Confessions Of A Pregnant Cinderella. ABBY GREEN

      Lazaro cleared his throat. He savoured the few seconds before he spoke, aware of every eye turned their way. His father, pretending he didn’t know this was his illegitimate son, about to make an announcement. His half-brother Gabriel was scowling and looking even more brooding and forbidding than he usually did.

      ‘Thank you all for coming here this evening…’

      Lazaro looked at Leonora and smiled. She wasn’t looking at him, though, she was looking into the crowd, slightly transfixed. There was a flush in her cheeks. He exerted a tiny bit of pressure on her waist and she glanced at him and smiled. But it was strained.

      Lazaro ignored the prickling sensation over his skin. Last-minute jitters.

      ‘I know it’s hardly a surprise to many of you, as it’s already appeared in some papers…’ here there was a ripple of laughter ‘…but it gives me great pleasure to formally announce that Leonora Flores de la Vega has consented to be my wife. Invitations to the wedding will be sent out shortly.’

      Lazaro lifted his glass of champagne, about to make a toast to his future wife, when a voice shattered the expectant hush.

      ‘Wait! Stop!’

      It took Lazaro a second to realise that people weren’t looking at them any more. They were all looking to his left-hand side at something. Or someone.

      He glanced around to see that two of his security team were holding back a woman. A petite, red-haired woman. Who looked familiar. Too familiar. He noticed the details dispassionately, as shock flooded his system to see her here, not just in his memory.

      Her blue eyes were huge and slightly wild-looking. Her hair was up in a bun, with tendrils of red and gold falling down around her heart-shaped face. Determined chin. Small straight nose. Full mouth currently in a thin line. White shirt…black skirt.

      He could see the white of her bra under the material. The press of her breasts against the fabric. He’d cupped those breasts in his hands, rubbed his thumbs across her deeply sensitive nipples. She’d shuddered against him when he’d touched her there.

      Heat flooded his body.

      Suddenly the shock galvanised him into action. He let go of Leonora and made a move towards the woman, as if he knew what was about to happen and thought he could stop it. But, no. Before he could reach her, her voice rang out again—loud and clear. The fact that she spoke in Spanish was a detail he didn’t even absorb fully.

      ‘You need to know something. I’m pregnant. With your child.’

      For a long moment nothing seemed to happen. There was a shocked stillness in the air and everyone was frozen. Even the security men holding her arms seemed to go slack.

      She was looking directly at Lazaro, and suddenly it was as if everyone else had disappeared and it was just them in the room.

      She said in a quieter voice, in English, ‘It’s true. I’m pregnant…and it’s yours.’

      Skye O’Hara. That was her name. She’d been a waitress in the restaurant where he’d had dinner after a business meeting in Dublin. He’d noticed her as soon as he’d gone in—something about her, the way she moved and interacted with people, had caught his attention. Which was unusual, because nothing much distracted Lazaro these days. But there had been something very refreshing about her. Open. Unaffected. Natural.

      She’d been dressed much as she was now. Her clothes utterly banal. Not designed in any way to entice a man. And yet she had. With her petite figure and soft curves.

      She’d served him. Pulling a pen out of the bun on the top of her head, flipping over her orders pad to a new page before looking at him. And that had been the moment. Zing. Lazaro had felt it like a thunderbolt. Instant heat and sexual awareness.

      And so had she, judging by the flush on her cheeks and the way her eyes had widened.

      Lazaro’s razor-sharp brain kicked into gear. There were members of the press in this room. His doing. To ensure maximum coverage of his moment of triumph. If he instructed his men to kick this woman out on the street the press would hunt her down, and he could already see the headlines and the lurid sob-story.

      He had no doubt she was just capitalising on the fact that she’d realised who he was. She was on the make. He needed to contain this situation, defuse it and salvage what he could of this evening.

      He put down his glass and stepped down from the dais and went over to her, taking her arm in his hand. It felt very slender. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing here?’

      She went white. He ignored the prick of his conscience. He’d forgotten how petite she was.

      She stuttered. ‘I came…to…to tell you… I couldn’t reach you any other way…we didn’t…you didn’t…we didn’t exchange numbers…’

      He’d given her his card when he’d asked her to join him for a drink. But she’d left it in the wastebasket in the hotel room the following morning.

      Her show of independence the morning after—her determination to go even after he’d offered to order up breakfast—had obviously been an act.

      He could still see her, backing away in her skinny jeans and a loose jumper falling off one shoulder. Her hair down and wild. She’d looked like an art student. She’d looked thoroughly bedded. And he’d wanted her again.

      He’d just come out of the shower with a towel around his waist to find her leaving. ‘Where are you going?’ he’d asked.

      She’d looked up as she’d slipped on her shoes. He could still recall how her eyes had devoured him, lingering on his chest. Making him hard again.

      ‘I should leave… It’s okay. I know how these things go. I know this was just a one-off. You’re not from here.’ She’d waved a hand at the very rumpled bed and a flush had tinged her cheeks. ‘And I really wasn’t expecting this…’

       She’d been a virgin.

      Lazaro had felt a moment of panic at the thought of her slipping out through the door and never seeing her again. Impulsively he’d said, ‘Stay. I’ll order breakfast. There’s no need to rush.’

      She’d looked torn for a moment. And then she’d shaken her head. ‘No, I have things to do. I have to leave.’

      She’d turned around and walked to the door and then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. Her hair had been like a bright flame down her back.

      ‘Just…thank you. I wasn’t expecting what happened to happen. I wasn’t expecting to meet someone like you. But it was lovely.’

      And then she’d slipped out through the door and Lazaro had stood there, stunned and very aroused, for long minutes. ‘It was lovely.’ Not something any woman had ever said to him before after a night of passion so intense he was surprised they hadn’t burnt the suite to ashes.

      That memory mocked him now. It had all been an act. Clearly. And this had been her endgame. He’d been an idiot.

      He took his hand off her arm and spoke to his men. ‘Take her to the office and keep her there until I give further instructions.’

      He didn’t look at her again, just turned away towards the crowd. And, to Leonora, who was looking at him with wide eyes, cheeks leached of colour. He stepped back up onto the dais, not sure which fire to put out first.

      He faced the crowd and held up his hands, forcing a smile. ‘I’m sorry for that interruption. It’s being dealt with.’

      He