Pregnant with the Prince's Child (3 page)

“Protection.” She felt like a fool, parroting his words. But she needed something to give her a clue as to how she should act. She had no idea what negotiations he was talking about and the casual way he brought them up made her think they were somehow common knowledge—at least to anyone who had paid attention to the news and hadn’t been wasting away in prison camp for weeks.

“Uh…what is your condition exactly?” she asked, knowing she might be opening a can of worms she wasn’t going to be able to control, once opened. She wanted to hear from him just what he felt was damaging and dangerous—and why he didn’t seem to remember things he should know by heart.

He grimaced, looking annoyed at the question. “Shrapnel from an IED. Most of it removed, but some slivers still close to the spine. Broken collarbone that’s already mostly healed. Traumatic brain injury that doesn’t seem to be as bad as they first thought.” His voice took a bitter tone. “But either that, or the induced coma they put me in, seems to have wiped out a chunk of my life. Like, the last two years. Hope to get them back at some point.” He looked at her wearily.

“You…you don’t remember anything?”

“Nope. All gone.”

She stared at him, speechless. He had amnesia? Their love, their marriage, the things he’d caught her doing—everything gone, like wiping a slate clean? She could hardly breathe. And she could hardly believe it was true.

His face darkened as he watched her reaction. “You’re a funny sort of medical guard,” he said, almost angry. “Where’s your hard, Nurse Ratched attitude?”

Still stunned, she was having trouble working up anything coherent to say. She shook her head, blinking rapidly.

He made a gesture of disgust. “Listen, just go and leave me alone,” he said, shifting against the pillows. “I really don’t need anybody here. I’m okay. Just get out, why don’t you....”

His voice broke and he gasped, turning to find relief from whatever was torturing him. She bit her lip. Obviously, the pain medication hadn’t kicked in, or wasn’t working. His eyes were closed and he was breathing unevenly.

She stared at him, still so beautiful, but with a line of bitterness around his mouth and a slow, smoldering sorrow that she’d noticed in his blue eyes. He looked like a man who’d had too much suffering and didn’t want to have any more.

What had happened to him? What had made him lose his memory? And why didn’t he respond to her the way she still responded to him? Had it all been a sham from the beginning? That thought made a bitter taste rise in her throat and she pushed it away.

He began to look better again. Whatever had been torturing him seemed to have weakened and she decided to attribute his bad attitude to pain and leave it at that. In another moment, he took a deep breath and straightened, looking almost normal.

“What shall I call you?” she asked as he blinked toward her in the light.

“Are you still here?” he asked, looking surprised. “I gave you every opportunity to go.”

“I don’t scare all that easily,” she told him with a twisted smile. “What shall I call you?” she asked again.

“Mykal will do.” He didn’t smile back but he didn’t look angry anymore. “If you really think you can handle it here, we might as well operate as though we were friends.” A shadow passed over his eyes. “God knows it’s going to be hard to find a friend soon. I’m afraid I’m being drawn into a world where such things can’t last.”

She had no idea what he was talking about, but she didn’t ask.

“So what is the deal with your memory loss?” she said instead.

He gave her a mock wounded expression. “Do you know how hard it is to talk about something you can’t remember?” He shifted his position carefully. “I lost over two years of my life. But it doesn’t really bother me unless someone brings it up.”

“Oh.” She made a grimace of apology. “Sorry.”

He grinned as though happy to be able to set her back a bit. “No problem,” he said. “Troublemaker,” he muttered, just to tease her.

It warmed her, this back and forth. It was very like what they’d done together all the time in the old days.

“You don’t wonder what you did?” she asked him. “All that time.”

“I’ve been told what I did. At least, I’ve had a rough outline.”

Sure, they’d probably told him about his military service, about working in intelligence. But had they told him about her? Had they told him he’d been married? Probably not. After all, very few people even knew. They’d kept it secret. If their commanding officers had found out, they would both have been expelled from the corps. Not even their friends had known about it. If she hadn’t found the marriage license and her wedding ring in among her important things when they’d let her out of the prison camp, she might have begun to believe it was a fantasy herself.

“And?” she prodded.

“I guess I was in the military, but so far they haven’t been able to confirm that with the right agency. It seems I was doing some sort of undercover work or something. Very hush-hush. No one will admit anything. But I’m sure they will get paperwork squared away eventually. In the meantime, I’m a man without a past.”

That was a pity. She had a big chunk of his past right here in her heart, but she couldn’t hand it over. Not yet.

The pain came back in waves. She could see it as it came, read it in his eyes. He groaned softly and she could see that he was in real agony. Everything in her wanted to go to him, to help. But what could she do? She had no medical training. She was afraid anything she tried to do might only make him worse.

He groaned again, writhing, and she couldn’t hold back any longer. She slipped into the bathroom, grabbed a washcloth and ran cold water over it, then hurried back and sat on the edge of his bed. For all she knew, this might be exactly the wrong thing to do, but she had to do something. Moving smoothly, she pressed the cool cloth to his forehead and began to murmur soft, soothing nonsense as she held it there. At any moment, she expected him to lash out at her, kick her away, yell something awful.

But to her surprise, he did none of that. Something in her touch seemed to calm him almost immediately. Little by little, his body began to relax.

“Do me a favor,” he said suddenly, his voice choked. He was looking up at her with a strange expression on his face, as though he weren’t sure how she was going to react to what he asked of her. “Could you hold my hand?”

She stared down at him, hardly breathing.

“I…I’m spinning,” he explained gruffly as he reached out, closing his eyes again. “The medication. I just need… I don’t know. To feel like I’m anchored to something.”

She took his hand in hers and held it tightly, then pressed it to her heart. There was something so real, so vulnerable about the way he’d asked her, tears filled her eyes again and her throat choked with emotion.

This was so strange, a complete reversal of roles. Mykal was always the tough guy, the one whose arms she’d run to, the man who knew all the answers. And now here he was, asking her for reassurance. Asking for trust. For a solid center to cling to.

But she wasn’t the one who could do that for him. Not now, not after all that had happened between them. Didn’t he sense that?

“Mykal,” she whispered, tears spilling over. “I…I can’t…”

But he didn’t hear her. He was already asleep.

She looked at the long, strong hand she was holding in both of hers. His beautiful hands had always been one of the things she’d loved best about him. She ached inside for what they’d had, what they’d lost. Bringing his hand up, she put it against her cheek and sighed. Then she kissed the center of his palm and laid it back down on his covers, letting her gaze run over every visible part of him. The light from the lamp made his skin glow and seemed to put every muscle in relief, like a beautiful landscape. Everything in her yearned to touch him. She’d missed him so much and hungered for this for far too long.

For just a moment she remembered the first time she’d met him.

She’d been sent to check out rumors of a commotion in a pub in the seaside town near where she’d been working. Walking into the room, she’d seen him and he’d filled her gaze like a star, brilliant and shining, the center of everything.

At first, she’d thought she’d caught him in the middle of a giant con. She knew he wasn’t who he said he was and he knew she knew it. But it hadn’t fazed him one bit. He’d given her a great big grin that told her everything she needed to know about him.

The war was already over at the time. The phony truce had begun, making things even more dangerous than they had been before. They were working in a border town filled with people who changed sides as easily as they changed their toothbrushes. Or maybe it just seemed that way as most people were busy playing both sides against the middle.

The little pub was filled with local officials scared to death their money-laundering scheme had been discovered by the Granvilli authorities. They were looking for a way out. Mykal had convinced them they were about to get caught and that they should let him hold the money for safekeeping. They were grateful as they turned the cash over to him. They even bought him drinks and made him the center of a general toast.

He loved what he was doing. He loved pulling the wool over their eyes and getting away with—well, not with murder exactly. But something pretty wrong at any rate. He took their money and left them feeling good about it. Sort of a modern day Robin Hood—if Robin Hood had been a spy for France.

And when she caught up with him outside the little pub and challenged him on it, he laughed. And then he picked her up out of sheer exuberance and twirled her around as though to the music still pumping out through the double doors of the place.

“You’re right,” he said. “And what are you going to do about it?”

She’d stared at him for a moment, then her lips twitched. He was completely adorable and impossibly mischievous at the same time. She was smitten. And she also knew she would never, ever forget him. So pretty quickly, she was laughing right back at him.

“Tell you what,” she’d said. “I’ll buy you a drink. But not here.”

She wasn’t all that surprised to find out they were both working for Granvilli Military Intelligence. Well, not exactly both. She was doing that, but he was doing something else as well.

He was a spy for the royal side. But she didn’t learn about that until later. Still, she couldn’t hold that against him. After all, she had some secrets of her own. And that was pretty much the heart and soul of the problem between them. Even when she’d thought he was deliciously devious, she hadn’t understood just how convoluted his motives really were. And he still didn’t know a lot about her.

The man she’d loved so passionately was still in there, somewhere. He needed her, even if he didn’t realize what all that implied. There was no way she could leave until she knew he was safe.

With a sigh, she slumped down on the small couch that was set next to the bed. In another moment, she was curled into a ball and thinking protective thoughts. And then she was asleep herself.

Mykal woke carefully. He was doing everything carefully now. Even his dreams were tentative. Something was always warning him not to move. The excessive caution created a growing rage inside him, pure frustration. He wanted to shout and throw something. He wanted to punch something. He couldn’t live the rest of his life this way.

Still, for now, he would be careful. The world around him seemed to be so full of changes, so many things happening to him and his future, so many things lost in his past, that he didn’t want to risk making a wrong move. For now.

Lifting his head slightly, his gaze fell on a young woman curled up and sleeping on the couch next to his bed. It gave him a start but then he remembered who she was—someone the powers that be at the castle had sent over.

He didn’t need her here. In fact, he resented it. He could take care of himself. Once this medication wore off, he would be okay. He would tell her to go back where she came from and leave him alone.

Still, he had to admit, he’d felt a tug of attraction from the first. It was stronger now. She was young and pretty with evidence of a lean, agile look to her nicely shaped body—though he couldn’t see much of it under that shapeless jumpsuit of a uniform. Her sleek ash-blond hair fell over her cheek, shining like corn silk in the summer sunlight with a beauty that almost choked him for a moment. He hadn’t had much beauty in his life lately. Suddenly, he had an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch it.

But he couldn’t, he thought to himself sarcastically. He had to be careful. His groan was heartfelt and he shook his head. No, he wasn’t going to be able to keep this up for long. There came a tipping point when life just wasn’t worth living without a few common human activities. Touching a beautiful woman was one of them.

Currently he was clinging to optimism. Surely this would pass. He’d seen the X-rays. The pieces of shrapnel were mere slivers. How could such tiny things be so dangerous to his life? Maybe they would begin to move away or melt or…or something. And maybe his memory would come back and things would get back to normal.

He was blaming the amnesia on the fact that they had kept him in a drug-induced coma for weeks while they worried about a possible traumatic brain injury and debated what to do with the shrapnel. That ought to be enough to knock anybody’s mind for a loop. He had no doubt the fog would clear away soon. But as for the shrapnel…