The Prince's Pregnant Challenge (The Royals of Monaco, #2) (4 page)

Liane rushed upstairs to her room to wait for her sisters to get there. They arrived moments later as code red meant extreme emergency. When Liane told her sisters, what was going on they both could not believe it, especially the fact that Jean Pierre was the father, as they knew how much she disliked him.

This was truly a messy situation and one that was going to be difficult to explain. Liane had no idea how she was even going to tell their mother. She was so happy about her engagement to the Crown Prince, you would think that she was the one getting married. But there was no way she could marry the prince now. The three sisters dreaded the repercussions, but decided that it was best not to reveal who the father is, at least, not yet.

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U
nfortunately, her parents didn’t take it well, particularly her mother and Liane was quickly sent off to North Creek to stay with a distant relative until the situation was resolved with the royal family. Her mother was not to be deterred and insisted that Francesca marry the Crown Prince, but Prince Louis had other ideas and chose Macee. Poor Macee was placed on the fast track to Crown Princess, as she had to spend most of each day working with the royal tutor to make her over into a candidate for the royal family.

6 months later

L
iane was nervous as she walked into the palace with her obvious bump. Her family had been summoned to the palace to settle the matter about her pregnancy. The queen in particular felt insulted given the fact that Liane had been engaged to her son, the crown prince, and then slept with another man.

A palace maid led Liane to the courtyard where her family was already waiting for her. She hugged Francesca. Her younger sister was looking worried. Liane then greeted her parents. Moments later, Macee rushed out to the courtyard and hugged both her sisters.

Prince Louis arrived moments later and greeted the LeBlancs. Liane looked at him awkwardly. It was the first time she was seeing him after he had found out the truth. She immediately felt nervous and looked down. “Do not worry about apologising to me,” he said to her and rubbed her shoulders.

“I should though,” Liane said.

“No, I should thank you, because I was able to meet Macee.” While the situation wasn’t ideal, Liane’s pregnancy gave the Crown Prince the opportunity to consider a different woman to be his wife and his decision brought him love. While he had been prepared to accept a political marriage, he was unprepared for the fiery younger LeBlanc sister who melted his heart and after considerable strife; the two did eventually admit their love for one another. And while their marriage was not without conflict, both felt that they could weather the worst storm so long as they were together.

Colonel LeBlanc smiled. The most important thing he had wanted was for Macee to be happy. She had always gotten the short end of the stick around her mother and he was glad to see that the Crown Prince loved her and it was not simply a political marriage to him.

Everyone became tense when the queen walked out. She looked at Liane's bump, as she sat down at the table and gestured for everyone else to do so. The king was not going to attend as he had matters to sort out and Bridgette had been chased out of the palace after the trouble she had caused planting false stories about Macee and revealing Liane’s pregnancy to the press.

The maids brought out refreshments, but the queen waved them away. This was not a social call “Let us get straight to the point,” she said. Macee held tight to Prince Louis's hand. While she was no longer afraid of the queen, she was worried about how everyone would react to finding out who the father of the baby was. Even her parents did not know.

“I would like to apologise first,” Liane began.

“That will not help anything. It is already done. Now, who is the father of the baby?”

Liane's parents whipped their heads in her direction. They were dying to know who the father was as the sisters had kept that information a secret. Macee and Francesca looked at each other feeling useless and unable to help their sister.

“Did you have a lover already?” the queen asked.

“No, your majesty,” Liane replied.

“Then you slept with someone you barely knew?”

“No, it was not like that either.”

“Then, what was it like?” The queen was losing her patience.

“Come out with it, Liane. Who is it? Do we know him?” Colonel LeBlanc asked while he squeezed his daughter’s hand. His tone was so gentle; as he watched Liane’s lips tremble. She was trying so hard not to cry. He faced the queen. “Does it matter now?” he asked her. “What’s done is done.”

“Yes, it does. Had this been a different century, I would have had her head on a pike by now,” the queen replied. Liane gasped as she took a deep breath.

“Jean Pierre,” she said quietly.

“What about him?” her mother asked.

“He is the father.”

Just for a second, everyone froze. No one could say anything. They thought they had heard wrong. Jean Pierre? As in the queen's nephew? Bridgette's son? The queen felt as if she was going to faint.

“What?” she asked quietly.

Prince Louis was in shock. How was his cousin responsible for this pregnancy? He looked at Macee. She shrugged her shoulders and looked down. She felt bad for not telling him but it was not her place to say anything.

“How is Jean Pierre responsible? This does not make sense,” Mrs LeBlanc began. Colonel LeBlanc sat there with his eyes closed. He was speechless.

“I know, it was irresponsible and I am sorry. Believe me,” Liane said.

“Does he know?” Prince Louis asked. “Of course he does, if you are keeping the baby then he must know,” he answered his own question.

“He does not.”

“He doesn't?”

“Oh, Liane,” Mrs LeBlanc said. It was all too much for her. Her daughters were going to put her in an early grave.

“So, how did this exactly happen? No, spare me the details,” the queen said, as she held up her hand. She stood up and stormed out of the room. Bridgette was not going to be happy. She disliked the LeBlancs intensely, and now they were going to be linked together for life.

“Well that was a lot to process,” Prince Louis said. He looked at Liane, “Try not to worry. It will blow over.”

“Blow over? Liane, what were you thinking? Not an ordinary man, Jean Pierre!!” Mrs LeBlanc shouted. She banged her fists on the table. “Seriously, do you understand what you have done to our reputation? I did not expect this from you, never!”

“But from me, right, mother?” Macee asked. It was obvious to everyone in the family except Macee’s mother that she treated her differently. As the youngest of three sisters, while Macee was quick to rebel against her mother’s thirst for power and prestige, it still hurt her when her mother treated her as if she didn’t matter.

“Macee, what?”

“You were going to say that this is behaviour that you would have expected from me, right? After all, you believed the stories that were shown on the news. It didn’t even occur to you that they would be false. But not Liane. Or Francesca. They would never do something like this? Well, guess what, mother? We are all human and we do make mistakes.. There is no point in yelling at Liane now.”

“There is very much a point because this should have never happened. Could you not control yourself? I raised you better than this,” she shouted

“Mrs LeBlanc, you will stop yelling this instant,” the Crown Prince demanded. “It is not good for the baby.” He called for a maid and asked her to take Liane to one of the guest rooms. At Macee’s urging, he had a room prepared for Liane, so that she would have a safe place to stay for as long as she needed.

“Do you want to stay?” Macee asked Francesca.

“No, I want to run out of here as fast as my legs will carry me,” she replied. Prince Louis started laughing. Everyone whipped their heads in his direction. It was not exactly the time for laughter.

“Excuse me, her reaction was really funny just now,” he said, as he laughed again.

Francesca smiled. “However, I will stay with Liane. Macee and I need to be there for her,” she said.

“Very well,” Prince Louis said. He lowered his head and kissed Macee. “I have to go to the office,” he told her and left.

“I am guessing the two of you knew about Jean Pierre?” Mrs LeBlanc asked her daughters.

“Dear, let us go,” Colonel LeBlanc said as he stood up.

“So, now you speak.”

“I will not ask you again.”

She stood up and left the palace without another word. Colonel LeBlanc kissed his daughters on their foreheads before he left. Francesca and Macee were left standing together. They looked at each other and sighed with relief.

“Round one is over,” Macee said.

“It has only just begun.” Francesca replied.

The two of them linked arms and went off to find Liane. Macee was very glad that both her sisters were going to stay in the palace until the situation was resolved. The queen was not going to like having all three LeBlanc sisters under one roof, but Prince Louis was determined to protect Liane if for no other reason than it pleased his wife.

Macee was relieved that he was doing so, as he was the only one who would stand up to the queen and Liane was going to need all the help she could get. Having only Macee in her corner was not going to be enough. Nevertheless the queen was not the only one to worry about. Bridgette was going to flip a switch when she found out that Liane was carrying her grandchild. That was another issue they had to overcome and they were certainly not looking forward to it.

L
iane woke to considerable noise in her chambers. This was her second morning waking up in the palace and everything still felt so unreal to her. One minute, she thought she would be spending her entire pregnancy away from her sisters and the next, she was a guest at the palace. She could hear the maids saying, “She is sleeping, please return later”. Liane frowned and got out of bed. Suddenly the door flew open and to her surprise, Jean Pierre strode in. Her eyes widened as her hand dropped to her belly protectively.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him as she sat on the bed.

“What am I doing here?” Jean Pierre shouted. He scratched the back of his head and started pacing up and down. He was angry. “You are pregnant and did not think to tell me?”

“Well, how was I going to get in touch with you?”

“Seriously Liane, is that even an excuse right now?”

Jean Pierre had received a call from Prince Louis summoning him back to the palace to be there for Liane. He was completely taken by surprise when his cousin shouted at him at his need to take responsibility. He could not believe that she had kept the matter a secret from him.

“I am sorry but this situation has been very hard for me to deal with. It still is,” Liane said, as her voice trailed off. She knew that she should have told him but she really expected the worst. He was a known womaniser. Even the time they spent together was brief and he had left the country immediately after. There was no way that he was going to want a child right now.

“You made it hard for yourself.”

“And how did I do that? It wasn’t as if I intended to get pregnant.”

“No, but you chose to keep it a secret from everyone. You should have told the truth from the beginning.”

“Will you stop shouting at me? That is not going to accomplish anything.”

Jean Pierre took a deep breath. “Now, you know my mother is going to be worse,” he said calmly.

“I am not going to take any nonsense from your mother. She was the one who outted my pregnancy to the world. She also leaked filthy rumours about Macee,” Liane said. She had not forgotten what Bridgette did.

“Do you have proof?” Jean Pierre demanded. He had been out of Monaco for the past few months and was unaware of what was going on. And while he would be one of the first to admit that his mother often behaved selfishly, he couldn’t believe that she would stoop to that behaviour.

“Yes, the Crown has been presented with proof and she admitted to it in front of everyone.”

Jean Pierre sat down on the sofa in Liane's chambers. Why would she do such a thing? Shaking his head, he knew that was not the main issue at hand. Liane was pregnant with his child and this was the first he’d heard of it. He had not seen her since the night of the party at the country club and he couldn’t help but think how much lovelier she looked.

He was not prepared to face his cousin after what he had done. At the same time, he did not regret sleeping with Liane. He had not stopped thinking about her since that night. In fact, she was the reason he left so quickly as he couldn’t bear the thought of her marrying the Crown Prince. Seeing her now, he was reminded as to how much she annoyed him as well. She was quite feisty. She seemed calm and soft on the surface but when it came to him, she was not. Every time they were together, they argued about something.

Liane looked at Jean Pierre with a frown. She couldn’t stand that the person she detested the most was the father of her baby and what was worse was that she still found him incredibly attractive. She got up to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” Jean Pierre called after her.

“I need to eat,” she said. Jean Pierre followed her out of the bedroom. He still needed to speak with her. Liane sat at the table and waited for her food.

“You are six months along now?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the sex of the baby?”

“No.” While Liane had regular visits with her doctor, she had decided not to know the sex of the baby. She was going to let it be a surprise. Those were the kinds of decisions she needed to make with her husband. Unfortunately, she was not married and the pregnancy was the result of a one-night stand with a man she could barely tolerate.

Jean Pierre sighed. “Do you want to find out the sex of the baby?” he asked.

“I will wait,” she said and started eating as soon as the maid dropped off the food. She wanted to eat in peace but unfortunately, that was not a choice. Jean Pierre was not going away.