Forbidden Prince Read online

  While we are eating, I realize I have thought about her nonstop for the past week. It feels like it’s been years since I’ve seen her, even though it’s been less than a month. I’m not sure what to tell her. That I can’t get her out of my mind? I don’t even know what that means. I’m afraid to disappoint her again. And I’m afraid to hear her say those words that mean she’s walking away again.

  When we’re done eating, I head back to the kitchen to get the crème brûlée from the counter, dotting the candied surface with raspberries. On my way back to her, I take the silver box off the table and hide it in my pocket.

  “Crème brûlée! My favorite!”

  I sit closer to her, and she doesn’t seem to mind. Our knees brush against each other as she taps the caramelized sugar with the edge of her spoon, sighing with pleasure.

  “I’m really glad you came over tonight,” I confess.

  She winks at me. “If I’d known there was crème brûlée, I would’ve walked. Happily. Through snow, even.”

  “Let’s call it an early birthday dinner,” I suggest.

  She smiles at me suddenly. “You remember that? My birthday?”

  I love the way she glows when she smiles. “Of course I remember your birthday,” I insist, though I actually had to look it up. “I wanted to get you something special.”

  I pull the box from my pocket. Her mouth opens, forming a small oval of surprise.

  “Is that for me?”

  “Of course it’s for you. Open it,” I suggest, holding it out toward her.

  She carefully sets the dessert bowl down, reaching out with trembling fingers to take the box from my hand. When her skin brushes against mine, I feel that spark all over again, that electric tingling. My mind is flooded with images of her in my bed, images of her wanting me, the desire plain in her eyes.

  I need to see that again.

  She sucks her breath in through her open mouth as she unwraps the package, slowly opening the box.

  “Ethan… it’s beautiful!”

  “No, you’re beautiful,” I correct her. “This is just a piece of jewelry. Sapphire is your birthstone if I’m not mistaken.”

  She looks up at me with tears in her eyes, blinking stubbornly. She’s trying to hold back, I can tell.

  “Will you put it on me?” she asks in a timid voice, twisting to face away from me. The sight of the bare back of her neck makes my heart ache. Swallowing hard, I take the pendant from her fingers and reach toward the front of her, fastening the tiny clasp against her soft, downy skin. As she releases her hair, the scent of it wafts over me.

  “You’re almost twenty-three now,” I murmur. “The world is your oyster, Ava. Never forget that.”

  She turns back to me, smiling, so close that I can smell the sugar on her breath. She leans forward.

  “The world is my oyster,” she repeats in a whisper. The wide blue eyes focus on mine, so trusting and accepting again. I feel the connection between us reignite, sparking so vividly that I can almost see it in the air.

  “Thank you,” she murmurs. Her hands drift toward my face, stroking my cheek as she leans toward me, pushing herself up on her knees to kiss me. The moment our lips touch, I’m throbbing with desire for her, starving for her taste, desperate to touch her.

  We undress slowly, deliberately, relishing every moment of reconnection. It feels like a lifetime since I held her, and she feels the same, but also different. More solid. More real. I feel like the connection between us goes deeper than it did before, weaving through me like a thread.

  As I lay her down on the sofa, she locks her ankles behind my hips, pulling me closer, flexing her thighs. “Oh how much I wanted you, Ethan!” she groans. “I need you… I want you inside me so much!”

  I almost come, just hearing her say the words. She’s never been so vocal before, always so timid. But here she is now, begging me.

  “Say you want it again,” I groan, lining myself up in front of her, pushing her skirt up over her thighs. She is so wet, she has soaked through the white satin panties that cover her beautiful, pale sex.

  “I want it,” she sighs luxuriously, arching her back. “I want it so much. I want you inside me, please! Right now!”

  “Yes, baby,” I moan, plunging to her middle all at once. We rock together, deliberately, forcefully. She moves her hips in determined circles, taking all of me, swirling me inside her. We come together, crying out at once, filling the room with our sounds.

  She shudders against me, gripping me to her with her legs and arms, clasping around my cock and milking it dry. I feel like I’m falling into her, utterly depleted, completely satisfied.

  I don’t know when we fell asleep. We never even got to open the bottle of wine. I dreamt that she was underneath me, cradled in my arms, sighing and moaning. But in the morning when I wake up, she’s gone. I’m still sticky, tangled up in my discarded trousers, my T-shirt. I walk around the apartment for a moment, thinking that she might be in the shower, but she’s gone. Really gone.

  I’m not sure what to think. I know I felt that connection. She must have felt it too. Then why leave?

  Maybe I’ve misunderstood just how much our parents’ feud means to her. Would she really just discard our connection over their long-ago disagreement?

  For a moment, I let myself believe she was on her way back into my life. And for a moment, I felt hope about a future I didn’t know I wanted.

  But she doesn’t want it, obviously, I remind myself cruelly. How many times is she going to have to tell you that before you get it through your thick skull?

  Chapter Sixteen

  AVA

  “So this is your new apartment? All this?”

  Bea comes in, her hands automatically reaching out to touch everything along the way. It’s like she thinks this is an interactive exhibit at the museum or something.

  “It’s really not all that much,” I explain. “Renting a place down here was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. This is all I could find close to work.”

  Her eyebrows go up. “Not all that much?” she repeats incredulously. “It’s amazing! Come on, you know it’s amazing! How did you even find this kind of apartment downtown? You must really be pulling in the big bucks, huh?”

  I shrug shyly. “I’m definitely not pulling in the big bucks, but yeah…”

  “Did Ethan hook you up with this? Is he in this building or something?” She picks up a set of Russian nesting dolls off the table and immediately starts disassembling them, the hollow wooden pieces clattering against the glass. I find it extremely annoying for some reason, but then, right now strange, random things annoy me. Strange, random things delight me too. Or make me burst into tears in the produce section of Trader Joe’s. My hormones are completely insane.

  “Ethan most definitely had nothing to do with this,” I say, a little more snippy than I meant to. “I just decided that it would be really good idea for me to get my own place, you know? Close to work.”

  She reassembles a couple of dolls, arranging them like they’re having a conversation.

  “Close to work… and far away from your parents and Aden, right?”

  “Can you blame me?”

  She shrugs. “Honestly, no. I don’t blame you one bit. But if it were me…”

  Her voice trails off. If find myself getting irritated and tamp it down. These days, I never know if my emotions are real and justified, or maybe just a little too real and a little too justified.

  “If you have something to say, why don’t you just say it?” I invite her, as politely as I possibly can.

  “It’s just that… I don’t know. If it were me, I might want to be close to my parents. You know, for support or whatever.”

  “My parents are not going to be supportive,” I say matter-of-factly.

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “I absolutely, positively, one hundred percent know that for sure,” I counter.

  She shrugs again, looking out the wind
ow so she doesn’t have to meet my eyes. Suddenly, I’m not entirely happy that I invited her to come along with me to the doctor. She’s going to have an attitude with me all day, and it might just better if I went by myself.

  But when she wanders off toward the kitchen, still touching everything, suddenly I feel a little better. I even feel sorry for my sassy tone of voice since she got here. This is my first apartment. And here’s my best friend, coming to take me to the doctor. It suddenly strikes me as so selfish and unnecessarily cranky of me that I want to cry.

  Also insane. See what I mean? My emotions are bananas.

  “Hey you have a garbage disposal!” she announces, flipping the switch. The machine roars to life, gobbling up whatever is left in the bottom of the sink. Bea looks ridiculously delighted.

  “Oh yeah, it’s practically the Fairmont Hotel in here!” I giggle.

  She is truly impressed, turning on every light switch then snapping them back off again. When she disappears into my tiny bedroom, I pick my purse up off the table. This is going to be fine, I tell myself. She’s here, I’m here, and I need to just expect the best and go for it.

  “Hey your bedroom has a really nice view, too. And another bedroom for baby? Man, you really lucked out! This place is awesome!”

  My cheeks get hot as I bask under her praise.

  “Thanks for saying that. I’m really glad you like it. I’m sorry I was a bitch before.”

  She waves her hand in front of her, brushing the thought away. “Julie has been a bitch to me this entire time, did I tell you that? While she’s trying to get pregnant? She is not even knocked up yet. You’re fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  She picks up her handbag, then pivots and captures me in a surprise hug. She squeezes me tight, jiggling me back and forth a little bit.

  “You’re my hero, did I tell you that?” she whispers. “Everything’s going to be awesome.”

  I don’t know what to say, but all of a sudden I feel like I’m going to cry if I try to say it. So I just smile at her, clamping my lips closed.

  It’s a short taxi ride over to the obstetrician’s office. After I fill out the questionnaire for today, we just sit in the waiting room, looking at everyone in their various stages of pregnancy.

  There are some you really can’t tell, and some others with that nervous look that I think means they’re trying fertility treatments. Some ladies look so swollen and uncomfortable I think they might pop at any second.

  Bea nudges me with her elbow, gesturing toward the lady in the corner who’s got her feet up on the chair next to her, flipping through an old People magazine. She sighs uncomfortably every few seconds, rubbing her swollen ankles against the wool upholstery.

  “That’ll be you in about seven months,” Bea whispers knowingly.

  I want to object, but I think she’s right. That’s my future, right there.

  I guess the nurse assumes that Bea and I are a couple, because nobody even seems to mind that she’s coming with me. Nobody asks any questions at all. They just show us into one of the tiny rooms, offering me a cotton gown and instructions on which clothes I’m supposed to take off, before I hop up on the table.

  Bea takes the plastic model of a uterus with a tiny, upside down fetus in it and pokes at the various fake tissues.

  “Crazy,” she mutters under her breath as I disrobe, balancing on my toes on the cold linoleum floor before I hop up on the paper-covered table.

  When she sits back down in the guest chair, she has a thoughtful look on her face.

  “What?” I ask her.

  “I don’t know,” she shrugs. She taps the plastic baby with her fingernail. “You think it already looks like this?”

  “Jeez, does it?” I wonder aloud, glancing down at my belly. I don’t even really look all that different yet, though my boobs ache and I always feel like I just ate too much. But I haven’t changed enough to be storing something like that, something about the size of a troll doll, have I?

  “This is so freaky,” Bea observes, and I have to agree.

  There’s a brief knock on the door and it opens. Dr. Lopez comes in, smiling broadly. Her high heels click against the linoleum floor.

  “Ava Harrison?” she asks, glancing at the clipboard with my medical records.

  “That’s me,” I confirm.

  “Great, that’s great,” she coos. She pulls over a rolling chair and sits down. “Just lie back, I’m going to do a quick exam and then we can ultrasound you, if that’s all right? Just to make sure everything is progressing.”

  “Oh! Ultrasound!” Bea exclaims, clapping her fingertips together. “This is exciting!”

  “Oh, you guys are great couple,” Dr. Lopez sighs, smiling as she squirts lube on her gloved fingers. She pushes my knees apart gently and jams her fingers in me, pushing down on my belly while she stares at the far corner of the ceiling, concentrating. I feel like I should let her know that Bea and I are not together, but now doesn’t seem to be the right time.

  “Okay! Everything feels good on the internal… now I’m just going to expose your belly so I can put the transponder gel on, all right?”

  I say okay as she pulls over a rolling cart and a tube of more cold lube that gives me goosebumps as soon as she squirts it on my skin. She takes the triangular transponder and mashes it against me, aiming it this way and that, sliding it back and forth while she makes more thoughtful noises. The black and white screen flickers with strange undulating shapes and whooshing noises fill the room.

  “Hmm.”

  I hold my breath. What did that sound mean? I squint at the TV screen, trying to see what she sees. Is it okay? Is it deformed? Am I having kittens?

  “Is everything all right, Dr. Lopez?” I finally ask, daring to open my mouth.

  She hesitates for another excruciating second before tapping on the keyboard and then standing up, grinning and satisfied.

  “Oh, yes, totally!” she exclaims. She holds out a hand to me that I take so she can pull me back toward sitting. With her dark pink fingernail, she taps the screen.

  “Look at that. Perfectly healthy! And did you hear those heartbeats? Couldn’t ask for anything better.”

  “Well that’s a relief!” I sigh. “Yeah, I guess I did hear the, um, heartbeats?”

  “Heartbeats?” Bea repeats.

  Dr. Lopez nods, her curly hair bouncing in front of her forehead. She looks at us one by one. “Yes, perfectly healthy!”

  “But, Dr. Lopez… more than one heartbeat?”

  Speaking of heartbeats, mine is going crazy.

  She nods again, glancing down at my chart. Then she frowns, pressing her lips. “Oh… This says you’re having a singleton. Well, that’s wrong. You’re having twins!”

  “Twins,” I repeat, my mouth suddenly dry.

  She pats my knee fondly. “Yep. And you can go ahead and get dressed now. I’ll see you in four weeks, all right?”

  As the door closes behind her, I can’t hold it back anymore. I feel all my emotions, all at once. Every emotion I think I’ve ever had, suddenly flooding through me, taking over. I sob uncontrollably, shaking and coughing and gripping the end of the exam table.

  Bea pets my knee, handing me tissue after tissue.

  “Oh, there now, it’s going to be all right…” she says, completely unconvincing. “Twins are great! They’re adorable! You’re going to be so happy about this!”

  “What am I going to do?” I whine, the words unintelligible even to me through the wet sounds of my choking sobs. “I can’t have twins! I’m not even sure I can handle one!”

  “You can, and you will.” she informs me, putting on her superior boss-lady voice. “Now get dressed, and let’s go to lunch. We’ll talk this out. We’ll come up with a plan.”

  Miserably, I shove myself off the exam table and get back into my oversized jeans and Cal State sweatshirt.

  “This sucks. This absolutely sucks.”

  “It doesn’t suck, Ava. Let’s go eat.”

&
nbsp; “It totally sucks.”

  She just rolls her eyes and drags me out of the exam room, back through reception, and back out onto the street. I must look awful, because everybody we pass gazes at me with alarm. I do not even care about that. I deserve to cry. I deserve to have an absolute tantrum. Nothing could be worse.

  She drags me to a noodle shop, pushing me toward the counter where there happen to be two empty spots at the end. In a few moments, I get a nice, hot bowl of ramen in front of me, slices of pork gleaming atop the savory oil slick, festooned with ribbons of green onion and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.

  “Okay, ramen,” I admit, my tears drying on my cheeks. “This is a good idea. Ramen will heal me.”

  “You’re not going to be healed. No healing to be done! You’re not sick, Ava. You’re pregnant.”

  “With twins,” I remind her. Drops of broth dribble down my chin. I don’t even care.

  Bea twirls long noodles around her chopsticks like an expert, popping the bundle directly onto her tongue. She chews thoughtfully for a moment.

  “Okay, well, two can’t be that much more difficult than one. You are ready for one? Right? If you can do that, you can do twins. You are a woman.”

  “Hear me roar,” I respond meekly.

  “But,” she says as she affixes me sternly with her eyes, “you gotta tell your mom.”

  I flinch.

  “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  She turns to me, her eyebrows straight and serious. I try not to look at her, but her eyeballs are burning right into the side of my face. Finally, I glance over.

  “You gotta tell your mom,” she says again. “She deserves to know. She’s gonna find out anyway! And you’re gonna need all the help you can get, whether you want to admit it or not. I know you’re a grown-ass woman, but you gotta.”

  “No I don’t.”

  “Stop being so stubborn! She’s a mom. Both of your parents, as a matter of fact. They’re going to be happy for you. Sure, it’ll be a little weird… what with Ethan and all…”

  “Oh my God. Can I just leave that part out?”