A Night of Royal Consequences

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EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT

Leonidas Betancur was presumed dead after a plane crash, and he cannot recall the vows he made to his bride Susannah four years ago. But once tracked down, his memories resurface – and he’s ready to collect his belated wedding night! Susannah wants Leonidas to reclaim his empire and free her of his legacy. But dangerously attractive Leonidas steals her innocence with a touch… And the consequences of their passion will bind them together for ever!

Read on for a sneak preview of Caitlin Crews’ next story

A BABY TO BIND HIS BRIDE

One Night With Consequences

There was a discreet knock on the paneled door and the doctor stepped back into the room.

“Congratulations, madame, monsieur,” the doctor said, nodding at each of them in turn while Susannah’s breath caught in her throat. “The test is positive. You are indeed pregnant, as you suspected.”

She barely noticed when Leonidas escorted the doctor from the room. He could have been gone for hours. When he returned he shut the door behind him, enclosing them in the salon that had seemed spacious before, and that was when Susannah walked stiffly around the settee to sit on it.

His dark, tawny gaze had changed, she noticed. It had gone molten. He still held himself still, though she could tell the difference in that, too. It was as if an electrical current ran through him now, charging the air all around him even while his mouth remained in an unsmiling line.

And he looked at her as if she was naked. Stripped. Flesh and bone with nothing left to hide.

“Is it so bad, then?” he asked in a mild sort of tone she didn’t believe at all.

Susannah’s chest was so heavy, and she couldn’t tell if it was the crushing weight of misery or something far more dangerous. She held her belly with one hand as if it was already sticking out. As if the baby might start kicking at any second.

“The Betancur family is a cage,” she told him, or the parquet floor beneath the area rug that stretched out in front of the fireplace, and it cost her to speak so precisely. So matter-of-factly. “I don’t want to live in a cage. There must be options.”

“I am not a cage,” Leonidas said with quiet certainty. “The Betancur name has drawbacks, it is true, and most of them were at that gala tonight. But it is also not a cage. On the contrary. I own enough of the world that it is for all intents and purposes yours now. Literally.” dpg!

“I don’t want the world.” She didn’t realize she’d shot to her feet until she was taking a step toward him, very much as if she thought she might take a swing at him next. As if she’d dare. “I don’t need you. I don’t want you. I want to be free.”

He took her face in his hands, holding her fast, and this close his eyes were a storm. Ink dark with gold like lightning, and she felt the buzz of it. Everywhere.

“This is as close as you’re going to get, little one,” he told her, the sound of that same madness in his gaze, his voice.

And then he claimed her mouth with his.