Wordlessly, Hannah nodded. It had been an eventful time since they had been married—three glorious years which had been filled with both joy and fear. But life was like that, she realised, and they had faced those fears together and shared their joy until their hearts had felt fit to burst. It had been after the birth of their first daughter that Kulal had told her only a boy child could inherit the Zahristanian throne. They had wanted more children anyway, but Hannah had conceived far more quickly than either of them had anticipated. The birth of girl triplets had thrilled them immeasurably, but Hannah had almost died during the delivery and Kulal had asked her very sternly that for their children’s sake—and his—could they now call their family complete?
‘But who will inherit the throne?’ she’d asked, with the sincerity of someone who felt a deep and enduring loyalty towards their adopted homeland.
Kulal’s response had been a shrug which had convinced Hannah that he really didn’t care. ‘It will pass down to my cousin,’ he said. ‘Who is a good man. That’s if my brother doesn’t produce an heir in the meantime, which seems unlikely.’
‘You don’t care that your offspring will miss out on their inheritance?’
And she had cried when Kulal had smiled and shaken his head. ‘The only thing I care about is you and my family, my dearest love.’
Hannah had met Haydar at last. Her husband’s non-identical twin had finally returned to Zahristan for the celebrations marking the birth of the triplets. He was a charismatic but very silent man, Hannah remembered thinking—with a stillness about him which reminded her of one of Kulal’s desert falcons just before it took flight. She’d wanted to take him in her arms and give him a sisterly hug of welcome, but hadn’t dared. She’d thought how closed-off he seemed and had wondered if introducing him to a lovely woman might break down some of that shuttered reserve. But she wouldn’t dare do that either. Because you couldn’t dictate to your siblings how they should live their lives. And what made her think she knew better than anyone else, when she’d made her own share of mistakes in the past?
She thought about her own sister. She’d stopped trying to run Tamsyn’s life for her, too. Kulal had gently told her it really was time to let go and Hannah had listened, even if it had been hard to stand back and let the fiery little redhead blaze her own unpredictable path.
Possibly one of the biggest changes in her husband’s life had been his change of attitude towards his mother’s death. He’d told Hannah that he’d given her words a great deal of thought and realised she was right. He had given the Ashkhazar Times an exclusive interview, talking frankly about his mother’s suicide for the first time and the need to be open about mental health issues. The piece had gone viral. International charities had applauded his honesty and his candour, and confronting the issue had somehow allowed Kulal to make his peace with it at last—just as Hannah had predicted.
Turning her head, Hannah saw that the Sheikh was watching her and her heart welled up with love. And longing.
‘You were looking very wistful just then,’ he observed softly.
‘Was I? I was thinking about everything which had brought us to the point we’re at now.’
‘And your conclusion is?’
Luxuriously, Hannah stretched, and smiled. ‘My conclusion is that I’ve never been so happy and I wouldn’t want it any other way.’ For a second, the smile left her lips as she contemplated an alternative existence. One which didn’t involve the hawk-faced Sheikh who was at the blazing centre of their family life. Which didn’t involve four demanding little girls and the charity work for orphans which gave her so much fulfilment, because it was important to give something back. Especially when you had been given so much yourself...
‘Sometimes I have to pinch myself,’ she admitted on a whisper. ‘To convince myself I’m not dreaming.’
‘Is that so? I can think of a far more gratifying way of reinforcing reality than pinching,’ murmured Kulal, as he gathered her in his arms and brushed his lips over hers. ‘Would this do it, do you think?’
‘Oh, yes. I think so,’ she said.
He kissed her for a long time as some of the heat left the evening air. He kissed her until she began to move restlessly in his arms and then he picked her up and carried her through to their bedroom as the sea breeze billowed the floaty white curtains. He carried on kissing her as, slowly, he undressed her and laid her down on the bed and told her again and again how much he loved her.
‘And I love you, too, Kulal,’ said Hannah shakily. ‘So very much.’
And suddenly they were no longer a king and a queen. They were just a man and a woman making love and speaking love, as the silvery moon rose high over the desert sky.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed CROWNED FOR THE SHEIKH’S BABY by Sharon Kendrick you’re sure to love these other ONE NIGHT WITH CONSEQUENCES stories!
THE SHEIKH’S SHOCK CHILD
by Susan Stephens
PRINCESS’S PREGNANCY SECRET
by Natalie Anderson
CONSEQUENCE OF HIS REVENGE
by Dani Collins
CONTRACTED FOR THE PETRAKIS HEIR
by Annie West
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE SECRET THE ITALIAN CLAIMS by Jennie Lucas.
Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!
Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards
http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010003
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Presents title.
You want alpha males, decadent glamour and jet-set lifestyles. Step into the sensational, sophisticated world of Harlequin Presents, where sinfully tempting heroes ignite a fierce and wickedly irresistible passion!
Enjoy eight new stories from Harlequin Presents every month!
Connect with us on Harlequin.com for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!
Other ways to keep in touch:
Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com
Join Harlequin My Rewards and reward the book lover in you!
Earn points for every Harlequin print and ebook you buy, wherever and whenever you shop.
Turn your points into FREE BOOKS of your choice
OR
EXCLUSIVE GIFTS from your favorite authors or series.
Click here to join for FREE
Or visit us online to register at
www.HarlequinMyRewards.com
Harlequin My Rewards is a free program (no fees) without any commitments or obligations.
The Secret the Italian Claims
by Jennie Lucas
CHAPTER ONE
FAMILY MEANT EVERYTHING to Hallie Hatfield.
Family meant home. It meant being safe and protected even when times were bad. Even when the money ran out at the end of the month. Even when the kitchen cupboards were bare. Family meant always having someone to watch your back, as you watched theirs.
As Hallie had grown up, in an old wooden house built by her great-grandfather, playing in the woods with her brother, learning songs from her mother, tinkering in the garage with her father, she’d known, even as a child, exactly how she wanted her life to be.
Someday she’d get married. She’d raise children, just as her own parents had, without much money but with lots of love. She and her future husband would grow old together, living close to her family, in a cottage with a view of the soft, green Appalachian hills where she’d been born. Their lives would be full of music and comfort. Because family meant everything.
Then, at nineteen, without warning, Hallie lost everything. Her family. Her home. All the meaning and security in her world.
Now, at
twenty-four, the only family she had was the tiny newborn baby in her arms. Living in New York City, she had no job, no money and, as of today, nowhere to go.
But this as a solution?
No.
Hallie took a deep, furious breath. “No. Absolutely not.”
“But Hallie—”
“Tell my ex-boss about his baby?” Keeping her voice low, not to waken the newborn baby sleeping in her arms, Hallie glared at her friends. “After the way he treated me? Never!”
The other two women looked at each other. The three friends had been introduced months earlier at a single-moms support group, when a mutual acquaintance had realized that all three were pregnant with their first child, and, shockingly, none of them had yet told the fathers.
In Hallie’s case, it was for good reason.
Her whole life, she’d tried to see the best in people. To be sympathetic and kind and good.
But she hated Cristiano Moretti. After what he’d done, he didn’t deserve to know their three-month-old baby existed.
“But he’s the father,” Tess Foster said gently. A plump, kindly redhead who worked at her uncle’s bakery, she cuddled her own tiny baby. “Hallie, you need help. It only makes sense to ask him.”
“You’re an idiot if you don’t get child support,” said Lola Price, who was blonde and fiery, and extra-irritable lately—which was saying something—as, unlike the others, she was still heavily pregnant. “Are you an idiot?”
Hallie ground her teeth. That question had already been asked and answered in her own heart. Yes, she’d been an idiot, letting her boss, a billionaire hotel tycoon, seduce her so easily into giving up her long-held dreams of a forever family, a forever home, for one night of passion.
One night? Ha! Half a night, since Cristiano had tossed her out of his bed at midnight and then had her fired from her housekeeping job the very next morning!
Who did that?
A selfish bastard with no heart, that was who. A man who’d ruthlessly thrown her into poverty and homelessness—since she’d also lost her company-paid housing—just because he’d wanted to avoid feeling awkward if he ran into her in the hallway of his hotel.
Hallie looked down at the sweet sleeping baby in her arms. Jack had been over nine pounds at birth, and he’d only gotten chubbier. She loved him with all the ferocious love in her heart. She’d always dreamed of having children. Now Jack was her only dream. Keeping him happy. Keeping him safe.
“You don’t even have a place to stay tonight,” Tess pointed out. “Unless you’re going to call the police on your landlord.”
“And you can’t stay with me,” Lola said, putting her hands over her huge belly. She didn’t explain, but then Lola never explained anything.
“I wish you could stay with us, but my aunt and uncle would never allow it,” Tess said mournfully. “They’re already threatening to kick me out.” She sighed. “If only you hadn’t ripped up the check your boss stuck in the envelope with your severance pay.”
Hallie lifted her chin. “I have my pride.”
“But it was for a hundred thousand dollars,” Tess said.
“And is pride going to feed your baby?” Lola said tartly.
Hallie’s shoulders sagged. Lola wasn’t sweet and comforting like Tess, but she sure had a way of forcing people to see hard truths.
After her supervisor had fired her, Hallie had stumbled out of the hotel in shock, then opened the severance envelope to discover a check signed by Cristiano personally. As if he thought paying her for taking her virginity would make it all right to toss her out like trash the next morning. Furious and heartbroken, she’d torn it into a million pieces.
Now Hallie realized painfully how that money would have changed her whole life—and Jack’s. Because a year later, she had nothing.
But she hadn’t known she would end up pregnant. She ran an unsteady hand over her forehead. So much for pride. She would have given anything to have that check back now.
“Come on.” Lola stood up abruptly in the middle of the community-hall basement, surrounded by the folding chairs and a crowd of other single moms standing by a punch bowl and cookies that Tess complained constantly were stale. “We’re going.”
“Where?”
“To see your baby’s father. Right now. It’s your only option.”
Hallie feared her friend was right. But thinking of facing Cristiano, her courage failed her. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I told you. I was just a notch on the bedpost. He was cruel—”
“Cruel?” Lola’s eyes became fiercely protective. “You never said that. What did he do? Hit you? Threaten you?”
“Of course not,” Hallie replied, taken aback.
“Then what?”
A lump rose in Hallie’s throat. “He ignored me.”
The blonde’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “He’s a jerk. But you’re sure he’s the father?”
“Yes, but I wish he wasn’t!”
Lola’s eyes were merciless. “Then make him pay. Child support, if nothing else.”
Hallie thought of how desperately she needed money. The lump in her throat became a razor blade. “I can’t.”
“You don’t have any choice. You have no family to help you. Are you seriously going to check into a homeless shelter while your ex lives at a luxury hotel, swilling champagne?”
Hallie sucked in her breath at her friend’s frank words.
“And, you never know, he might be happy about the baby when you tell him,” argued Tess, who was very tenderhearted. “There might be some perfectly good explanation why he kicked you out that night, then had you fired, then never returned your messages...”
Her voice trailed off. Even Tess couldn’t quite overcome how ludicrous it sounded.
If only. Hallie gave her a wistful smile, then the smile slid away.
Tell Cristiano she’d had his baby?
Go back to the luxury hotel where she’d once worked as a housekeeper, to beg for the help of a selfish, ruthless tycoon, and this time give him the opportunity to reject both her and the baby in person? No way.
But looking down at her peacefully slumbering baby, his sweet little mouth pursing in his sleep, she knew Lola was right. Hallie had tried her best to survive on pride. But, after this latest disaster with her landlord today, she had nowhere else to go.
“All right,” Hallie said in a small voice.
“You’ll do it?” Lola’s voice was tinged with relief. For all of the blonde’s hard edges, Lola’s protectiveness of her friends made Hallie suspect that on the inside she was every bit as kind as Tess but, for some reason, tried desperately to hide it.
“You’re right,” Hallie said glumly. “I have no choice.”
The three of them, plus the two babies and Jack’s folding stroller, all piled into a ride-share taxi. But by the time it dropped them off in front of the towering luxury hotel in Midtown, Hallie was already regretting her choice. Just half a night in Cristiano’s arms had nearly destroyed her. How could she face him again?
Tess, with her own baby in a comfy sling against her chest, tilted her head back to look at the skyscraper that was the Campania Hotel. “He manages all this?”
“He owns it.”
Both women turned to her sharply in the warm July night.
Lola wasn’t easily impressed, but her eyes were wide as saucers. “Your ex is Cristiano Moretti?”
Hallie felt a little sick as she nodded.
“I thought it was the hotel manager,” Tess said in awe.
“It doesn’t matter who he is,” Lola said fiercely. “Demand what is yours by right. For Jack.”
Pushing the stroller, Hallie walked slowly past the neon sign of the Blue Hour glowing in the darkness. The hotel’s jazz club had live music, and she’d once dreamed of performin
g there. Now, as she walked past the club, her failed singing career was the last thing on her mind.
What if Cristiano refused to see her? Or—worse—what if, when he found out about the baby, he demanded parental rights over Jack?
If only she could talk him into just blindly giving her that same big check she’d ripped up the year before!
She stopped, glancing back nervously when she saw her friends following her. “You’re coming with me?”
“So you don’t back out,” Lola said.
“So you don’t feel alone,” Tess said.
With a deep breath, Hallie squared her shoulders and went through the enormous revolving door into the lobby.
The Campania’s lobby was thirty feet high, gleaming with white marble floors and midcentury-modern furniture scattered around multiple fireplaces. One side held the long oak check-in desk, and at the very center of the lobby there was an elegant bar.
After going inside, Hallie stopped as well-dressed, wealthy guests passed them by on the busy summer evening.
“What’s the problem?” Lola said.
“Can’t you just go to his room?” Tess said.
“No,” Hallie said. “There’s security. You need a fingerprint on the elevator.”
“Call him, then.”
“I don’t have his direct number. We never really talked before...” She hesitated.
Lola scowled. “You were just the hired help, huh?”
Hallie looked down, her cheeks hot. Even when she’d worked for him, there were about fifty levels of supervisors between a maid and the billionaire owner of an international hotel conglomerate. She said weakly, “I can try to leave a message with his secretary, or—”
Her voice cut off with a gasp.
Cristiano had just come out of the elevator on the second floor, open above the lobby.
The reaction was immediate, as if he were a movie star on the red carpet. Heads turned, people whispered and gasped. His entourage followed in his wake as he made his way down the stairs to the ground floor—a gorgeous, pouting model at his side, with two assistants and a bodyguard trailing behind.
Crowned for the Sheikh's Baby Page 16