Royally Claimed. Marie Donovan

great. Congratulate me, mes amis!” Jack cried. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I can’t wait to announce to you, my brothers—Lily and I are having a baby.”

      A stunned hush fell over the group.

      “A baby,” Frank finally choked out, fighting back bittersweet memories. “Jack, that’s wonderful.”

      “Amazing.” George’s voice sounded husky, as well. “And how is your lovely wife feeling?”

      “Ah, not so good.” He lowered his voice. “I tried to tell her that illness is a good sign that the hormones are strong and working well, but all she did was call me bad names. In French, no less. She picked it up from the farm workers—I’ll have to take my manager to task for allowing such vulgarity.” But he sounded giddy and not about to punish anybody.

      “Renata and I are going to have a baby,” George announced.

      “What?” they chorused.

      “No, not now. As soon as Renata and I are married. I cannot have the next Prince of Vinciguerra born less than nine months after our wedding. Just my luck he would be a ten-pound baby and nobody would believe he was early.”

      Frank nodded. “Don’t want any doubt about succession to the throne.”

      “Exactly,” George agreed. “But enough about babies—at least for now, Jack. Do keep us posted.”

      “But of course. How is your lovely island, Frank?”

      “About to get lovelier at one o’clock tomorrow.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you remember, but many, many years ago, I stayed the summer here.”

      “Yes?” they answered cautiously, remembering the terrible autumn that had followed when Frank had become a mess, a zombie unable to function without Julia.

      “I don’t know if it is fate or luck, but I am here—and so is she.”

      “She? You mean Julia?” George knew that name well, having listened to Frank cry in his beer for weeks.

      “But how can that be? Did you find her and invite her?” Jack sounded confused.

      “Her parents live here now and she was visiting them. They are back in the States with elderly relatives, and I have her all to myself.”

      “Oh.” George paused for a couple seconds. “And how is Julia?” he asked politely.

      “Single and more beautiful than ever.”

      “Please, Frank, just be careful,” Jack urged him. “People do change after all these years. You are different. She will be different. You cannot expect to pick up where you left off.”

      “Why would I want to do that? We left off with her leaving me, Jack.” Frank was getting irritated. His best friends had found the loves of their lives, and Jack was having a baby, as well.

      “I think Jack is just concerned for you, Frank,” George added, ever the diplomat. “Obviously you are a grown man now, with more experience in matters of the heart. But sometimes you see things with rosecolored glasses, as the American phrase goes. Take a good look at the situation with as much clarity as you can.”

      “Like you two did with Renata and Lily?” he asked pointedly.

      There was silence and then two voices breaking into guilty laughter. “Do as we say, not as we do, Frank,” Jack said.

      “Ah, yes, we did not listen to our own advice, did we, Jack?”

      “Not at all. But it all turned out well in the end.”

      “And maybe it will for me and Julia, too.”

      “If that is your wish, we certainly hope so,” Jack said.

      “I don’t know,” Frank said thoughtfully. “I was a wreck when she left me the first time. Should I risk it?”

      George sighed. “Life is full of risk.” His own parents had not lived past their mid-forties. “All we can do is live for the moment and hope for the best.”

      “Very true. Fate can be cruel,” Jack agreed, having seen plenty of tragedies as a disaster-relief physician. Frank didn’t even want to imagine what he had witnessed over his years of work.

      Frank congratulated Jack on his baby-to-be and wrote down some important wedding dates from George before hanging up. He had just enough time to finish at the villa before he needed to check in at the estates and then go to the wedding in Vinciguerra.

      But as he worked on more estate business, he thought about what George and Jack had said about the vagaries of fate.

      Frank didn’t want any risk. He was a farmer and rancher. Uncertainty was dangerous. The seasons turned, the crops were planted and harvested, animals were born and grew. The Dukes of Aguas Santas were born and grew. And died, like his own father twenty years before.

      But Frank was the last and only Duke. Without him, there were only his sisters, who were uninterested and unprepared to run the estate. And to maintain everything until their children were old enough? Almost impossible. Without proper management, his estates would decline and be sold, the title of Duke of Aguas Santas a title in name only for his oldest nephew.

      He drummed his fingers on the table. Until meeting Julia again, he had planned to court his sister’s friend, Paulinha. Now that plan was on the scrap heap. Julia was the only woman who made him feel, made him alive. But as his friends had so unwelcomely pointed out, people changed. Maybe he and Julia had changed enough that they could stay together this time.