Shock Heir for the King

by Clare Connelly

  ‘Of course not, madam.’ Mathilde’s soft accent came through with a hint of indignation. ‘Only I tell you there are some things in your wardrobe now. Not a lot, but enough to start.’

  ‘Oh.’ Disappointment fired inside her; how she resented it! ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome, madam.’

  Frankie reached for one of the sumptuous robes and wrapped it around herself, luxuriating for a moment in its glamorous softness before moving out of the bathroom. This side of the apartment was empty but still she moved quickly, lest another interruption came to pass and she gave into temptation, pressing her body to Matthias’s and begging him to... She pushed the thought out of her mind determinedly, slipping into the wardrobe.

  One side was filled with his clothes. She cast a guilty look towards the door before moving to his clothes and running her hand over them, feeling their fabric, imagining them on his body, remembering the warmth and strength of his physique. A deep need opened up inside her gut—she feared there was only one solution.

  When she emerged a few moments later, Matthias was in the kitchen, the living invocation of her fantasies. Awareness jerked inside her, desire heavy, the pulse between her legs running riot at the sight of him like this. It was strange, but it was the first moment it truly hit Frankie that this was their home. That they would live here, side by side. For how long?

  Her pulse ratcheted up a notch.

  ‘You’ve toured the residence?’ he prompted, lifting his head and pinning her with those intelligent grey eyes of his.

  ‘Yeah.’ It was croaky and faint; she cleared her throat. ‘Yes.’ Balling up her courage, she walked towards him, pleased with herself for at least remembering how to walk calmly. ‘There only seems to be one bedroom spare,’ she murmured.

  He looked at her, a smile playing about his lips. ‘Was that a question?’

  Damn him! ‘You can’t expect me to...’

  ‘Share your husband’s bedroom?’

  She fidgeted with her fingers, and then stopped when she realised what a betraying gesture it was. ‘Yes.’ She forced her eyes to hold his.

  ‘Are we back to pretending you don’t feel the same desire I do?’

  She opened her mouth and closed it again. How could she deny her desire, after the kiss they’d shared earlier? Surely he’d tasted her response, felt her need.

  ‘No,’ she said softly, her eyes locked onto his with a defiance that gave her some kind of courage. ‘But feeling something and acting on it are two different concepts.’

  His eyes flared, perhaps showing his surprise at her admission. ‘So they are.’ He leaned a little closer and her stomach swirled. ‘You do not need to worry, Frankie. When we sleep together it will be because you beg me to make love to you, not because I cannot control myself while we happen to be sharing a mattress. Bene?’

  ‘I...’

  ‘It is just a bed,’ he said, making her feel naïve and childish. ‘And I am away often.’

  ‘I...’

  He lifted a finger, placing it softly against her lips. ‘If you do not adjust to me in your life, then I will have a new room made for you,’ he said, and though the offer should have pleased her, it didn’t. If she’d felt childish before, she felt babyish now—and like a complainer too. ‘Just try it my way.’

  It was so reasonable. So measured. ‘I just presumed we’d have separate rooms,’ she explained, forcing a smile to her lips.

  He nodded once, his eyes latched to hers. ‘Gossip spreads like wildfire. I don’t need servants talking about our marriage before there’s even been a marriage. Nor do I want it splashed over the tabloids that my convenient wife and heir are all for show.’

  ‘But we are,’ she said with a tilt of her head, relieved to say the words, to remind herself as much as anything.

  ‘He is my heir,’ Matthias murmured. ‘And you will be my wife. There is nothing dishonest in that.’

  She bit back whatever she’d been about to say, nodding instead. He was right. She’d agreed to this, and she’d known what his terms were. There was no sense demeaning herself by arguing over such a trivial point.

  ‘You’ll meet your valet tomorrow,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘She’ll help you with anything you require.’

  ‘Valet?’

  ‘Your point-of-contact servant. The head of your house.’

  ‘I... I don’t need that.’

  He sent her a look of sardonic amusement. ‘You will receive over a thousand invitations every year to social events. Then there’s the dozens and dozens of requests for you to serve as a spokesperson for charities, to fundraise on their behalf and raise their profile. Each of these will require a response, and it will be impossible for you—on your own—to know which are worthy of your consideration and which are not.’

  Frankie was struck dumb momentarily. ‘But why would so many people want...? I mean...’

  ‘You will be Queen—and people will presume you have the ear of the King. There is power in your position, and it is natural that many will want to use that to their advantage.’

  ‘But I won’t have the ear of the King,’ she said, shaking her head and walking towards the enormous windows that looked over the mysterious fruit grove.

  ‘Nobody will be aware of that. To the outside, our marriage will appear to be a love match—it’s natural people will presume I listen to your counsel.’

  Bitterness twisted inside her, and loss too—a deep and profound sense of grief at the picture he’d so easily painted. The kind of marriage she’d always dreamed she might one day be a part of. The true sense of belonging she’d sought all her life. The thoughts were dark, depressing. She stamped them out, focusing on the business at hand. ‘And my valet will manage all that for me?’

  ‘Your secretary will.’

  She frowned, not taking her eyes off the trees below. ‘We were talking about a valet.’

  ‘I said the valet is the head of your house. There will be around ten members of staff—not including your security detail—who report to your valet.’

  At that she turned to face him, but wished she hadn’t. The sight of him, one hip propped against the kitchen counter, watching her thoughtfully, jolted her heart painfully, as though she’d been shocked with electricity. ‘Matt—’ she used the diminutive form of his name without thinking ‘—I don’t want this.’

  His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s just strange. I can’t see that I’ll need that many people working for me.’

  ‘You wish to fire someone then?’

  She opened her mouth to say something and then slammed it shut; he had her jammed into a tight corner there and undoubtedly knew it. She shook her head. ‘No, I just...’

  ‘Relax, Frankie. You will adapt to all this, I promise.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say. You grew up with this; it’s normal for you.’

  He shrugged. ‘And it will become normal for you.’ He stood up straighter and walked towards her, opening the large glass doors. Warmth billowed in from the sunny afternoon beyond. He gestured for her to precede him onto the balcony and, curious, she did. The terracotta tiles were warm beneath her feet. Out here, the fruit trees had a delightful fragrance. She breathed in deeply, letting the smell roll all the way down to her toes.

  She was in a foreign country with a man she hadn’t seen in years, a man she’d slept with and then lost all contact with, a man who had fathered her son, and yet, ridiculously, standing beneath that milky sun with the citrusy fragrance like a cloud around her, the colours all green and blue with splashes of bold red where geraniums were growing, she felt completely and utterly at ease.

  ‘My valet will coordinate with yours with regard to the wedding plans. The date has been set for two weeks’ time.’

  The sense of relaxation evaporated. ‘Two weeks?’ Sh
e jerked her head towards his. He was watching her, those eyes imprinted on her brain like ghosts.

  He appeared to misunderstand her. ‘This is the soonest it can be. No sooner,’ he explained. ‘It is necessary to give people time to travel—foreign dignitaries, royals, diplomats.’

  ‘But...what’s the rush?’

  His lips were a tight line in his face. ‘I have a two-year-old who, at this moment, is illegitimate and has no claim on my throne. If I were to die tomorrow, the country would not have an heir. Yet here he is, a living, breathing child of mine—you cannot see that there is a rush to marry and legally make him mine?’

  Frankie bit down on her lower lip, nodding even as she tried to make sense of that. ‘But you’re his father—there’s no doubt of that. Surely you could adopt him or—’

  ‘Adopt my own son?’ There was a look of cold rejection on his face, as though adopting Leo would be the worst thing in the world.

  Frankie’s stomach swooped and for a moment the wounds of her childhood were flayed open. ‘I only meant there must be another way to legally empower him as your heir,’ she said, so softly the words were almost swallowed on the breeze.

  ‘If there was, do you think I would have been so insistent on marrying you?’

  * * *

  He’d gone too far. He could see it in the way all the colour had drained from her face. No, from her whole body! She was as white as the sand of Makalini Beach, her eyes green and awash with hurt.

  Damn it!

  But he was in shock, still trying to make sense of this, trying to see the best way forward for both of them. The last thing he wanted was to argue with Frankie. None of this was her fault, and he admired her courage and strength in taking her place beside him.

  He exhaled softly, turning the words over in his heart before speaking them to her. ‘I hate knowing that he was out there for two and a half years and I knew nothing of him.’

  She made a strangled noise; he took it to be one of understanding.

  ‘The laws of succession are archaic and unchangeable. Even the fact he is born out of wedlock will require a DNA test to satisfy my country’s parliament. They must ratify his legitimacy and—’

  ‘Wait—just a second,’ she interrupted urgently. ‘You’re actually going to get our child paternity tested?’

  He turned to her, confused now by the anger that had surged into her face. Relieved too, as it made her cheeks glow pink once more. ‘It is necessary,’ he said.

  ‘No way.’

  Her refusal intrigued him and alarmed him in equal measure. ‘Why not?’ He bit the words out from teeth that were suddenly clenched tight. Was it possible she’d lied about Leo’s paternity?

  But why would she?

  ‘Because he’s your son! He can’t be anyone else’s, unless it was an immaculate conception,’ she said with quiet insistence. ‘And because I don’t want him to think he had to have a blood test to prove to his own father what’s blatantly obvious when you look at the two of you together.’

  He relaxed once more—because, of course, she was right. Leo was a carbon copy of not only himself, but of Spiro too. As quickly as his brain absorbed that fact, it moved onto another she’d revealed. ‘You’re saying you haven’t slept with anyone since me?’

  ‘I...’ She swept her eyes shut and shook her head. When she looked at him again a moment later she was calm—cool and somehow dismissive. She was excellent at doing that—at submerging whatever she was feeling beneath a mask of unconcern. He’d seen her do it numerous times and on each occasion he felt overwhelmed by a desire to work out exactly how he could shake that mask loose. He knew one way, of course. One very tempting, very distracting way...

  ‘I’m saying you’re the only person who could be his father.’

  ‘Is that not the same thing?’

  ‘No.’

  His gut clenched and a dark sensation speared through him. It wasn’t jealousy exactly—it was...possession. Primal, ancient, animalistic possession. He didn’t want to think of her sleeping with any other man—ever.

  ‘Have there been other men?’ he asked, the question direct, and he had the satisfaction of seeing her mask slip for a second.

  ‘Why do you care?’

  ‘Because I like thinking I’m the only man who’s known the pleasure of your body,’ he said simply, unapologetically.

  Heat stained her cheeks and he could resist no longer. He moved to where she stood on the balcony, bracing a hand on either side of her. ‘That’s kind of chauvinistic.’

  His lips twisted in a smile. ‘Yes.’

  And then, to his surprise, she smiled, a genuine smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle and it felt as if the sun was forcing its way into his chest. He stared at her, his own face unknowingly tense, rigid, frozen by the radiance of her expression. ‘At least you admit it.’

  He continued to stare, drinking in her beauty, but the smile dropped almost immediately and an air of seriousness surrounded them.

  ‘You told him about me?’

  She swallowed, her eyes half-closed, shielding herself from him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You told him I was kind?’ he prompted, remembering the remark their son had made on the flight over.

  She was defensive. ‘I wanted him to believe his father was a good man. I wanted him to be proud of you.’

  Matthias’s breathing was shallow. ‘Why?’

  She toyed with her fingers in front of her, weaving them together. ‘One day, he’ll be old enough to ask about you. I didn’t want him to fill in the gaps in the meantime. I didn’t want him to think...’

  Her words trailed into nothingness.

  ‘Go on,’ he urged desperately.

  ‘I didn’t want him to think he wasn’t wanted.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I told him you were good and kind and funny but that you live far away from us, but that...’

  ‘Yes?’ The word was quick to escape from him, an impatient hiss.

  ‘That you think of us often. That you look into the stars and think about the stars above us.’ There was defiance in her tone now. ‘It’s for him, not you.’

  His chest felt heavy. She’d created a myth for their son, a myth of him as a good, kind, decent man—she’d done the opposite of what he might have imagined a woman in her shoes doing: she’d praised him and spoken of him in a way that would make their son want to know his father.

  It was impossible not to look at her with growing respect, with appreciation. He wasn’t sure he’d deserved any of that.

  ‘I don’t want him to have a paternity test,’ she said quietly, but with a strength that called to him. ‘I don’t want him to think...’

  ‘To think what, Frankie?’ he pushed when her words trailed off into the air.

  ‘To think he wasn’t wanted.’ She lifted her gaze to his and there was a haunted quality to her expression, a hurt he couldn’t comprehend. ‘I don’t want him to think he had to have a blood test before you’d let him into your life.’

  He expelled a breath, his nostrils flaring as he instinctively rejected her take on the situation. ‘It is merely a formality.’

  ‘It’s unnecessary.’ Again, he felt her tender insistence deep in his gut and a protective instinct surged inside him—though what he was wanting to protect her from, he couldn’t have said.

  ‘He’s your son,’ she continued quietly, lifting one hand to his chest and pressing it just above his heart.

  And emotions flooded him—paternal pride, completeness, rightness—relief that it was this woman who’d borne him a son and heir. His words were thick with all his feelings when he dredged them from deep within his soul. ‘And soon the whole world will know it.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  MATTHIAS COULDN’T REMEMBER when he’d last slept for longer than an hour or two. He was bone-weary, exhausted to the depths of his soul, b
ut the sight of Frankie fast asleep in his bed arrested him and energised him all at once and he found his feet reluctant to move.

  The way she’d smiled at him earlier that day had stayed with him all afternoon, replaying in his mind, so that he had rushed through his commitments, hoping to see her again, to see if he could make her smile once more. Not that he could say what he’d done to change her mood—it wasn’t like in New York, three years earlier, when they’d both smiled often and freely.

  He’d wanted to see her again, but events had conspired to keep him from dining with her—a problem at the embassy in Rome—and so now she was fast asleep.

  Her long blonde hair was drawn around her shoulder like a skein of gold and her breathing was slow and rhythmic. Her lips, parted and pink, were so perfect, and he remembered instantly how they’d felt when she’d kissed him in New York, years earlier.

  Tentatively at first, and then with the madness that had overtaken them. He remembered how she’d felt in his arms downstairs earlier today, when he’d taken her by surprise and kissed her, and he remembered the moment when she’d become pliant in his arms. He could identify the exact moment when she’d lost a part of herself to this madness. He’d known he could have deepened the kiss, that he could have taunted her with their desire and turned her into a jumble of nerves and responses in his arms, but he hadn’t.

  He’d stemmed his own needs, respecting her boundaries, knowing deep down how overwhelmed she must be. Not just by his position as King, and her son’s place in the country’s order of succession, not even by her future as Queen. But by this, them, whatever they felt. He was a man of far greater experience, of greater years, and yet he still found their chemistry explosive and somehow awe-inspiring.

  Even as he stood by the bed, watching her gentle exhalations, desire flooded his system and he wondered how she’d respond if he reached for her. If he strode to the bed, put a hand on her shoulder and stirred her to wakefulness, if he pressed his lips to the soft flesh at the base of her throat that had always driven her wild...