‘Okay.’
Alex was too bemused to protest. Mia would never have agreed to a photograph like this, he thought, but Lily seemed unperturbed. How many photographs had been taken of her today? Obviously one more wasn’t going to do any harm.
She turned and stood beside him, holding her son. She smiled.
‘Can you lift Prince Michales a little higher?’ the cameraman called and Alex thought, damn this, he was going to be part of this photograph, too.
He took Michales from Lily’s arms and he held him between them.
Michales gave an indignant squeal, twisted and grabbed for his mother.
He caught the tail of her scarf. And pulled.
Maybe if her hair hadn’t been wet he wouldn’t have seen. But her hair was tugged upward with the scarf.
For a moment, before the curls fell again, he saw a scar.
A huge scar—from behind her ear almost to her crown.
The photographers hadn’t seen. But Lily…She knew he’d seen it. Her face stilled.
Don’t say anything, her face said. Please…
He didn’t.
In one fluid movement he was tight against her, blocking the reporters’ view, twisting her to face the camera slightly side on. So the scar was invisible.
He was holding her close, as if he cared.
Hell, he did care. Why hadn’t he asked. Why hadn’t he asked?
He forced a smile. The photograph was taken. He handed Michales back to Lily—still standing as close as he could. He took the scarf from Michales’s chubby fingers and tied it gently around his mother’s curls.
‘I’ll not have you sunburned,’ he growled.
‘It’s almost dusk. There’s no need to fear sunburn,’ the reporter said.
‘No matter. It’s time you went up to the house, Lily,’ he said and gave her a gentle push.
She got the message. She gave the reporters a brief smile and turned and trudged up the beach. Leaving three men gazing after her. Two reporters who thought they’d just gained a scoop.
One Prince who felt ill.
She’d called him honourable, wonderful even…
He didn’t feel either.
‘You look confused,’ one of the reporters said. He tried to get his face under control again. He was watching Lily walk up the beach. What the hell…?
‘You look like you’d like to bed her again,’ the man said.
Enough. There was only so much a man could take and this was well over the boundary.
‘Excuse me,’ he said coldly. ‘This is a private beach. You have no right to land here. I think we’ve given you enough. Can you please leave now?’
‘We’re going,’ the man said and then he hesitated. ‘She’s a bit different from her sister, then?’
This was where he should turn haughty, supercilious, as if reporters were somewhere beneath pond scum. This was where he should produce a dose of royal arrogance.
He couldn’t do it. Not when they were saying something he agreed with so entirely.
‘Do you think I’d have married her if she was like Mia?’ he demanded.
The reporter hesitated. He looked as if he wanted to say something and finally decided he might as well.
‘We came here on the spur of the moment,’ he said. ‘We never dreamed of getting this close. The old King and his bride…they never let us near.’
That was what he should have done, Alex thought. He knew he needed to protect Lily. Standing on the beach, watching Lily’s departing back, the reporters with bare feet and soggy trousers, Alex in his swim shorts and bare chest…It didn’t feel like a them-against-us situation. It felt like three guys admiring a cute woman. Three men thinking about how this situation affected the country.
‘You know what the headlines are going to be tomorrow?’ the reporter asked, still not taking his eyes from the departing Lily. ‘They’re going to be: “Don’t Call Me Ma’am. Call Me Lily.” I just figured the angle. A Princess of the People. As a question. Like we need to get to know her before we pass judgement. You want to add anything to that?’
‘I don’t think I do,’ he said, thinking maybe that was where he’d gone wrong in the first place. We need to get to know her before we pass judgement…
‘You want us to say you threatened to throw us off the beach?’
‘I want you to say I’ll do anything in my power to protect my own.’
‘Nice,’ the guy said, grinning and scribbling himself a note. ‘Now, all you need to say is that you fell in love with her the first time you saw her…’
‘For our women readers,’ the younger guy said apologetically. ‘They want a love story.’
‘I’m not buying into that,’ he snapped.
‘You can’t keep your eyes off her,’ the older guy said.
‘Neither can you.’
‘Yeah, well…’ They watched as Lily rounded the last curve in the path and disappeared. There was a communal sigh of regret. ‘I expect our readers will add two and two…’
‘I hope they will.’
‘I’m sure they will,’ the reporter said cheerfully. ‘We’ve got some great shots here. You know, if I were you, I’d show her off. You need the rest of the island to take her to their hearts.’
‘Just like you have,’ the younger reporter said and grinned. ‘Can I quote you as saying that, sir?’
CHAPTER NINE
HE’D seen the scar.
No matter, she thought. She’d never consciously hidden her illness from him. If he’d asked, she’d have told him.
But…
But she hated him knowing. That was why she’d consciously played it down, blocking his questions. She hadn’t lied to him about it, but neither had she told the truth. For the truth still hurt. The memory of her illness was still terrifying. Even thinking about it—how helpless she’d been—left her feeling exposed. Vulnerable. More vulnerable even than she’d felt getting married, which was really, really vulnerable.
Think about the house, she told herself. Think about practicalities.
Think about anything but Alex.
The house was fabulous.
Lily had spent only a few minutes here while she’d dumped her bridal gear and donned her swimsuit. The beach, the sea, the need to stop being a bride and have a swim, had made her rush. Now she had time to take it in.
Her apartment—a guest wing?—was beautiful: a long, wide room with three sets of French windows opening to the balcony and the sea beyond. The windows were open, the soft curtains floating in the breeze.
Everywhere she looked there were flowers. The boundaries between house and garden were almost indistinguishable.
Fabulous.
So think fabulous, she told herself.
Don’t think about Alex.
Was he still at the beach?
Maybe he’d only caught a glimpse of the scar. Maybe he wouldn’t ask.
She showered with Michales in her arms. When she emerged, wrapped in one vast fluffy towel, and Michales enclosed in another, birds were doing acrobatics in the vines on the balcony. Finches? Tiny and colourful, they made her feel as if she’d wandered into a fairy tale.
‘But this is real,’ she told Michales a trifle breathlessly. ‘Paradise.’
With Alex?
She thought of his face when he’d seen the scar. He’d looked…numb.
At least she had something she needed to focus on other than Alex’s reaction. Michales was drooping. The little boy had been wide-eyed since their arrival, crowing in delight at the sea, soaking it in with all the delight at his small person’s disposal. Now he was rubbing his eyes, snuggling against her and beginning to whimper.
He needed to be fed and put to bed. She needed to find the kitchen. She should have checked she had what she needed before she’d gone for a swim, she thought ruefully. She needed to dress fast, but if she put him down he was going to wail.
There was a knock on the door. It swung open—and there was Alex.
He’d
moved faster than she had. Showered and dressed, he looked slick and handsome and casually in control of his world.
He was carrying one of Michales’s bottles. Filled.
How did he know what was needed?
‘I watched the nursery staff feed him a few times before you took him away,’ he told her before she asked. ‘I know he’s a man who doesn’t like to be kept from his meals. We knew your formula and…’
‘We?’
‘Me and my hundred or so staff,’ he said and smiled, and she was suddenly far too aware of being dressed in only a towel, which was none too secure.
She was none too secure.
‘Why don’t you dress while I feed him?’ he said and held out his hands to take his son, and that made her feel even more insecure.
‘He’ll need it warmed.’
‘It’s already warmed.’
‘By your hundred or so staff?’
‘Only me here,’ he said apologetically. ‘A housekeeper comes here every morning, and a gardener when I’m away. When I’m here the gardener doesn’t come. That’s it.’
‘So you live here all by yourself?’
‘I do,’ he said gravely, then sat on the bed, settled Michales on his knee and offered him his bottle. Michales took it as if he hadn’t seen food for days.
‘Greedy,’ Alex said and chuckled, and Lily felt her insides do that somersaulting thing again and thought she really had to get a grip.
Her towel slipped a bit and she got a grip. Fast.
‘I’ll get dressed,’ she said and grabbed a bunch of clothes and headed for the bathroom.
But she kept the door open. Just a little. There was so much she wanted to know. And it might buy her time. Maybe it could even deflect questions from the scar.
Asking questions could be seen as a pre-emptive strike. Yeah, right, as if that would succeed. But there was little else she could think of to do.
‘How long have you had this place?’ she called.
‘My father had it built when he married my mother.’
‘He planted the garden?’
‘He and my mother did the basics. My father died when I was five and my mother was forced to leave. My mother and I rebuilt the garden when she came back.’ His voice softened. ‘She was passionate about gardening. Like you are about boats.’
She’d been steering the conversation to him. There was no way she’d let him deflect the conversation straight back.
‘Your mother died when you were…seventeen?’
‘Almost seventeen. She was sick for a long time before that.’
‘You told me you were raised in the royal nursery.’
‘I was,’ he said, latent anger suddenly in his voice. ‘My uncle hated my father and when I was born that hatred turned…vindictive. Giorgos holds…held…the titles to the entire island. When my father died he banished my mother from the island. Because I was heir to the throne, he demanded I stay.’
‘He loved you?’
‘He hated me. But if I was to be his heir, he’d control me.’
‘Oh, Alex.’
‘Yeah, it was tough,’ he said. ‘The law supported him, and my mother’s pleas were ignored. My pleas were ignored.’
‘But…you got her back?’
‘I did,’ he said and she heard a note of grim satisfaction enter his voice. ‘Finally. By the time I was fifteen…well, even by fifteen I’d learned things Giorgos didn’t want me to know. I was making his life uncomfortable, and he no longer wanted me at the castle. So finally my mother was allowed to return and he allocated an allowance for us to live on. We came back here to live, for all the time she had left.’
There was an untold story here, she knew. A fifteen-year-old standing up to a King. But instinctively she knew he wouldn’t tell her more.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
‘There’s no need.’
She was still in the bathroom. She had her clothes on now. Jeans, T-shirt.
There was no reason for standing in the bathroom any longer.
She walked out, cautious. Michales had finished his bottle. Her son was looking up at Alex, sleepy but expectant. Alex was looking at Lily, expectant.
The resemblance was unnerving. She was unnerved.
She smiled. It was impossible not to smile at these two.
Her men.
The thought was weird.
‘Tell me about your illness,’ Alex said softly and her smile died, just like that.
‘You don’t need to know.’
‘I do.’ His gaze met hers. Calm. Firm. Unyielding.
The time for dissembling was past.
Okay, then. There was, indeed, no practical reason for her to dissemble—apart from increasing her vulnerability—and she felt so vulnerable anyway she might as well toss in a bit more to the mix.
‘I had a brain tumour,’ she said, so quickly, so softly that she wasn’t sure he’d hear. But the flash of horror in his eyes told her he had.
‘A brain tumour…’
‘Benign.’ The last thing she wanted from this man was sympathy, but sympathy was in his eyes, right from the start, wanted or not. There was also horror.
When the doctors had told her the diagnosis she’d gone to the Diamond Isles to talk to Mia. She’d been hoping for something. Support? Love? Even kindness would have done. But of course Mia had been caught up in her own world. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she’d said when Lily had tried to tell her. ‘You’ve always had your stupid headaches. I won’t even begin to think you’re right.’
She’d been bereft, lost, foundering. Calls to her mother had gone unanswered. She’d never felt so alone in her life.
Then came the night of the ball. She might as well attend, she’d thought, rather than sit in her bedroom and think about a future that terrified her.
And so she’d met Alex. When Alex had smiled at her, when he’d asked her to dance, she’d found herself falling into his arms. Doing a Mia for once. Living for the moment.
And for two glorious days he’d made her forget reality. He’d smiled at her and she’d let herself believe that all could be right in her world. She’d blocked out the terror. She’d lost herself in his smile, in his laughter, in his loving…
And in his body.
And now here he was, looking at her as if he really cared, and she was lost all over again.
She couldn’t be lost. Not when her world was so close to being whole again.
‘I always had it,’ she said, still too fast, searching for the quickest way to tell him what he had to know. ‘Okay, potted history. You probably know my father was a Scottish baronet, a childless widower. My mother was a distant relation of the Greek royal family, fearsomely ambitious. She set her cap at my father’s money and title, even though he was forty years her senior. Mia and I were born, two years apart.’
‘I know this. The country’s been told this.’
‘Yes, but as Mia’s story. This is mine.’
‘Okay,’ he said, cradling the almost sleeping Michales. His eyes never left her face. ‘You want to sit down and tell me the rest?’
She cast him a scared look. Scared and resentful. Sure she wouldn’t be believed.
‘No one’s pushing you into a chair,’ he said gently. ‘There’s no naked bulb swinging eerily above your head as you spill state secrets. Just tell me.’
She nodded. She closed her eyes. She opened them again and somehow found the strength to say what needed to be said. ‘When I was six I started getting headaches,’ she told him. ‘I was diagnosed with a tumour, benign but inoperable.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess that was the end of my parents’ marriage. My mother loathed that I was sickly. It was almost an insult—that any daughter of hers could be less than perfect. And then Dad’s money ran out.’
She paused. This was too much information. Dumb.
She didn’t want this man’s sympathy.
Alex’s silence scared her, but she had to go on.
‘So my mother left, takin
g Mia with her. Dad and I muddled through as best we could. When Dad died my mother’s uncle, a man as different from my mother as it was possible to be—took me in. He was a boat-builder in Whitby in the north of England, and I learned my passion for boats from him. When he died, Spiros, my uncle’s friend, persuaded me to go to the States and work for him. So that’s what I did. My headaches were a nuisance I’d learned to live with. I made great boats. I was…content.’
‘You didn’t come to Mia’s wedding.’
‘I wasn’t invited. We’d hardly seen each other since our parents separated and, believe me, I wasn’t fussed. Would you have liked to be Mia’s bridesmaid?’
She tried a smile then, but she didn’t get one in return. His gaze made her feel he was trying to see straight through her. It left her feeling so exposed she was terrified.
Get on, she told herself. Just say it.
‘Then the headaches got worse,’ she said, trying to get to the point where Alex could stop looking…like he scared her. ‘I was getting increasingly dizzy. Increasingly sick. Finally I had tests. The doctors told me the tumour had grown. They thought…unless there was a miracle I had less than a year to live.’
His eyes widened in shock. ‘Lily!’ His hand reached out towards her but she shook her head. She stepped even further back.
No contact. Not now.
‘So I was in a mess,’ she said, trying to sound brisk and clinical and knowing by the look on his face she was failing. ‘My mother didn’t want to know about me. I didn’t want to burden Spiros. You’ve already figured his boatshed looks prosperous but it’s struggling. But I had to talk to someone. So, stupidly, I came to the palace to try to talk to Mia. I arrived just in time for the King’s celebrations to mark forty years on the throne. That’s when I met you.’
Her words had the power to change his world. That was how he felt. As if his world had shifted.
The first time they’d met they’d been surrounded by glittering royalty, the royal ball in full swing. Giorgos had been flaunting his young glamorous wife, taunting him. Telling him there was no way he’d inherit the throne.
But as his uncle had walked past Lily the King’s corset had creaked. Lily’s lips had twitched. They had, it seemed, a shared sense of the ridiculous.
Claimed: Secret Royal Son Page 10