Claiming the Royal Innocent (Kingdoms & Crowns)

by Jennifer Hayward

  Alex had been right. He would destroy himself trying to prove something that didn’t matter anymore. He needed to stop. He needed to find a peace he could live with.

  A lightbulb went off a few nights later, pulling him out of bed and to a sketch pad, where he drew until morning. He sent the amateurish result to his genius of an architect, asking him what he could do to modify the current casino design with that direction to save costs but still retain his vision. Then he waited. And waited. When Barry Schindler flew in two days later, arriving on Aristos’s doorstep to find him unshaven and ready to pounce, he gave his client a wry look.

  “Losing some sleep?”

  “Just a bit.”

  “I might be able to help.”

  Two strong espressos sitting on the table beside them, the architect took Aristos through the redesigned plans. His design was inspired, based on lighter, more versatile materials and brilliant, indiscernible modifications that would provide no less of an impact.

  “How much?” Aristos asked, chest tight.

  “I’ve saved you fifty million.”

  Which left him fifty million short. Perhaps he could get his other investors to kick in the remainder... It was worth a shot.

  He made his first phone call to his biggest investor at a US bank. He said yes. He made more calls. A funny thing happened then. As word spread that Dimitri was out, his investors started calling him to offer to make up the gap. They’d never liked the Russian’s involvement.

  By the end of the week he had his fifty million and a go-ahead from the Akathinian government to break ground. A front-page story ran in the business section of the newspaper with the new schematic included. It was garnering universal acclaim.

  The story also included a feature on the program he had committed his company to—what he called the Hector Rigatos Gambling Addiction Fund. He wouldn’t call it that, of course, but he would forever think of it as that. For what Alex had taught him.

  An intense feeling of satisfaction, of rightness, settling through him, he set the newspaper down, walked out onto the balcony and took in the hauntingly beautiful view of the mountains. In the shadow of that quiet, majestic presence he knew it was time for him to take his leap. He couldn’t right the wrongs he’d made with his family—they would forever be with him—but he could change the future. If he wanted to be with Alex, to deserve her, he needed to face his demons. He needed to go home. He needed to learn how to stick.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SMILING AND WAVING at crowds during Akathinia’s annual Independence Day celebration, even one as joyous as it was this year with the prospect of war lifted from the national conscience, was no fun for a princess who’d rather be on an Aegean island with the man she loved.

  Alex was navigating her new role with care, loving her work with Nina, settling back into palace life with its intricacies and formalities. If only she didn’t feel so miserable. If only she could put last week’s newspaper feature out of her head.

  Aristos had secured his investment, the casino was a go, the ground-breaking to happen in two weeks’ time. But what had made her put the paper down and leave the breakfast room in tears was the gambling addiction fund he’d created to help those who fell through the cracks.

  She was so happy for him. And still he hadn’t come.

  Her heart throbbed painfully in her chest as they navigated the final length of the parade route on the float upon which she and her family stood. Perhaps she’d been wrong. Perhaps it was just too difficult for Aristos to let down his walls after decades of shoring them up.

  Somehow, she managed to hold her smile as they reached the end of the parade route, bade the crowds goodbye and were ushered into the waiting limo. Only her father was missing, his recovery at home an unexpected development as his archnemesis, Idas, lay on his deathbed.

  Her father hadn’t seemed to warm up much to her, but her budding relationships with her siblings gave her such joy. Stella, who was becoming the best friend she’d always wanted in a sister. Nik, whose quiet, wise philosophy held so much she could learn from.

  Stella pounced as the limo came to a halt in front of the palace and Alex slid out, heading for the stairs.

  “You have to stop moping around.”

  Alex swept up the stairs and through the doors. “Aristos isn’t coming tonight He’s playing poker on Vardis Melonakos’s yacht.”

  “You told him you needed space.”

  “That was a cue for him to give his head a shake.”

  “Maybe you should give yours one, too.”

  She pulled to a halt. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. He’s crazy about you, Alex. I saw it on his face when you walked away from him at the helicopter...when he pursued you at the press conference.”

  Her mouth pursed. “I’m not sure he’s emotionally capable of acting on it.”

  Stella followed her up the stairs and into her bedroom. “Perhaps not, but moping around on the biggest day of the year isn’t going to help. Are we going to have fun tonight or are you going to act like a limp dishrag?”

  She straightened her shoulders. Gave her head the shake she knew it needed. “Yes,” she said firmly, “we are going to have fun.”

  She channeled her favorite literary heroine for inspiration. What would Scarlett do?

  She would not sit around pining for Aristos while he played poker on Vardis Melonakos’s yacht with beautiful women serving him drinks. She would show him what he was missing.

  “I think we should go shopping.”

  “Shopping?” Stella looked at her as if she were mad. “My legs are about to fall off. The ball starts in four hours.”

  “Do you want to help me or not?”

  * * *

  The two princesses entered the Akathinian royal ballroom arm in arm after a firestorm of paparazzi flashes documented their arrival.

  “A prior engagement,” Alex had said tersely when asked where her fiancé was.

  Stella shoved a glass of champagne into her hand. “Drink.”

  She did. Her sister scanned the room, her gaze settling on Crown Prince Kostas of Carnelia, standing beside Nik in a group near them.

  “Look at him walking around the place as if he owns it. I hate him. I don’t care what Nik says, what they said in their little chat together, there is nothing on this planet that could make me like him.”

  Alex smiled. Prince Kostas’s unexpected appearance at the Independence Day ball had been a shock to everyone. Nik had invited the prince as a symbol of the healing that needed to happen between the two countries. Stella, still brokenhearted over her eldest brother’s death at what she called “Kostas’s hands,” had not taken it well.

  “Perhaps you should listen to what Nik has to say,” Alex suggested. “He seems to be at peace with it all.”

  Stella scowled. “Kostas is a coward. He spent the last year relegating our two countries to turmoil, afraid to stand up to his father. I have no respect for him.”

  As if the extraordinarily handsome crown prince’s ears were burning, he turned his head toward them. Elegant in a black tuxedo, he wore his dark hair short and cropped above a face that could be described as nothing short of spectacular: high, aristocratic cheekbones; piercing, narrow eyes beneath thick dark brows; and a straight, prominent nose.

  “He’s awfully stunning, Stella.”

  “If arrogant brutes are your idea of attractive, yes.”

  “I thought you used to like him. They say he is progressive, pro-democracy, nothing like his father. Apparently very witty and intelligent.”

  “Used to being the operative words.”

  Alex’s eyes widened as Kostas broke away from the group and headed toward them.

  “Don’t look now, but here he comes.”

  Hot color stained her sister’s cheeks. “Here? Why is he coming over here?”

  “We’re about to find out.”

  The crown prince stopped in front of them and inclined his head in a greeting. Alex smiled
politely, but Kostas’s gaze had moved to Stella and stayed there. “Perhaps you would do me the honor of a dance?”

  A loaded silence followed. The flush in her sister’s face deepened, her lips pursing as if to refuse. But then her manners seemed to kick in, as if she knew they were being watched, and with a stiff nod, she accepted.

  Which left Alex alone. Alone in the very sexy dress she’d purchased, the plunging neckline of the champagne-colored sequined gown skirting the limits of what a princess might get away with. Worn perhaps to show the world she didn’t care her fiancé wasn’t here—or perhaps the man himself.

  She stood, back against a pillar, watching Stella and the prince dance. It was better than TV. Two men asked her to dance, the duke Aristos had liked to make fun of and a friend of Stella’s, but she turned them both down, pleading sore feet, a poor excuse, but she didn’t care. She was tired of pretending.

  “I was standing over there wondering why the most beautiful woman in the room keeps turning down dances,” a deep male voice purred in her ear. “Instead of allowing my imagination to run wild, I thought I’d come over and find out for myself.”

  Aristos.

  Her heart jumped into her mouth as she turned to face him. He was not in a tuxedo like the other men, but in a dark suit that made him look so handsome her heart stayed lodged right where it was, deep in her throat, making speech nigh impossible.

  The tears she’d been fighting swamped the backs of her eyes, threatening a full release.

  “Oh, no.” Aristos’s gaze darkened. “No tears, Princess, not when we’ve come this far.”

  She swallowed hard, fighting them back. What did that mean?

  “Aren’t you supposed to be playing poker?”

  “I was. I found my attention was elsewhere, so I left.”

  She scowled at him. “I am not available as a diversion.”

  “Funny,” he drawled, his gaze sliding over her. “That dress screams it with a capital D. It’s not fit for public consumption.”

  “Absentee fiancés don’t get a say in the matter.”

  Fire lit his gaze. “Ah, but we know they do. Especially since I am not absentee any longer.”

  He curled his fingers around her forearm and directed her out of the ballroom to the terrace. Bypassing the crowd there, he led her down into the gardens. They walked until they came to the fountain, the little square at the center of the maze where he’d challenged her to take her big jump.

  She sat down on the lip of the fountain, the sounds of the party muted now, the square deserted.

  Aristos sat down beside her, splaying his long legs in front of him. The scent of his spicy aftershave made her want to crawl into his arms. She wrapped hers around herself.

  “You asked me for space,” he said, setting his dark, inscrutable gaze on her. “And you were right—I needed it. Needed to figure myself out, determine my priorities, whether I could be the man you needed.”

  Her heart squeezed. He always had been.

  “What I discovered is that my life as I’ve been leading it is not the life I want to live. You made me see that, angel, made me see the possibilities...what I want, and I want more. I want to wake up every morning with you beside me. I want to share my life with you. I want you to be there to lick my wounds when I stumble, and yes,” he added a devilish glitter in his eyes, “other parts of me, too.”

  Her heart turned over, leaping with a joy that sent it tumbling nearly out of her chest. “Aristos—”

  He held up a hand. “I have a lot of baggage, Alex. Maybe more than I can ever fully overcome. There’s never going to be a day where I’m not cognizant of the fragility of life—of how everything can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye. It will always make me a fighter. It will always push my survivor instincts to the forefront, making my first inclination to push people away. It’s a reflexive thing I’m going to have to work on.”

  A tear slid down her cheek. “All of us have those things...those crutches we rely on. For me it was retreating. Not taking the chances I should. You showed me that.”

  “For me it was burying the past. Trying to pretend it never existed, that it couldn’t hurt me, but it was always there in the background, chasing me. I knew after you walked away from me I would regret it if I let you go. But I had to face my ghosts first. Find out who I am now. Who I was. So I went home.”

  Her heart leaped. “You did? How was it?”

  “Painful. Awkward. Amazing.”

  She could so identify. And yet hadn’t it all been worth it?

  “I’m so glad you went,” she said softly. “Were they glad to see you?”

  “Yes.” The rasp in his voice made her cover his hand with hers. “I think there is...potential there. My mother—she was very emotional. Vasili—he—he will be the hardest. I broke his trust. I need to get it back.”

  She crawled onto his lap then, because she couldn’t resist. Her hands framed his face. “You’ve made the overture. Give it time.”

  He nodded, his eyes so full of emotion her tears became a steady flow, sliding down her cheeks and soaking his shirt. She kissed him, a long, sweet kiss full of salty tears and the future she knew they had in front of them.

  He pulled back, his hands grasping hers and dragging them to her sides. His gaze was so serious, so full of intent, it made her stomach grow tight. “You saved my soul, angel. I was very nearly spiritually bankrupt. I need you with me to make sure that never happens again, that my demons don’t take over.”

  She gave him a tremulous smile. “I think I already made that commitment.”

  He lifted her ring-clad finger to his mouth and brushed his lips over her knuckles. “I think I missed something when I gave this to you.”

  “What?”

  “I love you, agapi mou. I think it was love at first sight, if the truth be known. I did everything but say no to Nik when he asked me to take you to Larikos.”

  He loved her. Her brain latched on to those three words and held them tight. “I told him it wasn’t a good idea,” she breathed. “I knew you were trouble, Aristos Nicolades.”

  “I am,” he murmured and proceeded to demonstrate with a kiss that had no sweetness to it, only hunger, an insatiable hunger that seemed to have no end. She moved closer as he slid a hand to her bottom and brought her to him, his sexy, fiery kisses leaving her short of breath.

  “Your bedroom,” he murmured as they came up for air, “where is it?”

  Procuring a bottle of champagne along the way, they climbed the stairs to the royal suites. She was in his arms kissing him before they made it halfway up, then again outside her bedroom door before he pushed it open and shoved her inside.

  She pouted as he lost his jacket. “I thought it was spiritual for us.”

  “Yes, angel, it is.” He started working on the buttons of his shirt. “Now I’d like to take it to another realm.”

  She took a drink from the bottle. Eyed him. “I love you, Aristos.”

  His gaze darkened as he looked up at her. “I love you, too, Princess. Now put down the bottle and get over here.”

  She did. Because sometimes dreams were too expensive to keep. And sometimes they were all that mattered.

  * * * * *

  Look out for the dramatic conclusion of KINGDOMS & CROWNS

  Coming soon!

  And you can find out where it all started in

  CARRYING THE KING’S PRIDE

  Available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A TYCOON TO BE RECKONED WITH by Julia James.

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  A Tycoon to be Reckoned With

  by Julia James

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘YOU KNOW, IT’S you I blame.’

  Bastiaan’s aunt tried to laugh as she spoke, but it was shaky, Bastiaan could tell.

  ‘It was you who suggested Philip go and stay in your villa at Cap Pierre!’

  Bastiaan took the criticism on board. ‘I thought it might help—moving him out of target range to finish his university vacation assignments in peace and quiet.’

  His aunt sighed. ‘Alas, it seems he has jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. He may have escaped Elena Constantis, but this female in France sounds infinitely worse.’

  Bastiaan’s dark eyes took on a mordant expression. ‘Unfortunately, wherever in the world Philip is he will be a target.’

  ‘If only he were less sweet-natured. If he had your...toughness,’ Bastiaan’s aunt replied, her gaze falling on her nephew.