Prince of Montez, Pregnant Mistress Page 7

  ‘And you didn’t think it polite to tell me before I went to the trouble of getting dressed up?’

  ‘Given your track record, I had no idea you would go to so much trouble.’ He stared at her legs, remembering where her shorts had been. ‘But, then, I suppose I should have known, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Known what?’ Cally swiped, growing increasingly frustrated at his unaccountably bad mood.

  ‘That everything’s different when you’re presented with the chance of renown.’

  ‘Renown?’ She turned to him blankly.

  ‘God, you really are good, aren’t you?’ His mouth twisted in disgust.

  ‘Good at what, Leon? At least tell me what the hell I’ve done so I can try and defend myself.’

  He had flung it before she’d even finished speaking. It narrowly missed the first painting, hitting the lamp, which crashed to the floor, by luck avoiding the easel of the second painting by less than an inch. It was only after she’d thrown herself in front of both Rénards as if to shield them from further attack that she realised that it was a rolled-up newspaper.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

  ‘I was about to ask you the same question.’

  ‘What?’ she cried in exasperation. ‘You’re the one who just nearly destroyed an eighty-million-pound work of art!’

  ‘My eighty-million-pound work of art,’ he replied smoothly. ‘Which I was nowhere near. It’s a shame I can’t say the same for you and the press.’

  Grasping that there was something she was missing, Cally was already on the floor, unrolling the paper, cringing as she saw the teaser at the top of the page.

  THE WORLD TODAY

  Restoring our interest: Rénard’s masterpieces since that auction. Art conservator Cally Greenway shares her eighty-million-pound secret!

  Cally’s eyes widened in horror. She’d told her sister that running an article was out of the question, hadn’t she? Cally’s cheeks coloured as she fought to remember the details, details which were hazy because at the time she’d been so distracted by the thought of him. Yes, she most definitely had, and she knew there was no way that Jen would run a story regardless. Unless…unless in all the commotion on the other end of the line her sister hadn’t heard her properly.

  ‘There’s been a mistake,’ Cally cried helplessly. ‘I told her not to print anything.’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘My sister Jen’s a journalist.’

  ‘Oh, fantastic.’

  Cally’s voice became defensive. ‘I only called her because I wanted to share the fact that I’d got the job I thought I’d lost.’ His expression was utterly remorseless. ‘In the same way she calls me about what’s going on in her life. She happened to mention that an article about restoring the Rénards would be a great way of sharing them with the public. I agreed that it would be, but I told her there was no way you’d allow it. But…but we got cut off, and she must have misunderstood what I’d said.’

  ‘How convenient for you.’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

  Leon looked at her patronisingly. ‘I’m saying that, if you think I have forgotten that night in London, then you are even more foolish than I thought.’

  Cally coloured instantly. ‘What has this got to do with London?’

  ‘You mean you have forgotten, chérie?’ he drawled, his eyes lingering on her lips. ‘You told me your reason for wanting to work on the Rénards. It was so that your name would be known across the world, was it not? So how can you possibly expect me to believe that this exposure is an accident?’

  ‘I told you! Jen must have misunderstood. Let me call her, get to the bottom of it—’

  ‘I think calling her once has done enough damage, don’t you?’

  Cally let out a frustrated sigh. ‘And for that I’m sorry, but…’ She scanned her eyes down the article, and noticed that the ‘secret’ the headline referred to was nothing more than the fact that she was restoring the paintings for a private collector in France. ‘Look.’ She pointed to the text. ‘You’re not even mentioned. Yes, that the article exists is a mistake. But everyone makes mistakes now and again—’ she hesitated ‘—even you.’

  ‘But this isn’t about me.’ He paused, and then the tone of his voice suddenly turned. ‘Unless, of course, what you are really trying to tell me is that I’m precisely what this is all about.’

  ‘Please don’t talk in riddles, Leon.’

  ‘Well, if I’m to believe that you didn’t do this on purpose, that fame wasn’t top of your agenda when you agreed to work for me, then what else could possibly have induced you to say yes?’ His eyes licked over her.

  ‘I just told you. I’m passionate about the Rénards. I have been since I was a child.’ She avoided his gaze, knowing it was only designed to humiliate her further. ‘Is that so hard for you to believe?’

  When she looked up he was staring at her with an intensity which told her there was nowhere to hide. ‘It is when I know that for every minute you spend working on them you spend thirty thinking about me.’

  Cally felt horror tear through every tissue in her body, not only because, to her shame, he was right and he knew it, but because she was terrified that what he implied was true. Had she accepted this job because the feelings he evoked in her obliterated everything else? No, she’d accepted it for the sake of her career, the Rénards.

  ‘You’re wrong, Leon.’ Her voice was a husky whisper.

  ‘Am I? Then how would you explain the symptoms. Dilated pupils, shallow breathing, the way you can’t stop yourself from running your tongue over your lower lip every time you look at me? For someone who’s supposed to be an expert on diagnosis and protection, I would have thought it was obvious.’

  ‘I don’t need protection,’ Cally shot out determinedly, not noticing the look that flared in his eyes at her words.

  ‘No, I didn’t suppose for one minute that you would.’

  But before she had time to process what he meant he slid his hand across her back and drew her to him, until their bodies were pressed so closely together that in the half light it would have been impossible for an onlooker to discern where she ended and where he began.

  She froze, wanting to push him away, but unable to muster the strength. ‘Leon, don’t.’

  He held perfectly still, save for his thumb tracing the base of her spine with an affectionate intimacy that made her want to cry out. ‘Why not, chérie, when we both know it is what you want?’

  Cally shook her head wretchedly. ‘Be-because you don’t want to.’

  At her words even his thumb stopped moving and he regarded her with a faint look of surprise. ‘Is it not obvious that I want you so much I have lost the ability to think straight?’

  ‘But in London…’

  He trailed his hand up her back and rested his fingers on the pulse beating wildly in her neck. ‘It seems we were both a little guilty of saying one thing and meaning another in London.’

  Her head fell back to look into his eyes, her own eyes widening as she realised that his were completely unflinching. He meant it. Though that ought to have changed nothing, to Cally it changed everything. He did desire her. Much as she’d been convinced that was impossible, much as she’d never dreamed she could ever feel such fervent need in return, suddenly it consumed her so overwhelmingly that she didn’t even feel like the same Cally she had been two weeks ago. And, although she knew the safest option would be to button down her feelings as if they were nothing but awning caught in a disobedient wind, although she had never felt more terrified in her life, above all she understood that she would never know what it truly was to live unless she let it fly. Now.

  ‘Leon, I—’

  ‘Want me to kiss you again?’ he ventured, moving his face so close to hers that his lips were only millimetres away.

  The small sound that escaped from her throat said it all. It was unconscious, automatic, and with it he closed the gap between their mouths and gave a
n equally primal groan.

  His kiss was exactly as she’d remembered but completely different at the same time. Not only did it feel like he was slowly turning every cell in her body to liquid with each masterful stroke of his tongue, but now there was no languid music deciding their tempo, his hunger set the pace and dared her to match it. Not only did he smell of that distinctive musk she knew she would never fully be able to drive from her mind, it was now mixed with the smell of the sea—salty, damp and agonisingly erotic. So potent that she had to cling on to him to stop her knees from buckling. As she did, they stumbled forward a little, the heel of her shoe catching something other than floor.

  Her eyes flew open to find it was the foot of an easel, and suddenly she remembered where they were and froze. ‘The paintings!’

  ‘Forget the damned paintings,’ he drawled, steadying the fully clothed Amour with unconcerned ease. ‘Let’s go upstairs.’

  The thought of the royal bedroom terrified Cally. Down here she could almost believe that he wasn’t the prince, that she hadn’t completely taken leave of her senses. She bit her lip for a moment, knowing that suggesting the alternative required a boldness she wasn’t sure she possessed. But then she looked at him; his eyes were so hungry for her that it was almost possible to forget that she lacked anything at all. She swallowed down the excess of saliva that had formed in her mouth and imagined her fear disappearing with it. ‘Actually, do you…do you mind if we stay here?’

  The thought of taking her here and now made Leon harder than he had ever been in his entire life.

  ‘Mind?’ he breathed, doing nothing to disguise the roughness of his voice. ‘The only thing I mind is that you are still wearing that dress.’

  Cally’s moment of relief was replaced by a new army of nerves. ‘It does seem a little formal,’ she whispered hesitantly as his hand trailed down her neck and swept around the circle of her breast. Instinctively she arched her back to encourage his hand upwards to the unbearable tightness of her nipple, but instead his fingers moved behind her, releasing the zip of her dress with ease and peeling the straps from her shoulders.

  It was then that she remembered with horror the jade green basque and panties she was wearing underneath. She had put it on in that insane moment earlier when she’d been filled with delight at the thought of wearing the dress, followed by the girlish longing to try on the beautiful matching lingerie, the likes of which she had never worn in her life. It had felt so good, and, never supposing for a minute that anyone would see it, she’d seen no harm in keeping it on. Suddenly she felt ridiculous. What must he think of her, standing before him in lingerie that made her look like a courtesan at the Moulin Rouge, when she was nothing but an art restorer from Cambridge who hadn’t had sex for almost a decade, and had never been good at it even then?

  But when he peeled her dress down to her ankles and stepped back the pleasure on his face was so palpable—as if this was exactly how he had expected her to look, how she should look—that he made her feel like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. So much so that it was easy to forget how many other more beautiful, more experienced women than her must have stood before him like this. Easy to forget her old insecurities, to think only about how much he seemed to want her, how much she wanted him.

  Cally reached forward with new-found boldness to encourage his T-shirt from his jeans.

  ‘Allow me,’ Leon interrupted, deftly removing both so that he was standing before her in nothing but his silky dark boxers, every inch of hard muscle illuminated in the refracted light from the lamp still lying on the floor like some piece of modern art.

  He pulled her to him with renewed urgency, and she bucked in pleasure as at last his thumb brushed over her nipple through the lace of the bodice, making her whole body tremble.

  ‘I hope you’re not cold?’ he asked, the corner of his mouth quirking into a smile as he circled the taut peak.

  ‘No.'She shook her head, her breathing ragged. ‘Not cold.’

  ‘Good,’ he rasped, raising his arms and moving behind her to slowly unlace the basque.

  ‘Are you?’ Cally whispered.

  ‘Am I what?’ he whispered distractedly as he kissed the delicious hollow between her neck and her shoulder.

  ‘Are you cold?’

  ‘What do you think?’ he ground out as the basque fell to the floor and he spun her round to face him, revelling in the sight of her.

  Slowly, tentatively, she daringly reached out her hand to touch him through the thin, silky fabric. ‘You feel pretty warmed up to me.’

  Leon closed his eyes and groaned as she gradually tugged down his boxers. When he opened them again her eyes were fixed on him, her whole body momentarily still.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked choppily.

  Cally forced herself to blink, stunned by her own boldness, by the size of him, by the way his scar led into the mass of thick, dark curls. ‘Your ego is big enough as it is,’ she breathed, suddenly nervous again.

  ‘So, show me,’ he teased in delight.

  Cally looked into the depths of his eyes, her mind filling with a host of unfamiliar and erotic images that she was convinced he must somehow be transmitting to her. Images which excited her even more than they surprised her, made her forget that she wasn’t the kind of woman who instinctively understood the art of love, made her think quite the opposite. Slowly, slowly, with her breath caught nervously in her throat, she began to feather light kisses from beneath his belly button to the tip of his arousal.

  Leon watched. Her breasts grazed the shafts of his thighs as she took him in her mouth. It was almost too much for him to bear. He guided her upwards and towards the sofa.

  ‘I want to be inside you.’

  Cally wanted him inside of her too, irrationally, inexplicably. In that instant she understood, however astonishing, that was what she had wanted from the very first moment she’d laid eyes on him. Now he was sitting on the sofa, guiding her legs to either side of him, his middle finger rushing up her inner thigh, finding the most intimate part of her, moist, open, ready.

  She heard herself gasp in shock as he lowered her down onto him. Not in pain, she thought in amazement, but in pleasure. He was so warm, so thick, and it felt so right that Cally wondered how on earth she’d never known it could be like this before. Before she had time to examine what that meant, her thoughts faded like a watercolour in the rain as he began to rock her slowly back and forward.

  ‘Now you,’ he breathed hotly, slowing his pace and encouraging her to set the speed. Cally hesitated and then slowly began to move, heat rising through her. Leon placed his hands on her bottom, watching her.

  ‘Close your eyes.’

  Cally felt her breathing grow faster as she increased pace, Leon suckling her breasts. An uncontrollable groan of pleasure broke from her throat. The sound shocked her into opening her eyes, and she slowed the pace fractionally.

  ‘Let go,’ he commanded.

  ‘No, I…I don’t know…I can’t.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ he replied forcefully, and she felt him shift slightly beneath her, reaching even deeper inside her, so deep, she felt her muscles contract around the hard length of him and the beginning of a new sensation that was so frighteningly powerful—like teetering on the edge of an unfamiliar precipice—that she didn’t know what to do; she was afraid to let go.

  ‘Now,’ he urged, but still her eyes were squeezed tight. ‘Damn you, I can’t hold on!’

  Cally felt his climax rip through him, saw the tendons in his neck go taut, felt his seed spill deep inside her, and…

  It was only then, as she had been on the cusp of her very first orgasm, that she realised they hadn’t used a condom.

  Chapter Seven

  HALF-WRAPPED in the maroon throw that covered the sofa, Cally felt instantly cold. No, cold was an understatement. She felt sub-zero, as though if she went anywhere near a thermometer the mercury would shrink in on itself and disappear altogether.

  Th
ey hadn’t used a condom.

  She stared at the black restless sea outside the window, and then across at Leon, who lay by her side in a state of repose, thick-lashed eyes closed. How could they have been so stupid? They weren’t a couple of naive teenagers, they were grown adults, for goodness’ sake. He was a prince, for whom such basics had to be even more important than they were to the average male, and she was ordinarily so sensible that she never left the house without an umbrella and a packet of plasters. So why on earth hadn’t either of them given a second thought to the small matter of protection?

  Cally opened her mouth to share the burden of their irresponsibility, but just as she was about to speak a warning siren went off in her brain. Protection. She screwed up her eyes, their earlier conversation dropping back into her mind like bad news through a letterbox, her own words echoing back at her: I don’t need protection.

  Oh, dear God, he hadn’t actually assumed that she’d meant the contraceptive kind, had he? No, he couldn’t have. Perhaps Montéz was a pioneer of the male Pill and he hadn’t thought to mention it. Or maybe, since he never intended to get married, he’d had the snip. Oh, who the hell was she trying to kid? She’d inadvertently led the most virile man she’d ever met to believe that she was protected, and it was a lie. And now there was every chance that his seed was already firmly rooted inside her.

  Don’t be so ridiculous, Cally, she reprimanded herself. Whatever the movies would have you believe, the chances of getting pregnant after only one night are miniscule. Look at Jen—it took over a year of trying to get both Dylan and Josh. You’re just a natural born worrier trying to punish yourself because for once in your life you acted a little recklessly. Her eyes returned to Leon; his whole body was at ease in the aftermath of their lovemaking. What would be the good in telling him that he’d misinterpreted what she’d said? He’d probably laugh at her for being the faintest bit concerned. Either that, or he’d think she’d done it on purpose because she wanted to have his baby.