Beauty and Her One-Night Baby Read online

  From irresistible beast in the bedroom...

  to father of her child!

  The first time Javiero Rodriguez sees CEO Scarlett Walker after their impassioned night together, she’s in labor with his baby! No matter how shocking the surprise, Javiero won’t let his son grow up in a broken home like he did.

  Scarlett has worked hard for independence and she can’t accept empty vows. Yet the scars Javiero gained in a jaguar attack haven’t lessened the tycoon’s rugged appeal. Which means every day is a heated reminder of the pleasure they shared...and could share again!

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  Dear Reader,

  Duets are tricky and I keep promising myself I won’t write them with timelines that happen at the same time. However, when I wrote A Hidden Heir to Redeem Him, it was too darned tempting to have Scarlett go into labor in the opening scene. Of course, that meant I had to open this book in Scarlett’s point of view. You’ll see we’re very much in medias res (the middle of things) from line one.

  As for Javiero, I thought he would be a white-knight type in contrast to his darker brother, Val. When the opportunity came up to give this book a fairy-tale spin, I leaped on turning Javiero into a beast. It worked perfectly for his character and this duet!

  I hope you love Javiero’s transformation from grouch to good guy. Scarlett deserves her hero and their happily-ever-after. So do you! Enjoy!

  Hugs,

  Dani

  Once Upon a Temptation

  Will they live passionately ever after?

  Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a billionaire—or eight! Each billionaire had riches beyond your wildest imagination. Still, they were each missing something: love. But the path to true love is never easy...even if you’re one of the world’s richest men!

  Inspired by fairy tales like Beauty and the Beast and Little Red Riding Hood, the Once Upon a Temptation collection will take you on a passion-filled journey of ultimate escapism.

  Fall in love with...

  Cinderella’s Royal Secret by Lynne Graham

  Beauty and Her One-Night Baby by Dani Collins

  Shy Queen in the Royal Spotlight by Natalie Anderson

  Claimed in the Italian’s Castle by Caitlin Crews

  Expecting His Billion-Dollar Scandal by Cathy Williams

  Taming the Big Bad Billionaire by Pippa Roscoe

  The Flaw in His Marriage Plan by Tara Pammi

  His Innocent’s Passionate Awakening by Melanie Milburne

  Dani Collins

  Beauty and Her One-Night Baby

  Canadian Dani Collins knew in high school that she wanted to write romance for a living. Twenty-five years later, after marrying her high school sweetheart, having two kids with him, working at several generic office jobs and submitting countless manuscripts, she got The Call. Her first Harlequin novel won the Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First in Series from RT Book Reviews. She now works in her own office, writing romance.

  Books by Dani Collins

  Harlequin Presents

  Untouched Until Her Ultra-Rich Husband

  Cinderella’s Royal Seduction

  Conveniently Wed!

  Claiming His Christmas Wife

  Bound to the Desert King

  Sheikh’s Princess of Convenience

  Feuding Billionaire Brothers

  A Hidden Heir to Redeem Him

  Innocents for Billionaires

  A Virgin to Redeem the Billionaire

  Innocent’s Nine-Month Scandal

  The Montero Baby Scandal

  The Consequence He Must Claim

  The Maid’s Spanish Secret

  Bound by Their Nine-Month Scandal

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  For Phil, Eva and your adorable boys. Thank you for showing us such a wonderful time in Madrid. There aren’t enough heart emojis to express our love for all of you.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM SHY QUEEN IN THE ROYAL SPOTLIGHT BY NATALIE ANDERSON

  CHAPTER ONE

  HER WATER BROKE.

  Horrified, Scarlett Walker hoped that if she didn’t look it wouldn’t be true. She stared at the hook on the back of the stall door where her handbag hung and prayed she was wrong.

  She knew what had happened, though. There was no mistaking such an event and no, no, no. This was supposed to happen next week, at the island villa that had been her home for the last six years. Or last week, when she’d been sitting vigil at her employer’s bedside. Anytime but today.

  Not now.

  Please not now.

  It was a futile wish. In fact, she should have predicted this would happen. She had so many butterflies in her stomach they were knocking her baby clean out of her right before she walked into a boardroom to face a small but extremely volatile group of personalities—including the baby’s father.

  What would he say?

  She’d found Javiero Rodriguez dynamic and powerful and intimidating before she’d slept with him. For nine months she’d been dreading and anticipating the moment when she would finally face him again.

  Now she had to rush off to the hospital.

  Thanks a lot, baby, she thought with a fleck of ironic hysteria. She wouldn’t have to face any of them. Saved!

  But how was this her life?

  The Walker colors were shining brightly in her today. If there was a way to turn an everyday, natural occurrence into a trashy satire, the Walkers were there to make it happen. Scarlett wanted to sit back down on the toilet and cry her eyes out.

  No time for that, though. With a sob of desperation, she fumbled her phone from her handbag and texted her best friend, Kiara.

  My water broke. Help!

  She pulled up the skirt she had so recently wriggled into place over her hips. Only her maternity underwear and one shoe were wet. She wrangled herself out of the unflattering cotton knickers with the stretchy front panel and discarded them in the bin.

  Don’t need those anymore.

  Shakily, she left the stall long enough to wet a hand towel and grab a small stack of the folded ones off the shelf. Thank God it was empty in there. She edged back into the narrow stall and closed the door, then dropped the towels on the floor to blot up the puddle while she gave herself the quickest of bird baths.

  She had let her doctor’s “any day now” yesterday go in one ear and out the other. Had she really expected this baby would stay inside her forever?

  Kind of. She’d had so much going on that she hadn’t let herself think about anything other than ensuring her healthy pregnancy. She certainly hadn’t envisioned the moment when the baby would actually arrive—or how that event would unfold.

  Who had time for labor when she was facing a ton of work finalizing Niko’s burial arrangements and continuing to manage his estate? Then there was Kiara’s show in Paris. She had promised to help her with her artist’s statement and had somehow deluded herself into believing she could attend.

  Really, Scarlett? Due next week, yet planning to fly to Paris in three?

  Denial was a wonderful thing—until it stopped working. It was screech
ing to a halt while she stood on the hand towels, waiting for Kiara and deliberately avoiding thoughts about how Javiero would react to everything he would learn today.

  To this.

  Not for the first time, she tried to will herself back in time and make a different decision. She’d been processing her employer’s refusal of further treatment and frustrated with certain decisions he had made with regard to his errant sons. Maybe those two men didn’t deserve much consideration, given their mulish refusal to see their father in his last days, but Scarlett had been compelled to prod them one last time.

  Valentino Casale had never been cooperative with her so she hadn’t expected any better than the brush-off he’d given her. Javiero, however, possessed a more solid sense of family. A heart.

  At least, that was what she wanted to believe.

  Maybe it was wishful thinking on her part.

  What Javiero had in spades was a magnetism she had barely been able to resist the handful of times she’d met with him. It had taken everything in her to keep from betraying her reaction to him.

  He must have known. He was too smoldering and sophisticated and experienced to not know when a woman was swooning over him. Maybe he’d even privately laughed at her for it. Maybe that was why he’d made a move that day. He had probably sensed she’d mentally slept with him a thousand times and was dying to make it reality.

  She hadn’t expected it to happen, though. Not really. Seeing him at all had been a rare overstep on her part, moving beyond the tight constraints of her employer’s dictates and acting of her own volition. She was still trying to explain to herself how she’d been in Madrid at all, let alone how she had wound up in Javiero’s bed.

  A quiet sense of injustice had driven her. She knew that much. Had she also been affected on a basic level by Niko’s failing health? Had she longed to assert the beginnings of life to hold off the shadows closing in on the end of one?

  Or had it been as simple as a secretive yearning on her part to have a final connection with a man she would never have an excuse to see again once Niko was gone?

  She hadn’t expected Javiero to give her the time of day after his father’s death. As it was, he only tolerated her in deference to his mother. Javiero’s attitude toward Scarlett had always been...not hostile, but disparaging. He hadn’t liked that she worked for his father. He couldn’t respect her for it.

  She’d had no idea how he might react to her pregnancy. Perhaps she’d been in a bit of denial then, too, not expecting their passionate afternoon could change her life—or create one! By the time she had suspected and had it confirmed, though, she had not only desperately wanted this baby—she had seen a poetic sort of balancing of scales in her carrying Javiero’s child.

  Not that Niko had viewed it that way. He’d been a hard man. A nightmare to work for, actually, and suddenly cynical of her motives. They’d had an extremely rare disagreement when she told him—rare because, until then, Scarlett had made a career of acting on his command.

  You went behind my back, he had accused her.

  I told them you were dying because they deserved to know.

  She had stood by that decision even though he’d been angry at her for it.

  Surprisingly, her pushback had earned his grudging respect, proving her tough enough in his eyes to take control of his holdings. He’d added her baby to his will, too, ensuring Javiero’s child would inherit the half of his fortune that Javiero had declined.

  And life altering as this pregnancy was proving to be, she didn’t regret it. She patted her swollen belly, excited to meet him or her.

  Just. Not. Today.

  Where was Kiara?

  Into her ruminations a strange sensation accosted her. A faint, dull ache in her lower back grew more insistent. Tension wrapped outward until it squeezed across her middle.

  A contraction?

  Well, duh. Of course that was what was happening, but, come on! She nearly pounded her fist against the wall in frustration.

  What had she thought, though? That she would still go into that meeting, bare as a Scotsman under her skirt while she looked her baby’s father in the eye and admitted...

  She hung her head in her hands and bit back a whimper.

  The main door opened. She lifted her head, relief washing over her. As she started to call out, however, she realized the person she could see through the crack in the door didn’t have Kiara’s voluptuous figure or curly black hair.

  Oh, dear Lord. That slender woman in a bone-colored skirt suit was Paloma Rodriguez, Javiero’s mother.

  Scarlett never swore, but she tilted her head back and mouthed a number of really filthy words at the ceiling. She texted Kiara again, suspecting Kiara had silenced her phone for the meeting.

  Javiero’s mother was smoothing her hair, checking her makeup, unconsciously betraying how important it was that she appear flawless to the rest of the people in that boardroom, most particularly her rival for a dead man’s affections.

  Scarlett had to make a split-second decision. No matter how this day played out, Javiero would finally learn she was having his baby. She wanted him to hear it from her.

  As his mother started to leave, Scarlett forced herself to speak though she could hear the quaver in her voice. “Señora Rodriguez? It’s me, Scarlett.”

  Paloma’s footsteps paused, and she said with guarded surprise, “Yes?”

  “Is Javiero waiting for you in the corridor?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to speak with him. In private. In...um...here.”

  Global warming ended and the modern ice age arrived in one glacial word. “Why?”

  Shifting to open the door was awkward, given her full-term belly. Scarlett wrestled herself around it and watched Paloma’s gaze drop to her middle. Her eyes nearly fell out of her head.

  “I need to speak to him,” Scarlett said as another contraction looped around her abdomen and squeezed a fresh gasp from her lungs.

  * * *

  Javiero Rodriguez was unfit to be in public, not physically and not mentally.

  He’d showered, but he was unshaven and should have gone to his barber before leaving Madrid. He had blown off the nicety, which wasn’t like him. For most of his thirty-three years, he had passionately adhered to tradition and expectation. He’d had a family dynasty to restore, his mother’s reputation to repair and his own superiority to assert.

  He had achieved all those things and more, becoming a dominant force in global financial markets and one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. He was known to be charming and intelligent, and an excellent dancer who dressed impeccably well.

  Despite all that, a sense of satisfaction had always eluded him.

  Javiero had come to accept this vague discontent as just life. Happily-ever-after was, as anyone with a brain in his head could deduce, a fairy tale. He had experienced the bleakness of financial anxiety and the bitterness of powerlessness. He’d had a father who belittled him and abused his trust, one who didn’t so much as offer a shovel to help him dig himself out of the hole he’d been shoved into. He had tasted grief when the grandfather he’d revered had passed away. All of that had taught him ennui was the best one could hope for.

  World-weariness was a luxury he no longer enjoyed, however. Three weeks ago, he had nearly died. He had lost an eye and was left with scars that would be with him forever. He looked like and felt like a monster.

  As he ran a frustrated hand through his hair, his fingertips reflexively lifted in repulsion from the tender line where his scalp had been sewn back on. He shouldn’t be inflicting his gruesome self on helpless receptionists and unsuspecting coffee-fetchers. It was a cruelty.

  His mother needed reinforcement, though. She had stood by him when nearly everyone else was giving him a wide berth. His uncles and cousins, people he financially supported, were taking one look a
nd keeping their children away. His ex-fiancée, whose idiotic idea of being interesting was to keep an exotic pet menagerie, had dropped him like a hot potato once she’d seen the damage.

  Not that he was stung other than in his ego by her rejection. Their proposed marriage had been an effort to rescue his pride. He saw that now and it only made his foul, obdurate mood worse. What a pathetic fool he was.

  Grim malevolence was his companion now. It had become as entrenched in him as the deep grooves carved into his face and body. It clouded around him like a cologne gone off. It had sunk into his bones with the insidiousness of a virus or a spell, making his joints stiff and his heart a lump of concrete.

  Staring with one eye down at the streets of Athens, a city and country he had sworn never to set foot in again, he dreamed only of burning this whole place down.

  Your family stands to inherit a significant portion of the estate, his father’s lawyer had said. All parties must be present at the reading of the will for dispersal to move forward.

  Javiero didn’t want any of his father’s money. He didn’t want to be here in his father’s office tower and couldn’t stand the idea of listening to yet another version of his father’s idea of what was fair.

  For his mother’s sake, and what she stood to gain, he had relented. She had been treated horribly by Nikolai Mylonas and deserved compensation. If Javiero’s presence could help her finally gain what should have rightfully been hers, so be it. Here he was.

  He didn’t have it in him to muster pretty manners, though. His already thin patience was tested by the prospect of listening to his mother chase principles his father had never possessed. She would argue one more time that her son was Niko’s legitimate heir and Javiero was legally entitled to everything.

  Then he would have to listen to his father’s onetime and always scheming mistress, Evelina, arguing that his half brother, Val, was two days older than Javiero, and therefore all the money should go to them.

  Mine, mine, mine.

  The sickening refrain continued despite the instrument being dead.