It Started With A Lie: A forbidden fake-boyfriend Cinderella romance (The Montebellos Book 5)

by Clare Connelly

  Perhaps she’d taught herself to be numb to the pain that was endemic to the sight of her father with her half-brother – with whom he was always welcoming, warm and proud. To see them together was to see an example of what a healthy parental relationship should have been.

  Yet with Chloe, the old man had barely acknowledged her. And when he had, it had been to commodify her in some way or other, to try to stick her into one of the pigeon holes he thought right. Was she excelling at school in any way? Was she smart enough for him to be proud of her? Was her wit as quick as Apollo’s? Might she be an asset to the business in the way Apollo had been?

  No. Chloe was intelligent, but not given to academics, and mild dyslexia that had gone undiagnosed until her teenage years had meant she was almost too far behind to start trying in high school.

  Was she beautiful, then? Beautiful enough to be sought after by men who her father might at least admire?

  No. At least, she hadn’t been for many years. A gawky teenager who was as flat as a board long after her friends had started to grow curves and shoot up, she’d been mistaken for a child when she was almost able to obtain her drivers’ license.

  Chloe had nothing that her father had seen as meritorious – even the blood in her veins, that was half-his, had not been enough to redeem her.

  And how she’d loved him anyway! How she’d adored reading about his business successes, seeing his name and image in the papers, knowing him to be someone of such incredible repute! How she’d longed for his approval, his affection.

  She could still remember the day he’d called her – it was only the second time he’d done any such thing and the first had been to tell her that her mother was dead.

  That had been a stilted, short conversation. Going through the motions – his offer for her to move to Greece, her demur, his obvious relief.

  So when he called her for the second time in her life, she felt a heavy sense of worry – naturally her mind had gone to Apollo. But Apollo was fine. The old man had been calling with good news, he’d promised. “Malik has begged me to grant his son your hand in marriage.”

  She’d been floored – and had asked a lot of bumbling questions about her potential groom. Though she’d visited Ras el Kida several times, as Malik’s guest, she’d never met his son. The idea was almost impossible to credit, except she remembered Apollo telling her, at some point, that Raffa was required to marry – and to marry well.

  Chloe had been given a classical education, despite the fact she’d not excelled at it. She spoke several languages, and had been sent to finishing school in Switzerland at her father’s insistence. Had he known, even then, that she would marry a King?

  When Chloe had agreed, she’d wanted only one thing from her father: his love. All of it. She’d wanted him to wrap her in a hug and tell her he was proud of her.

  He’d died before he’d had the chance – and now, she had gained a fresh perspective.

  Her father would not have been proud of her.

  Her father would not have said he loved her.

  Because he hadn’t.

  On some level, she supposed she should have been grateful that he at least acknowledged her to be his child: something her own husband wasn’t willing to do for his lovechild.

  Anger and anticipation were at war within her system! She didn’t know how to feel! Chloe was at sea, and it was rolling and shifting, splashing her with new sensations and doubts even when her decision had been made.

  Her ladies’ maids didn’t share her sense of emotional ambiguity. When they entered her suite shortly after a light breakfast of fruit and sweet pastry had been served, they brought with them an air of unmistakable exuberance.

  All traditions were strictly adhered to at the palace; far more so than had been the case in the city. There, she had been free to dress in casual clothes if she’d wanted to, so long as she wasn’t taking part in any official duties. Her maids dressed her in one of the gowns that was required – an emerald green with diamonds at the collar and cuff – and then excused themselves with low bows that almost hid their twitching smiles.

  “Okay, Aysha,” she asked her chief lady in waiting, once they were alone. “What is it? What are you all smiling about?”

  Aysha didn’t bother to obfuscate.

  “They are happy to be home, your highness.”

  Chloe was thunderstruck. “Home? This is their home?”

  “Well, yes. Naturally.”

  “Not, ‘naturally’!” Chloe disputed with a shake of her head. “You mean the palace is where they lived? And then I made everyone move to the city just because I didn’t want to be here?”

  “Our job is to be where you are,” Aysha pointed out kindly. “If you choose to take part in the Mars program, I’m afraid we would have to take our positions on the rocket alongside you.”

  Chloe laughed but it was a noise of brittle exhaustion. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know you were interested in Mars,” Aysha teased.

  “You know what I mean.” Chloe toyed with her wedding ring – an enormous solitaire diamond – out of habit. She often spun it around her finger when she was thinking, pushing it to the knuckle joint and back to the webbing of her slim fingers. “If you all wanted to be at the palace, you should have said so.”

  “We are your servants,” Aysha chided, softening the rebuke with a gentle smile. “Our job is to serve you. Why should our desires matter?”

  “How can you speak like that! You know they matter to me. We’ve worked together closely since I arrived in Ras el Kida. Have I ever seemed like a despot to you?”

  “No. But you are a princess, a Sheikha, and your husband is the ruler of this country. No one in Ras el Kida is stupid enough to risk displeasing him.”

  A shiver of apprehension ran down Chloe’s spine. Aysha was right, but she couldn’t have said that a desire to risk displeasing her husband was the sole motivation for her agreement with his plan. Out of nowhere, she imagined their child, she pictured a chubby little baby with dimpled cheeks and sparkling eyes and a mess of curling, bouncing hair, and a kick of maternal need anchored her to the spot.

  Despite the fact she knew so little of her husband, despite the fact there were many things about him she did know and didn’t like, she found the idea of bearing his child unimaginably seductive. And just a little bit crazy.

  3

  WAITING WAS LIKE BEING on tenterhooks.

  Being at the palace once more was like being transplanted into a whole other world. She’d forgotten the grandeur of this place, not to mention the sheer size of it.

  She’d forgotten the protocols she was expected to observe, such as having all six of her maids in attendance at all time. It was a company she found cloying, and an expectation she most certainly intended to rail against.

  If they were to have a child together, then Chloe was going to spend the rest of her life in the palace. It was a far greater commitment than marriage alone, surely, to bond themselves with a new life. That person deserved two parents who were committed to acting in his or her best interests irrespective of their own personal gripes. Besides, maybe once they got to know one another, this coldness and repressive distance would disappear?

  No. Chloe stopped walking, so sharp was her determination to push that thought aside.

  She was done expecting unavailable men to start valuing her! She’d wasted her whole life feeling meaningless and purposeless only because her father hadn’t valued her. She’d spent years waiting for any little crumbs of praise that he wanted to pass her way… there was no way she’d go through that miserable maze of rejection again. Not even for the man she’d married!

  Raffa would never give her what she wanted – there was no hope that they’d be more than civil to one another. Civil co-parents, and co-rulers. There were other silver linings to her marriage, though. For one, the charity work she’d been free to undertake since moving to the city would continue regardless of where she lived. She l
oved her work – that gave her all the validation her father, and now husband, had withheld.

  As for love? Malik loved her, and she loved him. After her father’s death, he’d been the only one who’d understood.

  ‘He failed you, child, except in one way. This marriage is the best thing he could have done for you. Here, you will be happy at last. You’ve always belonged here, even that first summer when you were little more than a fairy.’ And he’d hugged her in a rough embrace, his body – once strong and big – now a smaller version, his fingers trembling a little in that way they did now. He’d understood that she had been unloved and in small ways, he’d made sure she felt secure in her life in Ras El Kida.

  He, alone, had welcomed her.

  ‘Do you remember when you came here, as a child? You would run the halls, singing, and I knew you belonged here. That you were a part of this Kingdom, even with your white hair and your pale skin.’

  What foolish dreams she’d had when she’d entered into this marriage! To think that she could marry a man and suddenly ‘belong’!

  That she’d ever belong anywhere.

  How childish it had been of her to think Raffa had carried any intention of their marriage being more than a convenience to placate both their fathers!

  Well, she wasn’t a fool anymore, and she was going to see their marriage for what it was: a means to an end. They were going to try for a baby, which would mean they were going to be intimate, but Chloe was determined not to let his touch affect her. No matter how good he was in bed, she would remain cold! And if that wasn’t possible, she’d damned well pretend! He wouldn’t have the satisfaction of knowing that one look from him could spike her blood pressure dramatically. She wouldn’t be another woman to stroke his oversized ego when it came to his bedroom prowess!

  In the afternoon, having dealt with several emails pertaining to her charity, and taken a walk around the palace to re-familiarise herself with the place, she’d found there were many hours until night time.

  When would he come? Would it be early in the evening? Late at night? Should she be dressed? Or, she gulped, naked, waiting for him? Would it give her more control if she showed herself to be accepting of their situation? More mature of her to seem sophisticated and to take this all in her stride?

  The waiting was killing her.

  In the early evening, she decided to allay her anxieties by going for a walk. It took some doing, but she managed to convince Aysha that she was safe to explore on her own. After all, the extensive gardens were well-guarded. There was a golf course, an artificial beach, an ancient forest that had been cultivated with great care. It grew alongside the same cliff that gave way to the palace, sharing its side with the Sheikh’s suite, and developing into the waterfall that fell into a pool in his living area.

  She had wandered through this forest a few time over the years, and even in the first few days of their marriage – when she’d still entertained hopes that her husband would come to her and treat her like the woman she was sure, deep down, she really was.

  Now, when she stepped under the lush canopy of trees, her anticipation was different, because it was borne of fact. He would come to her, on this night. She would be made his. She moved deeper into the forest, looking for familiar landmarks, but so much had changed with the seasons. Large trees remained, but smaller shrubs had given way, so too the colours of the flowers, so Chloe had to mentally map the forest almost from scratch. As she moved higher, though, the sound of flowing water reminded her of the natural landscape, the way the water gathered pace through these cliffs and mountains until it formed an overwhelming weight at the top of the cliff.

  She weaved alongside it for some time, before a sudden movement startled her into utter stillness. Save for the frantic racing of her heart, she was motionless. Were there predatory animals in the forest? She had never been told so; then again, she’d never wandered this far, even as a curious little girl holidaying in this grand palace. Besides, she reassured herself, desperate to quell her raging pulse, there were guards around. Perhaps it had even been a guard who had startled her?

  She took a tentative step forward, and then another, before the movement caught her attention once more. Now, she followed it, homing in on first the stone as it hit the water and skipped several times before thudding beneath the surface, then to the arm which had cast it, and then to his face. She gasped when she saw him, for the child was so like Raffa that she knew instantly who stood before her.

  “Amit,” she said the name aloud, almost as a talisman to herself, and yet he heard, and his own expression was startled.

  He hadn’t realized she was there. He wore a simple pair of black trousers and a loose-fitting white top, and to his right there was a stash of stones.

  He picked one up, running his fingertips over the smoothness of it before standing. He met her eyes, which was a welcome change from the palace servants.

  “Amit,” she said again, more confidently this time, wanting to reassure him.

  He was so like Raffa, and yet different too. He had Raffa’s intelligent eyes and assessing gaze, his generous lips. But he was gangly and tall, slim and uncertain. Even as a teenager, Chloe doubted Raffa had ever been anything other than muscular and warrior-like.

  “No one usually comes up here,” the teenager said defensively, echoing so many of her own teenaged resentments that she could do nothing but nod.

  She tried to marshal her thoughts, to quickly recollect all that she knew of her husband’s love child. He’d been conceived when Raffa had been only twenty years old, and the woman was rumoured to be the love of Raffa’s life. They’d never been able to acknowledge their relationship, but though it remained shrouded in secrecy, she’d been living at the palace, leaving little doubt as to their bond.

  A frisson of emotion trickled down her spine. That was all palace gossip, whispered between her maids when they’d thought she hadn’t been listening. Talk of how the Sheikh’s marriage had always been destined to fail, given that he was still in love with the other woman. And now she was face to face with the physical proof of that love.

  “What are you doing?” She asked, with natural curiosity, moving closer to the boy.

  He eyed her thoughtfully, the intensity of his gaze so like Raffa’s that she felt almost as if she knew him already. “Skimming rocks,” he said after a moment, evidently deciding to trust her.

  “I see.” She had two options. Leave, or stay.

  “Have you ever done it?”

  “No,” she shook her head, moving forward, her mind made up.

  “The Sheikh taught me,” he said, causing Chloe’s lips to momentarily twitch downwards, into a small frown. “He used to come here to do this, when he was my age.” He wrinkled his nose. “Or a bit younger, I guess. He taught me two years ago. On my tenth birthday.”

  “Did he?” Chloe murmured, seating herself with care on the large rock beside Amit. It was not easy in the robes she’d been wrapped into that morning.

  “He’s better at it than I am.”

  “Show me,” she commanded, but softened the words with a smile. Their eyes met and her heart lurched. This young man was her step-son. Why had she never thought to get to know him before this moment? How come she’d neglected her responsibilities to him? Shame flushed through her but she didn’t reveal, even for a moment, the direction of her thoughts.

  “You need to have the right stones, to start with. Smooth, like this. Not too big or they’ll sink. Here. Feel it.” He extended his hand, palm-side up, with one of the pebbles in it. She took it, running her fingers over the edges.

  “See what I mean?”

  She nodded. “It’s smooth.”

  “Yes.” He reached for another one. “You need to imagine the water is a plane, with nothing beneath. You want to throw the rock so that it lands square on the water’s surface, and the tension bounces it to the next spot.”

  “That sounds almost impossible.”

  “Watch.” He lifted h
is hand and then, with the action of someone who’s done something many times, he expertly cast the stone onto the water. It did just as he’d said, bouncing four times before thudding into the water and sinking from view.

  “That’s impressive,” she said truthfully.

  “Not really. The Sheikh once made a pebble skin all the way across the stream. I counted ten jumps.”

  “Ten?” She lifted her brows. “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “He’s had a lot longer to practice.” The words rung with such arrogant pride, so like Raffa, that Chloe had to stifle a laugh.

  “Let me try.” She fingered the rock once more, the tip of her tongue poking out of her lips as she recalled Amit’s throwing motion. She drew her arm backwards, eyed the water carefully, and then released the rock.

  It sank immediately, and she laughed, turning to face Amit. A reluctant smile was on his own lips.

  “That was pathetic, your highness,” he said with a rueful shake of his head. “But no worse than my first dozen or so attempts.”

  Her gaze jerked to his. “You know who I am?”

  “Of course. You’re the Sheikh’s wife.”

  “Why do you call him that?” She asked slowly.

  “It’s his title.”

  “But you’re… surely you, of all people, could be excused from such formality?”

  “Why should I be?” He asked, turning his attention back to the pile of stones to his right side, with all the appearance of calm. But Chloe had the advantage, for she knew his father, and had become adept at reading Raffa’s expressions and understanding their meaning. She knew then that the boy was dissembling. He didn’t know she knew who he was, and he was trying to protect her.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to disabuse him of that notion when it occurred to her that forcing him to admit his parentage to his step-mother might make him even more uncomfortable. She had no interest in doing any such thing, and so she allowed the fiction to pass. There’d be time to address it with her husband.