The Prince's Love-Child (The Royal House of Cacciatore 2)

But now was not the time to examine his reaction to impending fatherhood—there were matters far more urgent and pressing.

‘The child must be born on Mardivino,’ he said quietly.

‘Must?’ She stared at him.

‘Do not fight me on this, Lucy,’ he warned.

‘But you don’t live there!’ she protested. ‘You left your Royal life behind a long time ago—remember? You told me!’

‘So I did.’ His mouth hardened. ‘But things are different now.’

How was it that he had slipped so quickly back into a traditional outlook? As if all those years of freedom had not happened. For a moment he felt dazed by the realisation of how indelibly his birthright had stamped its mark on him.

She tried one last attempt, knowing that she was fighting against something, but not quite sure what it was. ‘It doesn’t have to be difficult, Guido. Lots of women manage on their own—we can work something out.’

But he cut across her opposition as if it was of no consequence. ‘Not only must the birth take place within the Principality,’ he continued, ‘it must also be legitimised.’

Her head was spinning now. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Your Prince has come, cara,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘And he intends to marry you.’

Marry her? With a shotgun held to his back? ‘No!’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, and even though it was silky soft, there was no mistaking the undercurrent of steely purpose. ‘You may wish to play the courageous single mother, but the reality will be an entirely different matter. It isn’t going to happen. My baby will not be born illegitimately—he or she will inherit all that is their due, but that can only be achieved within wedlock.’

She stared at him, frozen into immobility by the iron edge of his words and the realisation that she had never seen Guido like this before. So cold and so powerful, and so…determined.

‘Guido—’

‘Don’t even think of fighting me on this one, Lucy,’ he said harshly. ‘The odds are stacked highly enough in my favour to make it a laughably one-sided battle.’ There was a pause to drive home his words, as if one was needed. ‘Which I would win.’

She looked into his eyes and knew that he meant it. Which meant that Lucy Maguire was going to marry a Prince.

It should have been a dream come true—but the reality was something different. It meant being shackled to a sexy but cold-blooded aristocrat. A man who didn’t love her.

No, it was not a dream.

It was a living nightmare.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THEY were to be married quietly on Mardivino, on this blustery autumn day, with only their immediate families in attendance—including Lucy’s rather bewildered parents, who kept looking around them as if expecting to wake up at any second. You and me both, she thought, rather grimly.

Her brother was a different matter, taking the whole bizarre situation in his stride and joking to her that she’d done ‘better than I could ever have imagined, sis!’ As if she’d won the Lottery!

But she knew that Benedict meant what he said. And that he actually liked Guido and thought he was a good man.

Well, of course he did! Hadn’t Guido gone out of his way to win him round? Taking him sailing around the island and introducing him to glamorous women, and laying on bucketfuls of charm—which would have had even the most hardened cynic eating out of his hand?

Come to think of it he had been equally persuasive in winning Lucy over, getting her to agree to marry him—but in her case he had certainly not used charm. She wondered that he had not even bothered to try.

Perhaps he’d had no stomach for it, or perhaps he had instinctively realised that she would shrink away from it. For charm was nothing but a superficial and shallow veneer which people used as a front to hide their true feelings.

Instead, he had argued with cold and remorseless logic, citing historic precedent, making her dizzy with facts about the Mardivinian royal family and its progeny.

She supposed that if anything could be said in his favour it was that he hadn’t bothered to dress up their proposed marriage to be something it wasn’t.

And in the end she had been too tired to fight him, recognising that the full weight of a powerful regime would swing behind him if she dared to oppose his wishes. But perhaps pregnancy made you more vulnerable and susceptible—for she had found herself unable to let her own self-interest deny her baby its rights. What woman in her right mind would?