Page 70 of His Secretly Pregnant Cinderella

“Why not?”

“Because I do not have the patience to eat it.”

He reached across the table then, drew her to him, and kissed her on the mouth.

She made a muffled cry as he did so, and then she stood, rounding the table quickly and scrabbling into his lap. He kissed her like he was dying. Like she was water and he was a man dying of thirst out in the middle of the desert.

He kissed her because there was nothing else he could do. He kissed her, because he wanted nothing else.

And she was like a flame in his arms, hot and perfect, and when he pressed his mouth to hers he whispered, “Mine.”

He picked her up and carried her into the house, up the stairs, and he took her straight to his room. His room. Because he had been a fool to believe that he would ever keep her in her own room.

No. She was his.

And this was beyond the desire that he had felt for her on the deck. When he had claimed her on the yacht fresh with the knowledge in his mind that she had never been with another man.

He had been consumed then by the primal urge to claim her, but it had still not been this. This wholehearted acceptance of the fact that she was his.

That there was no part of her that belonged to Alex, least of all their children.

And that he was... And that he was glad of it. That he would want it no other way.

He laid her down on the white sheets, her dress like spilled ink across the pristine fabric. Her red hair as a flame.

She was exquisite. And he had never known such need.

“Please,” she whispered.

Begging for him.

Morgan was begging for him.

And he felt...

She had made him dinner. And she begged for him.

He had no shortage of women in his life, in his bed. Women who came to him because they wanted a powerful man. And he was not foolish enough to be unaware of the fact that physically he was the sort of man women desired. It was simply the way he was put together, and he never had vanity about it, nor humility.

It was simply part of who he was, the same as the money, the same as the power. But that Morgan wanted him suddenly mattered.

That it was her begging for his touch, that mattered.

And why? She had said it herself. She was a waitress. He was a billionaire.

And yet, he felt in the moment that the power was with her. He stripped his clothes off, and came down to lie beside her, running his hands over her curves. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled the strap on her dress down, displaying one pale breast for his enjoyment. And then the other.

He ran his hands slowly over them, flicking his thumbs over her nipples. Watching as she gasped with need. She arced up off the bed, a live wire of desire, and he pulled the dress down more, revealing the rounded curve of her stomach. And truly, in that moment it struck him, that she was carrying his children. His children. His blood. His blood in the way that Athena had been. And they were twins. A boy and a girl. He put his hands on her body then, watched as they covered the baby bump.

“I will protect you,” he said.

And he kissed her there then, resting his forehead right there. “I swear upon my life. I will not let anything happen to you.”

A vow. Both to Morgan, and to his children.

“You cannot take that all on yourself,” she whispered. She ran her hand over his hair, down his jaw, and tilted his face up to look at her.

“Yes, I can,” he said.

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