you’d better get someone up here to help me with wardrobe because I went through the clothes you had sent up yesterday and there isn’t anything in there that I’d actually wear out in public.”
“What about the white pants with the sweater?”
“Seriously? That blue sweater with the big anchor on the front? My mother would wear that.”
“Okay. Fine. Right after lunch I’ll have a clothier come up.”
“Great.” She looked at the food, then sat back as if discouraged.
“You don’t like ham sandwiches?”
“They’re great. I’m just not hungry.”
He sucked in a breath. They’d had a misunderstanding but worked it out, and she’d taken a rest. When she’d come out of her suite, it was to eat lunch. Now suddenly she wasn’t hungry?
“You had an orange for breakfast. You have to eat.”
“Maybe I can get a cookie at the coffee shop.”
He laughed, thinking she was joking. Seeing she wasn’t, he frowned. “Seriously? That’s going to be your food for the day? A cookie?”
“I told you. I’m not very hungry.”
He supposed their situation would be enough to make a normal woman lose her appetite, but being married to him wasn’t exactly the third circle of hell. Everything and anything she wanted could be at her disposal. There was no reason for her to refuse to eat.
“Okay. From here on out, you choose our menus.”
She nodded. He felt marginally better. But what man in the world could possibly like the idea that just the thought of marrying him had taken away a woman’s appetite?
Was she subtly saying he made her sick?
After a visit from the clothier, an hour’s wait for clothing to be delivered and an hour for her to dress, they left the palace in his Mercedes. He drove, surprising her.
“We don’t need a bodyguard?”
“They’re discreetly behind us. This is supposed to look like a casual date.”
“Ah.”
He tried not to let her one-word answer grate against his skin, but it did. She wouldn’t eat around him and her conversation had been reduced to one-word answers. He’d thought they’d resolved their issue, but maybe they hadn’t? Or maybe the reality of marrying a prince was finally sinking in?
“You know you’re going to have to say more than one word to me when we get into the coffee shop.”
“Yes.”
He gritted his teeth. “We could also use this time to chitchat so that when we get out of the car, we’ll already be engaged in conversation the way normal people would be.”
“I know all about being a normal person.” She flicked her gaze to him. “You, on the other hand, are wearing a white shirt out for coffee.”
“I’m a prince.”
“You’re also a person, supposedly out with a woman he likes. A woman he’s comfortable with. White shirt does not say comfortable.”
“Oh, and scruffy jeans does?”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? Scruffy jeans is the very definition of comfortable.”
“You look like you’re going to the trash yard.”
“I look like an American girl on a date with a prince she just met. I am playing the part. As our dates get more serious so will my wardrobe.”
Unexpectedly seeing her reasoning, he sighed. “Okay. I get it. Just don’t make fun of the white shirt.”
“Fine.”
He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw not just the Mercedes with his bodyguards, but also the usual assortment of paparazzi. Satisfied, he finished the drive to the ocean-side coffee shop.
Xaviera’s warm sun beat down on him as he walked around to the passenger’s side and opened the door for Ginny. He took her hand and helped her out, to the whir of cameras. She stepped out, one blue-jeans-clad leg at a time, wedge sandals, short blue T-shirt and big sunglasses, all looking very normal to him in the parking lot of a beach café.
She really had been right about her very casual clothes.
Standing in front of him, she caught his gaze and smiled, and his heart—which had been thundering in his chest from fear of the first step of their charade—slowed down. He hadn’t forgotten how beautiful she was, but somehow or another the sunlight seemed to bring out the best in her rich yellow hair and tanned skin. She might not be royalty or someone accustomed to the public eye, like an actress or model, but she was every bit as beautiful—if not more beautiful because she was genuine.
The cameras whirred again.
She whispered, “What do we do? Do we wave?”
“We ignore them.”
She peeked up at him. “Really?”
He laughed, took her hand and led her to the café door. “Yes. We know they are there. But we also know they are always there, even if, for us, they have no purpose. Unlike an actor or actress, we don’t need them to enhance our visibility. We tolerate them. Thus, we ignore them.”
“Got it.”
He held the door open for her. The press rushed up behind them, but his bodyguards closed the door on them. Two things happened simultaneously. The press opened the door and crammed in behind the bodyguards, their cameras whirring. And Marco, café owner, greeted them.
“Prince Dominic!” He bowed. “It’s an honor.”
“Can I have my usual, Marco? And—” Oh, dear God. First complication. He could not order coffee for a pregnant woman. He faced Ginny. “What would you like, Ginny?”
As soon as he said her name, the reporters began shouting, “Ginny! Ginny! Look here, Ginny!”
She slid off her sunglasses. Doing as he’d told her, she ignored the press. “How about some water? It’s hot.”
The press laughed. “Did you not know our weather was hot?”
“Where are you from?”
“How old are you?”
“How did you meet?”
“How long have you been dating?”
Dominic also ignored them. “Just water? What about that cookie?”
Marco said, “I have a cookie that will make you happy to be alive.”
Ginny laughed. “That’d be great.”
“You sound American.”
He saw Ginny waver. The questions directed at her were hard for her to ignore. And the press began closing in on them. Even with his two bodyguards standing six inches away, the reporters and photographers bent around them, shouted questions and took pictures as Marco made Dom’s coffee, retrieved a bottle of water and wrapped a cookie in a napkin.
Dom took their items and turned to say, “Let’s go out to the deck by the dock,” but, as he turned, he saw her sway. Before he could blink, she began to crumble.
He dropped his coffee, the water and the cookie to the counter and just barely caught her before she hit the floor.
The cameras whirred. A gasp went up from the crowd. Dominic’s bodyguards turned to help him as Marco came out from behind the counter, broom in hand.
“Get out of here!” He waved the broom at the paparazzi. “Get out, you brood of vipers!” He glanced behind the counter. “Antonella. I chase them out.