The Playboy Prince's Baby

by Sparks, Ana

  Right. Because they’d just happened to get a call about a fight in a bar and then tracked me down to a random apartment that had nothing to do with me. I might have been still hazy with sleep, but I wasn’t stupid.

  I shifted in my seat, trying to get my brain to wake up and start moving. “So, what exactly are the charges?”

  “Drunk and disorderly,” Glasses Cop replied quickly. “Assault, for attacking the man who called the precinct, according to the witnesses we’ve gathered. And an international warrant that advises us to take you into custody if you get in any trouble.”

  I sat back at that, already finished with the questions. Because that really answered everything I might have asked.

  Drunk and disorderly wasn’t foreign to me; I was drunk in public often enough that I knew what it meant, and that every country had a slightly different name for it. Assault was a new one, though, and it sounded more serious. I was surprised Roger had gone so far as to press for that one.

  Then again, I wasn’t sure what else I could expect. My brother, who just so happened to be the king of our small nation of Tarana, had told me on my last visit home that I needed to be more careful when I was overseas. Do more to behave myself. Take better care of the kingdom’s reputation—and that of our family.

  Which was a fucking laugh. What the hell did I have to do with our family’s reputation?

  It wasn’t like I was an important member. I was just the younger brother, and therefore a throwaway. “The Extra,” as the press in Tarana had branded me. I didn’t get to do anything at home, and I certainly didn’t have any responsibilities. Nothing to keep me busy, or even entertained. Nothing to give me any sort of challenge or meaning in life.

  Was anyone really surprised that that had led quickly to me starting to explore the world?

  After all, what the hell else was I going to do with my time?

  And before you ask, yes, obviously, I had asked Javier—the brother in question—for more responsibilities. I’d asked for jobs or projects or departments. I would have sat and written his to-do lists all day, if he’d handed me that responsibility. I would have been bored as hell, but at least I would have been doing something. I would have been helping my country and giving my brother a hand in that whole ruling-the-kingdom thing he had to do all the time.

  I mean, at least kind of. If I’d been in charge of keeping his lists, it would have been one thing off his plate and something to keep me busy, right?

  You’d think he would have jumped at the idea. Seen it as a cure for all the ills that ailed him, when it came to his rebellious younger brother.

  Unfortunately, Javier had never seen it that way. Which had resulted in me traveling the world for no reason other than that I didn’t have anything better to do with my time. I was just the second son. The spare. The one without any real job.

  And standing up next to Javier at state occasions definitely didn’t count.

  The result, of course, was that I’d gotten into my fair share of trouble. Hence the record. And the security guard that I’d had to fire, just to get rid of him. And the contract that Javier had evidently put out for me.

  “Property of Tarana,” I muttered. “Return to Orlo if found unattended.”

  “Excuse me?” the cop that was driving asked. “Did you say something?”

  “Nope,” I answered. “But tell me, what’s the punishment for drunk and disorderly in Chicago? This is my first time here.”

  The man just glanced at me and then back to the road in front of us, without bothering to answer.

  Which was ominous.

  Though I supposed my brother could have included in his contract not to give me information unless I needed it. That would have been like him, too.

  * * *

  The cops still hadn’t given me any further information by the time we got to the precinct, and as they unloaded me from the car, I took the chance to look around rather than trying to ask anything further.

  And what I saw… Well, it made even me feel a little bit nervous, honestly. Because we might have been in a broken-down neighborhood in Chicago when we were at the bar, but here, I was in something that was a whole lot more like the wrong side of town. Pitted and potholed streets, broken sidewalks, chain-link fences missing many of the links. Buildings that looked like they’d seen better days one hundred years ago. A thick film of mist and smog hanging over the streets, and people walking through it who looked…

  Well, who didn’t look like people I wanted to come into contact with.

  This was my first time in Chicago, and for the most part, Roger and my travel itinerary had kept me in the higher-class neighborhoods. The Lincoln Park area, with all its shopping and parks, which had reminded me of a greener, windier version of New York City.

  When I’d ventured into some of the shadier areas—like the one where I had found Erika’s bar—it had started trouble with Roger. He’d told me flat out that Javier hadn’t wanted me mixing with that sort of neighborhood, and had demanded that we return to the hotel and sleep off the buzz I’d had going by that time.

  At which point, I’d fired him.

  I remembered that much, though the details were hazy, like I was trying to see them through moving water. I didn’t remember any physical alterations, but then again, I also didn’t remember breaking glasses or—if Erika was right—furniture.

  I did remember watching Roger walk out the door, and then deciding that I needed to sit down.

  And then waking up in the morning, music blasting and Erika standing in front of me.

  I felt a thrill of warmth at the thought of her, and looked up, only to have that thrill replaced by the memory of where I was. The Chicago Police Department, I assumed, and on my way into a jail cell. Where, I further assumed, someone would come tell me exactly what was going to happen to me this time.

  Like I said, this wasn’t my first time being arrested. I knew the drill, more or less. I just didn’t know how exactly the Chicago PD would judge me based on what I’d done. Or, as it turned out, what Javier’s contract said.

  * * *

  “Immediate deportation,” the woman who had entered my cell said, her voice monotone, her eyes on the paper in front of her. “The charge is drunk and disorderly, and for that we’d usually leave you in this cell until you sobered up. But the kingdom of Tarana has a contract on you, with specific instructions about what to do if you’re found.”

  She looked up and met my eyes, hers looking at least a little bit apologetic for the news she was giving me. “I’m afraid your brother didn’t leave a lot of flexibility on this, Prince Francisco.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I told her quickly. “No one calls me that except my mother. Usually when I’m in trouble for something. How long do I have?”

  She shook her head once. “No time at all. Your brother has already chartered a flight. You leave for home this afternoon.”

  This afternoon. Shit. That definitely didn’t give me enough time to get back to Erika’s apartment and explain to her what was going on.

  And though it surprised the hell out of me—mostly because it had never happened before—the thought of leaving her without at least explaining what had happened, or who I was, sent a pain shooting right through my stomach and up into my chest area.

  I’d never cared about a girl before, and I wasn’t entirely sure how she’d managed to get under my skin over the space of two days. But there’d been something about her—something that I didn’t have the words to identify—that made the thought of leaving her in the lurch like this…

  It made it hurt. Even worse, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Because I didn’t have her phone number. I hadn’t bothered to get it yet.

  I’d thought I would wake up this morning, make love to her again, and then discuss what we were doing next on our tour of Chicago. And now, instead, I was being flown home without even knowing her last name, or how to contact her again.

  Chapter 10

  E
rika

  I watched the door close behind the cops and Francisco, and then rushed to the window to see them shuffling him, rather carefully, into the cop car, and paused for long enough to consider how bad my luck actually was.

  It fucking figured. I’d just spent a weekend with a guy that was in trouble with the law.

  I mean yeah, he was probably the best-looking man I’d ever laid eyes on, and, surprisingly, one of the most sensitive. Definitely one of the smartest. And he’d been terrific in bed.

  What was more, he’d wormed his way into my heart in a way no one else ever had before. He’d gone from being the annoyingly hot guy who had fallen asleep in the bar to someone I’d actually looked forward to waking up to, all in the space of about twenty-four hours. And then I’d spent another twenty-four hours with him, and I’d gotten in over my head even deeper.

  And then the cops had shown up to arrest him and dropped the oh-so-subtle detail that he was a freaking prince!

  I took one more look at the cop car—now driving away, I assumed headed for the police department—and then darted toward my room for clothes.

  I got dressed in a hurry, and then rushed through the process of making coffee. Five minutes later, I was sitting down in front of my computer, my mind already on the first search I was going to run for this guy who was evidently a prince and also a guy who fell asleep in dive bars—after having fired the guy who I now suspected was a whole lot more important than I’d realized.

  His brother’s man, indeed. What exactly did that mean?

  My first search, which I ran under the pretty simplistic wording of ‘Prince Francisco,’ turned up everything I thought I needed.

  Because it turned out this guy was famous. More than that, actually. He was infamous—which was a word I’d always read in luridly exciting articles and never had a reason to use in real life. It was a word reserved for gangsters who stole millions of dollars and did terrible things. Kings who killed all their wives. Soldiers who did insane and completely awful things during battle.

  It was also reserved for, it turned out, playboy princes who evidently made entire careers out of international hijinks.

  The first article that came up was about Francisco running around Paris, attending every party in town, hooking up with some of those famous-for-being-famous trust-fund kids, and eventually being arrested for trying to swim in the Seine while drunk. And naked. The next article featured him doing much the same in London—in the middle of winter, when there was actually ice in the Thames.

  The third was about a fling he’d had with a princess in Denmark. The fourth was about some party-yacht situation in Madrid.

  And there were dozens more like them. Pages and pages of articles about what he’d done lately, to the point that I started to recognize the theme. Playboy Prince Bags Another Girl. Rebellious Prince of Tarana Caught in a Bind in Japan. Francisco, Prince of Tarana, Linked to Distant Member of British Royal Family in Drug Conspiracy.

  I was hoping that last one was false. But it proved my point. The press freaking loved this guy, and it looked like he gave them plenty to write about. Parties. Girls. Alcohol. Castles. Fast cars, faster boats. He’d been everywhere in Europe, and seemed to have covered South America as well, burning and raging his way through the countries at a pace that would have exhausted anyone else, but just seemed to fuel another bender when it came to Francisco.

  All of which led me to wonder what he was supposed to be doing with all his prince-ness. Didn’t most members of royal families have responsibilities of some sort? Like… even if those responsibilities included nothing more than public appearances and heading up the biggest charities in the country? Every royal I’d ever seen coverage of seemed to spend nearly all their time attending important public functions and doing some sort of fundraising gig on the side.

  Why wasn’t Francisco doing that? Because I wasn’t about to believe that his family actually supported him running around the world like some manic playboy, seeing how many girls he could bag and how many countries he could get kicked out of.

  It had taken me about ten seconds to find all the tabloid stories about him. It took me about ten minutes to find any actual information—and even then, it was courtesy of one of those online bios. You know, the ones that anyone can go in and edit. Which made the information questionable, at best.

  Still, it was better than the tabloids, and I started reading furiously through it, looking for the real Francisco. The one I’d spent time with over the weekend.

  Because that guy, who I’d been starting to fall in love with? He wasn’t the guy the tabloids were writing about. I would have bet my entire life savings on it. Not like I had much to bet. But still.

  And in that bio entry, I did start to see the Francisco I’d been getting to know. At least, parts of him. He was the second son of the king and queen of Tarana, evidently. Though even that was a bit misleading, since his dad was dead and his mom retired, or whatever you called it when a royal decided they didn’t want the job anymore. So his brother, Javier, was the king now. And that made Francisco the ‘spare,’ according to the article.

  I shook my head, feeling immediately sorry for the guy. If there was one title no one should have to wear, it was ‘spare.’ It immediately made him sound like he didn’t matter. Just the extra tire that someone stuck in the trunk in case of emergency.

  I skipped to the next section, which was labeled ‘Career,’ and read feverishly through it. There wasn’t much. He’d had zero responsibilities, zero appearances. He hadn’t even been given a charity to head up—though I thought that might have been his own choice.

  Honestly, if someone called me a spare, I wouldn’t have wanted to stick around to try to help them run the country.

  I wondered what his relationship with his brother was like. What did it feel like to know that your brother was the important one and you were just the extra? The guy in the sidecar, incapable of steering or using the brakes or even really speaking to the guy who was driving?

  If his brother had participated in Francisco’s lack of responsibilities, I was guessing there was either a good reason for it—i.e., Francisco not being up to the task—or that it had killed whatever relationship they might have had.

  And based on the man I’d been getting to know, who possessed not only a keen mind but also a biting sense of humor and wit, I was guessing he’d been up to the task, and had been shot down.

  “I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation with myself,” I muttered, clicking out of that article and scooting back from the desk.

  A prince. Francisco was a freaking prince. And he’d never even bothered to tell me.

  “Probably because he didn’t want me treating him like royalty,” I told myself—and then cringed, realizing that I was actually having a conversation with myself. Out loud.

  The line, though, made me realize that his omission had worked. Because I hadn’t treated him like a princeling from some exotic foreign country. I’d treated him like a guy. Just a guy I’d met in the bar and taken the completely out-of-character step to invite to my apartment afterward. Because I wasn’t a player. Not at all. But this particular guy… well, he’d grabbed me, somehow, and hadn’t let go.

  He’d been special.

  And now, he was in jail.

  I wondered if he was okay. Because this was Chicago—one of the roughest cities in the country. And I knew where the local police department was, and the sorts of people who generally ended up in there.

  Francisco was a prince, who had been arrested, and was now on the rough side of Chicago. Without any understanding of how Chicago—or even the US, as far as I knew—worked.

  A prince I had come to care for. A prince I wasn’t ready to let just slide out of my fingers. Not yet. Not after he’d made me feel like a princess all freaking weekend.

  Okay, maybe something a little less cliché than that. But you get the point.

  At the thought, all my questions about all the things he’d
done before flew right out the window and I found myself reaching for my phone, intent on figuring out where he was—and if he was okay.

  Chapter 11

  Erika

  I didn’t think I really needed to search for where Francisco might be, because the answer was pretty straightforward. They’d arrested him, and so they’d be taking him to the local police department.

  I’d seen enough bar brawls and been party to enough visits from the police to know my way around this sort of information. No, I’d never been arrested myself, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know how it all went down.

  The cops showed up. They took the arrestee to the police department—and the booking department. From there, the arrestee stayed in their local jail until they made their court appearance and got their orders for the next step.

  I just had to hope that they hadn’t hustled Francisco right on to whatever the next step was and that he was still there. Because if he was still at the local precinct, then I thought I could find a way to figure out what was going to happen to him. If he’d already been moved, I was going to have more trouble.

  After all, I wasn’t really connected to him in any way. They would have absolutely no reason to give me any information.

  I eliminated that thought from my list of worries and punched the numbers for the police station on my phone, running through what I thought I was going to say to whoever got on the line.

  When someone answered, it was a woman. And she sounded like it had already been a really long and really annoying day.

  “Chicago Police Department, booking station,” she said, her voice slightly nasal and incredibly tired.