Billionaire Prince, Pregnant Mistress

He’d been in no particular hurry to go anywhere. Okay, why not? he’d said to himself, and smiled as he’d approached her. “Excuse me,” he’d said pleasantly, “but do you need some help?”

She’d looked up from the slim guidebook, her eyes a little blurry because of the glasses. Her hesitation had been artful, just enough to make her seem not just cautious but almost old-fashioned.

“Well—well—thank you. Yes, actually, I do. If you could tell me… I’m looking for the Argus. It’s a restaurant. Well, a café. The guidebook says it’s supposed to be right here. The hotel desk clerk said so, too. But—”

“But it isn’t,” Alex had said, smiling again. “And, I’m afraid, it hasn’t been, not for at least a year.”

Her face had fallen. Disappointment had only made her lovelier.

“Oh. Oh, I see. Well—thank you again.”

“You’re most welcome.”

She’d taken off her glasses and gone on looking up at him, her eyes—hazel, he’d noted, neither brown nor green nor gold but a veritable swirl of colors—as wide and innocent as a fawn’s.

Innocent as a fox approaching a hen house, he thought now, his mouth thinning to a tight line.

Maria Santos had known exactly what she was doing, right up to how she’d reacted when he’d suggested another restaurant nearby.

“Is it…?” She’d hesitated. “I mean, is this other restaurant—?”

“As good as the Argus?” Truth was, he had no idea. He’d never been to the Argus. From what little he recalled, it had been a tiny café, just a place to get a quick bite.

“As inexpensive.” Color had swept into her cheeks. “The guidebook says—”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” he’d said, because she wouldn’t.

The restaurant he’d recommended was incredibly expensive—but he would take her to it. He would dine with her and pay the bill. Just to talk, he’d told himself. Just to be a good ambassador for his country, even though—to his surprise—this beautiful stranger did not seem to recognize his face when the simple truth, much to his chagrin, was that spotting him was as much a tourist attraction as the beaches, the yachts and the casino.

The hell she hadn’t recognized him.

She’d known who he was. She’d set the entire thing up.

But he had not known it, then.

She’d protested prettily that she couldn’t possibly let him pay for her meal but she’d let him think he’d overcome her protests. And, after dinner, when they’d walked along the sea wall, when he’d kissed her while they stood surrounded by the tall pines that grew on a little promontory and their kisses had gone from soft and exploratory to hot and deep, when his hands had gone under her silk skirt and she’d moaned into his mouth, when he’d put his arm tightly around her waist, still kissing her, and led her through the now-quiet streets to his flat, to his bed, when she’d clung to him and whispered she’d never done anything like this before…

When she’d come apart in his arms, her cries so sweet, so wild, so real…

Alex cursed.

“Sir?” his driver said, but Alex ignored him, swung open the door of the Bentley himself and stepped into the night.

Lies, all of it, lies that had come undone in the early morning when he’d reached for her again and found her side of the bed empty. He’d assumed she was in the bathroom.

She wasn’t.

He’d heard her voice, soft as the breeze from the sea. Was she on the phone? Without knowing why he did it, he’d carefully lifted the one on his night table and brought it to his ear.

Yes, he’d heard her say with a breathy little laugh, yes, Joaquin, I think I really do have a good chanceof being named the winner. I know the competitionis tough but I have every reason to believe mychances are really excellent.

She’d looked up from the telephone when he walked into the kitchen. Her face had gone crimson.

“You’re awake,” she’d begun to say, with an awkward smile.

He’d taken the phone from her hand. Pressed the ‘end’ button. Carried her back to bed without saying a word, taken her in passion born of anger.

Then he’d told her to get her clothes on. To get the hell out. And not to bother showing up at the palace, later.

“Your chances of being named to design my mother’s birthday gift,” he’d said in clipped tones, “are less than those of a snowball in hell.”

Alex strode across the street.

It had taken two months but that prediction was no longer just a metaphor. Here was the snow. And, in just a couple of minutes, Maria Santos would get a first-hand introduction to hell.

And he would get the satisfaction of putting her, and that night, out of his head.

Forever.

CHAPTER THREE

MARIA sighed, peeled off her dressed-for-success suit jacket, tossed it over the back of a chair and automatically reached for the phone to return her mother’s call.

Her hand stilled.

What was she doing? A ten-minute litany of aches and pains, followed by a lecture about how she needed to get a real job, were the last things she wanted right now.

Get out of her clothes. Run a hot bath. Eat something. Then she’d make the call.

Maria looked at her shoes, made a face and heaved them into the big trash can beside her work table. Gorgeous but impractical. She should have known better than to have bought them. Gorgeous but impractical was not for her. It never had been.

And she hadn’t bought the shoes for today, she’d bought them for the weekend she’d gone to Aristo. She’d wanted to look sophisticated, but the shoes hadn’t done her much good then, either. Even if she’d looked sophisticated, she’d behaved like a—like a—

No. She wasn’t going there. Not tonight. Rejected by a phony Frenchman today, rejected by an arrogant Aristan two months ago.

That was more than enough.

She stepped out of her skirt and padded, barefoot, to the end of the loft that served as a sleeping area. She tossed the skirt on the futon, peeled off her bra and pantyhose, yanked the clasp from her hair, bent forward and ran her hands briskly through the now-wildly curling strands. Then she tossed her head back, grabbed a pair of old, scruffy sweats, and put them on.

Time for supper, though the thought of eating made her feel vaguely queasy.

Nothing new in that. On top of everything else, she’d felt vaguely ill for the past week or so. No big surprise, considering that half the city was down with the flu. She probably had it, too, but she couldn’t afford to give in to it right now, not with half a dozen pieces to complete by the end of the month.

Her buyers expected her to be prompt. And she needed the money they’d owe her on delivery.

So, no, she wouldn’t even admit to the possibility that she might be sick. Absolutely not. She was under stress, she was working hard. The fatigue, the heaviness in her limbs, the faint sense of nausea that came and went…

Stress, was what it was.