Читать книгу Royals: Chosen By The Prince - Rebecca Winters, Cara Colter - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU have got to stop crying!’ Exasperated and concerned, Nicky put her arms round Holly. ‘And—well—it isn’t that serious, really.’

‘Nicky, I’m pregnant! And it’s the prince’s baby.’ Holly turned reddened eyes in her direction. ‘How much more serious can it get?’

Nicky winced. ‘Isn’t it too soon to do a test? It could be wrong.’

‘It isn’t too soon. It’s been over two weeks!’ Holly waved a hand towards the bathroom. ‘And it isn’t wrong. It’s probably still on the floor where I dropped it if you want to check, but it doesn’t exactly give you a million options. It’s either pregnant or not pregnant. And I’m definitely pregnant! Oh God, I don’t believe it. Once—once—I have sex and now I’m pregnant. Some people try for years.’

‘Yes, well, the prince is obviously super-fertile as well as super-good looking.’ Nicky gave a helpless shrug, searching for something to say. ‘You always said you couldn’t wait to have a baby.’

‘But with someone! Not on my own. I never, ever, wanted to be a single mother. It was the one thing I promised myself was never going to happen. It really matters to me.’ Holly pulled another tissue out of the box and blew her nose hard. ‘When I dreamed about having a baby, I dreamed about giving it everything I never had.’

‘By which I presume you mean a father. God, your dad really screwed you up.’ With that less than comforting comment, Nicky sank back against the sofa and picked at her nail varnish. ‘I mean, how could anyone have a kid like you, so kind and loving, and then basically just, well, walk out? And you were seven—old enough to know you’d been rejected. And not even coming to find you after your mum died. I mean, for goodness’ sake!’

Not wanting to be reminded of her barren childhood, Holly burrowed deeper inside the sleeping bag. ‘He didn’t know she’d died.’

‘If he’d stayed in touch he would have known.’

‘Do you mind if we don’t talk about this?’ Her voice high-pitched, Holly rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. ‘I have to decide what to do. I’ve lost my job, and I can’t go home because the press are like a pack of wolves outside my flat. And the whole world thinks I’m a giant slut.’ Dying of embarrassment, her insides twisting with regret, she buried her face in the pillow.

And she was a slut, wasn’t she?

She’d had sex with a total stranger.

And not just sex—recklessly abandoned, wild sex. Sex that had taken her breath away and wiped her mind of guilt, worry, morals.

Whenever Eddie had touched her, her first thought had always been I mustn’t get pregnant. When the prince had touched her the only thought in her head had been more, more…

What had happened to her?

Yes, she’d been upset and insecure about herself after her break up with Eddie, but that didn’t explain or excuse it.

And then she remembered the way the prince had planted himself protectively in front of her, shielding her from the rest of the group. What other man had ever shown that degree of sensitivity? He’d noticed she was upset, shielded her, and then…

Appalled with herself, she gave another moan of regret, and Nicky yanked the sleeping bag away from her.

‘Stop torturing yourself. You’re going to be a great mother.’

‘How can I be a great mother? I’m going to have to give my baby to someone else to look after while I work! Which basically means that someone else will pick my baby up when it cries.’

‘Well, if it’s a real bawler that might be an advantage.’

Holly wiped the tears from her face with a mangled damp hanky. ‘How can it be an advantage? I want to be there for my baby.’

‘Well, perhaps you’ll win the lottery.’

‘I can’t afford to play the lottery. I can’t even afford to pay you rent.’

‘I don’t want rent, and you can sleep on my sofa as long as you need to.’ Nicky shrugged. ‘You can’t exactly go home, can you? The entire British public are gagging for pictures of you. “Where’s the waitress?” is today’s headline. Yesterday it was “royal’s rugby romp”. Rumour has it that they’re offering a reward to anyone who shops you. Everyone wants to know about that kiss.’

‘For crying out loud.’ Holly blew her nose hard. ‘People in the world are starving and they want to write about the fact that I kissed a prince? Doesn’t anyone have any sense of perspective?’ Thank goodness they didn’t know the whole story.

‘Well, we all need a little light relief now and then, and people love it when royalty show they’re human.’ Nicky sprang to her feet. ‘I’m hungry and there’s no food in this flat.’

‘I don’t want anything,’ Holly said miserably, too embarrassed to admit to her friend that the real reason she was so upset was because the prince hadn’t made any attempt to get in touch.

Even though she knew it was ridiculous to expect him to contact her, a small part of her was still desperately hoping that he would. Yes, she was a waitress and he was a prince, but he’d liked her, hadn’t he? He’d thrown all the other people out of the room so that he could be with her, and he’d said all those nice things about her, and then…

Holly’s body burned in a rush of sexual excitement that shocked her. Surely after sex as mind-blowing as that, he might have been tempted to track her down?

But how could he get in touch when the press was staking out her flat? She had a mental image of the prince hiding behind a bush, waiting for the opportunity to bang on her door. ‘Do you think he’s really annoyed about the headlines?’

‘Don’t tell me you’re worrying about him!’ Nicky had her hand in a packet of cereal. ‘He just pulls up his bloody drawbridge, leaving the enemy on the outside!’

Holly bit her lip. She was the one who’d kissed him by the window. She’d had no idea. ‘I feel guilty.’

‘Oh, please! This is Prince Casper we’re talking about. He doesn’t care what the newspapers write about him. You’re the one who’s going to suffer. If you ask me, the least he could have done was give you some security or advice. But he’s left you to take the flak!’

Holly’s spirits sank further at that depressing analysis. ‘He doesn’t know where I am.’

‘He’s a prince,’ Nicky said contemptuously, flopping back down on the sofa, her mouth full of cereal. ‘He commands a whole army, complete with special forces. He could find you in an instant if he wanted to. MI5, FBI, I don’t know—one of that lot. One word from him and there’d be a satellite trained on my flat.’

Shrinking at the thought, Holly slid back into the sleeping bag. ‘Close the blinds.’ What had she done?

‘Well, you can go on hiding if that’s what you want. Or you could give those sharks outside your flat an interview.’

‘Are you mad?’

‘No, I’m practical. Thanks to His Royal Highness, you have no job and you’re trapped indoors. Sell your story to the highest bidder. “My lunchtime of love” or “sexy Santallian stud”?’

Appalled, Holly shook her head. ‘Absolutely not. I couldn’t do that.’

‘You have a baby to support.’

‘And I don’t want my child looking back at the year he was conceived and seeing that his life started with me dishing the dirt on his dad in the papers! I just want the whole thing to go away.’

It was ironic, she thought numbly, that she’d fantasised about this exact moment ever since she was a teenager. She’d longed to be a mother. Longed to have a child of her own—to be able to create the sort of family she’d always wanted.

She’d even lain awake at night, imagining what it must be like to discover that you were pregnant and to share that excitement with a partner. She’d imagined his delight and his pride. She’d imagined him pulling her into a protective hug and fiercely declaring that he would never leave his family.

Not once, ever, had she imagined that she’d be in this position, doing it on her own.

One rash moment, one transgression—just one—and her life had been blown apart. Even though she was in a state of shock, the deeper implications weren’t lost on her. Her hopes of eventually being able to melt back into her old life unobserved died. She knew that once someone spotted that she was pregnant it wouldn’t take long for them to do the maths.

This was Prince Casper of Santallia’s child.

Nicky stood up. ‘I need to buy some food. Back in a minute.’ The front door slammed behind her, and moments later Holly heard the doorbell. Assuming Nicky had forgotten something, she slid off the sofa and padded over to the door.

‘So this is where you’ve been hiding!’ Eddie stood in the doorway, holding a huge, ostentatious bunch of dark-red roses wrapped in cheap cellophane.

Holly simply stared, suddenly realising that she’d barely thought about him over the past two weeks.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here, Eddie.’

He gave a benign smile. ‘I expect it seems like a dream.’ Sure of himself, Eddie smiled down at her. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

‘No. You broke off our engagement, Eddie. I was devastated.’ Holly frowned to herself. Her devastation hadn’t lasted long, though, had it? It had been supplanted by bigger issues—but should that have been possible? Did broken hearts really mend that quickly?

‘I can’t talk about this on the doorstep.’ He pushed his way into the flat and thrust the flowers into her hands. Past their best, a few curling petals floated onto the floor. ‘Here. These are for you. To show that I forgive you.’

‘Forgive me?’ Holly winced as a thorn buried itself into her hand. Gingerly she put the flowers down on the hall table and sucked the blood from her finger. ‘What are you forgiving me for?’

‘For kissing the prince.’ Eddie’s face turned the same shade as the roses. ‘For making a fool of me in public.’

‘Eddie—you were the one partying in that box with your new girlfriend.’

‘She was no one special. We both need to stop hurting each other. I admit that I was furious when I saw you kissing the prince, then I realised that it must have been hard on you, watching me get that promotion and then losing me. But it seems to have loosened up something inside you. A whole new you emerged.’ He grinned like a schoolboy who had just discovered girls. ‘You’ve always been quite shy and a bit prim. And suddenly you were, well, wild. When I saw you kissing him, I couldn’t help thinking it should have been me.’

Looking at him, Holly realised that not once during her entire passionate episode with the prince had she thought ‘this should have been Eddie’.

‘I know you only did it to bring me to my senses,’ Eddie said. ‘And it worked. I see now that you are capable of passion. I just need to be more patient with you.’

The prince hadn’t been patient, Holly thought absently. He’d been very impatient. Rough, demanding, forceful.

‘I didn’t kiss the prince to make you jealous.’ She’d kissed him because she couldn’t help herself.

‘Never mind that now. Put my ring back on your finger, and we’ll go out there and tell the press we’d had a row and you kissed the prince because you were pining for me.’

Life had a strange sense of humour, Holly reflected numbly. Eddie was offering to get back together. But she was already being propelled down a very different path.

‘That isn’t possible.’

‘We’re going to make a great couple.’ He was smugly confident. ‘We’ll have the Porsche and the big house. You don’t need to be a waitress any more.’

‘I like being a waitress,’ Holly said absently. ‘I like meeting new people and talking to them. People tell you a lot over a cup of coffee.’

‘But who wants to be weighed down with someone else’s problems when you can stay at home and look after me?’

‘It can’t happen, Eddie—’

‘I know it’s like a fairy tale, but it is happening. By the way, the flowers cost a fortune, so you’d better put them in water. I need the bathroom.’

‘Door on the right,’ Holly said automatically, and then gave a gasp. ‘No, Eddie, you can’t go in there.’ Oh, dear God, she’d left everything on the floor—he’d see.

Wanting to drag him back but already too late, she stood there, paralysed into inactivity by the sheer horror of the moment. The inevitability was agonising. It was like witnessing a pile-up—watching, powerless, as a car accelerated towards the back of another.

For a moment there was no sound. No movement.

Then Eddie appeared in the door, his face white. ‘Well.’ His voice sounded tight and very unlike himself. ‘That certainly explains why you don’t want to get back together again.’

‘Eddie—’

‘You’re holding out for a higher prize.’ Looking slightly dazed, he stumbled into the living room of Nicky’s flat. Then he looked at her, his mouth twisted with disgust. ‘A year we were together! And we never—you made we wait.’

‘Because it didn’t feel right,’ she muttered, mortified by how it must look, and anxious that she’d damaged his ego. That was the one part of this whole situation that she hadn’t even been able to explain to herself. Why had she held Eddie at a distance for so long and yet ended up half-naked on the table with Prince Casper within thirty minutes of meeting him? ‘Eddie, I really don’t—’

‘You really don’t what?’ He was shouting now, his features contorted with rage as he paced across Nicky’s wooden floor. ‘You really don’t know why you slept with him? Well I’ll tell you, shall I? You slept with him because he’s a bloody prince!’

‘No—’

‘And you’ve really hit the jackpot, haven’t you?’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘No wonder you weren’t excited about my Porsche. I suppose he drives a bloody Ferrari, does he?’

Holly blinked. ‘I have no idea what he drives, Eddie, but—’

‘But it’s enough to know you’re getting a prince and a palace!’

‘That isn’t true. I haven’t even decided what to do yet.’

‘You mean you haven’t decided how to make the most money out of the opportunity.’ Eddie strode towards the door of her flat, scooping up the flowers on the way. ‘I’m taking these with me. You don’t deserve them. And you don’t deserve me. Good luck in your new life.’

Holly winced as the flowers bashed against the door frame and flinched as he slammed the door.

A horrible silence descended on the flat.

A few forlorn rose petals lingered on the floor like drops of blood, and her finger stung from the sharp thorn.

She felt numb with shock. Awful. And guilty, because it was true that she’d shared something with the prince that she hadn’t shared with Eddie.

And she didn’t understand that.

She didn’t understand any of it.

Two weeks ago she would have relished the idea of getting back together with Eddie.

Now she was just relieved that he’d gone.

Sinking onto Nicky’s sofa, she tried to think clearly and logically.

There was no need to panic.

No one would be able to guess she was pregnant for at least four months.

She had time to work out a plan.

Flanked by four bodyguards, gripping a newspaper like a weapon, Casper hammered on the door of the fourth-floor flat.

‘You didn’t have to come here in person, Your Highness.’ Emilio glanced up and down the street. ‘We could have had her brought to you.’

‘I didn’t want to wait that long,’ Casper growled. In the past few hours he’d discovered that he was, after all, still capable of emotion. Boiling, seething anger. Anger towards her, but mostly at himself, for allowing himself to be put in this position. What had happened to his skills of risk assessment? Since when had the sight of a delicious female body caused him to abandon caution and reason? Women had been throwing themselves in his path since he’d started shaving, but never before had he acted with such lamentable lack of restraint.

She’d set a trap and he’d walked right into it.

‘I know she’s in there. Get this door open.’

Before his security team could act, the door opened and she stood there, looking at him.

Prepared to let loose the full force of his anger, Casper stilled, diverted from his mission by her captivating green eyes.

Holly.

He knew her name now.

She was dressed in an oversized, pale pink tee-shirt with a large embroidered polar bear on the front. Her hair tumbled loose over her shoulders and her feet were bare. It was obvious that she’d been in bed, and she looked at him with shining eyes, apparently thrilled to see him. ‘Your Highness?’

She looked impossibly young, fresh and naïve and Casper wondered again what had possessed him to get involved with someone like her.

She had trouble written across her forehead.

And then she smiled, and for a few seconds he forgot everything except the warmth of that smile. The anger retreated inside him, and the only thing in his head was a clear memory of her long legs wrapped around his waist. Casper gritted his teeth, rejecting the surge of lust, furious with himself, and at the same time slightly perplexed because he’d never in his life felt sexual desire for a woman dressed in what looked like a child’s tee-shirt.

This whole scenario was not turning out the way he’d expected.

How could he still feel raw lust for someone who’d capsized his life like a boat in a storm? And why was she staring at him as if they were acting out the final scenes of a romantic movie? After the stunt she’d pulled, he’d expected hard-nosed negotiation.

‘I see you didn’t bother dressing for my visit.’ Ignoring the flash of hurt in her eyes, he strode into the tiny flat without invitation, leaving his security team to ensure their privacy.

‘Well, obviously I had no idea that you’d be coming.’ She tugged self-consciously at the hem of her tee-shirt. ‘It’s been well over two weeks.’

Casper assessed the apartment in a single glance, taking in the rumpled sleeping bag on the sofa. So this was where she’d been hiding. ‘I have a degree in maths. I know exactly how long it’s been.’

Her eyes widened in admiration. ‘You’re good at maths? I always envy people who are good with numbers. Maths was never really my thing.’ Colour shaded her cheeks. ‘But I always had pretty good marks in English. I think I’m more of a creative person.’

At a loss to understand how the conversation had turned to school reports, Casper refocused his mind, the gravity of the situation bearing down on him. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’

Biting her lip, she looked away for a few seconds, then met his gaze again. ‘You’re talking about the fact I kissed you in front of the window, aren’t you?’ Her glance was apologetic. ‘It’s probably a waste of time saying this, but I really am sorry. I honestly had no idea how much trouble that would cause. You have to remember I’m not used to the press. I don’t know how they operate.’

‘But you’re learning fast.’ Her attempt at innocence simply fed his irritation. He would have had more respect for her if she’d simply admitted what she’d done.

But no confession was forthcoming. Instead she gave a tentative smile. ‘Well, I’ve been amazed by how persistent they are, if that’s what you’re saying. That newspaper you’re holding—’ she glanced at it warily ‘—is there another story today? I don’t know how you stand it. Do you eventually just get used to it?’

Her friendliness was as unexpected as it was inappropriate, and Casper wondered what on earth she thought she was doing. Did she really think she could act the way she had and still enjoy civilised conversation?

The newspaper still in his hand, he strolled to the window of the flat and looked down into the street. How long did they have? By rights the press should already have found them. ‘I’ve had people looking for you.’

‘Really?’ Her face brightened slightly, as if he’d just delivered good news. ‘I sort of assumed—Well, I thought you’d forgotten about me.’

‘It would be hard to forget about you,’ he bit out, ‘Given that your name has been in the press every day for the past fortnight.’

‘Oh.’ There was a faint colour in her cheeks, and disappointment flickered in her eyes, as if she’d been hoping for a different reason. ‘The publicity is awful, isn’t it? That’s why I’m not at my flat. I didn’t want them to find me.’

‘Of course you didn’t. That would have ruined everything, wouldn’t it?’ He waited for her to crumble and confess, but instead she looked confused.

‘You sound really angry. I don’t really blame you, although to be honest I thought you’d be used to all the attention by now. D-do you want to sit down or something, sir?’ Stammering nervously, she swept the sleeping bag from the sofa, along with a jumper, an empty box of tissues and a pair of sheer black stockings that could have come straight from the pages of an erotic magazine. Bending over revealed another few inches of her impossibly long legs, and Casper’s body heated to a level entirely inconsistent with a cold February day in London.

‘I don’t want to sit down,’ he said thickly, appalled to discover that despite her sins all he really wanted to do was spread her flat and re-enact their last encounter.

Her gaze clashed with his and everything she was holding tumbled onto the floor. ‘C—can I get you a drink? Coffee? It’s just instant—nothing fancy—’ Her voice was husky and laced with overtones that suggested coffee was the last thing on her mind. Colour darkened her cheeks and she dragged her gaze from his, clearly attempting to deny the chemistry that had shifted the temperature of the room from Siberian to scorching.

‘Nothing.’

‘No. I don’t suppose there’s much here that would interest you.’ She tugged at the tee-shirt again. ‘Sorry—this whole situation is a bit surreal. To be honest, I can’t believe you’re here. I mean, you’re a prince and I’m—’

‘Pinching yourself?’

‘It is weird,’ she confided nervously. ‘And a bit awkward, I suppose.’

‘Awkward?’ Shocked out of his contemplation of her mouth by her inappropriate choice of adjective, Casper turned on her. ‘We’ve gone way beyond awkward.’ His tone was savage, and he saw her take several steps backwards. ‘What were you thinking? What was going on in that manipulative female brain of yours? Was it all about making a quick profit? Or did you have an even more ambitious objective?’

The sudden loss of colour from her face made the delicate freckles on her nose seem more pronounced. ‘Sorry?’

Casper slammed the newspaper front-page up onto the coffee table. ‘I hope you don’t live to regret what you’ve done.’

He watched as she scanned the headline, her soft, pink lips moving silently as she read: Prince’s Baby Bliss. Then her eyes flew to his in startled horror. ‘Oh, no.’

‘Is it true?’ The expression on her face killed any hope that the press had been fabricating the story to increase their circulation figures. ‘You’re pregnant?’

‘Oh my God—how can they have found out? How can they possibly know?’

‘Is it true?’ His thunderous demand made her flinch.

‘Yes, it’s true!’ Covering her face with her hands, she plopped onto the sofa. ‘But this isn’t how—I mean, I haven’t even got my head round it myself.’ Her hands dropped. ‘How did they find out?’

‘They rely on greedy people willing to sell sleaze.’ The bite in his tone seemed to penetrate her shock, and she wrapped her arms around her waist in a gesture of self-protection.

‘I take it from that remark that you think I told them. And I can see this looks bad, but—’ She broke off, her voice hoarse. ‘It wasn’t me. Honestly. I haven’t spoken to the press. Not once.’

‘Then how do you explain the fact that the story is plastered over the front pages of every European newspaper? The palace press-office was inundated with calls yesterday from journalists wanting a comment on the happy news that I am at last to be a father.’ He frowned slightly, disconcerted by her extreme pallor. ‘You’re very pale.’

‘And that’s surprising? Have you read that thing?’ Her voice rose. ‘It’s all right for you. You’re used to this. Your face is always on the front of newspapers, but this is all new to me, and I hate it! My life doesn’t feel like my own any more. Everyone is talking about me.’

‘That’s the usual consequence of selling your story to a national newspaper.’

But she didn’t appear to have heard him. Her eyes were fixed on the newspaper as though he’d introduced a deadly snake into her flat.

‘It must have been Eddie,’ she whispered, her lips barely moving. ‘He knew about the baby. He’s the only one who could have done this.’

‘You disgust me.’ Casper didn’t bother softening his tone, and shock flared in her green eyes.

‘I disgust you?’ She couldn’t have looked more devastated if he’d told her that a much-loved pet had died. ‘But you—I mean, we—’

‘We had sex.’ Casper delivered the words with icy cool, devoid of sympathy as yet another layer of colour fled from her cheeks. ‘And you used that to your advantage.’

‘Wait a minute—just slow down. How can any of this be to my advantage?’ Gingerly she reached for the newspaper and scanned the story. Then she dropped it as though she’d been burned. ‘This is awful. They know everything. Really private stuff, like my dad leaving home when I was seven and the fact I was taken into care, stuff I don’t talk about.’ Her voice broke. ‘My whole life is laid out on the front page for everyone to read. And it’s just horrible.’ Her distress appeared to be genuine and Casper felt a flicker of exasperation.

‘What exactly did you think would happen? That they’d only print nice stories about you? Nice stories don’t sell newspapers.’

‘I didn’t tell them!’ She rose to her feet, her tousled hair spilling over her shoulders. ‘It must have been Eddie.’

‘And what was his excuse? He didn’t feel ready for fatherhood? Was he only too eager to shift the responsibility onto some other guy?’

Puzzled, she stared at him for a moment, and then her mouth fell open. ‘This isn’t Eddie’s baby, if that’s what you’re implying!’

‘Really?’ Casper raised an eyebrow in sardonic appraisal. ‘Then you have been busy. Exactly how many men were you sleeping with a few weeks ago? Or can’t you remember?’

Hot colour poured into her cheeks, but this time it was anger, not embarrassment. ‘You!’ Her voice shook with emotion and her eyes were fierce. ‘You’re the only man I was sleeping with. The only man I’ve ever slept with. And you know it.’

Casper remembered that shockingly intense and intimate moment when he’d been sure she was a virgin. Then he reviewed the facts. ‘At the time I really fell for that one. But virgins don’t have hot, frantic sex with a guy within moments of meeting him, tesoro. Apart from that major miscalculation on your part, you were pretty convincing.’

She lifted her hands to her burning face. ‘That was the first time I’d ever—’

‘Fleeced a billionaire prince?’ Helpfully, Casper finished her sentence, and her eyes widened.

‘You think I set some sort of trap for you? You think I faked being a virgin? For heaven’s sake—what sort of women do you mix with?’

Not wanting to dwell on that subject, Casper watched her with cool disdain. ‘I know this isn’t my baby,’ he said flatly. ‘It isn’t possible.’

‘You mean because it was just the once.’ She sank back onto the sofa, stumbling over the words. ‘I know it’s unlikely, but that’s what’s happened. And you might be a prince, but that doesn’t give you the right to speak to me as though I’m—’ Unsure of herself, her eyes slid to the door, as if she were worried the security guards might arrest her for treason.

‘What are you, Holly? What’s the correct name for a woman who sleeps with a guy for money?’

Her body was trembling. ‘I haven’t asked you for money.’

‘I’m sure what you earned from the newspapers will keep you and Eddie going for a while. What did you have planned—monthly bulletins to keep the income going? Now I understand why you thanked me.’

‘Th—thanked you?’

‘As you kissed me in the window.’ His mouth curved into a cynical smile. ‘You thanked me for what I’d given you.’

‘But that was—’ She broke off and gave a little shake of her head. ‘I was feeling really low that day. The reason you walked over to me in the first place was because I was crying. And I thanked you because you made me feel good about myself. Nothing else. Up to that point in my life, I knew nothing about the way the media worked.’

‘You expect me to believe that it’s coincidence that you’ve been in hiding for over two weeks? You were holding out for the big one. The exclusive to end all exclusives.’ He saw panic in her eyes and felt a flash of satisfaction. ‘I don’t think you have any idea what you’ve done.’

‘What I’ve done? You were there, too! You were part of this, and I think you’re being totally unfair!’ Her hands were clasped by her sides, her fingers opening and closing nervously. ‘I’m having your baby. Frankly, that in itself is enough to make me feel a bit wobbly, without you standing there accusing me of being a—a—’ She choked on the word. ‘And, as if that isn’t bad enough, you’re telling me you don’t believe it’s yours!’

‘You want to know what I think?’ His tone was the same temperature as his heart—icy cold. ‘I think you were already pregnant when you turned on the tears and had sex with me on my table. That’s why you were crying. I think you were panicking about how you’d cope with a baby on a waitress’s salary. And you saw me as a lucrative solution. All you had to do was pretend to be a virgin, and then I wouldn’t argue a paternity claim.’

‘That’s all rubbish! I had sex with you because—’ She broke off and gave a hysterical laugh. ‘I don’t know why I had sex with you! Frankly the whole episode was pretty shocking.’

Their eyes collided, and shared memories of that moment passed between them like a shaft of electricity.

His eyes dropped to her wide, lush mouth and he found himself remembering how she’d tasted and felt. Even though he now realised that she couldn’t possibly have been a virgin, he still wanted her with almost indecent desperation.

‘Stop looking at me like that,’ she whispered, and Casper gave a twisted smile, acknowledging the chemistry that held them both fast. Invisible chains, drawing them together like prisoners doomed to the same fate.

‘You should be pleased I’m looking at you like that,’ he drawled softly, ‘Because good sex is probably the only thing we have going for us.’

Even as his mind was withdrawing, his hands wanted to reach out and haul her hard against him. He saw her eyes darken to deep emerald, saw her throat move as she murmured a denial.

‘I honestly don’t know what’s going on here,’ she muttered. ‘But I think you’d better leave.’

Somehow her continuing claim at innocence made the whole episode all the more distasteful, and the face of another woman flashed into his brain—a woman so captivating that he’d been blind to everything except her extraordinary beauty. ‘What sort of heartless bitch would lie about the identity of her baby’s father?’ Ruthlessly he pushed the memories down, his anger trebling. ‘Don’t you have a conscience?’ His words sucked the last of the colour from her cheeks.

‘Get out!’ Her voice sounded strange. High pitched. Robotic. ‘I don’t care if you’re a prince, just get out!’ Her legs were shaking and her face was as white as an Arctic snowfield. ‘I was so pleased to see you. That day when you comforted me when I was upset—I thought you were a really nice, decent person. A bit scary, perhaps, but basically nice. When I opened the door and saw you standing there I actually thought you’d come to see if I was OK—can you believe that? And now I feel like a complete fool. Because you weren’t thinking about me. You were thinking about yourself. So just go! Go back to your palace, or your castle, or wherever it is you live.’ The wave of her hand suggested she didn’t care where he lived. ‘And do whatever it is you want to do.’

‘You’ve robbed me of that option.’

‘Why? Even if the world does think I’m having your baby, so what? Don’t tell me you’re worried about your reputation. You’re the playboy prince.’ There was hurt in her voice, that same voice that only moments earlier had been soft and gentle. ‘Since when has reputation mattered to you? When you have sex with a woman, everyone just smiles and says what a stud you are. I’m sure the fact that you’ve fathered a child will gain you some major testosterone points. Walk away, Your Highness. Isn’t that what you usually do?’

‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ His voice was thickened and raw. ‘You have no idea what you’ve done.’

What exactly had she done?

Appalled, Holly stared at him.

The anger in his face was real enough. It was clear that he genuinely believed that he couldn’t be the father of her baby. And her only proof was the fact that she’d been a virgin.

But he didn’t believe her, did he?

And could she blame him for that? It was true that she hadn’t behaved like a virgin. The entire encounter had been one long burst of explosive chemistry. It had been the only time in her life that she’d been out of control.

And that chemistry was back in the room, racking up the tension between them to intolerable levels, the electricity sparking between them like a live cable. His gaze dropped to her lips and she saw in his eyes that his mind was in exactly the same place as hers.

It was like a chain reaction. His glance, her heartbeat, harsh breathing—her or him?—and tension—tension like she’d never experienced before.

Streaks of colour accentuated his aristocratic cheekbones and he stepped towards her at exactly the same moment she moved towards him. The attraction was so fierce and frantic that when she heard a ringing sound she actually wondered whether an alarm had gone off.

Then she realised that it was the phone.

Hauling his gaze from hers, Casper inhaled sharply. ‘Don’t answer that.’

Still reeling from the explosion of sexual excitement, Holly doubted she’d be capable of answering it even if she’d wanted to. Her legs were trembling and the rhythm of her breathing was all wrong.

She watched dizzily as he crossed the room and lifted a bunch of papers from the printer.

Mouth grim, shoulders tense, he leafed through them and then lifted his gaze to hers. ‘What were you doing? Profiling your target?’

Having completely forgotten that she’d actually printed out some of the sheets on him, including a particularly flattering picture, Holly suddenly wished she could sink through the floor. ‘I—I was looking you up.’ What else could she say? She could hardly deny it, given that he was holding the evidence of her transgression in his hands.

‘Of course you were.’ He gave a derisive smile. ‘I’m sure you wanted to know just how well you’d done. So, now we’ve cleared that up, let’s drop the pretence of innocence, shall we?’

‘OK, so I’m human!’ Her face scarlet, her knees trembling, Holly ran damp palms over her tee-shirt, wishing she could go and change into something else. He looked like something out of a glossy magazine, and she was dressed in her most comfortable tee-shirt that dated back at least six years. ‘I admit that I wanted to find out stuff about you. You were my first lover.’

‘So you’re sticking to that story.’ He dropped the papers back onto the desk and Holly lifted her chin.

‘It’s not a story. It’s the truth.’

‘I just hope you don’t regret what you’ve done when you have two hundred camera lenses trained on your face and the world’s press yelling questions at you.’

She shrank at the thought. ‘That isn’t going to happen.’

‘Let me tell you something about the life you’ve chosen, Holly.’ Tall and powerfully built, he looked as out of place in her flat as a thoroughbred racehorse in a donkey derby. From the stylish trousers and long cashmere coat, to the look of cool confidence on his impossibly handsome face, everything about him shrieked of enormous wealth and privilege. ‘Everywhere you go there will be a photographer stalking you, and most of the time you won’t even know they’re there until you see the picture next day. Everyone is going to want a piece of you, and that means you can no longer have friends, because even friends have their price and you’ll never know who you can trust.’

‘I don’t need to hear this—’

‘Yes, you do. You won’t be able to smile without someone demanding to know why you’re happy and you won’t be able to frown without someone saying that you’re suffering from depression and about to be admitted to a clinic.’ He hammered home the facts with lethal precision. ‘You’ll either be too thin or too fat—’

‘Too fat, obviously.’ Heart pounding, Holly sank down onto the sofa. ‘Enough. You can stop now. I get the picture.’

‘I’m describing your new life, Holly. The life you’ve chosen.’

There was a tense, electric silence and she licked her lips nervously. ‘What are you saying?’

‘You have made sure that the whole world believes that this is my baby. And, as a result, the whole world is now waiting for me to take appropriate action.’

Pacing back over to the window, he stared down into the street.

Holly had a sudden sick feeling in her stomach. ‘A—appropriate action? What do you mean?’

There was a deathly silence and then he turned, his eyes empty of emotion. ‘You’re going to marry me, Holly.’ The savage bite in his tone was a perfect match for the chill in his eyes. ‘And you may think that I’ve just made your wildest dreams come true, but I can assure you that you’re about to embark on your worst nightmare.’