daughter, I know it will be the killing blow. I won’t have the energy to fight much longer if I know I’ve condemned my daughter to an early grave.
But Hope lets out a relieved breath, lifting her eyes up to mine. “Negative.”
Tears slide down my cheeks as my daughter throws her arms around me and Dante. The three of us cry happy tears, and I know that we named our daughter appropriately.
She’s always been the Hope in our lives.
She gave me hope before she was born, when I was on my own and life was bleak. She gave Dante the courage to come back to me, hopeful that we’d end up together.
Our daughter is the beacon of hope that will carry on long after Dante and I are gone.
Then, our three other teenagers come barreling through the door, home from their day at school. They descend on the kitchen and eat everything in sight like a pack of hungry wolves. In just a few minutes, the fridge is picked clean. All three of them give me a kiss and ask me when dinner will be ready.
Just like that, life is back to normal.
Dante puts his arm around me, kissing the top of my head. His love for me permeates everything, and I know that I would never have been this happy if we hadn’t found each other. He’s braver, stronger, and more loving than I could ever hope for in a partner.
He’s my Dante. My love. My husband. My life.
All four of our kids are healthy. My husband is beside me. I can rest easy, now, knowing that they’ll take care of each other even after I’m gone.
Wrong Prince
An Accidental Pregnancy Romance
Royally Unexpected: Book 6
1
Cara
One difference between regular people and royalty is that regular people knock before entering your home.
Royals, on the other hand?
Knocking isn’t part of their vocabulary.
The only warning I get that Prince Theo is at my house is the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside and the driver cutting the engine.
I assume it’s one of my parents’ friends or maybe a member of our household staff, and I ignore it.
The Crown Prince of Argyle bursts through the door in a blaze of abs and windswept hair, tearing the sunglasses off his bronzed face as he scans the room. A soft breeze follows after him, fluttering the edges of his linen shirt.
“Cara!” he calls out. I stand up, putting my book down on the sofa beside me. He flashes me a brilliant smile. “Come on. We’re going.”
Every word Theo speaks is a command. He was born a king, and a part of me likes when he speaks like that. There’s something attractive about confidence and power, even though I’d never be caught dead saying that out loud.
I’m more of the ‘don’t tell me what to do’ kind of gal—or at least that’s what I tell myself. The fluttering in my belly begs to differ.
I frown. “Go where?”
The Prince’s white linen shirt is unbuttoned, revealing his chiseled chest. He’s wearing teal swimming trunks and a pair of white leather boat shoes. He nods toward the open door, grinning.
“It’s the summer solstice. We have a tradition to uphold.”
My heart thumps uncomfortably. I thought our traditions had died when Prince Luca’s accident happened. That day, everything changed.
Three years ago, my betrothed, Prince Luca—Prince Theo’s little brother—jumped off a cliff into shallow water and broke his back. Luca has been trying to recover from his injuries in Singapore, undergoing countless operations and hours of physical therapy.
And me?
I’ve been shut out. Languishing on the other side of the world. Begging him to talk to me, and then slowly accepting that it’s over between us.
At first, I wanted to be there with him. The first year was hell. I called, and called, and called. I cried. I sent letters and messages. I sent him care packages and made sure to try to speak to him every day.
We have a special Post Office box, where we’ve been exchanging messages since we were kids. I checked it every day for a year, hoping he’d have sent me some note, some parcel, some sign that he cared.
Every day, it was empty.
Luca pushed me away. Slowly but surely, he stopped answering. The rest of the royal family backed away from me as my engagement to Luca fizzled. I didn’t just lose my fiancé, I lost all my closest childhood friends.
Luca, Theo, Beckett, Dante—all four brothers became strangers to me. It nearly killed me.