Beth Cornelison - Protecting Her Royal Baby

She imagined his long legs hanging off the end of the mattress, his wide shoulders filling the width of the bed and his chiseled face nestled on the pillow. Did he snore? Did he sleep in the buff? What would it be like to curl against his strength and sleep wrapped in his arms? To kiss him goodnight, feel his skin against hers, have his hands

Brianna scrubbed both hands over her face and stopped the daydream in its erotic tracks. Her skin tingled from her scalp to her toes, and a pleasant heat had curled in her belly. Dream all you want, but don’t get any ideas about acting on the fantasy. Hunter wasn’t hers to claim.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

BETH CORNELISONstarted writing stories as a child when she penned a tale about the adventures of her cat, Ajax. A Georgia native, she received her bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of Georgia. After working in public relations for a little more than a year, she moved with her husband to Louisiana, where she decided to pursue her love of writing fiction.

Since that first time, Beth has written many more stories of adventure and romantic suspense and has won numerous honors for her work, including a coveted Golden Heart Award in romantic suspense from Romance Writers of America. She is active on the board of directors for the North Louisiana Storytellers and Authors of Romance (NOLA STARS) and loves reading, traveling, Peanuts’ Snoopy and spending downtime with her family.

She writes from her home in Louisiana, where she lives with her husband, one son and two cats who think they are people. Beth loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at PO Box 5418, Bossier City, LA 71171, USA, or visit her website, www.bethcornelison.com.

To my prince—I love you, Paul!

Thank you to Mackenzie Walton for sharing her beautiful cat Sorsha for this story, and to Julie Sieger for sharing Cinderella and Sebastian. Look for all three of these kitties to appear again in Grant’s book! Julie and Mackenzie won the bid to have their kitties featured through Brenda Novak’s Auction for the Cure of Diabetes.

Thank you to Robyn Elyse Rosenberg for allowing me to use her name for Brianna’s aunt. Robyn, also, won the bid for this opportunity through Brenda Novak’s Auction for the Cure of Diabetes.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Extract

Chapter 1

She stared in stunned silence at the man standing in her living room, a man she’d once trusted. Working to shake herself from the numb shock that locked her throat, she blinked hard and scrubbed her hands over her face. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this last winter? Don’t you think I had a right to know what...who I was involved with?”

He had the decency to look guilty. “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you for this very reason. I knew this was how you’d react.”

She exhaled harshly. “Well, it is rather...startling news, wouldn’t you say?”

“I know. But we’d agreed what we had was a vacation fling. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I didn’t think I’d...develop feelings for you. And I never thought you’d—”

“Get pregnant?” She rubbed her hand over her nine-months-swollen belly and grunted. “Well, neither did I. But here’s the proof that condoms aren’t one hundred percent fail-safe.”

“Indeed.” He gave her a worried grimace. “The question now is, how do we hide the baby? How do we protect him?”

“Protect him?”

He took a step toward her, his hands spread. “If anyone finds out he’s my child, my bloodline, they’ll want to kill him like they’ve tried to kill me.”

A thread of fear tugged inside her. “But if I don’t tell anyone who his father is—”

A shattering of glass at her back door cut her off. He cursed in a foreign language she didn’t recognize.

“It’s too late,” he said, his voice tight, panicked. His eyes were round with alarm and apology. “They’re here. They know.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think anyone had followed me.”

Adrenaline spiked inside her, and she sidled closer to him as crashing sounds filtered from the back of her house. “I don’t understand. Who—”

“There’s no time! You have to go! Run!”

“But you—”

“You can’t worry about me. You have to save our child!” He pushed her toward the front door. “Hurry! They’ll try to kill you, try to kill him.”

A dark-clad figure appeared from her kitchen and raised a long-muzzled gun. Fired.

The father of her baby pushed her to the floor as the bullets whizzed over them. The jolt as she hit the floor sent a sharp pain through her belly, and a warm gush of fluid trickled down her leg. She clutched her middle, worried for her baby.

In the next second, he was shoving her up and toward the front door. “Go! Hide! Don’t come back here!”

Bullets pelted the wall near her, and she screamed. How had her life become such a nightmare?

Snatching the keys to her old car from the peg by the door, she raced out to her front driveway as fast as a pregnant woman could run. The pain in her midsection grew, and she nearly doubled over. With a quick glance over her shoulder as she tumbled into the driver’s seat, she saw three men now in her living room with her baby’s father. They held him by the arms, restraining him, a gun at his temple.

Nausea swamped her. They would kill him, she was sure. But why? What was their motive?

One of the men burst through the front door, following her. He raised his weapon, and she gunned the engine. The thunk of bullets hitting the rear of her car spiked her fear. She gasped and scrunched as low as she could in the seat as she sped away. Tears blinded her as she raced down the street. She didn’t know where she was going. Away. To hide. To—

Another sharp pain gripped her stomach. More warm fluid puddled beneath her. Oh, dear God! Her water had broken. The fall in her living room must have started her labor!

She held her belly and cried out as the contraction tightened. Forget hiding. Her baby was coming. Doubling over in pain, she raced down the highway, praying she could reach the hospital in Lagniappe in time.

* * *

The car was coming right at him. Weaving. Speeding. With him at twelve o’clock.

Adrenaline shot through Hunter Mansfield. Irritation and alarm nipping the back of his neck, he slowed to a stop along the rural Louisiana road where he jogged every Sunday afternoon. He assumed a ready stance on the balls of his feet, prepared to jump out of the way of the erratically lurching vehicle as it neared. The glare of sunlight reflected off the windshield, preventing him from seeing the driver. A drunk? A distracted teenager?

The small blue Honda’s engine roared, and the car lurched forward, its wheels kicking up gravel as the passenger-side tires moved from the pavement onto the narrow shoulder. Hunter braced himself, rapidly weighing whether to dive for the four-foot ditch to his left or feint right into the road, assuming the car wouldn’t correct its path in time. Both posed risk.

The ditch.

Just as he shifted his weight to spring to his left, the sun slipped behind a cloud. He caught a glimpse of a face behind the steering wheel. A woman. A startled, frightened look. A last-second swerve, tires squealing.