“Okay, princess?” Z asked, glancing over at Es in the back of the limo. They were on their way to the first official doctor’s appointment post-positive pregnancy test. Hard to believe it had been almost ten days already since the night of the fire at that haunted house.

“Yes,” Es said, staring out the window beside her at the overcast, blustery day in DC. “It’s nice to get outside for a change.”

Z had to admit he felt the same. For security reasons, they’d both kept a low profile since Halloween. It gave a guy a lot of time to think. Lots of time to worry, too. Which was stupid when he really thought about it. He was in this to get back to his SEAL team, no more, no less. Now, if someone would just let his heart in on that secret, he’d be all set.

He wasn’t cut out to be father material, not in the real sense, anyway. His job was too time-consuming, too dangerous. And if anyone knew firsthand the pain and trauma a child suffered when his father didn’t come home from work, it was Z. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel that hollow grief, the gaping wound in his soul that had never healed from the day he’d been told his parents were dead. No child should ever have to go through that.

Nope. The fact he’d be out of both their lives after one year was the best for everyone.

So why didn’t he feel better about that? Getting back to work—real work—with his team was what he wanted, right?

Es sighed and rubbed her stomach, a slight frown on her pretty face.

Z reached into his pocket for the ever-ready packet of saltine crackers he kept handy. “Need something to munch on?”

She took one, giving him a wan smile. At six weeks, the morning sickness had struck hard, except it wasn’t just in the morning. With Es, it seemed to be twenty-four/seven nausea with a healthy side of upchuck. Z did his best to stay alert and attentive to the signs, bringing juice or crackers or water or whatever she needed whenever she needed it. As a result, neither of them had gotten a solid eight hours sleep in a while. Honestly, Z had felt less on edge in active shooter situations. At least then, he knew what he was dealing with—a set of studied psychoses. You could be proactive instead of reactive.

As the mom-to-be nibbled away on her saltine, Z found himself filling the silence in the back of the car, something he’d been doing a lot more of lately. For a guy who normally didn’t say much, he was becoming a regular chatterbox.

“Hopefully, you’ll feel better after we see the doctor today,” he said, staring out the window at the snarled traffic ahead. “When I was a kid, I used to hate going to the doctor. Didn’t help we were always traveling to a different part of the world. Hard to find English-speaking docs sometimes, so you took what you got.”

“That must have been fun for you, though,” Es said, her voice quiet and her eyes closed as she leaned her head back against the plush leather seat. “Seeing all those different cultures.”

“Hmm. Sure, yeah. It was fun, unless you were sick.” He snorted and shook his head. “I was a pretty healthy kid most of the time, but man. I remember about a month after we arrived in Istanbul, I had strep throat. I was four, maybe, and scared to death of the man my mother took me too. He wore this red fez and a white robe and—”

The limo braked hard as a taxi cut off their vehicle. Good thing the privacy screen was up since Z assumed the driver had a few choice words about that.

Z looked over at Es again and saw she was snoozing away. Good. She needed her rest.

He adjusted himself in the seat, careful not to squish his baggie full of saltine crackers. Beside those, he was carrying packs of tissues, some chocolates, pretzels, and—he scowled and reached into his pocket to adjust whatever it was poking him. Oh yeah. Jewelry. Earrings, to be precise. Seemed with her pregnancy brain, as Es called the forgetfulness caused by her raging hormones, she couldn’t remember to put on the crown jewels.

In slumber, her face was relaxed, the small lines between her dark brows smooth. She’d lost weight, too, judging from the prominence of her cheekbones and the bagginess of her clothes.

“Stop staring,” she mumbled, peeking on eye open. “Don’t think I can’t feel you watching me. It’s creepy.”

“It’s my job,” he countered, looking away, feeling like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Yeah, he’d been watching her. It was his job. That’s the excuse he was going with anyway.

A few minutes later, they pulled up in a side alley adjacent to the OB/GYN’s office and Z got out first to survey the area and make sure his security team was in place before ushering Es quickly into the rear entrance of the building.

Bad enough they had the hidden pregnancy to contend with. Then the king’s condition had been leaked to the press. Z was still investigating to find out who was responsible, but things had turned into a circus since the news broke. Es, who was already shaken by the constant morning sickness, was more stressed than ever, which wasn’t good for the baby at all.

This triggered Z’s already strong protective urges where she was concerned as well as his need to take control. If anyone was coming after Es, they’d have to get through him first.

Once inside the waiting room, Z did a perimeter check of the otherwise empty space. They’d booked out the doctor’s entire afternoon schedule for Es’s appointment, just in case. Good thing, too, with the media zoo taking place outside.

In one corner of the room was a small play area for kids. On top of a white, plastic table sat a racetrack with several cars. He remembered wanting that same set up badly when he’d been younger. They’d been in Croatia then and the supply of American toys had been thin. Z remembered his dad searching high and low for the track set and finally coming home late one night with the box under his arm. Z had thought his dad was a superhero right about then.

“What are you smiling about?” Es asked, her too-perceptive gaze locked on him.

“See that car racing set on the table there? I had the same one as a kid.” He chuckled. “My dad worked a miracle to get it for me. Still don’t know how he managed it.”

“You must have been a lucky little boy,” she said, smiling.

His happiness deflated. “Sure, if becoming an orphan six months later is lucky.”

Es reached over and laid her hand over his. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”

“Your highness,” the nurse said, dropping into an awkward curtsy before Es. “The doctor’s ready for you now.”

“I can wait out here,” Z said, standing to help Es up.

“Don’t be silly. I want you back there with me,” she said, tugging him forward with her hand on his arm. “You know how my memory is these days. I need your brain to take notes for me.”

Z did his best to stay on the periphery of the examination, not wanting to intrude or invade her privacy any more than he already had. They did all the usual stuff from what he could see—height, weight, blood pressure, medical history, then the physical. All normal. Once Es was dressed again and sitting on the end of the exam table, the doctor went over what she should expect.

“I’ll write you a prescription for something to help with the nausea, too,” the female physician said. “We’ll also need to get some bloodwork before you leave to check your iron levels, glucose, etc. And check your urine.” She handed Es a plastic bag with cartoon baby toys emblazoned on the side. “There’s a script in there for prenatal vitamins as well. You’ll want to start on those right away, though be sure to take them with food. If you don’t, they can make the nausea worse. Since you’ve booked out the entire afternoon, we’ll go ahead and do a preliminary sonogram today as well.”

Es gave Z an excited look. “So, we can find out what we’re having?”

“No, no,” the doctor said, wheeling over the portable sonogram machine. “It’s far too early for that. But with luck, we should be able to pick up the heartbeat today.”

“Cool.” Es leaned back on the table and gestured for Z to move closer. “He wants to see, too.”

The doctor smiled at Z and heat prickled up from beneath the collar of his white dress shirt. “You two make a nice couple. How long have you been together?”

“Oh, no—” he started to say, then stopped and scowled as Es pinched him hard on the arm. “Ow.”

“Thank you,” Es said, giving him a shut-up look. “We’ve been together about a year. But didn’t get serious until recently.”

“Babies will do that.” The doctor snapped on a pair of gloves then had Es raise the hem of her black sweater and lower the waistband of her jeans slightly to expose her lower abdomen. The doctor squirted a small mound of gel onto Es’s skin—cold, if the way she winced was any indication—then pressed the sensor in place with one hand while fiddling with the computer keyboard and monitor with the other. “Move up your timeline, I mean. Same thing happened to my husband and me. We’d planned on starting a family one day, just not when we did. But love and children have their own schedule, eh?”

Onscreen, all Z could see was a white circle filled with endless black. The doctor said that was the interior of Es’s uterus, but you couldn’t tell it by him.

“Now, the baby’s barely the size of a peanut swimming around in there at this point. We’ll only be able to pick up the heartbeat if he or she happens to swim close to this area of the surface where the sensor is located. Fingers crossed.” The doctor moved the sensor around from left to right, searching for nearly five minutes. Z’s hopes dwindled. No luck today apparently. He was just about to grab some tissues to help Es clean up from all that gel when the doctor gasped.

“There! See it?” The doctor clicked a few keys on the computer to zoom in and then there it was. The baby. His baby. With a tiny flickering light near its center. The doctor cranked up the sound and soon a rhythmic pulse beat echoed through the room. “We have a heartbeat! Congratulations, your highness.”

Es clutched Z’s fingers so tightly, he thought they might snap off, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Tears shone in her eyes and he felt an unexpected prickle at the back of his eyes, too, as pride swelled up inside him. He’d made that. They’d made that. Their baby.

It felt like getting hit with a warm, fuzzy sledgehammer.