The Princess Predicament by LISA CHILDS Page A

just as stunned as Whit had been to find her not only alive but pregnant?
    “You should have given up on us and returned to St. Pierre,” Whit advised them.
    But no matter that Zeke was no longer their boss, they would remain loyal to the king and their country—probably out of respect and fear.
    “We have orders,” Cosmo added.
    “Plans have changed,” Whit said with the tone he used for giving orders in the field and on the job. And for the past several months, he had been giving these men their orders. To guard the gates of the palace. “It’s too dangerous to take the princess back to St. Pierre.”
    Bruno pushed back his jacket and showed the Glock he carried inside the holster. “We have protection.”
    Whit didn’t, and a strong foreboding warned him that he needed it. These men weren’t acting like they did on St. Pierre. They weren’t acting like he was their superior anymore. Had he been demoted? Zeke had been temporarily reinstated when he’d followed Aaron to Michigan to rescue Charlotte. But that reinstatement was only to have been temporary.
    “Did you not hear me?” he asked, in his best no-nonsense boss tone. “I said that plans have changed. We are not going back to St. Pierre.”
    “We don’t have to listen to you anymore,” Cosmo said. “We take our orders from someone else now.”
    Damn. He had been demoted. Or fired.
    They had protection, obviously. But he felt like he was the one who needed it now. Could he bluff them into thinking the gun he carried was loaded yet?
    As Cosmo grabbed it from him, he realized it was too late. He shouldn’t have trusted these men; he shouldn’t have trusted anyone—just like Gabriella shouldn’t have trusted him.
    He couldn’t keep any of his promises to her.
    * * *
    A ARON ’ S HEART POUNDED slowly and heavily with dread. “Who did you send as Whit’s backup?” he asked the king.
    Rafael St. Pierre sat behind his desk in the darkly paneled den in his private wing of the palace. The past six months had added lines to the man’s face and liberal streaks of gray to his thick hair. St. Pierre shrugged shoulders that had once been broad enough to carry the weight of his country, but in recent months they had begun to stoop with a burden too heavy—concern for his daughters’ lives and safety. “I do not know the names of the men who went.”
    Neither did Aaron. And that worried him. “The men that Whit and I brought on are all still here in St. Pierre. They were told that Whit did not want them as backup.”
    “Then that is why they were not sent,” the king replied.
    Aaron shook his head. “Whit didn’t know you were sending that jet after him. If he had known, he would have requested the men that he and I brought on to the security team.”
    “Are you certain?” the king asked. “I do not believe Whitaker Howell is as loyal as you believe he is.”
    Just a week ago, Aaron would have agreed with the king. He’d thought Whit had betrayed him when he’d let Aaron believe that they had failed to protect their last client. Whit had actually helped Charlotte, in her previous position as a U.S. Marshal, fake the woman’s death and relocate her. Neither of them had thought Aaron would be able to stand the client’s dad’s suffering as he mourned her; they’d worried that Aaron would give up the secret.
    Maybe they had been right to worry. Because the secret he had now was on his lips, threatening to slip out. The king should be warned that Princess Gabriella was pregnant.
    “If Whitaker Howell was loyal, he would not have gotten my daughter pregnant while she’s engaged to another man!” the king shouted, anger exploding with his fist slamming against his desk.
    Aaron didn’t have much room to talk; he had gotten the king’s other daughter pregnant. Charlotte hadn’t been engaged, though.
    “How—how did you hear that?” Aaron wondered. Charlotte hadn’t told her father yet, and Aaron had managed to keep the secret until now.