Crowned for the Prince's Heir

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.’