LITMIR.BIZ

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I made all the arrangements for a student loan.” She took a breath. “Then I broke the news to Mama. I told her how hard it was to get into FIT, I showed her my portfolio, and she said—”

      “She said you had amazing talent, and that you’d be the next—who’s that New York designer? Donna Karan?”

      Maria smiled, but her smile trembled. “She said I was a foolish girl with silly dreams.”

      Alex’s arms tightened around her. “Ah, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I should have figured… I mean, the other night—”

      “No, it’s okay. Maybe it’ll help you understand why—why she acted the way she did when you met her.” She took a deep breath. “See, my mother never finished high school. She went to work when she was sixteen, operating a sewing machine in the garment center. She was determined I would not do the same, and I couldn’t make her see that I wouldn’t end up that way.”

      “And your father?”

      “What about him?” she said, with a nonchalance as transparent as glass. “He owned the company where Mama worked. He was rich. He had a house on Long Island. He had a big car.” She cleared her throat. “He also had a wife and kids.”

      “And your poor mother had no idea …” Alex said tightly.

      “She had every idea.” Maria’s voice turned brittle. “He said he’d leave his wife and marry her—but, of course, he didn’t. And then, when she told him she was pregnant with me, he said she was lying. When he realized it was the truth, he gave her some money. For an abortion, he said. But she didn’t have an abortion, she had me instead, and he said that had been her decision, a bad decision, and then he fired her and she never saw him again.”

      Alex had gone very still. Maria bit back a groan. Whatever had possessed her to tell him all that? She could have just told him the first part. School. College. FIT. But the rest… Why had she unloaded that sad, dumb story on him? She never talked about her life. Never. Joaquin knew, but they’d grown up together. Sela knew, but she was her best friend. No one else knew that she was a bastard and yes, that was the right word. It was an old-fashioned word in lots of places but in Maria’s world, the world her mother had created and in which she had raised her, the word still carried the smear of disgrace and dishonor.

      Stupid, she told herself fiercely, how incredibly stupid, to tell such ugly things to a man who might as well have been born and raised on another planet.

      “Well,” she said brightly, “so much for Tales from the Bronx.” She sat forward in Alex’s lap. “This has been a lovely break, Alex, but I have to get to work and—”

      “Has he never tried to see you?”

      “Who?” she said, even more brightly. “Oh, my father? No. Why would he? I didn’t need anything from him. I wouldn’t take anything, even if he—”

      “How could a man turn his back on the woman who carried his child? On the child herself?”

      “Well, I don’t know, but—”

      Alex turned her face to his, cupped it with his hands and kissed her.

      “You’re a strong, brave woman, kardia mou,” he said softly. “And I am honored to have become your lover.”

      They fell into an easy pattern, like lovers who had been together a long time.

      Not that what happened in bed lost its excitement.

      It couldn’t, not when the sight of Alex coming toward her sent Maria’s pulse skittering, not when Maria’s smile was enough to fill Alex with such hunger that there were times he had to turn away to keep from sweeping her into his arms and making love to her wherever they happened to be.

      He didn’t always turn away.

      He made love to her in the workshop. In the garden. In the back of the limo with the privacy screen up, bringing her to climax with his hand high under her skirt, his mouth hot on hers. And he made love to her in bed. The demure bed in the workshop; the big, beautiful one in his room. They made love, and talked and laughed, and worked—she in her workshop, he in his study at the house. And they discovered all the things they needed to know about each other.

      Maria no longer felt ill. The early morning nausea was a thing of the past. There were times she still felt exhausted but flu often left you feeling tired; everyone said so.

      The only dark moments came when she remembered that her days with Alex were slipping away. The necklace was almost finished, the big birthday celebration loomed on the horizon. A week passed, then another, and the final week of her stay began.

      When it ended, there would be nothing to keep her here.

      Unless Alex asked her to stay. And she, who had spent her life avoiding relationships, who had never imagined repeating her mother’s foolish involvement with a man who was all wrong for her…

      She knew she would stay, if Alexandros asked her.

      But he didn’t. Why would he? How would he? He was a prince while she—she was a girl born into illegitimacy and raised in poverty. She could have a place in Alex’s bed but she would never have one in his life.

      So she concentrated on completing the necklace until, finally, she had only to set one of the fabulous pink stones in its center, but she had to see the Crown of Aristo before she could do that.

      The king kept making appointments for that to happen, then cancelling them.

      On a rainy afternoon just days before the queen’s birthday party, Maria decided this couldn’t go on. Alex had a meeting in Ellos. After he was gone, she phoned the palace, left a polite message with Aegeus’s personal secretary. She had to see the crown today, she said, or the queen’s gift might not be as perfect as the king and she both wished.

      She hung up the phone and was suddenly overwhelmed by nausea. It took her by surprise. Apparently, she wasn’t over the flu quite yet.

      She barely made it to the bathroom, where she was horribly sick. When the spasms finally ended, she flushed the toilet, brushed her teeth, rinsed her mouth and started for the bedroom when a shocking wave of vertigo swept over her.

      Maria stumbled and fell against the door jamb. The collision wasn’t particularly hard but the impact was painful and hurt her breasts. They’d grown so tender lately; even making love with Alex, there were times the touch of his mouth on her nipples came close to being painful…

       Oh God!

      Tender breasts. Nausea that seemed to have no basis. And, she thought, biting back a moan, and a period that had not come in… in, what? Two months? Three?

      “No,” she whispered, “please, please, no …”

      The phone rang. She tried to ignore it but the ringing went on and on…

      “Hello?”

      It was the king’s secretary. She would be permitted to see the crown an hour from now.

      “I can’t,” Maria said, trembling as she counted back, again and again, to the last time she’d menstruated. “How about this afternoon? Or this evening?”

      “One hour, Ms. Santos,” a commanding voice barked through the phone, “or not at all.”

      It was the king himself, and she knew he meant it.

      “I’ll be there, Your Majesty,” she whispered.

      She—and the illegitimate royal baby she now realized lay cradled in her womb.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      MARIA showered quickly and dried her hair while trying not to think about anything but the meeting with the king…

      Impossible,

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