Prince's Love-Child. Кэрол МортимерЧитать онлайн книгу.

      PROLOGUE

      ‘RIK…! Rik Prince, can that really be you…?’

      He froze at the first sound of that husky, sensual voice. No—it was worse than that, he actually felt paralysed, every muscle and sinew immobile with shock, his chest having stopped rising and falling, only his heart, with a will of its own, continuing to beat. But faster, so much faster than normal, as if trying to protect itself from the onslaught of remembered pain.

      That voice!

      So easily recognisable, so painfully remembered. It was the voice that had spoken to him in his dreams so often in the past. The voice that, for months, had motivated him to pick up the telephone a dozen times a day, hoping to hear its honeyed warmth on the other end of the line…

      Calls he had never made. But, he realised now, he hadn’t thought of her for months; his previous unhappiness was completely buried.

      Or so he had thought…

      ‘Rik…?’ The precisely English-accented tones were closer now.

      In fact, as her hand reached out to touch him gently on his T-shirted back, Rik knew she had to be standing directly behind him.

      How the hell was he supposed to deal with seeing her again after all this time?

      He wasn’t dealing with it at all at this moment; just standing here in the middle of the street, paralysed with shock, couldn’t be classed as dealing with anything!

      Breathe, you idiot, he instructed himself firmly, relieved when his body obeyed the command and his chest began to rise and fall once again. Now turn around, he ordered determinedly. Just turn around and face her. It couldn’t be any harder than walking away from her had been five years ago.

      Could it…?

      If anything she was more beautiful than ever; tall, golden and tanned, with the most incredible green eyes he had ever seen. Diamond McCall. And how she lived up to that name—her beauty was dazzling.

      Even in a skimpy pink T-shirt and ragged denim cut-offs, there was no doubting that this woman was someone. In Dee’s case, despite or because of her melodious English tones, she was the present highest-paid actress in Hollywood, her name at the top of the credits, and enough to guarantee any movie she was in would be a box-office hit.

      She was also someone else’s wife…!

      ‘I thought it was you!’ she exclaimed excitedly now, her face alight with pleasure as she smiled at him. ‘But how marvellous!’ she beamed, one long, slender hand reaching out to grasp the strength of his bare forearm. ‘I had heard that if you sat outside Fouquet’s on the Champs-Elysées for long enough you would eventually see everyone in Paris who was anyone walking by, but I never believed it until now!’ She gave an amazed shake of her head, long, honey-coloured hair swaying against her tanned shoulders. ‘What on earth are you doing in Paris?’