see how it can’t be her.” He covered his face with his hands. “Maybe we should see if we can return to port. I’ll leave. You can stay and enjoy yourself. There’s no reason for me to even see Lizbeth.”
He wasn’t making sense. “Look. I know I could have been gentler with the news. I know I overreacted. I’m sorry for both of those. All I can figure is that I’ve been without normal human contact for nearly a month, and I haven’t dealt with that as well as I would have thought.”
“Neither one of us have.” He didn’t look up.
“Your confession last night combined with realizing the woman sitting across from me had been my husband’s lover long before me and is the mother of his first, albeit never-born, child made me snap in ways no one could have predicted. I probably shouldn’t have, but I did.” She wished she’d been a bigger person and not had a total meltdown when he was the one who’d lost so much, even if he hadn’t known it yet.
“I’m sorry,” she added softly. “I think we both have a lot to deal with, and we’ll need to do that together and separately before we fully commit to this marriage, but I think we can work through all of it together. There’s something, someone, else we need to think about though.”
“Lizbeth,” he confirmed. “And Robert.”
“I know it’s going to be uncomfortable and awkward, but you can have that conversation you’ve always wished you could have. You can offer her that apology you mentioned last night.”
He finally sat up and leaned back against the seat. “I never actually thought I’d have that chance. I’ve always wanted to, but now that the opportunity has presented itself, I’m not sure how to react.”
“Something we need to think about though, is how do we break this to them. The last thing we want is to startle Lizbeth into another miscarriage.”
“She’s pregnant?” he asked. “I thought you said she couldn’t carry a baby.”
“She hasn’t been able to. This pregnancy wasn’t planned but the baby is desperately wanted. I could tell that from the conversation we had over the course of just a few minutes. She’s still early on. We don’t want to do anything that might cause her anxiety or stress and put the baby at risk.” Madi struggled to think through all the implications while also trying to deal with the weight of the revelations of the last twenty-four hours.
“How do we do that?”
She sighed. “I think we need to ask Yvette and Nicklaus to come here and tell them everything. Let them help. They know Robert and Lizbeth pretty well. Surely they’d have some advice.”
Wyatt nodded. “Whatever you think is best.”
Madi didn’t think he was capable of making a coherent decision at the moment. She went to the phone and asked whichever staff member answered if he could send the royal couple to the stateroom.
In less than ten minutes, the four of them were seated in the living area.
“How’s Lizbeth feeling?” Madi asked first.
“Fine, I think,” Yvette answered. “She didn’t say anything. Can you tell us what’s going on? Madi, you looked off before you left, and Wyatt, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not yet,” he answered. “But soon.”
Madi explained the conclusion she’d reached. Yvette and Nicklaus didn’t say anything as she told the story.
“I looked her up when I went to the bathroom to splash some water on my face,” Wyatt told them, surprising even Madi. “It’s her.”
“And you’re the father of her first baby?” Yvette confirmed.
“If the random guy from the beach house is the father, then yes. Unless there was another random guy who slept with her when they were both drunk, but that doesn’t strike me as normal behavior for her any more than it was for me.”
“It’s not,” the princess said.
“Then how do we break it to her gently?” Madi asked. “We don’t want to cause undue stress, but if we’re all on board together, it’s going to come out sooner rather than later. We don’t want to surprise her.”
“Surprise who?”
Everyone except Wyatt turned to see who said that.
Robert and Lizbeth stood there, looking puzzled.
“The door wasn’t closed,” Robert explained. “We wondered where everyone had gone.
“Who don’t you want to surprise?” Lizbeth asked. “Me? I’m the only other ‘her’ here.”
Nicklaus stood. “Have a seat, Lizbeth.”
She looked worried and scared as she sat down, but she couldn’t see Wyatt’s face from the angle where they seated.
After a second, he looked up