Theseus Discovers His Heir

by Michelle Smart

  He wasn’t a Kalliakis for nothing.

  He waited for Miss Brookes to take his hand. Possibly she would curtsey. Many non-islanders did, although protocol did not insist on it unless it was an official function.

  She didn’t take his offered hand. Just stared at him with an expression he didn’t quite understand but which made the hairs on his nape shoot up.

  ‘Despinis?’

  Possibly she was overwhelmed at meeting a prince? It happened...

  In the hanging silence he looked at her properly, seeing things that he’d failed to notice in his hurry to be introduced and get down to business. The colour of her hair was familiar, a deep russet-red, like the colour of the autumn leaves he’d used to crunch through when he’d been at boarding school in England. It fell like an undulating wave over her shoulders and down her back, framing a pretty face with an English rose complexion, high cheekbones and generous bee-stung lips. Blue-grey eyes pierced him with a look of intense concentration...

  He knew those eyes. He knew that hair. It wasn’t a common colour, more like something from the artistic imagination of the old masters of the Renaissance than anything real. But it was those eyes that really cut him short. They too were an unusual shade—impossible to define, but evocative of early-morning skies before the sun had fully risen.

  And as all these thoughts rushed through his mind she finally advanced her hand into his and spoke two words. The final two little syllables were delivered with a compacted tightness that sliced through him upon impact.

  ‘Hello, Theo.’

  * * *

  He didn’t recognise her.

  Jo didn’t know what she’d expected. A hundred scenarios had played out in her mind over the past twenty hours. Not one of those scenarios had involved him not remembering her.

  It was like rubbing salt in an open, festering wound.

  Something flickered in his dark eyes, and then she caught the flare of recognition.

  ‘Jo?’

  As he spoke her name, the question strongly inflected in a rich, accented voice that sounded just as she imagined a creamy chocolate mousse would sound if it could talk, his long fingers wrapped around hers.

  She nodded and bit into her bottom lip, which had gone decidedly wobbly. Her whole body suddenly felt very wobbly, as if her bones had turned into overcooked noodles.

  His hand felt so warm.

  It shouldn’t feel warm. It should feel as cold as his lying heart.

  And she shouldn’t feel an overwhelming urge to burst into tears.

  She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  Straightening her spine, Jo tugged her hand out of his warm hold and resisted the impulse to wipe it on her skirt, to rid herself of a touch she had once yearned for.

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ she said, deliberately keeping her tone cool, trying to turn her lips upwards into the semblance of a smile.

  But how could you smile when your one and only lover, the man you’d spent five years searching for, the father of your child, didn’t remember your face?

  How could you force a smile when you’d spent five years searching for a lie?

  Dimitris, the man who’d collected her from the airport and introduced himself as His Highness’s private secretary, was watching their interaction with interest.

  ‘Do you two know each other?’

  ‘Despinis Brookes is an old acquaintance of mine,’ said Theo—or Theseus—or whatever his name was. ‘We met when I was on my sabbatical.’

  Oh, was that what he’d been doing on Illya? He’d been on a sabbatical?

  And she was an acquaintance?

  She supposed it was better than being described as one of his one-night stands.

  And at least he hadn’t had the temerity to call her an old friend.

  ‘I saw a picture of you on the internet last night when I was researching your island,’ she said, injecting brightness into her tone, giving no hint that she’d even thought of him during the intervening years. ‘I thought it looked like you.’

  She might not have much pride left after spending the last four years as a single mother, but she still had enough to be wounded and not to want to show it, especially as they had an audience. One thing motherhood had taught her was resilience. In fact it had taught her a lot of things, all of which had made her infinitely stronger than she’d been before.

  Theseus appraised her openly, his dark brown eyes sweeping over her body. ‘You look different to how I remember you.’

  She knew she was physically memorable—it had been the bane of her childhood. Red hair and a weight problem had made her an easy target for bullies. Having Toby had been the kick she’d needed to shift the weight and keep it off. She would never be a stick-thin model but she’d grown to accept her curves.

  She might be a few stone lighter, and her hair a few inches longer, but there was nothing else different about her.

  ‘Your hair’s shorter than I remember,’ she said in return.

  Five years ago Theseus’s hair—so dark it appeared black—had been long, skimming his shoulders. Now it was short at the back, with the front sweeping across his forehead. On Illya she’d only ever seen him in shorts and the occasional T-shirt. Half the time he hadn’t bothered with footwear. Now he wore a blue suit that looked as if it had cost more than her annual food bill, and shoes that shone so brightly he could probably see his reflection in them.

  ‘You’re looking good, though,’ she added, nodding her head to add extra sincerity to her words.

  What a shame that it was the truth.

  Theo—or Theseus—or His Highness—wasn’t the most handsome man she’d ever met, but there was something about him that captured the eye and kept you looking. A magnetism. He had a nose too bumpy to be considered ideal, deep-set dark brown eyes, a wide mouth that smiled easily and a strong jawline. This combined with his olive colouring, his height—which had to be a good foot over her own five foot four inches—and the wiry athleticism of his physique, gave the immediate impression of an unreconstructed ‘man’s man’.

  Her awareness of him had been instant, from the second he’d stepped into Marin’s Bar on Illya with a crowd of Scandinavian travellers hanging onto his every word. She’d taken one look at him and her heart had flipped over.

  It had been a mad infatuation. Totally crazy. Irrational. All the things she’d reached the age of twenty-one without having once experienced had hit her with the force of a tsunami.

  But now she was five years older, five years wiser, and she had a child to protect. Any infatuation had long gone.

  Or so she’d thought.

  But when he’d strode through the door of the stateroom the effect had been the same; as if the past five years had been erased.

  ‘Different to all those years ago,’ Theseus agreed, looking at his watch. ‘I appreciate you’ve had a long day, but time is against us to get the biography complete. Let’s take a walk to your apartment so you can freshen up and settle in. We can talk en route.’

  He set off with Dimitris at his side.

  Staring at his retreating back, it took Jo a few beats before she pulled herself together and scrambled after them.

  Dull thuds pounded in her brain, bruising it, as the magnitude of her situation hit her.

  For all these years she’d sworn to herself that she would find Toby’s father and tell Theo about their son. She’d had no expectations of what would happen afterwards, but had known that at the very least she owed it to Toby to find him. She’d also thought she owed it to Theo to tell him he had a child.

  But Theo didn’t exist.

  Whoever this man was, he was not the Theo Patakis she had once fallen in love with.

  Theseus wasn’t the father of her son; he was a stranger dressed in his skin.
r />   CHAPTER TWO

  ‘VISITORS TO THE palace often get lost, so I’ve arranged for a map to be left in your apartment,’ Theseus said as they climbed a narrow set of stairs.

  ‘A map? Seriously?’ She would remain civil if it killed her. Which it probably would.

  So many emotions were running through her she didn’t know where one began and another ended.

  He nodded, still steaming ahead. Her legs were working at a quick march to keep up with him as he turned into a dark corridor lit by tiny round ceiling lights.

  ‘The palace has five hundred and seventy-three rooms.’

  ‘Then I guess a map could come in handy,’ she conceded, for want of anything else to say.

  ‘There will not be time for you to explore the palace as you might like,’ he said. ‘However, we will do everything in our power to make your stay here as comfortable as it can be.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said, trying not to choke on her words.

  ‘Are you up to speed with the project?’

  ‘I read a good chunk of it on the plane,’ she confirmed tightly.

  As the deadline for the biography’s completion was so tight, Fiona had been emailing each chapter as she’d finished it so they could be immediately edited. The editor working on it had spent the past six weeks or so with a distinctly frazzled look about her.

  ‘Fiona has completed the bulk of the biography, but there is still another twenty-five years of my grandfather’s life to be written about. I appreciate this must sound daunting, but you will find when you read through the research papers that there is much less complexity there than in his early years. Are you confident you can do this within the time constraints?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have accepted the job if I wasn’t.’ Fiona’s editor, who Jo was now working with, had assured her that the last three decades of King Astraeus’s life had been comparatively quiet after his early years.

  But Jo had accepted the job before discovering who she would be working for and exactly who he was.

  As she clung to the gold banister that lined the wall above a wide, cantilevered staircase that plunged them into another warren of passageways and corridors Jo remembered a trip to Buckingham Palace a few years back, and recalled how bright and airy it had seemed. The Agon Royal Palace matched Buckingham Palace for size, but it had a much darker, far greater gothic quality to it. It was a palace of secrets and intrigue.

  Or was that just her rioting emotions making her read more into things? Her body had never felt so tight with nerves, while her brain had become a fog of hurt, anger, bewilderment and confusion.

  ‘I don’t remember you speaking Greek when we were on Illya,’ he said, casting her a curious, almost suspicious glance that made her heart shudder.

  ‘Everyone spoke English there,’ she replied in faultless Greek, staring pointedly ahead and praying the dim light bouncing off the dark hardwood flooring would hide the burn suddenly ravaging her skin.

  ‘That is true.’ He came to a halt by a door at the beginning of another wide corridor. He turned the handle and pushed it open. ‘This is your apartment for the duration of your stay. I’m going to visit my grandfather while you settle in—a maid will be with you shortly to unpack. Dimitris will come for you in an hour, and then we can sit down and discuss the project properly.’

  And just like that he walked back down the corridor, leaving Jo staring at his retreating figure with a mixture of fury and incredibly lancing pain raging through her.

  Was that it?

  Was that all she was worth?

  A woman he’s once been intimate with suddenly reappears in his life and he doesn’t even ask how she’s been? Not the slightest hint of curiosity?

  The only real reference to their past had been a comment about her speaking his language.

  He’d sought her out back then. It had been her comfort he’d needed that night. And now she wasn’t worth even a simple, How are you? or How have you been?

  But then, she thought bitterly, it had all been a lie.

  This man wasn’t Theo.

  A soft cough behind her reminded her that Dimitris was still there. He handed her a set of keys, wished her a pleasant stay and left her alone to explore her apartment.

  * * *

  Theseus blew air out of his mouth, nodding an automatic greeting to a passing servant.

  Joanne Brookes.

  Or, as he’d known her five years ago, Jo.

  Now, this was a complication he hadn’t anticipated. A most unwelcome complication.

  Hers was a face from his past he’d never expected to see again, and certainly not in the palace, where a twist of fate had decreed she would spend ten days working closely with him.

  She’d been there for him during the second worst night of his life, when he’d been forced to wait until the morning before he could leave the island of Illya and be taken to his seriously ill grandmother.

  Jo had taken care of him. In more ways than one.

  He remembered his surprise when he’d learned her age—twenty-one and fresh out of university. She’d looked much younger. She’d seemed younger than her years too.

  He supposed that would now make her twenty-six. Strangely, she now seemed older than her years—not in her appearance, but in the way she held herself.

  He experienced an awful sinking feeling as he remembered taking her number and making promises to call.

  That sinking feeling deepened as he recalled his certainty after they’d had sex that she’d been a virgin.

  She couldn’t have been. She would have told you. Who would give her virginity to a man who was effectively a stranger?

  Irrelevant, he told himself sharply.

  Illya and his entire sabbatical had been a different life, and it was one he could never return to.

  He was Prince Theseus Kalliakis, second in line to the Agon throne. This was his life. The fact that the new biographer was a face from the best time of his life meant nothing.

  Theo Patakis was dead and all his memories had gone with him.

  * * *

  ‘This is where I’ll be working?’ Jo asked, hoping against hope that she was wrong.

  She’d spent the past hour giving herself a good talking-to, reminding herself that anger didn’t achieve anything. Whatever the next ten days had in store, holding on to her fury would do nothing but give her an ulcer. But then Dimitris had collected her from the small but well-appointed apartment she’d been given and taken her to Theseus’s private offices, just across the corridor, and the fury had surged anew.

  Her office was inside his private apartment and connected to his own office without so much as a doorway to separate them.

  ‘This is the office Fiona used.’ Theseus waved a hand at the sprawling fitted desks set against two walls to make an L shape. ‘Nobody has touched it since she was admitted into hospital.’

  ‘There’s a spare room in my apartment that will make a perfectly functional office.’

  ‘Fiona used that room when she first came here, but it proved problematic. The research papers I collated and my own notes only give the facts about my grandfather’s life. I want this biography to show the man behind the throne. As I know you’re aware, this project is going to be a surprise for my grandfather so any questions need to be directed to me. With the time constraints we’re working under it is better for me to be on hand for whatever you need.’

  ‘Whatever you feel is for the best.’

  A black eyebrow rose at her tone but he nodded. ‘Are you happy with your apartment?’

  ‘It’s perfectly adequate.’

  Apart from being in the same wing as his.

  How was she going to be able to concentrate on anything whilst being in such close proximity to him? Her stomach wa
s a tangle of knots, her heart was all twisted and aching...and her head burned as her son’s gorgeous little face swam before her eyes.

  Toby deserved better than to have been conceived from a lie.

  She knew nothing of this man other than the fact that he was a prince in a nation that revered its monarchy.

  He was descended from warriors. He and his brothers had forged a reputation for being savvy businessmen. They’d also forged a reputation as ruthless. It didn’t pay to cross any of them.

  Theseus was powerful.

  Until she got to know this man she couldn’t even consider telling him about Toby. Not until she knew in her heart that he posed no threat to either of them.

  ‘Only “adequate”?’ he asked. ‘If there is anything you feel is lacking, or anything you want, you need only say. I want your head free of trivia so you can concentrate on getting the biography completed on time.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to remember that.’

  ‘Make sure you do. I have lived and breathed this project for many months. I will not have it derailed at the last hurdle.’

  The threat in his voice was implicit.

  Now she believed what Giles had told her when he’d begged her to take the job—if she failed Hamlin & Associates would lose their best client and likely their reputation in the process.

  ‘I have ten days to complete it,’ she replied tightly. ‘I will make the deadline.’

  ‘So long as we have an understanding, I suggest we don’t waste another minute.’

  Where was the charmer she remembered from Illya? The man who had made every woman’s IQ plummet by just being in his presence?

  She’d spent five years thinking about this man, four years living with a miniature version of him, and his presence in her life had been so great she’d been incapable of meeting anyone else. Once Toby had been born the secret dream she’d held of Theo—Theseus—calling her out of the blue with apologies that he’d lost his phone had died. As had the fantasy that she would tell him of their son and he would want to be involved in their lives.

  Motherhood had brought out a pragmatism she hadn’t known existed inside her. Until precisely one day ago she hadn’t given up on her dream of finding him, but that wish had been purely for Toby’s sake. All she’d wanted for herself was to find the courage to move on. She’d accepted she’d been nothing but a one-night stand for him and had found peace with that idea. Or so she’d thought.