Pregnant with the Prince's Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

inside that only came out in dreams to tell him something was deeply, horribly flawed inside him had it right after all. He was in the wrong family.
    And now someone at the royal castle had decided he might be one of the lost princes who had scattered into hiding at the time of the original rebellion that overthrew the monarchy almost thirty years before. He had no idea if there was any truth to it. If there was, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to participate. But his mind was too fuzzy right now to try to think it through.
    The way he saw it, only two items were blemishing an otherwise charmed life for him. First, this damn injury that kept him drugged at the edge of disaster. And second, his loss of memory regarding the last few years of his life. Other than that, things were coming up roses.
    He sighed and went back to sleep.

CHAPTER THREE
    J ANIS woke to a cooler, darkened room. Someone had come in and turned on a side lamp, but the light it shed was minimal. They had also left a tray with a covered bowl. She rose and went over to take a peek. Chicken soup. She smiled. At least the butler took her seriously.
    But the soup had cooled. How long had she been sleeping? She looked around for a clock and didn’t find one.
    And finally, she looked at Mykal.
    Her heart was in her throat again. Just looking at him sent her over the moon. She was in big trouble. How was she going to convince her traitorous heart not to love him? She began to pace the room, hands clenched into fists, thinking furiously, trying to get a handle on her situation.
    Obviously, she couldn’t stay here. What had she been thinking? The need to make sure Mykal was safe had overwhelmed her good sense. See how he contorted her emotions? She didn’t dare stay and let that happen time after time, as it surely would.
    She’d come with three objectives and not one of them was in the bag. That was a pretty poor performance. But how could she fight a man who was in such a precarious position? No way. She would just have to leave and hope she could get this close to him again later.
    “Or else, send him a sternly worded letter,” she muttered to herself ruefully. “Arrgghh.”
    All right, that was settled. She was leaving. She glanced at him again and winced. He was so darn beautiful. But he made her heart ache with a longing she didn’t need right now. She was going. Just exactly where, she didn’t know. These last few weeks in the prison camp, all she’d thought about was finding him and confronting him for all the misery she’d been through. It still hurt so badly to know he could have spared her all that if he’d cared enough to lift a finger.
    But he hadn’t. And now he was the one in trouble. Why should she bother with him?
    She shouldn’t. It was over.
    She was deep in thought but suddenly her senses tingled. Someone was coming into the room behind her. The butler? Another servant? Before she could turn to see who it was, a male voice shot across the room like the flash from a flamethrower.
    “Who the hell are you?”
    The words hit her from behind but the man’s hand was on her neck before the words even registered. She didn’t have to think. She reacted on instinct and training, setting her foot and shifting her weight and grabbing the man by the neck. It was all a matter of balance and leverage. She’d done it so often it came naturally, and she slung him over her head, onto the floor. He landed with a grunt and lay very still. She gasped, wondering if she’d killed him.
    But then a string of obscenities came pouring out of his mouth and she sighed with relief. Anyone who could swear like that still had a lot of life in him.
    “Hey, I’m really sorry,” she said, sounding less than sincere. “But you shouldn’t touch a woman without warning like that.”
    The obscenities didn’t stop, and suddenly she realized there was a background sense of chuckling going on. Turning, she found Mykal sitting upright and grinning from ear to