About the Authors

BRENDA HARLEN is a multi-award winning author for Mills & Boon True Love who has written over twenty-five books for the company.

USA Today bestseller MICHELLE CELMER is the author of more than forty books for Mills & Boon. You can usually find her in her office with her laptop loving the fact that she gets to work in her pyjamas.

Michelle loves to hear from her readers! Visit Michelle on Facebook at Michelle Celmer Author, or email at michelle@michellecelmer.com

SCARLET WILSON wrote her first story aged eight and has never stopped. She’s worked in the health service for twenty years, trained as a nurse and a health visitor. Scarlet now works in public health and lives on the West Coast of Scotland with her fiance and their two sons. Writing medical romances and contemporary romances is a dream come true for her.

Tempted by the Royal

The Prince’s Holiday Baby

Brenda Harlen

Christmas with the Prince

Michelle Celmer

The Prince She Never Forgot

Scarlet Wilson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09770-3

TEMPTED BY THE ROYAL

The Prince’s Holiday Baby © 2008 Brenda Harlen Christmas with the Prince © 2009 Michelle Celmer The Prince She Never Forgot © 2015 Scarlet Wilson

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

The Prince’s Holiday Baby

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Christmas with the Prince

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

The Prince She Never Forgot

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

The Prince’s Holiday Baby

Brenda Harlen

In memory of Tom Torrance—

January 28, 1951–March 6, 2008

A teacher and mentor and friend;

a genuine prince among men.

Prologue

“You didn’t need to come over here, Grandma. I told you on the phone that I was fine.”

Theresa Shea plunked her purse on the bar and narrowed her gaze on her granddaughter behind the counter at Shea’s Bar & Grill. Yes, she certainly looked fine. But Molly had always been one to keep her chin up no matter how much her heart was breaking inside. And she’d had a lot of heartbreak to deal with over the past six months.

“Maybe I needed to see for myself.”

“And now you have.”

“And now that I’m here, maybe I’d like a cup of coffee.”

Molly poured her a cup of coffee, pushed it across the counter.

She’d been working there for so many years now, she didn’t even have to think about the tasks anymore. Everything was automatic, routine, and not at all what James Shea wanted for his daughter.

“What are you doing here?” Theresa asked softly.

“Right now? Trying to figure out the produce order for next week.”

“He wanted you to go to college, to do something more.”

Her granddaughter’s fingers tightened around the pencil in her hand, but there was no other outward sign of the emotions that were churning inside her. Molly didn’t talk about her father but Theresa knew he was in her thoughts almost constantly, especially here, at the restaurant that had been his livelihood and his life. And she knew that Molly was so determined to hold on to Shea’s because it was the only part of her father she had left.

“I’m happy here,” Molly finally said.

“Are you?”

Molly continued punching numbers into the calculator, frowned.

Theresa tried a different tack. “Do you ever write anymore?”

“I write checks to pay the bills.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“It’s all I have time for right now.”

“You have to learn to take time for the things that are more enoyable than necessary.”

“I will,” Molly promised. “After all the necessary things are done.”

Theresa picked up her purse. She knew when she was banging her head against a wall and her granddaughter’s stubbornness was a brick wall.

“All right, I’ll go. But if you need anything—”

Molly leaned across the counter to kiss her grandmother’s cheek. “I won’t. I’ll be fine.”

Which was exactly why Theresa was worried.

The phone rang as she turned away, and Molly reached for it. Theresa didn’t hear the words she spoke, but the tone gave her pause. When Molly hung up, she said only one word, “Abbey.”

Molly’s sister, Theresa’s youngest granddaughter, had disappeared a few days earlier after leaving a note that said only “don’t worry—I’ll be home in a few days” and absolutely nothing about where she was going or who she was with.

“Where is she?”

“Las Vegas.” Molly swallowed. “With Jason.”

Theresa didn’t want to ask, was certain she already knew, and her granddaughter’s next words confirmed it.

“She just married my fiancé.”

Chapter One

Nine years later—

Prince Eric Santiago lied when he told his best friend that he had a plane to catch. The truth was, his pilot wasn’t coming to pick him up for the return trip to Tesoro del Mar until the following morning, but after almost two weeks with Scott Delsey and his soon-to-be-wife, Eric needed some space. Spending so much time with the blissful couple and seeing how in love they were only made him more aware of what was missing from his own life.

When he’d accepted the invitation to visit Scott’s ranch in Texas, he’d thought his friend might want to offer him a job at DELconnex, his communications company. On more than one occasion in the past, Scott had mentioned that he could use someone with Eric’s education and experience, though they both knew Eric had no intention of leaving the Tesorian navy.

Now, of course, the situation had changed, and Eric was willing to consider any possibilities his friend presented. It turned out one of those possibilities was to stand up as the best man at Scott’s wedding.

It seemed that everywhere around him people were getting married and having babies. First it was his eldest brother, Rowan, who had been forced by tragedy and tradition to the altar. Luckily for him, he’d managed to fall in love along the way. After six years of marriage, he and Lara were happier than the day they’d exchanged their vows, even with—or maybe because of—the two active young sons who did their best to run their parents ragged.

Three years after Rowan pledged “till death do us part,” their youngest brother, Marcus, had found a woman who inspired him to do the same. Recently, he and Jewel had welcomed their first child into the world—a beautiful baby girl who looked just like her mother and already exhibited the legendary charm of her father.

Both of his brothers had lucked out, and Eric was genuinely happy for them. But the only mistress Eric had ever been committed to was the sea—and she’d tossed him aside, carelessly discarding everything he’d given her and taking away everything he was.

As he drove his rented Mercedes northeast toward San Antonio, he forced himself to acknowledge the truth he’d been avoiding for too long—he wasn’t just alone, he was lonely.

He envied what Rowan had with Lara, what Marcus had with Jewel, what Scott had with Fiona. And he wondered why he’d never met a woman who made him think in terms of marriage and forever. Okay, having spent the better part of the last twelve years on board a ship might have something to do with it. Add to that the uncertainty of never knowing if the women he’d been with were genuinely interested in him or only attracted to his title or his uniform, and it probably wasn’t surprising that he’d reached the age of thirty-six without ever having been in a long-term, committed relationship. Still, the realization wasn’t going to fill his life or keep him warm in bed at night.

The rumble of his stomach finally broke through his introspection and a neon sign announcing Shea’s Bar & Grill snagged his attention.

Despite the fact that the building was smack in the middle of nowhere, there were several vehicles—mostly dust-covered pickup trucks—in the parking lot. His empty stomach again protested his decision to leave his friend’s ranch before dinner and he flicked on his indicator to make the turn.

He parked his shiny rental between an ancient red pickup and a mud-splattered Jeep and sat for a moment, wondering if he would look as out of place in the bar as his vehicle did in the parking lot. A man who’d grown up in the public eye wouldn’t usually worry about such things, but Eric had become more sensitive to the attention—and the speculation that surrounded him—since the accident.

He pushed out of the car, slowly limped toward the entrance. The deliberate, unhurried movements helped ease the stiffness from his hip so that he was walking almost normally by the time he reached the door. His therapist had warned that he might always have the limp and the discomfort—at the time, he’d thought it was a small price to pay for being alive. When he’d had to leave the navy, he’d realized the physical scars weren’t the biggest price.

A sign inside the door invited him to seat himself. He bypassed several empty tables around the perimeter of the dance floor and made his way to the bar. As he slid onto a vacant stool, he forgot about his hip and everything else as he glimpsed a vision that was more impressive than anything he’d seen while sightseeing in Texas.

Hermoso…espectacular…perfecto.

Her hair was as dark as midnight and tumbled over her shoulders like a silky waterfall. She was wearing a deep, V-neck shirt that revealed just a hint of cleavage and was tucked into slim-fitting jeans that molded to narrow hips and long legs.

His gaze skimmed upward again and locked with hers.

He felt a sharp tug of attraction deep in his belly, an almost painful yearning, and he could tell by the sudden widening and darkening of eyes the color of a clear summer sky that she was experiencing the same sensation. Instantaneous, raw and powerful.

But then she tossed her hair over her shoulder and smiled easily.

“Hey, handsome.” The slow Texas drawl made him think of lazy Sunday mornings spent lounging in bed—and wasn’t that an unexpectedly intriguing image? “What can I get for you?”

She smiled again, and suddenly he was wanting a lot more than he’d come in for, but he forced himself to respond just as casually. “A beer would be good.”

She grabbed a clean mug from the shelf behind her. “Any particular kind?”

He tore his gaze from the stunning face to glance at the labels on the taps. He noted the familiar Amstel, Heineken and Beck’s brands, but opted for one that he guessed would have a more local flavor. “Lone Star.”

She tipped the glass beneath the nozzle to catch the amber-colored liquid that flowed out. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”

“Am I?”

She slid the beer across the bar to him. “Well, you don’t sound like a local, and if you were, I would have seen you before now.”

He didn’t think she was flirting with him exactly. But she seemed, if not interested, at least curious, and he couldn’t resist testing the waters.

“You don’t remember?” he asked, his tone intended to convey both disbelief and disappointment.

She made change for the ten he gave her and leaned across the bar in a way that greatly enhanced his view of her cleavage. “If I don’t remember, you obviously didn’t make much of an impression.”

He grinned at her quick response and lifted his glass to his lips as she moved down the bar to serve another customer.

He’d struck out with the sexy bartender, but it was his first time at bat after a long absence from the plate and, the way he figured it, it was only the top of the first inning. There was a lot of the game still to be played.

Eric ordered a barbecued pork sandwich with a side of spicy fries and washed it down with another draft as he watched the woman who’d eventually introduced herself as Molly Shea check on her customers at the bar. She took a moment to chat with each one as if they were all old friends, and he knew some of them probably were.

“How long have you been a bartender?” he asked her.

She poured a glass of water and squeezed a wedge of lime into it. “Forever.”

“Has it always been your ambition?”

“It’s honest work,” she said.

“I wasn’t implying otherwise,” he told her. “You just seem like a woman who could do so much more.”

“I can make all the fanciest drinks,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding him. “But we don’t have much call for them here.”

“You’re determined not to give away anything about yourself, aren’t you?”

“Bartenders don’t make confessions, they listen to them.”

“I thought that was just a stereotype.”

“I used to think so, too. But I learned quickly that a sympathetic ear and a shot of Scotch whiskey is a lot more successful at loosening tongues than a long couch and a fifty-minute clock.”

His gaze skimmed over her face. “The ears are nice,” he agreed. “But I’ll bet it has a lot more to do with your soft voice and warm smile.” And the idea of this woman on a long couch—minus the fifty-minute clock—was more than a little intriguing.

“Is that why you’re here?” she asked. “Are you looking to unburden your soul?”

“My soul isn’t burdened.”

Her only response was to raise her eyebrows.

“No more than most,” he clarified.

She smiled at that, and he felt a funny little kick in his belly. It was lust, he was certain of it. Certain that what he was feeling for this intriguing bartender couldn’t be any more than that.

Eric picked up his cup and frowned when he found it empty. He’d switched to coffee after his second draft, and he’d already had one refill, making him wonder just how long he’d been sitting at the bar.

“It’s almost eleven,” Molly told him, somehow anticipating his question as she brought the pot over to refill his cup again. “Isn’t there somewhere else you should be?”

“Not anymore,” he told her.

Her eyes were unexpectedly sympathetic as she asked, “Did she kick you out?”

“Who?”

“Whoever’s responsible for that lost look in your eyes.”

“No one kicked me out.” Then he smiled at her. “Not yet, anyway.”

She laughed. “You’ve got another hour.”

He was still there at the end of the hour.

And Molly was still as conscious of his presence as she’d been from the minute he walked in the door. Conscious of his attention focused on her as she began tidying up her workspace and wiping down the counters after last call.

She was flattered, of course. The man was sinfully good looking with that dark hair and those smoldering eyes, a mouth that made her think of long, slow kisses and shoulders that looked as if they could carry the weight of the world.

But he didn’t belong there. She’d recognized that fact even before he’d opened his mouth and started speaking in that smoothly cultured voice that spoke of private schools and a wealth of other privileges.

And she wondered what he was doing in Texas or, more particularly, what he was doing in her bar.

She did know that every time she caught him looking at her, her pulse spiked. And when he smiled, her heart pounded and her blood heated. Though her experience with men was limited, she recognized her reaction for what it was: lust, pure and simple. And when a man looked like the one sitting at her bar, she was certain he had more than enough experience being the object of women’s desires.

The stirring of her own desire, however, was unexpected.

She wasn’t the type of woman to fantasize about having sex with a man she didn’t even know. Of course, her lackluster experience with Trevor had pretty much nixed her fantasies about sex—and the few brief relationships she’d had since then hadn’t given her reason to hope for anything different.

But she poured herself a single glass of wine—part of her usual closing up routine—and slid onto the stool beside his. “Are you really waiting for me to kick you out?”

“I’m not in a hurry to go anywhere else.”

“If I’m going to let you stay while I close up, I’ll need to know more about you.”

“Such as?”

“Where you’re from—because we both know it’s not Texas.”

“Tesoro del Mar,” he told her.

“Treasure of the Sea,” she translated.

“You speak Spanish?”

“A little.” She sipped her wine. “And is it—a treasure of the sea, that is?”

“Absolutely.”

“What brought you from there to here?”

“I was visiting a friend.”

“A girlfriend?” she guessed.

“No,” he said, then, “yes, there was a woman.”

She lifted a brow. “Only one?”

He smiled. “My best friend is getting married. His fiancée is the only woman I’ve seen since I’ve been here.”

“How long has that been?”

“Almost two weeks.”

“And why is it that you’re alone in a bar at quarter after twelve on a Sunday night?”

He made a point of looking her over. “I’m not exactly alone now, am I?”

“Alone except for the bartender,” she clarified.

“I would say alone with an incredibly beautiful woman.”

The heat in his gaze added weight to his words, but Molly wasn’t going to let herself get all tongue-tied and weak-kneed just because a handsome man paid her a compliment.

“I’m flattered,” she said. “But you’re going to be disappointed if you think a few smooth words will convince me to go home with you.”

“Since I don’t even have a hotel room booked, I was hoping you would invite me to go home with you.” There was something in his tone that told her he was only half joking.

“Not going to happen,” she told him.

“Is there anyone special in your life?”

She smiled. “There are a lot of special people in my life.”

“I meant a boyfriend,” he clarified. “Since you’re not wearing a ring, I’m guessing there’s not a husband or fiancé.”

She shook her head. “I don’t really have time to date. Too many other things going on.”

“That might be a valid excuse for neglecting to return a phone call,” he noted, “but it hardly explains not dating.”

“Does a broken engagement explain it better for you?”

He nodded. “Broken heart, too?”

She hesitated a moment, then shook her head. “No, and maybe that’s one of the reasons I haven’t been dating. I realized how close I’d come to making a very big mistake, and I needed some time to figure out what I really wanted.”

“And have you?”

“I’m still working on it.”

“Me, too,” he admitted.

“I would have figured you for the type of man who knew exactly what he wanted.”

“I used to be.” His eyes held hers for a long moment, then his gaze dropped to her mouth. “Not only did I know what I wanted, but I knew how to get it.”

Then he leaned down and kissed her.

And she kissed him back.

She, Molly Shea, who didn’t do anything spontaneous or impulsive, was kissing a stranger in a bar—and thoroughly enjoying every second of it.

Because—WOW—he knew how to kiss.

Her brain scrambled to find an explanation for this inexplicable turn of events. She wanted to blame the wine, though she’d only had half a glass. She might consider the lateness of the hour, except that she was accustomed to working nights and wasn’t at all tired. Or maybe it was just the strength of a purely physical attraction that she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

His tongue slid between her lips and the random thoughts and desperate explanations faded into nothingness as her brain seemed to stop functioning altogether.

His hands slid up her back, drawing her close, closer. Her breasts grazed the solid wall of his chest. Her nipples tightened, her belly quivered. He drew her to her feet, and she pressed herself against him, shocked—and aroused—to feel the hard ridge of his erection against her belly.

He wanted her.

Of course, he was a man and the state of his arousal might have more to do with that fact than the identity of the woman in his arms, but she wasn’t going to worry about that now. She was just going to bask in the knowledge that she was wanted, revel in this affirmation of her feminine power. At least for another minute.

Had she ever been kissed so thoroughly? Until her blood felt like molten lava pulsing through her veins and her knees went weak and everything inside her started to quiver? Never.

Not even Trevor’s kisses had made her feel like this. He was the first man she’d ever been intimate with, and she’d never responded to him the way she was responding now. Of course, her relationship with Trevor had come on the heels of the break-up of her engagement, when she’d been desperate to feel wanted by someone. But even then, she’d never wanted to be with him as desperately as she wanted to be with Eric now.

And the wanting terrified her.

She forced herself to ease away from him and when she spoke, she kept her voice light, careful to give no hint of the churning inside. “You know what? You’re as sexy as sin and when you kiss me, it makes my heart pound like you wouldn’t believe, but I don’t do one night stands with strangers.”

“I don’t, either…as a rule.” He slid his hands up her back, and she shivered as his fingers traced lazily along the ridges of her spine. “But there’s an exception to every rule.”

“And you think you should be mine?” she asked skeptically.

“I think you could be mine.”

She pushed his arms down, stepped away from him and temptation. “I might be a small-town girl, but even I can recognize a big-time con.”

He winced. “Okay, it did sound like a line.”

“You think?” What was even worse than the obvious script was how much she still wanted to give in to the desire thrumming between them.

“What I think is that, for the first time in a long time, I’ve met an interesting woman and I’m not ready to say goodbye to her yet.”

He sounded sincere, but if she’d learned nothing else from her failed relationships, she’d learned that she didn’t have a clue when it came to understanding the motivations of men. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes, I do.”

His voice was sure, his gaze steady, and despite the doubts and insecurities that swirled inside her, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet, either.

“I’m not working tomorrow,” she finally said. “If you wanted to meet me back here around ten, maybe we could spend the day together.”

“I’d really like that,” he said. “But I won’t be here tomorrow.”

Disappointment weighed heavily in her belly. “You won’t?”

“My plane’s scheduled to leave at 8:00 a.m.”

“You’re going back to Tesoro del Mar?”

He nodded, and though she regretted that it was true, she knew his leaving wasn’t any reason to throw caution to the wind and do something completely crazy.

“I guess this is goodbye then,” she said.

“I guess it is,” he agreed.

Then he tipped her chin up with his finger and brushed his lips against hers. It was a gentle kiss this time, as fleeting as their time together had been.

“Goodbye, Molly.”

“Goodbye.” She watched him cross the room. She watched as he flipped the lock and pushed on the door, and she felt all of her reason and common sense sweep through the open portal and into the night.

“Wait.” The word sprang from her lips without conscious thought.

He turned back. Waiting.

She could let him go—and always wonder what might have been. Or she could be wildly spontaneous and spend the night with a man whose kiss had singed her right down to her toes.

She’d always believed it was better to regret something she’d done than something she’d left undone, and while it was possible she’d wake up with regrets in the morning, she knew she would regret it more if she let him walk away.

Eric sensed the battle waging inside Molly and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep his hand clamped around the handle of the door to keep from reaching for her again. If they were going to spend the night together—as he very much wanted them to do—it would need to be her decision. And he knew it wasn’t one she would make lightly.

She’d admitted that she didn’t date much, and he knew a woman as beautiful and warm and friendly as Molly didn’t sleep alone unless it was what she wanted. So what made him think that she would break her self-imposed rules to spend the night with him?

Chemistry.

It had crackled between them from the first moment their eyes had locked across the bar and had been building and deepening ever since. The sizzling kiss they’d shared was further proof of it.

His body was still humming from the after-effects of that kiss, or maybe it was almost three years of self-imposed celibacy that had everything inside him churned up. Whatever the reason, he knew what he wanted. He was just waiting for Molly to reach the same conclusion.

She looked at him now, her eyes locked with his, and she said only one more word.

“Stay.”

He flipped the lock on the door and moved back to her.

She met him halfway—her arms lifting to circle his neck, her body pressing against his, her mouth opening for his kiss.

His hands moved over her, hotly, hungrily. She gasped and sighed in response to his touch, and those sexy little sounds nearly snapped the last of his control. She was so eager and passionate, as hungry for him as he was for her, and it was an effort not to tear away her clothes where they stood and bury himself inside her.

The woman had him tied up in knots, desperate and aching with desire.

He cupped her breasts and felt her nipples pebble in response to the brush of his thumbs. She arched against him, a silent plea for more. Even through the layers of their clothing, the erotic friction of her hips pushing against his was almost too much.

She was sexy and sweet, giving and demanding.

And she was his.

The thought came from out of nowhere, the sudden drive to take and claim and possess both unfamiliar and undeniable.

He was leaving in the morning. They both knew they wouldn’t have anything more than this one night together. But he was determined to make it a night neither of them would ever forget.

This was crazy.

Even as Molly led Eric up the stairs to her apartment over the bar, she knew it was outrageously insane to even consider having sex with a man she’d never laid eyes on a few hours before, who would be leaving again in another few hours and whom she would probably never see again after that.

She didn’t care.

Right now all she cared about was getting naked with him.

And he wanted the same thing, if the trail of clothes they left in the hall on their way to her room was any indication. She led him unerringly through the dark to the bed, then pushed him back onto the mattress and tumbled down with him.

She reached for the small lamp on the night table, but he caught her hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed her palm, nibbled on her fingers, and sent sparks of heat zinging through her system.

Oh, yes, there was heat. And Molly gloried in this confirmation that she wasn’t unresponsive or dispassionate, she’d just needed a man who knew how to touch her the right way. And Eric definitely knew how to touch a woman the right way.

She wanted to touch him—was desperate to touch him—too. With limited experience to fall back on, she allowed her instincts to guide her. She ran her hands up his chest, over his shoulders, down his arms. She reveled in the feel of all those hard, tight muscles bunching and flexing in response to her eager touch. His skin was warm and smooth and taut; his body exquisitely carved and sculpted. Everywhere she touched, he was hard and strong, so completely and perfectly male. And for now—for the next few hours that remained of the night—he was hers.

Her fingertips paused in their exploration, hovering over the puckered ridge of skin she’d discovered beneath his lowest rib.

She felt him tense as she slowly traced the diagonal line of the scar toward his hip bone. Her fingers moved lower, finding a wider, longer scar on his upper thigh, and she instinctively knew this was the reason he hadn’t wanted the light.

His perfect body wasn’t quite perfect after all. And yet, the physical scars on his body somehow enhanced rather than detracted from his appeal.

“A recent injury?” she asked softly.

“Not so recent,” he said, but offered nothing more.

She traced her fingertips over the scars again, as if her touch could ease the strain she heard in his voice, the tension in his muscles. “What happened?”

“A naval training exercise went wrong.”

His simplistic explanation was a clear indication that this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. But his response had given her another valuable insight about this man. “So you’re a sailor.”

“Was,” he corrected.

“With a woman in every port?” she teased to lighten the moment.

“Never more than one at a time.”

“Good to know.” She kissed him then, deeply, hungrily.

She kissed his lips, his throat, his chest. Her hair spilled over his shoulders, providing a curtain behind which she continued her exploration. She’d never been so aroused, so tempted, so bold. But she let her instincts, and his throaty groans of appreciation, guide her. She nibbled her way down his belly, savored the salty masculine flavor of his skin. Then her lips found the ridge of scar tissue her fingers had recently discovered, and her avid mouth gently feathered soft kisses along the puckered skin.

“If you’re trying to kiss away the pain, where I’m really hurting is just a little bit lower,” he told her huskily.

She chuckled, letting her tongue taste, tempt, tease. She heard the sharp intake of his breath, and knew her bold acceptance of his challenge had surprised and aroused him.

She heard the crinkle of plastic as he unwrapped the condom he’d snagged from his pocket before discarding his pants somewhere in the hall, and was grateful he’d had the foresight to think of protection. She let him sheath himself, then kissed her way back up his body, her taut nipples grazing his chest, her hips rocking against his. His hands skimmed over her thighs, his fingers curled around her buttocks, pressing her closer.

She waited for him to press into her, to take control in search of his own pleasure. But he didn’t seem to be in any big rush to the finish line. In fact, he seemed more than content just to touch her, tease her, taste her.

Molly endured the exquisite torture for as long as she could, then she straddled his hips, positioning herself so that the tip of his erection was at the juncture of her thighs.

Slowly she lowered herself, moving just the tiniest bit, taking only a fraction of an inch inside of her. Then a little more.

His hands were on her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh. She could feel the tension in him and knew he was fighting against the instinct to drive into her. He was bigger than her, stronger, and they both knew she was only in control at the moment because he wanted her to be, but still, the sense of power was exhilarating.

She continued to tease him, taking him a little bit deeper inside, then drawing back again. His eyes were so dark they were almost black, and they were intently focused on her. Watching her as she watched him.

Watching her as his hands skimmed up her sides to her breasts, as his fingers toyed with her nipples, circling, stroking, squeezing.

Desire curled like a fist deep in her belly, tight, tighter, until she cried out with her release.

It was the signal he’d been waiting for, and his hips jerked off the mattress and he buried himself deep inside of her in one powerful thrust that had her crying out again at the shock of the next climax that ripped through her, leaving her weak and breathless and shattered.

But Eric wasn’t finished with her. He held himself perfectly still until her body had stopped shuddering, then he flipped her over, so that she was on her back and he was stretched out on top of her, pressing deep inside of her.

He whispered to her, speaking softly in Spanish. She didn’t understand all of the words, but his tone was as sensual as a caress, and just as arousing. He began to move. Slow and deep strokes that touched her very core. Then hard and fast thrusts. Harder. Faster.

She’d thought she was sated. He’d made certain she was satisfied before he’d pursued his own pleasure, and yet, she could feel the desperate, achy need building inside of her again. Her heels dug into the mattress, her nails bit into his shoulders, and her hips matched his frantic rhythm as her desire escalated again until the world dropped away and there was nothing to hold on to but each other.

He collapsed with his head on her pillow, his arm wrapped around her, and his heart beating against hers.

They made love twice more before exhaustion finally overrode passion, and Molly fell into a deep and blissful sleep in the warm comfort of his arms.

She woke up in the morning, cold and alone, and found herself regretting not the hours she’d spent with Eric but that he was already gone.

Chapter Two

“Pregnant?”

Molly stared at the doctor for a minute, then laughed as she shook her head.

“I think you’re going to want to run that test again.”

Dr. Morgan looked at her with both understanding and compassion in her deep green eyes. She’d been Molly’s doctor for more than twenty years, long before her dark hair had become so liberally streaked with grey and the faint lines around her eyes and mouth had multiplied.

“I’ll rerun the test,” she told her. “If you can look me in the eye and honestly tell me that you haven’t had sex in the past two months.”

Molly’s fingers curled around the edge of the examining table, her damp palms sticking to the paper. “Not unprotected sex.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Dr. Morgan said. “But you know there isn’t any method of contraception that is one hundred percent effective.”

She could only stare at her as the reality of what the doctor was saying began to sink in and her heart began to hammer out its panic against her ribs.

“It was one night,” she whispered.

One night after four years of going to bed alone.

“That’s all it takes,” the doctor said gently.

Molly shook her head, still unwilling to believe what the doctor was saying. “But I don’t feel pregnant. I don’t feel any different—just tired.”

“That’s often one of the first signs.”

“I haven’t been sick.”

“Not every woman experiences morning sickness. You might be one of the lucky ones.”

Lucky? Molly was too stunned to really know how she was feeling, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t lucky.

“That’s assuming you want to continue with this pregnancy,” Dr. Morgan continued gently. “It is still early and—”

Molly shook her head again. She knew what the doctor was going to say—she was going to tell her there were options. She knew what those options were. She also knew there was only one choice for her—and it was the same choice her own mother had made thirty-one years earlier.

“I’m going to have the baby,” she said.

“Do you know the father?” Dr. Morgan asked gently.

Her cheeks burned with shame as Molly realized she probably should have kept her “one night” comment to herself, but she managed to choke out the lie, “Of course.”

She knew his name—his first name, anyway. And she knew he was from a country called Tesoro del Mar. And she knew that he kissed like there was no tomorrow and made her feel as no man had ever made her feel before. Beyond that, she knew almost nothing at all.

“If you’re going to have this baby, the father should be told,” Dr. Morgan said. “This isn’t something you should have to go through on your own.”

She nodded, because she knew it was true. She also knew that if she somehow managed to track him down, Eric wasn’t likely to be thrilled to learn that he’d knocked up some woman he picked up in a bar. And that was the tawdry truth of what had happened between them, even if, at the time, it hadn’t seemed tawdry at all.

But the soul-deep connection she’d been certain she’d felt in the darkest hours of the night had been illuminated as to what it really was in the bright light of day—a good healthy dose of lust that temporarily overrode common sense—and a passion that was apparently stronger than latex condoms.

Molly walked from the doctor’s office to Celebrations by Fiona. The exclusive boutique was ten blocks from the medical arts building and she was more than halfway there before she questioned the wisdom of undertaking such a stroll in low-heeled sling-backs and ninety-degree heat. But she’d needed some time to think about the news she’d been given and she knew that when she got to Fiona’s, she wouldn’t have a minute to do so.

Her cousin had established a reputation as one of the premier event planners in Texas and her services were sought by everyone who was anyone in the state. She’d planned the island nuptials of a Cowboys’ quarterback, personally oversaw every detail of the small garden wedding for an Oscar-winning actress and coordinated the renewal of vows to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the governor and his wife.

But it turned out that her most challenging assignment and most demanding client wasn’t a celebrity or politician, it was herself. And her mistake, in Molly’s opinion, was in not hiring someone else to oversee the details of her own wedding—a wedding at which Molly would be the maid of honor the following month.

It seemed like a lifetime ago that Molly had been shopping for dresses and bouquets of flowers, dreaming of “happily ever after.” She’d been so full of hope for her future, eager to marry the man she loved, looking forward to raising a family together.

Though that engagement had fallen apart, she’d still believed that someday she would find someone special to share her life and build a family with. Now she’d skipped over the marriage part and was going straight to motherhood—definitely not her childhood dream but a reality that she would have to deal with it.

First, however, she had to tackle the issue of a bridesmaid dress.

Fiona was hovering just inside the door, waiting for her, when she finally arrived.

“Goodness,” she said, noting her cousin’s flushed cheeks. “You look like you just finished running a marathon.”

“Even a short walk feels like a marathon in this heat,” she said, not wanting to admit how far she’d walked or where she’d come from.

Fiona scooped a bottle of water out of the minifridge in her office and handed it to her.

“Thanks.” Molly took the bottle and sank into an empty chair. “Have you finally picked a dress for me?”

“Sort of.”

Molly arched a brow as she uncapped the water.

Fiona gestured to a garment rack that was crowded with gowns.

Molly stared. “There must be a dozen dresses there.”

“Sixteen,” her cousin admitted.

“I realize the layered look is in, but sixteen might be a bit excessive.”

“I couldn’t decide,” Fiona said, a trifle defensively.

“Couldn’t you at least have narrowed it down?”

“That is narrowed down.”

Molly shouldn’t have been surprised. Even with all of Fiona’s contacts in the industry, it had taken her cousin three weeks and trips to both New York City and San Francisco to finally decide on her own gown—from a local boutique.

“I know that pastels are all the rage for summer weddings,” Fiona was explaining now, “but I think jewel tones work better with your coloring and, since you’re my only attendant, you can pick whatever you want.”

Whatever she wanted so long as it was sapphire, emerald or ruby, Molly noted, and rose from her chair for a closer examination of the gowns.

But as she sorted through the collection, her mind slipped back to another examination, to her conversation with Dr. Morgan and the one word that continued to reverberate inside her head.

Pregnant.

“Any thoughts?” Fiona asked.

I thought I would regret it more if I didn’t spend the night with him.

Of course, that thought was immediately followed by a wave of guilt. As much as she hadn’t planned to get pregnant at this point in her life, she wouldn’t regret the child that she would have. The baby growing inside of her probably wasn’t the size of a pea yet, but Molly loved her already.

“Molly?” The prompt drew her attention back to the rack of dresses.

“They all look great,” she said, forcing enthusiasm into her voice.

“That’s what I thought, too,” Fiona told her.

Molly went with her instincts and grabbed a strapless floor-length gown of deep blue silk and slipped through the door. She stripped away her clothes, careful not to look at her refection in any of the mirrors that surrounded her. She didn’t want to look at her body, to think about the changes that were happening inside of her—changes that she knew were invisible to the outside world but essential to the tiny life inside her.

She tugged the zipper up, straightened the skirt and stepped back outside to show her friend.

“Oh. Wow.” Fiona grinned. “That’s it—it’s perfect.”

Molly exhaled a silent sigh of relief that she would be spared having to model the other fifteen dresses.

“You are going to knock his socks off in that dress,” her cousin said.

“Whose socks am I knocking off?” she asked warily.

“The best man’s.”

Molly wasn’t so sure that she wanted to be near any man even taking his socks off, because the last time that happened she’d ended up pregnant. Well, at least she’d had the chance to experience the most amazing sex of her life first. Yeah, it was good to know that she’d discovered a sex drive just in time to put it on the back burner for the next several years while she raised the illegitimate child of a man whose last name she didn’t even know.

“I can’t wait for you to meet him,” Fiona said, for the millionth time since she’d first met her fiancé’s childhood best friend. “If I wasn’t so in love with Scott…” She deliberately let her words trail off, then grinned. “But I am in love with Scott, so it would be really great if you managed to hook up with him.”

“I’m not looking to hook up with anyone,” Molly said firmly.

Fiona forged ahead, as if she hadn’t even heard her. “I really wished you’d met him when he was here, then you’d know what I’m talking about.”

“I’ll meet him at the rehearsal,” Molly reminded her.

“Are you bringing anyone to the wedding?”

“You know I’m not.”

“Because he’s not bringing a date, either.”

“Fiona,” she warned her cousin.

“I’m just saying.”

“I know what you’re saying. And I know you just want me to find someone as wonderful as Scott, but I’m really not looking to get involved with anyone right now.” And probably not for a long time. “There’s just too much going on in my life right now to even think about adding the complication of a relationship.”

Fiona’s eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me?”

And that, Molly knew, was the problem of having a cousin who was also her best friend and who knew her better than anyone else in the world. But she shook her head, not ready to share the news with anyone just yet.

“Your wedding is less than a month away,” she reminded Fiona. “You should have enough to think about without worrying about my love life.”

Her statement succeeded in deflecting her cousin’s attention, as she knew it would, and they talked about flowers and music and other details until Fiona’s next appointment arrived and Molly was able to escape.

He couldn’t get her out of his mind.

Almost two months after he’d returned to Tesoro del Mar, Eric still couldn’t stop thinking about Molly Shea. At first, he’d been certain it was just the memories of spectacular sex that haunted his dreams. He’d wanted to believe it was nothing more than that. But as six weeks turned into seven and he still couldn’t forget her, he finally admitted it was more than the incredible sensation of her body wrapped around his that kept him awake at night—it was the sparkle in her eyes, the way she smiled, the sound of her laughter.

It was all those memories that plagued his thoughts and made him wonder if he shouldn’t have stayed in her bed instead of worrying about his flight home the next morning. But really, what difference would another day or two have made, except maybe to make him even more reluctant to leave the haven of her arms?

Still, he was a prince. He most certainly wasn’t going to let himself get tied up in knots over any woman, and especially not an American bartender. But with each day that passed, the memories he’d expected to dim only grew sharper, and the need inside him grew stronger.

Or maybe he just had too much time on his hands.

He’d been at loose ends since the accident that had prematurely ended his naval career, and without any direction or focus. He’d assumed some duties back home, but as important as he knew the royal family was to the country, he wasn’t sure he could imagine making a career out of public appearances and shaking hands with foreign diplomats.

His recent conversation with Scott hovered in the back of his mind, but he knew the offer to work at DELconnex wasn’t the answer. Or not the whole answer. He wanted something more than a new career. He wanted a wife—a family.

He frowned at that thought. Not that it was unusual for a thirty-six-year-old man to think about settling down, but it was unusual for him. On the other hand, nothing had been “usual” for Eric since he’d left the navy, and maybe it was time he gave serious consideration to the thought of marriage.

His brother Rowan hadn’t been given the luxury of time before he’d been pressured to find a wife. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of women had put themselves forward as bridal candidates when it became known that the prince regent was required to marry. Rowan had surprised everyone when he’d proposed to the royal nanny rather than a woman with recognizable title and ancestry.

Marcus, his younger brother, had also balked at tradition in choosing his bride, marrying a woman who was a foreigner and a successful business owner. And while there was no doubt that both of his brothers were blissfully happy with their respective wives, Eric had always thought that when the time came for him to marry, he would choose a more traditional kind of wife—someone who understood the role of a royal spouse and would be both suitable and content to fulfill it.

But somehow it was thoughts of a sweet and sexy bartender that hovered in the back of his mind and invaded his dreams. And—seven weeks after a single night together—these thoughts began to cause him serious worry. Never before had he been so preoccupied by a woman. Never before had he yearned so deeply for what he couldn’t have.

Being born a prince meant there were few things beyond his grasp, but Molly was one of them. They’d both agreed there would be nothing between them after that night. At the time, it had seemed like a perfect arrangement—one night, no strings. But even as the sun had begun to rise in the morning, Eric had regretted their bargain.

One night hadn’t been nearly enough to sate the passion that burned so hotly and fiercely between them. Not when, seven weeks later, just thinking of Molly was enough to make him ache with longing.

He wanted to go back to Texas to see her again, and his friend’s upcoming wedding gave him the perfect excuse to do so. Of course, he would have to check in with Rowan first, to ensure there were no pressing matters that required his presence in Tesoro del Mar over the next few weeks.

Having decided he should discuss the matter with his brother, he wasn’t surprised when he received a call requesting his presence in the prince regent’s office. He was surprised to see Cameron Leandres leaving as he was entering.

“Who’s going to get fired for letting our cousin through the front gates?” he asked Rowan.

“No one.”

Eric took a seat across from his brother’s desk and raised his brows.

“I invited Cameron here to discuss the environmental concerns to be addressed at the summit in Berne next month.”

“The summit I’m attending?”

“The summit you were going to attend,” Rowan corrected. “I’ve asked Cameron to take your place.”

Eric was genuinely perplexed by this turn of events. “Why?”

“Because you’re going to be too busy overseeing the expansion of DELconnex U.S.A. into Europe to give this matter the attention it deserves.”

Eric scowled. “I haven’t told Scott I’d take the job.”

“But you want to.”

“How do you even know that he offered it to me?”

“I had to call to decline, with sincere regret, the invitation to Scott and Fiona’s wedding because it coincides with the opening of the new youth center in Rio Medio that I’ve already committed to attending. And while I was talking to him, I asked him what kind of offer he’d made to you this time.”

Everyone in the family knew that his friend had been trying to entice Eric to join his company since he first launched DELconnex nearly a decade earlier.

Eric and Scott had been friends since two decades before that, when six-year-old Scott Delsey had come with his family to Tesoro del Mar when his father was appointed U.S. ambassador to the small Mediterranean nation. As ambassador, Thomas Delsey had spent a lot of time at the palace, frequently with his wife and son. Scott had become friends with all of the princes but had developed a particularly close bond with Eric, who was also six at the time. It was a bond as strong as any of blood, and that had endured even after the ambassador had finished his ten-year term and returned with his family to the United States. Eric and Scott had gone to the same college and though they’d later gone their separate ways in life, they’d always remained in touch.

“It’s a tempting offer,” Rowan said now.

“I’ve resisted temptation before,” Eric told him, even as memories of his trip to Texas taunted him with the knowledge that he’d also succumbed to temptation—and quite happily.

“Why are you thinking of resisting?” his brother asked, and it took Eric a moment to haul his mind out of Molly’s bed and back to their conversation.

“Because you need me here.”

“I need a minister of international relations, and I think Cameron is well-suited to the position.”

“There was a time when he thought he was well-suited to your position, and tried to take it from you,” Eric felt compelled to remind him.

“That was six years ago.”

“Do you really think he’s changed?”

“I think I’d rather know what he’s doing than have to guess at it.”

Which Eric thought was a valid point. But he was still uneasy about his brother’s decision to give any real authority to their cousin—or maybe he was just feeling guilty that Rowan’s plan would allow him to do what he wanted when Rowan hadn’t been given the same choice.

“I’ve neglected my duties to this family for too many years already,” he protested.

“I probably can’t count the number of diplomatic dinners and political photo ops you skipped over the past dozen years,” the prince regent admitted. “But those were more than balanced out by the fact that you were serving your country.”

Eric was uncomfortable with the admiration and pride he heard in Rowan’s voice because he knew his service hadn’t been any greater than that of any of his brothers. “Which is no more than you did by giving up your life in London when Julian died, and coming home to run the country and raise his children. And you still do the diplomatic dinners and political photo ops, and more than anyone probably even knows.”

“It hasn’t all been a hardship,” Rowan said, with a smile that told Eric his brother was thinking of his wife and their family.

Eric lowered himself into the chair facing his brother’s. “How did you know Lara was the right woman for you?”

“I didn’t at first,” he admitted. “Or maybe I did but refused to admit it, because I knew getting involved with the royal nanny would create a situation fraught with complications. And it wasn’t so much that she was the right woman as she was the only woman—the only one I couldn’t get out of my mind, the only one I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.”

“The only one who would put up with him, more likely,” Lara said from behind him.

Eric glanced at his sister-in-law, who was standing in the doorway with a ten-month-old baby tucked under one arm and a three-and-a-half-year-old holding her other hand. Her strawberry-blond hair looked a little more tousled than usual, and there was a stain on the shoulder of her blouse that he knew was courtesy of the baby, but despite the lateness of the hour and the obvious busyness of her day, her smile was still vibrant and beautiful.

Rowan had definitely lucked out when he’d fallen in love with Lara Brennan, Eric thought, with just the slightest twinge of envy. As Marcus had also done when he’d stopped by a little café in West Virginia and met—and eventually fallen in love with—Jewel Callahan. As Eric hoped he might luck out someday and find his own soul mate.

Unbidden, thoughts of Molly again nudged at his mind, but he pushed them aside.

“And I will forever be grateful for that,” Rowan said, smiling back at his wife.

“You can prove it by tackling the bedtime routine with a stubborn three-year-old,” she told him.

“It would be my pleasure,” Rowan said, holding out his arms to the little boy, who went rushing into them.

Eric had to smile at the obvious bond between father and son. It was hard to believe that when Rowan had taken on the responsibility for Julian and Catherine’s three children he had almost no experience with—and even less knowledge about—raising kids. Now Christian was seventeen and about to start college in the fall, Lexi was thirteen with a maturity well beyond her years and Damon was nine and still reveling in the joys of childhood and wreaking havoc on the household. Since their marriage, Lara and Rowan had added two of their own, and Rowan had not only embraced fatherhood but managed to juggle his various responsibilities to reflect his commitment to his family.

Eric wasn’t really surprised by the apparent ease of his older brother’s transition from footloose financier to responsible prince regent. Rowan had always taken his obligations seriously. More surprising to Eric was that his younger brother had willingly made similar changes in his life. He’d never seen Marcus look happier than when he was with Jewel and their baby daughter.

It was at the baptism for young Princess Isabella that Eric was first confronted by the emptiness of his life. Up until then, he’d never thought about what was missing. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that nothing seemed to be missing because his career had fulfilled him so completely.

Over the past three years, he’d had too much time to think, too much time to wonder if there should be something more, although he hadn’t really thought about his restless yearning for more in terms of a relationship until he’d met Molly.

“Bath time and story?” Rowan’s question to his son drew Eric’s attention back to the scene in the library.

“Story!” Matthew repeated with enthusiasm.

“After the bath,” his mother interjected firmly.

Matthew scowled as Rowan rose with him in his arms.

Eric chuckled. “What is it about little boys that makes them inherently allergic to bathwater?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Lara said, crossing the room to settle into the chair her husband had vacated. The baby rubbed his face on his mother’s shoulder, then popped his thumb in his mouth and snuggled in with a sigh.

Eric felt an unexpected pang as he watched Lara cuddle her infant son. Children were something else he hadn’t thought much about because he’d never been in a position to be a father, but spending time with his brothers’ children had changed that, too. He wanted a family of his own—a wife and children to come home to at the end of the day, to make plans and share dreams with and to simply be with.

Dios, that sounded pathetic, as if he couldn’t endure his own company. Or maybe he’d just been enduring his own company for too long. After unsuccessful romances, it had seemed easier to accept solitude than yet another relationship failure. But maybe it was finally time to reconsider that position.

“You and Rowan sure do make beautiful babies,” he commented to his sister-in-law now.

Lara smiled. “As much as I want to take credit, the dark hair and eyes are trademark Santiago.”

“But Matthew has your mouth and your smile, and William’s bone structure is just like yours.”

“Do you think so?” She seemed pleased that he would notice such details.

“As I said, you make beautiful babies.”

“And you’re a flatterer as much as both of your brothers,” she mused. “So what deep conversation between you and Rowan did I interrupt?”

“Nothing deep,” he assured her.

“You’ve met a woman,” she guessed.

He stared at her, baffled.

She laughed, and automatically rubbed the baby’s back when he started to stir. “I heard you ask your brother how he knew I was the right woman for him—it wasn’t much of a stretch to think that you’ve met someone who has you thinking in those terms.”

“I’ve just been thinking a lot about my life and my future,” he hedged. “And I wanted to tell Rowan about my plan to go back to Texas. It occurred to me that, as the best man, I should be available to help Scott with anything that needs to be done in the last few weeks before the wedding.”

Lara’s smile was just a little smug. “She’s in Texas, isn’t she?”

“Whatever you want to believe,” he said, knowing it was pointless to deny it.

The widening of her smile only proved she knew she was right. “When are you leaving?”

Chapter Three

Molly pulled a brush through her hair and wrapped an elastic band around it to hold the heavy mass off of her neck. It was only the end of May, not even officially summer yet, but even three days of almost steady rain had done little to alleviate the humidity and forecasters were warning that the season was going to be a brutal one.

As she stripped out of her shorts and T-shirt to change for work, she thought she could use a change of scenery and a break from the oppressive heat—a week or two away from the never-ending problems at home. And she found herself wondering what the weather was like in Tesoro del Mar, if the summers were hot or if there were cool ocean breezes to regulate the temperature.

She wondered if Eric lived somewhere on the coast or in a crowded apartment in the city—or even if there were cities in Tesoro del Mar. She didn’t really know anything about the country, or even how big it was, and she didn’t know—if she decided to take a trip to the island, as she’d been thinking she might do—if there was any chance her path would cross with his.

It was a crazy idea—almost as crazy as spending the night with a man she didn’t know—and yet it was an idea that refused to be discarded.

She’d thought about him a lot since that single night they’d spent together, and not just since she’d learned that she was carrying his child.

But five days after her appointment with Dr. Morgan, she’d still made no effort to find her baby’s father and she knew it was past time she did so. She had plenty of legitimate excuses for the delay—including the hundred-and-one daily tasks that kept her at the restaurant for ten or more hours a day.

But the truth was, not one of those things had made her forget about the child she carried or the obligation she had to notify her baby’s father. She just didn’t know how she was going to track him down.

She booted up the computer and considered what she knew about Eric. Beyond his name, she knew that he lived in a country called Tesoro del Mar and that he’d been in the navy. It wasn’t much, but at least it was a start.

A swarm of butterflies winged around in her stomach as she logged onto the Internet and typed the words “Tesoro del Mar,” “Eric” and “naval accident” into the search engine.

She’d barely clicked Enter when the results filled the page.

Tesorian Navy News. Coast Guard Newsletter. Navy News—International Edition. MedSeaSecurityReport. Royal Watch. Naval Briefs. The Spanish Sailor.

She clicked on the first result, scanned the headline.

Prince Eric Injured in Naval Training Accident.

Prince Eric?

Definitely not the right Eric, she decided, and started to close the document when she noted the photo a little bit farther down on the page.

Her breath caught and her brow furrowed as she leaned closer to the screen for a better look.

It was him.

Her heart started to beat harder, faster.

She skimmed the article, barely noting any details of the accident that had resulted in the end of his career. Nothing seemed to matter beyond the title that jumped out at her from beneath his picture. “First Officer Prince Eric Santiago.”

It occurred to her that maybe “prince” wasn’t a royal title but a naval title. It certainly seemed a more feasible explanation than a member of a royal family wandering into her restaurant—and ending up in her bed.

She tried a different search this type, entering only “prince eric” and “tesoro del mar.”

Again, the results were almost instantaneous, and her hand trembled as she clicked on “theroyalhouseofsantiago.”

The site opened to a home page that showed a stunning castle of gleaming white stone in front of a backdrop of brilliant blue sky. She clicked on a link labeled “Members of the Royal Family,” which popped up a row of photos with names and links beneath them—one of which was Eric, “Principe de la Ciudad del Norte.”

She stared at the image, stunned by this confirmation that Eric wasn’t just a guy in a bar—he was a member of the royal family of Tesoro del Mar.

She’d slept with a prince.

And now she was pregnant with his child.

She had to tell him—the logical, rational part of her brain wouldn’t let her consider anything else. And now she knew where to find him, though she couldn’t imagine that she’d simply be permitted to walk up to the front door of the royal palace and announce that she was carrying the prince’s baby.

She couldn’t think about this right now—just the thought made her head spin.

Pushing away from the desk, she grabbed her cell phone before heading downstairs to make sure the restaurant was set up for dinner. She noticed the voice mail icon on the display and sighed as she dialed into her mailbox, determined to ignore whatever crisis had her sister tracking her down now. But it wasn’t Abbey’s number on the display, it was Fiona’s, and her cousin’s voice was quiet and muffled, as if she was trying not to cry.

Fiona wasn’t prone to dramatics, so her brief and teary “the wedding’s off” message had Molly detouring through the restaurant only long enough to make sure that Karen could stay behind the bar until she returned. As she drove the familiar route to her cousin’s ranch, it occurred to her that whatever had Fiona in a panic, it had succeeded in taking Molly’s mind off of Prince Eric Santiago.

At least for the moment.

When Eric contacted Scott’s fiancée to let her know that he was coming back to San Antonio, Fiona promised that a room would be ready for him and chatted excitedly about the final preparations for the wedding. But something happened between the time of his phone call and his arrival at the door so that she was no longer bubbling over with happiness but with tears.

Having spent most of his adult life in the navy, Eric felt completely out of his element when confronted by a weeping woman. Not that it was his job to comfort his friend’s fiancée—and thank God Scott was there to do that—but he still felt helpless. And clueless.

“We got a call from the manager of Harcourt Castle,” Scott explained, when Fiona’s sobs had quieted enough that conversation was possible.

“That’s where the wedding’s going to be, right?”

His friend gave a small shake of his head as he continued to pat Fiona’s back consolingly. “We’ve had a lot of rain over the past couple of days and some of the lower lying areas experienced flooding, including Harcourt.”

Eric knew a flood indicated water damage, which meant the venue was likely out of commission for several months—definitely past the date of the wedding.

“Maybe it’s a sign,” Fiona sniffed.

“It’s not a sign,” Scott soothed his bereft fiancée. “Except for the fact that we’ll need to find another location for the wedding.”

She brushed her tears away and looked up at him, incredulous. “Less than a month before the date?”

For the first time since Eric had arrived on the scene, Scott looked uncertain. “Does that seem unlikely?”

“Not unlikely—” the tears began falling again, her words barely comprehensible “—impossible. And—” she gulped in a breath “—you know why I wanted the castle.”

“We met at Harcourt,” Scott explained to Eric.

“And he took me back there to ask me to marry him,” Fiona said, suddenly sobbing harder.

Yeah, Eric was definitely out of his element, and desperately wracked his brain for a solution—any solution—to stop the tears.

“Okay, so we’ll postpone the wedding for a few months,” Scott suggested.

“We’ve already sent out the invitations, ordered the cake, the flowers and—”

“I said postpone,” her fiancé interjected, “not cancel.”

She sighed. “It seems like we’ve been waiting so long already, and I just want to be married to you.”

“Then let’s do it,” Scott said impulsively. “Let’s forget all the chaos and crises, hop onto a plane to Vegas and get married.”

Fiona’s nose wrinkled. “Vegas?”

“I know it’s not what we’d planned, but we can have a big, blowout reception back here in a few months, when Harcourt Castle is reopened.”

His fiancée still hesitated.

Eric had never been to Vegas, but he’d seen enough movies to form an impression of the city and he could understand Fiona’s reluctance. She wanted ambience and elegance, and what Scott was offering was loud and garish. Okay, maybe that wasn’t an entirely fair assessment considering that he’d never stepped foot in the town, but he thought he’d gotten to know his friend’s fiancée well enough during his last visit to be certain it wasn’t what she’d envisioned.

“Vegas,” she said again, more contemplative than critical this time.

He figured it was a testament to how much Fiona loved Scott that she was even considering it.

“Or you could hop on a plane to a picturesque island in the Mediterranean and have a quiet ceremony on the beach and an intimate reception at the royal palace,” Eric offered as an alternative.

The future bride and groom swiveled their heads in his direction.

“Could we?” Scott asked.

“You said it was a small wedding?”

“Fifty-two guests,” his friend confirmed.

“We’d need to charter a plane but otherwise, there shouldn’t be any problem. So long as there’s nothing going on at the palace on that date, we could fly everyone in a few days early for a brief vacation on the island, then have the wedding as planned on Saturday.”

Fiona glanced from Eric to Scott and back again. “That sounds awfully expensive,” she said, but the sparkle was back in her eyes, revealing her enthusiasm.

“It would be my wedding gift to you,” Eric told her.

“A Crock-Pot is a wedding gift,” she said. “What you’re offering is…a dream.”

He shrugged. “You make my best friend happy. If this makes you happy, it’s a fair trade.”

Her smile was radiant. “Then I’ll say ‘thank you.’ But we’ll stick with Scott’s plan to hold a formal reception back here in a few months and just have immediate family for the ceremony in Tesoro del Mar. And Molly, my maid of honor, of course.”

When Molly arrived at the ranch, she was both surprised and immensely relieved to learn that the crisis had already been diverted.

“I didn’t think anything could be more romantic than being married at Harcourt House,” Fiona gushed, all smiles instead of tears now. “But a wedding at a royal palace might just top everything else.”

Molly sank down onto the arm of a chair. “A royal palace?”

“Scott’s in the other room with Eric now, confirming the arrangements.”

The butterflies were swarming again.

Eric. The best man. The friend of Scott’s that Fiona had been talking about for months who somehow had access to a royal palace. Could it be—

No. It wasn’t possible. She’d just been so unnerved by the realization that her baby’s father was a prince that she was jumping to conclusions. Because as much as her cousin had talked about the best man, Fiona had never mentioned that he was royalty. Molly definitely would have remembered that.

She managed to smile. “So where is this royal palace?”

“It’s on an island in the Mediterranean called Tesoro del Mar. I’d never even heard of it before I met Eric, and I didn’t even know he was a prince until a few days ago. Scott said they’ve been friends for so long he doesn’t think about the fact that Eric is in line for the throne, but I nearly fainted when I found out. Can you believe the best man at my wedding is a prince?”

“Unbelievable,” Molly agreed, as thoughts and questions whipped around in her mind like dry leaves in a hurricane. And before she could grasp hold of even one of them, he was there.

He was standing in front of her—okay, across the room, but the distance did nothing to dilute the effect of his presence. His legs were as long as she remembered, his shoulders as broad, his jaw as strong, his eyes as dark.

Yes, she remembered all of the details—the thickness of his hair, the curve of his lips, the skill of his hands. But she hadn’t quite remembered—maybe hadn’t let herself remember—how completely fascinating he was as a whole.

He smiled at Fiona. “Everything’s confirmed.”

She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, thank you, Eric. You’re the best.”

“That’s why he’s the best man,” Scott said, unconcerned by the fact that his fiancée was embracing another man. Eric chuckled.

The sound of that laugh, warm and rich and familiar, sent shivers down her spine, tingles to her center.

It was Scott who spotted Molly first, and he smiled. “Hey, Molly.”

Eric’s head turned. His gaze locked on hers, and widened in shock.

Molly thought she had some idea just how he felt.

“Eric—” Scott turned to his friend “—you haven’t met Molly yet, have you?”

“No, we haven’t,” Molly answered before he could, rising to her feet and praying that her wobbly legs would support her.

“But I’ve certainly heard a lot about her,” Eric said, his eyes never leaving Molly’s face.

She definitely hadn’t remembered everything—like how one look could make her pulse race and her knees quiver, as her pulse was racing and her knees were quivering now.

“And here she is,” Scott said. And to Molly, “This is His Royal Highness, Prince Eric Santiago of Tesoro del Mar.”

“Should I curtsy?” she asked lightly.

“No need,” he said.

She didn’t actually remember offering her hand, but she found it engulfed in his, cradled in his warmth. It was a simple handshake—there was nothing at all inappropriate about it. And yet she felt her cheeks heat, her skin burn, as memories of his hands on her body assaulted her mind from every direction.

The heat in his eyes told her that he was also remembering, and though her mind warned her to back away, her body yearned to shift close, closer.

“It’s a pleasure to see you, Molly,” he said in that low, sexy voice that had whispered much more intimately and explicitly in her ear as they’d rolled around on her bed together.

“Oh, we’re going to have so much fun together in Tesoro del Mar,” Fiona said, then to Molly, “You will come, won’t you?”

A wedding on a Mediterranean island sounded romantic enough, throw in a royal palace, and Molly could understand why her cousin was glowing with excitement and anticipation. And no matter how much Molly’s brain warned that going to Tesoro del Mar was a very bad idea—that going anywhere with Eric Santiago was a very bad idea—she couldn’t refuse something that meant so much to Fiona.

So she ignored the knots in her stomach and forced a bright smile. “Of course I’ll be there. You can hardly get married without your maid of honor.”

Fiona threw her arms around Molly, just as she’d done with Eric, and hugged her tight. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Molly hugged her back. “I just want your wedding to be perfect for you.”

“It will be now,” her cousin said confidently.

Molly was pleased that Fiona’s problems were solved, but couldn’t help but think her own had just multiplied.

It had been unsettling enough to accept that she was pregnant with a stranger’s baby, but learning that the stranger was her cousin’s fiancé’s best friend added a whole other layer of complications. And she couldn’t help but wonder how differently everything might have played out if she’d known two months ago what she knew now about Prince Eric Santiago.

“Okay, now that the crisis has been resolved, I should get back to work,” Molly said, eager to make her escape.

But she felt the heat of Eric’s gaze on her as she made her way to the door, and acknowledged that this new information might not have changed anything. Because even now, she wanted him as much as she’d wanted him then.

This time, however, she was determined to prove stronger than the desire he stirred inside of her.

At least, she hoped she would.

Chapter Four

Molly knew Eric would show up at her door the next morning. She only hoped to have a cup of coffee in her system before she had to face him again—a hope that was obliterated when the knock sounded just as she was measuring grinds into the filter. She set the basket into place, pressed the button and went to respond to his knock.

He was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a collared T-shirt, much as he’d been the first night he walked into the bar. And though he looked better than any man had a right to look, there certainly wasn’t anything about his appearance or his attire that warned he was a prince. And even now, even knowing all the details she’d learned from the Internet, she found it difficult to think of him as royalty. She could only remember that he was a man—a man she’d taken to her bed and with whom she’d shared intimacies and pleasures she’d never before imagined.

“Good morning,” he said.

To which she responded with a barely civil, “Come in.”

“A little out of sorts this morning?”

“I work nights,” she reminded him. “The hours before noon aren’t my best time.”

“Should I come back?”

She shook her head. “We might as well just get this over with.”

His lips quirked. “What, exactly, are we getting over?”

“The awkward morning-after conversation that we managed to avoid the morning after.” She reached into the cupboard for two mugs, filled both with coffee, then slid one across the table to him.

He’d drank black coffee at the bar that night, she remembered, which was good because she didn’t have any cream. She dumped a generous spoonful of sugar into her own cup and stirred. She planned to make the switch to decaf soon, but the doctor had assured her a couple of cups a day wouldn’t hurt the baby and she needed the caffeine right now.

“Well, you could explain why you didn’t want Scott and Fiona to know we’d met before.”

“Because they would have had questions about how and when, and I wasn’t sure how to answer.” She sipped her coffee, felt it churn uneasily in her stomach.

“How about the truth?”

“The whole truth?”

“I’m not ashamed of what happened between us. We’re both adults, we were attracted to one another, we acted upon that attraction.”

“I don’t do one night stands with strangers,” she told him.

“I seem to recall you telling me that already—right before you invited me back to your apartment.”

She felt her cheeks flush at the reminder—or maybe it was the heat in his gaze that was causing her own body temperature to rise. She wasn’t in the habit of having sex with men she barely knew, and she’d never had sex with a man she’d met only a few hours earlier. But she’d let herself give in to the yearning because she never expected to see him again.

It was supposed to be a crazy, once-in-a-lifetime impulse, a chance to prove to herself that she could be wild and spontaneous and not tie herself up in knots about it forever after. Except that it turned out to be a crazy, once-in-a-lifetime impulse that was going to have some major, long-term repercussions.

Repercussions Prince Eric still didn’t know about.

“Just because I slept with you once doesn’t mean I’ll do so again just because circumstances have thrown us together and it’s convenient.”

He smiled at her across the table—a smile that made all of her bones turn to jelly and made her grateful she was sitting down.

“I wasn’t thinking about the convenience factor so much as the it-was-really-great-sex factor.”

“The only reason I made an exception to my rule was because I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, either,” he admitted. “And yet, you’ve been on my mind almost constantly over the past few weeks, and it was always my plan upon returning to Texas to find you.”

“That wasn’t our agreement,” she reminded him.

“So let’s make a new agreement.”

“What do you propose—lots of hot sex in the few weeks leading up to Scott and Fiona’s wedding, after which I go back to serving drinks and you go back to doing whatever it is a royal does?”

Something in her tone must have given her away, because his brows lifted. “You’re annoyed that I didn’t tell you I’m a prince,” he guessed.

“Do you think?”

“Why don’t I remember your affinity for sarcasm?”

“Maybe because we really didn’t know one another at all before we fell into bed together.”

“Are you saying your decision to sleep with me would have been different if you’d know I was a prince?”

“Yes,” she asserted vehemently.

“Why?”

“Because then I would have known that I meant nothing more to you than another conquest in another town.”

Even as she spoke the words, she realized how hypocritical they sounded. After all, she was the one who’d insisted that a one night stand was all she wanted.

But he didn’t point out this fact. Instead he said, “You were never a conquest. You were a beautiful woman who intrigued me as no woman has done in a very long time.”

She wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t get past the fact that he was a prince and she’d been rejected by too many average guys to believe that she could have captured the attention of someone so extraordinary.

“I’m not going to sleep with you again.”

He lifted his cup to his lips, drank. “I got the impression, when Fiona asked you about coming to Tesoro del Mar, that you wanted to refuse.”

“It’s not that I wanted to,” she denied. “It’s just not a great time for me to be leaving the country.”

“Is that the truth? Or is it that you didn’t want to be with me?”

“You weren’t a factor in my decision,” she lied.

“No?” he challenged softly and, reaching across the table, brushed his knuckles down her cheek.

The gentle caress sent tingles down her spine, and when she responded with another no, it sounded almost like a sigh.

He smiled. “Well, I’m glad you are coming. Tesoro del Mar is a beautiful country, and I will look forward to showing it to you.”

“I’m going for Fiona, not for a vacation.”

“There’s no reason you can’t do both.”

She shook her head. “I really can’t be away from my business for too long.”

“You don’t have a manager?”

“I’m the manager.”

“But you don’t work every single shift,” he guessed.

“No,” she admitted. Karen had shared the managerial duties for a few years now, usually covering the dinner shift so that Molly had a break between lunch and evening duties and could take the occasional day off. “But I’m never too far away if there’s a problem.”

“Is it that you don’t trust your manager to take care of things in your absence?” he wondered. “Or that you don’t trust yourself to be alone with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with your ego, is there?”

He only grinned. “I don’t recall you having complaints about my ego—or any of my other parts—when we were together.”

No—there had definitely been no reason to complain and no ability to do so when she was writhing and moaning with pleasure.

“Are we finished here?” she asked, deliberately ignoring his comment. “Because I have to be downstairs for a delivery in about ten minutes.”

He pushed his chair away from the table. “Fiona will let you know the travel arrangements.”

“Thanks.” She followed him to the door.

He stepped out onto the landing, then pivoted back to face her again. “And the answer to your question is no—we’re not even close to being finished here.”

Molly was in a mood when she went down to the bar and she knew it. She was tired and she was cranky and it was all Eric’s fault. As if it wasn’t enough to find out that the man she’d picked up in her own bar was a prince, now he’d suddenly reappeared in her life, wanting to pick up right where they left off.

Of course, he didn’t know that the last time they’d gotten naked and horizontal together, they’d made a baby. She was certain that little bit of information would make him reconsider his pursuit of her, but she definitely wasn’t ready to share.

You have to tell him.

She sighed even as she cursed the nagging voice of her conscience. She knew she had to tell him. She would tell him. Just not yet. Not until she was feeling a little less flustered and emotional about everything.

Okay—that might take a little longer than the seven months remaining before her due date, so maybe that wasn’t a reasonable guideline.

After the wedding, she decided. She would be close to the end of the first trimester by then and there wouldn’t be any reason for them to remain in contact afterward if he didn’t want to.

She nodded, satisfied with that reasoning. “After the wedding.”

“What wedding?”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken the thought out loud until Dave, the delivery man from the local liquor store responded with the question.

She scrawled her name on the bill he presented to her and shook her head. “I’m babbling to myself. Obviously I’ve got too much on my mind.”

“My brother talks to himself all the time,” Dave told her. “My mother thinks he’s a genius. My dad just thinks he’s nuts.”

“There’s probably a fine line there,” Molly said.

“Which side do you fall on?” he asked curiously.

“Nuts,” she said. “Definitely certifiably insane.”

She had to be if she was still attracted to a man who’d messed up every single aspect of her life.

“Admitting a problem is the first step toward getting help,” he said, and winked at her.

She restocked the shelf behind the bar, then carried the extra inventory to the storage room. The boxes were heavy, and though the weight wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle right now, she knew there would come a time when she would have to stop that kind of lifting. She wouldn’t do anything that would jeopardize the well-being of her child.

But, as she stifled another yawn, she found herself worrying that she might already be jeopardizing her baby’s well-being. She was tired—physically and mentally exhausted. Was that normal in the first few months of pregnancy? Or were the erratic hours at the restaurant taking an additional toll on her body?

She’d had to drag herself out of bed this morning, and she’d turned the shower spray to cool to jolt herself awake. What she’d told Eric was true—she’d never been at her best in the mornings, but she wasn’t usually so grumpy.

Even when she’d been in high school and had to get up for classes in the morning, she often worked late to help her dad. When she was a teen, he’d been strict about keeping her away from the bar, but when the last customer was gone and the door was locked at the end of the night, she would come out of the kitchen to help him with the clean-up of the restaurant and the close-out of the register and anything else that needed to be done.

She’d loved that time of night, the quiet camaraderie they’d shared. Just thinking about it now, she felt an aching emptiness inside. Her father had been gone for almost ten years now, but there still wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t think about him and how much she missed him.

He’d been in her thoughts even more than usual recently, and she wondered if that was because she so desperately wanted to tell someone about the baby she carried. She knew her father would have been disappointed about the circumstances of her pregnancy, but he would have been thrilled about the child. Family had always been the most important part of life to James Shea, with even the bar running a distance second.

When his wife bailed on him after fifteen years of marriage, he’d raised his daughters alone, and he’d raised them with love and compassion. If he’d had one regret, it was that Maureen had cut all ties when she’d walked out. He felt it was important for children to have the love of both parents, and he always lamented the fact that he couldn’t give that to his daughters.

He wouldn’t approve of Molly’s decision not to tell Eric about her pregnancy, of that she had no doubt. Not that she wasn’t ever going to tell him, she reminded that nagging voice in the back of her mind, just that she needed some more time to assimilate what she’d learned about her baby’s father before she told him he was going to be a father.

She thought about how her dad would react to that bit of information.

“You always were my princess,” he would have said with a smile. “And now you’ll have the title to prove it.”

Because he would also assume that, being pregnant with Eric’s baby, she would marry him—whether or not it was what either of them wanted. Yes, family was important to James Shea, and so was responsibility, as he’d proven when he married Molly’s mother after learning that she was carrying his child.

But that was thirty-one years ago, and even if Eric offered marriage as a solution, she knew it wasn’t one she could accept. It certainly wasn’t a solution that had worked for her parents. Not that they hadn’t tried—at least for a while. But in the end, Maureen Shea had woke up one morning and, looking around, decided she didn’t like what her life had become and walked away from everything.

Molly didn’t think she would ever understand how a woman could walk away from her child like that—cutting all ties and never looking back. Instinctively, her hand went to her still-flat tummy. Though her baby was just starting to be, she was already overwhelmed with love for her child and she vowed silently but vehemently to always be there for her baby.

Which meant that she had to start giving serious consideration to the day-to-day practicalities of parenthood. In particular, she needed to consider what was she going to do when she had a child of her own—could she continue to serve customers with a playpen behind the bar? And even if that worked for the first several months, she couldn’t keep a toddler confined to a mesh-cage for a six-hour shift any more than she could allow him free rein to crawl around the restaurant.

But what other option did she have?

Sell.

The answer popped into her head from nowhere—or maybe it had been lurking in the back of her mind since Abbey had first spoken of the possibility after their father died.

Her sister had broached the subject a few more times since then, but Molly had always balked. Shea’s was their legacy, the only thing they had left that was their father’s.

And even if they sold the bar, even if they found a buyer, what would she do after? Who would hire her? She had no real skills, no experience, and now she had a baby on the way.

You could write.

This time the voice in head sounded suspiciously like her grandmother’s, and the words were a familiar refrain.

Even as a child, she’d had stories in her head. Her father had enjoyed the fanciful tales she’d spun and appreciated that her narratives entertained his customers; her grandmother had always insisted that Molly was a born storyteller. Molly only knew that there were characters and scenes constantly spinning around in her mind and she had a drawerful of notebooks in which she’d jotted down those ideas in an attempt to clear them from her mind.

But while she might occasionally fantasize about being a writer, she didn’t have any illusions that she could simply decide to make that kind of career change and expect to pay the bills. So what could she do?

She felt the sting of tears in her eyes as the questions came at her from all directions. Questions without apparent answers. Problems without any solutions.

She sat on a stool and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and wished again that her father was here. Since he’d passed away, she’d been the mature and responsible one—the one everyone else turned to for help, the shoulder that others cried on. For once—just once—she wanted a shoulder to cry on, strong arms to wrap around her, someone she could count on and believe in and—

She shook her head, furiously pushing aside the image of Eric Santiago that managed to steal into her mind. How could she even think about leaning on him when he was the one who’d started her world spinning out of control? She couldn’t. No way, no how.

Molly would handle this current predicament as she’d handled everything else in her life since her father died—on her own.

Eric managed to stay away from the restaurant and the temptation of Molly for three days. On day four, he decided he wanted to go out for lunch, and found himself driving toward Shea’s. She was right in saying that they didn’t know one another very well, but what he found more interesting than this assertion was her determination to keep him at a distance so that she wouldn’t get to know him.

This time when he entered the restaurant, he saw Molly not standing behind the bar but seated at it, talking to another woman beside her. He wasn’t going to interrupt, but it was almost as if she was as attuned to his presence as he was to hers, because she looked up and her eyes met his.

He smiled, and she smiled back, albeit tentatively.

As if cluing in to the silent exchange, the woman seated beside Molly looked up. The two women looked enough alike that he would have guessed they were sisters, though he hadn’t known that she had a sister, which again proved her point that there was a lot they didn’t know about one another.

Molly was wearing slim-fitting jeans and a sleeveless blouse with tiny little flowers embroidered on the collar. Practical yet feminine, he thought, and so perfectly suited to Molly. Her sister was wearing a dress with a criss-cross tie down the back that drew attention to her curves and strappy sandals with pencil-thin heels. Her hair wasn’t as long or as dark as Molly’s and was streaked with lighter strands.

His gaze moved back to Molly, noting the hair that was pulled away from her face in a ponytail, the deep blue eyes surrounded by thick dark lashes, full lips that were slicked with clear gloss, and he felt the now-familiar stir of desire low in his belly.

“Just in the neighborhood?” Molly asked.

“Just hungry,” he said. “And I heard they serve a pretty good lunch in here.”

“You heard right,” Molly said. Then, at the nudge from her sister, she made the introductions.

“This is my sister, Abbey,” she told him. Then to Abbey, “Meet Prince Eric Santiago.”

“Prince Eric?”

“Scott’s best friend,” Molly explained to her sister.

“The best man,” Abbey said, and lifted a brow. “And are you? The best, I mean.”

Eric looked at Molly, who rolled her eyes.

“You’re married,” she reminded her sister.

“Separated,” Abbey said.

“And Eric came in for a meal, not an interrogation.” Molly stood and, grabbing a menu from the counter, led him to a booth in the corner.

“I wouldn’t mind some company,” he said, sliding into the booth.

“You want me to send my sister over?”

“I meant your company,” he clarified.

“Sorry, I have to finish up next week’s schedule.”

He hadn’t really expected that she would accept his invitation.

For reasons he couldn’t even begin to fathom, she was edgy around him, almost antagonistic. Instead of dissuading him, her attitude only made him all the more determined to break through her barriers and rediscover the warm, wonderful woman he knew was inside.

“You could do that here—unless you think I’m too much of a distraction.”

“You’re just too much.”

He grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You would.” She dropped the menu on the table, then with a sigh, she slid into the seat across from him. “You have a way of irritating me so that I forget I’m trying to be nice.”

“Why does it take such an effort?”

“Because you rub me the wrong way.”

He let his eyes rake over her, in a slow and very hot perusal, before he said, “That’s not how I remember it.”

She huffed out a breath. “You see? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I’m attempting to have a normal conversation and you keep throwing out these little references to a night I’m trying to forget.”

“Why are you trying to forget?”

“Because it’s over and done and it’s not going to happen again.”

“It seems to me that if forgetting is such an effort, it’s not nearly as over and done as you want to believe.”

She drew in a deep breath, expelled it slowly, deliberately.

“I wanted to say that hosting the wedding in Tesoro del Mar is an incredibly kind and generous thing to do.”

“And you’re surprised that I can be kind and generous?” he couldn’t resist teasing.

“No,” she said. “I’m just trying to thank you for turning what could have been a disaster into a celebration.”

“My motives aren’t entirely noble.”

“No?”

“I want to spend time with you, Molly, and you’ll have a lot fewer excuses to avoid me when we’re in Tesoro del Mar.”

“You made the offer before you even knew I was Fiona’s maid of honor,” she pointed out.

“Guilty,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to take advantage of the fact.”

“I’m flattered by your interest, Eric, really. But I’m not looking for a relationship right now.”

“Why not?”

“My reasons aside, I can’t believe you’re looking to get involved with a bartender.”

“I’m not a snob, Molly.”

“But you’re a prince, and I can’t imagine a foreigner with neither a title nor a fortune would ever be a suitable companion—even temporarily—for a royal.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that. “Both of my sisters-in-law used to think the same way. Lara was an Irish nanny. Jewel was an American horse trainer.”

“And your point?”

“Well, I’m not asking you to marry me.”

She responded to his assurance with a small smile, and he felt another tug inside. It was warmer and softer than desire, but somehow stronger, too. And he realized he would do almost anything to earn another one of those smiles, for more quiet moments like this one.

“But when we get to the island,” he continued, “I might ask to show you around.”

She studied him for a moment, those deep blue eyes considering, before she said, “And if you ask nicely, I just might say yes.” Then she slid out of the booth. “Enjoy your lunch.”

As Eric watched her walk away, appreciating the way worn denim molded to a nicely toned derriere, he was pleased with her response. It was a small step forward, but after so many in retreat, at least it was progress.

Chapter Five

Abbey came into the kitchen the next day and sat by the prep counter to watch Molly chop carrots and celery into sticks. For her sister to show up at the restaurant two days in a row was unusual, and Molly found herself wondering if Abbey had come in to see her or hoping to see Eric again—a question that was answered when Abbey said, “Jason came home last night.”

Molly stopped chopping to look at her sister, trying to decide if this was good news, trying not to resent the fact that her sister didn’t see anything wrong with asking for advice about her marriage to the man she’d stolen from Molly.

“Do you want to reconcile?” she asked.

Abbey nodded. “I just want everything back the way it was before he left.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“He said there are changes that need to be made.” Abbey pouted.

“What kind of changes?”

“For starters, he wants me to get a job.”

And the only job Abbey had ever wanted was to be a wife and mother—and Molly suspected it was the unrealized latter part of that desire that was the cause of most of her sister’s marital problems.

“It’s not that I’m opposed to working,” Abbey said. “I’ve just never been really good at anything.”

“You’ve never tried to be good at anything,” Molly corrected. “Except shopping.”

Her sister brightened at that. “I could get a job as a personal shopper.”

“At least then you’d be spending other people’s money.”

“Do you really think I’m qualified?”

“I have no doubt you’re qualified, but I’m not sure there’s much demand for personal shoppers outside the big cities.”

Abbey sighed. “You’re probably right.”

Another few minutes passed, during which Molly tried to discard the thought that popped into her mind, but it refused to go away until finally, with more resignation than enthusiasm, she said, “You could work here.”

Abbey stared at her as if she’d suggested that she dance naked on the tables instead of serve meals to the customers seated at them.

“Work?” she echoed. “Here?”

“I know it’s an odd concept, but there are several of us who actually do so. The pay’s not great,” Molly admitted. “But the tips are pretty good.” And after the abrupt and unexpected departure of one of her waitresses, Molly was desperate for another pair of hands to work the dinner shift. She’d been doing everything she could to help out herself, but she was already feeling the effects of the extra hours on her feet, and knew that couldn’t continue.

“Tips?”

“Of course, you’d have to learn to smile instead of scowl if you wanted to earn any.”

Abbey sighed. “When can I start?”

“Four o’clock.”

Molly wasn’t surprised that Abbey showed up less than five minutes before her shift was scheduled to begin, but she was pleased that her sister apparently remembered the routine from when she’d waited tables through high school. Abbey caught on to the routine quickly and managed to take orders and deliver meals with little mishap. She finished her first shift with sore feet and a pocketful of tips that, when added up, elicited a weary smile.

Abbey worked again the next afternoon, and the day after that, and by the end of the week, Molly was actually starting to think the arrangement might work out.

Though there hadn’t been an empty table during the midday rush, the restaurant was now mostly empty and Molly poured herself a cup of decaf and took a seat at the bar. There was a table with three men in suits who were finishing up a business meeting along with their lunches, another at which was seated a couple of older women who seemed more interested in conversation than their meals, and at a booth in the back, a young couple lingering over coffee.

Molly was proud that her business appealed to such an eclectic group, and pleased that the additional funds she’d spent on advertising over the past twelve months was proving to be a good investment. Shea’s had once been “the little roadside bar just past the sharp curve in the highway,” now it was “that fabulous little restaurant just past the sharp curve in the highway.”

She hadn’t taken the first sip of her coffee when her brother-in-law came in.

“If you’re looking for your wife, she just left.”

“I’m not,” Jason said, then walked behind the bar, poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down beside her.

It was the first time she’d seen him in the restaurant since he and Abbey separated a few months earlier, and she was as curious as she was wary about his reasons for being here now. Because he, too, didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with dumping his problems in Molly’s lap, despite having dumped her to marry her sister.

“I have a business proposition to discuss with you.”

Now she was really curious, but she just sipped her decaf and waited for him to explain.

Instead of speaking, he set a cashier’s check beside her cup.

Her eyes popped open wide as she took in the numbers.

“Where did you get that kind of cash?”

“My severance package from Raycroft Industries.”

She’d read about the proposed merger of the local manufacturing plant with a multinational corporation several months earlier and had wondered how it might affect her brother-in-law, who had worked there for the past half-dozen years.

“I’d like to buy into a partnership,” he said.

For the amount of the check he was offering, he could buy the whole restaurant, and Molly was almost tempted to let him do so. She’d certainly feel more comfortable selling out than going into partnership with a man who had betrayed her once already. “Why?” she asked instead.

“I have managerial experience and I think I’d enjoy working here—and working with Abbey might give both of us something to focus on other than the baby she wants so badly and can’t have.”

Which led Molly to suspect that Abbey had decided she’d rather own the restaurant than simply work in it—and, like everything else she’d ever wanted, there was a man willing to give it to her.

“Is this what Abbey wants?” she asked him.

“If she had her way, we’d spend the whole amount on fertility treatments. But I think she could be convinced to agree to this.”

Molly felt an instinctive tug of sympathy for what her sister and brother-in-law had been through, and a twinge of guilt that what they’d struggled for so desperately had happened so easily for her. And then a surge of annoyance at letting herself experience even that momentary twinge when it was Abbey and Jason together who had destroyed her own dreams.

“Have you really thought about this, or is it an impulse?”

“You know I don’t do anything on impulse,” Jason said.

“Weddings in Las Vegas aside?”

“It was one wedding, and it was because Abbey and I didn’t know how to tell you that we’d fallen in love.”

Molly sighed, because she knew it was true and because—nine years later—she was over it, or at least she felt that she should be. Was it the depth of the hurt that made her heart still ache? Or was it something lacking inside herself that made her unable to truly forgive their betrayal?

In either case, she knew it was time she got over her resentment and got on with her life, and maybe Jason was offering her the chance to finally do just that.

“Speaking of weddings,” she said, “I’m going to Tesoro del Mar for Fiona and Scott’s.”

Although Abbey was the bride’s cousin, too, she’d never been as close to Fiona as Molly was. And Fiona had never forgiven her for stealing Molly’s fiancé, holding so tightly to her grudge against Abbey that she hadn’t even wanted to invite her youngest cousin to the wedding. It was their grandmother who had insisted that she do the right thing, and while Abbey and Jason would be invited to attend the rescheduled reception in a few months, Fiona refused to extend the close circle who had been invited to the island ceremony to include them.

“I was going to ask Karen and Sam to cover my night shifts,” Molly continued, “but if you wanted to take them instead, it would give you a chance to see if this is what you really want, before making a final decision.”

He reached for her hand as she pushed her stool back. “Thanks, Molly. I know you don’t owe me anything, but I appreciate this opportunity.”

“Don’t screw it up.”

“I won’t,” he promised.

When Eric walked into Shea’s, he saw Molly holding hands with another man and felt the churn of dark and unfamiliar emotions in his belly. He had no claim to her. One night of sex, no matter how spectacular, gave him no proprietary right, but that knowledge didn’t negate the fact that when he’d seen the other man reach for her, he’d felt his own hands curl into fists and heard only one thought in his mind—mine.

She was on her way to the door when she saw him a minute later. She smiled easily, as if she hadn’t just been cozied up with some other guy.

“You’re a little late for lunch today, aren’t you?” she asked him.

“I had lunch with Fiona and Scott today,” he told her, responding in a similarly casual tone.

“And you’re early for dinner,” she prompted.

He managed to smile. “I actually came to see you, if you’ve got a few minutes.”

“Can we take those minutes upstairs? I’ve been here since eight and I want a change of scenery and popcorn.” She started up to her apartment without waiting to see if he agreed.

He followed.

She unlocked the door, kicked off her shoes and moved into the kitchen. Snagging a box of Orville Redenbacher’s from the cupboard, she unwrapped the cellophane from a package and pressed a couple of buttons on the microwave.

He frowned, remembering what she’d said about having been at the restaurant since eight. “That isn’t your lunch, is it?”

“Not really. I snacked on some cheese balls and potato skins in the kitchen, but I was suddenly craving popcorn.” She frowned at that.

“Vegetables are one of the food groups, too,” he pointed out.

The popcorn had mostly stopped popping, and she smiled as she opened the door of the microwave and pulled the bag out. “And corn is a vegetable.”

She tore open the top of the bag and a puff of steam and rich, buttery scent escaped. “Why did you want to see me?”

“You mean, other than the fact that I really like looking at you?” he couldn’t help but tease, and had the pleasure of watching her cheeks flush.

“Other than that,” she agreed dryly.

“I wanted to let you know that I finalized the travel arrangements. Scott and Fiona are coming with me tomorrow, but you can fly in with Scott’s parents next Wednesday, if that works better for you.”

“My grandparents aren’t coming at all?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Fiona didn’t seem surprised.”

“I’m not really, either,” she admitted. “I was just hoping…Neither of us have our parents anymore. My mom walked out, my dad died, and Fiona’s mom and dad were both killed in a car accident a few years back, so aside from each other and Abbey, our grandparents are the only real family we have.”

“Do you want me to talk to them, see if I could change their minds?”

She smiled. “Thanks, but no one changes my grandmother’s mind about anything once she’s made it up and she refuses to go anywhere near an airplane.”

“So do you want to come tomorrow or next week?” Eric asked her.

She hesitated, then said, “I think tomorrow could work.”

He was both pleased and surprised by her response. “I thought you didn’t want to be away from the restaurant for too long.”

“I didn’t,” she admitted. “But I had an interesting conversation with someone before you showed up and I’m starting to think that this is something I have to do.”

“An interesting conversation with the guy at the bar?” He shouldn’t have asked—he knew it was none of his business. But the question had been eating away at him since he’d seen them together, noted the obvious familiarity in their interactions with one another.

“Jason,” she said, and nodded.

“And who is Jason?”

“My ex-fiancé.”

He scowled. “You were engaged to that guy?”

“A long time ago,” she said.

Which made him feel marginally better until he remembered that the guy had been holding her hand not such a long time ago.

“What time tomorrow?” she asked, in what seemed to him an obvious attempt to change the topic but might simply have been a desire to know the specifics of their travel plans.

“Six-thirty,” he told her.

“A.M.?”

“Yeah.”

Molly crumpled up the now empty popcorn bag and tossed it into the garbage. “Then I’m going to kick you out now so I can pack because I have to be back downstairs in an hour.”

As usual, Molly worked until closing that night. Jason came in at ten and stayed behind the bar with his sister-in-law, shadowing her every movement. Usually Molly could close everything up and be cashed out within half an hour of locking the door behind the last customer, but having to explain every step to Jason meant the routine took more than twice as long.

Still, she was awake and ready when the knock came at the door at precisely 6:30 a.m. the next morning—if not exactly alert.

She was surprised that Eric had come up instead of sending his driver, and more than a little disconcerted when he swore softly in Spanish and reached out to her.

“Mi Dios.” He brushed a thumb gently beneath her eye, tracing the purple shadows she hadn’t even tried to cover with makeup. “You don’t look as if you’ve slept.”

“I got a few hours,” she said, shifting away, as much from the casual intimacy of the gesture as the surge of warmth evoked by his tender touch, to reach for her suitcase.

He immediately pried the handle from her fingers. “I’ve got it.”

She lifted a brow. “You take control quite easily for a man who’s probably had servants picking up after him his whole life.”

“No one waits on anyone else in the navy, regardless of title or rank,” he told her.

The statement reminded her not just that he’d served his country but of the scars on his body that had been earned in that service. But instead of thinking of the injury that had ended his career, she found herself thinking of his taut, hard muscles and warm, smooth skin and the heat of his body moving against hers. Just the memories were enough to make her body tingle all over, stirring up yearnings that had been long dormant until the first night he’d walked into the bar.

Over the past several weeks, she’d managed—with effort—to keep those memories at bay. Mostly, anyway. But her tired brain was no match for the rising heat in her blood evoked by his nearness. She’d read about the enhanced sensual awareness that many women experienced during pregnancy and knew that she was one of them.

“Damn hormones,” she muttered under her breath.

He turned. “Did you say something?”

She just shook her head and followed him down the stairs.

While Scott and Fiona were cuddled close together, talking about the wedding or the future or whatever else soon-to-be-marrieds talked about, Eric watched Molly sleep.

He’d watched her sleep the night they’d spent together in her bed, when exhaustion had finally overwhelmed the passion that brought them together. He wanted her now as much as he’d wanted her then. The only thing that had prevented him from waking her and slipping into the wet heat of her sexy little body was the realization that they’d depleted the store of condoms he’d bought from the vending machine in the men’s room.

As he watched her now, he wondered what it was about this one woman that had taken hold of him. And he was baffled that the woman who had once been so warm and willing in his arms was so determined to keep him at arm’s length now.

He knew his reappearance in her life had thrown her for a loop, but he suspected that there was more going on than that. It was as if, in the few weeks that he’d been gone, her entire life had been turned upside down. He wasn’t egotistical enough to believe that he was responsible for that. As spectacular as their night together had been, neither of them had expected it would be any more than that.

But he got the impression there was something going on in her life that weighed on her mind, that was responsible for the shadows beneath her eyes and the wariness in her gaze. Or maybe he was making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe her exhaustion was simply the result of having been up too late last night and needing to be up again early this morning. Knowing the hours that she worked, he was glad she’d managed to shut down and rest for a few hours during their journey.

He was also glad she’d agreed to come to Tesoro del Mar in advance of the wedding. Not that there was a lot of planning to do—the palace staff would take care of most of the details without blinking an eye, as they’d done for the prince regent’s wedding six years earlier and the celebration of Marcus’s nuptials three years after that.

One of the perks of being a royal, as Marcus liked to say, was having staff to whom to delegate. Ironic, considering that Marcus had met his wife while traveling in the United States under their mother’s maiden name so as to keep his royal status hidden, and had spent several months having tasks—such as mucking out stalls at his wife’s Thoroughbred training facility—delegated to him. Of course, she hadn’t been his wife at the time, and she hadn’t been thrilled to learn the true identity of her stable hand, but once again, their feelings for one another had proven stronger than any of the obstacles between them—one of which had been the accident that ended Eric’s naval career.

He felt a twinge in his hip and shifted in his seat. A phantom pain was brought on by even the most fleeting flashback of the moment that had changed his life. He was getting more adept at pushing the memories—and the accompanying panic—aside. He did so now, focusing his thoughts again on his friend’s imminent wedding.

No one outside of the family had ever been married at the palace, but Rowan and Marcus had both agreed that Scott was part of their family even if it wasn’t Santiago blood in his veins.

After Marcus and Jewel married, there had been a lot of speculation throughout the media that Eric would be next—which he had to agree was likely since he was the last unmarried Santiago brother and his oldest nephew was still just a teenager. And he certainly had no philosophical or personal objections to marriage—he’d just never met a woman who made him think in terms of forever. He’d never even met a woman who lingered in his mind after he’d left her bed…until Molly.

He turned away from the window to confirm that she was still sleeping. She was, and in sleep, her worries seemed to finally—if only temporarily—be forgotten. Her features were relaxed, the dark fan of her lashes casting a shadow against her pale cheek. He knew her skin was soft, and smoother even than the finest silk. And hidden beneath her lashes were eyes of the most startling and vivid shade of blue, eyes that had darkened and clouded in the throes of passion, the color shifting and changing not unlike the moods of a turbulent sea.

Mi Dios, he was getting turned on just by watching her sleep. Watching her sleep and remembering, and remembering—wanting.

Sexual frustration was a new—and not at all pleasant—experience for him. In the past, whenever he’d wanted the companionship of a woman, it had been easy enough to come by. But after the accident he’d turned his attention to rehabilitation. He’d been so intensely focused on healing his body that he hadn’t allowed anything to distract him from the task. Not until the night he’d walked into Shea’s Bar & Grill and spotted Molly working the tap.

Almost three years of abstinence seemed a reasonable explanation for the extent of his reaction to her, and his response to the experience of making love with her. Afterward, he managed to convince himself that the sex hadn’t really been as spectacular as he remembered, that it was just so long since he’d had sex that the experience only seemed heightened.

And yet, back in Tesoro del Mar, where the women were plentiful and beautiful and willing, there hadn’t been one who had tempted him into her bed. Not one who tempted him to forget about Molly.

She shifted, her head rolling from one side to the other. She hadn’t reclined her seat—probably because she hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but exhaustion had won out. A slight furrow creased her brow as she shifted again, still asleep but obviously not very comfortable. She drew up one knee and leaned back so that her head fell against his shoulder.

Her hair tickled his cheek, the scent of her shampoo teased his nostrils, and he held his breath while he waited for her to wake. She didn’t, but snuggled in, apparently finding a position that was finally comfortable—at least for her. Because while he didn’t mind having her close, he was suddenly uncomfortably aware of her nearness, her softness, her femininity—and everything that was male within him responded.

He glanced over at Scott and Fiona, saw that they were still cuddled close together, talking quietly, so he just shifted his seat back and settled in, while Molly’s scent—and his desire—continued to torment him.

Chapter Six

Molly woke just as the wheels touched down on land. But even when she felt the plane make contact with the runway, it took a moment for that fact to penetrate her consciousness. She’d been so tired lately—physically and mentally exhausted. Even when she slept, her sleep had been restless, unsettled. But this time, she awoke feeling rested and refreshed—at least until she realized that she’d been using Eric as a pillow.

She jolted upright, her face flaming. “I…um…sorry,” was the best apology she could manage to stammer out.

His smile was slow, easy. “No need to be embarrassed,” he said, speaking softly so that Scott and Fiona, seated across from them, wouldn’t hear his words. “After all, it isn’t the first time you’ve fallen asleep in my arms.”

“But it will be the last,” she muttered in response.

“Your choice, of course,” he assured her, unbuckling his seat belt.

Molly fumbled with hers, unfamiliar with the mechanism. Eric watched her struggle for a moment before reaching over to release the clasp.

She held her breath as the backs of his knuckles brushed against her middle. Through the soft cotton of her T-shirt, her stomach quivered in response to the brief contact that reminded her not just of the baby that was nestled deep in her womb, but that it was his baby.

And in that moment, she really wanted to tell him. She wanted to share the joy and excitement of every minute of her pregnancy with him. But aside from the fact that an airplane probably wasn’t the most appropriate place to share the news, especially with their friends seated across from them, there was the fear that he might not share her joy and excitement.

And if his reception of the news was less than enthusiastic, she shouldn’t be surprised. Even she’d been more shocked than pleased when Dr. Morgan had advised her of the pregnancy, and though she already loved her baby more than she would ever have thought was possible, she knew she couldn’t expect that Eric would feel the same. Which was why she knew it was important to choose the right time and place—and then to give him time and space to absorb the news and consider all of the implications.

No, it was definitely not the-airplane-has-just-landed-and-he’s-so-close-that-I-can’t-even-think-straight-because-my-hormonesare-running-riot kind of news.

Instead, she only said, “Thank you.”

He released the ends of her seat belt. “You’re welcome.”

The warmth of his breath caressed her cheek, and a wave of heat washed over her, leaving her weak and flushed.

It was as if every nerve ending in her body was attuned to him, sending tingles of awareness and wanting through her system every time he even glanced in her direction. She’d never responded to anyone as she responded to him.

She wanted to blame it on the pregnancy, all those hormones running amok through her system, but she knew it was Eric.

Because the fact was, she wouldn’t be pregnant if she hadn’t had the same instinctive response to him from the very beginning.

The limo driver took them along the coast, so that they were flanked by rolling green hills on one side and powdery sand and crystal blue waters on the other. It was all so peaceful now, but Molly imagined that could change in the blink of an eye, that a storm could churn up the water so that the waves lashed against the rocks like angry sea monsters.

A fanciful thought, she knew, encouraged by the inherent beauty and mystery of this land that could make her imagination run as wild as it had when she was a child. Or maybe it wasn’t so surprising that she was remembering childhood dreams—after all, she was riding with a prince on the way to his castle. She just had to remember that this wasn’t a magical enchantment and she wasn’t looking for a “happily ever after” ending.

Still, there were thoughts and ideas swirling through her mind that she vowed to jot down at the earliest opportunity. And when she caught her first glimpse of the royal palace, she couldn’t entirely stifle her gasp of surprised pleasure.

It stood high atop a jutting cliff, a stunning structure of towers and turrets that was both more imposing and impressive than she could have imagined. She’d been curious enough to do some reading about the Santiago family and knew they had ruled long and ruled well, and she sensed that this castle, standing strong and proud on the hill, wasn’t just a symbol to the people of Tesoro del Mar but a promise.

Another fanciful thought, perhaps, and while she’d been prepared for a fairy tale—something reminiscent of a little girl’s misty-edged dreams—the reality was somehow even better.

The driver parked at the bottom of a set of wide stone steps that led up to a pair of imposing wooden doors that looked as if they could withstand the attack of a medieval battering ram. Those massive doors opened into an entranceway that was bigger than Molly’s entire apartment, with a floor made of marble and walls papered in something that added hints of both shimmer and depth. Sun streamed through the tall arched windows that bracketed the doors, bathing the space in warmth and light, and fresh flowers spilled out of tall vases so that the air was perfumed with their fragrant scent.

They were greeted by a housekeeper who curtsied to the prince before advising that the guests’ rooms were ready. Eric thanked and assured her that he would show them the way, then directed them up the curving stairs to the second floor, then the third. He guided them down a wide hallway, where the sound of their steps was muffled by the plush carpet. The walls were hung with pictures and tapestries, and the windows draped with velvet curtains.

Fiona and Scott were delivered to their suite before Eric led Molly a little bit farther down the hall.

“Your rooms overlook the gardens,” he told her.

Not a room but rooms, she noted, as he opened an ornately carved door and led her into a sitting room that boasted a couple of richly upholstered chairs on either side of a stone fireplace and an antique writing desk and balloon-back chair. Behind the desk was a window, wide and multipaned, with the promised view of gardens that boasted a stunning array of vibrant colors and exotic scents.

Through the sitting room was the bedroom with a tall chest of drawers and matching bedside table of gleaming cherrywood and a wide bed topped with a thick duvet and piled with fluffy pillows. The bathroom was half the size of the bedroom again, with a deep whirlpool tub and separate shower, toilet and pedestal sink.

“If you need anything, you only need to ring for housekeeping,” he told her, gesturing to the phone beside the bed.

“You might need a crowbar to pry me out of here after the wedding,” she warned.

“Then maybe you’ll decide to stay,” he said, sounding as if he meant it.

“You know I can’t,” she told him.

But there was a part of her that already wished she could.

Eric had decided to give Molly space.

As much as he was eager to spend time with her and anxious to show off his homeland, he had sensed a new wariness in her since they’d landed in Tesoro del Mar—as if she knew that he now had the home turf advantage and was waiting to see how he would use it. He decided it couldn’t hurt to let her wait—and wonder—a little while longer.

It was Fiona who gave him the opportunity, and the opening, he’d been hoping for. Saturday morning, only their third full day on the island, he found her alone by the pool.

“Lose your fiancé already?” he teased.

“He went down to the stables to take a ride with Rowan and Christian.”

“What about Molly?” he asked, with what he thought was casual interest.

“She should be down shortly.” But she frowned when she said it. “You’re supposed to be relaxing not worrying,” Eric told her, lowering himself onto the edge of the vacant lounger beside hers. “I assure you, all the wedding details are being taken care of.”

“I’m not worrying about the wedding,” she said.

“But you’re worried about something.”

She sighed. “Molly.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I know she argued with her sister before we left Texas, although that’s not really unusual. And even before that—for the past several weeks now—she’s seemed really distracted. As if she’s worried about something but she won’t tell me what it is.”

“She probably figures you have enough on your mind right now.”

“She used to tell me everything,” Fiona said. “I don’t have any siblings, and although Molly does, we’ve always been as close as sisters. Closer than Molly and Abbey, that’s for sure, especially after the stunt Abbey pulled with Jason.”

“Molly’s ex-fiancé?”

“How did you know they were engaged?” she asked curiously.

“I saw them talking at the restaurant one day, and she told me.”

“That’s not usually something she talks about,” Fiona mused.

“Bad break-up?” he wondered aloud.

“Obviously she didn’t tell you everything.”

“What more is there?”

“The fact that he’s now Abbey’s husband.”

“Molly’s sister married Molly’s former fiancé?”

“He was still current when Abbey seduced him.” Fiona winced. “I can’t believe I told you that. But I figured if you’d met Jason, you knew he was Abbey’s husband.”

No, Molly had conveniently neglected to mention that fact, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. He’d asked about the guy he saw her with. She’d used his status as an ex to remind Eric that she wasn’t his—a lightweight reminder if he knew that the ex was married to someone else.

“I know it sounds like something out of a soap opera, but that’s exactly what happened. And though Molly keeps insisting that she’s over him, I wonder if a person can ever get over that kind of betrayal. I worry that she won’t ever open up her heart to anyone else.”

“That’s not something you can make happen,” he told her, knowing—and regretting—that it was true.

“I know,” she admitted. “It’s just that she’s my best friend, and while no one else might have noticed the change, I’ve seen it. She still smiles and laughs and even dates occasionally, but she’s so guarded now, so careful not to get too close to anyone.

“I’d hoped that coming here would be good for her. She needed a change of scenery, a change of pace, but she’s been so preoccupied lately, obviously worried about something.”

“Give her some time,” he suggested. “It’s only day three.”

“I know.” She picked up her bottle of sunscreen, reapplied the lotion to her shoulders and arms. “And you’ve already done so much—none of this would be possible without you and I know I won’t ever be able to repay you, but I really want to ask you for another favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Would you—if you had some free time—mind showing Molly around the island? It might take her mind off whatever is bothering her.”

And Eric realized there were times when opportunity didn’t just knock, it threw open the door and tossed out a welcome mat.

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” he said.

Despite his claim that he wanted to spend time with her when they were on the island, Molly hadn’t seen a lot of Eric since they’d arrived in Tesoro del Mar. Though she tried not to dwell on the fact of his title, he was a prince and, as such, obviously had royal duties to fulfill. What those duties were she couldn’t even begin to guess, but obviously they took up a lot of his time.

Not that she’d left her own responsibilities behind. She called the restaurant daily for an update, usually talking to Karen rather than Jason because Karen had been at Shea’s a long time. Molly trusted that she would tell her if there were any problems with the nighttime shifts. So far, everything was running smoothly, which should have reassured Molly but somehow made her feel extraneous instead—and left her with far too much time to think about Eric.

Aside from being wildly attracted to him, during the past couple of weeks in Texas, she’d actually started to like him and enjoy spending time with him—or she would if she could only forget he was a prince.

Since landing in Tesoro del Mar, she hadn’t been able to forget that for a minute.

Upon their arrival at the palace, he’d been bowed and curtsied to more times than she could count. He didn’t seem to demand or even expect such deference, but he accepted it. As the second oldest son—no, he was the third born, she remembered now. Fiona had briefed her on the history of the royal family, including the tragic story of how Prince Julian—who had ruled the country prior to Rowan becoming prince regent—and his wife, Princess Catherine, had been killed by a freak explosion on their yacht. As a result, Prince Rowan had inherited not only the throne but custody of his older brother’s three children.

He seemed to have adapted to sudden parenthood well, as evidenced by the close bond he shared with Christian, Lexi and Damon, as well as his two children with Lara—the former royal nanny.

Matthew and William were two of the most adorable kids Molly had ever seen. When introduced to Rowan and Lara’s children, her first thought had been that they both bore a strong resemblance to their uncle Eric. Then she met Rowan and realized the dark hair and eyes and strong bone structure weren’t specific to Eric but were family traits.

In fact, she nearly did a double take the first time she saw the prince regent, which prompted Scott to say, “Marcus and Eric look even more alike. When we were kids, people were constantly getting the two of them confused—which we learned to exploit whenever possible.”

Eric had smiled at that. “Remember when the gardener swore he’d seen me running through his freshly planted flowerbeds and Nanny Adele argued, just as vehemently, that I’d been in the pool with you when it happened?”

“Marcus was the one who raced through the dirt,” Molly guessed.

“No, it was Eric,” Scott admitted now. “But seeing Marcus in the pool—conveniently wearing Eric’s bathing suit to confuse everyone further—made the gardener question his conviction, which meant that Prince Eduardo couldn’t be sure who should be punished.”

“So you got away with trampling the flowers?” she asked Eric.

He shook his head. “No—we all got punished. My father was a big believer in taking responsibility for one’s actions, and he personally supervised while Marcus and I replanted the whole garden. And he made Scott water the flowers, because he was an accessory.”

She’d smiled as she’d listened to their retelling of the story, amused by their boyhood antics and pleased to hear the respect and affection in his voice when he talked about his father, confident that he would want to develop that same solid relationship with his own child.

But she still didn’t know how he would react to the news that he was going to be a father himself, and she still hadn’t figured out how to share that news when the wedding was finally over.

Right now, however, she was more concerned about what she was going to wear for dinner with Fiona and Scott and Eric because tonight, for the first time since the night of their arrival of the palace, he was free of whatever obligations had kept him occupied and was taking them all out.

She was scanning the meager contents of her closet when her cousin slipped into her room. Fiona held up the dress she was carrying so that Molly could appreciate the simple sheath style in a silky fabric that was somewhere between blue and green and absolutely stunning.

“How did you know I’d have nothing to wear?”

“Because I know you and you wouldn’t have thought to pack much beyond your bridesmaid dress, a bathing suit and a toothbrush.”

“I thought you were bringing the bridesmaid dress.”

Fiona’s face actually paled. “You didn’t—”

“Kidding,” Molly interrupted, and grinned.

Her cousin huffed out a breath. “Not funny.”

“It was funny,” she countered. “It just wasn’t very nice, so I’ll apologize and say ‘thank you’—not just for knowing me so well but for having excellent taste and wearing the same dress size I do.”

“And the same shoe size,” Fiona said, holding out a pair of low-heeled sandals to go with the dress.

“Thanks,” Molly said again.

“You can thank me by putting it on—I’m dying to see it on you.”

So Molly stripped out of her robe and slipped into the dress, sighing as the silky fabric floated over her body. “I might not ever give this back.”

Fiona sighed. “I don’t think I’m going to want it back—it looks so much better on you than it ever did on me.”

Molly knew that couldn’t be true—she’d never seen her cousin look anything less than stunning—but she appreciated the compliment.

Fiona settled back on the bed and they chatted casually while Molly finished getting ready. She didn’t know if they would be dining inside or out and she didn’t want her hair tangling around her face if it was windy, so she fashioned a quick French twist and secured it with a handful of pins.

“Does it work?” she asked, turning to her cousin for approval.

“It works,” Fiona agreed. “In fact, it looks fabulous.”

“And you look a little underdressed,” she suddenly realized.

Fiona looked down at the cover-up she wore over her bikini and smiled as she slid off the bed, already making her way toward the door. “Actually, I’m dressed exactly right for a romantic picnic on the beach.”

“We’re having a picnic on the beach?”

Her cousin shook her head. “Scott and I are having a picnic. You’re going out for dinner with Eric.”

“Fiona…”

It was all she managed before her cousin slipped out the door, closing it firmly between them.

Chapter Seven

Molly stared at the back of the door for a long minute, considering her options. She knew she’d been set up and even knowing her cousin had the best of intentions, she didn’t appreciate it. She was tempted to refuse to go out, just to prove that she wouldn’t be manipulated, but that seemed both petty and spiteful and she wasn’t, as a rule, either of those things. At the moment, however, she was apprehensive about spending time with Eric.

Her nervousness escalated when she left her room and found him waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.

She felt her cheeks flush as his gaze skimmed over her, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes and everywhere in between. She trailed a hand down the smoothly polished banister, grateful for its solid support as she descended toward him. When she neared the bottom step, he offered her his hand, and she took it.

“You look…incredible.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Then she curtsied, because it seemed appropriate. “You look quite like Prince Charming yourself.”

“Prince Charming, huh? That’s quite a reputation to live up to.”

“I have no doubt you’ll manage.”

He smiled, and the slow, sensual curve of his lips made her pulse leap.

She knew how those lips tasted—their tangy masculine flavor. And she knew how they felt—nibbling her throat, nuzzling her breasts, skimming over her heated skin. Talk about heat—just the memories of the night they’d spent together had her temperature climbing toward the roof.

“I’ll do my best,” he said, leading her to the door beyond which he promised, “Your chariot awaits.”

Her chariot was actually a sleek and sexy sports car unlike anything she had ever seen before.

“It’s a Saleen S7 Twin Turbo,” he told her, as if that was supposed to mean anything to a woman who drove a perfectly nice but unexceptional Saturn. “It has a seven-hundred-and-fifty horsepower V8 engine and can go from zero to sixty in less than three seconds.”

“We’re not going to do that, are we?” she asked, more than a little apprehensively.

He chuckled. “No. And it’s not actually mine—it belongs to my brother Marcus. He was always into fast cars and fast women—before he met Jewel, anyway. Besides being an attention-getter, it’s a heck of a lot of fun to drive.”

And it was, she found, fun to ride in.

Maybe he didn’t take it from zero to sixty in less than three seconds, but he did go fast, zipping through the streets such that everything was a blur through the window.

He drove into the town of Port Augustine, a seaside village bustling with tourists and commerce. As he navigated his way through the city streets, he proved to be a fabulous tour guide, knowledgeable about the island’s history and geography.

He parked in a public lot, but it was only when he donned the baseball cap and mirrored sunglasses that she remembered he was a prince and that this was his country and the disguise—lame though it was—was probably necessary if he didn’t want to be recognized.

“Ashamed to be seen with me?” she asked, only half joking. Because while she was confident that she looked her best in her borrowed dress, she didn’t doubt that a prince was used to escorting much more beautiful and glamorous women than she would ever be.

“On the contrary,” he said. “I am always pleased to have the company of a gorgeous woman. But if you are seen with me, I’m afraid you may be hounded by the local paparazzi for the rest of your stay in Tesoro del Mar.”

“So the disguise is for my benefit?” she asked skeptically.

“And mine,” he admitted. “Because I don’t want to share a single minute of the time we have together with anyone else.”

“If you wanted to blend in, you might have chosen a less conspicuous vehicle,” she pointed out.

“But I wanted to impress you, too.”

She couldn’t help but smile at that.

“Do I look like an American tourist?” he asked her now.

She noted the Texas Rangers logo on the cap and figured it had been a gift from Scott—or perhaps he’d just borrowed it from his friend. But if his intention was to blend in, she didn’t think he would ever manage that. Even with the hat pushed down over his thick, dark hair and those deep, compelling eyes covered with the reflective lenses, he wasn’t a man who could walk around without attracting attention. He was too tall, too compelling and far too sexy for Molly’s peace of mind. Not that she intended to admit any of those thoughts to the prince.

“Maybe from a distance,” she said. “And only so long as you don’t say anything, because no one hearing you speak would ever mistake you for a Texan.”

“I’ll let you do all the talking,” he promised, slinging a companionable arm across her shoulders.

“My high school Spanish is more than a little rusty,” she warned.

“Everyone here speaks English. Though Tesoro del Mar is officially a bilingual country—with Spanish and French as its two official languages—English is just as common and is taught in all of the schools.”

He was proud of his homeland, she could hear it in his voice when he talked about the country and its people. He was a man who would have felt it was an honor and a privilege to serve in the navy, to do his part to keep his country safe, and she could only imagine how devastated he’d been to have that opportunity taken away.

The more she got to know him, the more facets she saw. He was a prince, a soldier, a hero. But mostly he was a good man, a man her baby would be proud to know was its father.

They walked along the streets of Port Augustine, browsed in the shops, drank espresso at an outdoor café, then walked some more before returning to the car.

“Getting hungry yet?” Eric asked as he drove toward the north coast.

“I am,” she admitted. “I didn’t think I’d want to eat for a week after the lunch Fiona and I had by the pool, but all that walking changed my mind.”

“All part of my plan,” he told her, “so that you can fully appreciate the experience of Tradewinds Ristorante. I promise you, Genevieve is a culinary genius.”

“You must be a frequent customer if you’re on a first-name basis with the chef.”

“She used to work at the palace,” he explained. “Her father still does. In fact, Marcel is the one who put together the sample menu for Fiona and Scott’s wedding.”

“So why did his daughter leave?”

“She wanted to succeed on the basis of her own work, build her own reputation.”

“Obviously she has,” Molly said, noting that the line of customers waiting to be seated extended outside of the door. “Do you have a reservation?”

“Please,” he chided. “My title is all the reservation I need.”

“I thought you were incognito today.”

“Not while my stomach is rumbling.” But instead of leading her to the front of the line, he guided her around to the back of the building and through an unmarked door.

She recognized the sounds of a busy kitchen—the clang of pots being shifted from prep area to burner to service counter, the rhythmic thunk of a blade chopping and dicing, the whir of a blender pulverizing. And the scents—mmm…the air was rich with flavors that were tangy and spicy and tart and sweet.

“What are you doing with that?” A woman’s voice rang with authority through the din, silencing all other murmurs of conversation.

The junior cook to whom the question had been directed flinched as he turned to face his boss’s wrath. “I was adding the béarnaise sauce.”

“Those potatoes are charred,” she pointed out in a cool voice, lifting the plate from the counter to inspect the offending spuds more closely. “And if you thought you could cover that up with the sauce, you were wrong.”

“But the order is for Prince Cameron and he does not like to be kept waiting.”

“He would like it even less if something came out of this kitchen that was not prepared to my exacting specifications.” And with that, she dumped the contents of the plate into the garbage.

The young apprentice flushed. “Of course, Mademoiselle.”

“You will apologize to His Highness for the wait and offer a round of complimentary drinks to his table while I prepare his meal properly.”

This directive was met with a brief nod before he hurried out of the kitchen to do his boss’s bidding, while the dark-haired woman set to work, muttering under her breath in French.

“The only thing missing is the crack of a whip,” Eric commented, loudly enough to ensure that he would be heard.

The tiny chef spun around, her brows drawn together in a scowl that immediately smoothed out when she identified the speaker. “Your Highness,” she said, her lips curving into a wide smile.

The words and quick curtsy might have been formal, the embrace they shared after was not. Eric kissed both of the woman’s cheeks, as Molly had learned was the European fashion, though with more enthusiasm than she thought was typical.

When he drew back, the chef’s cheeks were flushed—whether from the heat of the kitchen or the pleasure of Eric’s attention—Molly didn’t want to guess.

“There must be a full moon tonight—the royals are all coming out of the woodwork,” she teased.

“Please do not place me in the same category as my cousin.”

“My apologies, Your Highness.”

Her apology sounded more teasing than contrite and, judging from the way Eric’s eyes narrowed, he knew it. But he only drew Molly forward. “Genevieve, I’d like you to meet Molly Shea. Molly, this is the incomparable Mademoiselle Fleury, chef extraordinaire and proprietor of Tradewinds.”

Molly shook the proffered hand, and though the other woman’s smile was warm, she sensed that she was being as carefully measured as the ingredients for a soufflé.

“It’s always a pleasure to meet a friend of a friend,” Genevieve said.

“Likewise,” Molly murmured.

She felt Eric’s hand on her waist, his fingers curling over her hip. “Do you have a table for us?” he asked.

Genevieve rolled her eyes and turned to Molly. “He comes in at seven o’clock on a Saturday night and expects that I will have a table?”

Molly shrugged apologetically.

The chef shook her head. “You take too much for granted, Your Highness.”

“Because I know you would never disappoint me,” Eric said.

Genevieve sighed. “Paolo will make up the table on the balcony, so that you can have some privacy.”

He smiled and kissed both of her cheeks again. “Merci, mon ami.”

“C’est toujours mon plaisir.”

A few minutes later, Molly and Eric were escorted up a carved stone staircase. The restaurant was in a prime location overlooking the sparkling turquoise waters of the Mediterranean. The atmosphere on Genevieve’s private balcony was enhanced by the soft music floating up from the dining room below and the scents of jasmine and vanilla emanating from the pots of flowers set around the ledge.

The table was covered with a neatly pressed linen cloth that was as blue as the sea; the crystal sparkled and the silver gleamed in the flickering light of a trio of candles.

Molly couldn’t help but be impressed by the hastily assembled scene—and a little wary about the romantic ambience. They were casual acquaintances who had been one-time lovers and she hoped, for the sake of their child, that they might develop a friendship of sorts, but she wasn’t looking for anything more than that.

There was no doubt, however, that this scene had been set for romance, and it made her wonder how many other women he had brought here—how many dates he’d impressed with a replica of this very same setting. It shouldn’t matter; she told herself it didn’t matter. This—whatever this was between them—wasn’t a date.

But she couldn’t help but ask, “Come here often?”

“I enjoy my privacy as much as a good meal, and Genevieve is kind enough to accommodate me in both respects.”

“And is obviously discreet enough not to blink when you introduce her to your…friends.”

He grinned. “I do trust Genevieve. I wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise. But if you think this is part of my usual seduction routine, you’d be wrong. Because the truth is, I haven’t dated enough since the accident to even have a routine.”

“And before?” she queried.

“As both of my brothers can attest, there has never been a shortage of women eager to be seen on the arm of a prince. So yes, I dated, and probably more than my fair share. But finding a woman willing to stand by a man who was at sea more than on land was difficult. I can’t even remember how many relationships sank when I shipped out, but it was enough that I gave up even trying to make anything work beyond the period of my leave.

“And after I resigned my commission, I didn’t meet anyone who made me even think beyond the short-term. Until you.”

“We didn’t even have short-term,” she reminded him. “We had one night.”

“We could have more.”

Molly shook her head, with sincere regret. “But I appreciate the tour,” she said.

She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed that he let the matter drop, as he seemed to do, because he only said, “Then you’re pleased with what you’ve seen of the country so far?”

“I think it would be more appropriate to say I’m both amazed and dazzled.”

He smiled. “As I said before, you are welcome to stay on after the wedding to enjoy a real vacation.”

She shook her head regretfully. “As tempting as that sounds, I’m afraid nothing here seems real. It’s like a postcard-perfect world and a zillion miles away from the realities of my life.”

“Has your absence from the restaurant been a problem?” he asked.

“Not at all.”

“And it annoys you, at least a little, that all the gears are continuing to turn with the most important cog removed from the machine.”

She laughed at his analogy—and because it was true. “It’s silly, I know, but you’re right.”

“It’s not silly at all,” he denied. “We all like to feel as if we have a purpose in life, a reason for being, and it can be difficult to accept that we aren’t as essential as we believed.”

She knew he was referring to his own life now, to the career that had abruptly been ended by his injury.

“Do you ever accept it?” she asked, aware that she was prying but unable to stop herself. “Can you ever find another purpose?”

There was more than a touch of wryness in his smile this time. “I’ll have to get back to you on that one.”

They continued to talk while they ate. The meal began with some kind of chilled soup that was a little bit spicy, followed by a main course of grilled sea bass—apparently one of Genevieve’s personal specialties—served with garlic lemon green beans and wild rice, and finished with an assortment of pastries, including slices of a baklava unlike anything Molly had ever tasted.

Through it all, Eric made her feel so comfortable and at ease that when he asked if she wanted to take a walk on the beach after dinner, she didn’t even consider refusing.

He left a pile of bills on the table that she guessed more than paid for the meal they’d shared. Then, after a quick stop in the kitchen to thank Genevieve for the incredible meal, they walked toward the water. The sun was only starting to set and the sky was a riot of glorious color. Eric took her hand to help her down the narrow steps that were a public access to the beach, and he didn’t let go when they reached the bottom. She didn’t protest or tug her hand away. It seemed silly to even consider doing so when they’d shared much deeper intimacies.

They hadn’t gone far, however, before she realized that Fiona’s sandals weren’t very practical on sand, so Molly kicked them off and was pleased when Eric discarded his shoes and socks to walk barefoot with her. They strolled along the water’s edge, sometimes talking, sometimes not, but he never let go of her hand.

They were almost back at the stairs when he stopped abruptly.

“Look,” he whispered close to her ear.

And her breath caught as she watched the sun complete its descent beyond the horizon.

“I have never seen a sunset like that,” she breathed the words quietly, almost reverently.

“And I have never seen anything like you framed by the sunset,” he said.

Then his mouth covered hers.

Just like the first time he’d kissed her, his lips were warm and firm, confident in their mastery. There was no tentativeness, no hesitant searching for the right angle, no questioning of her response.

And like the first time, there was no hesitation in her response.

It had been weeks—and yet, it somehow felt as if it was only yesterday. The warm strength of his arms around her wasn’t just familiar, it was right. And the explosion of sensations made her mind spin, her heart pound and her body yearn.

He found the pins that held her French twist in place and slipped them free so that her hair spilled into his hands. His fingers sifted through the tresses, caught the ends to tip her head back, changing the angle and deepening the kiss.

She sighed; he groaned.

She wanted him—there was no denying that fact. But she couldn’t let herself get caught up in the moment, the romance, the fantasy. There was too much at stake now.

Her system jangled with unacknowledged wants, unsatisfied desires, but she forced herself to take a step back.

“I want to go back to the palace now,” she said, though she knew the words were a lie.

What she really wanted was for him to kiss her again, until reality faded away and there was nothing but the two of them. She wanted to make love with him again, to experience the fulfillment she’d only ever known in his arms. But she knew that couldn’t happen, not while there was such a huge—and growing—secret between them.

Eric clenched his hands into fists to resist the urge to grab hold of Molly and shake some sense into her. What was it about this woman that she was so determined to deny what was between them?

“Don’t you think we should talk about this?”

“It was just a kiss, Eric. I hardly think we need to dissect and analyze every insignificant little detail of it.”

His nails dug into his palms. “Maybe it’s not necessary,” he allowed, somehow managing to match her casual tone despite the fury in his blood, “but I’m curious as to which part you think is most insignificant—your tongue in my mouth, your breasts plastered against my chest or your hips rocking against mine.”

Her eyes narrowed even as her cheeks flushed with color. “So I responded to you physically. That doesn’t mean I want to fall back into bed with you.”

“Oh, you want to,” he said, confident it was true. “But for some reason, you’re afraid to give in to the chemistry between us.”

“I just don’t want to make a big deal out of something that isn’t,” she insisted. “And right now, I really want to go back to the palace so I can go to bed alone.”

There was more going on, something beneath the surface but he was damned if he could figure it out.

He pulled on his socks and shoved his feet into his shoes, not caring that both were full of sand. The only thing that mattered now was getting Molly back to the palace so he could get away from the woman who was slowly driving him insane.

“Let’s go,” he said.

She followed silently.

Not a word was spoken as they walked back to the car. As he pulled out of the parking lot, Eric thought that if he lived to be a hundred, he would never understand women.

He knew that was a standard complaint of men around the world, but never had he understood it as he did now. Never had he known a woman like Molly who seemed to delight in sending out mixed signals. One minute she was in his arms, her lips soft and warm beneath his, her body yielding to his, and the next she was pushing him away as if she couldn’t stand his touch.

Mi Dios.

His fingers tightened around the steering wheel as he guided the little sports car around the steeply winding curves of Ocean-view Drive. Below, the waves crashed against the rocks, but Eric’s own mood was too dark to allow him to pay heed to the vagaries of the sea.

He kept his gaze focused on the road, but he was conscious of Molly seated beside him. He was conscious of the tension in every inch of her body, of the quiet intake of every breath she took, of her subtle and unique scent. And mostly he was conscious of the desire that still thrummed in his blood.

He wanted her—more now even than the first time because he knew how incredible they could be together. And while she’d been kissing him on the beach, he’d been certain she wanted the same thing.

Until she said, “I’m ready to go back to the palace now,” in a tone that made it clear she didn’t mean to the privacy of his rooms.

And he could respect that. He had no intention of forcing his attentions on a woman who made it clear that she wasn’t interested. Except that Molly hadn’t made anything clear—she’d only made his head spin in circles and his body ache with wanting.

Still, he wasn’t going to waste any more time chasing after this woman. She knew what he wanted and he would just have to trust that she would let him know if she ever decided she wanted the same thing.

The touch of her hand on his arm made him jolt.

The fierce grip of cool, clammy fingers eradicated any illusions that she was giving him a signal to do anything but pull over to the side of the road. Now.

His gaze swung over, noting the pallor of her skin, the panic in her eyes.

He whipped the car onto the soft shoulder, the tires spitting up gravel.

She flung open the door before he’d completely stopped and raced over to the guardrail. Eric was right behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and lifting her up so that she could heave over the barrier. And she did—tossing her grilled sea bass back into the ocean.

“Okay?” he asked, when the spasms in her stomach had finally stopped.

She nodded.

Now that the crisis had passed, he was suddenly aware of his arm banded around her ribs, just below the soft curves of her breasts. Of her cute little derriere pressed against his groin. Of her hair, swirling in the wind, tickling his throat, teasing him with the scent of her shampoo. And the sudden stillness of her body that alerted him to the fact that she was just as acutely aware of the intimacy of their positions.

He lowered her feet back to the ground and loosened his hold.

Her fingers curled around the top of the guardrail, gripping the metal barrier as she continued to look out at the sea, looking—he suspected—anywhere but at him.

He returned to the car to retrieve a bottle of water from the first aid kit he habitually carried. “It’s not cold but it’s wet,” he said, twisting off the cap and offering it to her.

She accepted it with a quietly murmured thanks and tipped it to her lips to rinse her mouth, then swallowed a few tentative sips.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still not meeting his gaze.

“There’s no need to apologize,” he told her. “Though you might have warned me you have a tendency toward motion sickness.”

“I don’t usually,” she said, sounding more than a little defensive.

He frowned. “Are you blaming my driving?”

“No,” she said. “Maybe it was the fish.”

Except that Eric had eaten the same thing she had for dinner, and he knew there was nothing wrong with the way it had been prepared.

“I don’t mean that it wasn’t cooked properly,” she said, knowing Genevieve wouldn’t have let the plates out of her kitchen otherwise. “But maybe there was some kind of spice or seasoning that doesn’t sit well with me.

“Or maybe I just had too much sun today,” she suggested as an alternative. “I spent a few hours by the pool with Fiona earlier.”

Which he already knew, of course. He had a clear view of the pool from his windows, and he’d found his gaze straying outside all too frequently because she was there. He also knew she’d spent more time in the shade than the sun and that she’d been wearing a hat.

Yeah, she had all kinds of excuses, as if she was desperate for him to pick one—any one—to believe. And Eric had a sudden, sinking feeling that he knew the real reason for her bout of illness.

And though the possibility made him feel a little queasy, it wasn’t anything he was prepared to ignore.

“Or maybe you’re pregnant.”

Chapter Eight

Molly wanted to laugh.

Her sister was always complaining about the cluelessness of men in general and of her husband in particular. No one could accuse Eric Santiago of being clueless—she’d gotten sick once, and he assumed he had all the answers.

Unfortunately for Molly, they were the right answers.

“You’re not denying it,” he said.

She’d considered doing just that, if only to erase the smug certainty from his tone. But the truth would be only too obvious in a few more months and, ultimately, he had a right to know. She might be annoyed that the decision of when and where to tell him had been taken out of her hands, but she was also relieved that he finally knew.

“No,” she finally said. “But it’s way too early to be making any big announcement about it, so I’d appreciate it if we could keep this between us.”

“It’s not that early,” he said, obviously having already done some quick mental calculations.

She shook her head. “You’re making a lot of assumptions.”

“You expect me to believe that the baby’s not mine?”

No, but she hadn’t expected him to assume that it was. She’d still been trying to figure out the best way to tell him about the baby, and to prepare herself for the likelihood that he might deny paternity in the absence of proof. It was what almost any man would do when confronted with the news of an unplanned pregnancy, especially by a woman with whom he’d spent only one night. But she was starting to realize that Eric Santiago rarely did what she expected him to do.

“I’m not ready to have this conversation right now,” she said.

“Then when?” he demanded.

“Look, Eric, I know this has caught you off guard, but I want to assure you that I made the decision to have this baby and I will assume full responsibility for him or her.”

“¡Cómo infierno!”

She blinked, startled by his vehement outburst—and the fleeting hurt in his eyes.

“We made that baby together, we will be responsible for that baby together.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“I assure you that I am not.”

The calm, unyielding tone worried her. Whatever she’d anticipated when she finally got around to telling him about their baby, it wasn’t this.

“Did you really think I was the type of man who would abandon my responsibilities?” he challenged her.

“I didn’t think anything,” she denied. “But we spent one night together, and at the time, I didn’t know what type of man you were at all.”

“You should know me a lot better now.”

“Not well enough to anticipate how you might respond to the news of an unexpected pregnancy.”

“Then I’ll tell you—I have no intention of denying paternity. My child will be acknowledged and accepted as mine and he will take his rightful place in line to the throne.”

She’d been stunned to learn that the father of her child was a prince, apparently so stunned that she’d somehow failed to reach the logical conclusion that his status meant that his child would be royalty, as well.

But she wasn’t so stunned now that she failed to notice that he’d used both the terms “he” and “his.” She’d found herself thinking of the baby in male gender terms, too, but only because she couldn’t think of her child as “it.” She wondered if it was the same for Eric or if he was hoping the baby was a boy because a male child was more important in the royal family hierarchy.

“And what if it’s a girl?” she asked.

He frowned. “It makes no difference to me whether the child is a boy or a girl.”

“Would it make any difference with respect to succession?”

“No. When Alexandria was born, Julian persuaded parliament to change the law to allow for equal primogeniture so that she wouldn’t lose her place in line to the throne, which she would have done when Damon was born.

“Which means,” he continued, “regardless of the child’s gender, he or she will come directly after me in the line of succession.”

“And where are you in the line?” she asked, starting to feel a little weak in the knees at the thought that her unborn child could someday rule a Mediterranean country.

“Seventh,” he answered her question.

The response helped her to breathe again because she knew, realistically, that while her child’s place in line to the throne meant he could someday rule the country, it was unlikely he would ever be called upon do so.

Still—a mother who was a bartender and a father who was a prince? If that wasn’t a recipe for disaster for the poor kid, she didn’t know what was.

Molly was quiet during the rest of the drive back to the palace. Too quiet, Eric thought, as he maneuvered the vehicle slowly along the winding coastal road, casting frequent glances in her direction to make sure she was okay.

He felt guilty for coming on so strong, but it had seriously irritated him that she could believe—for even half a second—he might not want his child.

As for the paternity issue, he knew there would be some who’d expect him to demand proof before accepting that the child Molly carried was his. He didn’t need proof because he knew Molly—obviously a lot better than she knew him.

She hadn’t been a virgin when they’d made love, but it had been readily apparent to Eric that her experience was limited. She’d responded to every brush of his lips and touch of his hands with soft sighs and quiet gasps that were filled with wonder. She had been both shy and eager, hesitant and willing, and the contradiction between her obvious desire and innocence had been incredibly arousing.

Glancing at her now, he saw that her hands were folded in her lap, her gaze locked upon them, and he remembered what Fiona had told him about Molly’s reluctance to let anyone get close. He was going to have to tread more carefully than he’d done so far if she was going to open up to him.

“I know you aren’t ready to make any big decisions right now,” he said. “But we are going to have to talk about this sometime.”

She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Can it wait until after the wedding?”

He frowned, thinking of her intention to return to Texas right after Scott and Fiona were married, and conscious of the clock that was ticking.

“Will you agree to stay for a while after the wedding?” he asked again.

“For what purpose?”

“To give us a chance to figure this out and make plans for our own.”

She turned her head to look at him. “Our own what?”

“Wedding.”

“What? No. No way.”

“You might want to give the idea some thought before you discard it out of hand.”

“You need to give it some thought,” she told him. “Because if you did, you’d realize the idea is crazy.”

As far as proposals went, he realized this one left a lot to be desired. But he felt it was important to communicate what he wanted, and in that first moment when he’d realized Molly was carrying his child, he’d known.

He wanted Molly and the baby.

Their baby.

The rush of fierce possessiveness that swept through him drowned everything else.

“I want to be a father to this child,” he said, in case he hadn’t already made that point perfectly clear. “And the best way to ensure that is for us to get married.”

“Marriage doesn’t ensure anything.”

“I’m not asking for an answer right now. I’m just asking you to think about it.”

“The answer is no. I don’t want my child growing up in a fishbowl, and your need to don a disguise when we went into town this afternoon made me realize that the child of a prince—”

“Whether or not we marry,” he interrupted, “our child will be a member of the royal family.”

“We are not going to marry,” she said firmly.

Eric knew that if he pushed her any further right now, she’d only dig in her heels, so he let the subject drop, confident that she would eventually come around to his way of thinking.

When they’d left the palace a few hours earlier, he’d been looking forward to a pleasant afternoon and some time alone with Molly. He hadn’t been expected to be hit with the knowledge that he was going to be a father—or to already be thinking of marriage to the mother of his child. And while this situation was definitely outside the realm of his experience, he didn’t feel overwhelmed or trapped or panicked. Maybe it was because so much of his life had been turned upside down in the past few years that he was able to take these new developments in stride, but whatever the reason, marrying Molly just seemed…right.

Marcus would probably say he was still suffering the lingering effects of the concussion he’d sustained three years earlier. Of course, Marcus had always been quick with the jokes, and quicker to extricate himself from any relationship with a woman who had even hinted at long-term—at least until he met Jewel.

Unlike his younger brother, Eric had never been opposed to the idea of marriage. He’d just never had reason to consider it. But he was going to do more than consider it now.

There was going to be another royal wedding in Tesoro del Mar—just as soon as he could convince the woman he wished to become his bride.

Molly was relieved when she woke up the next morning and found a note from her cousin telling her that Fiona and Scott had borrowed a car and were taking a drive to the other side of the island. She was grateful for the reprieve, temporary though she knew it would be. Having succeeded in sending Molly and Eric off together the day before, Fiona would want to hear all the details of their outing, and Molly wasn’t quite sure how she would answer her questions.

She imagined Eric would give her a wide berth today. Not just because of the friction between them but because he would need some time to figure out what he really wanted with respect to a relationship with his child.

In the light of day, Molly realized she shouldn’t have been so surprised by his impulsive proposal the night before. She knew he was an honorable man who took his responsibilities seriously. It would be natural for him to want to assume responsibility for his child. But she was equally convinced that, having had an opportunity to think it through, he would be grateful she hadn’t accepted his offer of marriage.

She went down to the dining room for breakfast, helping herself to a bowl of fresh fruit and a muffin. It seemed that everyone else had already been and gone and though she didn’t mind the solitude, she was conscious of the fact that she’d slept late every morning since arriving on the island and worried that she would become accustomed to this life of leisure. Long stretches of time in which she was required to do absolutely nothing were beyond her realm of experience, so she was pleased when she wandered into the garden and found Princess Lara there with her sons.

Matthew had a butterfly net in one hand and a bug box in the other and was bent at the waist, peering intently at the grass. William toddled around behind his brother, his steps a little unsteady on the grass. Occasionally he’d land on his diaper-clad bottom, but he’d just push himself up again and keep going, though he frequently looked back to make sure his mother was still there and never ventured too far away from her.

“We’re looking for frogs,” the three-year-old young prince informed Molly when she joined them. “Would you like to help?”

“Frogs?” Molly squatted down so that she was at eye level with him. “What kind—brown ones or green ones?”

His little brow furrowed and he looked to his mother for help.

“Whichever ones we can find,” she told him, before lowering her voice so that only Molly could hear and adding, “which I’m hoping is none.”

Molly smiled at the princess, then turned back to the little boy and asked, “Are there any purple ones around here?”

“There’s no such thing as purple frogs,” he said authoritatively.

“How do you know?”

“’Cause Damon’s caught lotsa frogs and he’s never caught a purple one.”

“And I’ve told you,” Lara reminded her son, “just because you haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

“So there are purple frogs?”

Lara shrugged. “I’ve never seen one, but who knows?”

He turned to Molly. “Are there purple ones?”

“I can’t say for sure, either,” she admitted. “But I’ve heard about them and that they’re magical frogs.”

His eyes lit up. “Magical?”

Molly nodded. “If you’re lucky enough to find one, you pick it up—very gently, of course—and hold it in the palm of your hand for the count of ten. Can you count to ten?”

His head bobbed up and down enthusiastically.

“Okay, so you count slowly and out loud and when you get to ten, it will roll over onto its back so you can see its belly—which is actually more pink than purple—and make a wish as you tickle his belly.”

“What kind of wish?”

“Any kind of wish you want.”

“And my wish will come true?”

“That’s what they say. But,” she cautioned, “it only works if you haven’t touched any other frogs that day—not green ones or brown ones and especially not blue ones.”

His eyes grew wide. “There’s blue ones, too?”

Molly nodded.

“Wow.” He turned to his mom. “I’m goin’ huntin’ for purple frogs,” he said, and raced off again, lugging both the butterfly net and the bug box.

“Why especially not the blue ones?” Lara wondered, her voice tinged with both admiration and amusement.

“Because the blue ones are poison to the purple ones and when the purple ones get sick, they can’t grant anyone’s wishes.”

Lara laughed and dropped down onto the grass beside Molly. “You certainly piqued my son’s interest.”

Molly shrugged. “Kids are always a great audience.”

“I’d say you’re a great storyteller. Ever put any of your ideas on paper?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?” the princess asked.

“Because I’m a bartender, not a writer.”

“You have a gift,” Lara insisted. “It would be a shame not to see what you could do with it.”

Molly’s grandmother had said the same thing to her more than once, but she’d thought she was just encouraging her because that’s what grandmothers did—and because hers in particular thought she should be doing anything other than serving drinks in a bar. But Molly had never really thought seriously of doing anything else, so she was relieved when William crawled over and drew Lara’s attention.

The baby climbed into his mother’s lap and laid his head against her breast, rubbing his eyes with hands that were stained with dirt and grass. Lara just sighed and snuggled him closer. “You’re getting sleepy, aren’t you, dirty boy?”

His only response was a yawn.

Molly felt a strange tug inside her as she realized it wouldn’t be too much longer before she would have her own baby to cuddle in her arms.

“They’re all such stunning children,” she murmured.

“The Santiago genes are strong,” Lara said, then smiled. “And exceptional.”

Molly nodded. “I met Prince Damon first,” she said. “And I was stunned by how beautiful he is. I know he’s a boy, but there isn’t any other word to do him justice. I thought the same thing when I saw his brother and then Prince Matthew and Prince William, too. And then Princess Alexandria walked into the room and somehow managed to outshine them all.”

Lara laughed. “She does, doesn’t she? And Isabella, Marcus and Jewel’s baby, is just the same. You’ll get to meet her when they fly in for the wedding.”

“They’re coming here for Scott and Fiona’s wedding?”

“Yeah, Marcus grumbled, of course, because San Antonio is a lot closer to West Virginia than Tesoro del Mar is, but I don’t think he would miss it for the world.”

“I didn’t realize, until recently, that Scott had grown up here,” Molly said. “I’m not sure Fiona did, either, or knew that his best friend was a prince. I mean, Scott had talked about Eric and Marcus and Rowan, but he certainly didn’t make a big deal out of the fact that they were royalty.”

“Titles shouldn’t matter between friends,” the princess said simply. “Which is why I’d really like it if you’d call me ‘Lara’ instead of ‘Your Highness’.”

“Thank you,” Molly said.

Lara rose to her feet with the half asleep baby on her shoulder and grinned. “And as your friend,” she said. “I expect to be kept apprised of whatever is going on between you and Eric—because I know there’s something.”

Molly couldn’t deny it, but she could clarify to ensure the princess didn’t anticipate any new romantic developments. “Was.”

The smile never wavered. “We’ll see about that.”

And before Molly could think of an appropriate response, Lara had excused herself to round up Matthew, and take both kids inside, to clean them up before they went for their naps.

Despite the hints about Molly’s relationship with Eric, she’d enjoyed the time she’d spent with the princess and her children and was disappointed when they left.

Left to her own devices once again, she changed into her bathing suit, slathered on a generous amount of sunscreen and headed down to the pool. She’d forgotten to pack a book and considered detouring past the library on the main level to borrow one, but decided that she wasn’t feeling that ambitious. She didn’t want to read or think…she just wanted to be.

She laid her towel over the back of the lounge chair, adjusted the tilt and settled in. Then she remembered Fiona’s warning about raccoon eyes and tan lines, so she removed her sunglasses and, double-checking to make sure no one else was around, she untied the strings of the halter from around her neck and tucked them into the keyhole between her breasts.

She promised herself that she would clear her mind, that she wouldn’t let herself think about Eric or her pregnancy or anything else that would give her worry lines. And she managed to keep that promise—until a shadow fell over her, blocking the sun.

She knew, even before she opened her eyes, that it was Eric. Somehow, instinctively, she just knew.

“How long have you been out here?” he asked her.

She shrugged, then realized her mistake when the top of her bathing suit slipped a little lower.

His gaze dropped, lingered.

“The dress I’m wearing for the wedding is strapless,” she explained. “Fiona would have a fit if I had tan lines.”

“I imagine she would.” He reached for the bottle of sunscreen beside her chair, squirted some on his palm, then rubbed his hands together to spread it over both. “She would be even more upset if you burned.”

Molly swallowed as he shifted closer, his intent obvious. “I covered up pretty good before I came out.”

“But you don’t even know how long you’ve been out,” he said, sliding his hands over the curve of her shoulders.

She had to bite down on her lip so that she wouldn’t moan out loud because, oh my, he had such talented hands. Such wickedly, wonderfully, talented hands.

No—she wouldn’t moan. But she would, and did, close her eyes, as he smoothed lotion down her arms, then up again. Across her collarbone. And—oh my—over the swell of her breasts.

Desire, hot and liquid, pulsed through her system as his hands glided over her skin, caressing and lingering long after the lotion had been rubbed into her skin.

“I think that’s, um, good,” she finally managed. “Thanks.”

His lips curved. “My pleasure.”

“So…” she held a hand over her eyes, shielding them from the sun as she looked up at him “…is there a reason you came down to the pool? Because it obviously wasn’t to swim.”

“I sat in on a meeting with the Minister of Economic Development,” he said, explaining the dark suit he wore. “I came down to the pool looking for you.”

“And now you’ve found me.”

“So I did,” he agreed, then grinned. “The question now is, can I keep you?”

“Believe me, you won’t want to in a few more months.”

“I can’t imagine that being true,” he said, sitting on the edge of the chair beside hers. “Just thinking about the fact that you’re carrying my baby—”

“Eric,” she warned.

“There’s no one around to overhear.”

He was right. They were completely alone. It was just the two of them and all of her rampaging hormones—not a good scenario.

“And as I was saying,” he continued, “just knowing that you’re carrying my child makes me want you even more.”

“The wanting is what got us into this predicament,” she reminded him.

“Yeah,” he agreed, and gave her another one of those slow smiles that made everything inside of her turn to mush.

Molly picked up her glass and drank deeply, but what had been ice water half an hour before was now lukewarm and did nothing to cool the heat in her veins.

As the day of Fiona and Scott’s wedding drew nearer, Molly saw less and less of Eric. She knew that all the details for the wedding had been taken care of so there was no reason for him to hang around. No reason except that he’d said they would figure things out together and it was kind of hard to figure things out with somebody who was never around.

She knew he was involved in meetings with the Minister of Economic Development and that those meetings were somehow related to the potential expansion of Scott’s business, but to Molly, it was just further proof that she couldn’t rely on anyone but herself. And even she wasn’t so dependable these days, with the way her mind was spinning in circles contemplating all of the possibilities—go back to Texas/stay in Tesoro del Mar/return to her job/sell the restaurant/buy a time-share in Timbuktu.

Okay, so maybe that last option wasn’t a realistic one, but she was so desperate for a solution, she was willing to consider almost anything.

Anything except marriage.

Not that Eric had brought up the subject since the night he’d first learned that she was pregnant, which led her to hope that he’d come to his senses. And she was grateful for that. The last thing she needed or wanted was to be pressured into marriage by a man who was intent on doing “the right thing.”

But what did she want?

Unfortunately, that was a question to which she didn’t have an answer.

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