Their Secret Royal Baby. Carol Marinelli

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      ‘You’ll take my money!’ she told him.

      It was imperative to stay in control—Beth had been taught to.

      There might be a wild, feisty streak that ran through her but she had long ago learnt to suppress it.

      Bar once.

      That lapse was the reason she was here tonight.

      Beth didn’t want the sight of two nurses coming towards her and pushing a wheelchair. She handed over the money and watched as the door was opened by one of them.

      ‘I can make my own way,’ she said, yet her hand was now gripping the handle above the window and she was again fighting not to bear down.

      ‘Let’s help you out,’ a nurse said.

      With no choice, Beth accepted the waiting hands that helped her out.

      She was still carrying her coat and shoes yet she was shaking all over.

      ‘I’m Mandy,’ a nurse told her, ‘and this is Valerie. What’s your name?’

      ‘Beth.’

      ‘How far along are you, Beth?’ Mandy asked as they helped her into a wheelchair.

      ‘Twenty-nine weeks.’

      They pushed the chair into the department and Beth could see that it was busy.

      The doors to an area opened and she glimpsed a lot of staff around what looked like a very sick child and a man receiving cardiac massage.

      Shouldn’t these nurses be in there, helping?

      Yet they were both still with her and had wheeled her into a cubicle and were helping her to stand and asking questions about the pregnancy and how long she’d had pain for when she felt a warm gush between her legs.

      ‘I’ve wet myself...’ Beth whimpered, and she started to cry with the indignity of it all as they helped her up onto the trolley.

      Mandy was peeling off her underwear and tights and Valerie was trying to get her out of her dress as a receptionist came in.

      Why was a receptionist here when she was nearly naked? Beth wanted to ask. She was a very private person and it felt appalling to be exposed but then Mandy covered her with a blanket.

      Beth saw Mandy’s worried look as she took a phone out of the pocket of her uniform and suddenly she had gone.

      ‘We need your full name and address,’ the receptionist said.

      They didn’t seem very relevant to Beth right now.

      ‘Elizabeth Foster.’

      ‘And I need your address, Elizabeth.’

      ‘Beth,’ she loudly corrected, and realised she was shouting again but she hated being called Elizabeth—that was the name her parents used when they were cross.

      Oh, and they’d been cross of late.

      ‘We need your address...’

      Beth gave it.

      ‘You’re a long way from home,’ Valerie commented.

      ‘I’m in London tonight for work.’

      ‘We need a next of kin.’ The receptionist was still asking questions but Beth was finding it hard to focus let alone answer and she shook her head. She did not want them contacting her parents about the baby when they had been so angry and had said they wanted nothing to do with it but then Valerie spoke gently.

      ‘If something happens to you, Beth, we need to know who to call.’

      And though she was currently upset with her parents she thought of them in the middle of the night being called with bad news and she didn’t want that for them.

      ‘Rory...’ Beth gasped.

      He would know how to handle them.

      ‘Is that your partner?’ the receptionist checked.

      ‘No, he’s my ex but he’s a very good family friend, he knows all that’s happened, he’d know how best to tell my parents if something happened to me.’

      ‘What’s his phone number?’

      ‘It’s on my phone.’

      She found the number and then watched in terror as a resuscitation cot was brought into the cubicle and plugged in.

      ‘It’s too soon,’ Beth pleaded. ‘Can’t you give me something to stop it?’

      Surely they were going to stop the labour—she was only twenty-nine weeks.

      ‘It’s okay.’ Valerie put an arm around her.

      ‘I need to push.’

      ‘Don’t push,’ the nurse said. ‘Wait till the doctor’s here.’

      Beth screwed her eyes closed and fought not to push. It was like trying to hold back the tide yet she did all she could to hold her baby in.

      Everything was going wrong.

      Every last thing.

      Because she opened her eyes and suddenly there he was.

      Elias.

      Her one-night stand, the father of her child.

      ‘No.’

      She actually tried to launch herself and get off the trolley and declared she was going home.

      She simply wanted to run.

      Yet there was nowhere to go, the logical part of her brain knew that, and so did he for he caught her hands and held her loosely by the wrists as she knelt up on the trolley with the hastily put-on gown falling over her shoulders, and she knew her breasts were exposed.

      And she cared not a jot any more.

      He was so calm that she actually thought he might not recognise her.

      Beth knew she would never forget him.

      She had never thought she would see Elias again and yet she was staring into those grey eyes that had so easily seduced her and it was all too much to take in.

      He was wearing rumpled navy scrubs and his hair was longer than it had been when they’d met. Now it fell forward and she wanted to push it back from his eyes, and she saw that unlike when they had met he was unshaven.

      He looked as if he had just woken up.

      ‘Beth,’ he said. ‘The obstetrics team is on the way. For now, though, it’s me.’

      She just stared back.

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