Their Secret Royal Baby

Really, he only spoke with his mother when there was a scandal that needed to be ironed out or a tradition that needed to be upheld. It had been the same growing up. Queen Margarita had rarely put in an appearance in her sons’ lives. There had been nannies to take care of all that. She might come into the nursery once the young Princes had been given supper to say goodnight.

His earliest memory was of his mother coming into the nursery. He had been so excited to see her that he had spilled his drink and she had recoiled.

‘Can someone deal with Elias?’ she had asked.

They had moved on from spilt milk but the sentiment was the same.

Elias, though, neither wanted nor needed to be dealt with.

His and Andros’s job was to stand by her side during public appearances.

Elias wanted more.

He didn’t want to marry and he was tired of partying and meaningless sex. He turned and looked out towards the yacht. The laughter drifted across the water and he was simply relieved to be away from it.

Yes, his mother would not be pleased that nothing had happened between him and Sophie but Elias refused to be compliant.

He was bored, he realised. He missed being part of a team and using his brain. His father had suggested an advisory role on the board of Medrindos Hospital and Elias could think of nothing worse.

He uncorked the champagne and it was then that he heard a voice.

‘Celebrating?’

He turned and saw that he did not have the beach to himself—there was a woman sitting beneath a tree with her legs stretched out and her hands behind her as if she was sunbathing beneath the moon.

‘I guess I am,’ Elias said, though he didn’t add that the champagne corks popped at lunchtime every day in his world.

‘And I thought this was my slice of heaven.’

‘I didn’t mean to interrupt,’ he said, smiling at her soft Scottish accent.

‘It’s fine.’

He saw that she had a plastic glass in one hand and he held up the bottle, offering her a drink of champagne. He saw her teeth as now she smiled.

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

He walked over and filled her glass and he could see that she had long curly hair but he could not make out the colour.

‘Cheers!’ she said.

‘Cheers.’

They both took a drink, she from her plastic glass and he from the bottle, and it was pleasant.

‘They sound as if they’re having fun,’ she said, and nodded in the direction of the yacht.

He didn’t tell her that that was where he had just come from, or that he hadn’t been having fun in the least.

‘They do. I’m Elias,’ he introduced himself, but then frowned as he did so—Elias had been said in a woman’s voice that wasn’t his.

‘Elias!’

His eyes snapped open as he realised that it was Mandy who had just invaded the memory of that night. He sat up straight as the door to the on-call room opened and the bright light from outside hit him and that long-ago night was left behind.

Immediately his feet were on the ground. He knew, from the sharp knock at the door and the call of his name, and from the fact that Mandy had come directly to get him, that it was serious.

The reason she hadn’t simply called him to come around was because she had been busy making another urgent call on her way.

As they walked swiftly through the department she brought him up to speed.

‘I’ve got a young woman in premature labour. I’ve just put out an urgent call for the obstetric team but it’s bedlam in Maternity apparently.’

It happened at times.

The obstetric team wasn’t sitting around, drinking coffee and waiting for an urgent call from Accident and Emergency. Last month Elias had delivered a baby boy before they had arrived.

That had been an easy delivery, though, and the baby had been full term.

This one wasn’t.

Chimes started to ring out as Mandy explained further. ‘Mr Evans has deteriorated, I’ve put out an arrest call and Roger is in Resus with a sick child.’

The department had, as it so often did, just got extremely busy.

‘How pregnant is she?’ Elias asked.

‘Twenty-nine weeks. Her waters broke as we got her onto the gurney. Elias, this baby is coming and very rapidly.’

They had reached the cubicle and Elias took a steadying breath. He hadn’t dealt with a premature baby on his own before.

He heard a low moan of pain from behind the curtain.

‘What’s her name?’

Before Mandy could tell Elias he was already stepping into the cubicle.

And before Mandy said the name, he knew it.

‘Beth.’

She was sitting up, wearing a hospital gown, and there was a blanket over her. Her stunning red hair was worn up tonight but it was starting to uncoil and was dark with sweat. Her gorgeous almond-shaped eyes were for now screwed closed and she wore drop earrings in rose gold and the stones were rubies.

They were the same earrings she had worn the night they had met.

He could vividly remember stepping into her villa and turning the light on and watching the woman he had seen only in moonlight come into delicious colour—the deep red of her hair, the pale pink of her lips and eyes that were a pure ocean blue.

Now Valerie had her arm around Beth’s shoulders and was telling her to try not to push.