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The Lost Princes:
Darius, Cassius
& Monte
Secret Prince,
Instant Daddy!
Single Father,
Surprise Prince!
Crown Prince,
Pregnant Bride!
Raye Morgan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RAYE MORGAN has been a nursery school teacher, a travel agent, a clerk and a business editor, but her best job ever has been writing romances—and fostering romance in her own family at the same time. Current score: two boys married, two more to go. Raye has published over seventy romances, and claims to have many more waiting in the wings. She lives in Southern California, with her husband and whichever son happens to be staying at home at that moment.

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Secret Prince, Instant Daddy!

This book is dedicated to Ineke and all my Dutch cousins

Chapter One

PRINCE DARIUS MARTEN CONSTANTIJN of the Royal House of Ambria, presently deposed and clandestinely living under the name of David Dykstra, was not a heavy sleeper. Ordinarily the slightest unusual sound would have sent him slipping silently through his luxury penthouse apartment with a lethal weapon in hand, ready to defend his privacy—and his life.

The sense that his life might be under threat was not outrageous. Since he was a member of an overthrown monarchy, his very existence was a constant challenge to the thuglike regime that now controlled his country. And as such, he had to consider himself in constant jeopardy.

But tonight the instinct to defend his territory had been muted a bit. He’d hosted a cocktail party for fifteen rowdy London socialites and they’d all stayed much too long. That had a consequence he didn’t suffer from often anymore, but its effects were not unfamiliar to him. He’d had too much to drink.

So when he heard the baby cry, he thought at first that he must be hallucinating.

“Babies,” he muttered to himself, waiting to make sure the room had stopped spinning before he risked opening his eyes. “Why can’t they keep their problems to themselves?”

The crying stopped abruptly, but by now he was fully awake. He listened, hard. It had to have been be a dream. There was no baby here. There couldn’t be. This was an adult building. He was sure of it.

“No babies allowed,” he murmured, closing his eyes and starting to drift back to sleep. “Verboten.”

But his eyes shot open as he heard the little rule breaker again. This time it was just a whimper, but it was for real. No dream.

Still, in his groggy state, it took time to put all the pieces of this mystery together. And it still didn’t make sense. There was no way a baby could be in his apartment. If one of his evening guests had brought one along, surely he would have noticed. And if this same ill-mannered person had left that baby behind in the coat room, wouldn’t they have come back for it by now?

He tried to shrug the whole thing off and return to peaceful slumber, but by now, that was impossible. His mind was just awake enough to go into worry mode. He’d never go back to sleep until he was sure he was in a baby-free abode.

He groaned, then rolled out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans he found in a pile on his chair and began to stalk quietly through his set of rooms, checking one after another and wondering grumpily why he’d leased a place with so many rooms, anyway. The living room was littered with cocktail napkins and empty crystal wine goblets. He’d sent the catering crew home at midnight—a mistake, he now realized. But who knew his party guests would stay until almost 3:00 a.m? Never mind, the cleaning lady would arrive in just a few hours and make everything clean and sparkling again.

“No more parties,” he promised himself as he turned back to his search, kicking a long feather boa someone had left behind out of the way. “I’ll just go to shindigs at other people’s homes. I can still maintain my information sources and let others deal with the hassle.”

But for now he had an apartment to search before he could get back to bed. He trudged on.

And then he found the baby.

It was asleep when he first saw it. He opened the door to his seldom-used media room and there it was, tucked into a drawer that was serving as a makeshift crib. The little mouth was open, the little round cheeks puffing a bit with each breath. It looked like a cute kid, but he’d never seen it before in his life.

As he watched, it gave an involuntary jump, its chubby little arms lurching upward, then falling slowly back again. But it didn’t wake. Dressed in a pink stretch jumper that looked a little rumpled and a lot spit up on, the child seemed comfortable enough for now. Sleeping babies weren’t so bad. But he knew very well what happened when they woke up and he shuddered to think of it.

It was pretty annoying, finding an uninvited baby in your home and it was pretty obvious who was to blame—the long, leggy blonde draped rather gracelessly across his cantilevered couch. He’d never seen her before, either.

“What in blazes is going on here?” he said softly.

Neither of them stirred, but he hadn’t meant to wake them yet. He needed another moment or two to take in this situation, analyze it and make some clear-headed decisions. All his instincts for survival were coming alert. He was fairly certain that this was no ordinary sleepover he’d been saddled with. This must have something to do with his royal past with its messy rebellion history and his precariously uncertain future.

Worse, he had a pretty strong feeling it was going to turn out to be a threat—maybe even the threat he’d been expecting for most of his life.

He was fully awake now. He had to think fast and make sound judgments. His gaze slid over the blonde, and despite his suspicions about her, his immediate reaction was a light frisson of attraction. Though her legs were sprawled awkwardly, reminding him of a young colt who hadn’t got its bearings right just yet, they were shapely legs, and her short skirt had hitched up enticingly as she slept, showing the aforementioned legs off in a very charming way. Despite everything, he approved.

Most of her face was hidden by a mass of wiry curls, though one tiny, shell-like ear peeked through, and she’d wrapped her torso up tightly in a thick brown sweater. She wasn’t really all that young, but her casual pose made her seem that way and something about her was endearing at first glance. There was an appeal to the woman that might have made him smile under other circumstances.

But he frowned instead and his gaze snapped back to stare at that gorgeous little ear. It was decorated with a penny-sized earring that seemed familiar. As he looked more closely, he could see it was molded in the form of the old Ambrian coat of arms—the coat of arms of the deposed royal family he belonged to.

As adrenaline shot through his system, his heart began to thump in his chest and he wished he’d picked up the weapon he usually carried at night. Only a very select set of people in the world knew about his connection to Ambria, and his life depended on it being kept a secret.

Who the hell was this?

He was pretty sure he was about to find out.

“Hey. Wake up.”

Ayme Negri Sommers snuggled down deeper into her place on the couch and tried to ignore the hand shaking her shoulder. Every molecule of her body was resisting the wake-up call. After the last two days she’d had, sleep was the only thing that would save her.

“Come on,” the shaker said gruffly. “I’ve got some questions that need some answers.”

“Later,” she muttered, hoping he’d go away. “Please, later.”

“Now.” He shook her shoulder again. “Are you listening to me?”

Ayme heard him just fine, but her eyes wouldn’t open. Scrunching up her face, she groaned. “Is it morning yet?” she asked plaintively.

“Who are you?” the man demanded, ignoring her question. “What are you doing here?”

He wasn’t going away. She would have to talk to him and she dreaded it. Her eyelids felt like sandpaper and she wasn’t even sure they would open when she asked them to. But somehow she managed. Wincing at the light shafting in through the open door, she peered up through her wild hair at the angry-looking man standing over her.

“If you could give me just one more hour of sleep, we might be able to discuss this in a rational manner,” she proposed hopefully, her speech slightly slurred. “I’m so tired, I’m hardly human at the moment.”

Of course, that was a lie. She was human alright, and despite how rotten she felt, she was having a reaction to this man that was not only typically human, it was also definitely feminine. Bottom line, she was responding to the fact that he was ridiculously attractive. She took in the dark, silky hair that fell in an engaging screen over his forehead, the piercing blue eyes, the wide shoulders and the bare chest with its chiseled muscles, and she pulled in a quick little gasp of a breath.

Wow.

She’d seen him earlier, but from a distance and more fully clothed. Up close and half-naked was better. She recommended it, and under other circumstances she would have been smiling by now.

But this wasn’t a smiling situation. She was going to have to explain to him what she was doing here and that wasn’t going to be easy. She did try to sit up and made an unconvincing attempt at controlling her unruly hair with both hands. And all the while she was trying to think of a good way to broach the subject that she’d come for. She had a feeling it wouldn’t be a popular topic. She would have to introduce it just right and hope for the best.

“You can do all the sleeping you want once we get you to wherever it is that you belong,” he was saying icily. “And that sure as hell isn’t here.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said sadly. “I’m here for a reason. Unfortunately.”

Little baby Cici murmured in her sleep and they both froze, staring at her for a moment, full of dread. But she sank back into deep slumber and Ayme sighed with relief.

“If you wake the baby up, you’re going to have to take care of her,” she warned him in a hushed voice. “I’m in a zombie trance.”

He was sputtering. At least that was what it sounded like to her, but she wasn’t in good judging form at the moment. He could have been swearing under his breath. Yes, that was probably it. At any rate, he wasn’t pleased.

She sighed, shoulders sagging. “Look, I know you’re not in the best shape yourself. I saw you when we first got here. You had obviously been enjoying your party a little too much. That’s why I didn’t bother to try to talk to you at the time. You know very well that you could use more sleep as much as I could.” She scrunched up her nose and looked at him hopefully. “Let’s call a truce for now and…”

“No.”

She sighed, letting her head fall back. “No?”

“No.”

She made a face. “Oh, all right. If you insist. But I warn you, I can barely put a sentence together. I’m incoherent. I haven’t had any real sleep for days.”

He was unrelenting, standing over her with strong hands set on his very tight and slender hips. The worn jeans rode low on them, exposing a flat, muscular stomach and the sexiest belly button she’d ever seen. She stared at it, hoping to deflect his impatience.

It didn’t work.

“Your sleep habits are none of my concern,” he said coldly. “I’m not interested. I just want you out of here and on your way back to wherever you came from.”

“Sorry.” She shook her head, still groggy. “That’s impossible. The flight we came on left for Zurich ages ago.” She glanced at the baby, sleeping peacefully in the drawer. “She cried almost the whole trip. All the way from Texas.” She looked up at him, expecting sympathy but not finding much. She made a face and searched his eyes, hoping for a little compassion at the very least. “Do you understand what that means?”

He was frowning like someone trying to figure all this out. “You flew here straight from Texas?”

“Well, not exactly. We did change planes in New York.”

“Texas?” he repeated softly, as though he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Texas,” she repeated slowly, in case he was having trouble with the word itself. “You know, the Lone Star state. The big one, down by Mexico.”

“I know where Texas is,” he said impatiently.

“Good. We’re a little touchy about that down home.”

He shook his head, still puzzling over her. “You sound very much like an American,” he said.

She shrugged and looked up with a genuine innocence. “Sure. What else would I be?”

He was staring at her earrings. She reached up and touched one of them, not sure what his interest was. They were all she had left from her birth mother and she wore them all the time. She knew her original parents had come from the tiny island country of Ambria. So had her adoptive family, but that was years ago and far away. Ambria and its problems had only been minimally relevant to her life as yet.

But then, she was forgetting that the Ambrian connection was the reason she was here. So naturally he would notice. Still, something about the intensity of his interest made her uncomfortable. It was probably safer to go back to talking about Cici.

“But as I was saying, she wasn’t happy about traveling, and she let everyone know it, all across the Atlantic.” She groaned, remembering. “Everyone on that plane hated me. It was hell on earth. Why do people have babies, anyway?”

His eyes widened and one eyebrow rose dramatically. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Oh.”

She gulped. That was a mistake. She groaned internally. She really couldn’t afford to goof up like that. He’d assumed Cici was her baby, which was exactly what she wanted him to think, at least for now. She had to be more careful.

She wished she were a better actor, but even a professional performer might have trouble with this gig. After all she’d been through over the past week, she really ought to be in a straightjacket by now. Or at least a warm bath.

Just days before, she’d been a normal young first-year lawyer, working for a small law firm that specialized in immigration law. And then, suddenly, the world had all caved in on her. Things had happened, things she didn’t dare think about if she was to keep her wits about her. Things she would have to deal with eventually, but not yet…not now.

Still, she was afraid that nothing would ever be sane again. She’d turned around and found herself in the middle of a nightmare, and suddenly she’d had very limited choice. She could give up and go to bed and pull the covers over her head for the duration—or she could try to take care of what was left of her family and get baby Cici to where she belonged.

The question was moot, of course. She was used to doing what was expected of her, doing the responsible thing. She’d quickly decided on the latter course and now here she was, single-mindedly following the path she’d set for herself.

Once her mission was accomplished she would breathe a sigh of relief, go back to Texas and try to pick up the pieces of her life. That would be the time for facing what had happened and deciding how in the world she was going to go on now that everything was gone. But until then, for the sake of this tiny life she was protecting, she had to maintain her strength and determination no matter how hard it got.

In the meantime, she knew she had to lie. It went against her nature. She was usually the type who was ready to give her life story to anyone with a friendly face. But she had to squelch that impulse, hold back her natural inclinations and lie.

It wasn’t easy. It was a painful lie. She had to make the world around her believe that Cici was her baby. She hadn’t been a lawyer for long, but she knew a thing or two and one of them was that she would put this whole plan in jeopardy if people knew Cici wasn’t hers, and that she had no right to be dragging her around the world like this. Social workers would be called in. Bureaucrats would get involved. Cici would be taken away from her and who knew what awful things might happen then.

Despite everything, she already loved that little child. And even if she didn’t she would have done just about anything for Samantha’s baby.

“Well, you know what I mean,” she amended a bit lamely.

“I don’t really care what you mean,” he said impatiently. “I want to know how you got in here. I want to know what you think you’re doing here.” His blue eyes darkened. “And most of all, I want you to go somewhere else.”

She winced. She could hardly blame him. “Okay,” she said, pulling herself up taller in the seat. “Let me try to explain.”

Was that a sneer on his handsome face?

“I’m all ears.”

She knew very well he was being sarcastic. He didn’t seem to like her very much. That was too bad. Most people liked her on sight. She wasn’t used to this sort of hostility. She sighed, too sleepy to do anything about it, and went back to contemplating his ears.

They were very nice and tight to the sides of his head. She admired them for a moment. Everything about this man was pretty fine, she had to admit. Too bad she always felt like a gangly, awkward teenager around men like this. She was tall; almost six feet, and she’d been that tall since puberty. Her high school years had been uncomfortable. She’d been taller than all the boys until her senior year. People told her she was willowy and beautiful now, but she still felt like that clumsy kid who towered over everyone.

“Okay.”

She rose and began to pace restlessly. Where to begin? She’d thought this visit was going to be pretty straightforward, but now that she was here, it seemed much more complicated. The trouble was, she didn’t know all the sorts of facts a man like this was going to want to know. She’d acted purely on instinct, grabbing Cici and heading for London on barely a moment’s notice. Panic, she supposed. But under the circumstances, she had to think it was understandable. She’d done the only thing she could think of. And now here she was.

She closed her eyes and drew in a deep, shaky breath. She’d come to this man’s apartment for a reason. What was it again? Oh, yes. Someone had told her he could help her find little Cici’s father.

“Do you remember meeting a girl named Samantha?” she asked, her voice cracking a bit on the name. Now it was going to be a chore just to keep from crying. “Small, blonde, pretty face, wore a lot of jangly bracelets?”

He swayed just a little and looked to be about at the end of his tether. She noticed, with a bit of a start, that his hands were balled into tight fists at his side. Another moment or two and he was going to be tearing his hair out in frustration. Either that or giving her shoulders a firm shake. She took a step backward, just in case.

“No,” he said, his voice low and just this side of angry. “Never heard of her.” His brilliant blue eyes were glaring at her. “And never heard of you, either. Though you haven’t provided your own name yet, so I really can’t say that, can I?”

“Oh.” She gave a start and presented herself before him again, chagrined that she’d been so remiss.

“Of course. I’m sorry.” She stuck out her hand. “My name is Ayme Sommers. From Dallas, as if you couldn’t tell.”

He let her stand there with her hand out for a beat too long, still looking as though he couldn’t believe this was happening. For a moment, she thought he was going to refuse to respond and the question of what she was going to do next flitted into her head. But she didn’t have to come up with a good comeback, after all. He finally relented and slid his hand over hers, then held on to it, not letting her go.

“Interesting name,” he said dryly, staring hard into her dark eyes. “Now tell me the rest.”

She blinked at him, trying to pull her hand back and not getting much cooperation. She was suddenly aware of his warm skin and hard muscles in a way that stopped the breath in her throat. She tried not to look down at his chest. It took all her strength.

“What do you mean?” she said, her voice squeaking. “What ‘rest’?”

He pulled her closer and she gaped at him, not sure why he was playing this game of intimidation.

“What is your tie to Ambria?” he asked, his voice low and intense.

She gasped, her eyes wide, and gazed at him in wonder. “How did you know?”

He inclined his head in her direction. “The Ambrian shield on your earrings pretty much gives it away.”

“Oh.” She’d forgotten. Her mind was full of cotton right now. It was amazing that she even remembered who she was. She touched one ear with her free hand. “Of course. Most people don’t know what it is.”

His eyes narrowed. “But you do.”

“Oh, yes.”

She smiled at him and he winced, and almost took a step backward himself. Her smile seemed to light up the room. It was too early for that—and inappropriate considering the circumstances. He had to look away, but he didn’t let go of her hand.

“My parents were from Ambria. I was actually born there. My birth name is Ayme Negri.”

That sounded like a typically Ambrian name, as far as he knew. But he didn’t really know as much as he should. This girl with the shields decorating her ears might very well know a lot more than he did about his own country.

He stared at her, realizing with a stunned, sick feeling that his true knowledge of the land his family had ruled for a thousand years was woefully inadequate. He didn’t know what to ask her. He didn’t know enough to even conjure up a quick quiz to test her truthfulness. All these years he’d had to hide his identity, and in the process he hadn’t really learned enough. He’d read books. He’d talked to people. He’d remembered things from his early childhood. And he’d had one very effective mentor. But it wasn’t enough. He didn’t know who he was at his very core, nor did he know much about the people he came from.

And now she’d arrived, a virtual pop quiz. And he hadn’t studied.

Her hand in his felt warm. He searched her face. Her eyes were bright and questioning, her lips slightly parted as though waiting for what was going to happen next and slightly excited by it. She looked like a teenage girl waiting for her first kiss. He was beginning to think that the alarm, which had gone off like a whistle in his brain, was a false one.

But who was she really and why was she here? She seemed so open, so free. He couldn’t detect a hint of guile in her. No assassin could have been this calm and innocent-looking.

It was pretty hard to believe that she could have been sent here to kill him.

Chapter Two

“AYME NEGRI,” he repeated softly. “I’m David Dykstra.”

He watched her eyes as he said the name. Was there a slight blink? Did she know it was an alias?

No, there was nothing there. No hint of special knowledge. No clues at all. And it only made sense. If she’d wanted to finish him off, she’d had her chance while he was sleeping.

Still, he couldn’t let his guard down. He’d been waiting for someone to arrive with murder on his mind since that dark, stormy night when he was six years old and he’d been spirited away from the rebellion in Ambria and across the countryside in search of a safe haven.

The palace had been burned and his parents killed. And most likely some of his siblings had died as well—though he didn’t know for sure. But he’d been rescued and hidden with a family in the Netherlands, the Dykstras. He’d been spared.

All that had happened twenty-five years ago, and no one had ever come to find him, neither friend nor foe. Someday he knew he would have to face his destiny. But maybe not today.

“Ayme Negri,” he said again, mulling over the name. He was still holding her hand, almost as though he was hoping to gain some comprehension of her motives just by sense of touch.

An Ambrian woman, raised in Texas. That was a new one to him.

“Say something in Ambrian,” he challenged quickly. At least he had a chance of understanding a little of the language if she didn’t get too complicated. He hadn’t spoken it since he was a child, but he still dreamed in his native tongue sometimes.

But it didn’t seem she would be willing to go along with that little test. Her eyes widened and a hint of quick anger flashed across her face.

“No,” she said firmly, her lovely chin rising. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

His head reared back. “Are you serious? You break into my apartment and now you’re going to take on airs?”

“I didn’t break in,” she said indignantly. “I walked in, just like everybody else you had here to your party. I…I sort of melted into a group that was arriving and no one seemed to think twice.”

She shrugged, remembering how she’d slipped into the elevator with a bunch of boisterous young city sophisticates. They seemed to accept her right to come in with them without a second thought. She’d smiled at a pretty young woman in a feathered boa and the woman had laughed.

“Look, she’s brought a baby,” she said to her escort, a handsome young man who had already had much too much to drink. “I wish I had a baby.” She turned and pouted. “Jeremy, why won’t you let me have a baby?”

“What the hell, babies for everyone,” he’d called out as the elevator doors opened, and he’d almost fallen over with the effort. “Come on. If we’re going to be handing out babies, I’m going to need another drink.”

Laughing, the group had swelled in through the door to this apartment and left her standing in the entryway. No one else had noticed her. She’d seen the host in the main room, dancing with a beautiful raven-haired woman and swaying like a man who’d either fallen in love or had too many rum drinks. She’d sighed and decided the better part of valor was to beat a hasty retreat. And that was when she’d slipped into the media room and found a drawer she could use as a bassinet for Cici.

“I don’t remember inviting you,” he noted dryly.

“I invited myself.” Her chin lifted even higher. “Just because you didn’t notice me at the time doesn’t make me a criminal.”

He was ready with a sharp retort, but he bit his tongue. This was getting him nowhere. He had to back off and start over again. If he was going to find out what was really going on, he needed to gain her trust. Making her defensive was counterproductive at best.

And he did want to know, not only because he was plain curious, but because of the Ambrian connection. There had to be a reason for it. Young Ambrian women weren’t likely to just appear on his doorstep out of the blue. In fact, it had never happened before.

“Sorry,” he said gruffly, turning away. Taking a deep breath and calming himself, he looked back and his gaze fell on the little child. There had been a period, while living in his huge adoptive family, when he’d spent a lot of time with babies. They didn’t scare him. Still, he could take or leave them. They were often just too much work.

But he knew very well what happened when one of this age was woken from a sound sleep, and the results were never very pretty.

“Listen, let’s go to the kitchen and get a cup of coffee. Then we can talk without waking up your baby.”

“Okay.” She stopped, looking back. “Shall I just leave her here?” she asked doubtfully.

Cici had been practically glued to her body ever since Sam had left her behind that rainy Texas day that seemed so long ago now. And yet it hadn’t even been a week yet. She smiled, suddenly enchanted with the way the child looked in the drawer.

“Look at the little angel. She’s sleeping like a lamb now.”

He frowned. “How old is that baby?” he asked suspiciously.

That was another question she wasn’t confident enough to answer. Sam hadn’t left behind any paperwork, not even a birth certificate.

“Her name’s Cici,” she said, stalling for time.

His glare wasn’t friendly. “Nice name. Now, how old is she?”

“About six weeks,” she said, trying to sound sure of herself and pretty much failing at it. “Maybe two months.”

He stared at her. Skepticism was too mild a term for what his gaze was revealing about his thoughts on her answer.

She smiled brightly. “Hard to remember. Time flies.”

“Right.”

She followed him out into the living room. He snagged a shirt from the hall closet as they passed it, shrugged into it but left it open. She made an abrupt turn so he wouldn’t find her staring at him, and as she did so, she caught sight of the view from the huge floor-to-ceiling picture window.

She gasped, walking toward it. It was four in the morning but the landscape was still alive with lights. Cars carried people home, a plane cruised past, lights blinking. Looking down, she was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of detached wonder. There were so many people below, all with their own lives, going on with things as though everything was normal. But it wasn’t normal. The world had tipped on its axis a few days ago. Nothing would ever be the same again. Didn’t they know?

For just a moment, she was consumed with a longing to be one of those clueless people, riding through the night in a shiny car, going toward a future that didn’t include as much heartbreak and tragedy as she knew was waiting for her once this adventure in Britain was over.

“Wow. You can see just about all of London from here, can’t you?” She was practically pressing her nose to the glass.

“Not quite,” he said, glancing out at the lights of the city. He liked this place better than most. It was close to the building where his offices were—centrally located and perfect for running the British branch of his foster father’s multinational shipping business. “But it is a pretty spectacular view.”

“I’ll say.” She was standing tall, both hands raised, fingertips pressed to the glass to hold her balance as she leaned forward, taking it all in. She looked almost poised to fly away over the city herself.

He started to suggest that she might want to keep her hands off the window, but as he watched her, he checked himself. With her long limbs and unusual way of holding her posture, she had an unselfconscious gawkiness, like a young girl, that was actually quite winsome. But she really wasn’t all that young, and in that short skirt, her legs looked like they went on forever. So he kept quiet and enjoyed his own temporary view, until she tired of it and levered back away from the glass.

“Cities like this are kind of scary,” she said, her tone almost whimsical. “You really get the feeling it’s every man for himself.”

He shrugged. “You’re just not used to the place. It’s unexplored territory to you.” His wide mouth quirked. “As the song says, faces are ugly and people seem wicked.”

She nodded as though pleased that he saw the connection. “That’s the way I felt coming here tonight. A stranger in a very weird part of town.”

He almost smiled but hadn’t meant to. Didn’t really want to. He needed to maintain an edgy sort of wariness with this woman. He still didn’t know why she was here, and her reasons could be costly to him for all he knew.

Still, he found himself almost smiling. He bit it off quickly.

“This part of town is hardly weird,” he said shortly. The real estate was high class and high-toned, and he was paying through the nose for that fact. “Maybe you miss the longhorns and Cadillacs.”

She gave him a haughty look. She’d caught the illconcealed concealed snobbery in his tone. “I’ve been out of Texas before, you know,” she said. “I spent a semester in Japan in my senior year.”

“World traveler, are you?” he said wryly. But he rather regretted having been a little mean, and he turned away. He needed to be careful. The conversation had all the hallmarks of becoming too personal. He had to break it off. Time to get serious.

He led her on into his ultramodern, wide-open kitchen with its stainless-steel counters and green onyx walls. He got down two mugs, then put pods into the coffee machine, one at a time. In minutes it was ready and he handed her a steaming mug of coffee, then gazed at her levelly.

“Okay, let’s have it.”

She jumped in surprise. “What?” she asked, wide-eyed.

He searched her dark eyes. What he found there gave him a moment of unease. On the surface she seemed very open and almost naive, a carefree young woman ready to take on the world and go for whatever was out there. But her eyes held a more somber truth. There was tragedy in those eyes, fear, uncertainty. Whatever it was that she was hiding, he hoped it had nothing to do with him.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he asked again. “Why are you carrying around a very young baby in a strange city in the middle of the night? And most important, how did you even get in here?”

She stared at him for a moment, then tried to smile as she took a shallow sip of the hot coffee. “Wow. That’s a lot to throw at a girl who’s only half-awake,” she noted evasively.

His grunt held no sympathy. “You threw a six-week-old baby at me,” he reminded her. “So let’s have it.”

She took a deep breath, as though this really was an effort. “Okay. I think I already explained how I got in here. I hitched a ride with a party group and no one minded.”

He groaned, thinking of some choice words he would have with the doorman later that day.

“As I told you, my name is Ayme Negri Sommers. I’m from Dallas, Texas. And…” She swallowed hard, then looked him in the eye. “And I’m looking for Cici’s father.”

That hit him like a fist in the stomach. He swallowed hard and searched her gaze again. He knew very well that he was now treading into a minefield and he had to watch his step very carefully.

“Oh, really?” he said, straining to maintain a light, casual tone. “So where did you lose him?”

She took it as a serious question. “That’s just the trouble. I’m not really sure.”

He stared at her. Was she joking? Nothing she said was making any sense.

“But I heard from a very reliable source,” she went on, setting down her mug and putting her hands on her hips as she turned to look questioningly at him, “that you would be able to help me out.”

Ah-ha. A very dangerous mine had appeared right in front of him with this one. Careful!

“Me?” he asked, trying not to let his voice rise with anxiety. “Why me?”

She started to say something, then stopped and looked down, uncomfortable and showing it. “See, this is why this is so hard. I don’t really know. My source said that you would know where to find him.” She looked back up into his face, waiting.

“So you think it’s someone I know?” he asked, still at sea. “Obviously, it’s not me.”

She hesitated much too long over that one and he let out an exclamation, appalled. “You can’t be serious. I think I would have noticed a little thing like that, and I know damn well I’ve never seen you before.” He shook his head in disbelief.

She sighed. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“Good. So why are you here?”

She took a deep breath. “Okay, the person who advised me to look you up is a man associated with the firm I work for.”

“In Texas? And he thinks he knows who I know?” He shook his head, turning away and beginning to pace the floor in frustration. “This is absurd. How did he even know my name?”

“He told me you socialize in the same circles as Cici’s dad. He said, ‘Don’t worry. He’ll know how to find him.’”

“Oh, he did, did he?” For some reason this entire conversation was stoking a rage that was smoldering inside him. He stopped and confronted her. “So this person who’s supposed to be Cici’s father—this person I’m supposed to know where to find—what’s his name?”

She half twisted away. This had all seemed so easy when she’d planned it out as she made her way to the airport in Dallas. She would dash off to London, find Cici’s father, hand over the baby and head back home. She hadn’t realized she would have to try to explain it all to someone in between. When you got right down to it, the bones of the story weren’t making a lot of sense. And she realized now that one element would sound really goofy to this man. She was hoping to keep that one under wraps for as long as possible.

She turned back with a heart-wrenching sigh and said dramatically, “Well…you see, that’s the problem. I’m not sure what his actual name is.”

He stared at her. The absurdity of the situation was becoming clear. She was looking for a man who had fathered her baby. She didn’t know where he was. She didn’t know his name. But she’d come here for help. And he was supposed to ride to the rescue? Why, exactly?

It was true that he had a reputation for knowing everyone who counted within a certain social strata. He’d made it his business to know them, for his own purposes. But he had to have something to go on. He couldn’t just throw out possibilities.

“What are you going to do when you find him? Are you planning to marry the guy?”

“What?” She looked shocked, as though this very mundane idea was too exotic to contemplate. “No. Of course not.”

“I see,” he said, though he didn’t.

She bit her lip and groaned silently. She was so tired. She couldn’t think straight. She just wanted to go back to sleep. Maybe things would look clearer in the morning.

“How am I supposed to find someone if I don’t know his name?”

She turned and gave him an exasperated look. “If this were easy, I could have done it on my own.”

“I see. I’m your last resort, am I?”

She thought for a second, then nodded. “Pretty much.” She gazed at him earnestly, feeling weepy. “Do you think you can help me?”

He gazed at her, at her pretty face with those darkly smudged, sleepy eyes, at the mop of blond hair that settled wildly around her head as though it had been styled by gypsies, at her slightly trembling lower lip.

He had a small fantasy. In it, he told her flat out, “Hell, no. I’m not helping you. You give me nothing and ask for miracles. I’ve got better things to do with my time than to run all over London looking for someone I’m never going to find. This is insane.”

As the fantasy began to fade, he saw himself reaching into his pocket and handing her money to go to a hotel. What a happy little dream it was.

But looking at her, he knew it wasn’t going to happen. Right now, her eyes were filling with tears, as though she could read his mind and knew he wanted to get rid of her and her problems.

“Okay,” he told her gruffly, clenching his fists to keep from following his instinct to reach out to comfort her. And then he added a touch of cynicism to his tone, just for good measure. “If all this is a little too overwhelming for you in your current state of hysteria…”

“I am not hysterical!” she cried indignantly.

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s a matter of judgment and not even very relevant. Why don’t we do this in a logical, methodical fashion? Then maybe we can get somewhere.”

She moaned. “Like back to bed?” she suggested hopefully.

“Not yet.” He was pacing again. “You need to fill in some of the blanks. Let’s start with this. What exactly is your tie to Ambria? Give me the full story.”

He’d given up wondering if she was here to harm him. The complete innocence she displayed wasn’t very likely to be a put-on. And anyway, what sort of an incompetent murder master would send a young woman with a baby to do the dirty deed? It just didn’t make sense.

“My parents were Ambrian,” she began. “I was actually born there but that was just before the rebellion. My birth parents died in the fighting. I don’t remember them at all. I was taken out with a lot of other refugee children and rushed to the States. I was adopted right away. I was only about eighteen months old, so as far as I’m concerned, my adoptive parents are my parents.” She shrugged. “End of story.”

“Are you kidding? We’ve barely begun.” He stopped and looked down at her, arms folded over his chest. “Who told you about your Ambrian background?”

“Oh, the Sommerses had Ambrian roots, too. Second generation American, though. So they told me things, and there were some books around the house.” She shook her head. “But it wasn’t like I was immersed in the culture or anything like that.”

“But you do know about the rebellion? You know about the Granvilli family and how they led an illegal coup that killed a lot of people and left them in charge of an ancient monarchy that should have been left alone?”

She blinked. “Uh…I guess.”

“But you don’t know much about it?”

She shook her head.

He gazed at her, speculation glowing in his silver-blue eyes. “So you don’t have family still in Ambria?”

“Family?” She stared at him blankly. “Not that I know of.”

“I guess they were all killed by the rebels?”

She blinked and shook her head. “I don’t know if the rebels killed them.”

He raised a cynical eyebrow. “Who do you think killed them?”

She ran her tongue nervously over her lower lip. “Well, to tell you the truth, I really don’t know what side they were on.”

That stunned him. The idea that someone decent might support the rebels who had killed his parents and taken over his country didn’t really work for him. He dismissed it out of hand. But if she were around long enough, and he had a chance, he would find out who her parents were and what role they played. It seemed like something she ought to know.

“Now that we’ve established who you are, let’s get to the real topic. Why are you really here?”

She sighed. “I told you.”

But he was already shaking his head. “You told me a lot of nonsense. Do you really expect me to believe you had a baby and don’t know the father? It doesn’t add up, Ayme. How about giving me the real story?”

She felt like a bird caught in a trap. She hated lying. That was probably why she did it so badly. She had to tell him something. Something convincing. Had to be. She was beginning to see that she would really be in trouble if he refused to help her.

But before she could conjure up something good, a wail came from across the apartment. Ayme looked toward where the sound was coming from, uncertainty on her face. Why didn’t this baby seem to want to sleep for more than an hour at a time, day or night?

“I just fed her an hour ago,” she said, shaking her head and thinking of her dwindling stash of formula bottles. “Do you think she really wants to eat again?”

“Of course,” he told her. “They want to eat all the time. Surely you’ve noticed.”

She bit her lip and looked at him. “But the book says four hours…”

He groaned. She was still using a book?

“Babies don’t wear watches,” he noted, feeling some sympathy for this new mother, but a lot of impatience, as well.

“True.” She gave him a wry look as she turned to go. “But you’d think they could look at a clock now and then.”

He grinned. He couldn’t help it. If he really let himself go, he would start liking her and he knew it. And so he followed her into the room and watched as she stroked the little round head rather inefficiently. The baby was definitely crying, and the stroking was doing no good at all. From what he could tell, Ayme didn’t seem to have a clue as to what to do to quiet her.

“Why don’t you try changing her?” he suggested. “She’s probably wet.”

“You think so?” That seemed to be a new idea to her. “Okay, I’ll try it.”

She had a huge baby bag crammed full of things, but she didn’t seem to know what she was looking for. He watched her rummage around in it for a few minutes, then stepped forward and pulled out a blanket which he spread out on the couch.

“I can do this,” she said a bit defensively.

“I’m sure you can,” he said. “I’m just trying to help.”

She winced, feeling genuine regret for her tone. “I know. I’m sorry.”

She pulled out a paper diaper and laid it on the blanket, then pulled Cici up out of the drawer.

“There you go little girl,” she cooed to her. “We’re going to get you nice and clean.”

David stood back and watched, arms folded across his chest, mouth twisted cynically. She didn’t seem very confident to him. Cici wasn’t crying hard, only whimpering at this point, but he had the impression that she was looking up at the woman working over her with something close to apprehension.

“Don’t you have someplace else you could be?” she muttered to him as she worked, and he could see that she was nervous to be doing this in front of him. Like someone who didn’t really know what she was doing.

One thing he knew for sure—this woman didn’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby. How crazy was that? And then it came to him. She wasn’t the mother of the baby. Couldn’t be. In six weeks time anyone would have learned more than she seemed to know.

“Alright Ayme Negri Sommers,” he said firmly at last, “come clean. Whose baby is this?”

She looked up, a deer in the headlights.

“Mine.”

“Liar.”

She stared at him for a moment, degrees of uncertainty flashing across her pretty face. Finally, she threw her hands into the air. “Okay, you got me.” She shrugged, looking defeated. “She’s not really mine.” She sighed. “What was your first clue?”

He grunted, stepping forward to take over. “The fact that you don’t know beans about taking care of a baby,” he said, taking the diaper from her and beginning to do an expert job of it in her place. “The fact that you’re still reading a book to figure out which end is up.”

She heaved a heart-felt sigh. “I guess that was inevitable. It’s really such a relief. I hated living a lie.” She looked at him with more gratitude than resentment. “How come you know so much about babies, anyway?”

“I grew up in a big family. We all had to pitch in.”

She sighed. “We didn’t have any babies around while I was growing up. It was just me and Sam.”

The baby was clean and in dry diapers. David put her up against his shoulder and she cuddled in, obviously comfortable as could be and happy to be with someone who knew what he was doing. He managed a reluctant smile. It was just like riding a bicycle. Once you knew how to hold a baby, you didn’t forget.

He turned back to Ayme. “Who’s this Sam you keep talking about?”

She swallowed, realizing the answer to that question was going to be tied to very different emotions from now on.

“My…my sister, Samantha. She was Cici’s real mother.”

And that was when the horror hit her for the first time since she’d left home. Her legs turned to rubber. Closing her eyes, she sank to the couch, fighting to hold back the blackness that threatened to overtake her whenever she let herself think, even for a moment, about Samantha. It was the same for her parents. The accident had taken them, too. Her whole family.

It was all too much to bear. If she let herself really think about what had happened and about the emptiness that was waiting for her return to Dallas, the bubble she was living in would pop in an instant. She couldn’t think about it and she couldn’t tell him about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The pain was just too raw to manage.

Steeling herself, she forced out a quick explanation.

“Sam died in a car accident a few days ago.” Her voice was shaking but she was going to get through this. “I…I was taking care of Cici when it happened. It was all so sudden. It…”

She took in a gasping breath, steadying herself. Then she cleared her throat and went on.

“Now I’m trying to get her to where she belongs. I’m trying to find her father.” She looked up, surprised to find that she’d gone through it and was still coherent. “There. Now you know it all.”

He stared at her. Her eyes looked like dark bruises marring her pretty face. The tragedy in her voice was mirrored by her body language, the tilt of her head, the pain in her voice. He didn’t doubt for a minute that everything she’d just told him was absolutely true and it touched him in a way he hadn’t expected.

The urge was strong to put down the baby and take the woman in his arms. If anyone needed a bit of comfort, Ayme did. But he stopped himself from making that move. He knew it wouldn’t work out well. The last thing she wanted right now was compassion. The smallest hint of sympathy would very probably make her fall apart emotionally. He assumed that she didn’t want that any more than he did. At least he hoped so. He looked away and grimaced.

But—back to basics—he still didn’t understand why she’d come to him.

“Ayme, I’m not Cici’s father,” he said bluntly.

“Oh, I know. I know it’s not you.”

He shook his head, still at sea and searching for landfall. “Then why are you here?”

She shrugged. “You’re going to help me find him.” She gazed at him earnestly. “You just have to. And since you’re Ambrian…”

“I never said I was Ambrian,” he broke in quickly. He had to make that clear. As far as the rest of the world knew, he was a citizen of the Netherlands, born and bred Dutch. That was the way it had been for twenty-five years and that was the way it had to be.

“Well, you know a lot about Ambria, which not a lot of people do.”

Reluctantly, he admitted it. “True.”

Rising from the couch, she began to pace much the way he had a few minutes earlier. She was exhausted and her emotions were spent. But she had more work to do. Glancing over at David, she noticed that Cici’s downy head was tucked against his shoulder and the little eyes were closed. She was asleep. Ayme’s sigh was from the depths of her wounded soul.

“If only I’d had you along on the flight over the Atlantic,” she said.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” he said, turning to lay the baby down very carefully in her makeshift bed. “If you want my help, you’ve got to give me more. I can’t do anything unless I understand the parameters I’m dealing with.”

She nodded. He was right, of course. But what could she say to explain this crazy situation? She moved restlessly toward the doorway and leaned against the doorjamb. From there, she could see across the living room and out through the huge picture window surveying the city. The mass of city lights spread out below added a manic energy, despite the time of night.

That made her think—what if all those lights went out one night?

She nodded, realizing that the stars would take their place. And that would be a whole different dynamic. She wasn’t sure which she would prefer at the moment—manic energy or soothing starlight. But her preference didn’t mean a thing. She had to deal with what she had before her.

Throwing her head back, she began.

“Sam didn’t tell me much about Cici’s father. Actually, I hadn’t seen her for almost a year when she showed up with a baby in her arms. I had no idea…” She put a hand to her forehead as she remembered the shock of Sam’s return home. “Anyway, she didn’t tell me much, but she did tell me that Cici’s father was Ambrian. That she’d met him on a trip to London. And that she wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to find him and show him his baby.”

Of course, there were other moments, even hours, when Sam acted as though she didn’t care at all—especially when she took off without her baby. But he didn’t have to know about that.

She turned and came back into the room, watching David tuck a blanket in around Cici. It was unusual to see such a strong, handsome man doing something like that. At least it seemed unusual to her. But who knew? Maybe she should get out more.

That sweet little baby was finally getting the sort of care she deserved. She thought of how careless Sam had seemed with Cici. Their mother had been appalled. But maybe that was because of her precarious circumstances. If she could have found Cici’s father and they could have formed a real family, maybe things would have been different.

“Now she’ll never get the chance,” she murmured softly, then caught herself and frowned. None of that. She couldn’t let herself drift off into that sort of sadness. They would never get anything done.

He’d finished with the baby and he came to stand in front of her, looking down. “But she didn’t tell you this guy’s name?”

She hesitated. “She told me a name, but…”

“Who? You’ve got to tell me, Ayme. I don’t see how I can help you if you won’t tell me.”

She turned away again and he followed her out to the picture window. “Do you ever see the stars?” she asked.

“Not much,” he said impatiently. “Will you stick to the point?”

She drew in a deep breath and looked up at him as though this was a hard thing to do.