Escape For Mother's Day: The French Tycoon's Pregnant Mistress

Escape For Mother's Day: The French Tycoon's Pregnant Mistress
Fiona McArthur

Chantelle Shaw

ABBY GREEN

Jet-set affairs. . .secret pregnancy!Pascal Lév ˆeque had his sights set on Alana Cusack – once half of an infamous celebrity couple, Alana’s marriage was a sham. Now, as the tycoon’s mistress, she feels loved – but then one night leads to a baby!Hearing that Tamsin Stewart is after his elderly friend, Bruno Di Cesare plans to dismiss the gold-digger pronto! But, meeting the striking blonde, he wants her for himself. Tamsin knows Bruno is dangerous for her heart, but too late she discovers she’s pregnant…Courageous midwife Kirsten Wilson threw herself into work to forget Hunter Morgen – that is, until he arrived as the new doctor in charge! Now forced to work together, they can’t deny the chemistry – but can Kirsten keep her little secret? Pamper yourself this Mother’s Day with three breathtaking stories full of passion, promises and unexpected little secrets!

When jet-set passion leads to pregnancy!

Escape for

Mother’s Day

Pamper yourself this Mother’s Day with

three breathtaking stories from Abby Green,

Chantelle Shaw and Fiona McArthur

Escape for Mother’s day

The French Tycoon’s Pregnant Mistress

Abby Green

Di Cesare’s Pregnant Mistress

Chantelle Shaw

The Pregnant Midwife

Fiona McArthur

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

The French Tycoon’s Pregnant Mistress

Abby Green

About the Author

ABBY GREEN worked for twelve years in the film industry. The glamour of four a.m. starts, dealing with precious egos, the mucky fields, driving rain … all became too much. After stumbling across a guide to writing romance, she took it as a sign and saw her way out, capitalising on her long-time love for romance books. Now she is very happy to sit in her nice warm house while others are out in the rain and muck! She lives and works in Dublin.

CHAPTER ONE

‘WITH a nail-biting finish like that, I think we can safely say that this tournament is wide-open and set to be one of the most exciting yet. This is Alana Cusack, reporting live from Croke Park. Back to you in the studio, Brian.’

Alana kept the smile pasted on her face until she could hear the chatter die away in her earpiece and then handed her microphone to her assistant, Aisling, with relief once she knew she was off air. She avoided looking to where she knew the man was still standing, his shoulder propped nonchalantly against the wall, hands in the pockets of his dark trousers, underneath a black overcoat with the collar turned up. He’d been talking to one of the French players, but now he was alone again.

He was watching her. And he’d been watching her all through the Six Nations match between Ireland and France. He’d unsettled her and he’d distracted her. And she didn’t know why.

That was a lie; she knew exactly why. He was dark and brooding, and so gorgeous that when she’d first locked eyes with him, quite by accident, it had felt as though someone had just punched her in the stomach. There had been an instant tug of recognition and something very alien and disconcerting. Certainly something that no other man had ever made her feel.

Not even her husband.

The tug had been so strong that she’d felt herself smiling and raising a quizzical brow, but then she’d seen an unmistakably mocking glint in his dark eyes. Of course, she didn’t know him; she’d never seen his long, hard-boned face before, had never seen that mouth, which even to look at from where she sat, had the most amazingly sensuous lips. Immediately she’d felt herself flushing with embarrassment at her reaction to him.

He had to be French, as he shared the quintessential good looks of so many of the crowd today, quite exotically different from the more pale-skinned home crowd of Irish supporters. And he’d been sitting in the seats reserved for VIP’s, situated just below the press area. He looked like a VIP. She’d only had to look once to know that he effortlessly stood out from the rest of the crowd. But her gaze had been inexorably drawn to him again and again, and to her utter ongoing mortification their eyes had met more than once. When he’d stood intermittently with the crowd during a try or a conversion, he’d stood taller and broader than any of the men around him—and in a crowd full of rugby supporters, that was something.

Yet was he waiting now because he thought that she’d been giving him some sort of come-on? Everything in Alana clammed up and rejected that thought. She would never be so blatant.

‘Do you need a lift, Alana?’ Aisling and the others had finished packing up, and Derek the cameraman was looking at her. Suddenly she felt very flustered. She didn’t get flustered. She was often teased for appearing cool, calm and collected at all times.

‘No,’ she answered quickly, aware that the stranger had moved out of her peripheral vision. A sense of panic threatened her—that he might be right behind her, waiting for her. ‘I have to go to a family dinner later, so I have my car here.’

‘So no glitzy after-party to see the French celebrating for you, then?’

She mock-grimaced, secretly relieved that she had an excuse. ‘I’ll only have time to stop in to show my face on my way, just to keep Rory happy.’

He shrugged and was about to walk away after Aisling and the other assistant, with their small amount of gear, when he stopped and turned again, distracting Alana.

‘Good reporting today, kid.’

Pleasure rushed through her. This was so important to her; Derek was practically a veteran of TV. She’d been slogging for a long time to get a modicum of respect. She smiled. ‘Thanks, Derek. I really appreciate that.’

He winked at her and turned to walk away again. With the fizz of pleasure staying in her chest, she checked around for anything left behind and made to follow the others, before stopping and cursing as she remembered that her laptop and notebook were back in the press seats.

Derek’s words were forgotten when that prickling awareness came back. She turned around with her heart beating hard, fully expecting to see the man again. She had a curiously insincere feeling of relief when he wasn’t there. He’d obviously gone, bored with waiting around. Taking the lift back up to the upper level, she told herself to stop being ridiculous, that she’d merely imagined that they’d had some kind of silent communication …

He thought he’d missed her when he’d gone to look at the pitch for a moment, and he didn’t like the momentary sense of panic that thought had generated.

But she was still here.

Now Pascal Lévêque stood back with arms folded and surveyed the enticing sight in front of him. A very shapely bottom was raised in the air, encased in the tight confines of a pencil skirt. Its owner was currently bending over, hauling a bag out from under a seat. His eyes drifted down. Long, slim legs were momentarily bent and now straightened to their full length—which was long, all the way from slim, neat ankles right up to gently flaring hips which tapered into a neat waist. He wondered if she was wearing stockings, and that thought had a forceful effect on the blood in his veins.

He wondered, too, then, what it was about her that had kept him looking, that had kept him here, when he should have long gone. What was it that had kept drawing his eye back again and again, uncharacteristically taking his attention away from the riveting match?

Neat.

That was it. She was neat. Right from her starchy, buttoned-up stripey shirt complete with tie, down to her sensible court-shoes and shiny, straight hair neatly tucked behind her ears, a side parting to the left. It was tied back in a small ponytail, but he could well imagine that if let loose, it would fall ever so neatly into a straight shoulder-length bob, framing her face. And since when had he been into neat? He was famously into seductive, sensual women, women who poured their beautiful, curvaceous bodies into clothes and dresses designed to fire the imagination and ignite the senses. Women who weren’t afraid to entice and beguile, using all their powerful charms for his pleasure.

She was shrugging into a long, black overcoat now, hiding herself, and bizarrely, he felt all at once irritated, inflamed and perplexed. What the hell was he doing, practically slavering over some vacuous TV dolly bird? He knew that any second now she’d turn round, and he’d see that up close her face wasn’t half as alluring as he’d imagined it to be from a distance: with a healthy glow, full, glossy lips and doe-shaped eyes under dark brows which contrasted with her strawberry-blonde hair.

No; she’d turn round and he’d see that she was caked in orange make-up. Her eyes would flare with recognition—hadn’t she already recognised him earlier, and given him those enticingly shy looks? And then he’d be caught. He was already trying to think up something to excuse his very out-of-character behaviour when she did turn round. He opened his mouth and suddenly his mind went blank.

Alana had no warning for what or who faced her. That gorgeous, brooding stranger was right in front of her. Just feet away. Looking at her. They were standing alone in an eighty-thousand-seat stadium, but to Alana in that moment it shrank to the four square feet surrounding them. And it was then that she had to acknowledge that the prickling awareness she’d been dismissing had just exploded into full-on shock. The blood seemed to thicken in her veins; her heart pounded again in recognition of some base appreciation of his very masculinity.

He stood with his head tilted back, hands in the pockets of his trousers. His coat emphasised his broad shoulders, the olive tone of his skin. But it was his eyes that she couldn’t take her own shocked gaze from. They were wide, dark, intelligent and full of something so hot and brazenly sensual that she felt breathless.