Married for the Prince's Convenience. Maya Blake
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Prince Reyes paced in a tight circle. ‘When did you find out?’ he asked.
‘I did the tests an hour ago.’
Jasmine held up three pink and white sticks.
Reyes forced himself to move. He took them, examined them. Somehow their presence finally hammered the reality home.
He was going to be a father.
Elation. A strange, undeniable possessiveness.
‘Everything has changed.’
Reaching down, he stroked her cheek. He wasn’t sure why it hadn’t occurred to him before. Jasmine wasn’t the perfect candidate, but she was miles better than anyone he knew. There would be no false proclamations of love to confuse issues. They were compatible in bed.
And she was carrying his child …
‘I’m calling off next week’s wedding. And I’m getting married in three days instead.’
Jasmine felt the blood drain from her head.
‘I … Okay. Leave it with me. I’ll call Miss Holden and arrange for her to fly over immediately,’ she replied through numb lips.
Reyes’s brows bunched. ‘Why would you be calling her?’
‘Because you’re marrying her!’
‘You misunderstand, Jasmine. The wedding is for you. I intend to marry no one else but you.’
MAYA BLAKE’s hopes of becoming a writer were born when she picked up her first romance aged thirteen. Little did she know her dream would come true! Does she still pinch herself every now and then, to make sure it’s not a dream? Yes, she does!
Feel free to pinch her too, via Twitter, Facebook or Goodreads! Happy reading!
Married for the Prince’s Convenience
Maya Blake
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHE WAS A THIEF.
A thief...
Jasmine Nichols’s heart pounded the indictment through her bloodstream. She hadn’t stolen anything yet, but that was beside the point. She’d travelled thousands of miles for the sole purpose of taking something that didn’t belong to her.
Telling herself she had no choice didn’t matter. If anything, it escalated her helplessness.
By the end of the night, she would wear the damning label as close to her skin as her black designer evening gown clung now.
Because failure wasn’t an option.
Fear and shame duelled for supremacy inside her, but it was the deep knowledge that she couldn’t turn her back on her family that propelled her reluctant feet up the sweeping crimson carpet towards the awe-inspiring masterpiece that housed the Contemporary Museum of Arts, perched on a cliff-side overlooking Rio de Janeiro. Even the jaw-dropping beauty of her surroundings couldn’t detract her from the simple fact.
She’d come here to steal.
The smile she’d plastered on her face since alighting from the air-conditioned limo threatened to crack. To calm her nerves, she mentally recited her to do list.
First, she had to locate Crown Prince Reyes Vicente Navarre.
And there was her first problem.
All effective search engines had yielded no pictures of the reclusive prince, save for a grainy image taken at the funeral of his mother four years ago. Since then, no pictures of the royal family of the South American kingdom of Santo Sierra had been released to the public. They guarded their privacy with a rigour that bordered on fanaticism.
As if that weren’t bad enough, according to reports, the House of Navarre’s Crown Prince had left his kingdom only three times in the last three years, all his time spent caring for his gravely ill father. It was rumoured King Carlos Navarre wasn’t expected to live past the summer.
Which meant Jasmine had no means of identifying Prince Reyes Navarre.
How did she get close to a man whose identity she had no idea of, distract him long enough to get her hands on what she’d come for before her mother and, more importantly, her stepfather, Stephen Nichols, the man who’d saved her life, and whose name she’d adopted, found out what she was up to?
Stephen would be heartbroken if he knew she was being blackmailed.
A nerve-destroying shudder rose up from the soles of her feet, making her clench her teeth to stop its death rattle from escaping. She smiled some more, mingled with the insanely wealthy and well heeled, and tried to reassure herself she could do this. By this time tomorrow, she’d be back home.
And most importantly, Stephen would be safe.
If everything went smoothly.
Stop it! Negative thinking was the downfall of many a plan. How many times had Stephen told her this?
She fixed her wilting smile back in place, stepped into the main hall of the museum, but she couldn’t summon the enthusiasm to gawp at the stunning paintings and sculptures on display.
A waiter approached bearing a tray of champagne. Accepting the sparkling gold-filled crystal goblet, she smoothed a shaky hand over the pearl choker around her throat, ignored the nervous flutter in her belly, and made her way to the bowl-shaped terrace where the guests were congregating for pre-dinner drinks.
So far the plans set out by Joaquin Esteban—the man threatening