Frank!” It burst from her before she could stop. “Just…stop.” She really didn’t want to discuss this. They’d never discussed this. “It doesn’t matter…it was only a couple weeks that we knew about…that.”
But he battled on. “I’m so sorry you lost our baby, Julia. I could have handled it better.”
“Yes, you could have.”
He shrugged helplessly.
“I was about a week pregnant, looking at two little pink stripes on the dipstick, and you put your hand on my shoulder and told me we would get married in the fall.”
“Obviously! I couldn’t leave you to face it all alone. Did you think I would just jet back to New York to school and let you explain everything to your parents without me to support you?”
She’d been careful to keep her miscarriage secret from her parents at first but had broken down and told them later in the year after they’d found her sobbing in her room one day. “I was your obligation, and you never once mentioned love, just marriage and duty.”
“But you were my duty.”
“And I was scared to death. To drop out of school, to marry you, to become a mother. I would have been the nineteen-year-old pregnant Duchess of Aguas Santas. I’m sure your mother would have loved planning our shotgun wedding.”
“She would have loved it, because I loved you. And now we are older and hopefully wiser.”
“I don’t know about wiser, Frank. We seem to be repeating the same pattern.”
He looked down at her, his expression ironic. “Well, I don’t want to break up again. That part doesn’t bear repeating. If you didn’t realize I loved you eleven years ago, I’ll say it again—I love you still. And I hope you love me, too.”
“Oh, Franco.” She cupped his smooth jaw. What was she going to do? At least she could tell him the truth, no matter what she decided. “I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving you.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so glad to hear that. If I hadn’t been such a fool, we would have been settled at my estate long ago, and