The Curvy Waitress and the Billionaire French Count (He Wanted Me Pregnant!) Read online

  He Wanted Me Pregnant!

  The Curvy Waitress and the Billionaire French Count

  by Victoria Wessex

  Broke, stuck in a dead-end job and uncomfortable with her curvy body, New York waitress Holly thinks life can’t get any worse…until she accidentally whacks a customer with a tray, breaking his nose.

  But the customer, now unable to speak, is the personal translator of drop-dead gorgeous Erard, a billionaire French Count who speaks no English. When he discovers that Holly is fluent in French, he takes her with him as his interpreter.

  Thrown into a world of luxury and wealth, Holly learns that her new boss finds her curves delicious. But will he be able to convince her she’s perfect the way she is? And can she accept his brand of hedonistic, carefree lovemaking: no inhibitions, no fears…no condoms?

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  Also by Victoria Wessex on Kindle

  He Wanted Me Pregnant…

  The British Nanny and her Billionaire Employer

  The Lawyer and the Outlaw Biker

  The Stewardess and the Billionaire CEO

  The Intern and the Senator

  The Maid and the Billionaire Prince

  The Cocktail Waitress and the Card Shark

  The Lady and the Pirate (a double length special!)

  The Nurse and the Soldier

  Other Popular Series I Write

  Taken (women indulging in dark fantasies with multiple men)

  Cuckolded (women having sex while their husbands are forced to watch).

  Be warned that both are much more explicit than HWMP!

  Blurbs and free extract at the end of this book!

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  The Curvy Waitress and the Billionaire French Count

  I never meant to break the guy’s nose.

  I didn’t even know he was there. I was squeezed between two tables, reciting a coffee and cake order back to a table full of grinning hipsters and trying to ignore the one staring at my cleavage. Ever wonder what’s going on in your waitress’s head? Mine looked like this:

  - I told that guy we have the pecan pie but now I’m not sure and he won’t tip if I’m wrong.

  - That guy is still staring at my breasts.

  - If I don’t make another $47 by Friday I’m not going to make rent.

  I wonder who’s standing behind me? didn’t even make the list. And then I heard the guys on the table to my left. I only heard one word, ass, but I only needed to.

  My rear gets a lot of comments, especially when it’s squeezed into the hideous pink and white waitress uniform we have to wear at the diner. It’s part of the 50s retro-cool thing that allows the boss to charge double what any other place would for mediocre coffee and limp salad. It’s all very cute when you look like a stick. When you’re a little larger, though, it’s…tight.

  I bristled but didn’t turn around. If I got angry at him, I’d lose any chance I had of a tip from that table.

  A guy at the hipster table told me I’d got his order wrong. I hadn’t—he’d changed his mind for the third time. But I smiled sweetly, crossed it out on my pad and re-wrote it. Breathe, Holly. Breathe. I was done. I started to turn towards the kitchen.

  “Are they real?” asked the guy who’d been staring at my breasts.

  “I—What?!” I couldn’t believe he’d actually asked that. I mean, it wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, but it usually came after the fourth margarita. I felt the flush rising up my face, as if I’d done something wrong. As soon as someone drew attention to my shape, the shame set in.

  “Shh! You asshole!” The guy’s friend punched him in the arm, a white knight riding in to save me. “Sorry,” he told me.

  I relaxed. For a split second.

  “Of course they’re real,” the “knight” whispered to his friend. “Look at her. She’s just big.”

  My teeth ground so hard they hurt. The flush in my cheeks turned red hot. I knew exactly what I was, huge and ugly and unlovable, and I didn’t need him to tell me. I spun on my heel to stalk off , my gleaming metal tray out in front of me—

  Crack.

  I blinked. A thin man in a suit was staggering backward, blood gushing from his nose.

  I looked at my tray. I looked at the man. Oh, shit!

  The diner had suddenly descended into a shocked hush. The bleeding guy’s feet skittered under him on the tiles and he almost went down on his ass. He was caught at the last minute by someone behind him and hoisted back to his feet.

  I ran forward. The guy’s snow-white shirt was rapidly turning red. “OhMyGodI’mSoSorry!” I gabbled. “Do you want a doctor? An ambulance?” I grabbed a handful of napkins and thrust them at him. “Here!”

  The guy was upright now, still supported by whoever was standing behind him. He recovered just enough to say, “Merde!” Which was a bad luck/good luck kind of a thing.

  Bad luck, because I’d just cracked open the nose of a foreign tourist, the lifeblood of overpriced, tacky places like the diner. I could see the TripAdvisor review now. Good luck, because French was the one foreign language I spoke—and spoke well, as it happened. I’d been raised bilingual, my French dad reading me as many kids’ books in French as my mom did in English. Bad luck, because he’d skipped town with another woman six years ago, when I was fifteen, and French was a reminder. He offered me money, occasionally, which I refused on principle.

  “I’m so sorry,” I told him in French. “I didn’t see you. I’m clumsy. I’m an idiot. Would you like me to call an ambulance?” Please don’t ask for an ambulance, I thought desperately. Visions of lawsuits and medical bills swam before my eyes. The guy didn’t respond. He just stared at me in horror.

  “He’ll be alright,” said a voice from behind the man, and suddenly everything seemed to slow down.

  The voice was low—it almost seemed to make the air throb. And it was smooth like molten gold, with a delicious rough edge in the “Rs” that sent a little tremble down my back.

  I looked up.

  And up.

  I hadn’t paid any attention to the man who’d caught my victim. I realized then why that was: he was tall enough that his face was actually out of my eye line, a good head taller than his friend or me. And while my victim was thin, seemingly composed entirely of bone and joints, his friend had wide, powerful shoulders that slimmed down to a tight, narrow waist. He had short brown hair just a shade darker than mine, but while mine was always frizzing out and tangling, his was tousled. Not many men can do tousled. This one could.

  He was in a light gray suit with a crisp blue shirt—so far, he seemed to have managed to avoid getting any blood on it—and the color set off the cool gray-blue of his eyes. A full, sensual lower lip, kissably soft, and a strong jaw, darkly stubbled…God, he’s gorgeous! Those rough Rs sparked something in my mind…something that traveled rapidly downward and didn’t stop until it was between my legs. I could imagine him growling. Growling things like—

  Stop it!

  --like, “Get on the bed,”

  Stop it!

  It clicked that he, too, had spoken in French. Oh God, imagine him growling in French!

  I closed my eyes for a second, coughed, and got a grip on myself. “I’m really sorry,” I said again,
in French.

  He smiled.

  That doesn’t really describe how it happened, though. It started as a smirk that made a bright little explosion go off in my chest. Then it widened into a smile and it was as if a roller blind had lifted, warm sunlight flooding into me. Suddenly, I saw my whole day so far for how cold and lifeless it had been.

  “Please don’t worry,” the man said in French. “Henri has had much worse, although not often from a woman. I am Erard.” Erard was a double-strength attack of rough Rs that made my head spin. He reached out for my hand and I offered it, thinking he wanted to shake.

  He didn’t. He took my hand in his big, warm fingers and lifted it—

  Wait. Oh God, he’s not really going to—

  He bent his head and kissed the backs of my fingers. Tingles radiated outward from the spot he’d kissed, rushed up my arm and slammed into my brain.

  It should have been cheesy…but somehow, from him, it absolutely wasn’t. I think it was because of how he did it. It wasn’t done in a lascivious way and it didn’t feel like a player’s smooth moves to pick up a girl in a bar. It felt…reverent. As if he was the one who wasn’t worthy, instead of me. Which was so upside down it was almost funny, given that he looked like he’d walked off a movie set and I was…me.

  I blushed and it wasn’t the usual red-faced, hot geyser of shame I felt when someone said my ass was big or commented on my boobs. It was light instead of heavy, if that makes any sense, as if it was lifting me up instead of weighing me down. I didn’t actually giggle, but it was a close-run thing. “Holly,” I managed to say.

  Henri turned and said something in French. At least, I think it was in French. It was so garbled from his bloody nose that it could have been in Klingon.

  “Henri says he’s perfectly alright and will go to the hospital,” Erard told me in French.

  A baleful look from Henri told me that perfectly alright wasn’t really what he’d said, but if Erard wanted to spare my feelings I was absolutely going to let him.

  “That does leave me with a problem,” said Erard. “I don’t speak any English and I’m in town for a meeting. Henri was my translator. Do you think you could take his place?”

  I blinked. No, of course I can’t. I mean, my French is pretty good but it’s a little rusty in places. And I’m certainly no translator. I couldn’t hope to sit in a meeting and translate on the fly—I was a waitress, for goodness sake! I couldn’t say yes, no matter how fantastically hot he was.

  “Yes,” I heard myself say. “Yes, of course.”

  What?! What did I just do?

  “I have to work, though,” I blurted. There—that’s a way out.

  Erard reached for my fingers again, took them in his big, strong hand and led me through the diner to the counter. He gave my hand a little squeeze on the way and my heart suddenly swelled and lifted. I felt almost lightheaded.

  We met my boss, Clark Hooper, coming the other way. He likes to think he looks like Clark Gable. He doesn’t.

  “I’m so sorry for what happened,” he told Erard in English. “Is your friend okay?”

  Erard turned to me. “Please tell him that I need to borrow you for the afternoon,” he said in French. “I’ll pay him five hundred dollars for your time.”

  My eyes bulged but I translated. Clark’s eyes bulged too, and he babbled his agreement. I think he would have happily sold me into slavery for $500. Erard thrust five crisp hundred dollar bills at him and led me from the diner, barely giving me time to grab my handbag. “Don’t I need to get changed?” I asked. I hadn’t been to anything you’d call a business meeting, but I was pretty sure translators didn’t wear retro 50s waitress uniforms.

  “We have no time,” Erard told me in French. “I have told Henri he can take the car to the hospital, so we’ll have to walk. Luckily, it’s only a block away. We were just stopping at your restaurant for coffee before we went in.” He stopped, just at the doorway of the diner. “Also, your outfit is”—his eyes traveled down my body, leaving a burning trail behind them. Under the cheap cotton of the uniform, I felt my nipples tighten, a squirming, molten heat ignite between my thighs. His eyes tracked back to my face and there was a dark, gleaming heat in his eyes. “Fine.”

  I swallowed. Fine really didn’t cover the look he’d just given me.

  Don’t be stupid, I told myself. He’s not interested in you! He probably had a thousand twig-like blonde French mademoiselles hurling themselves at him. I knew that. So why was my heart pounding?

  We stepped out of the cool, air-conditioned diner and onto the oven-hot street.

  ***

  Being noticed in New York takes some doing. Everyone here is so jaded that a giant, fire-breathing lizard would barely get a glance as long as it didn’t cut into the line at the coffee stand. But a curvy, blushing, slightly out of breath waitress in full 1950s get-up, towed along behind a gorgeous Frenchman? That’ll do it every time. And I knew every person we passed was thinking the same thing: What’s he doing with her? Why isn’t he with some svelte little thing, with an ass he could cup in one hand?

  What the hell am I doing?! I’d somehow signed myself up to be a translator at some business meeting. Okay, in theory anything was better than working at the diner for an afternoon, but…was it, really? At least at the diner I knew where I stood. In an office I was going to be out of place even in a suit, let alone dressed as a waitress.

  “So…this meeting. It’s not anything big or important, is it?” I asked. My rusty language skills were slowly starting to flow; it was beginning to seem natural to speak in French. Which was a good thing, because it seemed as if he didn’t speak a word of English.

  He did another of those Gallic shrugs, his broad shoulders rising as if it didn’t really matter either way. “No, I don’t think so. I’m only meeting them to buy something.” I felt blissful relief soak through me. I must have missed something in the translation. It wasn’t a business thing at all. He just wanted me to translate in a shop. That was fine. I could do shopping. “What are we buying?” I asked brightly.

  “A company.”

  Oh. My stomach tightened in terror.

  We turned off the street and into a huge, glass-fronted skyscraper. Erard led me straight across a marble-floored lobby and into an elevator and then, quite suddenly, the hubbub of the street was gone and we were alone.

  Alone, and very close together. There was maybe a foot separating us. There wasn’t really any need for us to be that close, given that the elevator could happily have accommodated an elephant, but I had absolutely no desire to move. I kept shooting little looks across at him as he watched the numbers climb on the floor display. He looked utterly focused and yet completely relaxed at the same time, as if he really cared about what he was doing but wasn’t about to let it phase him.

  Meanwhile, with every floor we climbed my stomach sank lower into my feet. If he wasn’t kidding about buying a company, then I was utterly, utterly out of my depth. What if I made a mistake and cost him millions? I was completely out of place in the world of business. I’d had to drop out of college when I fell behind on my bills. I didn’t have a degree. I didn’t even have a suit.

  “Nervous?” Erard asked in French, and I realized he was looking at me.

  I gulped and nodded.

  “You’ll do fine,” he told me, with a confidence that almost made me believe him.

  The doors opened.

  If anything, the top floor was even more luxuriously appointed than the lobby. The floor was so brightly polished it almost hurt my eyes, and everyone was strutting around in designer suits. The women, who looked at me in complete bewilderment, were all in heels at least four inches high. It looked like the sort of place where people really did buy and sell companies…which meant Erard probably hadn’t been kidding.

  Erard led me straight across the corridor. In front of us, two huge wooden doors that looked as if King Kong might be imprisoned behind them. He marched in without knocking, pushing the doors
wide.

  Oh. My. God. I was flying.

  The meeting room was double height, the ceiling maybe twenty feet above me. Somewhere vaguely behind me, I remembered that there was a door and a corridor, but they were forgotten because all around me was…sky.

  We were in one corner of the very top floor of the skyscraper and two entire walls were glass. It felt as if the floor was floating in mid air, fifty stories up.

  “Tell them I’m sorry,” Erard said. “My translator was injured in an accident, and you have kindly stepped in as a replacement.”

  My eyes were still locked on the view. I could see Central Park. I could see cars and buses and tiny dots that must be people. I finally looked at Erard. “Hmm?” I asked, my eyes wide.

  He smiled at me, amused.

  It clicked that he’d asked me to say something and I mentally rewound. I became aware of the other people in the room, eight of them, all gathered around a conference table, some of them still getting to their feet. They all stood up when we walked in, I realized. No, when he walked in. Who was this guy?

  I translated what Erard had said into English and everyone nodded apologetically and offered their understanding and hopes for a speedy recovery. Erard sat down at the head of the table and indicated that I should sit next to him. I sank into the plush leather chair, casting worried glances at the other people at the table. There were five men and three women and every one of them was dressed in a suit that cost at least a month of my rent. They were all desperately trying to look nonchalant, but I kept catching them glancing at me, mystified. What’s a waitress doing at our meeting?

  I was wondering the same thing. I only knew that, every time I looked at Erard, at those lips and cheekbones, strong and elegant at the same time, I knew that I would happily walk into a biker bar if it meant being close to him.

  He’s not interested in you, I told myself again.

  “Please remind them that this is just an introductory meeting to discuss terms,” Erard said in French. “Nothing is binding. Nothing is absolute.” His voice slowed as he looked at me. “We’re just…getting to know one another.”