LITMIR.BIZ

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anxious. Not five minutes ago they had all been in the dinning room eating supper.

      Her first instinct was to turn and walk right back out, but Chris had already followed her in and shut the door.

      What a nightmare.

      “I don’t suppose I have to tell you why I asked you here,” he said.

      Ordered was more like it. Now she was sorry she’d agreed.

      “We’re very concerned,” Melissa said, walking over to stand beside Chris. “You haven’t been yourself lately, Anne. For the last couple of months you’ve been pale and listless. Not to mention all the times you’ve dashed off to the loo.”

      So they didn’t know. Louisa had kept her secret.

      “It’s obvious something is wrong,” Aaron said. He normally wasn’t one to butt into other people’s business, so she knew he must have been genuinely concerned. Maybe waiting so long to tell everyone had been an error in judgment. She didn’t honestly think that anyone really noticed the changes in her or for that matter cared about them.

      “If you’re ill—” Melissa began.

      “I’m not ill,” Anne assured her.

      “An eating disorder is a disease,” Chris said.

      Anne turned to him, amused because Louisa had suspected the same thing at first. “Chris, if I were bulimic, I would be dashing off to the loo after supper, not before.”

      He didn’t look as though he believed her. “I know something is wrong.”

      “It all depends on how you look at it, I guess.”

      “Look at what?” Melissa asked.

      Just tell them, dummy. “I’m pregnant.”

      All through the room jaws dropped. Except Louisa’s, of course.

      “If this is some kind of joke, I’m not amused,” Chris said.

      “It’s no joke.”

      “Of course!” Melissa said, as though the lightbulb had just flashed on. “I should have realized. I just never thought…”

      “I would be careless enough to go out and get myself in trouble?” Anne asked.

      “I…I wasn’t even aware that you were seeing anyone,” Aaron said.

      “I’m not. It was a one-time encounter.”

      “Maybe this is a silly question,” Chris said. “But are you sure? Have you taken a test? Seen the family physician?”

      She lifted the hem of the cardigan she’d been wearing to hide the evidence and smoothed her dress down over her bump. “What do you think?”

      Had his eyes not been fastened in they might have fallen out of his head. “Good God, how far along are you?”

      “Fifteen weeks.”

      “You’re four months pregnant and you never thought to mention it?”

      “I planned to announce it when the time was right.”

      “When? After your water broke?” he snapped, and Melissa put a hand on his arm to calm him.

      “There’s no need to get snippy,” Anne said.

      Ironic coming from her, his look said, the princess of snip. Well, maybe she didn’t want to be that way any longer. Maybe she was tired of always being on the defensive.

      “This isn’t like you, Anne,” Chris said.

      “It’s not as if I went out and got knocked up on purpose, you know.” Although he was right. She had been uncharacteristically irresponsible.

      I’ve got it covered. Brilliant.

      “This is going to be a nightmare when it hits the press,” Melissa said. Being an illegitimate princess herself, she would certainly know. Until recently she’d lived in the U.S., unaware that she was heir to the throne of Morgan Isle.

      “And what about the Gingerbread Man?” Louisa asked, speaking up for the first time. “I’m sure he’ll use the opportunity to try to scare us.”

      The self-proclaimed Gingerbread Man was the extremely disturbed man who had been harassing the royal family for more than a year. He began by hacking their computer system and sending Anne and her siblings twisted and grisly versions of fairy tales, then he breached security on the palace grounds to leave an ominous note. Not long after, posing as housekeeping staff, he’d made it as far as the royal family’s private waiting room at the hospital. Hours after he was gone, security found the chilling calling card he’d left behind. An envelope full of photographs of Anne and her siblings that the Gingerbread Man had taken in various places so they would know that he was there, watching.

      He would sometimes be silent for months, yet every time they thought they had heard the last of him, he would reappear out of the blue. He sent a basket of rotten fruit for Christmas and an e-mail congratulating Chris and Melissa about the triplets before her pregnancy had even been formally announced.

      His most recent stunt had been breaking into the florist the night before Aaron and Liv’s wedding in March and spraying the flowers with something that had caused them to wilt just in time for the ceremony.

      Anne was sure he would pull something when he learned of her pregnancy, but she refused to let him get to her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I don’t care what the Gingerbread Man does,” she said, lifting her chin in defiance. “Personally, I’m all for drawing him out into the open so he makes a mistake and gets caught.”

      “Which we have agreed not to do,” Chris said sternly.

      Aaron asked the next obvious question. “What about the father of the baby? Is he taking responsibility?”

      “Like I said, it was a one-night thing.”

      Chris frowned. “He didn’t offer to marry you?”

      This was where it was going to get tricky. “No. Besides, he’s not a royal.”

      “I don’t give a damn who he is. He needs to take responsibility for his actions.”

      “Liv and Garrett aren’t royals. And I’m only half-royal,” Melissa added.

      “It doesn’t matter. He’s out of the picture,” Anne insisted.

      “And that was his choice?” Aaron asked.

      Anne bit her lip.

      “Anne?” Chris asked, and when she remained silent he cursed under his breath. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

      “Trust me when I say, he’s better off.”

      Melissa made a clucking noise, as though she were thoroughly disappointed in Anne.

      “That is not your decision to make,” Chris said. “I don’t care who he is, he has a right to know he’s going to have a child. To keep it from him is unconscionable.”

      She knew deep down that he was right. But she was feeling hurt and bitter and stubborn. If Sam didn’t want her, why should he be allowed access to their child?

      “Sam may be a politician, but he’s a good man,” Chris said.

      Once again, mouths fell open in surprise, including her own. She hadn’t told anyone the father’s identity. Not even Louisa. “How did you—”

      “Simple math. You don’t honestly think Melissa and I could go through months of infertility treatments and a high-risk pregnancy without learning a thing or two about getting pregnant? Conception would have had to have occurred around the time of the charity ball. And do you really think that Sam’s sneaking out in the middle of the night would go unnoticed?”

      No, of course not. They were under a ridiculously tight

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