Tempted By The Royal

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.