Page 1 of Pregnant After One Forbidden Night

CHAPTER ONE

FORTHEFIRSTtime in his life, Sebastian Redcliff gave another human being a second look.

And then he stared.

She wore the dark blue uniform of the royal guard.

Thick layers of colorful Kevlar, utility pockets, and polyester obscured the shape of her body and she wore her near-black hair in a severe and simple low braid that swung down her back. There was nothing remarkable about any of it.

Her sloe-eyed gaze was wide, like a forest doe’s, and her nose straight at the bridge and rounded at the tip.

Her lips were wide, and her mouth a natural dusky rose.

In fact, if it hadn’t been for her incredibly thick eyebrows, the kind that could catapult a model to international fame, there would be absolutely nothing unique or particularly remarkable about her looks.

But it wasn’t her physical appearance that had led to Sebastian’s uncharacteristic pause.

He was the head of intelligence for the island nation of Cyrano.

Appearances were particularly superficial to Sebastian.

But, blessed—or cursed—as he was with above average gifts in the art of seeing beneath the surface of things, he found himself ensnared upon laying eyes on her.

A blinding prism of light lay beneath her surface.

He had never encountered a person—man, woman or child—who exuded goodness with the intensity that she did.

Confronted with all of that earnest intention—so much delicious passion for hoping and trying, not for gain, but simply because it was the right thing to do—wrapped up in one person filled Sebastian with an imperative and irresistible urge to dive into her light.

The sky was up, gravity held the universe together and he had to quell the first thing that had ever distracted him from carrying out his duties.

His presence at the event tonight was a matter of business, an opportunity to debrief with the king while hiding in plain sight, as they said.

There would be no hiding, however, with a light like hers around.

Fortunately, if Sebastian had learned anything in his life to date, it was that things tended to only look bright from far away.

Looking deeper, learning more, was all it typically took to dim the glow.

It was only the most incurable fools who remained transfixed on the item of their obsession after scratching the surface, and he was many things, but not a fool.

In all his life, he’d found nothing so effective at dimming his interest in a person as having sex with them.

Intimate knowledge, he’d found, quickly tarnished illusions.

And whatever else he knew and thought about her—which was a surprising amount given that vetting royal security records was one of his many duties—it was very certain that, paragon of dedication though she may be, she was still just a wretched human like the rest of them.

It was his job to keep that in mind, just as it was his job to remain impenetrable, inscrutable and always one step ahead.

That she’d penetrated him with her glamour, wreaking havoc on any semblance of inscrutability, was therefore an intolerance that required redress.

Right now, inscrutable was the furthest thing from what he was.

Watching her, he was filled with the feeling that if she decided to aim the high beams of all that goodness at him, he might disintegrate like a vampire in sunlight.

Or even worse, he might be flayed open and revealed with no place left to hide.

Her name was Jenna Noelle Moustafa—she was of good Cyranese stock and a dedicated member of the Priory, a small religious group, and had a record to prove it.

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