by Sarah Morgan
‘He didn’t trip, he scored a try,’ Casper growled, simmering with masculine frustration at her inappropriate comment. ‘And they’re cheering because that try puts England level.’
‘This game is a total mystery to me,’ the girl muttered, her eyes wandering to a group of women at the back of the royal box. ‘Nice shoes. I wonder where she got them? Are there any decent shops in this area?’
Casper blocked out her comments, watching as the England fly-half prepared to take the kick.
A hush fell over the stadium and Saskia glanced around her in bemusement. ‘I don’t understand any of this. Why is everyone so quiet? And why does that gorgeous guy keep staring at the ball and then the post? Can’t he make up his mind whether to kick it or not?’
‘He’s about to take a very difficult conversion kick right from the touchline. He’s concentrating.’ Casper’s gaze didn’t shift from the pitch. ‘And if you open your mouth again I’ll have you removed.’
Saskia snapped her mouth shut, the ball snaked through the posts, the crowd roared its approval, and a satisfied Casper turned wearily to the fidgeting blonde next to him. ‘All right. Now you can ask me whatever you want to know.’
She gave him a hopeful look. ‘Is the game nearly over?’
Casper subdued a flash of irritation and resolved never again to invite anyone who didn’t share his passion for rugby. ‘It’s half time.’
‘So we have to sit through the whole thing again? Tell me again how you know the captain.’
‘We were in the rugby team at school together.’
Clearly determined to engage him in conversation now that there was a pause in the game, Saskia sidled a little closer. ‘It was very bad of you to kiss that waitress. You are a very naughty boy, Cas. She’ll go to the newspapers, you know. That sort always do.’
Would she?
Casper stared blankly at the crowd, trying to blot out the scent of her hair and the taste of her mouth—the softness of her deliciously rounded bottom as she’d lifted herself against him.
For a brief moment in time, she’d made him forget. And that was more than anyone else had ever done.
‘Why does your popularity never dip?’ Clearly determined to ingratiate herself, Saskia kept trying. ‘Whatever you do, however scandalous you are, the citizens of Santallia still love you.’
‘They love him because he’s turned Santallia from a sleepy, crumbling Mediterranean country into a hub of foreign investment and tourism. People are excited about what’s happening.’ It was one of Casper’s friends, Marco, who spoke, a guy in his early thirties who had studied economics with him at university and now ran a successful business. ‘Santallia is the place to be. The downhill-ski race has brought the tourists to the mountains in the winter, and the yacht race does the same for the coast in the summer. The new rugby stadium is sold out for the entire season, and everyone is talking about the Grand Prix. As a sporting venue, we’re second to none.’
Hearing his successes listed should have lifted his mood, but Casper still felt nothing.
He made no effort to take part in the conversation going on around him and was relieved when the second half started because it offered him a brief distraction.
‘What Santallia really wants from you is an heir, Cas.’ Saskia delivered what she obviously thought was an innocent smile. ‘You can’t play the field for ever. Sooner or later you’re going to have to break your supermodel habit and think about the future of your country. Oh no, fighting has broken out on the pitch. They’re all sort of locked together.’
Leaving it to an exasperated Marco to enlighten her, Casper watched as the scrum half put the ball into the scrum. ‘That was never straight,’ he murmured, a frown on his face as he glanced at the referee, waiting for him to blow the whistle.
‘Did you read that survey that put you top of the list of most eligible single men in the world? You can have any woman you want, Cas.’ Oblivious to the impact of her presence on their enjoyment, Saskia continued to pepper the entire second half with her inane comments, all of which Casper ignored.
‘A minute of play to go,’ Marco murmured, and Casper watched as England kept the ball among the forwards until the final whistle shrilled.
The crowd erupted into ecstatic cheers at the decisive England victory, and he rose to his feet, abruptly terminating Saskia’s attempts to converse with him.
Responsibility pressing in on him, he strolled over to his Head of Security. ‘Anything?’
‘No, sir,’ Emilio admitted reluctantly. ‘She’s vanished.’
‘You found out her name?’
‘Holly, sir. Holly Phillips. She’s a waitress with the contract catering company.’
‘Address?’
‘I already sent a team to her home, sir. She isn’t there.’
‘But I’m sure the photographers are,’ Cas said grimly, and Emilio nodded.
‘Two rows of them, waiting to interview her. Prince and waitress—it’s going to be tomorrow’s headlines. You want her to have protection?’
‘A woman who chooses to kiss me in full view of television cameras and paparazzi doesn’t need my protection.’ Casper spoke in a flat, toneless voice. ‘She knew exactly what she was doing. And now she’s lying low because being unavailable will make it look as though she has something to hide. And having something to hide will make her story more valuable.’
She’d used him.
Casper gave a twisted smile. And he’d used her, too, hadn’t he?
Emilio frowned. ‘You think she did it to make money, sir?’
‘Of course.’ She’d actually had the temerity to thank him for what he’d given her! At the time he’d wondered what she meant, but now it was blindingly obvious.
He’d given her media opportunities in abundance.
He searched inside himself for a feeling of disgust or disillusionment. Surely he should feel something? Apparently she’d considered the loss of her virginity to be a reasonable price to pay for her moment of fame and fortune and that attitude deserved at least a feeling of mild disappointment on his part.
But disillusionment, disgust and disappointment all required expectations and, when it came to women, he had none.
Emilio was watching him. ‘You don’t want us to find her, Your Highness?’
Ruthlessly pushing aside thoughts of her soft mouth and delicious curves, Casper glanced back towards the pitch where the crowd was going wild. ‘I think we can be sure that when she’s ready she’ll turn up. At this precise moment she’s lying low, laughing to herself and counting her money.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘YOU have got to stop crying!’ Exasperated and concerned, Nicky put her arms round Holly. ‘And—well—it isn’t that serious, really.’
‘Nicky, I’m pregnant! And it’s the prince’s baby.’ Holly turned reddened eyes in her direction. ‘How much more serious can it get?’
Nicky winced. ‘Isn’t it too soon to do a test? It could be wrong.’
‘It isn’t too soon. It’s been over two weeks!’ Holly waved a hand towards the bathroom. ‘And it isn’t wrong. It’s probably still on the floor where I dropped it if you want to check, but it doesn’t exactly give you a million options. It’s either pregnant or not pregnant. And I’m definitely pregnant! Oh God, I don’t believe it. Once—once—I have sex and now I’m pregnant. Some people try for years.’
‘Yes, well, the prince is obviously super-fertile as well as super-good looking.’ Nicky gave a helpless shrug, searching for something to say. ‘You always said you couldn’t wait to have a baby.’
‘But with someone! Not on my own. I never, ever, wanted to be a single mother. It was the one thing I promised myself was never going to happen. It really matters to me.’ Holly pulled another tissue out of the box and blew her nose hard. ‘When I dreamed about having a baby, I dreamed about giving it everything I never had.’
‘By which I presume you mean a father. God, your dad really screwed you up.’ With that
less than comforting comment, Nicky sank back against the sofa and picked at her nail varnish. ‘I mean, how could anyone have a kid like you, so kind and loving, and then basically just, well, walk out? And you were seven—old enough to know you’d been rejected. And not even coming to find you after your mum died. I mean, for goodness’ sake!’
Not wanting to be reminded of her barren childhood, Holly burrowed deeper inside the sleeping bag. ‘He didn’t know she’d died.’
‘If he’d stayed in touch he would have known.’
‘Do you mind if we don’t talk about this?’ Her voice high-pitched, Holly rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. ‘I have to decide what to do. I’ve lost my job, and I can’t go home because the press are like a pack of wolves outside my flat. And the whole world thinks I’m a giant slut.’ Dying of embarrassment, her insides twisting with regret, she buried her face in the pillow.
And she was a slut, wasn’t she?
She’d had sex with a total stranger.
And not just sex—recklessly abandoned, wild sex. Sex that had taken her breath away and wiped her mind of guilt, worry, morals.
Whenever Eddie had touched her, her first thought had always been I mustn’t get pregnant. When the prince had touched her the only thought in her head had been more, more…
What had happened to her?
Yes, she’d been upset and insecure about herself after her break up with Eddie, but that didn’t explain or excuse it.
And then she remembered the way the prince had planted himself protectively in front of her, shielding her from the rest of the group. What other man had ever shown that degree of sensitivity? He’d noticed she was upset, shielded her, and then…
Appalled with herself, she gave another moan of regret, and Nicky yanked the sleeping bag away from her.
‘Stop torturing yourself. You’re going to be a great mother.’
‘How can I be a great mother? I’m going to have to give my baby to someone else to look after while I work! Which basically means that someone else will pick my baby up when it cries.’
‘Well, if it’s a real bawler that might be an advantage.’
Holly wiped the tears from her face with a mangled damp hanky. ‘How can it be an advantage? I want to be there for my baby.’
‘Well, perhaps you’ll win the lottery.’
‘I can’t afford to play the lottery. I can’t even afford to pay you rent.’
‘I don’t want rent, and you can sleep on my sofa as long as you need to.’ Nicky shrugged. ‘You can’t exactly go home, can you? The entire British public are gagging for pictures of you. “Where’s the waitress?” is today’s headline. Yesterday it was “royal’s rugby romp”. Rumour has it that they’re offering a reward to anyone who shops you. Everyone wants to know about that kiss.’
‘For crying out loud.’ Holly blew her nose hard. ‘People in the world are starving and they want to write about the fact that I kissed a prince? Doesn’t anyone have any sense of perspective?’ Thank goodness they didn’t know the whole story.
‘Well, we all need a little light relief now and then, and people love it when royalty show they’re human.’ Nicky sprang to her feet. ‘I’m hungry and there’s no food in this flat.’
‘I don’t want anything,’ Holly said miserably, too embarrassed to admit to her friend that the real reason she was so upset was because the prince hadn’t made any attempt to get in touch.
Even though she knew it was ridiculous to expect him to contact her, a small part of her was still desperately hoping that he would. Yes, she was a waitress and he was a prince, but he’d liked her, hadn’t he? He’d thrown all the other people out of the room so that he could be with her, and he’d said all those nice things about her, and then…
Holly’s body burned in a rush of sexual excitement that shocked her. Surely after sex as mind-blowing as that, he might have been tempted to track her down?
But how could he get in touch when the press was staking out her flat? She had a mental image of the prince hiding behind a bush, waiting for the opportunity to bang on her door. ‘Do you think he’s really annoyed about the headlines?’
‘Don’t tell me you’re worrying about him!’ Nicky had her hand in a packet of cereal. ‘He just pulls up his bloody drawbridge, leaving the enemy on the outside!’
Holly bit her lip. She was the one who’d kissed him by the window. She’d had no idea. ‘I feel guilty.’
‘Oh, please! This is Prince Casper we’re talking about. He doesn’t care what the newspapers write about him. You’re the one who’s going to suffer. If you ask me, the least he could have done was give you some security or advice. But he’s left you to take the flak!’
Holly’s spirits sank further at that depressing analysis. ‘He doesn’t know where I am.’
‘He’s a prince,’ Nicky said contemptuously, flopping back down on the sofa, her mouth full of cereal. ‘He commands a whole army, complete with special forces. He could find you in an instant if he wanted to. MI5, FBI, I don’t know—one of that lot. One word from him and there’d be a satellite trained on my flat.’
Shrinking at the thought, Holly slid back into the sleeping bag. ‘Close the blinds.’ What had she done?
‘Well, you can go on hiding if that’s what you want. Or you could give those sharks outside your flat an interview.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘No, I’m practical. Thanks to His Royal Highness, you have no job and you’re trapped indoors. Sell your story to the highest bidder. “My lunchtime of love” or “sexy Santallian stud”?’
Appalled, Holly shook her head. ‘Absolutely not. I couldn’t do that.’
‘You have a baby to support.’
‘And I don’t want my child looking back at the year he was conceived and seeing that his life started with me dishing the dirt on his dad in the papers! I just want the whole thing to go away.’
It was ironic, she thought numbly, that she’d fantasised about this exact moment ever since she was a teenager. She’d longed to be a mother. Longed to have a child of her own—to be able to create the sort of family she’d always wanted.
She’d even lain awake at night, imagining what it must be like to discover that you were pregnant and to share that excitement with a partner. She’d imagined his delight and his pride. She’d imagined him pulling her into a protective hug and fiercely declaring that he would never leave his family.
Not once, ever, had she imagined that she’d be in this position, doing it on her own.
One rash moment, one transgression—just one—and her life had been blown apart. Even though she was in a state of shock, the deeper implications weren’t lost on her. Her hopes of eventually being able to melt back into her old life unobserved died. She knew that once someone spotted that she was pregnant it wouldn’t take long for them to do the maths.
This was Prince Casper of Santallia’s child.
Nicky stood up. ‘I need to buy some food. Back in a minute.’ The front door slammed behind her, and moments later Holly heard the doorbell. Assuming Nicky had forgotten something, she slid off the sofa and padded over to the door.
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding!’ Eddie stood in the doorway, holding a huge, ostentatious bunch of dark-red roses wrapped in cheap cellophane.
Holly simply stared, suddenly realising that she’d barely thought about him over the past two weeks.
‘I didn’t expect to see you here, Eddie.’
He gave a benign smile. ‘I expect it seems like a dream.’ Sure of himself, Eddie smiled down at her. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
‘No. You broke off our engagement, Eddie. I was devastated.’ Holly frowned to herself. Her devastation hadn’t lasted long, though, had it? It had been supplanted by bigger issues—but should that have been possible? Did broken hearts really mend that quickly?
‘I can’t talk about this on the doorstep.’ He pushed his way into the flat and thrust the flowers into her han
ds. Past their best, a few curling petals floated onto the floor. ‘Here. These are for you. To show that I forgive you.’
‘Forgive me?’ Holly winced as a thorn buried itself into her hand. Gingerly she put the flowers down on the hall table and sucked the blood from her finger. ‘What are you forgiving me for?’
‘For kissing the prince.’ Eddie’s face turned the same shade as the roses. ‘For making a fool of me in public.’
‘Eddie—you were the one partying in that box with your new girlfriend.’
‘She was no one special. We both need to stop hurting each other. I admit that I was furious when I saw you kissing the prince, then I realised that it must have been hard on you, watching me get that promotion and then losing me. But it seems to have loosened up something inside you. A whole new you emerged.’ He grinned like a schoolboy who had just discovered girls. ‘You’ve always been quite shy and a bit prim. And suddenly you were, well, wild. When I saw you kissing him, I couldn’t help thinking it should have been me.’
Looking at him, Holly realised that not once during her entire passionate episode with the prince had she thought ‘this should have been Eddie’.
‘I know you only did it to bring me to my senses,’ Eddie said. ‘And it worked. I see now that you are capable of passion. I just need to be more patient with you.’
The prince hadn’t been patient, Holly thought absently. He’d been very impatient. Rough, demanding, forceful.
‘I didn’t kiss the prince to make you jealous.’ She’d kissed him because she couldn’t help herself.
‘Never mind that now. Put my ring back on your finger, and we’ll go out there and tell the press we’d had a row and you kissed the prince because you were pining for me.’
Life had a strange sense of humour, Holly reflected numbly. Eddie was offering to get back together. But she was already being propelled down a very different path.
‘That isn’t possible.’
‘We’re going to make a great couple.’ He was smugly confident. ‘We’ll have the Porsche and the big house. You don’t need to be a waitress any more.’