A Bride For The Playboy Prince: The perfect royal romance to celebrate Harry and Meghan’s wedding. Sandra Marton
to know why he was here; it was as obvious as the swell of her belly, which he was staring at like a man who had just seen a ghost.
Don’t be rash, she reasoned, telling herself this was much too important to indulge her own feelings. She had to think about the baby and only the baby.
‘Luc,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
He lifted his gaze from her stomach to her face as their eyes met in a silent clash. ‘Weren’t you?’ he said grimly. ‘What’s the matter, Lisa? Surely you must have known I would turn up sooner or later?’
She licked her suddenly dry lips. ‘I tried not to think about it.’
‘You tried not to think about it?’ he repeated. ‘Is that why I was left to discover via social media that you’re pregnant?’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘I don’t care what you did or didn’t mean because you’re going to have a baby.’ Ruthlessly, he cut across her words. But for the first and only time since she’d known him, he seemed to be struggling with the rest of the sentence, because when finally he spoke, he sounded choked. ‘My baby.’
Lisa could feel the blood draining from her face and thought how wrong this all seemed. A miracle of life which should—and did—fill her with joy and yet the air around them throbbed with accusation and tension. Her hands were unsteady and she felt almost dizzy, and all she could think was that this kind of emotion couldn’t be good for the baby. ‘Yes,’ she breathed at last, staring down at the tight curve of her belly as if to remind herself. ‘Yes, I’m having your baby.’
There was an ominous silence before he spoke again. A moment when he followed the direction of her gaze, staring again at her new shape as if he couldn’t believe it.
‘Yet you didn’t tell me,’ he accused. ‘You kept it secret. As if it was your news alone and nobody else’s. As if I had no right to know.’
‘I did try to tell you!’ she protested. ‘I tried phoning you but your number had changed.’
‘I change my number every six months,’ he informed her coldly. ‘It’s a security thing.’
Lisa pushed a handful of hair away from her hot face. ‘And then I phoned the palace and got through to one of your aides. Eleonora, I think her name was.’
Luc’s head jerked back. ‘You spoke to Eleonora?’
‘Yes. And she told me that you weren’t available. Actually, it went further than that. She said I wasn’t on your list of telephone contacts. If you must know she made me feel like some pestering little groupie who needed to be kept away from the precious Prince at all costs.’
Luc let out a long sigh. Of course she had. Eleonora was one of his most fiercely loyal subjects, and part of her role had always been to act as his gatekeeper, and never more so than when he’d returned to Mardovia following his illicit night with Lisa. When he’d been full of remorse for what he’d done but unable to shake off the erotic memories which had clung to his skin like the soft touch of her fingers. He had thrown himself into his work, undertaking a punishing schedule which had taken him to every town and city on the island. And he had instructed his fiercely loyal aide not to bother him unless absolutely necessary.
‘You could have written,’ he said.
‘What, sent you a postcard, or a letter which was bound to be opened by a member of your staff? Saying what? Dear Prince Luciano, I’m having your baby?’ Her gaze was very steady. ‘You told me you were going to marry another woman. You made it very clear you never wished to see me again. And after you’d gone, I found a card on my bedroom floor—a card from some Hollywood actress you must have met at the wedding. My lowly place in the pecking order was confirmed there and then.’
‘I could tell you that I took the card simply as a politeness with no intention of contacting her again, but that is irrelevant,’ he gritted out. ‘Because the bottom line is that you’re pregnant, and we’re going to have to deal with that.’
She shook her head. ‘But there’s nothing to deal with. You don’t have to worry. I have no wish to upset your fiancée or your plans for the future. And lots of women have children without the support of men!’ she finished brightly.
‘So you said in your recent interview,’ he agreed witheringly.
‘And it doesn’t matter what you say.’ She looked at him defiantly, because defiance made her feel strong. It stopped her from crumpling to the ground and just opening her mouth and howling. It stopped her from wishing he would cradle her in his arms, like any normal father-to-be—his face full of wonder and tenderness. She licked her lips. ‘Because when it boils down to it, this is just a baby like any other.’
‘But that’s where you’re wrong, Lisa,’ he negated softly. ‘It is different. This is not just a baby. The child you carry has royal blood running through its veins. Royal Mardovian blood. Do you have any idea of the significance of that?’ His face hardened. ‘Unless that was the calculated risk you took all along?’
She stared at him in confusion. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘No?’ The words began to bubble up inside him, demanding to be spoken and, although years of professional diplomacy urged Luc to use caution, the shock of this unexpected discovery was making him want to throw that caution to the wind. ‘Maybe this is what you hoped for all along,’ he accused. ‘I saw your face at the wedding when you started talking about your niece. That dreamy look which suggested you longed to become a mother yourself. I believe women often become broody when they’re around other people’s children. When their body clock is ticking away as yours so obviously is. Is that what happened to you, Lisa? Only instead of saddling yourself with a troublesome partner as your sister seems to have done—maybe you decided to go it alone.’
‘You’re insane,’ she breathed. ‘Completely insane.’
‘Am I? Don’t they say that children are the new accessories for the modern career woman? Was that why you threw yourself at me that night, when I was trying to do the honourable thing of resisting you?’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Was that why you made love to me so energetically—riding me like some rodeo rider on a bucking bronco? Perhaps hoping to test the strength of the condom we used—because you wanted my seed inside you. It is not unknown.’
She stared at him in disbelief as his words flooded over her in a bitter stream. ‘Or maybe I went even further?’ she declared. ‘Perhaps you think I was so desperate to have your child that I went into the bathroom after you’d gone and performed some sort of amateur DIY insemination? That’s not beyond the realms of possibility either!’
‘Don’t be so disgusting!’ he snapped.
‘Me?’ She stared at him. ‘That’s rich. You’re the one who came in here making all kinds of bizarre suggestions when all I wanted was to try to do the decent thing—for everyone concerned. You’re going to marry Sophie and...’ She stood up then, needing to move around, needing to bring back some blood to her cramped limbs. Leaving behind the clutter of her desk, she walked over to a rail of the new maternity dresses which she’d worked so hard on—pretty dresses which discreetly factored in the extra material needed at the front. She’d been feeling so proud of her new collection. She’d taken lots of new orders after the show and had allowed herself the tentative hope that she could carry on supporting Brittany and Tamsin and still make a good life for herself and her own baby. Yet now, in the face of Luc’s angry remarks—her will was beginning to waver.
She straightened a shimmery turquoise dress before forcing herself to meet his gaze. ‘Don’t you understand that I’m letting you off the hook? I don’t want to mess up your plans by lumbering you with a baby you never intended to have. A commoner’s baby. You’re going to be married to someone else. A princess.’ The hurt she’d managed so successfully to hide started to creep up, but she forced herself to push it away. To ask the question she needed to ask and to try to do it without