The Prince's Holiday Baby

Dr. Morgan looked at her with both understanding and compassion in her deep green eyes. She’d been Molly’s doctor for more than twenty years, long before her dark hair had become so liberally streaked with grey and the faint lines around her eyes and mouth had multiplied.

“I’ll rerun the test,” she told her. “If you can look me in the eye and honestly tell me that you haven’t had sex in the past two months.”

Molly’s fingers curled around the edge of the examining table, her damp palms sticking to the paper. “Not unprotected sex.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Dr. Morgan said. “But you know there isn’t any method of contraception that is one hundred percent effective.”

She could only stare at her as the reality of what the doctor was saying began to sink in and her heart began to hammer out its panic against her ribs.

“It was one night,” she whispered.

One night after four years of going to bed alone.

“That’s all it takes,” the doctor said gently.

Molly shook her head, still unwilling to believe what the doctor was saying. “But I don’t feel pregnant. I don’t feel any different—just tired.”

“That’s often one of the first signs.”

“I haven’t been sick.”

“Not every woman experiences morning sickness. You might be one of the lucky ones.”

Lucky? Molly was too stunned to really know how she was feeling, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t lucky.

“That’s assuming you want to continue with this pregnancy,” Dr. Morgan continued gently. “It is still early and—”

Molly shook her head again. She knew what the doctor was going to say—she was going to tell her there were options. She knew what those options were. She also knew there was only one choice for her—and it was the same choice her own mother had made thirty-one years earlier.

“I’m going to have the baby,” she said.

“Do you know the father?” Dr. Morgan asked gently.

Her cheeks burned with shame as Molly realized she probably should have kept her “one night” comment to herself, but she managed to choke out the lie, “Of course.”

She knew his name—his first name, anyway. And she knew he was from a country called Tesoro del Mar. And she knew that he kissed like there was no tomorrow and made her feel as no man had ever made her feel before. Beyond that, she knew almost nothing at all.

“If you’re going to have this baby, the father should be told,” Dr. Morgan said. “This isn’t something you should have to go through on your own.”

She nodded, because she knew it was true. She also knew that if she somehow managed to track him down, Eric wasn’t likely to be thrilled to learn that he’d knocked up some woman he picked up in a bar. And that was the tawdry truth of what had happened between them, even if, at the time, it hadn’t seemed tawdry at all.

But the soul-deep connection she’d been certain she’d felt in the darkest hours of the night had been illuminated as to what it really was in the bright light of day—a good healthy dose of lust that temporarily overrode common sense—and a passion that was apparently stronger than latex condoms.

Molly walked from the doctor’s office to Celebrations by Fiona. The exclusive boutique was ten blocks from the medical arts building and she was more than halfway there before she questioned the wisdom of undertaking such a stroll in low-heeled sling-backs and ninety-degree heat. But she’d needed some time to think about the news she’d been given and she knew that when she got to Fiona’s, she wouldn’t have a minute to do so.

Her cousin had established a reputation as one of the premier event planners in Texas and her services were sought by everyone who was anyone in the state. She’d planned the island nuptials of a Cowboys’ quarterback, personally oversaw every detail of the small garden wedding for an Oscar-winning actress and coordinated the renewal of vows to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the governor and his wife.

But it turned out that her most challenging assignment and most demanding client wasn’t a celebrity or politician, it was herself. And her mistake, in Molly’s opinion, was in not hiring someone else to oversee the details of her own wedding—a wedding at which Molly would be the maid of honor the following month.

It seemed like a lifetime ago that Molly had been shopping for dresses and bouquets of flowers, dreaming of “happily ever after.” She’d been so full of hope for her future, eager to marry the man she loved, looking forward to raising a family together.

Though that engagement had fallen apart, she’d still believed that someday she would find someone special to share her life and build a family with. Now she’d skipped over the marriage part and was going straight to motherhood—definitely not her childhood dream but a reality that she would have to deal with it.

First, however, she had to tackle the issue of a bridesmaid dress.

Fiona was hovering just inside the door, waiting for her, when she finally arrived.

“Goodness,” she said, noting her cousin’s flushed cheeks. “You look like you just finished running a marathon.”

“Even a short walk feels like a marathon in this heat,” she said, not wanting to admit how far she’d walked or where she’d come from.

Fiona scooped a bottle of water out of the minifridge in her office and handed it to her.

“Thanks.” Molly took the bottle and sank into an empty chair. “Have you finally picked a dress for me?”

“Sort of.”

Molly arched a brow as she uncapped the water.

Fiona gestured to a garment rack that was crowded with gowns.

Molly stared. “There must be a dozen dresses there.”

“Sixteen,” her cousin admitted.

“I realize the layered look is in, but sixteen might be a bit excessive.”

“I couldn’t decide,” Fiona said, a trifle defensively.

“Couldn’t you at least have narrowed it down?”

“That is narrowed down.”

Molly shouldn’t have been surprised. Even with all of Fiona’s contacts in the industry, it had taken her cousin three weeks and trips to both New York City and San Francisco to finally decide on her own gown—from a local boutique.

“I know that pastels are all the rage for summer weddings,” Fiona was explaining now, “but I think jewel tones work better with your coloring and, since you’re my only attendant, you can pick whatever you want.”

Whatever she wanted so long as it was sapphire, emerald or ruby, Molly noted, and rose from her chair for a closer examination of the gowns.

But as she sorted through the collection, her mind slipped back to another examination, to her conversation with Dr. Morgan and the one word that continued to reverberate inside her head.

Pregnant.

“Any thoughts?” Fiona asked.

I thought I would regret it more if I didn’t spend the night with him.

Of course, that thought was immediately followed by a wave of guilt. As much as she hadn’t planned to get pregnant at this point in her life, she wouldn’t regret the child that she would have. The baby growing inside of her probably wasn’t the size of a pea yet, but Molly loved her already.