Royal Match by Parker Swift (2)

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.

He lifted my leg off the table. “And look how convenient this table is, how easily I can sort you out.”

Oh my god. He was going to try to put my legs back in the stirrups, expose me completely. That was totally hot, but so wrong.

“Dylan!” I desperately half whispered, scrambling to get my hand free. My brain—and every logical sane part of me—wanted him to stop immediately. But my treacherous body needed him to continue. We hadn’t had sex once since Canada—I was hormonal and needy and I was at war with myself. “We can’t do this here, Dylan. I can’t have the medical staff hearing me come. I—”

I was interrupted by a knock and a voice from behind the closed door. “Ahem. Everything well in there, Your Grace?” It was the doctor.

We froze. Dylan’s hand was right by my naked sex, and my hand was gripping his forearm. We looked at each other and burst into silent laughter. The kind that hurt to keep inside. And the more I laughed, the more he laughed. We dropped our hands, and he brought his face close to mine and kissed me between laughing breaths. He shook his head in disbelief.

“Just fine, thank you! Just getting dressed!” I cleared my throat, tried to stop laughing, and let Dylan help me up to sitting. I exhaled through my lips, demonstrating my own disappointment. The truth was, even if I had been going to stop him, I needed to be touched by him as much as he wanted to touch me. But it would have to wait.

Dylan reluctantly slipped my dress over my head as I held my arms up. Then he lovingly knelt down and held out each flat as I slipped my foot in.

“I’m dying for you, damsel,” he said so only I’d hear. He stood and kissed my cheek.

“Me too, knighty. Tonight,” I replied, promising. “But now, unfortunately, I have to go to the office.”

“I’ll take you. I can work from your office,” he said, taking my hand, squeezing it.

“For a little while maybe, but you have a dentist appointment,” I said. “At two.” I looked into my bag, making sure I had my phone and wallet.

“I do?” he asked. I nodded.

“Bloody hell,” he said, and I could see by his expression that he was thinking of a way to get out of it.

I smiled. “I can either make a joke here about British people and their teeth or about stubborn men not wanting to go to the doctor. You choose.”

“Cheeky girl,” he replied, smacking me firmly on the ass before pulling me close against his side and opening the door into the hallway.

“You’re going,” I said, and he just grumbled in acquiescence.

Dylan could only stay at my office for an hour, during which time he had commandeered my assistant’s desk and barked orders at his assistant, the poor Thomas, over the phone. Every so often I’d catch him looking through my office door at me, but otherwise the man was focused on whatever work it was he was doing out there. He left for the dentist just as Fiona, the brash, buxom redhead I’d claimed as my best friend in London, was arriving.

Fiona and I had met as assistants for Hannah Rogan when I first arrived in London six years earlier, but it turned out that my life as Dylan’s girlfriend, and now wife, was somewhat inconsistent with a nine-to-five, and I left my job shortly before we got married. After my wedding, Fiona also left Hannah’s, and we started our own business. We provided technology and social media consulting for fashion designers and brands. We were the only fashion-focused technology firm in existence, and in a few short years we’d found ourselves in the position of being able to pick and choose the clients and projects we wanted to take on. I loved nurturing emerging talent, helping artists find their footing in the commercial space. It was the perfect job for me. And perfect for the life I led—there were often times I needed to pause for a few weeks while Dylan and I attended to matters at Humboldt Park, to other ducal business, or to our children. I could mete out work at my own pace.

And Fiona was the perfect partner—she kept us going, was fantastic at her job, and provided the stability our business needed, but that I couldn’t always offer. Plus she had a side hustle designing lines of jewelry in collaboration with some of our clients.

“For fuck’s sake, Lydia.” Fiona’s northern accent always had a way of snapping me to attention. “That man of yours is on pins and needles, isn’t he? I haven’t seen him so James Bond–ish since you two started dating.” Fiona stood up straight and put an exaggerated stern look on her face, doing what I guessed was her Dylan–James Bond impression—stern jaw, scrunched forehead, and a stare directed at me.

Laughing, I replied, “Oh, yeah, well, he’s not exactly thrilled about this wedding business.”

She looked at me oddly. “He does know you two are actually already married, right? Is he worried about the children being born out of wedlock?” She fake gasped, enjoying making fun of Dylan. Frankly, I enjoyed it too. Running a business with Fiona was like running a business with tawdry stand-up comedian some days. “But, no, really. What wedding business?”

“You haven’t heard?”

She shook her head in reply.

“You’re looking at Princess Caroline’s new matron of honor.”

Fiona smiled as her gaze drifted down to my stomach, at which point her eyes went wide with something that looked a little too much like horror.

“Fucking hell,” she said in a tone that almost sounded like reverence for the whole situation.

We spent the next two hours doing far less work than I’d anticipated and far more gossiping about royal weddings. Caroline’s in particular, the queen’s, and remembering my own royal-ish wedding.

“Yours was splendid, you know. Just the right amount of fanfare, but not so much as to be too outrageous,” Fiona said. “Plus, you know, I was a bridesmaid—bound to make any nuptials more festive. Caroline should have asked me.”

“Well presumably, unlike me, Caroline doesn’t need you to quiz her on the names of all the British aristocrats in preparation for her wedding.” I could easily remember the hours Fiona and I had spent on my couch. She had made at least fifty flashcards that had a picture of each aristocrat on one side and their name and one random fact on the other, like Duke of Tabor, known for riding a motorcycle that has a sidecar for his golden retriever or Duke of Wayland, once photographed wearing nothing but women’s underwear on his balcony. I’d have been truly lost without her.

“True. True,” Fiona said, tapping the pen in her hand to her chin. “But maybe, like you, she needs help disguising the fact she’s pregnant. I could swap out her champagne for ginger ale and stand by with a pail in case she, you know.” She paused to mime vomiting. “You think?”

I nearly spit out my tea I was laughing so hard. “Fiona! No. I don’t think Caroline is pregnant.”

To this, Fiona exhaled loudly through her lips. “Ah well, that would have been exciting. Can’t win ’em all then, can we?”

When I got home, I opened the door to two little people barreling towards me. Dylan and I took turns leaving the office early, making sure at least one of us was always home for dinner. That night, I knew that Dylan would be working late, so it would just be me and the kids.

“Mummy, can we please have macaroni and cheese for dinner, Mummy? Please. Please. Please!” Eleanor was full on jumping up and down, and Aiden was just running around me in circles, driving a fire truck in the air that had earsplitting sirens wailing. Even in their excitement, their pronounced British accents shined through. No matter how hard I tried to get even one of them to pick up my American accent, it didn’t work. Maybe I’d have better luck with the next one.

“Um, sweetheart, I don’t know,” I said, putting my bag down by the door and looking down through the hall where I saw Molly, our housekeeper, in the kitchen. She looked to me with a wave followed by a thumbs-up. That was the affirmative on the mac and cheese. “Sure, Ellie, you can have mac and cheese. But you also must eat the rest of your dinner.”

“I promise, Mummy!” I couldn’t help but laugh at her pleas. I could only pray her major wants in life always remained this easy to fulfill.

At seven forty-five, after dinner, a game of Candy Land, and a twenty-five-minute debate about pajamas, I was in prime fighting position with Aiden, doing everything I could to get him to brush his teeth without literally forcing him.

“Aiden William Richard Hale, you will brush your teeth,” I said, doing my best to show him I meant business. There were moments when it was just the futility of these arguments that drove me crazy. Like, dude, you’re getting your teeth brushed. We can do this the hard way or the easy way.

“No,” he replied, looking entirely too serious in his footie pajamas and holding his stuffed doggie.

“Aiden,” I said with a healthy dose of warning, which I prayed he’d heed, because the truth was I had no plan for what the consequences would be if he didn’t. I needed to be better prepared for these situations.

“No,” he said again, gripping his stuffed animal even tighter.

“Aiden, you’ll get cavities,” Eleanor helpfully chimed in.

“Just like daddy.” My eyes flew up to see Dylan entering the bathroom. He must have just gotten home.

“You had a cavity?” I asked, smiling, for some reason finding this hilarious. I think it was because I knew just how crazy that would make him—that the Dylan Hale, master of his own ship, would get a cavity. It was too good. I chuckled out loud.

“Don’t enjoy it too much,” he said, shifting out of his jacket. “Go read a book with Ellie, baby. I’ve got this.” He kissed me quickly on the forehead, and I took Eleanor’s hand.

“I’m glad you made it home for bedtime,” I added.

“Me too,” he said before turning back to Aiden. “Okay, little man, what is this about not wanting to brush your teeth?” As I walked towards the children’s room, I could hear him explaining cavities to our two-year-old.

Even though we had plenty of space, our children shared a room and probably would for a few more years. We’d asked them if they wanted their own rooms, but the two remained adamant, for now, that they wanted to stay together. So Eleanor and I snuggled up in one of the twin beds with a book. Within a minute I heard the water running and the sounds of toothbrushing.

After the sorting of stuffed animals and discussions about night-lights and blankets, Dylan turned off the bedside lamp and he and I switched beds, taking our turns with each of our children. We always ended the day the same way—one of us in each of the kids’ beds, the four of us enjoying the quiet.

In the almost darkness, I could see Dylan lying next to Eleanor—his legs hanging off the end of the bed. Aiden’s little form was curled against me.

“Okay, guys, best moment of the day,” I prompted.

“Ice cream,” said Aiden matter-of-factly.

“Aiden, you didn’t have any ice cream,” I replied. Kids were so weird.

“Making cookies in the chicken,” Eleanor piped up.

“It’s pronounced kitchen, poppet,” Dylan said, laughing. I was giggling too.

“How about you, Dylan?” I asked, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.

“Right now,” he said after a minute.

“Yeah, right now is pretty good,” I agreed, and we were both silent.

“Can we listen to our song now?” Eleanor asked, clearly exasperated by us.

Dylan reached over to the speaker setup on the bedside table and turned on Paul Simon’s “St. Judy’s Comet.” We listened to it together every night. My father used to play it for me on his guitar when I was a little girl, and it felt like one little thing I could do, one little piece of him I could bring into my children’s lives.

Aiden was asleep by the end of the first verse. We kissed them both, and I heard Dylan whisper something to Eleanor that made her laugh before we crept out of the room.

I leaned against the wall outside their room and looked at Dylan, feeling like it was the first time I really saw him all day. Had that doctor’s appointment really been today? It felt like a week ago.

“Come to bed early?” I asked hopefully. “You can finish what you started at the doctor’s office,” I added, smiling.

Dylan groaned and tilted his head back in defeat. “Damsel, you have no idea how much I’d like to do that. Give me forty-five minutes—I’ve got to send off some emails—then you’re all mine.”

After making a couple of phone calls, confirming the kids’ plan for the next day, and doing some last-minute online shopping for the baby, I climbed into our king-sized bed with a cup of tea and a book, determined to stay awake for Dylan. Sadly, my determination was no match for being a working pregnant parent.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I woke later as Dylan curled his naked body around mine. I felt him slip his hand inside his old button-down shirt that I’d taken to wearing to bed. I felt his warm hands touch, wander, travel my skin. “Baby,” he’d whispered. “Sorry I took so long.”

“S’okay,” I murmured, just happy to have him in bed with me. I inched my body further back into the curve he’d created for me, found his arm to use as a pillow, and fell back into sleep.