The Prince's Holiday Baby

She’d always believed it was better to regret something she’d done than something she’d left undone, and while it was possible she’d wake up with regrets in the morning, she knew she would regret it more if she let him walk away.

Eric sensed the battle waging inside Molly and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep his hand clamped around the handle of the door to keep from reaching for her again. If they were going to spend the night together—as he very much wanted them to do—it would need to be her decision. And he knew it wasn’t one she would make lightly.

She’d admitted that she didn’t date much, and he knew a woman as beautiful and warm and friendly as Molly didn’t sleep alone unless it was what she wanted. So what made him think that she would break her self-imposed rules to spend the night with him?

Chemistry.

It had crackled between them from the first moment their eyes had locked across the bar and had been building and deepening ever since. The sizzling kiss they’d shared was further proof of it.

His body was still humming from the after-effects of that kiss, or maybe it was almost three years of self-imposed celibacy that had everything inside him churned up. Whatever the reason, he knew what he wanted. He was just waiting for Molly to reach the same conclusion.

She looked at him now, her eyes locked with his, and she said only one more word.

“Stay.”

He flipped the lock on the door and moved back to her.

She met him halfway—her arms lifting to circle his neck, her body pressing against his, her mouth opening for his kiss.

His hands moved over her, hotly, hungrily. She gasped and sighed in response to his touch, and those sexy little sounds nearly snapped the last of his control. She was so eager and passionate, as hungry for him as he was for her, and it was an effort not to tear away her clothes where they stood and bury himself inside her.

The woman had him tied up in knots, desperate and aching with desire.

He cupped her breasts and felt her nipples pebble in response to the brush of his thumbs. She arched against him, a silent plea for more. Even through the layers of their clothing, the erotic friction of her hips pushing against his was almost too much.

She was sexy and sweet, giving and demanding.

And she was his.

The thought came from out of nowhere, the sudden drive to take and claim and possess both unfamiliar and undeniable.

He was leaving in the morning. They both knew they wouldn’t have anything more than this one night together. But he was determined to make it a night neither of them would ever forget.

This was crazy.

Even as Molly led Eric up the stairs to her apartment over the bar, she knew it was outrageously insane to even consider having sex with a man she’d never laid eyes on a few hours before, who would be leaving again in another few hours and whom she would probably never see again after that.

She didn’t care.

Right now all she cared about was getting naked with him.

And he wanted the same thing, if the trail of clothes they left in the hall on their way to her room was any indication. She led him unerringly through the dark to the bed, then pushed him back onto the mattress and tumbled down with him.

She reached for the small lamp on the night table, but he caught her hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed her palm, nibbled on her fingers, and sent sparks of heat zinging through her system.

Oh, yes, there was heat. And Molly gloried in this confirmation that she wasn’t unresponsive or dispassionate, she’d just needed a man who knew how to touch her the right way. And Eric definitely knew how to touch a woman the right way.

She wanted to touch him—was desperate to touch him—too. With limited experience to fall back on, she allowed her instincts to guide her. She ran her hands up his chest, over his shoulders, down his arms. She reveled in the feel of all those hard, tight muscles bunching and flexing in response to her eager touch. His skin was warm and smooth and taut; his body exquisitely carved and sculpted. Everywhere she touched, he was hard and strong, so completely and perfectly male. And for now—for the next few hours that remained of the night—he was hers.

Her fingertips paused in their exploration, hovering over the puckered ridge of skin she’d discovered beneath his lowest rib.

She felt him tense as she slowly traced the diagonal line of the scar toward his hip bone. Her fingers moved lower, finding a wider, longer scar on his upper thigh, and she instinctively knew this was the reason he hadn’t wanted the light.

His perfect body wasn’t quite perfect after all. And yet, the physical scars on his body somehow enhanced rather than detracted from his appeal.

“A recent injury?” she asked softly.

“Not so recent,” he said, but offered nothing more.

She traced her fingertips over the scars again, as if her touch could ease the strain she heard in his voice, the tension in his muscles. “What happened?”

“A naval training exercise went wrong.”

His simplistic explanation was a clear indication that this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. But his response had given her another valuable insight about this man. “So you’re a sailor.”

“Was,” he corrected.

“With a woman in every port?” she teased to lighten the moment.

“Never more than one at a time.”

“Good to know.” She kissed him then, deeply, hungrily.

She kissed his lips, his throat, his chest. Her hair spilled over his shoulders, providing a curtain behind which she continued her exploration. She’d never been so aroused, so tempted, so bold. But she let her instincts, and his throaty groans of appreciation, guide her. She nibbled her way down his belly, savored the salty masculine flavor of his skin. Then her lips found the ridge of scar tissue her fingers had recently discovered, and her avid mouth gently feathered soft kisses along the puckered skin.

“If you’re trying to kiss away the pain, where I’m really hurting is just a little bit lower,” he told her huskily.

She chuckled, letting her tongue taste, tempt, tease. She heard the sharp intake of his breath, and knew her bold acceptance of his challenge had surprised and aroused him.

She heard the crinkle of plastic as he unwrapped the condom he’d snagged from his pocket before discarding his pants somewhere in the hall, and was grateful he’d had the foresight to think of protection. She let him sheath himself, then kissed her way back up his body, her taut nipples grazing his chest, her hips rocking against his. His hands skimmed over her thighs, his fingers curled around her buttocks, pressing her closer.

She waited for him to press into her, to take control in search of his own pleasure. But he didn’t seem to be in any big rush to the finish line. In fact, he seemed more than content just to touch her, tease her, taste her.

Molly endured the exquisite torture for as long as she could, then she straddled his hips, positioning herself so that the tip of his erection was at the juncture of her thighs.

Slowly she lowered herself, moving just the tiniest bit, taking only a fraction of an inch inside of her. Then a little more.

His hands were on her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh. She could feel the tension in him and knew he was fighting against the instinct to drive into her. He was bigger than her, stronger, and they both knew she was only in control at the moment because he wanted her to be, but still, the sense of power was exhilarating.

She continued to tease him, taking him a little bit deeper inside, then drawing back again. His eyes were so dark they were almost black, and they were intently focused on her. Watching her as she watched him.

Watching her as his hands skimmed up her sides to her breasts, as his fingers toyed with her nipples, circling, stroking, squeezing.

Desire curled like a fist deep in her belly, tight, tighter, until she cried out with her release.

It was the signal he’d been waiting for, and his hips jerked off the mattress and he buried himself deep inside of her in one powerful thrust that had her crying out again at the shock of the next climax that ripped through her, leaving her weak and breathless and shattered.

But Eric wasn’t finished with her. He held himself perfectly still until her body had stopped shuddering, then he flipped her over, so that she was on her back and he was stretched out on top of her, pressing deep inside of her.

He whispered to her, speaking softly in Spanish. She didn’t understand all of the words, but his tone was as sensual as a caress, and just as arousing. He began to move. Slow and deep strokes that touched her very core. Then hard and fast thrusts. Harder. Faster.

She’d thought she was sated. He’d made certain she was satisfied before he’d pursued his own pleasure, and yet, she could feel the desperate, achy need building inside of her again. Her heels dug into the mattress, her nails bit into his shoulders, and her hips matched his frantic rhythm as her desire escalated again until the world dropped away and there was nothing to hold on to but each other.

He collapsed with his head on her pillow, his arm wrapped around her, and his heart beating against hers.

They made love twice more before exhaustion finally overrode passion, and Molly fell into a deep and blissful sleep in the warm comfort of his arms.

She woke up in the morning, cold and alone, and found herself regretting not the hours she’d spent with Eric but that he was already gone.

Chapter Two

“Pregnant?”

Molly stared at the doctor for a minute, then laughed as she shook her head.

“I think you’re going to want to run that test again.”

Dr. Morgan looked at her with both understanding and compassion in her deep green eyes. She’d been Molly’s doctor for more than twenty years, long before her dark hair had become so liberally streaked with grey and the faint lines around her eyes and mouth had multiplied.

“I’ll rerun the test,” she told her. “If you can look me in the eye and honestly tell me that you haven’t had sex in the past two months.”

Molly’s fingers curled around the edge of the examining table, her damp palms sticking to the paper. “Not unprotected sex.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Dr. Morgan said. “But you know there isn’t any method of contraception that is one hundred percent effective.”

She could only stare at her as the reality of what the doctor was saying began to sink in and her heart began to hammer out its panic against her ribs.

“It was one night,” she whispered.

One night after four years of going to bed alone.

“That’s all it takes,” the doctor said gently.

Molly shook her head, still unwilling to believe what the doctor was saying. “But I don’t feel pregnant. I don’t feel any different—just tired.”

“That’s often one of the first signs.”

“I haven’t been sick.”

“Not every woman experiences morning sickness. You might be one of the lucky ones.”

Lucky? Molly was too stunned to really know how she was feeling, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t lucky.

“That’s assuming you want to continue with this pregnancy,” Dr. Morgan continued gently. “It is still early and—”

Molly shook her head again. She knew what the doctor was going to say—she was going to tell her there were options. She knew what those options were. She also knew there was only one choice for her—and it was the same choice her own mother had made thirty-one years earlier.

“I’m going to have the baby,” she said.

“Do you know the father?” Dr. Morgan asked gently.

Her cheeks burned with shame as Molly realized she probably should have kept her “one night” comment to herself, but she managed to choke out the lie, “Of course.”

She knew his name—his first name, anyway. And she knew he was from a country called Tesoro del Mar. And she knew that he kissed like there was no tomorrow and made her feel as no man had ever made her feel before. Beyond that, she knew almost nothing at all.

“If you’re going to have this baby, the father should be told,” Dr. Morgan said. “This isn’t something you should have to go through on your own.”

She nodded, because she knew it was true. She also knew that if she somehow managed to track him down, Eric wasn’t likely to be thrilled to learn that he’d knocked up some woman he picked up in a bar. And that was the tawdry truth of what had happened between them, even if, at the time, it hadn’t seemed tawdry at all.

But the soul-deep connection she’d been certain she’d felt in the darkest hours of the night had been illuminated as to what it really was in the bright light of day—a good healthy dose of lust that temporarily overrode common sense—and a passion that was apparently stronger than latex condoms.

Molly walked from the doctor’s office to Celebrations by Fiona. The exclusive boutique was ten blocks from the medical arts building and she was more than halfway there before she questioned the wisdom of undertaking such a stroll in low-heeled sling-backs and ninety-degree heat. But she’d needed some time to think about the news she’d been given and she knew that when she got to Fiona’s, she wouldn’t have a minute to do so.

Her cousin had established a reputation as one of the premier event planners in Texas and her services were sought by everyone who was anyone in the state. She’d planned the island nuptials of a Cowboys’ quarterback, personally oversaw every detail of the small garden wedding for an Oscar-winning actress and coordinated the renewal of vows to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the governor and his wife.

But it turned out that her most challenging assignment and most demanding client wasn’t a celebrity or politician, it was herself. And her mistake, in Molly’s opinion, was in not hiring someone else to oversee the details of her own wedding—a wedding at which Molly would be the maid of honor the following month.

It seemed like a lifetime ago that Molly had been shopping for dresses and bouquets of flowers, dreaming of “happily ever after.” She’d been so full of hope for her future, eager to marry the man she loved, looking forward to raising a family together.

Though that engagement had fallen apart, she’d still believed that someday she would find someone special to share her life and build a family with. Now she’d skipped over the marriage part and was going straight to motherhood—definitely not her childhood dream but a reality that she would have to deal with it.

First, however, she had to tackle the issue of a bridesmaid dress.

Fiona was hovering just inside the door, waiting for her, when she finally arrived.

“Goodness,” she said, noting her cousin’s flushed cheeks. “You look like you just finished running a marathon.”

“Even a short walk feels like a marathon in this heat,” she said, not wanting to admit how far she’d walked or where she’d come from.

Fiona scooped a bottle of water out of the minifridge in her office and handed it to her.

“Thanks.” Molly took the bottle and sank into an empty chair. “Have you finally picked a dress for me?”

“Sort of.”

Molly arched a brow as she uncapped the water.

Fiona gestured to a garment rack that was crowded with gowns.

Molly stared. “There must be a dozen dresses there.”

“Sixteen,” her cousin admitted.

“I realize the layered look is in, but sixteen might be a bit excessive.”

“I couldn’t decide,” Fiona said, a trifle defensively.

“Couldn’t you at least have narrowed it down?”

“That is narrowed down.”

Molly shouldn’t have been surprised. Even with all of Fiona’s contacts in the industry, it had taken her cousin three weeks and trips to both New York City and San Francisco to finally decide on her own gown—from a local boutique.

“I know that pastels are all the rage for summer weddings,” Fiona was explaining now, “but I think jewel tones work better with your coloring and, since you’re my only attendant, you can pick whatever you want.”

Whatever she wanted so long as it was sapphire, emerald or ruby, Molly noted, and rose from her chair for a closer examination of the gowns.

But as she sorted through the collection, her mind slipped back to another examination, to her conversation with Dr. Morgan and the one word that continued to reverberate inside her head.

Pregnant.

“Any thoughts?” Fiona asked.

I thought I would regret it more if I didn’t spend the night with him.

Of course, that thought was immediately followed by a wave of guilt. As much as she hadn’t planned to get pregnant at this point in her life, she wouldn’t regret the child that she would have. The baby growing inside of her probably wasn’t the size of a pea yet, but Molly loved her already.

“Molly?” The prompt drew her attention back to the rack of dresses.

“They all look great,” she said, forcing enthusiasm into her voice.

“That’s what I thought, too,” Fiona told her.

Molly went with her instincts and grabbed a strapless floor-length gown of deep blue silk and slipped through the door. She stripped away her clothes, careful not to look at her refection in any of the mirrors that surrounded her. She didn’t want to look at her body, to think about the changes that were happening inside of her—changes that she knew were invisible to the outside world but essential to the tiny life inside her.

She tugged the zipper up, straightened the skirt and stepped back outside to show her friend.

“Oh. Wow.” Fiona grinned. “That’s it—it’s perfect.”

Molly exhaled a silent sigh of relief that she would be spared having to model the other fifteen dresses.

“You are going to knock his socks off in that dress,” her cousin said.

“Whose socks am I knocking off?” she asked warily.

“The best man’s.”

Molly wasn’t so sure that she wanted to be near any man even taking his socks off, because the last time that happened she’d ended up pregnant. Well, at least she’d had the chance to experience the most amazing sex of her life first. Yeah, it was good to know that she’d discovered a sex drive just in time to put it on the back burner for the next several years while she raised the illegitimate child of a man whose last name she didn’t even know.

“I can’t wait for you to meet him,” Fiona said, for the millionth time since she’d first met her fiancé’s childhood best friend. “If I wasn’t so in love with Scott…” She deliberately let her words trail off, then grinned. “But I am in love with Scott, so it would be really great if you managed to hook up with him.”

“I’m not looking to hook up with anyone,” Molly said firmly.

Fiona forged ahead, as if she hadn’t even heard her. “I really wished you’d met him when he was here, then you’d know what I’m talking about.”

“I’ll meet him at the rehearsal,” Molly reminded her.

“Are you bringing anyone to the wedding?”

“You know I’m not.”

“Because he’s not bringing a date, either.”

“Fiona,” she warned her cousin.

“I’m just saying.”

“I know what you’re saying. And I know you just want me to find someone as wonderful as Scott, but I’m really not looking to get involved with anyone right now.” And probably not for a long time. “There’s just too much going on in my life right now to even think about adding the complication of a relationship.”

Fiona’s eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me?”

And that, Molly knew, was the problem of having a cousin who was also her best friend and who knew her better than anyone else in the world. But she shook her head, not ready to share the news with anyone just yet.

“Your wedding is less than a month away,” she reminded Fiona. “You should have enough to think about without worrying about my love life.”

Her statement succeeded in deflecting her cousin’s attention, as she knew it would, and they talked about flowers and music and other details until Fiona’s next appointment arrived and Molly was able to escape.

He couldn’t get her out of his mind.

Almost two months after he’d returned to Tesoro del Mar, Eric still couldn’t stop thinking about Molly Shea. At first, he’d been certain it was just the memories of spectacular sex that haunted his dreams. He’d wanted to believe it was nothing more than that. But as six weeks turned into seven and he still couldn’t forget her, he finally admitted it was more than the incredible sensation of her body wrapped around his that kept him awake at night—it was the sparkle in her eyes, the way she smiled, the sound of her laughter.

It was all those memories that plagued his thoughts and made him wonder if he shouldn’t have stayed in her bed instead of worrying about his flight home the next morning. But really, what difference would another day or two have made, except maybe to make him even more reluctant to leave the haven of her arms?

Still, he was a prince. He most certainly wasn’t going to let himself get tied up in knots over any woman, and especially not an American bartender. But with each day that passed, the memories he’d expected to dim only grew sharper, and the need inside him grew stronger.

Or maybe he just had too much time on his hands.

He’d been at loose ends since the accident that had prematurely ended his naval career, and without any direction or focus. He’d assumed some duties back home, but as important as he knew the royal family was to the country, he wasn’t sure he could imagine making a career out of public appearances and shaking hands with foreign diplomats.

His recent conversation with Scott hovered in the back of his mind, but he knew the offer to work at DELconnex wasn’t the answer. Or not the whole answer. He wanted something more than a new career. He wanted a wife—a family.

He frowned at that thought. Not that it was unusual for a thirty-six-year-old man to think about settling down, but it was unusual for him. On the other hand, nothing had been “usual” for Eric since he’d left the navy, and maybe it was time he gave serious consideration to the thought of marriage.

His brother Rowan hadn’t been given the luxury of time before he’d been pressured to find a wife. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of women had put themselves forward as bridal candidates when it became known that the prince regent was required to marry. Rowan had surprised everyone when he’d proposed to the royal nanny rather than a woman with recognizable title and ancestry.

Marcus, his younger brother, had also balked at tradition in choosing his bride, marrying a woman who was a foreigner and a successful business owner. And while there was no doubt that both of his brothers were blissfully happy with their respective wives, Eric had always thought that when the time came for him to marry, he would choose a more traditional kind of wife—someone who understood the role of a royal spouse and would be both suitable and content to fulfill it.

But somehow it was thoughts of a sweet and sexy bartender that hovered in the back of his mind and invaded his dreams. And—seven weeks after a single night together—these thoughts began to cause him serious worry. Never before had he been so preoccupied by a woman. Never before had he yearned so deeply for what he couldn’t have.

Being born a prince meant there were few things beyond his grasp, but Molly was one of them. They’d both agreed there would be nothing between them after that night. At the time, it had seemed like a perfect arrangement—one night, no strings. But even as the sun had begun to rise in the morning, Eric had regretted their bargain.

One night hadn’t been nearly enough to sate the passion that burned so hotly and fiercely between them. Not when, seven weeks later, just thinking of Molly was enough to make him ache with longing.