Her gaze tracked to the sharpest, highest peaks to the south. To Elazar.
Was he texting from inside that border, sitting in his palace office, cursing her for ignoring him?
A flutter in her midsection had her resisting the urge to press her hand across her belly. She didn’t like to draw attention to her pregnancy when she was in public. Besides, it wasn’t the baby that caused that stir in her middle. It was a complex mix of emotions.
She wanted to tell him she was grateful. She wanted to see him again, to discover if the magical connection she’d felt in Paris had been real or just a product of an exciting foray into independence. She wanted him to know they were expecting a baby.
She also wanted to hold their night in her memory as the ideal that it was. She didn’t want the harsh fallout she would have to face once she acknowledged this baby as his. Most of all, she didn’t want to be a burden on a man who had seemed too perfect to want anything to do with someone as flawed as she was.
Her expected black sedan with its darkened windows slid up to the curb.
“There. See?” Trella said, even as she noted a man approaching in her periphery.
“That’s not—” Benita’s voice cut off.
Perhaps Trella went deaf at that moment because nothing penetrated beyond the fact that the back door opened and the Prince of Elazar rose from the interior.
He was as remarkable as she remembered. Like a knight of legend, his hair shot with glints of gold, his visage sharp and stern, his air one of heroic power. He was so godlike, she couldn’t move. She was too mesmerized.
Then reality rushed in as a scuffling noise and a grunt penetrated. She swung her gaze to see Benita in a fight. A fight. With a man. He tried to twist Benita’s arm behind her back as she bent forward, trying to use leverage to flip him.
Training, the kind Trella had attended to daily until pregnancy had sent her into yoga and water aerobics, jolted her into action. As Benita’s attacker pulled back his weight, dragging Benita off her feet, Trella stepped in and nailed him with a solid, knuckle-bruising punch, right in the nose.
The man grunted and Benita twisted, nearly escaping.
“What the hell are you doing?” That accent. Strong hands grasped her upper arms and pulled her away from the struggling pair.
Trella turned into him, stomach flip-flopping in response as she felt his solid abdomen against her bump. Adrenaline coursed through her, but she only felt reassurance as he drew her protectively close. Her gaze stayed over her shoulder, fixed on the fight, which seemed to be more of a wrestle for dominance. A bloody nose wasn’t slowing down the man and Benita wasn’t giving up, biting out in Spanish, “Run.”
“Help her—Wait. What are you doing?” Trella cried as she realized she was being shoved into the back of the car.
Xavier easily overpowered her, pushing her in and following without ceremony.
She was so shocked that it took her a moment to resist. By then his big body had created a wall of shoulders and chest that were impossible to get past.
Before she could touch the door on her side, he pulled his own closed and the locks clicked. The car pulled away, leaving her guard scrapping on the sidewalk with a brute whose shirt was the same color as both men in the front of this car.
Far too late, she realized what was happening.
She was being kidnapped. Again.
CHAPTER FOUR
“STOP THIS CAR. NOW.”
Xavier respected her ability to sound so authoritative, but he ignored her and opened the privacy window long enough to accept an ice pack from his physician, Gunter, then tapped the button to close it.
“Hello, Trella. Have I got that right?” He knew he had the right one. It was impossible to explain, but the minute he had seen her, he had known.
He pushed aside the ridiculous high that rocketed through him as he finally had her alone and held out his palm. He wiggled his fingers, urging her to release the pendant she was pinching and let him examine her hand.
“What were you thinking, getting involved in that?” The mix of rage and fear he’d experienced at seeing her step into the fight was reflected in his tone. Even if she wasn’t pregnant, it would have been a foolhardy, dangerous thing to do.
But she was pregnant. There was no denying it. The narrow waist he’d held in the crook of his arm had thickened with an undeniable bump. Her breasts...
He dragged his gaze up, refusing to let fantasies sidetrack him, but her features were a distraction all on their own. Her face was rounder, her mouth lush and pouted. The urge to kiss her struck him with a fierce pull.
Damn it, what was it about her?
He met her glare with his own, thinking that he would have sworn her eyes were green, but they were steely. Bright as a cornered cat refusing to stay that way.