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The Baby The Billionaire Demands
JENNIE LUCAS
Pregnant, she fled… But she’ll be the Spaniard’s bride!Lola Price didn’t dare tell Rodrigo Cabrera she was pregnant after he spurned her. But now he’s discovered her secret he’s determined his child will take his name! Whilst their mutual desire in the marriage bed is undeniable, Rodrigo keeps himself at a distance. Yet fiery Lola won’t be pushed away again. She’ll show Rodrigo that their son and their relationship are worth fighting for!
Pregnant, she fled...
But she’ll be the Spaniard’s bride!
Lola Price didn’t dare tell Rodrigo Cabrera she was pregnant, after he spurned her. But now that he’s discovered her secret, he’s determined his child will take his name! While their mutual desire in the marriage bed is undeniable, Rodrigo keeps himself at a distance. Yet fiery Lola won’t be pushed away again. She’ll show Rodrigo that their son and their relationship are worth fighting for!
Indulge in this dramatic secret-baby story!
USA TODAY bestselling author JENNIE LUCAS’s parents owned a bookstore, so she grew up surrounded by books, dreaming about faraway lands. A fourth-generation Westerner, she went East at sixteen to boarding school on a scholarship, wandered the world, got married, then finally worked her way through college before happily returning to her hometown. A 2010 RITA® Award finalist and 2005 Golden Heart® Award winner, she lives in Idaho with her husband and children.
Also by Jennie Lucas (#ucd23d60d-85fc-56a8-ae3d-50935d26b491)
The Sheikh’s Last Seduction
Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret
Nine Months to Redeem Him
A Ring for Vincenzo’s Heir
Baby of His Revenge
The Consequence of His Vengeance
Carrying the Spaniard’s Child
Claiming His Nine-Month Consequence
The Secret the Italian Claims
The Heir the Prince Secures
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
The Baby the Billionaire Demands
Jennie Lucas
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07272-4
THE BABY THE BILLIONAIRE DEMANDS
© 2018 Jennie Lucas
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dedication (#ucd23d60d-85fc-56a8-ae3d-50935d26b491)
To my wonderful editor, Nicola Caws.
I never could have written this trilogy without you.
Dear Reader (#ucd23d60d-85fc-56a8-ae3d-50935d26b491),
Which is more important—love or money?
After a difficult childhood, Lola Price knows the answer: Money. Having lost her family to tragedy and poverty, she has vowed that now she’s grown up she’ll have so much money she’ll never feel helpless again.
At twenty-four, Lola falls in love with her boss, Spanish media mogul Rodrigo Cabrera. After a hot affair she’s thrilled to discover she’s pregnant—until Rodrigo finds out about her shocking past and coldly tosses her from his house
Heartbroken, Lola flees to New York without telling him about the baby. As much as he now despises her, she’s afraid the ruthless billionaire might try to take her child away.
What will happen when Rodrigo finally learns her secret?
Which will triumph—love or money?
This is the final book in a trilogy about three friends. Hallie’s story was The Secret the Italian Claims. Tess’s was The Heir the Prince Secures. I’ve loved writing these stories about three vibrant, different women and their fiercely powerful men. I hope you love them too.
With warmest wishes,
Jennie
Contents
Cover (#u5507f6e9-c479-5480-a964-efc6a20177d2)
Back Cover Text (#ub6e71151-e5ea-5501-9629-4e068b656075)
About the Author (#udc4576c3-4790-5b50-bf6c-c3186d0bbfaa)
Booklist (#u4e5b843c-cab0-573b-9cc3-5fe1278bafd6)
Title Page (#u9a3fab7e-093f-5fee-a38b-de0552a8ce59)
Copyright (#uc0878add-5ccd-5a93-be8b-f041f687d1c8)
Dedication (#uffef35bc-67ed-50d8-9fc9-4a5a8e77da8b)
Dear Reader (#uddac4ac3-7da9-5717-bac7-ccd98ee8c685)
CHAPTER ONE (#uf5499c00-5a52-554c-a80e-84658ead7e60)
CHAPTER TWO (#u7edeb442-7880-5f32-8dd4-49ea4f6e3aa6)
CHAPTER THREE (#u3bf9b8b1-e99d-5479-9ac3-e4a044cf5077)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ucd23d60d-85fc-56a8-ae3d-50935d26b491)
MONEY MEANT EVERYTHING to Lola Price.
Money was the difference between happiness and grief. Between joy and tragedy. She’d learned it at five years old, and every day since.
Growing up in a trailer on the edge of the California desert, in a dusty town where jobs were scarce, she’d seen her mother’s daily struggles to pay the bills after Lola’s father died. Her mother eventually remarried, but it only made things worse.
By the time she was eighteen, Lola had learned that there was only one way to protect the people you loved. One way to keep them safe and close—and alive.
You had to be rich.
So she’d dropped out of high school and moved to Los Angeles. Desperate to save what was left of her family—and without any talent or even a high school diploma—she’d hoped to instantly become a movie star, but her acting career never got off the ground. Without money, she’d lost everything.
Now she had a four-month-old son. And nearly a million dollars. Lola took a deep breath. No one would ever take her family from her again.
Sergei Morozov’s booming voice brought her back to the charity ball, where he’d been swaying with her on the dance floor. “Can I kiss you, Lolitchka?”
“What?” Startled, Lola looked up at him. “Kiss me?”
“Yes. When?”
“Um...never?”
The Russian tycoon winced. Burly and in his mid-fifties, with gray hair on his temples and a strong accent, he was CEO of a large Wall Street firm. He’d also been, until four months ago, her employer. “When you agreed to be my date tonight, I thought...”
“I’m sorry. I don’t feel that way about you.” Around them, couples danced in the gilded hotel ballroom to the orchestra’s elegant music. The children’s charity ball was the social occasion of November in New York. She was just surprised her two best friends, Hallie and Tess, both newly married to billionaires, weren’t here. They loved fancy events like this.
But Lola didn’t see them. As she danced with her former boss—keeping an old-fashioned, almost Victorian distance between them—she saw dark-haired men everywhere in sleek, sophisticated tuxedos who reminded her of another previous boss, Rodrigo Cabrera. The Spanish media tycoon who’d coldly given her a million-dollar check, then tossed her out of his beach house, secretly pregnant and brokenhearted.
Sergei cleared his throat. “If you just need a little more time...”
“That’s not it.” She looked down at the marble ballroom floor. She never should have agreed to a date, she thought. She’d been swayed by her neighbor, a widow who occasionally babysat her son, who’d told Lola she ‘needed to get out and live.’ That, plus the weddings of Lola’s two best friends in rapid succession, had made her feel her own loneliness. When Sergei Morozov had invited her out, she’d convinced herself it might be a healthy step forward, after a hard, lonely year.
Now she wished she’d just stayed at home.
“Some man broke your heart,” he growled. “He abandoned you and your son.”
Lola looked up in astonishment. She’d never spoken about Rodrigo to anyone, not even her best friends. “I never said he abandoned me—”
“You had pregnancy alone. Had birth alone. No man.” His big hands tightened against her back. “Forget the idea of a date. Maybe I just marry you, eh?”
She sucked in her breath. “Marry?”
The burly man looked down at her. “I have wanted you for a long time, Lola,” he said softly. “If marriage is your price, I am willing to pay.”
Lola stared up at him in shock.
Marry him?
Her stomach looped like a roller-coaster.
Sergei Morozov wasn’t a bad man. She’d worked as his secretary throughout her pregnancy. He was rich, arrogant, but not cruel. When she was eighteen, she would have jumped at the chance to marry a man like that.
Too bad for him that Lola was now twenty-five, with a pocketful of money and a scarred, bitter heart.
“I’m flattered, truly,” she said awkwardly, “but—”
“Marry me, zvezda moya. I will cover you with jewels. I will—”
“I’d like to cut in.”
Lola’s heart dropped as she heard another man’s voice, low and dangerous behind her. A voice she knew, though she hadn’t heard it in over a year. A voice she’d never forget.
Slowly, she turned.
