Page 32 of Cinderella's One-Night Baby

‘Please?’ Gabrielle whispered. She wouldn’t lie and say she was ill—the sickness in her stomach was wholly fear. ‘It’s a personal matter. I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important.’

Eventually there was a nod. ‘I’ll get cover for you.’

She exhaled her relief. ‘Thank you.’

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

Fighting tears, she sucked in a breath and shook her head.

No one could help her with what she needed to do.

CHAPTER NINE

THECONTRACTSOFhis new business venture with Nathaniel signed, his stomach filled with the exquisite food served by the palace’s talented chefs over a late lunch, Andrés peered out of the car window at Monte Cleure’s bustling pristine streets, tuned out the talk between the staff travelling with him, and contemplated the rest of the day that lay ahead of him. Two video conferences, one for the forthcoming Janson Media AGM and one with the acquisition team in Japan for his buyout of a cutting-edge Manga publishing company that had, in the last twenty-four hours, hit unexpected roadblocks. Hopefully it would all be sorted before he left for the evening get-together at the private members’ club. By rights, he should take a date with him, should already have organised one. It was a task he’d kept putting off and now it was too late to get anything organised. That was okay. He didn’t mind that all the others in the group he was meeting with would be paired up, and the great thing about Club Giroud was that it was no gentleman’s club—rich, successful women were equally drawn to it. Andrés had met three previous lovers in Club Giroud’s various incarnations across Europe. It was about time he found himself another lover. Tonight would be an excellent place to start.

His mind drifted to Gabrielle. It had drifted to her numerous times since their night together. Numerous times he’d been tempted to get in contact and offer to fly her out to him because,Dios, his veins still thrummed from their lovemaking. Nights were the worst. He couldn’t seem to stop his mind from reliving the pleasure they’d shared which only ramped up the thrumming in his veins that no amount of self-care seemed able to alleviate.

But just as he’d resisted reaching out to fly her to him, so too would he resist calling to see what her plans for the evening were...

A small figure hunched on the doorstep of the rear entry into his apartment building pulled him sharply from his thoughts. Craning his head back, the position of the car as it turned into the underground car park made it impossible to see for certain but that didn’t stop his hand hitting the intercom and Andrés commanding his driver to stop.

Gabrielle had watched so many chauffeur-driven cars come and go from the Imperium’s underground car park that she’d lost count. Once they were swallowed inside it, the guarded doors closed and she had no chance of following. All she could do was sit there and hope Andrés went in or out before she had to collect Lucas, and pray that he noticed her. If he didn’t or time ran away from her then she’d leave a message with the concierge for him to call her. She hoped it didn’t come to that. What she had to tell him needed to be done in person.

Time almost had run away from her when the enormous Range Rover came to an abrupt halt at the halfway point of its turn into the car park. Her heart and legs kicked into gear before her brain did, pumping wildly as she hurried to it, and so it was that when he emerged from the back, everything she’d spent the past days going over in her head dissolved.

The reality of Andrés in the flesh after nearly three weeks of memory came as a powerful shock.

Dressed in a clearly bespoke dark grey suit, everything about him was so much more than she’d remembered, from his height and breadth—he towered over her—to the dark olive hue of his skin and the blackness of his hair, even the depth of his voice when he warmly said, ‘This is a pleasant surprise. Are you here to see me?’

Her senses overwhelmed with the man who’d haunted her waking and sleeping dreams since she’d left his bed, Gabrielle nodded.

‘You should have waited in the atrium. It’s far more comfortable.’

She had to swallow to loosen her vocal cords. ‘I was afraid I’d miss you.’ The concierge—not Bernard this time—and the other staff member had taken one look at her work uniform and wrinkled their noses in unison. They’d been spectacularly unhelpful. One had called the apartment and spoken to Michael to establish that Andrés wasn’t in but refused to assist in any other way, including a refusal to let Gabrielle speak to Michael herself and at least know if Andrés was planning to return to his apartment that day.

The fizzing bolt that had shot through Andrés to realise that it really was Gabrielle on the step slipped away as he took in the pallor of her skin and the nervous, almost frightened energy she vibrated with.

Folding his arms slowly across his chest, he looked at her more closely. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Can we go somewhere private, please? I need to talk to you about something.’

His concern growing, he indicated the open door of his car. ‘Get in.’

He followed her into it. The last time they’d shared the back of a car together, it had been only the two of them. This time his PA, lawyer and PA’s assistant were with them, all pretending it was perfectly normal for a frazzled young woman in a border guard uniform and clumpy boots to join them, a pretence they kept up when the car was parked moments later in Andrés’s designated bay and maintained in the elevator ride to his penthouse. Inside, they disappeared to his offices to get back onto the phone with the team in Japan while he led Gabrielle into the main living room, the beats of his heart now painful weighty thumps.

In all his imaginings—and of course he’d had idle fantasies about running into Gabrielle again, passing her in the street, spotting her from the window of a restaurant, sometimes riding her bicycle, always with her hair loose, an irreverent laugh that only she knew the meaning behind a whisper away from escaping her pillowy lips. He’d imagined her double take when she spotted him, the smile that would spread across her face, the knowing look that would pass between them...

He’d never imagined those pillowy lips could be pulled so thin or that hair scraped back in a neat ponytail could conversely be messy and unkempt. She was holding herself so rigidly a jolt would snap her in half. Something was clearly wrong and he hoped like hell it wasn’t anything to do with her son. In the few idle hours he’d had since his last visit to Monte Cleure he’d researched the principality’s social system and learned that citizens were entitled to only the most basic health care.

Finally alone, he was about to ask again what the matter was when her dark eyes suddenly locked onto his. ‘I’m pregnant.’

Her words landed like a cold punch in his guts that spread like ice straight into his brain.

Gabrielle watched the colour drain from Andrés’s face. She watched the emotions flicker over his handsome features in slow motion, incomprehension slowly morphing into stunned disbelief and then back into incomprehension.

‘That isn’t possible,’ he dragged out hoarsely.

She forced herself to maintain eye contact. ‘I took two tests on Monday.’

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