Читать книгу A Bride For The Playboy Prince - Сандра Мартон - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

‘JASON THINKS YOU’RE PREGNANT.’

Lisa almost dropped the toddler-sized dress she had been in the process of folding and slowly turned her head to stare at her sister. They were sitting side by side on the carpet as they sorted out Tamsin’s clothes, deciding which ones would still fit her for the cold winter months ahead. But now the tiny dress dangled forgotten from her fingers as she looked into green-gold eyes so like her own. ‘What...did you say?’

Brittany appeared to be choosing her words with care. ‘Jason says you’ve got the same look I had when I was carrying Tamsin. And I’ve noticed that you’ve stopped wearing your own dresses, which struck me as kind of strange.’ Brittany gave a little wriggle of her shoulders. ‘Since you’ve always told me that wearing your own dresses was your best advertisement. And you’ve never been the kind of woman to slop around in jeans and a loose shirt before.’

Lisa didn’t answer as she put the dress down and picked up a tiny pair of dungarees, knowing she was playing for time but not caring. She didn’t owe Brittany an explanation. Or Jason, for that matter. Especially not Jason—who was so fond of judging other people but who never seemed to take the time to look at his own grasping behaviour.

But Jason’s scrounging was irrelevant right now, because somehow he had unwittingly hit on the truth and passed it on to her sister—and the hard fact remained that she was starting to show. At just over sixteen weeks Lisa guessed that was inevitable. Unless she was still in that horrified state of denial which had settled over her at the beginning, when the countless pregnancy tests she’d taken had all yielded the same terrifying results—but at least they’d explained why she’d felt so peculiar. Why her breasts had started aching in a way which was really uncomfortable. Eventually, she had taken herself off to the doctor, who had pronounced her fit and healthy and then smilingly congratulated her on first-time motherhood. And if Lisa’s response had been fabricated rather than genuine, surely that wasn’t surprising. Because how could she feel happy about carrying the child of a man who no longer wanted her? A man who was about to marry another woman?

‘So who’s the father?’ questioned Brittany.

‘Nobody you know,’ said Lisa quickly.

There was a pause. ‘Not that bloke you used to go out with?’

Lisa stiffened. ‘Which bloke?’

‘The one you were so cagey about. The one you never wanted anyone to meet.’ Brittany sniffed. ‘Almost as if you felt we weren’t good enough for him.’

Lisa bit her lip. It was true she’d never introduced Brittany or Jason to the Prince—and not just that she had been worried that Jason might attempt to ‘borrow’ money from the wealthy royal without any intention of ever paying it back. She’d known there was no future in the relationship and therefore no point of merging their two very different lives.

And she didn’t want to bring Luc into the conversation now. If she told her sister that she was expecting the child of a wealthy prince, Brittany would inevitably tell Jason and she wouldn’t put it past him to go hawking the story to the highest bidder. ‘I’d rather not discuss the father,’ she said.

‘Right.’ Brittany paused. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Do?’ Lisa sat back on her heels and looked at her sister blankly. ‘What do you mean, do?’

‘About the baby, of course! Does he know?’

No, he didn’t know—though she’d done her best to try to contact him. Lisa chewed on her lip. Even that had been another stark lesson in humiliation. She had tried to ring him on the precious number she still had stored in her phone—but the number was no longer in service. Of course it wasn’t. So she’d summoned up all her courage to telephone the palace in Mardovia, somehow managing to get through to one of his aides—a formidable-sounding woman called Eleonora. But Eleonora had stonewalled all her attempts to speak to the Prince and, short of blurting out her momentous news on the phone, Lisa had eventually given up—because how could she possibly disclose something like that to a member of Luc’s staff?

And if she was being totally honest, she had been slightly relieved, thinking perhaps it was better this way. He was due to marry another woman. Someone called Princess Sophie—a woman who had never done her any harm. How could she ruin her life by announcing that an impulsive one-night stand had resulted in another woman carrying his baby? Damn Luc Leonidas, Lisa thought viciously. Damn him for not bothering to tell her about his impending marriage before he’d jumped into bed with her.

‘No,’ Lisa said, steeling herself against the curiosity in her sister’s eyes. ‘He doesn’t know and he isn’t going to. He doesn’t want to see me again and he certainly doesn’t want to be a father to my child. So I’m going to bring this baby up on my own and it’s going to be a happy and well-cared-for baby.’

‘But, Lisa—’

‘No, please. Don’t.’ Lisa shook her head, feeling little beads of sweat at the back of her neck and so she scooped up the great curtain of curls and waved it around to let the air refresh her skin. She looked pointedly at her sister, her gaze intended to remind her of the harsh truth known to both of them. That a child brought up in a home with a resentful man was not a happy home. ‘I’m not asking your opinion on this, Brittany,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m just telling you how it’s going to be.’

There was a pause. ‘Is he married?’

Not yet.

‘No comment. Like I said, the discussion is over.’ Lisa gave a grimace of a smile as she rose to her feet. ‘But you’ve given me an idea.’

‘I have?’ Brittany looked momentarily puzzled.

‘Yes. I keep saying that you’re much cleverer than you give yourself credit for.’ Lisa narrowed her eyes, her mind suddenly going into overdrive. ‘And if I’m going to spend the next few months getting even bigger, I might as well do it in style.’

Brittany’s green-gold eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that although I’ve had a few extra orders since I went to that fancy wedding back in August, it hasn’t been enough to take the business forward as I’d hoped. What I need is a completely new direction—and I think I’ve just found one.’ Lisa sucked in a deep breath as she patted her expanding stomach. ‘Think about it. There aren’t many really fashionable maternity dresses on the market right now—especially ones in natural fabrics, which “breathe”. I can work in more fabrics than just my trademark silk. Cotton and linen and wool. There’s an opportunity here staring me right in the face, and it seems I’m the perfect person to model my new collection.’

‘But...won’t that get publicity?’

Lisa smiled and it felt like the first genuine smile she’d given in a long time. ‘I sincerely hope so.’

‘You aren’t afraid that the father will hear about it and come to find you?’

Lisa shook her head. No. That was one thing she wasn’t worried about. Luc certainly wouldn’t be trawling the pages of fashion magazines now that he’d turned his back on his playboy life and locked himself away on his Mediterranean principality. Luc had made his position very clear.

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘He won’t find out.’

She sat back on her heels and as a rush of something like hope flooded through her, so did a new resolve. She needed to be strong for her baby and that wasn’t going to happen if she sat around wailing at the unfairness of it all. She was young, fit and hard-working and she had more than enough love to give this innocent new life which was growing inside her.

Her baby would be happy and well cared for, she vowed fiercely. No matter what it took.

* * *

Luc sat at his desk feeling as if he had just opened Pandora’s box. The blood pounded inside his head and his skin grew clammy. There must be some kind of mistake. There must be. He had been bored. Why else would he have tapped Lisa’s name into the search engine of his computer? Yet wasn’t the truth something a little more unpalatable? That he couldn’t get her out of his head, no matter how hard he tried.

Nearly six months had passed since he’d seen her and he had been eaten up with guilt about what had happened just before he’d left London. He had broken his self-imposed celibacy with his ex-lover, instead of the woman he was due to marry. But he was over that now and the date for his wedding to Sophie was due to be announced next week. It was the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, and he intended to embrace it wholeheartedly. And that was why he had typed Lisa’s name into the search engine—as a kind of careless test to see whether he could now look on her with indifference.

A muscle at his temple flickered as once again he stared with disbelief at the screen. He was no stranger to shock. He had lost his mother in the most shocking of circumstances—and in some ways he had lost his father at the same time. He had thought nothing would ever rock him like that again, but a faint echo of that disbelief reverberated through him now. He stared at the image in front of him and his mouth dried. A picture of Lisa at a fashion show. Her lustrous caramel curls were pulled away from her face and her eyes and skin seemed to glow with a new vitality—but it hadn’t been that which had made his blood run cold.

He stared at her swollen belly. At the hand which lay across her curving shape in that gently protective way which pregnant women always seemed to adopt. Features hardening into a frown, he read the accompanying text.

DESIGNER LAUNCHES SWELL NEW LINE!

Lisa Bailey, famous for the understated dresses which captivated a generation of ‘Ladies Who Lunch’, last night launched her new range of maternity wear. And stunning Lisa just happened to be modelling one of her own designs!

Coyly refusing to name the baby’s father, the six-months-pregnant St Martin’s graduate would say only that, ‘Women have successfully been bringing up children on their own for centuries. It’s hardly ground-breaking stuff.’

Ms Bailey’s collection is available to buy from her Belgravia shop.

Luc sat back in his chair.

Lisa, pregnant? He felt the ice move from his veins to his heart. It couldn’t be his. Definitely not his. He shook his head as if his denial would make it true, but memories had started to crowd into his mind which would not be silenced. Her heated claim that there had been no other lover than him since they’d been apart—and he had believed her, because he knew Lisa well enough to realise she wouldn’t lie about something like that. Six months pregnant. He sat back in his chair, his heart pounding as he raked a strand of hair away from his heated face. Of course it was his.

Lisa Bailey was carrying his baby.

His baby.

Disbelief gave way to anger as he shut down the computer. Why the hell hadn’t she told him? Why had she left him to find out in such a way—and, just as importantly, who else knew?

He reached out for the phone, but withdrew his hand again. He needed to think carefully and not act on impulse, for this was as delicate a negotiation as any he had ever handled. Using the phone would be unsatisfactory and there was no guarantee the call wouldn’t be overheard by someone at her end. Or his. It occurred to him that she might refuse to speak to him—in fact, the more he thought about it, the more likely a scenario that seemed, for she could be as stubborn as hell.

Leaning forward, he pressed the buzzer on his desk and Eleonora appeared almost immediately.

‘Come in and close the door.’ Luc paused for a moment before he spoke. ‘I want you to cancel everything in my diary for the next few days.’

Her darkly beautiful face remained impassive. ‘That might present some difficulties, Your Royal Highness.’

Luc regarded her sternly. ‘And? Is that not what I pay you for—to handle the tricky stuff and smooth over any difficulties?’

‘Indeed.’ Eleonora inclined her dark head. ‘And does Your Royal Highness wish me to make any alternative arrangements to fill the unexpected spaces in your diary?’

Luc’s mouth flattened as he nodded. ‘I need to fly to Isolaverde and afterwards I want the plane on standby, ready to take me to London.’

‘And am I allowed to ask why, Your Royal Highness?’

‘Not yet, you’re not.’

Eleonora bit her lip but said nothing more and Luc waited until she had left the office before slowly turning to stare out of the window at the palace gardens. Already the days hinted at the warm weather ahead, yet his heart felt as wintry as if it had been covered with layers of ice. He couldn’t bear to sit here and think about the unthinkable. He wanted to go to England now. To go to Lisa Bailey and...and...

And what? His default mechanism had always been one of action, but it was vital he did nothing impulsive. He must think this through carefully and consider every possibility which lay open to him.

The following morning he flew to Isolaverde for the meeting he was dreading and from there his jet took him straight to London—but by the time he was sitting in his limousine outside Lisa’s shop, his feelings of disbelief and anger had turned into a clear focus of determination.

The evening was cold and a persistent drizzle had left the pavements shining wet, with a sickly orange hue which glowed down from the streetlights. In the window of Lisa’s shop was a pregnant mannequin wearing a silk dress, her hand on her belly and a prettily arranged heap of wooden toys at her feet. Luc had sat and watched a procession of well-heeled women being dropped off by car or by taxi, sheltered from the rain by their chauffeurs’ umbrellas as they walked into the shop. Business must be booming, he thought grimly.

He forced himself to wait until the shop closed and a couple of women who were clearly staff had left the building. As Luc waited, a passing police officer tapped on the window of the limousine, discreetly overlooking the fact that it was parked on double yellow lines once he was made aware of the owner’s identity.

He waited until the lights in the shop had been dimmed and he could see only the gleaming curls of the woman sitting behind a small desk—and then he walked across the street and opened the door to the sound of a tinkly bell.

Lisa glanced up as the bell rang, wondering if a customer had left their phone behind or changed their mind about an order—but it was nothing as simple as that. It felt like a case of history repeating itself as Luc walked into her shop, only this time there wasn’t a look of curiosity on his face which failed to conceal the spark of hunger in his eyes. This time she saw nothing but fury in their sapphire depths—though when she stopped to think about it, could she really blame him?

Yet she had stupidly convinced herself that this scenario would never happen—as if some unknown guardian angel were protecting her from the wrath of the man who stood in front of her, his features dark with rage. She was glad to be sitting down, because she thought her knees might have buckled from the shock of seeing him standing there—trying to control his ragged breathing. He didn’t have to say a word for her 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 her voice trembling, which suddenly seemed like one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. ‘Because how the hell do you think Princess Sophie is going to feel when you tell her you’re going to be a father?’