Pregnant!: Prince and Future...Dad? / Expecting! / Millionaire Cop & Mum-To-Be

Liv opened her mouth to do some more denying.

Brit put up a hand. ‘‘I’ll bet you’ve never before in your life got so carried away the night before that you couldn’t find your panties the morning after.’’

Liv looked at her sideways and accused in a mumble, ‘‘You noticed. About my panties.’’

Brit wiggled both eyebrows. ‘‘Slurp, slurp.’’

‘‘Don’t make fun, please. I’m really upset at myself. You know I’m thinking of going into politics eventually. Who’s going to vote for a woman who can’t keep track of her own underwear? It’s not…confidence-inspiring.’’

Brit raised both hands then, palms out. ‘‘Okay, okay. Have it your way. What you did is horrible and disgusting and if you hide out here in your room like a big, fat coward, you might not have to see Finn again. And while we’re on the subject of leaving…’’

Liv knew that something she didn’t want to hear was coming. ‘‘What about it?’’

‘‘I’m not.’’

‘‘Not…?’’

‘‘Leaving.’’

Liv stared. ‘‘You can’t be serious.’’

‘‘I am.’’

‘‘I do not believe this.’’

‘‘Whatever.’’ Brit was sounding infuriatingly offhand. ‘‘I’m staying for a while.’’

Their mother would burst a blood vessel when she heard. Ingrid hated their father and all things Gullandrian.

And what was to stay for, anyway? More tours of fisheries and offshore oil derricks, of rolling, charming farmland, more tall pines and spruces and distant views of fat-tailed karavik?

More chances, a salacious voice in the back of her mind whispered, you might run in to Finn…

‘‘This is nuts.’’ Liv scowled. ‘‘We came for Elli’s sake, remember? We swore to Mom we’d fly right home after the wedding. Father agreed to that.’’

‘‘So?’’

‘‘So it’s after the wedding. Time for you and me to keep our word to our mother and go home.’’ Liv picked up her cup—and set it down without drinking from it. ‘‘Anyway, I’ve got to be at work on Monday—and I thought you said you did, too.’’

‘‘Yes,’’ said Brit, her tone only slightly bitter. ‘‘You’ve got your plum summer internship with the State Attorney General’s Office that you can’t wait to get back to. And me? Well, I’ll return to dealing ’em off the arm at the Pizza Pitstop in East Hollywood, listening to my boss yell at me, looking forward to going home to my charmingly seedy courtyard apartment.’’

Liv resisted the urge to nobly remind her sister that if she didn’t like her life, she should go back to college or at least learn to live on her trust allowance.

Brit said, ‘‘Dad has invited me to stay for a while, and I’ve said I will.’’

‘‘Dad? You’re calling him Dad now?’’ This was the man who, until very recently, had given new meaning to the words absentee parent. Their mother, Ingrid, had left Osrik—and Gullandria—when Liv, Elli and Brit were ten months old. Osrik had kept their two sons, Valbrand and Kylan, then five and three, to raise as kings. Now both sons were dead. And suddenly, Osrik had decided it was time to play Dad to his long-lost girls. It had started with Elli. And now, obviously, he was after Brit. ‘‘I don’t like it,’’ Liv said flatly.

‘‘I’m sorry. I’m staying. I want to see more of Gullandria—maybe nose around a little, too—see if I can find out any more details about what really happened to the brothers we’re never going to get a chance to know.’’

There was a moment. The two sisters looked at each other, both of them wondering what their brothers had been like, both of them wishing for what was never going to be: their broken family whole again, their dead brothers alive…

Finally Liv spoke. ‘‘I thought Elli had settled that.’’ Elli had questioned their father. She’d received Osrik’s assurance that there was nothing suspicious in the way either of their brothers had died. Elli had believed him. So did Liv. She wasn’t crazy about the man who’d suddenly decided to try being a father to his daughters. But her brothers had been everything to him. They were the children he had kept—his chance that his own blood would claim the throne of Gullandria when he could no longer rule. If someone had murdered them, Osrik would have tracked the killers down and seen to it they paid for their crimes in a big way.

Brit said, ‘‘I want to look into the situation a little for myself.’’

‘‘You still think there’s something…not right?’’

‘‘I don’t know. I just want to check around some more.’’

Liv wasn’t so sure she liked the idea of Brit snooping around a strange country on her own. ‘‘What do you mean, ‘check around’?’’

‘‘Just what I said. Ask some questions.’’

‘‘Of whom?’’

‘‘Well, I’m not sure yet—but did you know that Kaarin Karlsmon and Valbrand were an item?’’

Liv didn’t. ‘‘Before he disappeared at sea?’’

‘‘You got it.’’

‘‘Who told you that?’’

‘‘I asked around. It’s common knowledge.’’

The lady Kaarin was jarl—of noble birth—a slim, graceful redhead perhaps a year or two older than the princesses. Kaarin was always meticulously turned out in gorgeous designer clothes and she made herself available to Liv and Brit whenever they asked for her. Cheerfully, Kaarin would accompany them anywhere they wanted to go; she’d provide lively chatter and well-bred companionship.

The strap on Brit’s top had slid down her shoulder. She pushed it back in place. ‘‘You have to admit, it’s odd she never even mentioned that she and Valbrand had a thing going on.’’

‘‘Oh, Brit. Come on. I can think of several reasons why she wouldn’t want to talk about it. Especially if she really cared for him. It’s probably painful for her, to go into it—and I don’t see how her relationship with him could have had anything to do with his death.’’

‘‘I’m only saying, there’s a lot we don’t know—a lot I want to find out.’’

‘‘I don’t like it.’’

‘‘Well, I can’t help that.’’

Liv got the message. Brit had made her decision and no matter what Liv said, Brit would not change her mind.

‘‘Fine.’’ Liv pointed at the phone on the nightstand. ‘‘Call Mom yourself. Now.’’

Brit groaned. ‘‘Livvy, it’s barely seven in the morning there.’’

‘‘So you’ll be sure to catch her. I can’t stop you from sticking your nose in where I doubt it belongs. But I’m not getting stuck telling Mom what you’re up to because you just never manage to get around to calling her.’’

‘‘I will tell her.’’

Liv only waited.