The Prince's Love-Child

DEAR READER LETTER

By Sharon Kendrick

Dear Reader,

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon Kendrick

The Prince's Love-Child

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

GUIDO glanced at his watch and a flicker of displeasure briefly spoiled the sensual perfection of his lips.

She was late!

But his irritation gave way to a soft smile as he anticipated the heady delights to come. Lucy could not be blamed for the lateness of her plane—indeed, she did not even know he was going to be there.

Guido found himself wondering what her reaction would be when she discovered that he was, for she was that rare species among women—someone who constantly surprised him.

His eyes flickered to the arrivals board. The plane had landed and soon the flight attendants would be making their way through to the lounge…

Guido was aware of being watched, and his brilliant eyes widened slightly as he saw a woman looking as if she would like to leap on him and devour him. Predictability was so tedious, he decided, turning his head to see the faintest flash of red-brown as a woman with glorious Titian hair sashayed towards the gate. Most of it was hidden beneath a chic little hat, worn at a jaunty angle, but the colour was enough to mark her out, as was the unconscious grace with which she moved.

She was dressed in a sleek navy uniform, her long legs encased in pale silk that he knew would be stockings, not pantyhose. Was it stockings which made a woman walk differently? Guido wondered. Did the feel of cool air on her thighs make her aware of her sexuality? Or was that just something inherent in Lucy’s nature?

No. She was a contrast—a maddening and exciting contrast of looks and attitude. Her hair was lit with fire, but her expression was cool, and she seemed oblivious to the men who stood to let her pass and then just carried on standing there, following the sexy sway of her hips with hungry eyes.

He felt the leaping of desire tensing his body but he didn’t move. She couldn’t yet see him, and he wanted to watch her reaction when she did…

Ahead of her, Lucy could see the jostle of crowds, and the air-conditioning was as cool as ice-water on her skin as she walked through the busy airport. This city held all kinds of associations for her—some good, and some just dangerously good. Hello, New York, she thought.

‘Are you coming straight back to the hotel?’ Kitty asked.

Lucy turned. Her fellow stewardess was applying a coat of lipstick without the use of a mirror, and Lucy made a silent gesture to indicate that she had smudged it. ‘Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Well, I wasn’t sure…’ Kitty gave a mischievous grin as she wiped away the errant trace of pink gloss. ‘Whether or not you’d be seeing your Prince.’

This emphasis on the word was commonplace, and Lucy had grown used to the teasing by now, even though at first she hadn’t quite known how to react. It had been a peculiar situation—not just for the rest of the cabin crew, but for her, too. Ordinary girls didn’t date princes! And yet it seemed that they did. In fact, they—

But her thoughts were frozen and her steps very nearly followed. Some governing sense of instinct kept her moving forward, forward…because for a minute there she had almost thought she’d seen Guido.

‘Isn’t that him?’ asked Kitty curiously, following the direction of Lucy’s stare.

Thank God they were far enough away for him not to be able to see that her face had grown pale. Or at least Lucy was imagining that it had grown pale—for surely there would have to be some physical manifestation of the dizzy sensation she was experiencing. As if all the blood had left her veins, leaving her limbs dry and ready to crumple. Keep walking, she told herself. Just keep walking.

‘It is!’ breathed Kitty. ‘Oh, my God—it’s him! He’s come to meet you! How romantic is that?’

Lucy let her brows slide up beneath the russet curtain of her fringe. ‘I don’t hear you sounding so surprised when other people’s boyfriends come to meet them,’ she observed drily.

‘That’s because other people don’t go out with princes,’ chided Kitty.

Lucy shook her head. ‘He’s just a man,’ she contradicted faintly, but she knew that her words lacked conviction.

Because he wasn’t.

She let her gaze drift over him as she walked towards the brilliant black eyes which had her spotlighted in their sight. Prince or no prince, he was the kind of man most women didn’t happen across—not even once in a lifetime.

There was something about the way he carried himself which drew the eye, something about an air of arrogant assurance coupled with a lazy kind of supremacy. Had royal blood and upbringing given him those qualities which seemed to make him stand head and shoulders above the crowd, or would he have had them anyway?

He was standing beside a pillar, half in the shadows, for she knew that he would have sought shelter from prying eyes. Guido had rejected princely life, but its legacy meant that he could never quite shake it off. People were fascinated by the title, but more usually they were fascinated by him—and who could blame them?

Over and over again Lucy had watched as they fawned over him and hung on his every word—men and women, but especially women. They drank in the dark, imposing looks, and the sexy, accented drawl, and the careless sensuality which came as naturally to him as breathing.

He was a man in a million—and Lucy still wasn’t quite sure what he saw in her. Sometimes she felt as though she was living in a bubble, and that one of these days it was going to burst and she would be left with the dull and rather stark reality of life without Guido.

Don’t make it into more than it is, she reminded herself savagely. A casual love affair—nothing more and nothing less. And if, by nature of who he is, he provides a fairytale aspect to the affair—then just enjoy it and don’t build it up.

Her half-smile staying in place as though it had been painted on, she waved a quick goodbye to Kitty and walked over to where he waited, a dark and brooding image in cool, expensive linen. The ecstatic clamour of her heart was deafening her, but she gave him a look as steady as any she would give to one of her passengers in First Class who was asking for a glass of champagne.

‘Hello, Guido,’ she said, in a low, clear voice. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’

He might have felt admiration if he hadn’t been overwhelmed by frustration. Did nothing affect her bar sex itself? For it was then—and only then—that she let go completely. Looking at the serene smile which seemed to make a mockery of her schoolgirl freckles, he found it hard to imagine her whispering his name, or screaming it, or shuddering with helpless, racking moans against his shoulder.

Guido felt the quickening of his heart, knowing that his instincts were fighting a battle with his reason. Had it not been her ice-coolness which had set her apart and made him determined to possess her? Had he somehow imagined that he would melt it away completely, leaving her in his thrall—like all the others—so that he could happily walk away?

‘Perhaps I would not have bothered if I had known you would give me such a lukewarm welcome,’ he parried silkily.

She saw the glitter from his black eyes—recognising now, as she had recognised from the very start, that here was a man who was used to lavish displays of affection and would be bored by them. So she had not given them. From an early age Lucy had learnt to do what people wanted—some might call it people-pleasing; she would define it as making sure she got on with folks.

‘So, what would you like me to do?’ she murmured. ‘Fling my arms around your neck and scream with delight?’

‘You can save that for later. In bed,’ he returned mockingly, and was rewarded with a faint flush of colour which crept over her pale, freckle-splattered skin.

A blush might be beyond her control, but the flashing light of challenge which sparked from her eyes was not. She lifted her chin and mocked him back. ‘Maybe I’m tired and need my sleep.’

‘And maybe you don’t.’ He lifted his hand to her face and slowly drifted a fingertip down over her flushed face, finishing with a deliberately erotic tracing of her lips, which made them tremble slightly and open. He wanted to bend his head to kiss them, but of course he didn’t.

He could just imagine the headlines. An erotic and public kiss in newspaper-speak meant only one thing—impending wedding bells.

But if he was cool, then Lucy was cooler still—and his eyes glittered as their gazes mingled.

‘Give me your bag,’ he said steadily. ‘I have the car waiting.’

She had played her part. The necessary part. Not thrown herself into his arms. Hardly even a shiver of pleasure when he had touched her—but enough was enough and Lucy wanted him. Badly. She let him take her small case and allowed herself the luxury of a smile.

‘Lovely. Are you driving?’

Lovely? Suddenly he was filled with the need to shatter her icy composure. ‘No,’ he said softly, as they made their way through the hall, oblivious to the curious glances they attracted. ‘I have a chauffeur hidden behind dark glass, so he will be unable to see when I begin to kiss you. The glass is soundproof, too—so that when your breathing begins to quicken as I put my hand up your skirt he will not hear it.’

Her mouth had dried unbearably. ‘Oh, Guido, don’t,’ she whispered.

He felt the exquisite hardness and knew that he must stop this. But not quite yet.

‘Nor will he notice when I slide your panties down and pull you onto my lap…’

‘Guido—’

‘Hard down onto my lap.’

‘G-Guido—’

He moved his lips to her ear, speaking in a silken whisper as he inhaled her fragrance. ‘And I will move you up and down, up and down—filling you completely, until you gasp—’

‘Guido!’ She was gasping now, her head light, her pulse-rate frantic.

He saw the way her steps had begun to falter, and he caught her by the arm just as a black limousine purred to a halt beside them. In French, he bit out some terse instructions to the driver, and then he propelled her onto the back seat, sliding in beside her and slamming the door shut behind them, imprisoning them in a luxurious, dimly-lit world of their own as he imprisoned her in the warm circle of his arms.

She was so hot with wanting that she could barely speak his name as he pushed her down onto the seat and her hat fell from her head. ‘Guido—’

But there was no reply other than the sweet pressure of his mouth as he began to kiss her, transporting her to that place where nothing mattered other than the feel and taste and smell and touch of him. She threaded her fingers luxuriously in the rich ebony satin of his hair and moved her body restlessly against his. And froze in excited horror as she felt his hand on her knee and remembered his words.

Surely he didn’t mean to—?

But he was moving his hand, and she was writhing in response to the direction it was taking, her hips belying the words which she forced herself to say.

‘No, we can’t,’ she protested, her voice slurred with wanting. ‘We mustn’t. Not here.’

‘Why not? The thought of it turned you on. You know it did.’ He touched her above the stocking-top, where the bare flesh was a tantalising contrast of cool silk with warm blood pulsing beneath. ‘I could read it in your eyes.’

‘It may…Oh, God…’ Her eyes closed and her head fell back against the soft leather upholstery as his fingertips skated tantalisingly close to where heat seared at her so frustratingly. ‘It…it may have turned me on. It doesn’t mean it’s right.’

The hand stilled. ‘Shall I stop, then, cara mia?’

Frustration ripped through her. She shook her head helplessly.

He put his lips right up to her ear. He loved her like this. Compliant. His. Her coolness exploding into hot and urgent need. ‘I can’t hear you, Lucy.’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.’

Triumph coursed through him and possessively he pushed aside the panel of her panties to feel the acutely sensitised flesh. But it was over almost before he had started. He could feel her body begin to tense as he pressed his fingertip against her, and she caught him by the neck and dragged his mouth back down on hers, just as her legs splayed and she made soft, moaning noises of pleasure, like a cat.

They stayed like that for a while, their mouths glued together, his finger still touching her intimately while she continued to spasm against him. When it was over, she drew away, her face sweat-sheened, still shuddering as she shook her head.

‘What did you do that for?’ She gulped breath into her lungs like a drowning woman.

He smiled as he tugged her uniform skirt back down. ‘Because you wanted me to.’

‘We should have waited.’

‘But you didn’t want to.’

No, she hadn’t. It had been a long time—too long—and she had missed him. Had he missed her? she wondered. Even a tiny bit? She turned her eyes up to his, but as usual their glittering ebony depths were impenetrable. She wanted to kiss him again, but kissing seemed almost too intimate. How crazy was that after what had just happened?

‘And what about you?’ she questioned huskily, cupping him quite suddenly. She saw him briefly close his eyes and groan, before snatching her hand away to hold it close to his mouth, letting his breathing grow steady before he spoke.

She could feel his warm breath on her fingertips.

‘But I can…wait, cara,’ he said huskily. ‘That is the difference between us.’

He was always so controlled—always—and in demonstrating his own self-discipline he had drawn attention to her own lack of it! But Lucy knew that there was more than his steely resolve at stake here. Physically, she might be able to change his mind, but mentally she didn’t stand a chance.

He might have shrugged off all the trappings which came with being a prince, but he never ignored the responsibility which came with the title. His mind would have raced and overtaken the demands of his body. He would have imagined all the worst-case scenarios—them being disturbed by the driver, or police, or photographers, and one of the Princes of Mardivino being discovered with an air-hostess bent busily over his lap.

Lucy flushed and moved away, suddenly feeling cheap as she imagined how it would look to an outsider. Woman gets off plane and lets man ravish her in car. A man, moreover, who had never made any promises of commitment to her and never would. Was she valuing herself too low—and, if so, for just how long was she going to let it continue?

‘Cara?’

His voice was soft, and in anyone else you might almost be fooled into thinking that it was tender—but tenderness was an alien concept to Guido.

He saw the way that her eyes clouded and some stubborn inner resistance suddenly melted away. He leaned forward so that their foreheads were touching and began to stroke her hair.

‘Forgive me, Lucy,’ he said softly.

Lucy closed her eyes. For what? For taking her to heaven in an indecently short space of time? Or for drumming home the fact that where sex was concerned he was very definitely the master and she the puppet?

She opened her eyes again. ‘You make me feel helpless,’ she admitted.

He shrugged. ‘Sometimes a woman should be helpless.’

‘But not a man?’ she questioned provocatively.

‘Of course not.’ His eyes sparked back in answering challenge. ‘It is why we were born the stronger sex—did you not know that? We’re conditioned to fight wars and to hunt—not to roll over on our backs like tame little pussycats.’

‘Like I’ve just done, you mean?’

He brushed his lips against hers. ‘Mmm. You were quite perfect. I like to see you like that.’

‘Oh, you’re just a power-freak,’ she said, half crossly.

A smile curved his mouth. ‘But you like that, too.’

‘Sometimes.’ Not always. Sometimes she would give a hundred erotic highs just to see him show even the briefest flicker of vulnerability—but that would be like wishing for the sky to suddenly start raining diamonds instead of hailstones. ‘Sometimes I wish you’d just relax a bit more.’

‘I’ll relax later,’ he promised silkily, and pulled her into the cradle of his arms. ‘I promise you.’

‘I don’t just mean in bed,’ said Lucy primly. ‘It may be an alien concept to you, Guido, but you are allowed to let your hair down at other times.’

‘Shh. Enough. That is enough, cara.’

Lucy rested her head against his shoulder and lapsed into a silence that was just the wrong side of contentment as she registered his unspoken reprimand. Was she nagging him? She stared out of the window just as the expensive car purred its way up Park Avenue and came to a halt in front of a rather beautiful old building.

She turned back to find his eyes watching her intently. ‘Why are we stopping here?’

‘Because we’ve arrived.’

Behind the Titian swing of her fringe, Lucy knitted her eyebrows together. ‘This doesn’t look like a hotel!’

‘That’s because it isn’t.’ He smiled, as if nothing was at stake. But something was, and they both knew it. ‘I thought you might like to see my apartment.’

CHAPTER TWO

LUCY could read nothing in the ebony glitter of Guido’s eyes, and somehow she kept her own expression casual—even though, deep down, she felt slightly shell-shocked. Guido wanted to take her home! Well, to one of his homes, that would be more accurate. At last. Now, why would that be?

‘Your apartment?’ she questioned slowly.

Not the kind of rapturous excitement he might have expected—which just went to show that in life you should expect nothing. ‘Wouldn’t you like to see it?’

She smiled at him. ‘Of course I would.’

Up until now they’d always stayed in hotels—a city-central room was one of the perks of her flying job and, as a fabulously successful property developer, Guido rented luxury suites all over the world. In New York and in Paris he did actually own an apartment, but Lucy had seen neither.

To be allowed to set foot inside her boyfriend’s home shouldn’t have felt like a major achievement, but somehow it did. Was that what happened when you went out with a man like Guido? she wondered. You began to normalise abnormal behaviour?

He bent to retrieve her hat from the floor of the limousine. ‘Want me to put it on for you?’

She felt her cheeks growing pink as she shook her head. ‘I hate that hat,’ she said, more fervently than her opinion on a hat really warranted, but she could read the expression in his eyes perfectly well. He was remembering how she had come to lose the hat, and what had happened subsequently, and despite her reservations already she could feel the renewed rush of desire.

‘It looks tre`s chic on you,’ he whispered. And then, because he wanted her very badly, he took her hand and kissed it. ‘Come. Let us go inside. The driver will bring your bags.’

‘Are you quite sure about this?’ she murmured, as they rode up in the elevator towards the penthouse.

Actually, Guido had suffered a couple of reservations—until he’d told himself that he was in danger of becoming some fabled recluse. And he knew instinctively that he could trust Lucy not to gossip about his home.

Idly, he stroked his finger along the indentation of her waist. ‘I want someone to sample my cooking.’

This time Lucy couldn’t hide her surprise as she tried and failed spectacularly to imagine him in the kitchen. ‘You mean you cook?’

‘Actually, no, I don’t.’ His black eyes gleamed. ‘Do you?’

Lucy nodded solemnly. ‘Oh, yes. I adore cooking. In fact, I adore waiting on men in general. So I do hope you’ll let me run round after you just as soon as we get there. You will, won’t you, Guido?’

It took about three seconds for him to register the sarcastic note in her voice, and he pulled her into his arms. ‘You are a wicked witch of a woman, Lucy Maguire,’ he growled, and began to trail his lips over her cheek.

She closed her eyes, the raw and lemony feral scent of him invading her senses like a potent drug. The teasing comment pleased her, for in his voice she had heard the faintest note of puzzlement.