The Billionaires' Brides Bundle

by Sandra Marton

  In the end, the Spanish prince had at least done one decent thing.

  Damned right, he had.

  The land was hers. It would always have been hers if Aloysius hadn’t lied to her all her life and never mind all that nonsense Felix had spouted about Aloysius wanting the best for her.

  This was the best for her. The ranch, George and Davey working it with her, the half a dozen horses she’d taken in to board and train…

  Not the Spanish prince.

  Never him.

  Bebé snorted and tossed his head. Alyssa smiled and stroked the stallion’s arched neck.

  “Of course,” she told him. “You’re what’s best for me, too.”

  Yes, life was definitely good and getting better, and if she could just stop thinking about the miserable, arrogant Spanish prince and all the things she should have said to him and hadn’t, she’d be in a much better mood.

  She certainly didn’t think about him for any other reason.

  “What’s the matter with Alyssa?” she’d overheard Davey whisper to George the other day.

  She’d heard the thwack of George’s tobacco juice hitting the dirt and then he’d said, well, he weren’t sure but mebbe it had somethin’ to do with her missing the Spanish guy.

  “I do not miss the Spanish guy,” she’d said, stepping into view, “and don’t you two have anything better to do than gossip?”

  Later, she’d apologized by making apple pie for dessert because it wasn’t George’s fault, thinking she missed Lucas. He had no way of knowing she hated Lucas. Despised him. That she never, ever wanted to see him again…

  Alyssa’s throat tightened. She blinked; her eyes were suddenly damp. A cold. A damned cold coming on, that was what it was. Just what she needed, with two more horses due this afternoon.

  She led Bebé into the August morning for their usual early ride before things got busy—6:00 a.m. and it was already hot. Well, that was Texas, she thought as she swung onto the stallion’s back.

  It was night now at the Monroy ranch. At the estate in Marbella, too. It would be warm but the breezes would be cool, one from the lush trees, the other from the sea.

  And who gave a damn?

  Heat or no heat, she preferred Texas.

  People were honest here, if you omitted Thaddeus who had greeted her by saying he’d be happy to buy the ranch, now that it was hers, so she could make a fresh start…and hadn’t bothered mentioning he’d wanted to sell it to the developer.

  And you’d have to omit her mother, too. And Aloysius. They’d lied to her in the worst way imaginable, though the more time went by, the more she grudgingly admitted she understood.

  Right or wrong, they’d lied because of love.

  Look what she’d done because of love.

  No. Not love. She’d never loved Lucas. She was a liar, too, when you came down to it, but a woman had to tell herself something when she gave her virginity to a coldhearted stranger.

  Bebé snorted. Alyssa did, too, and leaned over his neck.

  “You’re my one and only love,” she whispered as they headed down the long dirt road that led away from the house.

  She urged him into a trot, then a gallop and felt some of the tension drain out of her. She belonged here, on this land, riding her own horse, not playing bedmate for a man who had never even pretended he loved her. Not that she’d wanted him to…

  What was that? Something big and black, shimmering with heat waves from the sun. A bull, broken loose from the neighboring ranch? A horse?

  A truck. An SUV, big and black and shiny. It was angled across the road with the damned fool driver standing beside it.

  Alyssa drew back on the reins. Bebé snorted. He didn’t want his morning run spoiled by an outsider and neither did—

  Oh God.

  Even at this distance, there was no mistaking the identity of the man. That straight, I-own-the-universe stance. The folded arms. The proud angle of his head.

  The Spanish prince was back.

  She thought about turning Bebé around but that would be the coward’s way out. Or she could spur him into a gallop again, ride straight on by just like the first time—but the prince, arrogant fool that he was, had walked around the SUV and was standing right in front of it.

  She couldn’t ride past him and while riding through him seemed a rewarding idea, spending the rest of her life in jail didn’t. Lucas Reyes wasn’t worth such a sacrifice.

  “Come on, sweetie,” she whispered to the stallion, and moved him forward at a slow walk. When she reached the prince, she stopped.

  “This is private property.”

  “No,” he said politely, “it is not.”

  “There’s only one ranch at the end of this road and you’re not welcome there.”

  “That does not make this private property.”

  Bebé pawed the ground and tossed his head. Alyssa leaned forward, crooned softly in his ear and he quieted.

  “You have a nice touch,” the Spanish prince said.

  Alyssa said nothing. Did he actually think his compliment had any meaning?

  “Especially with stallions.”

  A flush rose in her cheeks. She thought of half a dozen rejoinders and ignored them all.

  “How did you know I’d be riding this road at this hour?”

  “George was most cooperative.”

  “George is an old fool. What do you want here, Your Highness?”

  What, indeed? Lucas knew why he’d come. Closure. The problem was, seeing Alyssa, he was no longer sure of what that meant.

  He’d spent most of the flight thinking of what he’d say when he confronted her, that he knew she’d never given a damn for him, that she’d only stayed with him so she could get what she wanted…and trying to work around the fact that he’d basically suggested marriage on precisely the same terms.

  When he didn’t respond, she eyed him coldly. “I’m not returning the deed.”

  “I do not want the deed.”

  “Then what do you want? Quickly, please. I have work to do.”

  “I heard. You’re boarding and training horses.”

  “George has a big mouth.”

  The prince smiled. She hated that smile. So knowing. So self-righteous.

  “Yes, I am boarding and training horses. Not Andalusians like yours but then, some of us are interested in more than what’s written in a stud book.”

  It was a low blow and she knew it. The Spanish prince’s horses were all magnificent; she had ridden them with him.

  “You have Bebé.”

  “According to you, he’s a tyrannosaurus.”

  Lucas smiled again. “A brontosaurus, but perhaps I made a hasty judgment. He’s a fine animal, now that I take a second look.”

  “Don’t patronize me!”

  “I’m not patronizing you, I’m being honest. Beauty. Courage. Heart and intelligence. Those are the qualities a man—”

  Lucas frowned and fell silent. Were they still talking about horses? And what had happened to the little speech in which he’d tell her what he thought of a woman who’d use a man to get what she wanted?

  True, the argument was flawed. He was the one who’d suggested marriage on pragmatic terms. They cared for each other, he’d said. And, if they married, the contract terms would be met and she would get her land.

  Why blame her for leaving him once she knew there no longer was a contract?

  Why blame her for leaving him after finding out he’d lied?

  Why blame her for anything except breaking his heart? Didn’t she know he loved her? Adored her? That his life had no meaning without her?

  Didn’t she feel the same way?

  He knew that she did. All the times they’d made love…she’d given herself to him in ways he’d never before known, ways that surely involved the heart and not just the body.

  The stallion snorted impatiently. His Lyssa was impatient, too. He could see she’d had just about enough of this foolishness.

  So h
ad he.

  “Goodbye, Your Highness.”

  Her heels touched the stallion’s sides. Lucas lunged forward and grabbed the bridle.

  “Get off that horse!”

  She laughed. Laughed, damn it! He had not come all this distance for her to laugh at him.

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said. I suggest you let go of that bridle or I’ll ride straight through—”

  She cried out as Lucas lifted her from the back of the stallion.

  “Put me down! What do you think you’re doing? Damn you, Lucas—”

  “I am damned. I will be damned for all eternity and so will you if we go on lying to ourselves and each other.”

  “You have the nerve to talk about lying?” Alyssa flung back her hair, her cheeks bright with color, her eyes glittering. “You’re the biggest liar of all.”

  Lucas set her on her feet. “I admit, I should have told you the truth. That the contract no longer existed, but—”

  “But, you always have to get your own way. You wanted a wife and I was handy.”

  “You cannot really believe that.”

  The trouble was, she didn’t. It was the one thing she’d never been able to make sense of. If Lucas Reyes had wanted a wife, he had hundreds of women to chose from—and that left her with the same question that kept her awake nights.

  “Why else would you have kept the truth from me?”

  Lucas drew a long breath, held it, then let it out. He was a man stalling for time and he knew it but there had to be a way to say what he had to say without giving everything away.

  He had never felt as vulnerable in his life.

  “You see? You can’t give me any other reason because there is none. You figured, it’s time to get married and here’s this—this compliant female—”

  Lucas grinned. “Compliant? You, amada?”

  “Whatever. I was available and you—”

  “And I,” he said, forgetting that giving everything away could be dangerous, “and I,” he said, cupping her face, tilting it to his, gazing deep into her eyes, “I had fallen crazy in love with you.”

  Her mouth opened, then shut. Amazing. He had, for once in his life, said something his Lyssa could not counter.

  “Why do you look so surprised, chica?” His tone softened, as did the touch of his hands. “Did you never realize what was happening to me?”

  God, such arrogance! “I should have realized what was happening to you?”

  “I love you,” he said softly. “I adore you, amada. Coward that I was, rather than admit it, even to myself, I clung to that damned contract, that impossible marriage stipulation to keep you in my life.”

  Alyssa felt her eyes filling with tears and that would never do. She would not let the prince see her cry because—because then he would know the truth, that she loved him, had never stopped loving him—

  “And…” She swallowed hard. “And that’s it? You love me and I’m supposed to say, that’s wonderful, I forgive you for lying to me because I love you, too?”

  He smiled. “Do you?”

  “Forgive you?”

  “Do you love me?”

  Time, the world, the universe stood still. Alyssa looked up into the golden eyes of the Spanish prince, her prince, and let the love so long trapped within her heart burst free.

  “Yes,” she said, “oh, yes, Lucas, yes, I love you, I love you—”

  He gathered her close. Her arms rose and wound around his neck. He kissed her and she kissed him and perhaps their kiss would have lasted forever…

  But the stallion whinnied, stepped forward and pushed his handsome black nose against Lucas’s shoulder.

  Lucas laughed.

  “He’s jealous.”

  Alyssa smiled. “He has every right to be.”

  Lucas’s arms tightened around her. “Alyssa Montero McDonough. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  The tears Alyssa had fought against spilled from her brimming eyes.

  “I would be proud to be your wife, Your Highness,” she said.

  Lucas kissed her again. Then he mounted the black stallion, drew his novia up behind him, and they rode slowly into the warm beauty of the Texas morning.

  Their wedding, everyone said, was a storybook affair.

  The ceremony was held on the Reyes estate in Marbella, on a hilltop overlooking the sea. The bride was beautiful and wore a gown of white lace. It was new, but her lace mantilla had belonged to the groom’s grandmother.

  The groom was incredibly handsome in his black tux. His two best men—there had to be two, he said, and never mind anyone who said there should only be one—were almost as handsome in their tuxes. At least, that was what Alyssa said.

  Their wives, Aimee and Ivy, whispered to Nicolo and Damian that they really were the handsomest men in the world.

  There was dancing and champagne, lobster and filet mignon. There was a flamenco guitarist, a string quartet and a famous rock band, and when the band veered from its image long enough to play an old-fashioned waltz, Felix got up from his wheelchair and danced with the bride.

  At last, the newly married couple slipped away. The groom carried his bride up the stairs to his bedroom.

  It was their bedroom now.

  He kissed her tenderly, whispered to her, then stepped out on the balcony, as nervous as any man about to make love to his bride for the first time.

  They had slept apart for the past month. For three months now, counting the time they’d been separated. Since their reconciliation, they’d kept their intimacy to hot, deep kisses that left them both burning with desire. It had been Lucas’s idea. He wanted to take his virgin bride’s innocence as he wished he had that first time.

  It was his special gift to her.

  He had no way of knowing that Alyssa had a special gift for him, too.

  When she was alone, she took off her bridal finery and drew on the hand-sewn white silk nightgown that had been Dolores’s gift to her. Her face glowed with happiness.

  Lucas turned when she said his name. His heart leaped when he saw his beautiful wife.

  “I love you,” he said. “With all my heart.”

  Alyssa went to him and he gathered her close and kissed her before swinging her into his arms and carrying her to their bed, the white pillows and duvet sprinkled with red rose petals.

  “Lyssa,” Lucas said softly.

  He kissed her. Caressed her. Undressed her so slowly that, for them both, it was the sweetest agony.

  When she lay naked before her husband, Alyssa took his hand.

  “This is our first night together as husband and wife,” she said. “But do you remember, my Spanish prince, the first time we made love?”

  Lucas brushed his mouth over hers. “I will never forget it, amada.”

  “And do you remember that we didn’t use a condom?”

  His eyes darkened, but only for a second. “Si. And even though I long to see you with my child in your womb, amada, if you wish me to wear one tonight—”

  Alyssa laid his hand over her belly. He looked puzzled. Then he caught his breath as he felt the new, sweet roundness of her flesh.

  “Amada. Are you—are we—”

  “Si, my love. We’re having a baby.”

  Lucas’s eyes filled with something that felt suspiciously like tears.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  Then he gathered his princesa in his arms and kissed her, just as the sky came alive with fireworks.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-3329-8

  Copyright © 2009 Harlequin Books S.A.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  The Italian Prince’s Pregnant Bride

  Copyright © 2007 by Sandra Myles.

  The Greek Prince’s Chosen Wife

  Copyright © 2007 by Sandra Marton.

  The Spanish Prince’s Virgin Bride

  Copyright © 2007 by Sandra Marton.

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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