Claiming His Pregnant Princess

“Hello, Beatrice.”

Face-to-face with the man she’d loved and lost two years ago, Dr. (and Princess) Bea di Jesolo knows she has no right to forgiveness, but she hopes they can call a truce for the sake of their patients.

Pediatrician Jamie Coutts had always seen the woman beneath the royal fanfare that surrounded Bea: at heart, she was more surgical gown than ball gown. But loving her had cost him once. Could he risk his heart again—especially when he discovers her secret?

Dear Reader,

I don’t know why—sometimes the world just works in mysterious ways—but these two characters came to me so easily. I just loved them—and their obvious love for one another.

There are times in life, aren’t there, when we get ourselves in a pickle? Sometimes we aren’t even sure how it’s worked out that way. This is one of those times for Beatrice…and it’s one heck of a pickle. Huge!

I really hope you enjoy both Bea’s and Jamie’s journeys, at the conclusion of my duet, and seeing how two friends from two totally different backgrounds find love.

Enjoy some Italian food while you’re reading this, and don’t be shy about getting in touch. You can reach me at annieoneilbooks.com, on Twitter, @annieoneilbooks, or find me on Facebook…

Annie O’ xx

Claiming His Pregnant Princess

Annie O’Neil

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Books by Annie O’Neil

Mills & Boon Medical Romance

Paddington Children’s Hospital

Healing the Sheikh’s Heart

Hot Latin Docs

Santiago’s Convenient Fiancée

Christmas Eve Magic

The Nightshift Before Christmas

The Monticello Baby Miracles

One Night, Twin Consequences

One Night…with Her Boss

London’s Most Eligible Doctor Her Hot Highland Doc

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

This book is dedicated to my great friend Jess. She had the most epic hen do in the history of hen parties and somehow we ended up in a three-mile parade in the centre of a town just outside of Venice. As you do when you’re dressed as a nun and the lawfully intended is dressed as a minx. I mean bride.

Big love, Annie O’ xx

Praise for Annie O’Neil

‘This is a beautifully written story that will pull you in from page one and keep you up late, turning the pages.’

—Goodreads on

Doctor...to Duchess?

Annie O’Neil won the 2016 RoNA Rose Award for her book Doctor…to Duchess?

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Dear Reader

Title Page

Booklist

Dedication

Praise

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“DR. JESOLO! THERE’S a full waiting room!”

“Si, pronto, Teo!” Bea poked her head out of the curtained exam space and then repeated herself in English, just in case her Australian coworker hadn’t understood. “On my way.”

He nodded, screwed his nose up for a minute and gave her a funny look.

She hoped her pasted-on happy face simply looked like a case of first-day jitters.

Her new colleague didn’t need to know she was fighting another wave of impossible-to-quench tears.

She swiped at her eyes again and forced herself to tune in to the various conversations happening in the exam areas surrounding hers.

English, Italian, French and German. Broken arms. Asthma attacks. Altitude sickness. They were all mingled together up here in Torpisi, and she was loving every moment of it. Or would be if she could get her eyes to dry and see another patient.

That was why this multilingual, brain-stretching trauma center suited her needs to a tee.

Hormones or history. It was always a toss-up as to which would unleash the next flood.

You can do this. You’re a princess! Trained in the art of...of artifice.

At least work would give her poor over-wrung tear ducts a break.

The Clinica Torpisi catered to the needs of international tourists. Ones who didn’t read the gossip rags. Adrenaline junkies, fun seekers and good old-fashioned holidaymakers kept the clinica operating on full steam over the summer—and probably more so in the winter, when the skiing crowd came in. It was the perfect place to hide in plain sight. And to create some much-needed distraction from her real-life problems.

Zurich, Lyon, Salzburg and even Milan were only a couple of hours’ drive away, but the press still hadn’t caught wind of the fact that she was up here in this magical Italian mountain hideaway.

Ha! Foiled again. Just the way she liked it. They’d had their pound of flesh after the wedding nightmare. Painting a picture of her as if she’d been abandoned at the altar... The cheek! She’d been made of fool of, perhaps, but she’d been the one to pull off her ring and walk away.

The press might have stolen what little dignity Bea had left, but she wouldn’t let them take away her precious Italy. Especially now that returning to England was out of the question.

Her fingers pressed against her lips as the strong sting of emotion teased the back of her nose again.

Ugh. She’d tried her best to shake off those memories. The ones she’d kept locked away the day since she’d agreed to her mother’s harebrained plan. What a fool she’d been!