by Dani Collins
“That’s why I support her,” Val said broodingly. “Financially. That’s why she’s still part of my life even though she makes me crazy. I’m fairly certain what I went through was nothing compared to what she faced at different times in her life. There was a stepfather she refuses to talk about, and she moved to Paris alone at fifteen. If she’s self-serving and incapable of genuine connection or anything that resembles empathy, I’m sure she has her reasons.”
“That’s sad,” Kiara murmured.
“She pointed out something to me, though.” He rubbed his thighs. “While she was busy trying to save my marriage so you wouldn’t yank the money you’re giving her. That was a dirty move, by the way. Siccing her on me like that. It’s the sort of merciless attack I would use to get what I want.”
“I was genuinely worried about you.” And inclined to believe that Evelina would be strongly motivated to interfere in the best possible way. “What did she say?”
“She drew my attention to the fact she had fought long and hard to climb out of being victimized. She has never said it in so many words, but I’ve had time to realize how badly Dad took advantage of her, exactly like damned near every man she’d ever encountered. She was in her late twenties, worried her career would begin to fade, when Dad said he was breaking things off to marry Paloma. She did the only thing she thought she could to finally have some power and agency. I don’t agree with it, but I see why she did it. Then here I was, born into power and money. Influence. And because I felt victimized, I spent years trying to break away from it. That doesn’t make sense.”
“You were angry. Understandably.”
“But I had convinced myself I didn’t feel anything. And that’s the thing about emotions. You can’t pick and choose what to feel. It’s all or nothing. You have to take the bad with the good and when the bad is really bad?”
She nodded, heart sinking. “I understand. You need to protect yourself.”
“I want to. But when something feels really good, it’s hard to resist letting it happen.” He sighed and looked to the ceiling but opened his palm to her. “The way I feel about you... There aren’t enough words, Kiara. I wish I could paint. I wish you could see what I see when I look at you. When I touch you.”
Oh. She set her hand in his and his warm grip closed over her fingers, injecting a sensation of pure joy up her arm and into her heart.
“It’s not fair for me to say that love is a lie. I said that because I had never experienced it so I thought it didn’t exist. Then Aurelia—”
His eyes were damp as he met hers, and her own suffered a fresh sting of tears. They exchanged a knowing smile, both so powerfully smitten with their girl that only the other could possibly understand the intensity of love she inspired.
“She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?” Kiara choked.
“She is pure magic. And I have to give you credit for that because her brand of pureness did not come from me.”
“Please don’t talk about yourself like that.”
“I’ve still been a bastard in many ways,” he said, bringing her hand to his lips.
“And I still love you. Exactly as you are. So much.”
“And I love you, Kiara. I love that you take your own pain and turn it into something beautiful. I love that fighting back is your last resort, not your first, but you’ll do it when you have to. I love that you rock my world when we’re in bed.”
“You rock mine,” she countered wryly.
“That’s what does it for me,” he said throatily, but sobered as he added gravely, “I love that you make our lovemaking feel right. That’s precious to me. You are precious to me.”
Oh. She sniffled, only becoming aware that her eyes were leaking when the tickling sensation brought her hand up to brush her emotive tears from her cheeks. She could hardly bear the pressure in her chest and throat, but she exulted in it at the same time.
“I don’t believe in fate, but I do believe you are the only woman who could have brought me out of the darkness like this. I want to be the better man who deserves you. I love you with everything in me and I’m going to stop fighting it. I’m going to embrace what we have.”
“I just want you to embrace me—oh!”
He grabbed her onto his lap and tumbled her down into the sofa cushions at the same time, kissing her surprised mouth with his smile.
“I am going to embrace the hell out of you. We have an entire week’s worth of lovemaking to make up for.” He lifted enough to open the buttons on her smock, glancing at the back of his fingers as he picked up a smear of the cerulean blue she’d mixed with titanium white to match his eyes.
“Remember to save some strength for your swim this afternoon,” she teased, filtering her fingers through his thick hair.
His eyes, which she’d gotten exactly right with her shade of icy blue, came up to stare with disgruntlement into hers. “Whose dumb idea was it to promise that?”
“I don’t know. A man who is far more generous and thoughtful than he would want anyone to believe, I think.”
“I do have a brand to protect.” He rearranged them so he was between her denim-clad thighs.
“Your chewy caramel center will be our little secret,” she whispered, tracing the lips that were making her strain with longing beneath him. “But speaking of keeping secrets...” She arched her neck as his mouth dipped to nibble against her throat.
He brought his head up abruptly, face blanked with shock. “Are you pregnant?”
“What? No. I was just going to ask you to close the blinds so people don’t see what we’re doing in here.”
“Oh.” The way his expression fell had her clasping his shoulders to keep him atop her as he started to push up.
“Wait. Did you want me to be pregnant?” she asked with a dip and roll of her heart.
His tongue ran over his teeth behind his closed lips as he considered.
“I think I did.” He nodded slowly. “I’m pretty sure I’m disappointed. But let’s save that conversation for when we have more time.” He dropped a kiss onto her mouth then rose to drop the blinds. “Right now I only have two short hours before I’m due with a toddler in a swimming pool and I want to make the most of it.”
And they did.
EPILOGUE
Two years later...
KIARA BLINKED SLEEPY eyes at him and sounded as petulant as their daughter did when she was resisting bedtime.
“I don’t want to sleep. I want to look at him.”
“I’ll look at him for both of us,” Val said, cupping her cheek tenderly and dropping a soft kiss on her pouted mouth before he stole their swaddled and sleeping son from her arms. “You need to rest. That was a lot of work you did.”
Watching Kiara deliver Rafael had been the most singularly overwhelming experience of his life, and Val had only witnessed his wife pushing their son into this world. She was the one who had labored long and hard to make it happen. He was so proud of her. So proud of their son. So happy he couldn’t describe it, only revel in it.
“You’re tired, too,” she said on a yawn. “Lie with me.” She scooted over a little in the narrow hospital bed.
He was tired. Apparently, babies didn’t always arrive at a civilized dinner hour the way Locke had. Sometimes they woke you at midnight and made their appearance at dawn.
“I’ll hold you until you fall asleep,” he promised, settling their son in his bassinet in case he dozed off himself. He had every intention of rising, though. That tiny boy was a magnet pulling his cast-iron heart out of his body.
“I should text Scarlett,” Kiara murmured as Val settled beside her. She snuggled her head onto his shoulder.
“I’ll do it,” Val promised, thinking he understood now why Javiero had been such a jackass that day. The only other person Val could stomach entering their tiny bubble of contentment was the daughte
r who was probably not even awake yet, but who had impatiently been waiting for her little brother or sister to arrive.
“Val?”
“Yes, my love?” He caressed her upper arm.
“I’m really glad you were here this time.”
“Me, too.” He turned his head to kiss her brow. “You were incredible.”
“You, too.”
He snorted and picked up her hand to kiss her fingertips. “You give me too much credit, bella, but I shall continue to do my best.”
She made a little noise of contentment, arm growing heavy on his waist as she drifted into sleep.
Meanwhile, he drew the bassinet a little closer to the bed so he could see the small miracle they had made together.
* * *
Unable to put down A Hidden Heir to Redeem Him? Find your next page-turner with these other stories by Dani Collins!
Untouched Until Her Ultra-Rich Husband
The Maid’s Spanish Secret
Bound by Their Nine-Month Scandal
Cinderella’s Royal Seduction
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Crowning His Unlikely Princess by Michelle Conder.
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Crowning His Unlikely Princess
by Michelle Conder
CHAPTER ONE
CASSIDY CHECKED THE prospectus in her hand against the one on her computer screen and felt her stomach sink to her toes.
She had given him the wrong one.
She was doomed.
She would be fired.
This was it.
After a day that had started out badly and only got worse as it had progressed, it would be the tip of the iceberg.
She hadn’t had a day as bad as this one since her father had moved her and her sister out of the small parish in which they had grown up during the middle of the night all those years ago as if they had been criminals. They hadn’t been, but for a while they had been treated like they were. And she’d contributed to that, hadn’t she?
But beating herself up about past mistakes wasn’t going to help her now.
If she didn’t fix this, her meticulous boss would be heading to an important meeting in Boston the following morning to finalise the capital investment they needed for a major project with the wrong information. That would be eight months of painstaking work down the tubes. After the unexpected bombshell her sister had dropped on her this morning that had set off her day from hell, it was the last straw.
And she had no one to blame but herself. She should not have let Peta’s unexpected news derail her as much as it had, and she could either sit here and feel sorry for herself or she could get on and fix it.
And she still had time, she noted, checking her watch.
She double-checked the updated version of the document, ensuring that the right figures were in the right place this time, and hit the print button.
Of course the printer ran out of paper halfway through but that was to be expected. It should be one of Murphy’s laws that when a day started out badly you should just go back to bed and pull the sheet over your head.
Her forehead throbbed as she recalled how she had barely been awake when one of her eleven-year-old twin nieces had come careening into her bedroom with the news that their mother was getting married. Her mother, and Cassidy’s sister. The one who had moved in with her after she had hit rock bottom again. The one who had sworn off men after she’d become a teenage mother and been dumped by the twins’ father before they had even been born.
Peta had come into her room after that with a sheepish grin on her face and a diamond ring on her finger.
‘I wasn’t sure how to tell you,’ she’d said, half grimacing, half smiling. ‘Dan completely surprised me with his proposal and he wants me and the girls to move in with him right away. Not that we will,’ Peta had rushed to assure her. ‘Not until you find another place to live, or a flatmate, because I know you can’t afford the rent here on your own.’
Shell-shocked, Cassidy had just looked at her. ‘You’re engaged?’
‘I know, right?’ Peta had stared down at her ring with a stunned but delighted expression. ‘I can’t believe it either but... He’s so special, Cass. And he even wants to adopt the twins.’
A lump had formed in Cassidy’s throat at that. The twins were hers! She had been at their birth, she had helped her sister raise them, she had taken Amber to the emergency department when she’d broken her arm and Peta had been stuck on the other side of the city at work. She had been the one to read stories to April to take her mind off her twin in the operating room while they’d waited.
Dan was... Dan was... He was a nice guy, a lovely guy, but marriage?
In hindsight she should have been more prepared for it. Her sister was one of those uniquely beautiful people that made others do a double-take.
Like her boss. Prince Logan of Arrantino.
They moved through life on another level from the more ordinary folk like herself, turning heads and breaking hearts as they went.
It had always been that way. Growing up, the boys at high school had only ever shown an interest in Cassidy to get an introduction to her sister. It was something she had grown so used to that even now she always questioned a man’s hidden agenda before accepting an invitation to dinner. Not that she’d had many of those since the last guy she’d dated, who had only wanted her for her study notes. After the disastrous incident in high school, which she refused to think about, she really should have known better.
Just once she’d like to meet a man who wanted her for her body. Was that too much to ask?
An image of her boss leapt into her head and she immediately banished it. The only reason he would ever want her body was to bury it after he murdered her for making so many errors today.
First by putting through a phone call from a teary ex, hoping for a second chance, instead of the CEO of their law firm, and then for mixing up the restaurant where he was supposed to meet a client for lunch. She’d confused the luncheon date with one he was scheduled to have the following day and he’d been twenty minutes late as a result.
Now this debacle... She stacked the copies of the prospectus carefully on the table. The last thing she needed to do was to drop them as she raced down the stairs to the copy room and set about binding each one into a shiny booklet.
At this time of the evening the office was basically empty, most of her work colleagues at the bank having already gone home, so she was alone with her self-recriminations.
Which she was eternally thankful for.
The thought of having to make polite small talk with a colleague, or returning home before she could paste on her face a genuinely happy smile for her sister, was too much right now. Not that she wasn’t genuinely happy for her sister. She was. She was just afraid of what it meant for her.
Her throat thickened. She and her sister were a team. They had been ever since the twins had been born when Peta had only just turned seventeen, and Cassidy eighteen. With their mother having walked out two years earlier, and their father struggling to keep his head above water, Cassidy had become the rock everyone leaned on. Which had been fine with her. She liked helping out, and she had never been the kind of person who walked away when the going got tough.
Glad that she kept up her fitness routine, she took the stairs two at a time as she returned to her office and dropped the glossy prospectuses on her desk, automatically reaching for her phone to dial the courier service.
Then she hesitated.
It would be her luck that the courier either didn’t show up or had an accident and the prospectuses ended up at the bottom of the Hudson. Not only would that be an environmental hazard, it would mean she could still be sacked for stupidity.
Being hired as Logan’s EA a few months out of college two years ago had been an amazing coup and she’d pinched herself for months afterwards at having landed such a lucrative role.
She knew she had only got it because she had been in the right place at the right time and the HR manager had been desperate. Otherwise she wouldn’t be where she was today. Working in a job that she loved for a man who was called a business genius by anyone who mattered. He was a commanding force who stopped at nothing to get what he wanted. Which had intimidated the heck out of her when she’d first come to work for him, but which she’d been advised not to show.
‘His previous EAs left because they either couldn’t keep up with the demanding workload,’ the fastidious HR manager had informed her as they’d marched down the hallway for her interview with her boss, ‘they were intimidated by the fact that he’s a prince and second in line to the throne of Arrantino, or they fell in love with him. Any of these three will have you out the door in seconds.’