His Forbidden Pregnant Princess (Mills & Boon Modern) (Conveniently Wed!, Book 21) Read online

  The king’s irresistible seduction...

  ...leads to an inescapable royal consequence!

  As King Luca of San Gennaro prepares to take the throne, the last thing he needs is a scandal. Especially one of his own making! But his plan to select a husband for his stepsister, Sophia, backfires wildly when their forbidden desire explodes passionately into life! However much they long for each other, it must never happen again. Until Luca discovers Sophia is pregnant with his heir...

  Step into the king’s palace with this dramatic royal romance...

  MAISEY YATES is a New York Times bestselling author of over seventy-five romance novels. She has a coffee habit she has no interest in kicking, and a slight Pinterest addiction. She lives with her husband and children in the Pacific Northwest. When Maisey isn’t writing she can be found singing in the grocery store, shopping for shoes online and probably not doing dishes. Check out her website: maiseyyates.com.

  Also by Maisey Yates

  The Greek’s Nine-Month Redemption

  Carides’s Forgotten Wife

  Brides of Innocence miniseries

  The Spaniard’s Untouched Bride

  The Spaniard’s Stolen Bride

  Heirs Before Vows miniseries

  The Spaniard’s Pregnant Bride

  The Prince’s Pregnant Mistress

  The Italian’s Pregnant Virgin

  Once Upon a Seduction… miniseries

  The Prince’s Captive Virgin

  The Prince’s Stolen Virgin

  The Italian’s Pregnant Prisoner

  Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

  His Forbidden Pregnant Princess

  Maisey Yates

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  ISBN: 978-1-474-08815-2

  HIS FORBIDDEN PREGNANT PRINCESS

  © 2019 Maisey Yates

  Published in Great Britain 2019

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 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

  Note to Readers

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  Text to speech

  To Nicole Helm.

  Ask and you shall receive. Dare and I shall deliver.

  Can I make a children’s cartoon a romance novel?

  Yes. Yes, I can.

  Contents

  Cover

  Back Cover Text

  About the Author

  Booklist

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Dedication

  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

  EPILOGUE

  Extract

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE WAS BENEATH him in every way. From her common blood to her objectively plain appearance—that years of designer clothing, professional treatments from the finest aestheticians and beauticians and the work of the best makeup artists money could buy had failed to transform into true beauty—from the way she carried herself, to the way she spoke.

  The stepsister he had always seen as a particularly drab blot on the otherwise extravagant tapestry of the royal family of San Gennaro.

  The stepsister he could hardly bear to share the same airspace with, let alone the same palace.

  The stepsister he was now tasked with finding a suitable husband for.

  The stepsister he wanted more than his next breath.

  She was beneath him in every way. Except for the way he desired most.

  And she never would be.

  There were a thousand reasons. From the darkness in him, to the common blood in her. But the only reason that truly mattered was that she was his stepsister, and he was a king.

  “You requested my presence, Luca?” Sophia asked, looking up at him with a dampened light in her blue eyes that suggested she was suppressing some emotion or other. In all probability a deep dislike for having to deal with him.

  But the feeling was mutual. And if he could endure such an indignity then Sophia—in all her borrowed glory—certainly could.

  “I did. As you know, it was my father’s final wish that you be well cared for, along with your mother. He wrote it into law that you are part of this family and are to be treated as a daughter of his blood would be.”

  Sophia looked down, her lashes dark on her pale cheek. She had visible freckles that never failed to vex him. Because he wanted to count them. Because sometimes, he wanted to kiss each one.

  She should cover them with makeup as most women of her status did. She should have some care for the fact she was a princess.

  But she did not.

  Today she wore a simple shift that made her bare legs seem far too long and slender. It was an ungainly thing. She also wore nothing at all to cover them. She had on flat shoes, and not a single piece of jewelry. Her dark hair hung limp around her shoulders.

  He could only hope she had not gone out in public that way.

  “Yes,” she said, finally. Then those dark eyes connected with his and he felt it like a lightning bolt straight down to his stomach. He should not. For every reason cataloged in his mind only a moment before. She was not beautiful. Not when compared to the elegant women who had graced his bed before her. Not when compared to nearly any other princess the world over.

  But she captivated him. Had done from the moment he had met her.
At first it was nothing more than feeling at turns invaded and intrigued by this alien creature that had come into his life. She had been twelve to his seventeen when their parents had married.

  Sophia had possessed a public school education, not a single hint of deportment training and no real understanding of the hierarchy of the palace.

  She had a tendency to speak out of turn, to trip over her feet and to treat him in an overly familiar manner.

  Her mother was a warm, vivacious woman who had done much to restore his father’s life, life that had drained away after the loss of his first wife. She was also a quick study, and did credit to the position of Queen of San Gennaro.

  Sophia, on the other hand, seemed to resist her new role, and her new life. She continued to do so now. In little ways. Her bare legs, and her bare face, as an example.

  His irritation with her had taken a sharp turn, twisting into something much more disturbing around the time she turned sixteen. That sense of being captivated, in the way one might be by a spider that has invaded one’s room, shifted and became much more focused.

  And there had been a moment, when he had found her breathless from running out in the garden like a schoolgirl when she had been the advanced age of seventeen, that everything had locked into place. That it had occurred to him that if he could only capture that insolent mouth of hers with his own she would finally yield. And he would no longer feel so desperately beguiled by her.

  It had only gotten worse as the years had progressed. And the idea of kissing her had perverted yet further into doing much, much more.

  But it was not to be. Not ever.

  As he had just told her, his father had decreed that she was family. As much as if they were blood.

  And so he was putting an end to this once and for all.

  “He asked me to take care of you in a very specific fashion,” Luca continued. “And I feel that now that it has been six months since his passing, it is time for me to see those requests honored.”

  A crease appeared between her brows. “What request?”

  “Specifically? The matter of your marriage, sorellina.” Little sister. He called her that to remind himself.

  “My marriage? Shouldn’t we see to the matter of me getting asked to the movies first, Luca?”

  “There is no need for such things, obviously. A woman in your position is hardly going to go to the movies. Rather, I have been poring over a list of suitable men who might be able to be brought in for consideration.”

  “You’re choosing my husband?” she asked, her tone incredulous.

  “I intend to present you with a manageably sized selection. I am not so arrogant that I would make the final choice for you.”

  Sophia let out a sharp, inelegant laugh. “Oh, no. You’re only so arrogant that you would inform me I’m getting married, and that you have already started taking steps toward planning the wedding. Tell me, Luca, have you picked out my dress, as well?”

  Of course he would be involved in approving that selection; if she thought otherwise she was delusional. “Not as yet,” he said crisply.

  “What happens if I refuse you?”

  “You won’t,” he said, certainty going as deep as his bones.

  He was the king now, and she could not refuse him. She would not. He would not allow it.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “You are welcome, of course, to make a mockery of the generosity that my father has shown to your mother and yourself. You are welcome, of course, to cause a rift between the two of us.”

  She crossed her arms, cocking one hip out to the side. “I could hardly cause a rift between the two of us, Luca. No matter what you might say, you have never behaved as a loving older brother to me.”

  “Perhaps it is because you have never been a sister to me,” he said, his voice hard.

  She would not understand what that meant. She would not understand why he had said it.

  And indeed, the confusion on her face spoke to that.

  “I don’t have to do what you tell me to.” She shook her head, that dark, glossy hair swirling around her shoulders. “Your father would hardly have forced me into a marriage I didn’t want. He loved me. He wanted what was best for me.”

  “This was what he thought was best,” Luca said. “I have documentation saying such. If you need to see it, I will have it sent to your quarters. Quarters that you inhabit, by the way, because my father cared so much for you. Because my father took an exceptional and unheard-of step in this country and treated a child he did not father as his own. He is giving you what he would have given to a daughter. A daughter of his blood. Selecting your husband, ensuring it is a man of impeccable pedigree, is what he would have done for his child. You are welcome to reject it if you wish. But I would think very deeply about what that means.”

  * * *

  Sophia didn’t have to think deeply about what it meant. She could feel it. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she might pass out; small tremors running beneath the surface of her skin. Heat and ice pricking at her cheeks.

  Oh, she wasn’t thinking of what this meant in the way that Luca had so imperiously demanded she do.

  Luca.

  Her beautiful, severe stepbrother who was much more king of a nation than he was family to her. Remote. Distant. His perfectly sculpted face only more desperately gorgeous to her now than it had been when she had met him at seventeen. He had been beautiful as a teenager. There was no question. But then, that angular bone structure had been overlaid by much softer skin, his coal-black eyes always formidable, but nothing quite so sharp as crushed obsidian as they were now. That soft skin, the skin of a boy, that was gone. Replaced by a more weathered texture. By rough, black whiskers that seemed ever present no matter how often he shaved his square jaw.

  She had never in all of her life met a thing like him. A twelve-year-old girl, plucked up from obscurity, from a life of poverty and set down in this luxurious castle, had been utterly and completely at sea to begin with. And then there was him.

  Everything in her had wanted to challenge him, to provoke a response from all of that granite strength, even then. Even before she had known why, or known what it meant that she craved his attention in whatever form it might come.

  Gradually, it had all become clear.

  And clearer still the first time she had gone to a ball and Luca had gone with another woman on his arm. That acrid, acidic curling sensation in her stomach could have only been one thing. Even at fourteen she had known that. Had known that the sweep of fever that had gone over her skin, that weak sensation that made it feel as though she was going to die, was jealousy. Jealousy because she wanted Luca to take her arm, wanted him to hold her close and dance with her.

  Wanted to be the one he took back to his rooms and did all sorts of secret things with, things that she had not known about in great detail, but had yearned for all the same. Him. Everything to do with him.

  As Luca had said not a moment before, he had never thought of her as a sister. He was never affectionate, never close or caring in a way that went beyond duty.

  But she had never thought of him as a brother. She had thought of him in an entirely different fashion.

  She wanted him.

  And he was intent on marrying her off. As though it were nothing.

  Not a single thing on earth could have spoken to the ambivalence that he felt toward her any stronger than this did.

  He doesn’t want you.

  Of course he didn’t. She wasn’t a great beauty; she was well aware of that. She was also absolutely and completely wrong for him in every way.

  She didn’t excel at this royal existence the way that he did. He wore it just beneath his skin, as tailored and fitted to him as one of his bespoke suits. Born with it, as if his blood truly were a different color than that of the common people. As if he were a different creature entirely from the rest of the mere mortals.

  She had done her best to put that royal mantle on, but much li
ke every dress that had ever been made for her since coming to live at the palace, it wasn’t quite right. Oh, they could measure it all to fit, but it was clear that she wasn’t made for such things. That her exceedingly nonwaiflike figure was not for designer gowns and slinky handmade creations that would have hung fabulously off women who were more collar and hip bone than curves and love handles.

  Oh, yes, she was well aware of how little she fit. And how impossible her feelings for Luca were.

  And yet, they remained.

  And knowing that nothing could ever happen with him, knowing it with deep certainty, had done nothing to excise it from her soul.

  Did nothing to blunt the pain of this, of his words being ground into her chest like shards of glass.

  Not only was he making it clear he didn’t want her, he was also using the memory of his father—the only man she had ever known as a father—to entice her to agree.

  He was right. King Magnus had given her everything. Had given her mother a new lease on life, a real life. Something beyond existence, beyond struggle, which they had been mired in for all of Sophia’s life prior to her marriage to him.

  He had met her when she was nothing more than a waitress at a royal event in the US, and had fallen deeply for her in the moment they met.

 
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