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His anger was building. ‘The three of you lied? You agreed to it?’
‘I was… ill.’
‘You mean you were paid,’ he snapped, staring around at the luxury yacht as if it had a bad smell. ‘I know your family. You don’t have a penny to bless yourself with.’
‘Let’s not get personal.’
‘This is nonsense.’ He stared down at the baby in her arms. Cocooned in a soft cream alpaca shawl, Michales slept on, oblivious to the drama being played out around him. ‘Of course the baby’s Mia’s,’ he snapped. ‘He looks like Mia, and he looks like Giorgos.’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ she said, so softly that no one but Alex could hear.
‘He does.’
‘Well, maybe a bit,’ she conceded. ‘But then Mia looks like me. And Giorgos… Giorgos had the Sappheiros royal family features. Who else do I know who might have those features? Work out the dates, Alex. Go figure.’
And, with a faint smile, the result of sheer willpower, she pushed past him.
And that was it. A moment later she was in the limousine. Her baggage was in the trunk and they were moving away.
Alex didn’t make a move to follow. He simply stood on the yacht in the warm sunshine and stared after her.
It was done, she thought, shaking with reaction. She’d reclaimed her son.
She could get on with her life.
For days Lily held her breath. She didn’t think there was a danger that Alex would try to take Michales forcibly—but she didn’t know for sure.
She’d half expected a media frenzy. By reclaiming Michales she was changing the succession of three royal families. The kingdom would dissolve, and the old principalities would take their place. From what she’d figured from reading a potted history of the Isles on the Internet, Alex would now be Crown Prince of Sappheiros. He’d be the real ruler of one island, rather than the caretaker of three.
But it seemed that whatever Alex planned, he wasn’t making it public. He hadn’t publicised Michales’s disappearance either, even though an international hunt might well have blown her cover.
His silence unnerved her, but at least it gave her time to get to know her son. To fall more deeply in love than she’d ever thought she could be.
‘It’s not the living arrangements you’re used to,’ she told her tiny son as she introduced him to his new home. Her window looked out over the boatyard. Her boss and his team were at work right under her window, stretching timbers over the frame of a skiff.
She’d soon be down there. The knowledge settled her. Spiros wanted her back and she wanted to be there. If she left her window open she could hear Michales cry, and Spiros’s wife would be only too delighted to help.
This could work.
Meanwhile she sat on her faded quilt on her saggy bed and cuddled her son.
She could make him smile, and she was well enough to enjoy him. Life stretched before her, full of endless possibilities. Surely there could be no greater happiness?
Her only cloud? Alex would come, she knew this wasn’t over.
Alex—oh, if things could only be different.
They couldn’t be different. She forced herself to relax. She forced herself to be optimistic, for there was no going back. This might be Alex’s baby, but first and foremost he was hers.
It had taken Alex almost a week to sort things out in his head. Even then they didn’t feel sorted. Where to go to from here? He couldn’t simply take what Lily told him at face value, tell the islanders they’d been conned and move forward.
But at last, finally, he was starting to accept what she’d told him as the truth.
For the test results Lily had given the immigration official were watertight. Alex had stood by the man’s side as he’d rung the French authorities, and he’d heard the outrage that their tests be questioned. Lily had gone to enormous trouble to ensure these were seen as legitimate. She’d organised independent witnesses as DNA samples had been taken. She’d even agreed to have witnesses as she’d been examined to prove she’d borne a child five months ago.
Michales was her baby.
And… his? Was she serious?
He remembered the little boy as he’d last seen him, sleeping in his mother’s arms. Dark lashes. Thick black curls. Smiling even in sleep.
He was beautiful.
He was his son.
It was too big to take in.
But, believe it or not, this baby was proven to be not the natural child of Mia and Giorgos. There’d been no official adoption—only deception.
The legal ramifications were mind-blowing.
He’d needed help. He’d needed the best constitutional lawyers money could buy, and the best political advisors. He’d consulted them—they’d pored over ancient documents, they’d scratched their heads and they’d outlined facts he didn’t want to know.
This was impossible. He needed a magic wand so the past few months could disappear and he could rule without the encumbrance of a baby.
His son.
The more he thought of the lie that had been perpetrated, the sicker he became. That Giorgos and Mia had deliberately deceived the islanders… That Lily had consented…
Had she deliberately seduced him? It had to be faced. Had it been a deliberate plan by the three of them, with Mia pulling out after Giorgos’s death only when she’d realised she had no financial independence?
Was Mia’s abandonment why Lily had changed her mind and taken her baby back? And what was this illness she’d talked about? She’d been fine six weeks ago at his coronation.
Enquiries to the doctors she’d cited had been stonewalled, citing privacy. Privacy with the succession at stake? Hell, he was almost up to bribing hospital officials to get the answers he wanted.
Not quite. Not yet. He’d ask her directly first.
He’d talked on, privately, to lawyer after lawyer, to advisor after advisor. He’d talked to Stefanos and to Nikos.
He’d thought of one disaster after another…
And when they’d told him the only path that was sure to save the islands he’d felt ill.
Finally, bleak and still unbelieving, he returned to the dockyards, to the address Lily had given the authorities as her permanent home. To the apartment over the boatyard he’d visited once before.
He went alone, slipping in the back way, not wanting to be noticed. Hoping like hell that Lily had rid herself of the bodyguards she’d had with her the week before.
He knocked at the door to her first-floor apartment and he thought this must be a mistake—she’d never live like this. Not Mia’s sister.
No one answered. He twisted the doorknob, expecting it to be locked.
It gave under his hand.
Her apartment was one room, simply furnished. There was a double bed, big and saggy, covered with a patchwork quilt that had seen better days. There was a tiny table with a single kitchen chair, a battered armchair, a tiny television, a rod and curtain in the corner constituting a wardrobe.
There was a cot beside the open window. With… With… Michales? Alone?
No. Ignore the cot. He didn’t have space in his head to look at the little person in the cot.
Would he ever?
What sort of a mother was she to leave him alone? Anyone could walk in here.
She was just like Mia.
Concentrate on other things, he thought fiercely. He needed some sort of handle on Lily. Some awareness of who she was.
The apartment was furnished as if the owner had no money to spare, but it didn’t scream poverty. Gingham curtains framed the windows. The windows were open, letting in sunlight and the sounds from the boatyard below. There were pots of petunias on the windowsills, and a seagull was balancing on one leg looking hopefully inside.
It looked… great.
It also looked about as far from a royal residence as it could get.
Where was Lily?
Michales… his son… was sound asleep.
His son.
He could just pick him up and take him, he thought. How easy would that be?
What did he want with a baby? With this baby?
With… his baby?
He walked over to the window—still carefully not looking at the cot—and glanced out. And there was Lily.
She was right below him, deep in the hull of an embryonic boat. The boat’s ribs stretched around her, bare, raw timber. The guy he’d met twelve months before—Lily’s boss?—was hauling a length of wood from a steaming vat.
To his amazement, it was Lily calling the shots. She was dressed in serviceable bib-and-brace overalls, workmanlike boots, a baseball cap and thick leather gloves to her elbows. She received the timber from Spiros and her orders flew, curt and incisive.
Her whole attention was on the plank. They had it in place and she was hauling it by hand, pushing, twisting… Two other men were helping, using their brute strength to help her, but Lily was doing the guiding.
He watched on, fascinated. Only when the wood was a fully formed rib, one of the vast timbers forming the skeleton of the new hull, did she stand back and look at it as a whole.
‘That’s fantastic,’ she called. ‘Ten down and a hundred and sixty to go? We’ll get them done by teatime.’
There was laughter and a communal groan.
She laughed with them. She was… one of the boys? The men were deferring to her with respect.
‘I need to check on Michales,’ she was saying. ‘He’s due for a feed. You think you can do the next one without me?’ She glanced up at the window.
She saw him.
He’d expected shock. Maybe even fear. Instead, her eyebrows rose, just a fraction. She gave him a curt nod, as if acknowledging past acquaintance, or maybe that she’d attend to him shortly, then deliberately turned her back on him. She strolled over to talk to Spiros.
Spiros was about to lower another plank, but he was looking at it doubtfully. Now he swore and thrust it aside.
‘It’s not worth it. There’s a flaw in the middle and the rest are the same. They’ll break before they ever bend. Enough. You go and feed your little one, and I’ll send the boys to get more.’ He smiled at Her with real affection. ‘Don’t you keep my godson waiting.’ Then he, too, glanced up at the window. His smile died.
Spiros stared at Alex for a long minute. What had Lily told him?
Nothing favourable, clearly.
‘Hey, look who the cat brought home,’ he said, his tone softly threatening. ‘It seems we have company.’
His big body was pure aggression. If Spiros had been Lily’s father the message couldn’t have been clearer. ‘You mess with Lily, you mess with me.’
With us. The entire team was gazing at him now. This was hostile territory.
There was a slight noise behind him. He turned and a middle-aged woman was standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed across her ample breasts. She looked immovable and as aggressive as the men on the docks.
Maybe he couldn’t just pick up Michales and take him.
‘What do you want?’ Spiros demanded from below. ‘What the hell are you doing in Lily’s apartment?’
‘It’s okay, Spiros,’ Lily said. ‘I’ve been expecting him. Though I shouldn’t have left it unlocked.’
‘It’s okay,’ the woman called to Lily. ‘I’m here.’ She stalked over to the cot and put her body between him and his… the baby.
He couldn’t look at… the baby.
Unnerved, he looked down at the docks again. Lily was only ten feet under him, giving him a bird’s-eye view. She was too thin, he thought. Her bib-and-brace overalls were loose and baggy. Her glorious curls were caught up under a boy’s baseball cap, worn back to front. She had a smudge of grease down one cheek.
She looked about fifteen.
But then, ‘I’m hoping he’s here to organise paternity payments,’ she told Spiros, and he stopped thinking of what she looked like.
‘He’s your baby’s father?’ Spiros demanded.
‘He is. This is Alexandros, Prince Regent of Sappheiros.’
If he’d expected a bit of deference he would have been disappointed. Spiros’s aggression simply doubled. Tripled. And the gasp from the woman at the cot was one of indignation and affront.
‘So where the hell have you been?’ Spiros demanded from below. ‘Alexandros of Sappheiros. A prince of the blood, leaving Lily alone with a child… What were you thinking?’
This was crazy. He didn’t need these accusations.
He should go down.
Not with the amount of aggression directed at him, he decided. He could talk a lot more reasonably from up here. Especially if he kept his back turned to Madam Fury.
‘I searched for her,’ he told the boat-builder, trying to keep his voice moderate. Reasonable. ‘You know I did.’
‘Once,’ Spiros said, and spat his disgust. ‘You came here once. If she’d been my woman I would have hunted her to the ends of the earth.’
‘I’m not his woman,’ Lily retorted.
‘He’s the father of your baby,’ Spiros countered, pugnacious. ‘Of course you’re his woman.’
‘Times change,’ she said softly. ‘You know they do. Spiros, I need to talk to him.’
‘Then talk,’ he said, glowering. ‘Go on. But, prince or no prince, remember he has no rights here. Leave your window open and call us if you need us.’ And with a humph of indignation—and a meaningful and warning stare at Alex—he turned his back on him.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE WAS off balance. He shouldn’t have entered Lily’s apartment. It made him feel like a criminal.
What Spiros had said made him feel like a criminal.
Leaving Lily alone with a child…
How the hell was he supposed to have known?
He heard heavy boots on the stairs. Lily’s boots? The door swung open. He turned to face her but she ignored him, making a beeline for the cot.
Michales was still asleep.
Alex waited. He still didn’t look at the baby. He couldn’t. This was still too big to take in.
Lily though… He could watch Lily. She’d been doing hard manual work. Building boats. He’d heard it before and he’d been hearing verification all week but until now he hadn’t believed it.
Mia’s sister?
Finally satisfied her son was safe, Lily turned to the woman.
‘Thanks, Eleni,’ she said. ‘I can take it from here.’
Then, as the woman gave him a cold stare and huffed her way out of the door, she turned to him. ‘So,’ she said, coldly formal, ‘what right do you have to walk in here?’
She was angry! There were two sides of that coin.
‘I might ask the same of you,’ he snapped. ‘Entering my palace, stealing the Crown Prince.’
‘He’s not the Crown Prince and you know it.’ She tugged her cap further down over her short-cropped curls. It really was… ridiculous.
‘You had no right… ’ he started, but she crossed her arms over her breasts as Eleni had and glared, lioness guarding her cub.
‘I have every right. You can’t have him.’
‘I’m not saying I want him.’
‘No,’ she said, and then again, ‘no.’ Defiance turned suddenly to uncertainty. ‘I don’t… ’
‘Know what you want? That makes two of us. Would you mind telling me what the hell is happening?’
‘Why should I?’
‘For a start, you’ve implied I’m this baby’s father. Am I?’
‘Yes,’ she said, as if it didn’t matter.
It mattered. He’d been working on this, the worst-case scenario, all week, but it still made him feel ill.
Again he couldn’t look at the cot. He just… couldn’t.
‘So you sold him to Giorgos and Mia.’
‘I’d never sell him. He’s mine, and if you think you’re taking him… ’
‘I’m not here to take him, but I have the right to know what’s going on,’ he snapped back and she made an almost visible effort to get a hold on her anger.
‘Just tell me,’ he said. ‘You owe me an explanation.’
‘I owe you nothing,’ she flashed, and then closed her eyes. ‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘Not that you deserve an explanation, but here goes. I met you, I slept with you and I got pregnant. But I couldn’t care for Michales so Mia took him. She and Giorgos told the world he was theirs. I thought they were adopting him. They didn’t even do that, which has made my task of reclaiming him a whole lot easier.’
‘You’re saying you didn’t even check what they were doing?’
‘That’s right,’ she said flatly, not even bothering to be defensive. ‘I was ill during the pregnancy and I trusted Mia to care for him. I was a fool. Take it or leave it. It’s the truth.’
He couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make sense. ‘Mia told the world she was pregnant months before Michales was born.’
‘Did she?’ She sounded uninterested.
But he was working things out in his head. ‘Mia said she didn’t want anyone to know of her pregnancy until she was sure she wouldn’t miscarry,’ he said slowly. ‘By the time it was announced, she was five months gone. She was staying in the most exclusive private hospital she could find—abroad, as far from Sappheiros as she could get. Was that so she could bribe people to say your baby was hers?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t care.’
What the hell… ? ‘Lily, I’ve had enough,’ he snapped. ‘To be party to such a fraud… ’
‘Am I supposed to explain?’
In the cradle behind her, Michales was stirring. Whimpering.
Michales.
He had a son.
He’d known for a week. But he needed more time to take it in. A year or so. More.
And into his jumble of emotions came Lily. She was aggressive and uncooperative. But underneath…
There was a reason he’d fallen for her, he thought. Beneath her anger she looked… vulnerable. And very, very desirable. Despite the overalls and the crazy cap. Despite the steel-toed boots.
She made him feel…
Yeah, that was what had got him into this mess in the first place, he told himself savagely. Leave feelings out of it. Find out facts.
Like why she hadn’t told him she was pregnant.
‘Did I deserve this?’ he asked slowly into the silence. ‘That you not tell me you were expecting my child?’
‘I tried to tell you.’ She sounded tired. Flat.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I phoned. Three weeks after we’d… ’
‘Had sex?’ he said crudely and she winced.
‘If you like,’ she managed. ‘Maybe that sums up our connection. Dumb, sordid sex.’
It had been more than that. They both knew it. That was what was messing with his head.
‘I tried to find you,’ he told her.
‘Like I believe that. You only had to ask Mia for my address.’
‘I did ask Mia. She told me to leave you alone—she was blunt and aggressive and gave no details. But I did end up here. Spiros has told you. And then you phoned.’
‘I did,’ she said coldly. ‘You can’t remember what you said?’
‘No. I… ’
‘If you can’t, then I can. It’s the sort of conversation that sticks in a girl’s mind. You find out you’re pregnant. You’re sick and confused and scared, but finally you work up courage to contact the baby’s father. And his line is… “Lily. Great to hear from you. You’re not trying to slap a paternity suit on me as well, I hope.”’
He stilled.
He’d said it. God forgive him, he’d said it.
He remembered, all too clearly.
He was a prince, a bachelor, titled and eligible. He’d made a fortune himself, and as Giorgos’s heir he stood to inherit much, much more. As such, he’d endured the most blatant attempts to… get close.
The morning Lily had called he’d just fielded a call from the mother of a Hollywood starlet. Vitriolic and accusing.
‘You slept with my daughter and now she’s pregnant. You’ll marry her or you’ll pay millions.’
He’d never slept with the girl. He couldn’t remember even meeting her. But obviously the girl was pregnant, and she’d named him as the father.
It happened.
And about ten minutes after that, Lily had called.
He had slept with Lily. He’d been angry that she’d left, frustrated that he hadn’t been able to find her—and, despite his precautions, pregnancy was possible, though unlikely. So he’d come out with his glib, joking line…
‘You’re not trying to slap a paternity suit on me as well… ’
She’d said… what was it? ‘Get lost.’ And cut the connection.
He remembered staring at the phone, feeling bad, thinking he should trace the call. And then thinking of Mia and how much he disliked her—how much he loathed Lily’s connection to royalty. And how much attachment hurt. How love ended in grief. How a sister of Mia’s could never be worth that hurt. And it had sounded as if she clearly didn’t want him anyway.
And he’d made the conscious decision, there and then, not to make any further attempt to contact her.
‘You could have tried again,’ he said, but her face was grim now, and drawn.
For over a year now he’d tagged this woman as just like her sister. He’d treated her accordingly. His response to her phone call had been glib and cruel, but if it had been Mia he’d been talking to, maybe it would have been justified.
She wasn’t Mia.
And now? She was expecting him to walk away. No, she was wanting him to walk away. With or without paternity payments, he thought. The fact that she wanted nothing to do with him was obvious.
Unbidden, he remembered Lily as he’d first seen her. Dressed simply in a little black dress. Very little make-up. Those glorious curls.
He’d said something sardonic about their surroundings—the glitz of the royal ballroom—and she’d chuckled her agreement. ‘I do like a bit of bling,’ she’d said. ‘Mind, these chandeliers are a disappointment. I’d prefer them in pink. Plain crystal is so yesterday’s fashion. Like stove-pipe pants and shoulder pads.’ She’d eyed him up and down—in his tuxedo. ‘And tuxedos,’ she’d said, and she’d said it like a challenge.
He’d been entranced.
But there was no trace of that humour now. Her gaze was glacial.
‘I don’t have to tell you more,’ she said. ‘You’re not King here.’
‘I’m not King anywhere.’
‘Or Prince Regent.’
‘It seems I’m not Prince Regent either,’ he told her. ‘If Michales isn’t Giorgos’s son… ’ He hesitated, trying to find words to clarify what he’d figured over the last week. ‘If we can get this sorted without calamity, the Diamond Isles will be split into three again. I’ll be Crown Prince of Sappheiros and Khryseis and Argyros will be ruled as separate countries.’
‘So can you get this sorted?’ she asked, but she didn’t sound interested.
‘Maybe. No thanks to you.’
‘On the contrary, it’s all thanks to me,’ she snapped. ‘If I hadn’t claimed Michales you’d still be ruled by my sister’s lie. So now you can be whatever sort of prince you want and you can get out of my life.’
‘There’s the small issue of my son… ’
‘You need to earn the right to be a father. I’ve seen no evidence of it.’
‘I didn’t know he was my son!’
‘You’ve known for a week. So what did you do? You disappeared. You went away and did anything rather than come here and say this is my son and I want him.’
‘I didn’t know… ’ he started, but then he paused, unsure where to go.
‘You didn’t know what?’
‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel,’ he snapped. ‘I needed time.’
‘Like I needed time when I saw the thin blue line,’ she retorted. ‘Parenthood isn’t something you can think about and then decide ooh, maybe I’d like a little bit.’
‘Isn’t that exactly what you did?’
‘I had no choice.’ She moved still closer to the cot, putting her body between him and her baby. It was a gesture of defence as old as time itself.
‘So why did you give him up?’ he demanded, trying to keep his focus on indignation. Trying not to think how beautiful she was when she was angry. How vulnerable. How… frightened? ‘How much did they pay you?’
‘Millions!’ The word was a venomous hiss.
Okay, not millions, he conceded.
What, then? Had she simply offered her son to her sister instead of having him adopted?