As tired as she was, Brianna spent long minutes staring at the ceiling and picturing Hunter’s tall, muscular body squeezing into the small antique bed in the guest room.
She imagined his long legs hanging off the end of the mattress, his wide shoulders filling the width of the bed and his chiseled face nestled on the pillow. Did he snore? Did he sleep in the buff? What would it be like to curl against his strength and sleep wrapped in his arms? To kiss him goodnight, feel his skin against hers, have his hands
Brianna scrubbed both hands over her face and stopped the daydream in its erotic tracks. Her skin tingled from her scalp to her toes, and a pleasant heat had curled in her belly. Dream all you want, but don’t get any ideas about acting on the fantasy. Hunter wasn’t hers to claim.
Protecting Her Royal Baby
Beth Cornelison
BETH CORNELISON started writing stories as a child when she penned a tale about the adventures of her cat, Ajax. A Georgia native, she received her bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of Georgia. After working in public relations for a little more than a year, she moved with her husband to Louisiana, where she decided to pursue her love of writing fiction.
Since that first time, Beth has written many more stories of adventure and romantic suspense and has won numerous honors for her work, including a coveted Golden Heart Award in romantic suspense from Romance Writers of America. She is active on the board of directors for the North Louisiana Storytellers and Authors of Romance (NOLA STARS) and loves reading, traveling, Peanuts’ Snoopy and spending downtime with her family.
She writes from her home in Louisiana, where she lives with her husband, one son and two cats who think they are people. Beth loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at PO Box 5418, Bossier City, LA 71171, USA, or visit her website, www.bethcornelison.com.
To my prince—I love you, Paul!
Thank you to Mackenzie Walton for sharing her beautiful cat Sorsha for this story, and to Julie Sieger for sharing Cinderella and Sebastian. Look for all three of these kitties to appear again in Grant’s book! Julie and Mackenzie won the bid to have their kitties featured through Brenda Novak’s Auction for the Cure of Diabetes.
Thank you to Robyn Elyse Rosenberg for allowing me to use her name for Brianna’s aunt. Robyn, also, won the bid for this opportunity through Brenda Novak’s Auction for the Cure of Diabetes.
Contents
Chapter 1
She stared in stunned silence at the man standing in her living room, a man she’d once trusted. Working to shake herself from the numb shock that locked her throat, she blinked hard and scrubbed her hands over her face. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this last winter? Don’t you think I had a right to know what...who I was involved with?”
He had the decency to look guilty. “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you for this very reason. I knew this was how you’d react.”
She exhaled harshly. “Well, it is rather...startling news, wouldn’t you say?”
“I know. But we’d agreed what we had was a vacation fling. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I didn’t think I’d...develop feelings for you. And I never thought you’d—”
“Get pregnant?” She rubbed her hand over her nine-months-swollen belly and grunted. “Well, neither did I. But here’s the proof that condoms aren’t one hundred percent fail-safe.”
“Indeed.” He gave her a worried grimace. “The question now is, how do we hide the baby? How do we protect him?”
“Protect him?”
He took a step toward her, his hands spread. “If anyone finds out he’s my child, my bloodline, they’ll want to kill him like they’ve tried to kill me.”
A thread of fear tugged inside her. “But if I don’t tell anyone who his father is—”
A shattering of glass at her back door cut her off. He cursed in a foreign language she didn’t recognize.
“It’s too late,” he said, his voice tight, panicked. His eyes were round with alarm and apology. “They’re here. They know.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think anyone had followed me.”
Adrenaline spiked inside her, and she sidled closer to him as crashing sounds filtered from the back of her house. “I don’t understand. Who—”
“There’s no time! You have to go! Run!”
“But you—”
“You can’t worry about me. You have to save our child!” He pushed her toward the front door. “Hurry! They’ll try to kill you, try to kill him.”
A dark-clad figure appeared from her kitchen and raised a long-muzzled gun. Fired.
The father of her baby pushed her to the floor as the bullets whizzed over them. The jolt as she hit the floor sent a sharp pain through her belly, and a warm gush of fluid trickled down her leg. She clutched her middle, worried for her baby.
In the next second, he was shoving her up and toward the front door. “Go! Hide! Don’t come back here!”
Bullets pelted the wall near her, and she screamed. How had her life become such a nightmare?
Snatching