Crown Prince, Pregnant Bride

‘A week, then. A fortnight. Maybe until you go back to Melvante. Look, you can still do whatever it is you planned to do here—spending time with Gus, thinking things through, sorting out kingly strategies. And I have work to do on the window. I’m not going to back out of my business commitments.’ She paused. ‘But, in between the business stuff, there are spaces.’

He could see what she meant. ‘Spaces where we can just be.’

‘Together,’ she confirmed softly.

He sat down on the chesterfield and pulled her onto his lap. ‘Your arguments are very persuasive, Ms Moran.’

She inclined her head. ‘Why, thank you, Your Royal Highness.’

‘Though I still feel dishonourable, offering you nothing but a fling.’

‘They’re the only kind of terms that either of us is in a position to offer,’ she pointed out. ‘So it’s your choice, Lorenzo. Cold showers—or this.’ She cupped his face in her hands and skimmed her mouth against his.

His lips tingled where her skin touched his, and he couldn’t help tightening his arms round her and responding to her kiss in kind.

‘This,’ he said when he could finally drag his mouth away from hers. ‘This.’

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_957c8958-101f-5f91-b9dc-434739b658a6)

ALTHOUGH INDIGO WENT back to her work when she left the library, she found herself stopping often to think about Lorenzo. She still couldn’t quite believe what they’d agreed to. Since when did she do anything crazy like this? After Nigel’s betrayal and the way her life had collapsed, two years ago, she’d kept all her relationships strictly platonic.

And now she was about to have a mad fling with a man who was about to become king.

Mad being the operative word, she thought wryly.

It took her ages to choose what to wear for dinner. At home, Indigo didn’t bother changing for dinner—there wasn’t much point when her meal was a hastily grabbed snack and she was going straight back to work for the rest of the evening. But she knew that Lottie’s family always dressed for dinner, and when she stayed at Edensfield she always tried to fit in, so as not to embarrass her friend.

Last night’s dress had made Lorenzo want to be a troglodyte and carry her off to his room.

Tonight, then, she’d wear something more demure. Something that would give him the chance to change his mind, maybe. Because she was pretty sure that one of them needed a dose of common sense, and right at that moment she didn’t think she was the one who’d get it. So she picked a dress that one of her friends from art college had made as a prototype Edwardian costume and then presented to her because it practically had her name written over it: a midnight-blue velvet creation with a high scooped neck and cap sleeves, which came down to her ankles and was teamed with a silk sash in the same colour, a chunky faux-pearl necklace and a matching bracelet.