The Royal Baby Revelation by Sharon Kendrick Read Free Book Online

foot on this island again—nor Ben grow to know his father as she had so hoped. Nobody could say she hadn’t tried—but one day she was going to have to have a painful conversation with her beloved son.
    She walked back to the house they’d provided for her, which stood within the grounds of the vast palace complex, but she didn’t go straight to bed. She was so unsettled that even attempting to sleep would have been a complete waste of time. And although there was every state-of-the-art diversion you could think of, she couldn’t imagine summoning up any interest in a DVD or one of the books which took up an entire wall of the sumptuous sitting room.
    She found herself missing Ben and wishing that she could ring him. But even if it hadn’t been so late—you couldn’t really speak to a thirteen-month-old baby on the phone, could you? She’d tried it when she arrived yesterday. According to her aunt, Ben had kept trying to snatch the handset and hurl it to the ground—and once he’d worked out that it was his mother at the other end of the line he had burst into noisy howls of rage.
    Instead, Melissa packed her small suitcase—layering in her jeans and her tops and her work-clothes. Afterwards, she stripped off her clothes and took a shower—telling herself that tomorrow night she would be standing beneath the half-hearted splutter of tepid water in her tiny bathroom at home and to make the most of this unparalleled luxury while she had the chance.
    But it was hard to be enthusiastic in such circumstances and the powerful jets of water and the lavish array of soaps and shampoos did little to distract her swirling thoughts. Plan A had been to tell Casimiro about Ben—and that had failed spectacularly. She didn’t even have a Plan B.
    Towelling herself dry and raking a comb through the dark wet strands of her hair, Melissa pulled on the oversized T-shirt which had been given to her by one of her clients and which she now wore as a nightie. She’d just finished boiling the kettle to make herself a cup of herbal tea when there was a low but insistent knocking at the front door, and she glanced at her watch and frowned.
    Getting on for two o’clock—surely Stephen wouldn’t come calling this late?
    The tapping resumed and her heart began to pound—because unless it was the dreaded Orso about to kick her off the complex, there was only one person Melissa could imagine knocking this late.
    Tiptoeing over to the door, she drew a deep breath. ‘Who is it?’
    ‘Who the hell do you think it is?’
    He didn’t sound like a king when he said that, and when Melissa pulled open the door, he didn’t much look like a king either. In those faded denim jeans which showcased his endlessly long legs and a black T-shirt emphasising the muscular wall of his torso, he looked more like some off-duty film star.
    But the way he strode past her and then kicked the door shut with an impatience he couldn’t conceal was pure royal arrogance and anger.
    As he turned to face her, trying to control the ragged rage of his breathing, Casimiro’s eyes scanned her in disbelief. Her long dark hair was drying in some kind of wild cloud around her head and she was wearing an awful shapeless grey garment which carried a picture of a giant cell phone and asked the question: Are You Turned On?
    His lips curved in distaste—but the tacky sentiment must have subliminally registered in his subconscious because he started noticing that her long legs were completely bare. And that she had no polish on her toes. And that her small breasts were pushing against the fabric of her T-shirt—their shape outlined and their tips as hard as tiny diamonds.
    It was inexplicable and ridiculous that he should find such a woman attractive and yet he would have been a liar if he had denied the stab of desire which began to tug at his groin.
    But he swiftly pushed that from his mind—acknowledging that her extraordinary statement had somehow managed to influence