Royally Endowed(78)

After the Archbishop pronounces them man and wife, when they’re supposed to turn and walk down the aisle together, Henry gestures to Olivia. “Women in labor and children soon-to-be born, first.”

Nicholas mutters under his breath, “About bloody time.”

Then he walks over to my sister, swoops her up into his arms and carries her down the aisle.

The sight is one for the history books.

Logan grabs my hand and we chase after them. Nicholas slides Livvy into the back of one of the Rolls-Royces and Logan tells the guard at the wheel, “Move over. I’m driving.”

On the way to the hospital, the hardest contraction, yet, hits. Olivia scrunches her eyes and breathes through it. After it passes, she collapses against the seat.

“Oh my God…this suuuuucks,” she says, like a true lady.

Because that’s my sister; the Royal Duchess.





Queens don’t wait in maternity waiting rooms. Neither do Crown Princes or their newly minted princesses or any royals. It would cause chaos. It’s not tradition.

The sister waits in the waiting rooms, with her boyfriend, and dad. I called my dad from the car, on the way to the hospital. There was a bunch of security—special badges, guards at every door. This hospital has delivered every royal since Nicholas’s father, so they know what’s up.

For the next eleven hours, we drink bad coffee, eat cold sandwiches . . . and wait. At one point, I fall asleep against Logan’s chest and I dream that he asks my dad’s permission to marry me.

I mean to tell Logan about it when I wake up. But before I can, Nicholas is there—walking through the hospital doors from the maternity ward, not looking like a prince at all. He looks young and exhausted, with disheveled hair and a ten-o’clock shadow on his chin.

He looks like a new father—ecstatic and amazed—with unicorns and rainbows practically dancing in his eyes.

“It’s a boy!” he tells the three of us—we’re the first to know. “And a girl!”

Logan shakes his hand and pounds his back, and he gets hugs from me and my dad.

The perk of actually being on the front lines of the maternity waiting room is that you get first crack at the babies. You see them, hold them, know their names before anyone else.

I hold Lilliana Amelia Calista Ernstwhile Pembrook first. And she’s perfect. Logan stands next to me and together we gaze down at her little round face, her patch of black hair, eyes shaped just like my sister’s, though it’s still too early to tell what color they’ll be—gray green or dark blue.

Then my dad and I switch.

And I fall in love with Langdon Henry Eric Thomas Pembrook. He’s just as perfect as his five-minutes-younger sister. His hair is just as black, but I think I see more of Nicholas in him around the eyes.

Olivia is sleepy, but so happy. She can’t stop looking at them, and I can’t blame her.

While my dad and I sit next to Olivia on one side of the bed, Logan and Nicholas move to the window and start talking about where the press will stand when they leave the hospital in a few days. The photographs that will be taken, the no-fly zone over the hospital. Because as perfect and beautiful and innocent as the twins are, these aren’t just babies.

They never will be.

Already, everyone wants a piece of them.

“I don’t like it.” Logan crosses his arms and shakes his head. “It’s too difficult to tell who’s there, who can get close.”

He was protective before, but Cain Gallagher’s breach of security has made him even more ferocious about protecting us, even though it’s technically not his job anymore.

“This is how it always goes,” Nicholas laments. “Leaving the hospital is a publicly viewed event. It’s tradition.”

“Start a new tradition. You’ve got a knack for that.”

My brother-in-law sits down in the chair next to Olivia’s bed, holding her hand.

“Invite them to the palace,” Logan suggests. “The guards can check their credentials, pat them down at the gates, and they can take their pictures of you bringing the babies out of the car, into their new home. It’ll be safer.”

Nicholas and Olivia look at each other, then Nicholas kisses her hand.

“Looks like we’ve got a new tradition.”





Queen Lenora is not a hugger. She’s not even an air kisser. She’s more of a head patter, a shoulder tapper.

But babies are . . . well, they’re fucking babies.

They’re beautiful. Adorable. So cute it’s almost painful to look at them. They’re like kittens . . . but human.

But Queen Lenora is really not a hugger. Olivia, however, thinks she’s a holder.

Which is why two weeks later, when the new prince and princess are first presented to Her Royal Great-Grandmama Queen Lenora, at the palace my sister places Lilliana right in her unsuspecting regal arms.