His Forbidden Pregnant Princess

Except, his assumption was correct. And she did not possess the strength to deny that. Not now.

Not when her most cherished fantasy was coming to life, right here in the darkened garden of the palace.

Luca cupped her face, large, hot hands holding her steady as he angled his face and took her deeper.

He kissed exactly like what he was. An autocratic conqueror. A man who had never been denied a single thing in his life.

A man who would not be denied now.

“I cannot watch this,” he rasped. “I cannot watch other men dance with you. Put their hands on you.”

“You said... You said you had to find me a husband.” Her voice was wobbly, tremulous, and she hated that. She wished—very much—that she could be more confident. That she could sound sophisticated. As if this was simply another garden tryst of many in a long line of them. Rather than the first time she had truly, honestly been kissed by a man.

Rather than a girl on the receiving end of something she had desired all of her life.

She didn’t want him to know that. She didn’t want him to know how she felt.

But then she imagined that she betrayed herself with each breath, with each moment that passed when she didn’t slap his face and call him ten kinds of scoundrel for daring to touch her in that way.

Of course she betrayed herself. Because, though he had been the one to instigate, she had kissed him back.

She had been powerless to do anything else. She had been far too caught up in it, consumed by it. By him.

The story of her life.

Things went well, and then Luca. And it all went to hell. It all belonged to him.

“I am going to find you a husband,” he said. “I swore it to my father.” He dragged his thumb along the edge of her lip. “But I cannot pretend I don’t want you. Not any longer.”

“You... You want me?”

“It is like a disease,” he ground out. “To want my sister as I do.”

“I’m not your sister,” she said, her lips numb. “We don’t have the same parents. We don’t share blood at all.”

“But don’t you see? To my father you were. And you would be to the nation. An affair between the two of us would have disastrous consequences.”

She closed her eyes, swallowing hard. “How?”

“Think of the headlines. About how our parents were married, and I debauched you likely from the moment you were beneath my roof. As a child. Or, you seduced me to try and hold on to your place. The nation has accepted you as a princess, without a blood relation, but reminding them so starkly that you do not carry royal blood is only a mistake. Can you imagine? An affair between two people who must thereafter remain family? It would be a disaster,” he reiterated.