The Christmas Love-Child

“Protect me? From what?”

He shrugged. “I have enemies. Some hate me for my billions, some hate me for my title. You could be kidnapped for ransom. It’s rare but it does sometimes happen. Or perhaps—” he glanced at her keenly “—you’d be tempted to run off in the crowd.”

“I won’t,” she said tearfully. “Please. I just want to live a normal life!”

“Just what every princess wants,” he said sardonically. “And cannot have.”

He turned away.

“Maksim, please don’t leave me here,” she whispered. “I can’t bear to be left like this.”

He paused at the door, not bothering to turn around.

“Have a pleasant evening, my bride.”

She stood in shock in his office until she heard the front door slam and the silence as his bodyguards and assistants left with him.

She walked slowly up the wide, sweeping stairs to her lonely bedroom.

He’d left her alone on New Year’s Eve.

Was it really possible that Lady Francesca Danvers was in Moscow?

Very possible. The fiery, tempestuous redhead was the woman Maksim had really wanted all along. The woman every man wanted.

She tried to tell herself she didn’t care. But still, her heart felt perilously close to despair.

“Can I bring you something to eat, princess?” Elena said softly, and Grace looked up to see the older Russian woman standing in the doorway. She liked the capable housekeeper, who supervised a staff of twenty and spoke fluent English.

But between nausea and fury, food was the last thing on Grace’s mind. She shook her head.

“You must eat something, Prince Maksim said, for the baby.”

“He’s not the boss of me!” Grace shouted, then she felt instantly abashed about her childish behavior when she saw the expression on the housekeeper’s face. “I’m sorry, Elena.” She paced the luxurious room, then rubbed her forehead. “I’m going out of my mind. I’ve been trapped in this house for days.”

“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, princess. I’m sure His Highness was very regretful to have to leave you alone. He’s very busy.”

Grace closed her eyes as grief and fury built inside her. Yeah. She could just imagine how he was busy.

All week she’d been waiting…for what? For him to return to the man he’d been in London, the man she’d loved? For him to act like a decent, caring husband?

Well, she wasn’t going to wait anymore. She wasn’t going to remain jailed here for his convenience!

Grace went to her huge closet and grabbed dark skinny jeans and a snug black cashmere sweater she’d bought at the Leighton boutique on Tverskaya Street. “I’m coming to Red Square with you tonight.”

Elena looked alarmed. “Have you asked Vladimir and Igor if it’s all right?”

There was no way Grace was going to invite her hulking, overprotective bodyguards to join her tonight! “No. I’ll just take the Metro with you.”

“It’s the train. And, princess, I’d get fired for sure.”

“Please, Elena!” She closed her eyes. “I just want a nice, normal life. Just a few hours to breathe fresh air and blend in without big bodyguards hovering over me wherever I go!”

“You don’t know this city. You don’t speak a word of Russian.”

“I do know one word. Nyet. And that’s my answer to Maksim.” She pulled her hair into a ponytail. “This princess will have a normal life. I might be his wife, but I won’t be his slave!”

Grabbing her warmest coat and hat, she opened the second-story window, peering down at the wide wall. She’d have to climb over on the tree branch and down the other side…

“Kharasho,” Elena said, sounding resigned. “You can come with me. Just stay close and don’t wander off!”

Grace nearly wept tears of gratitude. “I promise I won’t tell Maksim!”

“He will find out,” the woman said with a shake of her head, then grumbled, “For a new bride to be home alone on New Year’s Eve? Bah!” And she muttered something under her breath in Russian.

Grace tapped her black boots on the floor. Every muscle in her body ached to get out of this luxurious palace. Away from her captivity and loneliness.

Away from the fact that she was with yet another man who was in love with Lady Francesca Danvers instead of her.

Was it Grace’s fate to always lose every man she cared about to the same woman?

The painfully ironic thought chased her all the way to Red Square an hour later. They followed the currents and crush of people past the twin towers of the Resurrection Gate, with its mosaic icons of favored saints, into Red Square.

“Stay close,” Elena said.

Grace took one look at the colorful onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral and gasped. Standing still in the packed crowd, she slowly turned around, looked at the Kremlin, Lenin’s tomb and the red buildings around the square. She’d dreamed about this ever since the Soviet breakup when she was a girl.

Red Square was lit with a million lights and filled with half a million cheering people. It was more fantastically beautiful than she’d ever dreamed. For one moment it made her forget her pain.

Then she saw a nearby man take his girlfriend in his arms and kiss her. Watching them kiss and laugh and share an intimate moment just a few feet away suddenly made Grace ache twice as much with loneliness.

She turned back to Elena, but the Russian woman was gone! Somehow they’d been separated.

Struggling not to feel alarmed, clenching her gloved hands into fists and shoving them into her coat, Grace looked around through the white mist of her breath.

She felt so alone, and the night was so cold. Here in the far north of the world, she wondered if winter would ever end.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She turned and saw Maksim standing beside her!

In spite of everything, her heart leaped to see him, dark as night in his black clothes.

“You little fool,” he ground out. “I expressly told you not to come here.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m not your prisoner.”

He looked down at her grimly. “If you risk my child without bodyguards again, you will be.”

The threat made her furious. How dare he insinuate that she’d placed their unborn child at risk, just by living a normal life?

“I’m sick of you trying to control me.” Furious, she tossed her head, “And where’s Francesca?” she taunted. “Don’t tell me you’ve finished with her already?”

“Damn your jealousy,” he growled.

“I’m not jealous,” she fired back. “I don’t care if you make love to her every night. I don’t love you. I don’t want you!”

He yanked her into his arms.

“Who’s lying now?” he growled.

Her eyes suddenly widened when she saw his intent. “No—”

Lowering his mouth on hers, he kissed her savagely.

Beneath the colorful fireworks in the dark wintry sky, he punished her in his embrace, plundering her lips, mastering her with his strength. She tried to resist, pushing at his chest with her small hands, but in the end her own desire overpowered her in a way brute force could not. Surrendering, she sagged in his arms with a whimper, holding his body against hers as she returned his brutal kiss with equal passion.

Beneath the brilliantly lit onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral, they kissed in a fiery embrace of hate and longing amid the roar of half a million people celebrating the birth of the new year.

From the day he’d married Grace, Maksim had intended to punish her.

And he’d done it. He’d brought her to Moscow, a place where she knew no one, and he’d deserted her in the same palace he’d once dreamed of bringing her to live as his mistress. Except all the tenderness he’d once had for her was long gone. In its place was cold, hard anger.

He’d rushed to her in California. He’d told her the truth. He’d practically begged her to forgive the single lie he’d told her. A small request considering that he’d been willing to give up what he wanted most for her sake.

He’d treated her with better care than he’d ever treated any woman. He’d placed her interests above his own.

And all he’d gotten from her in return were insults—and lies. Then, to top it off, she’d tried to steal his child!

He’d thought Grace was different. That she was special. But he knew the truth now. She might have been a virgin when he first bedded her, but in other ways she might as well be Francesca—selfish, cruel and controlling.

When Elena had told him Grace had accompanied her to Red Square against his orders, he’d been furious. Then he’d been frightened—purely for the baby’s sake, he’d told himself.

But when he dismissed Elena and saw Grace looking so forlorn and alone amid the festive crowds of Red Square, anger and desire and fury had finally boiled over him.

And something more. Desire. The desire he’d suppressed for days, trying to finish the hellish, endless details of the merger. The desire he’d tried not to feel, staying away from the bride he despised as a way to keep himself from wanting her.

He hadn’t meant to kiss her. He’d sworn to himself when he brought her to Moscow that he wouldn’t even touch her.