The Princes' Brides. Sandra Marton

belly was still flat. Her breasts…were they already a little fuller?

      “Nicolo.” Her voice was husky. “Nicolo…”

      “I’m just curious, cara.” His voice was husky, too. And rough. As rough as the sudden pounding of his heart. He reached out, placed his hand over her belly again. “Still flat,” he said, as if it didn’t matter that he could feel the heat of her skin through the plain white cotton panties.

      “Nicolo.”

      He looked up, his eyes dark as they met hers. She was trembling; her lips were slightly parted and he remembered how they had parted for him that night. How greedily he had tasted her mouth. Her ineffable sweetness.

      “What of your breasts?” he said in a low voice. Eyes locked to hers, he cupped one delicate mound of flesh. She gave a little moan; her eyes went from violet to black. “Have they changed yet?”

      He felt her nipple engorge behind the cotton of her bra. She moaned again as he moved his thumb across the swollen tip and he knew he could have her. Take her again and again, until he’d rid himself of this need to possess her…

      Dio, perhaps he had lost his mind! Quickly he stepped back.

      “So,” he said briskly, as if nothing had happened, “we must discuss what to do next. What is right.”

      Aimee pulled her robe together. She was shaken; he could see it, but he could see that she wasn’t going to admit it.

      “What is right,” she said, “is for you to get out of my life.”

      “I intend to as soon as we settle this.”

      “It’s settled. This is my problem and I’ll decide what’s right.”

      Nicolo nodded, but was that correct? Was the choice solely hers? What did a man do at a time like this? He’d never had to make the decision but he knew the obvious answers.

      The trouble was that the obvious answers didn’t apply when you were the man involved in actually making the decision.

      And what a hell of a decision this was.

      He had made Aimee Black pregnant. Forget the nonsense about other men. He had always trusted his gut instinct in business; he trusted it now. He would own up to his responsibility, financially.

      That was his decision.

      What she did after that was hers.

      Nicolo reached into his pocket, took out his checkbook and a gold pen.

      “I don’t want your money!”

      He looked up. Aimee was watching him, her eyes almost feverish in her pale face.

      “You said you will do whatever is right. And so shall I.” He uncapped the pen. “Five hundred thousand. Will that be—”

      “Five hundred thousand dollars?”

      His eyebrows rose. “Is it not enough?”

      Aimee flew at him and slapped the checkbook and pen from his hand. “Get out,” she growled. “Get out, get out, get—”

      “Damn it,” Nicolo snarled, grabbing her wrists before she could slug him, “are you insane?”

      “Do you think your money can change what’s happened? That it can buy back my dignity?” Tears of anger rose in her eyes to glitter like jewels on her lashes. “I don’t want your money, Nicolo. I don’t want anything from you except your promise that I’ll never see your face again!”

      Her tears fell on his hand like the rain that had fallen on them both the day they’d met.

      He suspected he would never forget that meeting, or Aimee.

      Her defiance. Her passion. Her determination.

      An inadvertent smile lifted the corner of his mouth. If ever a man wanted sons—even daughters—Aimee would be the woman to bear them. Such fire. Such courage…

      His breath caught.

      Suddenly he knew what was right. How had it taken him this long to see it?

      He let go of Aimee’s hands. Then he picked up his checkbook, retrieved his pen, put them both back in his pocket. A roll of paper towels hung over the kitchen sink. He tore off half a dozen sheets and held them out to her.

      She shoved them away.

      “I just said, I don’t want anything from you!”

      “Perhaps you’ll make an exception,” he said calmly, “considering that your nose is running.”

      She flushed, grabbed the towels, put them to her nose and gave a long, noisy blow.

      “Much better.”

      “Good. I wouldn’t want to offend Your Highness’s delicate sensibilities.”

      Her voice was shaky but he could see her self-control returning. He had the feeling she was going to need it.

      “I know you’re being sarcastic, cara, but—”

      “Such perception!”

      “—but, sarcasm aside, it’s inappropriate to address me by my title.”

      Aimee burst out laughing. “Now you’re going to give me lessons in court etiquette? God almighty, what a horrible human being you—”

      “I do not believe in such formality,” he said, cursing himself for a fool because he knew damned well a man couldn’t sound more formal than he did right now. He paused, took a breath and got on with it. “Particularly from the woman who is about to become my wife.”

      Chapter Eight

      MARRY HIM?

      Marry Nicolo Barbieri.

      The man who had seduced her. And he had, no matter what he claimed. He’d started it all. Followed her into that bathroom. Locked the door. Lifted her onto the marble vanity. Torn aside her panties.

      Thrust deep into her…and even now, despite everything, just thinking of what it had been like made her body quicken.

      What was the matter with her, that she should still feel desire for him? She couldn’t blame him for making her pregnant—she hadn’t been thinking any more clearly than he that night—but there was no escaping that he’d made love to her…

      And then called her a slut because he believed she’d been part of some ugly scheme of her grandfather’s.

      Why wouldn’t he think that? Nicolo was every bit as ruthless and driven as the coldhearted old man who’d raised her.

      James was willing to sell her for the good of his kingdom. Nicolo was willing to buy her for the same reason. He’d probably been willing to do it from the instant her grandfather suggested it.

      All that indignation this morning, the fiery show of contempt for her and her grandfather, had been a lie to placate his own ego. He’d needed to justify a devil’s bargain and she and her answering machine had handed it to him, all prettily gift-wrapped and tied with a great big bow.

      She was pregnant with his baby. What better way to agree to marrying her than by making it seem a gallant gesture?

      Except, she knew the truth.

      The Prince of All He Surveyed was about as gallant as a fifteen-century monarch weighing the benefits of a royal marriage—except for one enormous difference.

      No matter what he thought, she wasn’t governed by the rules of James Black’s kingdom. She was not a princess. She didn’t have to marry a tyrant she didn’t know, didn’t love, didn’t even like.

      “Well, cara? Has my proposal swept you off your feet, or shall I take your silence as wholehearted agreement?”

      Aimee looked up.