Page 74 of The Prince of New York

I sighed, shook my head, and went over to my sister’s agent, patting his shoulder. Then I hunted for my phone, found it on its charger, and gave my sister a call.

“You’re awake!” she answered in chirp. “How did you enjoy sleeping in?”

“It was quite pleasant, actually. The girls are still playing with Angel and your tigers. Terry says you’re not feeling well?”

“My milkshake betrayed me this morning,” she complained.

“When did you stop taking your birth control?”

Silence.

I waited. When my sister didn’t reply, I cleared my throat.

“I can’t answer that question without incurring the wrath of the physician who is on the other side of the room, glaring at me.”

“Please put the physician on the phone.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Rachel,” I warned.

More silence.

“Dr. Stanton, Ian is being bossy, and it’s kind of scary. Make him stop being scary.”

I grinned; Melody would have hugged Rachel into submission should she be pregnant, the problem was less the reality she’d started skipping her birth control and more the lecture she would surely receive.

Dr. Stanton did not appreciate when patients skipped their medications, and Rachel had refused the injected form of birth control.

I now understood why.

Sneaky little sister.

“Just let me talk to Dr. Stanton, Rachel. You can come to my room and help put the girls back to bed because they will surely run out of energy sooner than later.”

“Here, talk to him!” Rachel blurted.

Judging from the clangs and clatters, her phone went on an adventure, bouncing off several hard objects.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Stanton asked a few moments later.

“Pretty good. Sleeping in did wonders for me. Have Melody check to see if Rachel is pregnant. Knowing my sister, she’s been off her birth control for a while. What’s an extra pregnant woman in this palace?”

Dr. Stanton made a thoughtful sound, and my sister squealed.

I could only assume the physician had gone in, cornering and capturing my sister.

“Goodness gracious, Rachel. It’s a pregnancy test, not your execution. If you wanted the birth control to work, you would have been taking it. Is your husband aware that you were not taking your medications?”

“He might be an accomplice,” my sister mumbled.

“Go pester His Royal Majesty of Maine, have him check you, and then go see Melody before going back to work. Idiot queens who skip their birth control need to be taking vitamins, and I have not seen a single vitamin consumed.”

After a minute or two of silence, Dr. Stanton heaved a sigh. “Seriously?”

I could make a few guesses, and it involved my sister having acquired prenatal vitamins on the sly. “This is a woman who hitchhiked across the Royal States before stealing a Californian prince,” I reminded the woman. “Sneaking vitamins and stopping her birth control is child’s play to her. Please tell my sister that I’m going to ruthlessly use her and her unborn child to distract people from my little girls.”

“There is a plague of twins in this palace,” Dr. Stanton muttered.

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