The Prince's Secret Bride

The Prince's Secret Bride
Raye Morgan

Royal scandal: the prince and the pregnant waif! Prince Nico can’t walk by when he sees Marisa needs his help. She’s confused and lost, and clearly has no place to go. So he sweeps her back to his royal palace. Seeing she’s pregnant brings out Nico’s protective instincts – feelings he thought he’d left behind… Until Marisa came along normal life seemed shallow and frivolous, but now it feels as though Nico has something to live for.But with his royal realm torn apart by war and rebellion, can Nico afford to fall in love with this pregnant stranger?The Royals of Montenevada Three gorgeous princes… and how they meet their brides-to-be!

“Where exactly do you think you’re going?” Prince Nico demanded.

“I want to go home,” Marisa said quickly. “I didn’t want to bother you again, so…”

The words died in her throat. He was barefoot, and his shirt was unbuttoned, hanging open as though he’d begun getting ready for bed. His eyes were darkly haunted, but what really took her breath away was the gorgeous landscape of his hard muscular chest.

“How can you go home if you don’t know where home is?” he asked evenly.

He stared down at her without speaking for long moment.

“You really have no right to stop me, you know,” she added stoutly.

“You think not?’ he said softly, moving closer. “You haven’t been paying attention, Marisa. I have every right.”

Raye Morgan is a fool for romance—even in her own family. With four grown sons, love, or at least heavy-duty friendship, is constantly in the air. Two sons have recently married—that leaves two more to go, and lots of romantic turmoil to feed the idea machine. Raye has published over seventy romances, and claims to have many more waiting in the wings. Though she’s lived in Holland, Guam and Washington, D.C., she currently makes her home in Southern California, with her husband and the occasional son. When not writing, she can be found feverishly working on family genealogy and scrapbooking. So many pictures—so little time!

Dear Reader

The thing about royalty is—they’re regular people, just like you and me.

And yet, they’re not. There really is something special about them. Is it the costumes they put on for royal occasions? The special rituals they put themselves through? The castles and palaces they live in? The way everyone pays attention to every little crazy thing they do?

I don’t know. But I do know it sometimes seems as though they’ve been touched by a magic wand or sprinkled with enchanted gold dust or something the rest of us haven’t experienced—just to make sure they are set apart and worth watching.

I hope you enjoy watching the royals of the House of Montenevada as they struggle to regain that royal magic, putting their country back together after a long time in exile. Prince Nico feels the responsibility deeply, and knows he shouldn’t be distracted by Marisa, whose amnesia makes her a suspicious element among them. Who is she? Could she be a spy for the recently routed Acredonnas?

Well—read the book and see!

Raye Morgan

THE PRINCE’S SECRET BRIDE

BY

RAYE MORGAN

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

CHAPTER ONE

PRINCE Nico of the royal House of Montenevada pulled down his cap and turned his collar up, partly against the misting drizzle, but also in order to avoid being recognized. His family had been back in power less than six months and he was already sick of the toll it was taking on his private life. He hadn’t spent five years leading a rebellion in the mountains so that he could be treated like a rock star. He’d thought they were fighting for bigger things. Now he wasn’t so sure.

The dark streets were pretty much deserted and only dimly lit by flickering street lamps. A lone car went by. Then a cluster of giggling teenagers, late for their curfews. As he started over the Gonglia Bridge, he passed a young woman whose eyes were strangely vacant; she seemed to gaze right through him. Her mass of blond crimped curls was wild around her pretty face, but that seemed to be a style that was popular these days and he didn’t think twice about it. That otherworldly look in her eyes stayed with him, though, and when he reached the high point of the bridge’s arc, he turned and looked back to see what she was doing.

“Hey!”

What he saw had him running back. The crazy woman was about to jump! In the half a minute since he’d passed her, she’d climbed out on the scaffolding and was leaning over the inky waters that rolled beneath, racing down out of the mountains toward the sea.

“Hold it!” he yelled as he flung himself at her.

She looked up, startled, and tried to avoid him, twisting away so that she was even more dangerously close to crashing down into the river. He grabbed her roughly. There was no time for niceties. Gripping her upper arm, he sank his other hand into her thick hair and yanked her back onto solid surface. She fell against him and he had just time to take in the soft, round feel of her breast as his palm unintentionally slid over it, before she turned on him like a scalded cat.

“Get away!” she cried, glaring at him and backing away. “Leave me alone!”

He grimaced, annoyed with her, annoyed with anyone who would make such an obvious play for attention as jumping from a bridge. And then her soft blue jacket fell open enough for him to see her body and he realized that she was pregnant. That put a different light on things. He winced, knowing from experience that a pregnancy could change everything—for everyone involved. He looked deeply into her wide dark eyes and saw something that tugged at his sympathies after all.

“I’d be happy to leave you alone,” he said, trying to shave any harshness from his comments, “if you think you could refrain from flinging yourself into rivers.”

She shook her head impatiently. “I wasn’t trying to jump.”

“Really? You were doing a pretty good imitation of a bridge jumper.”

“No, I was just looking for my things.” She looked away distractedly. “He…he threw them over the side of the bridge and…” Her voice trailed off and she met his gaze again, her own eyes hooded. “Never mind,” she said, hunching deeper into her jacket and turning away.

He’d only heard half her muffled words but he was willing to join in. “What were you looking for? Maybe I can help you.”

“No.” She seemed to be trying to put distance between them. Glancing at him sideways, she began to move away. “You can’t help me.”

It was dark. He was large. And male. He knew he probably looked threatening to her. He didn’t mean to. But what the hell? He had better things to do with his time than to follow a crazy woman around. So he shrugged.

“Fine. Have it your way.”

She glanced back over her shoulder. “I will, thank you.”

He slowed, then came to a stop and watched as she hurried away. He supposed it was best to leave her alone, just as she’d demanded. Still, he hated to do it. She bothered him. There was something in the way she moved, to quote an old song.

Besides, this town was only a few months into recovering from a war and the place was crawling with unsavory characters who had nothing better to do than to make trouble for someone else. It was a problem he and his brothers were going to have to deal with very quickly. One of many. And right now it could be a problem for this troubled lady.

You can’t save them all.

Those words echoed painfully in his head and he shook them away. Gordon Greiva, his best friend and comrade-in-arms, had said that often in the old days when they’d been fighting for their country’s liberation. Nico, letit go. You can’t save them all. The irony was, Gordon himself had died in that final battle.

No, he couldn’t save them all. Truth to tell, he didn’t have the greatest track record in saving much of any of them. And what could he do to help this one? Not much. She’d certainly made it clear she didn’t want his help.

With a careless shrug, he turned away and started back toward the other side of the bridge. He needed a drink.

He heard the pub before he saw it, music and laughter an appealing invitation to step into the crowd. But he hesitated in the doorway, peering inside. He would love to go in, order Scotch, neat, and sit back and let that liquid fire burn its way into his soul, restoring him to something resembling real feeling again. It was tempting. He could see himself sitting there in the darkened room, letting the smoke and conversation wash around him while he contemplated life and all its twists and turns.

But he knew that picture was a fantasy. As soon as he sat down, the waitress would look at him sharply, then whisper to one of the other customers. The buzz would begin as people craned their necks, staring, until finally someone would get brave enough to come over and start talking. And once the ice had been broken, the flood would come, people wanting to rehash the war, people wanting to know why everything wasn’t instantly wonderful now that the good guys had taken over again. And who knew if it was a bar full of patriots or a refuge for disgruntled losers. You paid your money and you took your chances. But tonight, he didn’t feel up to testing those waters.

Turning away from the pub, he looked back at the river. He couldn’t seem to shake the image of his distressed jumper, her wild curls floating around her face, her dark eyes filled with mystery. He wondered if she’d found what she’d been looking for, and if she was going to have any trouble making her way home. The bridge looked ominous from this angle, like a path into dangerous territory. The wet streets were empty. It was getting late and time for him to make a decision as to where he was going to spend the next few hours.

He started down the walkway that fronted the river feeling vaguely uneasy, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his gaze running restlessly over the scene. And then it sharpened. Something was moving down by the riverbank, where various debris was piled up around a short pier. He stopped and looked harder, then swore softly and vaulted over the river wall to get to the water’s edge. It was her.

A few quick strides brought him to where she was bending over a large black plastic bag.