His Two Royal Secrets

The Combe Family Scandals #3

by Caitlin Crews

From heiress in the shadows

…to his pregnant princess!

For one passionate night, in a stranger’s arms, Pia had felt beautiful and free…free of being the lonely, overlooked heiress to her family’s millions. Then Pia learns she’s carrying the Crown Prince of Atilia’s twins! Ruthless Ares is determined to claim his secret heirs, but he won’t— can’t —promise Pia more. And Pia’s true royal secret? She’s falling inescapably in love with her dark-hearted prince…

Discover this seductive royal romance—with a pregnancy twist!

Genres: Harlequin, Romance, Harlequin Presents, Contemporary Romance, Royalty, Harlequin Romance, Abuse

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published June 18, 2019

About the author

Caitlin Crews discovered her first romance novel at the age of twelve, in a bargain bin at the local five and dime. It involved swashbuckling pirates, grand adventures, a heroine with rustling skirts and a mind of her own, and a seriously mouthwatering and masterful hero. The book (the title of which remains lost in the mists of time) made a serious impression. Caitlin was immediately smitten with romances and romance heroes, to the detriment of her middle school social life. And so began her life-long love affair with romance novels, many of which she insists on keeping near her at all times, thus creating a fire hazard of love wherever she lives.

Caitlin has made her home in places as far-flung as York, England and Atlanta, Georgia. She was raised near New York City, and fell in love with London on her first visit when she was a teenager. She has backpacked in Zimbabwe, been on safari in Botswana, and visited tiny villages in Namibia. She has, while visiting the place in question, declared her intention to live in Prague, Dublin, Paris, Athens, Nice, the Greek Islands, Rome, Venice, and/or any of the Hawaiian islands. Writing about exotic places seems like the next best thing to actually moving there.

She currently lives in Oregon with her animator/comic book artist husband and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.

Reviews

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating 3.75

Pia has always lived in the shadow of her beautiful mother. She's the quiet, shy one in the family. Her parents are beautiful and demonstrative couple. Love and hate seems to be their theme. She seemed to never live up to their expectations and was always sensing their disappointment.

After graduating Pia decides she's going to step out and have a night just for her. And that included sleeping with our hero, Ares who is a prince. That night has consequences that show up months later.
Ares attends a funeral and low and behold it's Pia's father's funeral. He learns she's pregnant and the two disappear to his island away from the media and paparazzi. He need to regroup and figure out what's to do. But another surprise awaits Ares, he's going to be a father of twins.

Both MC have parents issues that effects relationship and especially theirs. They figure out a way to work through them as well as a plan for their boys lives as well as their own. They marry and each reveals their love for each other. And live HEA. I have to note that I loved, loved the epilogue, excellent.

[*CJ* · Rating 1 out of 5]

"His Two Royal Secrets" is the story of Pia and Ares.

The old ONS leading to secret baby plot, this one has a cynical and scarred playboy hero and a strong but innocent traumatized heroine. We have a hero who is heir to a throne, but has given it up as his super shitty dad demands obedience. Our heroine has grown up in a convent, gets out one night to enjoy only for the hero's sperms to fertilize her eggs. Anyways, she's soon orphaned, meets the hero at her father's funeral, he is made aware of her pregnancy. Loads of drama and seduction, and the torture *cough* book finishes.

Unlikable MCs, boring storyline and mediocre chemistry.

Not enjoyable for me.

SWE?
1.5/5

[Aou · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He had been born a prince, but it had taken Pia to make him a man."
(...)
"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever beheld. I count myself lucky every day I get to spend with you. You have made me a better man, and in so doing, will help me be the fair and just ruler my people deserve.”

Just these words from epilogue made the book 5 stars. So cruelty of him, sweetness of h and angst were bonuses for me.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edited **
3.75 stars

A nice, pleasant read that would have been better had the author put in more interaction scenes between the lead protagonists instead of her trademark flashback and monologues to show what transpired between them. I felt there was no need for so many flashback dialogues between Pia & her late mother. But, have to say there's been a marked improvement in her writing.

The lead pair, both, Ares and Pia were nice and relatable although Ares could be a jerk at times.
Both had parents' issues that shaped their thinking. Crown Prince Ares' father, the King, hated him with passion & only tolerated him for his bloodline. Every meeting of theirs ended with the King full of rage smashing a decanter against the wall. It was only because of the mother he loved that Ares tolerated the man, staying away as much as he could from the kingdom of Atilia & sowing wild oats all over Europe in defiance. After her death, he walked away from his kingdom, relocating to New York, although he did flew in & out to carry out his duties especially for the charity he started in his mother's name. He couldn't fulfill her dearest wish that he marries because he was determined never to marry & never to continue his family bloodline, certain his blood was poisoned & wouldn't risk poisoning any children with it.

Pia Combe, although an heiress, never got love from her parents especially her beautiful mother who made sure to drill it into Pia that an ugly duckling like her would never be a swan like her mother. The only love she got was from her older brother, Matteo, but there was a vast age diff between them and years of being kept apart with her being sent in a convent school followed by finishing school, overall hidden from media glare.

Then at a party on her trip to New York with friends to celebrate her graduation she met the most gorgeous man and found herself succumbing to the invitation in his mesmerising eyes & giving herself to a man for the first time in her life. As luck would have it she ended up with a souvenir, disappointing her parents considering she didn't even know the name of the man who impregnated and blames herself for the death of her parents' one soon after the other.

At her father's funeral, she's shocked when she comes face to face with the father of her unborn babies and that is no commoner but a crown prince. I enjoyed the scene between the two alpha men, Ares & Matteo especially when a livid Mateo punches Ares in the face sending him sprawling to the ground in full view of the hungry reporters when he refused to accept Pia's claim that the child was his.

With ravenous reporters awaiting answers from him & the Combe family & realizing what the impact of a woman claiming to be pregnant with his child would be on the crown & his kingdom, Ares spirits Pia away to his kingdom. He is further shocked when his doctor tells him that not only he is the father, but father of twins.

Pia decides to give Ares time to process the truth considering she had six months to come to terms with it, which is why she makes no protest to leave his palace. With a scandal raging outside she treats her prison like a retreat, writing a column for an online magazine during the day and looking forward to the evenings when Ares would return from his duties. As weeks flew, and they grew closer and he her feel beautiful, she began to fall in love with him.

Ares too, found himself eager to return to Pia after each royal engagement and had no idea what was happening to him or the feeling that slammed into him every time he saw her. For a while the two were happy in their own little paradise until the poison his father unleashes causes Ares to hurt Pia and it was only when he saw her covered in blood and was praying to every gods he never believed in to save her it dawned on him what she really meant to him and that he couldn't lose her.

The epilogue was nice. Ares & Pia now parents of six. However, I have mixed feelings about Ares becoming King after two decades.

Overall a nice, low-angst read. Edited ** Would have loved for there to be more intensity & passion in the book.

Looking forward to reading Matteo's love story & his & Pia's newly discovered half-brother Dominic.

[Vintage · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ruh roh, I should have reviewed this after I read it. As someone mentioned somewhere, this has an old school vibe.

The h and H have a ONS which leads to the two royal secrets. The H is not only a bad boy, but he is a bad boy Prince resentful of his overbearing, crystal throwing father. A few months after the ONS he’s phoning-it-in at a funeral representing the kingdom when he sees the heroine. Chaos ensues, and her big brother does right by her by throwing a punch.

Prince H takes her to his Casbah to get to the bottom of it all. An insulting DNA test and some brooding ensues. The couple seemed to spend a lot of time apart.

While the H had his Daddy issues, the h had hers with her mother, an insanely beautiful woman with all the warmth of Medusa and in an emotional train wreck with the h’s father. Both parents have died off page which I think was a mistake as it would have been nice to see her stand up to her mother, but I assume Harlequin’s page count prevented it.

The H eventually gets over his brooding and they end up with a HEA. Amusing epilogue that shows that infertility and succession is not something the kingdom will have to worry about with these two.

[Melody Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I felt like this was an average read and felt it moved a bit slow but the last chapter and the epilogue saved it enough that I would give it a 4-star rating.

In the epilogue we get to see their family twenty years down the road and it is beautiful.

This hero was a major man-whore and we are left wondering if he was celibatethe six months they were apart. At one point he was thinking about the heroine and that first night together and it crossed his mind that if he thought about it he didn't know if he had been with another since her but decided to toss that from his mind and not think about it because it scared him. He felt that if he had not moved on from them he cared too much and he vowed to never marry or have children. (It didn't take him long to blow that out of the water.)

The heroine in the story had a major self-image problem. Her mother was known as the most beautiful woman in the world and the newspapers and rags would always compare the daughter to her mother. She was touted as the ugly duckling and refused to believe the hero when he told her that she was beautiful. She didn't see what others did when she looked in the mirror. She saw only a distorted ugly woman. She reminded me of someone suffering with body dysmorphic disorder. She could look at herself and simply not see what everyone else did. It was sad and part of that was brought on by her mother making her feel unattractive. They thought she was unattractive so they basically kept her locked away in a convent for her education. She felt that they wanted to hide her because she did not live up to her mother's beauty standards.

[lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you read
(THE ITALIAN TWIN CONSEQUENCES)
Which I hated 😑
(UNTAMED BILLIONAIRE'S INNOCENT BRIDE)
which was an ok read (lacks passion )
So
This is the story of their sister (PIA)
I absolutely loved it , so much better than the 2 previous books , loved the MC's , the passion , the sex scenes and the sweet epilogue, enjoyed it 👍

[Debbie DiFiore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no wirds

This was beautiful. I am still sitting here in awe at what I just read. I loved Pia and eventually I loved Ares. They have a very bad start but when it turned around it turned around. I loved this quote from the book so much.

Did she whisper his name? Or did it live in her already? Always?

It just was beautiful to me. It gave me chills.

The heroine has a passionate encounter with the hero. They don't see each other for six months. She doesn't even know his real name. Her Mother and Father both die, really awful people it sounds like, and he shows up at the funeral.They are each other and her brother realizes this is the man who made her pregnant and he hits him. Loved that especially because the hero was quite the jerk. He steals her away for the tests and after that it turns into a beautiful love story between two broken people. I loved it when he found out they were twin boys. I am not telling anymore because it is just so beautiful.

As for safety, celibacy was unclear but I truly believe he was and I am just not going to question his thoughts on that.

And the epilogue was epic and I just can't tell you how much it affected me. It was perfect. Just like their love!! I have to go find the other books in the series. This is going straight to my favorites shelf.

[Nessiet · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️

[iamGamz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pia the younger sister to the heroes in the Combe Family Scandal series but yet her story isn’t included. The punch heard around the world is mentioned in Matteo’s story, “Italian Twin Consequences”.

Anyhooo, loved this book. Great story. Really well told. Adored the characters, even though I initially thought Pia was a bit too submissive, but her strength is knowing how to seem like you’re giving in to get what you want.

Ares was just an angry ass man. He had chips the size of boulders on his shoulders. He was fighting a war with himself and by himself. It just made him ill tempered. Until Pia.

A great story. Wonderfully told. Worth the read.

[MaryD · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is very compacted, mostly taking place in one spot and mostly involving just the two MC's, though the "ghosts" of Pias verbally abusive mother and Ares' parents take up a lot of room in each MC's brain.

To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about this story. On the one hand, there was a lot of "thinky thinks", but on the other hand, there doesn't seem to be a lot of communication *between* Pia & Ares (and I see what the author did with his name- "The only war he’d ever fought had been against himself, and Pia had taught him how to put down his arms.")

[Ishara · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a lovely book! The MCs, Ares and Pia, both had many childhood issues that shaped the way they viewed the world, and themselves. I enjoyed the journey that they both took to find themselves and each other. Pia's sense of humour and clever one liners made me smile and one cannot help but admire her for her strength and character. The epilogue set well into the future was beautifully done, though I have to admit, I didn't like that Ares had to wait 20 years to ascend to the throne.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it

[Xai Xai · Rating 4 out of 5]

High strungly emotional! From a Rock hard hero to a handsome perfect Prince. From an illusional ugly duckling to a radiant queen. A power packed emotional story with the HEA we all dream of.

[Susan in Perthshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great story which is part of a series. Pia and Ares are a fascinating couple. He discovers she’s pregnant at her father’s funeral and he whisks her off to his kingdom whilst he decides what to do with her.

The story then focuses on the 2 of them and their developing relationship. It is a satisfying and emotional read. The epilogue is brilliant!

[Maria Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

His Two Royal Secrets by Caitlin Crews is a sexy ‘one night with consequences’ romance for a Prince and the woman who will become his Queen, in name and in his heart.

Pia Combe lived a sheltered life under high expectations from her beauty queen mother and businessman father. So when she had the chance to let loose for a night in New York City, she took advantage of it and ended up in bed with a sexy stranger. Little did she expect that she’d end up pregnant, with twins! Nor did she expect to see her one night lover again at her father’s funeral.

Prince Ares of Atilia ( a small island country in the Ionian Sea) wants nothing to do with the expectations of his cold and angry father, like saddling himself with a wife and child. He’s been careful not to get himself into any delicate situations – but that all flies out the window when he comes face to face with a very pregnant Pia, a woman he’d not stopped thinking about since their sensual night together. With the paparazzi buzzing for a story, one easily stirred by Pia’s brother Matteo’s reaction to discovering Ares is the one who knocked up his sister, Ares spirits Pia away to the Southern Palace of his island home. There the couple try to figure out where their next steps will take them. Will Ares change his mind and discover marriage and a family are actually the future he desires?

For more of this review please visit Harlequin Junkie: https://harlequinjunkie.com/review-hi...

This story was provided by the publisher for review.

[Belladonnabooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't realise this was a triology, so I started in the middle :(
Pia is an heiress, raised in a convent, the second child of a glamorous and successful couple, but she feels unloved, unwanted, and in no way comparable to her famously beautiful mother.
She has a ONS in New York on her first trip as an adult - she is unwittingly captivated by a handsome prince. Literally.
The Crown Prince Ares (God of War) who is endlessly battling his horrible father and the birthright he doesn't want.
Once he discovers he is about to be a father, he takes Pia off to his island home and they get to know each other and of course, fall in love.
Ares is a huge prick - selfish, and cruel and thoughtless. But Pia is lovely, and hold her own as best she can. He makes her happy, so what can you do?
And there is a nice epilogue where he seems to have realised what a gem he has in his wife. And there are lots and lots of children - CC does like her MCCs fertile, for sure.
Going to track down the brothers' stories.

[Lindseyrenee · Rating 3 out of 5]

some weird decisions in this book

I mean it’s fine. It’s about what you’d expect. But the book entirely skips over the ONS and their first meeting, and her finding out she’s pregnant, and her telling her parents, and her mom dying, and we immediately jump to her telling her brother at her dads funeral.

Which is…certainly a choice. It made it really hard to root for the MMC because we never saw their initial attraction. Just him being awful.

He pretty much ignores her until right before she gives birth, which is also off page.

Like???? What’s the point of the story if all the plot is off page??

Anyways, emergency c-section and some brief temporary danger from hemorrhage before we jump to after the birth. Tbh I’m not sold on their HEA at ALL but whatever.

[Tonya Warner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ares has grown up not only in the shadow of his father the King of Atilia, but ruthlessly shown how important his bloodline is. A fear that he might pass on that tainted blood, made him vow to never have children. to never marry. And then, he found Pia.

Pia might have broken away from her isolated upbringing to have a one night stand with a man, but she never expected to become pregnant. Let alone, pregnant with twins. Finding out that the father is a Crown Prince does not make it any easier. Especially when he's sexy and gorgeous, and everything she could never be.

Very sweet story.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pia was a a forgotten heiress and Ares was a Crown Prince who did not want to bring any children into the world that he had to live in. Pia has a one night stand in New York for her one outing and falls pregnant Ares comes to her father's funeral not realizing Pia is the daughter. Her brother Matteo throws a punch at the funeral and the paparazzi smells a story. Fast forward to where Pia and Ares are on his island in his kingdom and begin to know one another and it is proven he is the father. It is a good HEA. Enjoy.

[Sammi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book, and I liked the characters. However, I think it could have been better written. I love books where there are things about each character that impacts what someone says (like with Ares's relationship with his father and how it impacted his view of his bloodline) - it usually makes the story more heartwarming when the couple finally come together. Crews just waited too long before she brought them together.

[Daryl Thrasher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Pia and her beautiful nature and the love story was fairytale beautiful!

I have enjoyed Caitlin’s books for many years and must say thus has been one of my favorites. Pia had a lovely strength about her and self doubts that touched the heart! Thank you fir this lovely story and characters that I thoroughly enjoyed

[Michelle Padilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read. Couldn't put this one down. I really felt for Pia she was emotional abused by her parents so why would she think think Prince Ares would even remember her or even want her. Ares never wants to get married or have children after the verbal abuse he suffered through. Can they make things work with a twins on the way? Or is this a marriage to be doomed?

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

His Two Royal Secrets

They were just a one night stand. But their time together was more than they thought. He was royalty, a crown prince, who did not want the responsibilities that his father drummed into his head. He swore never to March or have children. But one night of passion changes everything.

[The Earls List · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was not a real fan u til about the last 40 pages...then it was gold.

[Geraldine Sadiku · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ares doesn't want to believe in love but can Pia soften this Princes heart in times , a sweet gentle but passionate read.

[Harlequin Books]

Categories
Romance, Contemporary Romance

Miniseries
One Night With Consequences

[Harlequin Books]

Categories
Romance, Contemporary Romance

Miniseries
One Night With Consequences

[Tigger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the first three chapters and then went to the last three chapters.
This story just did not keep me interested

[Calysta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Other than the initial bit where she just...goes with him, I enjoyed this. I particularly enjoyed the fact that she asked him if he had had a vasectomy. LOL FINALLY someone asks that. :D