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Claiming His Secret Royal Heir
Nina Milne
Married for their baby? Or for real…Crown Prince Frederick of Lycander needs a wife and an heir, and discovering he has a secret son with beautiful supermodel Sunita makes him determined to claim them both!But Sunita has no desire to live and raise baby Amil as part of Frederick's royal entourage! Until he persuades her it's the best thing for their son. Their engagement reveals that their passion still simmers but, to keep Sunita and Amil by his side, Frederick discovers he must also admit his love…
Married for their baby? Or for real...
Crown Prince Frederick of Lycander needs a wife and an heir, and discovering he has a secret son with beautiful supermodel Sunita makes him determined to claim them both!
But Sunita has no desire to live and raise baby Amil as part of Frederick’s royal entourage! Until he persuades her it’s the best thing for their son. Their engagement reveals that their passion still simmers but, to keep Sunita and Amil by his side, Frederick discovers he must also admit his love...
For an instant it was as if the world went out of focus.
Sunita could almost see a line being drawn in the sands of time—this was the moment that separated before and after. She nearly took the coward’s route, and wondered if Frederick would swallow the lie that Amil was Sam’s. Then she realised she could not—would not—do that.
‘Yes. He is yours. Amil is your son.’
Now she understood the meaning of a deafening silence. This one rolled through the room, echoed in her ears until she wanted to shout. Instead she waited, saw his body freeze, saw the whole gamut of emotion cross his face, and watched as his expression settled into an anger so ice-cold a shiver rippled over her skin.
Panic twisted her insides. The die had been cast and she knew now that, whatever happened, life would never be the same.
Claiming His Secret Royal Heir
Nina Milne
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
NINA MILNE has always dreamed of writing for Mills & Boon Romance—ever since she played libraries with her mother’s stacks of Mills & Boon romances as a child. On her way to this dream Nina acquired an English degree, a hero of her own, three gorgeous children and—somehow!—an accountancy qualification. She lives in Brighton and has filled her house with stacks of books—her very own real library.
To the memory of my very lovely ‘Nanni’—
I still miss you.
Contents
Cover (#u71b6be36-087f-5584-b6af-0dcf14b56601)
Back Cover Text (#u02284218-6e05-5894-83f1-ceb7e6cfcfeb)
Introduction (#u48352ff1-e381-5668-9f2d-a4db34d40c32)
Title Page (#u35cba244-fd7f-52c5-a003-50531679eba0)
About the Author (#u894e15e1-7857-5543-9bdb-02385cc7d558)
Dedication (#u02760843-2cb5-57c1-9cc0-98123c741732)
CHAPTER ONE (#u8bd5cade-e1c1-589e-9723-9018b4580b93)
CHAPTER TWO (#ua92d408d-c421-5cd7-8f3e-9b9c8650cd26)
CHAPTER THREE (#u0278e349-8ef2-5e79-b502-3f4c2cdfca3f)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ua41c67b5-bd57-5861-b80f-044e2eb790d6)
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)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u352de18b-f64c-546f-b399-224115404a2a)
August 15th—Online Celebrity News with April Fotherington
Who will be the new Lycander Princess?
All bets are off!
It’s official! Lady Kaitlin Derwent is no longer a contender for the position of Lycander Bride—the people’s favourite aristo announced that her new squeeze for the foreseeable future is Daniel Harrington, CEO of Harrington’s Legal Services.
Who’d have thought it?
Exit Lady Kaitlin!
So Prince Frederick, ruler of Lycander, is on the lookout for a new bride.
Who will it be?
Will it be the type of woman who graced his arm and his bed back in his playboy days, before the tragic death of his older brother and the scandalous death of Prince Alphonse, his flamboyant father, in a house of ill repute propelled him to the throne?
FREDERICK II OF the House of Petrelli, Prince and Ruler of Lycander, stopped reading and pushed his screen across the ornate carved desk, resplendent with gilt—a royal gift from an English monarch of yore.
The phrase pounded his brain—tragic death of his older brother—but he forced his features to remain calm, and made himself focus on the man standing in front of him: Marcus Alrikson, his chief advisor. After all, he needed all the advice he could get.
‘I don’t understand what the problem is—this article is nothing more than a gossip fest. And it’s old news.’
Marcus shook his head. ‘That is the problem. The article serves to remind the people of your past.’
‘Don’t you mean my sordid, scandalous and immoral past?’ Might as well tell it like it is, he thought.
‘If you like,’ Marcus returned evenly. ‘The bigger problem is that we both know you are holding on to the crown by your fingertips. The people did not want you on the throne because of your past—so any reminder causes damage.’
‘I understand that.’
The all too familiar guilt twisted his insides—the people had wanted his brother on the throne. Axel had been born to this. He would have been the ideal ruler to bring prosperity and calm to the land after their father’s turbulent rule.
But Axel was dead and buried—victim of a car crash that should have been Frederick’s destiny. Frederick should have been in that car on his way to a State dinner; instead he’d asked Axel to step in and take his place and his big brother had—no questions asked. So Frederick had attended a party on board a glitzy yacht to celebrate a business deal...and Axel had died.
The dark secret tarnished Frederick’s soul, weighted his conscience.
And now Lycander was stuck with the black sheep of the royal line and the people were threatening to revolt. Bleak determination hardened inside him. He would keep the crown safe, whatever the cost—he owed that at least to Axel’s memory.
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘I suggest you find a new bride—someone like Lady Kaitlin. Your proposed alliance with Kaitlin was a popular one. It showed the people that you had decided to settle down with a suitable bride, that you’d changed—proof there would be no repeat of your father’s disastrous marriages.’
‘I have decided to settle down.’ To bind himself to a lifestyle he’d once sworn to avoid and the formulation of a cold-blooded alliance undertaken for the sake of the throne. ‘But Kaitlin is no longer an option—she has fallen in love with another man.’
Irritation sparked inside him. He wished Kaitlin well, but it was hard to believe that the cool, poised Lady Kaitlin had succumbed to so foolish an emotion.
‘Which is not good news for Lycander.’
Marcus resumed pacing, each stride swallowing up a metre of the marble floor, taking him past yet another portrait of one of Frederick’s ancestors.
‘Kaitlin was the perfect bride—her background is impeccable and she reminded the people of Lycander brides of the past.’
Unlike the succession of actresses, models and gold diggers Frederick’s father had married.
‘The people loved her.’
Unlike you.
The unspoken words hovered in the air between them.
‘I understand all this. But Kaitlin is history.’
‘Yes. And right now the press is focused on your history. That article zones in on your former flames—the actresses, the socialites, the models. Giselle, Mariana, Sunita... Hell, this reporter, April, even tried to track them down.’
Frederick froze.
Sunita.
Images flashed across his mind; memory reached across the chasm of tragedy.
Sunita.
Shared laughter, sheer beauty, almond-shaped eyes of a brown that veered from tawny to light, dependent on her mood. The raven sheen of her silken hair, the glow of her skin, the lissom length of her legs.
Sunita.
The woman who had left him—the woman he’d allowed to go...
Without preamble, he pulled his netbook back towards him, eyes scanning the article.
But where is Sunita now?
This is where it becomes a little mysterious.
Mere weeks after the end of her relationship with the Prince of Lycander—which, according to several sources, she ended abruptly—Sunita decided to ‘take a break’ from her highly lucrative modelling career to ‘rediscover her roots’.
This involved a move to Mumbai, where her mother reportedly hailed from. But the trail ends there, and to all intents and purposes Sunita seems to have vanished.
‘Frederick?’ Marcus’s voice pulled him from the article and he looked up to see his chief advisor’s forehead crease into a frown. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’ Under the sceptical gaze Frederick shrugged. ‘It just sounds unlike Sunita to give up her career.’
Sunita had been one of the most ambitious people he knew—had been defined by that ambition, had had her career aspirations and goals mapped out with well-lit beacons. The idea of her jacking it all in seemed far-fetched at best.
Marcus drummed his fingers on his thigh. ‘Could her disappearance have anything to do with you?’
‘No.’
‘What happened?’
‘We spent a few weeks together—she moved on.’
‘She moved on?’
Damn. ‘We moved on.’
‘Why?’
Keep it together. This is history. ‘She decided to call it a day as she’d garnered sufficient publicity from our connection.’
Marcus raised his eyebrows. ‘So she used you for publicity?’
‘Yes. To be fair, she was upfront about that from the start.’
More fool him for thinking she’d changed her mind as time had gone on. He’d believed their time together, the long conversations, the laughter, had meant something. Well, he’d been wrong. Sunita had been after publicity and then she’d cut and run. Yet there had been something in her expression that morning...a transitory shadow in her tawny eyes, an errant twist of her hands that had belied the glib words dropping from her lips. But he hadn’t called her on it.
Enough! The past was over and did not bear dwelling on because—as he knew with soul-wrenching certainty—it could not be changed.
