Her Prince’s Secret Baby: A Forbidden Royal Romance Page 3

  I calmed down when Andrej came to see us on my third day at the palace. He told me to be natural with her, to not treat her differently, and to play my role as I would for any other child.

  “Livia may one day be queen, Cara, but for now, she’s just a child. The one thing my father did right, really right, was to have me raised the same as any other child. Of course, that’s next to impossible really, we are royals, after all, but as normal as possible is best. She still needs discipline and a schedule, for example.”

  Those words had helped me more than anything else he could have said. Livia wasn’t a normal child, in more ways than the obvious, but she was down to earth. She could play pranks, I’d found more than one frog in my purse or shoes, only to hear girlish giggles when I discovered it, but I think a lot of that was because she wanted her father’s attention more than anything.

  The playful, sometimes silly child became uptight and rigid when her father was around. I’d watched her when he came in, and it finally dawned on me that it was almost like she didn’t want to make any mistakes around him. When she relaxed and went back to her normal self when he left, I knew that must be the case. She was starved for his attention.

  He’d asked after her health, asked if she wanted anything, and hugged his daughter, but he never spent time with her. She’d told me he used to, before her mother left, and then she’d clammed up. She was a very smart little girl, but I think she was also a very confused one. She had to be lonely as well. There were no other little girls for her to play with, or even little boys. She lived a very secluded life, for one so young.

  I had started a list of things I thought would benefit Livia, and that was at the top. She needed more socialization exercises. She was polite, well-spoken, and knew her manners, but she never had a chance to play with other children. I understood the need to train her in a classical way, with her tutor and the subjects she learned, but interaction with other children would be good for her. I’d added time with her father, only in my head.

  I understood her mother to be absent from hints dropped by both Livia and her father, so I didn’t pry. I’d looked online too, and learned that mommy dearest was the subject of a lot of gossip throughout the country due to her rather unmaternal shenanigans. Online translators helped me a lot with that. I couldn’t remember as much Ikrosovnian as I’d hoped I would, but I was able to pick some of it back up after a while.

  I didn’t talk to much of the staff either, none of them seemed to speak English very well, and I wasn’t much better at Ikrosovnian, so there wasn’t a lot to talk about. I talked with Livia’s tutor, Alexa, and sometimes Livia’s father. He would occasionally call me to his office to report on his daughter’s welfare. Those meetings always left me breathless. I loved the man’s accented English and the gleam in his gorgeous green eyes when he actually looked up at me from behind his desk.

  I was rather infatuated with him, which wasn’t normal for me. I’d never had a crush like I had on him. I didn’t see him often, but when I did, he stole my breath away. My pulse would race even when he was across the room and didn’t see me. I would feel the heat in my cheeks rise to a point that was almost painful. More often than not, I’d stand there with my hands over my face to hide it. Then he’d walk away and I could breathe again.

  I had even started to have dreams about the man, though I’d never admit it to anyone. Naughty dreams full of heat that made me feel cold and empty when I woke up. I knew it was only my imagination, but I knew what every inch of him felt like in those dreams – warm skin, a growl lodged in his throat, hard muscles, and strength that allowed him to do things to me that other men wouldn’t be capable of. Ugh, even after only a few days, it was getting bad.

  I’d had a crush on a guy before, that wasn’t new. What was new was how powerful it was. The fact that I’d had him naked, in my dreams, made me feel awkward around him. I could barely meet his gaze because of it.

  I needed to think about something else, I knew I did, but it was so hard. Shit, that didn’t help. I saw Livia’s grandfather come in and greet his granddaughter and smiled at the interruption. Livia was at the table, writing out a short essay on the way plants produced oxygen when the older man with the exact same features as his son came in. Zarko’s hair was white and his face was now lined, but there was no way he could deny Andrej was his son.

  Zarko had come in a time or two, and I had spoken with that rather intimidating but surprisingly loving man. He adored his granddaughter, and it showed. After a while, he stood up and came to me. I was the help, I knew that, but he never really treated me that way. He always spoke to me with respect and the kind of regal grace I knew I’d never pull off, even if I practiced it for hours.

  “She is doing well with you. She’s not so, what’s the word?” He spun his right hand in tight circles until the word came to him and his mustache twitched. That was another difference between the king and his son, the prince, he had a beard and mustache that even managed to look regal. “Lonely, perhaps? No.”

  “Unsettled, maybe?” I prompted, and waited.

  “That could be it. You’ve not been here long, but already she shows improvement. Good work.”

  I curtsied a little, something I had practiced because it was expected from others in the palace so I’d learned to as well. I wanted to fit in with everyone and be respectful, whether he was my king or not. I was in his home, after all.

  “Thank you, Your Highness. I appreciate that praise.” I smiled and looked up.

  “You deserve it, my dear. Keep it up.” The king gave a slight nod of his head and walked out of the room then.

  “Cara, Prince Andrej would like to see you.” Alexa called as she placed the phone down. Livia had her own line and the servants would often use it to communicate with each other.

  “Thank you, Alexa.”

  Livia ran up to me, her grandfather and her essay now forgotten.

  “I want to go to see Papa with you!” Her little round face looked up at me. Her skin had a faint olive glow to it, just enough to give her an exotic hue. I smoothed a finger down her cheek and smiled.

  “You can’t come with me right now, Livia, your father only asked for me.”

  “But why does he only call for you?” Her face turned down in a pout and her eyes turned dark and angry. “He never comes to see me. I want to see him!”

  She stomped her foot, ran to the couch to fling herself down and began to cry. Alexa rushed to the little girl and made a motion at me to go. Alexa’s eyes said she’d comfort the child, so I left.

  Anger started to boil inside of me as I walked to Andrej’s office. I knocked politely, went in and sat down when he held a hand out to the chair in front of his desk. I looked at him, saw a man with tired eyes, and a stack of papers in front of him. I mean a stack, that thing was six inches deep if not more. He was tired and busy, but he needed to make time for his daughter. She needed him.

  “How is she?” he asked without preamble.

  I looked at him and knew he was tired but I also knew it was time he was told a few facts of life. I just had to do it in a way that would ensure I didn’t lose my job.

  “Your daughter is currently on a couch, crying her little eyes out because she wants to see you. You want to know why she’s such a handful? It’s because she wants your attention, sir. She needs her father and all she gets is reports from me about what I reported to you, most of the time. That’s how she is and why she acts as she does.” My eyes went round and I clamped my lips shut when I saw his eyebrow go up and his mouth turn down into a grim line.

  Shit, that wasn’t the way to do this. That wasn’t the way to do this, at all.

  “That will be all, Ms. Anderson.”

  Shit. I think I might have just gotten myself fired.

  Chapter 4

  Andrej

  I watched her skulk away, the cheeky little American woman who made my blood pressure boil. Until now, that problem had been because I wanted to take her over my desk and s
how her how to scream my name as I fucked her into oblivion. Now, it boiled because she’d called me on something I’d felt guilty about for a long time. My daughter.

  I tapped my fingers against my desk and stared at the door she’d quietly closed. She had gumption, I’d give her that much. I let my face relax and thought about the words she’d said. I lived in a man’s world, a world where women had rights, but favor was given to the male of our species. That’s why it had been so easy to divorce Ivana. The marriage contract had been iron-clad, of course, but our court systems hadn’t all caught up with the times. I was a prince too, so that helped. Ivana had rights to Livia, but she’d chosen her life in a caravan with a drug dealer over her daughter and former life.

  Even she didn’t have the gumption that Cara had just shown me, however. Sure, Ivana had left me, but she’d made a really bad decision when she did that. That was stupidity, not bravery, and Cara had shown me bravery. I wasn’t used to the word no, or to someone who had the nerve to tell me when I was wrong. I was a prince, I could not be wrong, right?

  Apparently Cara thought I could be. My conscience said she was right too. It had often pricked at me over the last couple of years, but I’d always been busy. Too busy for my little girl? That stung a bit, even when I thought it.

  I considered my options. Go out, find the kind of woman who would make me forget Cara existed, and have some fun, or admit I was wrong? That was harder to swallow, for some reason. Admit I was wrong to some woman who wasn’t even a minister of some kind. She had no titles, no money, nothing that could put her on a par with me. Why should I admit she was right? She was only my daughter’s au pair.

  I rubbed at the ache in my forehead, right between my eyes, but it didn’t make the headache that formed there go away. With a sigh, I stood up, went out of the door, and flicked a glance in the direction of Livia’s quarters. No, I won’t be lectured to by that woman, I decided, and headed out.

  When I reached the private garage where all of our automobiles were kept in pristine condition, I went through the row of cars. I ran my fingers over the lines of the nearest luxury car. With a yellow flecked metallic finish, the car was always an eye-catcher when I took it out. The next car, Italian, sexy and sleek with curves that reminded me of Cara’s caught my attention. Low-slung and with an engine made for races up mountains, the car was expensive and worth every penny. I indicated to the guard to bring me the keys and swiped my fingers over the lock mechanism. I slipped into the butter-soft leather seat and gripped the wheel. I took the keys from the guard, turned the engine on, and pulled out of the basement-level garage and with an expert shift of gears, drove out into the night.

  I drove along the winding streets of the area around the palace, a body guard in a car behind. I never went out without one, not because I was afraid for my life, but because it was a part of my life. They’d always been there, in one form or another, always a step or two behind me. They kept the press, fans, critics, and women away from me, and maintained my privacy when I was out. I knew of other royalty – younger princes like myself for example, who used their hired muscle to also help them find, uh, quiet places where they could bring the women who threw themselves at them. But that wasn’t me.

  Not in the slightest.

  I hadn’t had a woman in, well, I almost couldn’t even remember. I’d been far too busy – too wrapped up in the affairs of my country, and too wrapped up in trying to raise Livia, even if these days it was mostly hiring help to do that. I gritted my teeth as the image of one particular ‘help’ flitted into my mind.

  Cara, of course.

  Cara with the sweet curves, and soft lips, and deep blue eyes that got my blood roaring. My hands tightened on the wheel of the sports car, feeling my cock harden in my slacks. No, there’d been no time for women in forever. But tonight, I’d make the time. I had to. Because Cara, the one woman I wanted to claim more than anything – the one I wanted to feel wrap her legs around my hips and whisper harder into my ear? Well, she was untouchable, in so damn many ways.

  I drove out of town, into a darker part of my country. To a place where a quiet little building sat in the darkness, a place where those in power could find a discreet woman for the night and have a drink, or whatever else they may like. Certain drugs were permitted in my country, as were certain, shall we say...trades?

  I’d been to the place often, but never for the reasons some men came. A friend of my father’s had brought me out once when I was younger, thinking he was doing me a favor or showing me a good time. I’d stayed for a drink or three while he’d gone and had his fun, but none of that appealed to me. I didn’t want my women paid for, I wanted them begging me for it.

  And yet, the place was so quiet, and it maintained such an air of discretion that it’d become my watering hole over the years, so to speak. I’d had advisors warn me of the scandal it would cause if it became known how often the prince of Ikrosovnia visited a brothel, but I’d brushed them off. I never came for the women. I came to get a quiet damn drink once in a while.

  “Good evening, Paloma,” I said to the dark-haired woman who came out of the building to greet me. A quiet, unobtrusive man took my coat and I glanced out to where I’d parked the car. Nobody could see it from the private garage there.

  Paloma was beautiful, there was no denying it. A deep-red smile played on her full lips and her dark, Spanish eyes gleamed in amusement. She’d been the women my father’s friend had tried to hire for me that evening. When I’d declined and just sat and had a drink with her instead, we’d quickly become friends.

  “Good evening, your handsomeness,” she said with a smile. “And what may I offer you this evening?”

  She said it with a sultry tone. I’d never touched her, and she knew it was never going to happen. But that didn’t mean she didn’t still try and charm me here and there, mostly just out of fun.

  I smiled back and shook my head. “The usual. Whiskey, maybe some food?” I followed her into the dining area. What looked like a three story, brick building that might be a factory, was actually a very elegantly appointed brothel with a restaurant inside for patrons of any gender.

  “Food I can do. Whiskey I can certainly do.” She turned and arched a brow at me “I can do company for a short while, but then you’ll have to find someone else to drink with. I have, uh, plans later.”

  “It sounds very mysterious,” I chuckled.

  “Good, I guess I’ve still got it.”

  I smiled as she slid behind the bar and poured me a drink. I drank it quicker than I meant to, nodding for another as I glanced around the bar.

  A woman with light brown hair, in the corner caught my eye for a moment. She was around the same size as the au pair I couldn’t get out of my head, and had just that right same color of hair as her too. But when she turned, her face wasn’t right. Her eyes were brown, her eyebrows black. She didn’t have the full lips that Cara had, or that spark in her face that made the room light up.

  Paloma cleared her throat, pulling my attention. “Are you sure this is where you want to be tonight, Andrej? I think you must have something, or someone, on your mind.” She came around to my side of the bar, took a glass of wine from a waiter that passed by us and sat next to me. “Here, maybe switch from whiskey to this with those storm clouds going on behind your eyes.”

  “Appreciated, but I think I do need something stronger right now,” I grumbled, sipping my whiskey.

  She sighed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you here, Andrej. I thought you had a new girlfriend or something?” Paloma flicked her hand, and instantly, one of the staff brought her a tumbler of ice and rum – her drink of choice.

  “I’ve been busy, Paloma. It’s not like when we were young and only getting to know what the world had to offer. My father is getting older and he needs me more now. I do miss those days though. And of course, my favorite drinking buddy.” I tilted the glass in her direction in acknowledgment before I took a drink.

  “I ima
gine a lot has changed.” Her finger lingered over my empty hand, palm-down, on the table. “I’m not that same naive girl, you aren’t the little boy, hiding from his future, or his name.”

  “No, but you are still as beautiful as you were the day I met you, my dear. And now, look at you, owning this place.”

  “To which I have you to thank for, of course.”

  It wasn’t entirely true. Yes, I’d helped push through the right paperwork, because she was my friend and damn if I was going to let my favorite bar close down after the previous proprietor retired abruptly. But Paloma had this place because she was smart and savvy.

  “In another life,” she sighed, her eyes darkening at me. “Perhaps you’d let me properly thank you.”

  She winked, and I rolled my eyes. That was never going to happen with her and I. We were too close of friends. But again, she just liked to tease me sometimes.

  “But alas, I’m retired,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Too bad for you.”

  I chuckled as I sipped my drink. My friend did always have a way of bringing me out of my funks.

  “Besides, I know, Your Highness. Still holding out for that dream girl then I suppose?”

  “Something like that.”

  She patted my hand and sat up straight. “Well, she’s a lucky girl wherever she might be.” A smile eased the twist to her lips and she let her head tip back as she took a deep breath. “Anyway, why are you really here, Andrej? You seem extra wound up. Someone else is on your mind?”

  She came back to the topic I’d avoided earlier. “You may be right about that, Paloma. You always could read me.”

  A sad smile flitted over her features, but it too was smoothed away. She brushed a lock of her long, dark hair out of her eyes and tilted her head at me to study me. Her eyes didn’t wander long before she spoke again.