Heidi Betts: Royal Christmas: Royal Love-Child, Forbidden Marriage

Royal

Christmas

Royal Love-Child, Forbidden Marriage

Kate Hewitt

The Sheikh And The Christmas Bride

Susan Mallery

Christmas In His Royal Bed

Heidi Betts

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Royal Love-Child, Forbidden Marriage

Kate Hewitt

KATE HEWITTdiscovered her first Mills & Boon® romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories, and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling and learning to knit.

After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years and now resides in New York State, with her husband, her four young children and the possibility of one day getting a dog. Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website, www.kate-hewitt.com

To Aidan,

Thanks for being such a great friend—and fan!

Love, K

‘How much?’

Phoebe Wells stared blankly at the man slouched in a chair across from her. He gazed back with a sensual smile and heavy-lidded eyes, his sable hair rumpled, the top two buttons of his shirt undone to reveal a smooth expanse of golden skin.

‘How much?’ she repeated. The question made no sense. How much what? Her fingers tightened reflexively around the strap of her bag and she tried not to fidget. She’d been hustled here by two government agents, and it had taken all her self-control not to ask if she was being arrested. Actually, it had taken all her self-control not to scream.

They’d given her no answers, not even a look, as they ushered her into one of the palace’s empty reception rooms to wait for twenty panic-laden minutes before this man—Leo Christensen, Anders’s cousin—had made his lazy entrance. And now he was asking her how much, and she had no idea what any of it meant.

She wished Anders were here; she wished he hadn’t left her to suffer the scorn of his damnable cousin, the man who now uncoiled himself from the chair and rose to stand in front of her with an easy, lethal grace. She wished, she realised with a little pulse of panic, that she knew him better.

‘How much money, Little Miss Golddigger?’ Leo Christensen clarified softly. ‘Just how much money will it take to make you leave my cousin alone?’

Shock stabbed her with icy needles, but it was soon replaced by an even icier calm. Of course. She should have expected this; she knew the Christensen family—the royal family of Amarnes—didn’t want an American nobody in love with their son. The country’s heir. Of course, she hadn’t realised that when she’d met Anders in a bar in Oslo; she’d thought he was just an ordinary person, or as ordinary as a man like him could be considered to be. Golden-haired, charming, with an effortless grace and confidence that had drawn her to his side with the irresistible force of a magnet. And even now, under Leo Christensen’s sardonic scrutiny, she clung to that memory, to the knowledge that he loved her and she loved him. Except, where was he? Did he know his cousin was trying to bribe her?

Phoebe straightened and forced herself to meet Leo’s scornful gaze directly. ‘I’m afraid you don’t have enough.’

Leo’s mouth curled in something close to a smile, the smile of a snake. ‘Try me.’

Rage coursed through her, clean and strong, fuelling her and overriding her fear. ‘You don’t have enough because there isn’t enough, Mr Christensen—’

‘Your Grace, actually,’ Leo corrected softly. ‘My formal title is the Duke of Larsvik.’

Phoebe swallowed at the reminder of just what kind of people she was dealing with. Powerful, rich. Royal. People who didn’t want her … but Anders did. That, she resolved, would be enough. Plenty.

She’d had no idea when Anders asked her to meet his family that they actually comprised the king and queen of Amarnes, an island principality off the coast of Norway. And this man too, a man Phoebe recognised from his endless appearances in the tabloids, usually the lead player in some sordid drama involving women, cars, gambling, or all three. Anders had told her about Leo, had warned her, and after just a few minutes’ conversation with Leo she believed everything he’d ever said.

‘ He’s a bad influence, always has been. My family tried to reform him, they thought I could help. But no one can help Leo …’

And who was going to help her? Anders had told his parents about her last night; she hadn’t been present. Clearly, Phoebe thought, swallowing a bubble of near-hysterical laughter, that conversation hadn’t gone well. So they’d sent Leo, the black sheep, to deal with her … the problem.

She shook her head now, not wanting to speak Leo Christensen’s damn title, not wanting him to know just how out of her depth she was. Yet he knew it; of course he did. She saw it in the scornful little smile he gave her, the way his gaze flicked over her in easy dismissal, making her feel like trash.

Still, if he knew it, at least that meant there was nothing to lose. She lifted her chin. ‘Fine, Your Grace. But there’s no amount of money you could give me that would make me leave Anders.’ Brave words, she knew, and there was no way she’d take Leo’s money, but still … where was Anders?

Leo stared at her for a moment, those sensual, sleepy eyes narrowing, flaring. His mouth twisted and he turned away. ‘How quaint, my dear,’ he murmured. ‘How very admirable. So it’s true love?’

Humiliation and annoyance prickled along her skin, chased up her spine. He made what she had with Anders sound so trite. So cheap. ‘Yes, it is.’

Leo shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled to the window, gazing out at the plaza in front of Amarnes’s royal palace. It was a brilliant summer morning, the sky blue with faint wisps of cloud, the jagged, violet mountains a stunning backdrop to the capital city of Njardvik’s cluster of buildings, the bronze statues of Amarnes’s twin eagles—the country’s emblem—glinting in the sun. ‘How long have you known my cousin?’ he finally asked and Phoebe shifted her bag to her other shoulder.

‘Ten days.’

He turned around, one eyebrow arched, his hands still in his pockets. His silence was eloquent, and Phoebe felt a blush stain her throat and rise to her cheeks. Ten days. It wasn’t much; it sounded ridiculous. And yet she knew. She knew when Anders looked at her … and yet now this man was looking at her, his amber gaze sleepy and yet so sardonic, so knowing. Ten days. Ten days was nothing. And judging by the contemptuous curl of Leo’s lip, he thought so too. Phoebe straightened. What did she care what Leo Christensen, the Playboy Prince of Amarnes, thought of her? He was a man given over to pleasure, vice. Yet, standing in front of him now, she was conscious of a darker streak in him, something more alarming and dangerous than the antics of a mere playboy. An emotion emanated from him, something dark and unknowable, yet a force to be reckoned with … if only she knew what it was.