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change course—”
    “We’re almost to St. Pierre,” Aaron pointed out. “We’ll be landing soon.”
    Panic raised her voice a couple of octaves. “Once we drop off the king, we can leave again—”
    “No,” he said. “There’s a doctor meeting us at the palace. You need to be checked out.” Even after he’d rescued her from where she’d been held hostage, she’d been through a lot.
    She shook her head, tumbling those long tresses of golden brown hair around her shoulders. “I need to protect Gabby.”
    He knew it wasn’t just because she was the princess’s bodyguard. But he had to remind her, “You need to take care of our baby first.”
    “We shouldn’t have let Whit go alone,” she said. “He’s hurt too badly to protect her.”
    “We hadn’t thought she would need protecting,” Aaron reminded his fiancée.
    “We did,” Charlotte insisted, squeezing his fingers in her distress. “Six months ago someone left her that note threatening her life. That’s why I sent her into hiding.” And set herself up as a decoy for the princess. Her plan had worked. Too well.
    “But nobody knows where she is.” Or the paparazzi would have found her, no matter where she’d been. And there would have been photographs of Princess Gabriella on every magazine and news show, as there had always been.
    “If those shots were being fired at her,” Charlotte said, her beautiful face tense with fear, “then someone must have figured it out.”
    “How?” he asked. “Nobody but you and I and Whit know where she is.”
    She glanced to the back of the plane. “After I talked to my aunt and confirmed that Gabby was actually still with her at the orphanage, I told the king. I thought he had a right to know.”
    “Was he furious?” Aaron asked. Charlotte had done much more than just violating protocol as a royal bodyguard.
    “He called St. Pierre and sent out another plane with a security team as Whit’s backup.” She drew in a deep breath, as if trying to soothe herself. “They should be there within a few hours.”
    Aaron had heard the shots. He wasn’t reassured. In fact he was disheartened. He had wasted so many years being mad at Whit for something that hadn’t been the man’s fault. Had he repaired his friendship only to lose his friend?
    If Princess Gabriella had been involved in the shooting, then Whit would have stepped in and done whatever was necessary to try to save her life—including giving up his own.
    By the time the security team made it to where Whit and Gabriella were, they would probably be too late to help. With Whit injured and unarmed, it was probably already too late.

Chapter Four
    Gabby pressed her palms and splayed her fingers across her belly, as if her hands alone could protect her baby from the bullets that began to fly around the airport—ricocheting off the metal roof and cement floor. She wanted to help Whit, but she had no weapon—nothing to save him. So she ran.
    He returned fire as he hurried with her to the entrance. Keeping his body between her and the men, he used himself as a human shield. She would have been moved—if she hadn’t known that it was bodyguard protocol to put themselves between their subject and any potential threat.
    These men weren’t potentially a threat; they were definitely a threat. To Whit more than to her. They probably wouldn’t want to risk fatally injuring her—if they intended to kidnap her. It was hard to collect a ransom on a dead hostage. But if they’d been hired by whoever had left her that letter, then she was in as much danger as Whit was.
    Maybe more.
    She ran out of the building, but the street was as deserted now as the airport was. All the people had scattered and left. It was no safer out here than it had been in the deserted metal building.
    But she had Whit. He’d stayed with her, his hand on her arm—urging her forward—away from the danger. But the danger followed them. Shots continued to ring out. Whit’s gun