Kate Hewitt - Princess's Nine-Month Secret

“The princess is pregnant.”

With the Italian’s baby!

For a stolen night of freedom, ever-dutiful Princess Halina throws caution to the wind and succumbs to the seduction of notorious Rico Falcone. Yet the consequences of their insatiable passion land Lina in royal disgrace. When she’s hidden away to conceal her shocking secret, ruthless Rico storms the palace! He’ll do anything to legitimize his child—he’ll even make Lina his wife!

Indulge in this passionate pregnancy romance!

After spending three years as a die-hard New Yorker, KATE HEWITTnow lives in a small village in the English Lake District with her husband, their five children and a golden retriever. In addition to writing intensely emotional stories, she loves reading, baking and playing chess with her son—she has yet to win against him, but she continues to try. Learn more about Kate at kate-hewitt.com.

Also by Kate Hewitt

Larenzo’s Christmas Baby

Inherited by Ferranti

Moretti’s Marriage Command

Demetriou Demands His Child

A Di Sione for the Greek’s Pleasure

Engaged for Her Enemy’s Heir

The Innocent’s One-Night Surrender

Desert Prince’s Stolen Bride

Seduced by a Sheikh miniseries

The Secret Heir of Alazar

The Forced Bride of Alazar

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Princess’s Nine-Month Secret

Kate Hewitt

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07248-9

PRINCESS’S NINE-MONTH SECRET

© 2018 Kate Hewitt

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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To Laurie,

thank you for being such a fantastic editor!

Warmest wishes, K.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

IN THE END it was surprisingly easy to escape. Abdul, the royal bodyguard posted by the hotel suite’s door, dozed off around ten o’clock, his head nodding onto his chest, and Halina Amari, Princess of Abkar, slipped by him on her tiptoes, holding her breath.

She’d never done anything like this before, never once tried to escape whatever narrow confines she’d been put in—although she’d certainly tested the boundaries and stretched her wings as much as she could, which was very little indeed. But tonight she wanted to fly.

This might be her last chance. The world was closing in, getting smaller and smaller thanks to her father—and Prince Zayed al bin Nur, her fiancé. The realisation of how close she’d come to being even more of a prisoner than she already was made her heart leap into her throat. And as for Olivia...

But she couldn’t think about Olivia, not now, during her one bid for an evening’s freedom. Halina hurried down the hall of the elegant luxury hotel in Rome towards the lift. Abdul stirred and she pressed herself against the wall. She could hardly believe it had been so easy, but why not? The door to their suite had been locked from the inside, the guard posted outside as a matter of form. Her mother had been trying to keep people out, not in. No one had expected her to escape. She could barely believe it herself.

The doors whooshed open and Halina stepped into the lift, her heart pounding, her palms slick. What was she doing ? She’d spent every one of her twenty-two years hidden behind high walls—the palace, the convent school in Italy and then the palace again. Waiting, always waiting, for the fiancé she’d never met to regain his throne and become a suitable suitor. Waiting for her life to begin, or at least something to happen.

Three days ago, Zayed al bin Nur had mistakenly kidnapped Olivia Taylor, her sisters’ governess and her school friend, thinking she was Halina herself.

Rumour was he’d married Olivia out in the desert before realising his grievous error. Zayed had sent a message to her father, assuring him that he had not in any way harmed Olivia, for which Halina was heartily relieved. But the whole episode had made her realise how precarious her own position was. How limited her own freedom. And it had infuriated her father, Sultan Hassan, who had sent Halina to Italy with her mother, away from Zayed’s clutches.

Halina was glad for the escape; she’d never wanted to marry Zayed, a man she’d never even met, and she certainly didn’t want to be kidnapped—although she doubted her fiancé was fool enough to try the same trick twice. But the walls around her were closing in.

After this, her father would make sure she was even more restricted, more guarded, than she already was. And that was something Halina could not stand. After twenty-two years of waiting, she wanted to live...even if just for a night.

The lift doors opened and from the hotel’s opulent ballroom she heard the tinkling sound of piano music and crystal, the low murmur of cultured voices. When she and her mother had arrived that afternoon, she’d seen the notice in the hotel’s lobby about the private party, a charity function hosted by some CEO, a glittering event for all of Italy’s richest and finest. Her mother had given Halina a sympathetic smile.