Robyn Donald - The Royal Baby Bargain

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Greetings! I’m often asked what made me decide to be a writer of romances. Well, it wasn’t so much a decision as an inevitable conclusion. Growing up in a family of readers helped, and shortly after I started school I began whispering stories in the dark to my two sisters. Although most of those tales bore a remarkable resemblance to whatever book I was immersed in, there were times when a new idea would pop into my brain—my first experience of the joy of creativity.

Growing up in New Zealand, in the subtropical north, gave me a taste for romantic landscapes and exotic gardens. But it wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I read a Harlequin book and realized that the country I love came alive when populated by strong, tough men and spirited women.

By then I was married and a working mother, but into my busy life I crammed hours of writing; my family has always been hugely supportive. And when I finally plucked up enough courage to send off a manuscript, it was accepted. The only thing I can compare that excitement to is the delight of bearing a child.

Since then it’s been a roller-coaster ride of fun and hard work and wonderful letters from fans.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ABBY stared at the list of things to do before leaving, and let out a long, slow breath, her brows drawing together as another feather of unease ghosted down her spine. Every item had a slash through it, so her unconscious wasn’t trying to warn her she’d forgotten something.

It had started—oh, a couple of months ago, at first just a light tug of tension, a sensation as though she’d lost the top layer of skin, that had slowly intensified into a genuinely worrying conviction that she was being watched.

Was this how Gemma’s premonitions had felt? Or had she herself finally succumbed to paranoia?

Whatever, she couldn’t take any risks.

Driven into action by the nameless fear, she’d resigned from her part-time job at the doctor’s surgery and made plans to disappear from the small town hard against New Zealand’s Southern Alps—the town that had been her and Michael’s refuge for the past three years.

The same creepy sensation tightened her already-taut nerves another notch. She put the list down on the scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen and prowled once more through the cottage, switching lights on and off as she examined each room.

Back in the inconvenient little living room, chilly now that the fire had collapsed into sullen embers, she stopped beside the bag on the sofa that held necessities for tomorrow’s journey. Everything else she and Michael owned—clothes, toys, books—was already stuffed into the boot of her elderly car. Not even a scrap of paper hinted at their three years’ residence.

Yet that persistent foreboding still nagged at her. All her life she’d loved to lie in bed and listen to the more-pork call, but tonight she shivered at the little owl’s haunting, plaintive cry from the patch of bush on the farm next door. And when she caught herself flinching at the soft wail of the wind under the eaves, she dragged in a deep breath and glanced at her watch.

‘Stop it right now!’ she said sturdily. ‘Nothing’s going to happen.’

But the crawling, baseless unease had kept her wired and wide-eyed three hours past her normal bedtime. At this rate she wouldn’t sleep a wink.

So why not leave now?

Although she’d planned to start early in the morning, Michael would sleep as well in his child seat as he did in bed. He probably wouldn’t even wake when she picked him up. No one would see them go, and at this time of night the roads were empty.

The decision made, she moved quickly to collect and pack her night attire and sponge bag and the clothes she’d put out for Michael in the morning. She picked up her handbag, opened it and groped for the car keys.

Only to freeze at a faint sound—the merest scrabble, the sort of sound a small animal might make as it scuttled across the gravel outside.

A typical night noise, nothing to worry about.

Yet she strained to hear, the keys cutting into her palm as her hand clenched around them. Unfortunately her heart thudded so heavily in her ears it blocked out everything but the bleating of a sheep from the next paddock. The maternal, familiar sound should have been reassuring; instead, it held a note of warning.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop being so melodramatic,’ she muttered, willing her pulse to settle back into a more even rhythm. ‘No one cares a bit that you’re leaving Nukuroa.’

Very few people would miss her, and if they knew that she’d been driven away from their remote village by a persistent, irrational foreboding they’d think she was going mad. After all, she’d scoffed at Gemma.

But if she was heading for a breakdown, who would look after Michael—?

‘No!’ she said firmly.

If she were losing her mind, she’d deal with it once she and Michael were safely away.

She yanked the car keys from her handbag, swearing under her breath when she accidentally dislodged an envelope onto the sofa. It gaped open, light from the centre bulb transforming the fine wavy strands of hair inside to a tawny-gold glory.

Abby’s lips tightened. She glanced at the dying fire, but before the thought had time to surface she’d pushed the envelope back into her bag and closed the catch on it.

Shivering, she took in three or four deep, grounding breaths. As soon as she got settled again she’d burn that lock of hair. It was a sentimental fetter to a past long dead; her future was devoted to Michael, which was why the miracle of modern hair colouring now dimmed her bright crown to a dull mouse-brown. A further disguise was the way she wore it, scraped back from her face in a pony-tail that straightened the naturally loose, casual waves.

She endured the change, just as she endured the cheap clothes in unflattering shades that concealed her slender body. She’d even bought spectacles of plain glass, tinted to mute her tilted, almond-shaped eyes and green-gold irises.

Nothing could hide her mouth, wide and full and far too obvious, even when she’d toned it down with lipstick just the wrong colour. In spite of that, and the cleft in her chin, the camouflage worked.

She’d turned being inconspicuous into an art form. Anyone who took a second glance saw a single mother with no clothes sense and no money, working hard to bring up her child, refusing dates, content to lurk on the edge of life. In a year’s time no one in Nukuroa would remember her.

If that thought stung, she had only to recall Michael’s laughing, open face when he came running towards her each evening in the child-care centre, the warmth of his hug and kiss when she tucked him into bed, his confidence and exuberant enjoyment of life.