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CHAPTER ONE

HAVING THE NIGHT off fro of her best friend in Scotland should have been a cause for celebration A racing heart made that impossible, because Lucas Marcelos would al from the truth

Luc

Would she ever learn?

No, E into the hts face Her sto up with the man who had fathered her unborn child There was no doubt She had taken a pregnancy test three times It was only a couple of weeks since she’d left London and the bed of the hotel owner and infaaucho polo, Lucas Marcelos—too early for doctors or scans, or even the physical signs to make themselves felt, other than tender breasts and some nausea, which, she had no doubt, would ramp up when she faced Luc

The self-professed playboy was hardly going to leap with joy when he heard her news He certainly wouldn’t show the same warm charm he had in London A man as wealthy and successful as Lucas was bound to be suspicious of her motives He would be even more suspicious if he kne elated she’d been when she had discovered she was pregnant

Emma’s main worry wasn’t for herself She wondered if Luc would ood father for her baby They hardly knew each other, and what she did know about hi a family man

One step at a ti the dress that had seemed perfectly fine when she had first walked into the cloakroorooo Santos, wasone of Emma’s closest friends, Danny Cameron When Luc could spare the tiaucho polo for the world-famous Thunderbolt polo team If Luc didn’t show up he would be the onlyE faces fro the party right now

She’d been on Luc’s hotel training course in London when the principal of the college had brought her to his attention Luc’s iving cereled out for special praise for having an extraordinary grasp of the hotel industry Because she’d cared for his staff and had seen ways to streamline their jobs, Emma had insisted when Luc had praised her afterwards ‘You interestShe just hadn’t realised how much

The instant that faintly amused stare had landed on her awestruck face, she had been lost She’d always been a romantic and Lucas Marcelos more than lived up to his forladiator, and he did look like a god of the underworld, as some of the more colourful media reports had commented With his wavy black hair, swarthy complexion, sharp black stubble and hard, driven face, Lucas was a priress to a wholly unrealistic fantasy along the lines of working alongside hi him every day

When he had stayed on in London this had seemed almost possible, and she had worked hard to maintain a professional front and impress him As the days had stretched into weeks, she had allowed herself to believe they could be friends She had opened up to him about her hopes for her future and her dreams of a career within his company She had been flattered by his continued interest, she supposed now—too na?ve to realise that Luc was a practised seducer who could adapt his technique to suit the situation—or that, for a short time, she had been that situation and her chastity had been a challenge Luc had been determined to overcome

It had all coht she had learned that her parents had been killed in a police chase She had been so devastated she hadn’t told anyone She certainly hadn’t told Luc, as she would have had to explain her parents’ cririef, which she couldn’t explain even to herself

Her parents had never wanted her, and had always referred to her as their accidental child That hadn’t stopped her loving the an endless quest to win their love She haddifficult to handle, while her father, a member of the aristocratic Fane family, ht they’d died her tears had been genuine—sorrow for the-held dream to find a way to make the need to be held and loved overco her