Princess's Nine-Month Secret Read online

  Rico stared at the hazy landscape of Rome’s buildings in the muggy summer heat, unable to concentrate on the property deal laid out on his desk. All he needed to do was review a few simple terms and scrawl his signature. Yet his brain had stalled, as it had many times over the last two months, ever since Lina had left his hotel suite in a cloud of confusion and shame.

  It hadn’t been difficult to find out who she was—Princess Halina of Abkar, known to be a spoiled pet of her father, a guest of the hotel where the party had been held and presently engaged to Prince Zayed al bin Nur of Kalidar. The fact that he’d deflowered a virgin promised to another man was like a stone in Rico’s gut.

  He might be considered cold and ruthless—he’d been called emotionless and even cruel—but he was a man of honour, and in lying to him Halina had made him violate his own personal code of morality. It was one he’d lived by staunchly since his days in the orphanage, determined to rise above the desperation and poverty, to be better than those around him, because that had felt like all he’d had. He didn’t lie, steal or cheat. He never would. But in taking Halina to his bed he felt he’d done all three. It was something he could not forgive himself.

  But, regardless of whether or not he could forgive her for lying to him, he needed to know where she was... and if she was pregnant. Because no matter what he felt for Halina he would take care of his child. His blood. That was a certainty. The very idea that he might be put in the position his mother had been in, a stranger to his own child, was anathema to him. His mother might not have cared about her own child, but he did. He would. Absolutely.

  The day after Halina had left his suite Rico had hired a private investigator to discover where she was and what she was doing, determined to find her, and more importantly to discover if she was pregnant.

  The possibility that she might be carrying his child and marry someone else burned inside him. He would never allow such a travesty; it would be even worse than her simply being pregnant. But as the days slipped by with no answer he knew he might have to; it might have already happened.

  The thought of another man raising his child, passing him off as his own, made his fists clench and brought bile to the back of his throat. Never. But he’d had no word from the investigator who had flown to Abkar to ferret out information.

  All he knew was that Halina had returned to Abkar the day after their encounter and hadn’t been seen since, although she was believed to be residing in the royal palace. Attempts to get any information or gain entrance to the palace had been fruitless, so he had no idea if she’d married al bin Nur as planned or if she was pregnant.

  Rico turned away from the window, pacing the confines of his luxurious office. For the last eight weeks he’d lived in a torment of ignorance and uncertainty, unable to focus on anything until he knew the outcome of his one night with Halina.

  He’d told himself it was unlikely she was pregnant, that in all likelihood he’d never see her again and never needed to. His own history made that hope a faint one. His mother had been a waitress, his father a worker on Salerno’s docks. They’d had one night together and he’d been the unwanted result. His mother had dumped him with his father when he’d been two weeks old and walked away, never to return. He’d been a mistake, a terrible inconvenience, and he’d never been able to forget it. He would not allow his own child to suffer a similar fate.

  ‘Signor Falcone?’ The crackle of his intercom had him turning. He reached over and pressed a button.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A Signor Andretti to see you, signor,’ his assistant said, and Rico’s heart leapt with fierce hope. Andretti was the private investigator he’d hired a month ago. ‘Send him in.’

  Moments later the neatly dressed man, slim and anonymous-looking, stepped into Rico’s office.

  ‘Well?’ Rico demanded tersely. ‘Is there news?’

  ‘The marriage to al bin Nur has been called off. Apparently the Princess refused to marry him, and so he is remaining married to the governess he kidnapped.’

  Rico had heard already, through the investigator, how Halina’s fiancé had kidnapped the wrong woman and married her in so much haste that he hadn’t ascertained her name first. A fool’s mistake, one he would never make. He dismissed them both; they were irrelevant to him now that he knew Halina had called off the marriage. ‘And the Princess?’

  ‘I believe she is currently staying in a royal residence in the north of Abkar, a remote location.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Andretti shrugged. ‘I bribed a maid in the palace, who told me the Princess had left about a month ago. It seems the Princess is going to stay in the north for some time...’ Andretti paused meaningfully. ‘At least nine months.’

  Nine months. Shock iced through him, followed by a fiery rage. She must be pregnant and she hadn’t told him. Hadn’t even tried to tell him. Instead she’d gone into hiding...hiding from him? He took a deep breath, steadying himself.

  ‘Thank you.’ As his head cleared a new emotion took the place of that first lick of anger, something that took him by surprise. Hope. Joy. If Halina was pregnant...he was going to be a father. He was going to have a child. One he would keep by his side, for whom he would fight to the death Someone he would never, ever leave. Not as he’d been left.

  ‘Do you have the location of the palace?’

  Andretti withdrew a folded piece of paper from his pocket. ‘Right here, signor.’

  It took Rico only a few hours to make the necessary arrangements. By nightfall he was on a plane to Abkar’s capital city, where the following morning he picked up the all-terrain SUV he’d bought over the phone. The palace where Halina was staying was three hundred miles north of the city through inhospitable desert, a landscape of huge, craggy boulders and endless sand. She really must have wanted to get away from him.

  Of course, she could have been banished there but, judging from all the gossip Rico had heard through the private investigator about how the Sultan spoiled his four daughters, Rico doubted it. This was a choice Halina had made. A decision to hide from him.

  He drove the first hundred miles before the sun got too hot, his body taut with suppressed energy, his mind focused with grim purpose on the task ahead.

  When the sun reached its zenith he stopped the Jeep and sheltered under a rock from the worst of the midday heat. Along with the SUV he’d arranged for provisions to survive in the desert for a week. He always made sure to be prepared in every situation, even one as extraordinary as this.

  As for when he arrived at the palace... His mouth curved grimly. He would be prepared then, as well.

  He stopped again for the night and then drove as soon as the first pearly-grey light of dawn lightened the sky. The sun had risen and bathed the desert in a fierce orange glow by the time he arrived at the palace, a remote outpost that looked as if it had been hewn from the boulders strewn about the undulating dunes.

  Rico parked the SUV far enough away that he wouldn’t be noticed and grabbed a pair of binoculars. From this distance the palace’s walls looked smooth and windowless; the place truly was a fortress, and the nearest town of any description was over a hundred miles away. Halina had chosen as remote a place as possible to hide from him, but it was no place for a young pregnant woman. The sooner he got Halina out of there, the better.

  As the mother of his child she belonged with him—by his side, in his bed. As the mother of his child, she would raise that child with him, so he or she would never know a day without love, would never feel abandoned, an inconvenience to be discarded. A child needed both mother and father, and Halina would be there for their child and for Rico...as his wife.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HALINA GAZED OUT of the window of her bedroom at the endless desert and suppressed a dispirited sigh. She’d been at Mansiyy Rimal, the Palace of Forgotten Sands, for nearly a month and it had been the longest month of
her life. The prospect of spending several more months here filled her with despair, but it was better than contemplating what might come after that.

  The week after her night with Rico was a blur of misery and fear. Her father, always so genial and cheerful, had become a complete stranger, cold and frightening in his fury, and Halina had shrunk before him, afraid of a man who had had only cause to spoil and indulge her until now.

  He’d forced her to take a pregnancy test as soon as possible, and when it had come up positive the bottom had dropped out of Halina’s stomach—and her world. She’d waited, barricaded in her bedroom, forbidden even to see her younger sisters, on whom she was now considered a bad influence, while her father negotiated on her behalf. He wanted her to marry Prince Zayed after all, now that she was spoiled goods and unsuitable for any other man. And Prince Zayed had seemed willing to go ahead, although reluctant.

  Halina had used her last remnant of strength to resist such a fate, especially when she’d seen how Zayed and Olivia had fallen in love with each other. She’d thought she could bear a loveless marriage, but not when her husband so obviously cared for someone else.

  Her steadfast refusal was the straw that had broken the remaining remnant of her father’s terse goodwill. Halina still couldn’t bear to think of the torturous aftermath, those days of despair and fear. Eventually, in cold fury, her father had sent her here to this remote outpost in the cruellest stretch of desert, with only a few stony-faced staff for company, to remain until she gave birth.

  After that she had no idea what would happen to her or her child, and that was something that filled her with terror. The Sultan had warned her that he would take her child away from her, but Halina tried to believe that once his grandchild was born he would relent. Her father loved her. At least, he had once. Surely he couldn’t be so cruel, despite how she’d disappointed him? Yet he’d already shown just how cruel he could be.

  Escape was an impossibility—she was constantly watched by the palace staff, and in any case there was three hundred miles of inhospitable desert between her and the nearest civilisation. She was well and truly trapped.

  Halina turned from the window, surveying the spartan room that was to be her bedchamber for the coming months. The palace was a barren place both inside and out, without any modern conveniences or amusements. All she had were a few books, some drawing materials and endless time.

  Halina pressed one hand to her still-flat stomach, trying to fight the nausea that had become her constant companion a few weeks ago. She felt lonelier than she’d ever imagined feeling, and far more grown up. She looked back on her evening with Rico and wanted to take her old, girlish self by the shoulders and give her a hard shake. What on earth had she been thinking? Why had she gambled her future away for a single, reckless encounter? The sex, fabulous as it had felt at the time, most certainly had not been worth it.

  Restlessly Halina plucked a sketchbook from the table and a few charcoal pencils. She’d always enjoyed sketching, and now she had endless hours to hone her skill. Not that there was much to draw but craggy rocks and sand dunes.

  A sudden commotion from outside her room had Halina stilling, the charcoal barely touched to the paper.

  ‘You cannot, sir!’ Ammar, one of the palace staff, exclaimed, then the door was thrown open so hard it rocked on its hinges, swinging back and hitting the wall.

  Rico Falcone stood there, dressed in desert camouflage fatigues, his sharp cheekbones flushed, his eyes glittering. Halina’s mouth dropped open and she found she couldn’t speak.

  ‘You,’ he said in a low, authoritative voice, ‘Are coming with me.’

  Ammar burst in behind him. ‘You cannot take the Princess!’

  ‘The Princess is pregnant with my child,’ Rico returned evenly, the words vibrating with taut anger. ‘She is coming with me.’ His tone left no room for disagreement.

  For a second Ammar looked uncertain. He wasn’t trained to defend the palace; it was remote, as forgotten as its name, and he was nothing more than a steward, meant to fetch and carry. Sultan Hassan had never anticipated anyone looking for Halina, much less finding her. She was here with a skeleton staff who were more used to cooking and gardening than wielding arms or defending the ancient stone walls.

  ‘Halina.’ Rico stretched out one hand. ‘Come now.’

  Halina would have resented his commanding tone if she’d felt she had any choice. But when the alternative to going with Rico was mouldering in this palace, and then in all likelihood having her baby taken away from her, she knew what she’d choose. What she had to choose. Wordlessly she rose from where she sat and crossed the room to take his hand.

  The feel of his warm, dry palm encasing hers sent a shower of untimely sparks through Halina’s arm and then her whole body. Quite suddenly, and with overwhelming force, she remembered just how much she’d been attracted to Rico. How he’d overpowered her senses, her reason, everything. And how completely dangerous that had been.

  He pulled her towards him and then started down the steep, turreted stairs while Ammar made useless noises of protest.

  ‘Wait—what about my things?’

  ‘I will buy you whatever you need.’

  A shiver of apprehension rippled over her skin. What exactly was she agreeing to?

  ‘What am I to tell the Sultan?’ Ammar demanded, sounding both furious and wretched.

  Rico turned, his hand still encasing hers. ‘You may tell the Sultan,’ he said in a low, sure voice, ‘That Princess Halina is with the father of her child, where she belongs, and where she will stay.’

  Ammar’s mouth opened silently and Halina had no time to ask questions or reconsider her choice as Rico led her out of the palace with sure, confident strides.

  ‘How on earth did you get here?’ she demanded as he strode through the courtyard and then out the front gates.

  ‘I bought an SUV.’

  ‘And how did you get Ammar to open the gates?’

  ‘I told him who I was.’

  ‘You mean—?’

  ‘A billionaire with considerable power and the father of your child.’ He turned back to subject her to a dark glance. ‘He saw reason quite quickly. Why did you not tell me, Halina?’

  ‘Not tell you?’ Halina repeated in disbelief. ‘As if—’

  He cut her off with a slash of his hand. ‘Now is not the time. We need to get back to Rome.’

  ‘Rome,’ Halina repeated faintly. ‘You’re taking me to Rome?’

  Rico gave her another scathing look. ‘Of course. Where else would we go?’

  ‘I... I don’t know.’ She felt dizzy with everything that had happened so quickly. She didn’t even know what questions to ask, what answers she was ready to hear. Why had Rico taken her? What was he going to do with her?

  They’d reached Rico’s SUV parked a short distance from the palace behind a cluster of craggy rocks.

  ‘You know,’ Halina said shakily as Rico opened the passenger door and she climbed in, ‘Ammar will radio my father and he’ll send out guards to find us. To take me back.’ Her father would be furious that after everything she’d been kidnapped after all. And Halina knew he wouldn’t leave her alone once her baby was born. He’d take away her child and then marry her to whomever he could find that was politically suitable and willing to take damaged goods.

  ‘I am not worried about your father,’ Rico dismissed.

  ‘Maybe you should be,’ Halina tossed back. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten how impossibly arrogant he was. ‘Considering he is a head of state and he will send out trained soldiers who know this terrain far better than you do.’

  ‘True, which is why I will not be traversing it,’ Rico informed her shortly. He swung into the driver’s side and then pulled away, choking clouds of sand and dust rising as the tyres peeled through the desert. Halina pressed back against the seat, every mov
ement jolting right through her bones.

  ‘Where are we going, then?’

  ‘North, to Kalidar. I have a helicopter waiting at the border.’

  ‘A helicopter?’ Halina stared at him in disbelief. ‘How did you arrange such a thing? How did you even find me?’

  ‘I told you that if you were pregnant you would be my paramount concern.’

  ‘Yes, but...’ Halina shook her head slowly. Rico’s steadfast determination shocked, humbled and terrified her all at once. What else was this man, this stranger, capable of? The father of her child. ‘Where will we go after Kalidar?’ she asked numbly.

  ‘I told you, Rome. I have a private jet waiting to take us there in its capital city, Arjah.’ Rico’s face was set in grim lines as he navigated the rocky terrain. ‘We should be at the helicopter within the hour.’

  Halina lapsed into silence, still dazed by the day’s events. To think only moments ago she’d been contemplating how bored she would be, stuck in a desert palace for the better part of a year. Now she didn’t know what to feel.

  The jolting movements of the SUV eventually lulled her into an uneasy doze, only to wake when it stopped as Rico cut the engine. The sun was hot and bright above, creating a dazzling sparkle on the undulating sand dunes. In front of them was a helicopter bearing Kalidar’s military insignia.

  ‘How...?’ Halina began, but then merely shook her head. Should she really be surprised at the extent of Rico’s power? He was a billionaire, ruthless, arrogant and used to being obeyed. She had no doubt that he could get whatever he wanted...including her.

  Rico helped her climb into the helicopter and then settled into a seat, putting on her headgear to muffle the powerful sound of the machine’s blades as it started up into the sky.

  Halina watched the desert drop away with fascinated disbelief, part of her still blessedly numb as she wondered what on earth her future held now—and how afraid she should be.

  * * *

  Rico stared straight ahead as the helicopter moved over the harsh and rugged landscape, a mixture of exultation and anger rushing through him. He’d done it. He’d found Halina. He’d brought her with him. Yet despite the triumph he felt at having accomplished that he couldn’t let go of his anger that she would have hidden her pregnancy from him, his own child. Considering the nature of his origins and childhood, the possibility was even more repugnant to him. She would have turned him into a liar, the worst sort of man, without him even knowing.