He needs an heir -- she's carrying his baby Being swept off her feet by a tall, bronzed Frenchman isn't on Vanessa Bryant's holiday list of things to do. But Rafael Xavier-Lezille isn't a man a girl can say no to easily. Especially when he comes with a chateau on his own island! Vanessa tries to play it cool, but she's inexperienced out of her depth...and a virgin. Falling in love isn't part of the plan... neither is discovering she's pregnant once she's home and the affair is over. Now Rafael knows she's carrying his baby, and he wants an heir. Jane has been chosen as his bride...

Chapter 1 Prologue

The poolside, Hotel Lézille, 8:30pm

He noticed her as soon as she appeared in the archway between the lobby and the pool, his eyes drawn there as if pulled by a force, a magnetic force. A rare excitement stirred his pulse. He told himself that he hadn't come especially to seek her out. She seemed slightly hesitant, unsure. She wasn't the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, but she had a stunningly natural quality about her, which in his world was rare, compelling. In a simple black dress that outlined every slender curve and a generous bosom, she caught his eye again, and he couldn't look away. Didn't want to.

The soft waves of her dark hair framed her face. Intriguingly, she seemed to be slightly self-conscious. Or perhaps, he thought with a hardened cynicism that had been honed over years, she carefully projected that vulnerable fragility. God knew she managed to capture his attention in the street yesterday. Her huge, striking blue eyes had momentarily stunned him, rendering him speechless. Something in their depths had caught him, combined with that lush mouth, looking up at him so innocently, full of a shocked kind of awe.

Then, amazingly, when he had seen her on the island earlier today, he had followed some base instinct to see her up close again... She was everything he remembered, and more. He recalled how she had trembled under his hands in the street yesterday, and under his look earlier today on the island. He couldn't ever remember a woman being so blatantly responsive.

His mouth compressed when he thought of her refusal to have dinner with him. That certainly hadn't happened in a while, if ever. Was she playing some kinda game? He wouldn't be surprised... He was constantly amazed at the lengths some women went to just to get his attention. Playing hard to get wasn't a new trick....

He mentally dismissed the redhead to his left, who was chattering incessantly, oblivious of the fact that has attention had long wandered from her far too obviously surgically enhanced assets.

With a barely perceptible flick of his wrist, a man materialized at his side, bending low.

"Yes, sir?"

"Who is that woman?" He indicated to where she stood.

"She's not a guest with us, sir, but I can find out if you like..."

He just shook his head and dismissed him.

The ennui that had settled over him recently was definitely fading as he took in her graceful progress through the tables to reach her companions. With a skill based on years of reading people and body language, a skill that tripled his fortune many times over, he assessed them in seconds, focusing on the man he guessed was her date. No competition. His heart rate speeded up pleasantly as he contemplated them from under hooded lids. He decided now that he would conveniently forget the blow to his pride when she had refused him earlier. She was definitely worth pursuing. A surge of anticipation and desire made him feel alive in a way he hadn't in months....

*****