Princess's Nine-Month Secret

‘Still—’

‘I’m not your problem, Rico.’

‘But you could be—’ His words were cut off by a sudden buzzing. Lina looked at him questioningly.

‘It’s the lift,’ he explained tersely. ‘The doors lock automatically, since it opens right into the suite.’ The buzzing sounded again, insistent. Whoever was in the lift wanted to get in. Who the hell was trying to find him now?

CHAPTER FOUR (#u25903b74-613e-52d6-b4bd-82f4a7b4e6b0)

HALINA WATCHED IN misery as Rico grabbed his shirt and strode from the room. She slid from the bed, still clutching the sheet to her, and reached for her dress. She needed to get out of here as soon as possible, before her mother or Abdul missed her. Before she broke down completely and burst into tears in front of Rico, appalling him even further.

How could she have been so stupid?

Hurriedly Halina snatched her underwear and yanked it on before wriggling into her dress. She managed to get the zip halfway up and decided that would have to do. She couldn’t find her bra, so she just left it. She had to get out of here—now.

She needed to absorb everything that had happened tonight, everything she’d let happen, because she’d been so befuddled, besotted and bewitched by Rico Falcone. Those women had been right—he was fabulous at sex.

Too bad that didn’t do much for her now, when she was facing a terrifyingly uncertain future. She looked back on the last few hours, blurred as they were, and marvelled that she’d been so reckless, with scarcely a thought for her future, her self. How could she have jeopardised everything for a single night’s pleasure?

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Halina’s head jerked up at the sound of Rico’s furious voice, and then her mouth dropped open in shock as the royal bodyguard, Abdul, strode into the bedroom. She’d thought things were bad enough but they’d just become a million times worse.

‘Come now, Your Highness,’ Abdul said in Arabic. He bowed his head so he didn’t have to look upon her near-nakedness.

‘Abdul...’ Halina licked her lips, her mouth dry, her mind whirling. ‘How did you...?’

‘Please, Your Highness. Come now. Your mother is waiting.’

The balled tights she’d been clutching in one fist fell to the floor. ‘Does my mother know...?’ she began. Abdul’s terse nod was all the confirmation she needed, and far more than she wanted. Any hope of creeping back into her hotel suite with no one the wiser crumbled to ash. Not only did she have to deal with the loss of her virginity and a possible pregnancy, but her parents’ fury and disappointment. She swayed on her feet, sick with both fear and shame.

Rico stood in the doorway, looking furious. ‘Who is this, Lina?’ he demanded. His face was flushed, his shirt unbuttoned, his eyes blazing.

‘I have to go,’ Halina said numbly. She had to go now, before she passed out, or was sick, or burst into tears. She felt close to doing all three. With trembling fingers, she struggled with the rest of the zip. Rico muttered a curse and then crossed the room to her and did it up himself.

‘Do not touch her again,’ Abdul ordered in English, his voice flat and lethal, and Rico whirled on the man as if he’d been waiting for the chance to attack.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Please, Rico, just let me go.’ Spots danced before her eyes and a pressure was building in her chest. She needed to get out of here now.

Rico glanced furiously at Abdul, who was waiting by the door, his arms crossed, his face studiously blank. ‘Who is he? What is he to you?’ he demanded.

‘No one,’ Halina answered quietly. ‘No one like that. He’s one of my guards.’

‘Guards?’

‘We must go now.’ Abdul stepped forward, six-foot-four of solid muscle, but he paled in comparison with Rico in all his glittering fury, who looked as if he was seriously contemplating throwing a punch at the bodyguard.

‘We aren’t finished here, Lina,’ Rico insisted in a voice that throbbed with angry intensity.

‘We have to be,’ Halina whispered, and she slipped by him towards the lift. As she stabbed the button she saw out of the corner of her eye Abdul block Rico’s way. Rico looked mutinous, his fists clenched, his whole body taut with rage.

Thankfully the doors of the lift opened before he did something precipitous, and Halina stepped inside with a shuddery sigh of both relief and regret, Abdul following quickly... The doors closed as Rico strode to face them, fury and disbelief etched on every rugged line of his face. Then she saw him no more.

All the courage and defiance Halina had felt earlier in the evening, all the excitement from being with Rico, had all gone, leaving her flattened and empty. She was terrified too, yet she knew she deserved everything she was going to get, which she couldn’t bear to think about yet.

She glanced at Abdul, who was stony-faced and silent. ‘How did you find me?’ she whispered.

‘It was not so difficult, Your Highness.’

‘But how did you know I was gone?’

‘I check all the rooms of the suite throughout the night.’

And she’d thought she was being so clever. She hadn’t realised Abdul was so thorough, never mind that he’d dozed off for a few minutes.

He must have seen she was gone and then looked for her downstairs. The bouncer at the party could have identified her, as well as Rico, and how he’d seen them leave together. No, it had not been so difficult. And she was even more foolish than she’d realised.

‘My mother...?’ she began, but Abdul just shook his head. It was not his place to say what her mother thought.

Soon enough they were walking down the hallway to their hotel suite, and Halina’s heart began to thud in an entirely new and unpleasant way at the prospect of facing her mother. What would Aliya Amar think of her daughter’s flagrant disobedience? What would happen?

She didn’t have to wait long to find out. As soon as Abdul swiped the key card, her mother threw open the door. She stood with her shoulders thrown back, her face flushed with both fury and fear, her eyes narrowed to dark slits.

‘Leave us,’ she commanded Abdul, and he did so.

Halina closed the door behind her, her fingers trembling on the knob. She’d never seen her mother look so angry. Her mother was always carefree and charming, her light laughter tinkling through the rooms of the royal palace of Abkar. Yet now she looked like a woman possessed by rage. Halina shrank back. She couldn’t help it.

‘I cannot believe you have been so stupid,’ Aliya stated in a cold, restrained voice. ‘So utterly reckless. We leave Abkar for one night—one night!—and you manage to completely disgrace yourself. How completely, I can see from the state of your dress.’ She raked Halina with one up-and-down glance, taking in her rumpled dress, her lack of stockings, her tumbled hair and still-swollen lips. Halina felt as if the truth of her evening was written all over her, and she bowed her head.