A Royal Baby Surprise (The Sherdana 2)

“Nic, this is—” She broke off as he nudged the material off one breast.

“Not what you had in mind?” His tongue circled her tight nipple.

“It’s exactly what I want.” She arched her back, her fingers tightening convulsively. “I feel...”

“Tell me,” he urged, eager to hear what effect his mouth was having on her body. He flicked his tongue across her nipple. She jerked in surprise. “I want to know everything. What do you like? What drives you wild?”

At last she unclenched her fingers and spread the shirt wide. Now it was Nic’s turn to suck in his breath. She was beautiful. Breathtaking. Perfect. Her small round breasts, topped with dark pink nipples, were a perfect fit in his palm. Pity his mouth would be the only part of him to enjoy all that silky skin. And yet, as he pulled one bud into his mouth and sucked, perhaps that wasn’t so bad after all.

She was mewling with gratifying abandon by the time he finished with one breast and moved to the other.

The situation was swiftly disintegrating. Nic felt his control slipping. Heaving a sigh, he caught the edges of her shirt and pulled them together, hiding her gorgeous breasts from his greedy eyes.

“You’re stopping?” She sounded appalled. “But things were just starting to get interesting.”

His muscles clenched at her frustrated wail. He levered himself out of bed and kept his eyes averted from her. He’d survived temptation once. He wasn’t sure he could do it twice.

“You still don’t get it, do you? I can’t offer you anything beyond this bed.”

“I know.”

She rolled onto her side, her gaze steady on him. Accusations darted like deer through her gray-green eyes. Anger surged in his chest. Damn her for coming here and littering the clear path to his future with enticement and regret. He retreated to the bathroom. Just before closing the door, he shot a last glance in her direction. She had propped her head on her hand and lay watching him through half-closed lids.

She’d left the edges of her shirt unfastened and the three-inch gap gave him an eye-popping view of the curve of her right breast, almost to the nipple. Aphrodite in all her glory could not have appealed to him more than Brooke’s slim form in his bed.

Nic shut the bathroom door with more force than necessary and started the shower. A cold shower, he decided.

* * *

As she heard the water start, Brooke exhaled raggedly and rolled onto her back. The empty bed mocked her. Frustration bubbled in her chest and rose into her throat, building into a shriek. She clamped her teeth to prevent any sound from escaping, but it was an effort to hold so much emotion in. So she grabbed one of Nic’s pillows and covered her face in it to prevent him from hearing her shrill curses.

Once the tantrum had passed, she lay with her nose buried in the cool cotton, absorbing Nic’s scent and reliving the moment when his control had broken. Heat wafted off her skin in surging waves, the source the smoking hot place between her thighs that pulsed and throbbed with frustrated longing. The man had a gift for turning her world upside down.

He only had to give her the slightest bit of encouragement and she went all in. How many times since she’d first discovered she had feelings for him had he crushed her hopes by deflecting her overtures or chasing her away when she’d tried to get him to take a break from a problem so he could gain some perspective on it?

Not for the first time an ache built in her chest. What had started out as a whim, a crush, a foolish game had escalated into something she couldn’t break free from. Her mother, Theresa, even Glen, had warned her she was better off with a man w

ho appreciated her. But she hadn’t wanted to hear the good advice from her friends and family. And for a while things had been perfect.

The way she’d felt about him the first time he’d kissed her six months ago was nothing compared to the growing connection she felt now. Each day in his presence it grew stronger. How was she supposed to just let him go and move forward? To raise this child on her own? To spend the rest of her life without him? Panic assailed her, causing dark spots in her vision and making it hard to draw a full breath for several minutes.

She rode the paralyzing fear until her emotions calmed. Able to think rationally again, Brooke was mortified by how badly she wanted to cling to Nic and beg him to give up his responsibilities and be with her. Once upon a time she’d prided herself on being an independent woman, capable of living abroad for a year in Italy while she worked on her doctoral thesis on Italian literature. She might make decisions based on emotion rather than logic, but she ruled her finances with a miser’s tight fist and had a knack for avoiding bad relationships.

These days she was a rickety ladder of vulnerability and loose screws. What else could explain why she’d charged a fifteen-hundred-dollar airplane ticket on her credit card to chase after a man who’d vanished from her life without even a goodbye? If she’d picked up the phone and delivered her news about the pregnancy she could have saved herself a bucketful of heartache and said to hell with closure.

Brooke sat up and buttoned Nic’s shirt once more. A sudden bout of nausea caught her off guard. If the positive pregnancy test result had seemed surreal, here was tangible proof that her body was irrevocably changed. Brooke slipped off the bed and fled the room, afraid Nic would exit the bathroom and catch her looking green and out of sorts, then demand to know what was wrong with her.

On her way to the guesthouse, she snagged a bit of bread and a bottle of water. Once there, she nibbled at the crust, put the chilled bottle to her warm forehead and willed her stomach to settle down. As the nausea subsided, Brooke’s confidence ebbed away, as well.

In twenty-four hours Nic was heading home to find a wife. He would be forever lost to her. Maybe she should give up this madness today and run back to California.

Because she still hadn’t done what she’d come here to do: tell Nic she was pregnant.

And yet, on the heels of all she’d learned, did it make sense to burden him with the news that his illegitimate child would be living far from him in California? He was returning home to find a bride and start a family. His future wife wouldn’t be happy to find out Nic had already gotten another woman pregnant.

Then, too, he’d proved himself an honorable man. It would tear him apart to know he wouldn’t be a part of his child’s life? What if he demanded partial custody? Was she going to spend the next eighteen years shuffling their child across the Atlantic Ocean so that he or she could know Nic? And what about the scandal this would mean for the royal family? Maybe in America no one thought twice when celebrities had children without being married, but that wouldn’t sit well where European nobility were concerned.

Yet morally was it right to keep the information from him? It would certainly be easier on her. Nic had turned his back on Glen and their dream of getting Griffin off the ground. Brooke knew she could count on her brother to keep her secret. Her life going forward would be quiet and routine. She would teach at Berkeley or UCLA and throw herself into raising her child. No one would ever know that she’d had a brief affair with a European prince.