Pregnant with the Prince's Child by Raye Morgan Read Free Book Online

She had to find a way to make him think things through before he acted.
    “Clear them with you?” He looked at her as though she were a slightly annoying insect he could bat away at will. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re nothing to me. You’re an employee.”
    Something choked in her throat. He was right, of course. She was nothing to him. Not anymore. She started to turn away, but he seemed to regret his harsh words.
    “Wait a minute,” he said, calling her back.
    She stopped and glanced back at him, hoping he couldn’t see how much he’d hurt her. She had no right to be hurt. She was nothing to him. But there was one problem. He was still everything to her. She just needed time to train herself not to care. Slowly, reluctantly, she turned back toward him and waited for his explanation.
    “I apologize,” he said. “That was uncalled for.” He smiled at her, then turned off the water and leaned out. “And anyway, I need you here to hand me a towel.”
    She made a face, but did as he asked, handing him a nice thick one. He dried himself behind the shower curtain, then wrapped it around his waist and stepped out onto the bath mat, being careful and a bit tentative, but able to manage it on his own. And looking proud of himself for it.
    About then she told herself she really ought to be backing out of the bathroom. Ordinarily, with a stranger, she would have been long gone. But being here like this with Mykal felt natural and familiar. And so here she was.
    She should have gone. But her body didn’t seem to be obeying orders from the top right now. Every piece of her attention was being soaked up by the sense of the beautiful man standing before her. A few weeks in a coma didn’t seem to have sapped away any of that long, lean muscle mass that worked together to form a hard, sleek classic statue of a man, and the memory of what his strong arms had felt like as they tightened around her took her breath away. Her gaze trailed from his wide shoulders down across his gorgeous chest with its fine mat of dark hair.
    This was the man she had loved with a crazy passion such a short time ago. Something inside, some insane impulse, told her to throw herself into his arms. That he would remember if she only held him and kissed him like she used to. That all would be forgiven and they would laugh together and make love together and blot out all the bad times as though they had never happened. It was worth a try. Wasn’t it?
    Everything in her yearned to take the chance.
    But then she looked up into his eyes and what she saw there stopped her cold. There was no love. There was no memory. There was only a faintly amused look of surprise. He thought she was being overwhelmed by his manly presence, and he was right. Only, he thought she was an employee who could be flirted with, to a point, but needed to be kept at arm’s length. And she wasn’t.
    Taking a deep breath, she tried to get her bearings and get back to the job at hand.
    “Uh…” She swallowed hard and lifted her chin, blinking in the light. “Listen, playing Russian roulette is not just a fun option. It’s risking your life. And I’m supposed to make sure you don’t do that.”
    His frown was stubborn. “But that’s just it. It’s my life. It belongs to me. Not you. Not the doctors. Not the wise guys at the castle. Just me.”
    He was right, but it made her want to cry. She couldn’t explain to him why she felt she had a stake in this situation. She couldn’t tell him much.
    He hitched up the towel and gave her a look of pure skepticism. She drew in her breath, startled by his distrust. Still, he was so beautiful, she was tempted to start letting her gaze travel over him again, a simple, guilty pleasure. But his look suddenly hardened, as though he’d remembered she was an interloper and wasn’t sure why she was still hanging around.
    “So let’s get this straight,” he was saying. “I’ll do things at my own pace. You can give