Found: His Royal Baby. Raye Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ smile was slight but deadly. She shivered, wishing she had the strength to look away.

      “No, they don’t,” he said. “No one else tastes like you do.”

      Her heart was thudding in her throat, beating so hard she could hardly breathe. “How would you know that? It’s…it’s been years, and then you were wounded and…”

      He captured her chin in his hand, tilting her face to receive him. “I’ll show you,” he said softly, then lowered his lips to hers.

      She tried to gather the wherewithal to resist, but it was no use. His mouth felt so warm, so good, and she opened to his kiss as though she’d been starving for him.

      But it only lasted for a moment. He drew back and looked at her, shaking his head. “Alex,” he began.

      But she never heard what he was about to say. Her attention was caught by something behind him on the other side of the room. Henri was there, his long, thin body bent over, a tranquilizer gun raised and trained on his target. He was going to shoot a dart into Dane.

      Of course. It was the only way they could possibly get out of here without Dane and his security people following them. Good for Henri. Quick thinking. It made sense. And yet the feelings that filled her were overwhelming. She couldn’t do this. She had so much hidden affection for this man, despite everything. She couldn’t let him be hurt in any way.

      “No!” she cried out to Henri. “Wait!”

      Dane looked at her, startled, and by the time he realized there was someone else in the room, it was too late. The dart had been shot from the tranquilizer gun. He looked at her in disbelief, reached back to try to pull out the dart, swore and crumpled to the floor.

      “Did you hurt him?” she cried, though she knew the question was moot. Dropping to the floor, she swept his hair back off his forehead and searched his unconscious face for signs. “Didn’t you hear me say to wait?”

      Henri shrugged. Leaning down, he pulled out the dart and noted it was empty. The fluid would do its work.

      “I couldn’t risk it. He had to be rendered harmless.” He reached for her hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

      “No.” She rose, looking down at the prince. Emotion choked her throat. “We can’t leave him like this.”

      Henri looked at her, incredulous. “What are you talking about? We have to go. He might have others outside. And in any case, your brothers will be here soon. You don’t want to have to talk to them about this, do you?”

      “No.” She put a hand to her head, trying to sort things out. “We must go. But…”

      “Come along, then. Grace is already in the car with the baby. I’ll tell the manager to hold our bags and things in storage until we send for them.”

      She nodded, still looking down at where Dane lay like a wounded stag.

      “We have to take him with us,” she said softly, a feeling of wonderment growing inside her. How could she even think of such a thing? And yet, there wasn’t any choice.

      “If we leave him here…” A few horrendous consequences flashed through her mind. She looked up at Henri. “Don’t you see?”

      He looked pained, his thin face haggard. “Your brothers…”

      “Yes.” She threw a hand out, half in a sense of command, half beseeching him to understand. “Who knows what they would do to him?”

      “But, miss, we can’t,” he said, his usually stoic expression twisted into a special sort of agony. “What are we going to do with him? What will he do when he comes to? Don’t you see how dangerous that would be?”

      She stared into his worried eyes. “But don’t you see how impossible it is to leave him?” she said simply.

      He stared back and what he saw in her eyes seemed to explain it all to him. Slowly he nodded, and a look of resignation began to relax his face.

      “All right, then,” he said, resolved and back to being the normal unflappable paragon of efficiency. “I’ll take care of it. You go.”

      “No.” She shook her head, tears trembling in her eyes. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. It was just that she couldn’t bear to risk anything happening to Dane. She had to be involved. All the way.

      “No, I’ll help carry him. I’d rather.”

      He nodded curtly. “Let’s do it, then.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      ALEXANDRA stared at her reflection in the mirror and wondered who that was looking back. She looked haunted, scared, hopeless. And she needed to appear calm and cool and collected. Could she be all those things at once?

      Hardly.

      Things were rapidly careening out of control. She’d done the unthinkable—brought the crown prince of Carnethia to her only hideout, the only place where she was sure she could be safe. She’d brought the man she was hiding from right into the heart of her refuge. What was she thinking?

      But no matter how crazy it seemed, she hadn’t had a lot of choice. She couldn’t have left him in that hotel room. And what else was she going to do with him? Dump him by the side of the highway?

      “We could leave him at the house of a loyalist I know who lives not far off the highway,” Henri had suggested. “From there, we could contact the palace and tell them where he could be found.”

      She sighed. “And have the loyalist arrested for his trouble? I don’t think so.”

      Not only that, but knowing the feelings left over from the war, she didn’t trust anyone on either side to do the honorable thing. She wasn’t going to let him out of her sight until they found a way to get him back where he belonged.

      Of course, this set up quite a dilemma for her. She didn’t want to leave Dane alone, and she didn’t want to leave her baby alone, and yet she couldn’t let Dane know she had the baby with her. She was caught in a balancing act and felt like a tightrope walker whose rope had begun to sway. There had to be some resolution—fast!

      Rising from the dressing table in her third-floor bedroom, she turned to look at where Dane lay on her bed, still under the effects of the tranquilizer. Henri had tied his legs together at the ankles and then bound his wrists and tied them above his head to a bolt he’d put in the wall behind the bed.

      She hated to see that. She’d stood beside Henri the whole time he’d worked on it, urging him to be careful. But she knew the man was right when he insisted Dane had to be restrained somehow. Still, this was terrible. He was a prince. How could they treat him like this? Right now, she just wanted this whole thing to be over.

      Moving closer, she looked down at him, checking his breathing as she’d done every few moments since they’d left the Lion’s Mane. He still seemed to be doing all right. She touched the pulse at the side of his neck and nodded. There was no sign of distress in his vitals.

      Her face softened as she studied him. His eyes were shadowed darkly, but his color was good and his face СКАЧАТЬ