LITMIR.BIZ

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altogether different thing.’’

      Absurd, but Liv felt her heart lift a fraction. ‘‘Oh, I don’t think so.’’

      ‘‘You’re so bright, Liv. So strong and sure. Focused and determined, way beyond your years. And you’re also domineering. And overbearing. And it wouldn’t hurt you to stop and smell the flowers now and then.’’

      Liv tried to keep from rolling her eyes. ‘‘Your point being?’’

      ‘‘That I think Finn sees your value, as a person, as a woman he could love. And you have to admit—’’ her mother dared a naughty grin ‘‘—he’s certainly experienced enough with the fairer sex to know a special woman when he meets her.’’

      Liv did roll her eyes then. ‘‘That’s an interesting way of looking at it.’’

      ‘‘It’s merely the truth.’’

      ‘‘Mom. You are working on me.’’

      ‘‘Yes, I am. I want you to give Finn a chance.’’

      ‘‘I have a boyfriend, remember?’’

      ‘‘Darling. Simon Graves is a lovely man. But if he was really all that important to you, I doubt you would have spent Midsummer’s Eve with Finn.’’

      Liv felt her face flaming. Okay, okay, maybe some of her fury at Finn was misdirected anger at herself. What she’d done with him four nights ago told her things about herself she really didn’t need to know.

      ‘‘Finn,’’ Ingrid said, ‘‘is, after all, the father of your child.’’

      Liv groaned. ‘‘Please. It was only one night—to my lasting shame. And it’s way too soon to—’’

      ‘‘No, it’s not. What happened to you always happens to the Freyasdahl women when—’’

      ‘‘Mom. Let’s just…not go there, okay? I’ve been over it with Brit and Father and Finn. I really don’t feel up to going around and around about it with you, too.’’

      Her mother’s eyes were very bright. ‘‘There will be a baby. Deny it now, if you feel you have to. But that won’t make it go away. And yes, I am… supporting Finn in this, in his effort to get to know you better. In his willingness to try and do the right thing. He seems a lovely man to me and he’s welcome in my home. I’m only too happy that the father of your baby was well-brought-up, is well-to-do and wants to marry you and give your baby his name.’’

      ‘‘Oh, Mom…’’ Liv knew she was softening. How could she help it, seeing the way her mother looked right now, that gleam in her eyes, the glow on her cheeks?

      Liv supposed her mother’s reaction wasn’t surprising. A new baby in the family, to Ingrid, would mean new hope for the future, someone on whom to lavish all the love she’d never be able to give her lost sons.

      ‘‘Darling, I’m not saying you should marry him just because of the baby. This is not Gullandria and you know your family will support you, whatever steps you feel you have to take. I’m only saying, what can it hurt to give Finn a chance?’’

      At dinner, by tacit agreement, they kept things light.

      Finn entertained them with stories of his adventures during his first day in Sacramento. Yes, he confessed, he had once or twice driven over the speed limit.

      ‘‘But, as luck would have it, no one was hurt.’’

      He’d eaten lunch at McDonald’s. ‘‘Excellent French fries.’’ And pumped his own gas at a Jiffy ServeMart. ‘‘There was a small market beyond the pumps. I went inside. Rows of muffins and biscuits, individually packed. Racks and racks of crispy snacks made of mysterious ingredients the names of which I found difficult to pronounce. And self-serve beverages. They offered something called a Super Huge Gulp. A massive plastic cup and you fill it up yourself. In my rental car, along with the computerized mapping system and the state-of-the-art stereo, there’s a small device between the seats for holding beverage cups. Not big enough to hold a Super Huge Gulp, however. I was forced to drink the entire thing before I dared to get back behind the wheel.’’

      Ingrid suggested teasingly, ‘‘And from this you learned?’’

      He laughed. ‘‘Absolutely nothing.’’ He asked Ingrid about her work. Liv’s mother owned an antique shop in Old Sacramento. He listened, rapt, as she described how she’d sold two French Empire armchairs with bronze sphinx mounts and a Winged Victory gilt candelabra.

      And then he turned to Liv. ‘‘And how are things at the Attorney General’s Office? Did they manage to get along without you for an entire week?’’

      Liv admitted with a good-natured smile that somehow they had.

      There were candles on the table, tall white tapers in her mother’s favorite silver candlesticks. Liv looked across at Finn. His eyes met hers, gleaming more golden than amber with the candle flames reflected in them. She thought of the two of them, on Midsummer’s Eve, dancing like moonstruck fools around that blazing Viking ship, the rim of the red Gullandrian midnight sun dropping at last below the horizon. Her pulse quickened. Her whole body was too warm.

      She felt a smile quiver across her mouth as she accepted the fact that he was here, in Sacramento, that he really did seem to want to make it work between them. And even if she didn’t believe it could work, even if she didn’t really believe she was pregnant, even if the last thing she needed in her life, at her age, with her career goals, was a baby…

      Well, if by some crazy trick of fate it turned out she was pregnant, her choice would have to be to keep the child. She had plenty of money, a loving family to provide emotional support and she was strong and self-directed. For her, it would be a coward’s act to do otherwise. Yes, it would slow her down a little, as far as her goals were concerned. But it wouldn’t stop her. Nothing would stop her. She meant to make a difference in the world, no matter what curves life decided throw her.

      So all right. She would…work with Finn on this, on getting to know him better. After all, if it did turn out she was pregnant, whether they married in the end or not, she would still have to find a way to get along with her baby’s father.

      ‘‘Good night, darling. Drive carefully,’’ Ingrid said, presenting her cheek for a kiss. ‘‘Finn will walk you to your car.’’

      Liv hardly needed an escort out to the back driveway, but she didn’t argue with her mother’s obvious attempt to throw her and Finn together.

      Side by side, she and the prince walked down the back steps and over to her waiting car. Liv found herself all too conscious of the way his arm twice, and oh-so-lightly, brushed hers.

      The thick branches of an old oak had swallowed the light intended to brighten the area between the porte cochere and the garages. When they reached her car, they were in deep shadow.

      She stopped before crossing around to the driver’s side and leaned back against the passenger door.

      Finn, as if invited, moved in close. ‘‘Do I detect a certain…softening in your attitude toward me?’’

      ‘‘Yes,’’ she confessed, ‘‘I suppose you do. You and my father and my mother have worn me down. I still don’t think I’m pregnant, but I’m willing to accept that it’s a possibility. I’m willing to do what you suggested back in Gullandria, to spend the next few weeks getting to know you better, just in case we end up discovering that there’s a baby on the way, after all.’’

      ‘‘Clearly a fate worse than death.’’ He said the words lightly, but there was a note of rebuke in them, too.

      She shrugged. ‘‘Well, I have to tell you, a baby was just not on my to-do list for at least another decade or so.’’

      ‘‘Sometimes,’’ he whispered, ‘‘life

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