Kidnapped for His Royal Duty Read online

  She bit her lip and looked away, tears in her eyes. “It’s too little, too late, Dal. You’ve hurt me—”

  “I did. I know I did, and I’m sorry. Poppy, I am an arse. I’m ruthless and relentless but none of this should surprise you. You know me. And you married me, knowing me.”

  “True, and I’ve realized you haven’t changed. You’ll never change. I’m not going to change, either. I will always want more and you will want less.”

  “If I wanted less, why did I marry you? If I wanted less, why didn’t I pick one of those silly party girls who would have been grateful for my wealth and position, instead of throwing it in my face? If I wanted less, why did I choose the woman who wanted more? Who demands more? Who insists I demand more, too? If less was my future, then why have I struggled to grow and change for you?”

  She said nothing.

  Frustration filled him. “Poppy, who would I be without you?” And then he fell silent, his question hanging there between them for what felt like forever.

  Finally unable to bear the silence a moment longer, she said, “You are the Earl of Langston and the Prince of Mehkar.”

  “Actually, I’m not the Earl of Langston anymore.”

  She looked at him, aghast.

  He shrugged. “You’re not the only one who can make grand gestures. I can, too, and I’ve chosen to walk away from the title and the house and everything it entails. It was a bit more complicated than I imagined, but it’s done now. It’s what I’ve been working on since our wedding.”

  “The problem in London?”

  He nodded.

  “But you married me to secure—”

  “You. I married you because I couldn’t imagine going through life without you. Poppy, I don’t care about titles and houses. I don’t need anything but you.”

  “Then why the rush? Why the pressure?”

  “I wanted to keep the promise I made to my father. And I did. And now I’m free.”

  She looked away, blinking back tears.

  “I am not good with words, my sweet Poppy, but you are my other half. You are my heart and my soul. You are my family and my future. Please don’t leave, and if you’re determined to go, then plan on taking me.”

  She brushed away her tears. “You won’t like my crowded, untidy little flat.”

  “I will if that’s where you want to be. If that’s what feels like home.”

  “The flat’s so small there’s barely room for me, never mind you.”

  “We’ll downsize.”

  She spluttered on laughter. “You have no idea what you’re saying. You’re accustomed to huge houses and servants and people bowing and scraping.”

  “Not anymore. I’ve given it up.”

  “What about here in Mehkar? Are you still Prince Talal, or have you dispensed with that, too?”

  “No, I’m still Prince Talal.” He grimaced. “And I should probably tell you something that I ought to have told you long ago.”

  “Oh, no.” She looked at him, immediately wary. “I don’t know if I want to hear this.” She looked into his eyes, worried. “What is it? What else have you done?”

  “I haven’t done anything yet. You see, I am my grandfather’s heir. When he dies, I will be king.”

  “Oh, Dal.”

  “I know it’s a lot to process—”

  “He’s healthy, though, isn’t he? At least he seemed relatively fit and strong when he was here for the wedding.”

  “He’s as healthy as an eighty-four-year-old man can be.”

  “That’s good.”

  He regarded her a moment, the corners of his mouth curving. “You took that better than I expected.”

  “You must know I don’t really wish to be a queen. I just want a cozy little house in the Cotswolds—”

  “With a couch and a telly.” He smiled and kissed her. “I promise you’ll have the house you’ve always dreamed about. And the television set, too.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Absolutely not. I’m just trying to reassure you that I’m listening and attentive to your needs.”

  She groaned and rolled her eyes. “You are impossible.”

  “Yes, I know. But isn’t that what you always liked about me?”

  EPILOGUE

  TALAL’S CORONATION WAS nearly ten years to the day of their wedding at Kasbah Jolie.

  It was early July and impossibly hot. The Gila palace was air-conditioned but with so many guests crowded into the reception room, the air conditioner couldn’t quite do its job.

  Poppy was miserable in her gold gown and heels. Not because the kaftan was tight; if anything it was made of the lightest, softest silk imaginable, but she was very pregnant, nine months pregnant, and her ankles were swelling and she was desperate to be off her feet.

  Thank goodness she knew what to expect. This was her fourth pregnancy and she always felt irritable at this stage, ready for the bump to be gone and the baby to be in her arms. She was always anxious as the due date grew closer, worried about any number of things that could go wrong. Fortunately, the first three deliveries went without a hitch and all three were really good children, and very excited about the new one, because finally the three boys would have a baby sister.

  Poppy struggled to not fidget as Dal accepted his new crown, and the duties it entailed.

  But it was hard to stand perfectly still with the odd contractions. They were false contractions, she was sure. She’d had them with the last two pregnancies and she knew now not to be alarmed.

  She pressed her elbow to her side, pressing against the tension that wrapped her abdomen.

  She must be overly hot and overly tired because that one felt like the real thing.

  And then her water broke and Poppy’s head jerked up. Dal was suddenly looking at her and she didn’t remember speaking, or making a sound, but suddenly he was there, at her side, his arm around her.

  “What’s happening?”

  “My water just broke,” she whispered, aware that all two hundred plus people in the reception room were watching. “But it’s too early. She’s not due for another couple of weeks.”

  “Apparently, no one told her that,” he said, smiling warmly into her eyes.

  Poppy’s heart turned over. Ten years of marriage and he still made her melt. “I’m sorry we’re disrupting the ceremony.”

  “I’m not. I can’t wait to meet her. You know how much I’ve wanted a daughter.”

  Another contraction hit and Poppy gasped and squeezed his arm. “It seems she’s in a rush to meet you, too!”

  “I’m not surprised. If she’s anything like her mother, she’s going to be fierce and loyal and impossibly loving.” He wrapped his arm around her waist, supporting her. “I love you, Queen Poppy, completely and madly, you know.”

  “What has happened to my safe, predictable Englishman?”

  “Gone, I’m afraid.”

  She gripped his arm as another contraction hit.

  “And so are we,” he added, swinging her into his arms. “Because I don’t trust our little princess not to make an appearance here and now.”

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed KIDNAPPED FOR HIS ROYAL DUTY by Jane Porter, look out for Caitlin Crews’s contribution to their STOLEN BRIDES duet THE BRIDE’S BABY OF SHAME

  Available July 2018!

  And in the meantime, why not explore these other stories by Jane Porter?

  HIS MERCILESS MARRIAGE BARGAIN

  HER SINFUL SECRET

  BOUGHT TO CARRY HIS HEIR

  Available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from BLACKMAILED BY THE GREEK’S VOWS by Tara Pammi.

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  Blackmailed by the Greek’s Vows

  by Tara Pammi

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE WAS DRESSED like a...a hooker.

  No...not exactly a hooker.

  No hooker he knew possessed the class, the style and the innate grace that imbued every one of his wife’s movements.

  More of a high-class escort.

  It took Kairos Constantinou a few seconds to clear the red haze that descended in front of his eyes.

  Dios...of all the stunts he had expected his impulsive, fiery wife to pull, it hadn’t been this.

  When his PI had informed him that he’d located Valentina and that she’d be aboard Kairos’s own yacht for the party tonight, he hadn’t been surprised.

  Valentina had always been the life of the party scene in Milan.

  Lively. Sensual. Like a beautiful butterfly that flits from flower to flower. The minute her brother Leandro had pointed her out to Kairos, standing amidst a gaggle of men, Kairos had decided he wanted her.

  Three minutes into Leandro introducing them, he’d known she was going to be his wife.

  She had been the best possible incentive Leandro could have offered to reel Kairos into the alliance. Kairos would gain entry into the rarefied old-world alliances that her family the Conti dynasty, swam in, and she would get a rich husband.

  Not once had he questioned why Leandro had thought he needed to set up his beautiful sister like that.

  All Kairos had wanted was the prize that was Valentina Conti.

  Except, a week into his marriage, he had realized his wife was anything but a trophy.

  She was emotionally fiery, intensely vulnerable and impulsive as hell.

  The best example of which was her deserting him nine months ago without so much as a word.

  And to find her here among this crowd now.

  With instincts he’d honed among the street gangs of Athens, he noted three Russian investors who operated businesses barely this side of legal—the men his friend Max intended to wine and dine—another man who was a model and a friend of Valentina’s, and five women to entertain them, not counting Valentina.

  Women of the oldest profession known to man. Not streetwalkers, like some of his earliest friends, but undoubtedly from an escort service.

  And the most provocatively dressed among them was Valentina in a flimsy gold dress.

  The slinky material pooled at her chest to create a low neckline that left her shoulders and her toned arms bare. It pushed up those small breasts that he had touched and kissed and sucked while she writhed under him, like a lover’s hands.

  So much golden, soft, silky skin... His jaw tightened like a vise as three other men salivated over her.

  But it was the smiles she bestowed on the men as she charmed them, those arms flying about in that way of hers while she narrated some escapade in her accented English, full of fire, the way she put a hand on Max’s arm and thanked him when he refilled her drink...that was what caused the ice to stiffen his spine.

  The wall of detachment that had always been his armor against anything was his only defense.

  No, this was only want. Physical want...nothing more.

  He still wanted her, desperately, because she was Valentina and even with her explosive tempers and childish tantrums, she had still snuck under his skin.

  He needed her as his wife for a few months. And in those few months, he’d work her out of his blood. Out of his life.

  If Valentina Conti Constantinou had indulged in some fantasy delusion that her husband Kairos had arrived on the yacht to achieve some sort of romantic reunion between them, he burned the notion to ashes within the first few minutes.

  It had been disturbing enough to find that not only had her photographer friend Nikolai, at whose persuasion she had come to the party, manipulated her into wearing the tackiest outfit, but that she was surrounded by women from an escort service and men expected to be entertained by them.

  She’d squared her shoulders, made Nikolai claim her for the evening, and had begun to charm the Russians. The one thing she knew how to do. She might have been living on nothing for months but she had class. Years of practice at playing the perfect socialite—well-versed in fashion and politics.

  Until Kairos had walked in.

  Barely sipping her G&T, she nodded at something Nikolai whispered in her ear, keeping her effusive smile firmly in place. Her throat was raw with the falsely pitched laughs, and her chest hurt at having to play the unruffled socialite the way she had all her life.

  Every inch of her rebelled against the calm she had assumed from the moment Kairos had stepped onto the deck. Every cell in her roared to swat away the woman who was even now cozying up to him, far too pleased with herself.

  She wanted to announce to the rest of them that he was hers.

  But he had never belonged to her.

  Her grip shook, clinking the ice in her tumbler.

  Tina put her glass down, fighting for control.

  Men scrambled around Max for an introduction to Kairos, and the women—hair fluffed, breasts pushed up to spill out of already plunging necklines—it was as if the rough, rugged masculinity of him was an inviting caress to every woman.

  Dios mio, the strength of his sheer masculine appeal hit her like a punch now, shaking her up, turning her inside out.

  His white shirt stretched tight across his broad shoulders, enhancing his raw, rugged appeal. His expansive chest tapered down to a narrow waist, over leaner hips and then he was all legs. Hard, muscular thighs followed by those runner’s calves that had once driven her crazy.

  His hair was cut into that short style he preferred. Her fingers twitched, remembering the rough sensation of it, and she fisted them at her side. His gaze flicked down to her hands and then back up her body, slowly, possessively.

  Those silvery eyes lingered on the long stretch of her legs, her thighs, noted the short hem of the dress, up to her waist, lingered again over her breasts, moved up her neck and then settled again on her face.

  If he had run those hands over her body with that rough urgency that he’d always mastered before he lost control, she couldn’t have felt more owned. With one look, he plunged her into that state of mindless longing, that state of anticipation he had become used to expecting from her.

  Shivering inside her skin, forgetting all the misery he had inflicted on her, Tina lifted her chin in defiance.

  He had never liked her to dress provocatively. Had never liked her easy attitude with other men, that almost flirty style of talking that was her nature.
They had had more than one row on the subject of her dresses, her hair, her shoes, her style, her attitude and even her body.

  One of the blondes she had genuinely liked earlier—Stella of the big boobs and even bigger hips—tapped his arm. A smile curving his thin lips, he sliced his gaze away in clear, decisive dismissal.

  Tears scratched up Tina’s throat and she hurriedly looked away before someone could see her mortification.

  Nine months ago, she’d have slapped the woman’s face—she cringed at the memory of doing that to her sister-in-law Sophia, having been induced into a jealous, insecure rage. She’d have screamed and made a spectacle of herself, she’d have let her temper get the better of her and proved to everyone and Kairos how crazy she was about him.

  Nine months ago, she’d have let the hot emotions spiraling through her dictate her every word, every move.

  Nine months ago, she’d been under the stupid delusion that Kairos had married her because he wanted her, because he felt something for her, even if he didn’t put it in words.

  But no, he had married her as part of an alliance with her brother Leandro. Even after learning that bitter truth, she could have given her marriage a try.

  But Kairos didn’t possess a heart. Didn’t know what to do with one given into his keeping.

  She had humiliated herself, she had prostrated her every thought, every feeling at his feet. And it hadn’t been enough.

  She hadn’t been enough.

  * * *

  “So you’re truly over with him...that glowering husband of yours.”

  “Si,” Tina said automatically. And then wished she hadn’t.

  When the party began winding down, she had slipped below deck with the excuse of visiting the ladies’ room and hidden herself away in the lovely gray-and-blue bedroom, her nerves frayed to the hilt at the constant awareness of Kairos.

  It was tiring to play the stoic, unaffected party girl. To stuff away all the longing and hurt and anger into a corner of her heart.

  But Nikolai had followed her downstairs.

  Although over the last couple of months she’d realized that Nikolai was harmless, he was drunk now. Her brother Luca had taught her long ago never to trust a drunken man.