by Abby Green
‘You lied to me.’
Leila frowned. ‘But I only just found—’
‘About your father. You said he was dead.’
Leila felt weak again. She’d conveniently let that little time bomb slide to the back of her head while dealing with this.
She glared at Alix. ‘You lied too. You lied about the fact that you were poised to take control of your throne again and just using me as a smokescreen.’
Alix appeared to choose to ignore that. He folded his arms. Eyes narrowed on her. ‘Why did you lie about your father?’
Leila turned away from him again, feeling like a pinned insect under his judgemental gaze. He came alongside her. She bit her lip. He was silent, waiting.
Reluctantly she said, ‘It was my mother. It was what she always said. “He’s dead to us, Leila. He didn’t want me or you. And he only wanted me to prostitute myself for him. If anyone asks, he’s dead.”’
Alix stayed silent.
‘I was aware of who he was—his perfect life and family. His rise to political fame. Why would I ever admit that he was my father? I was ashamed for him. And for myself. It’s one thing to be rejected by a parent who has known you all your life, but another to be rejected before they’ve even met you.’
She and her mother had seen both sides of that coin.
Alix’s tone was arctic, he oozed disapproval of her messy past. ‘We found out that the press sat on the story of your identity in order to dig into your past and see if they could find anything juicy. And they did. Your father is already doing his best to limit the damage, claiming these reports are spurious—an attempt to thwart his chances in the election.’
Leila hated it, but she felt hurt. Another rejection—and public this time. ‘I’m not surprised,’ she said dully. And in front of Alix. Could this day get any worse?
Apparently it could. From beside her he said briskly, ‘The press conference will be taking place in an hour’s time. I’ve arranged for a stylist and her team to come and get you ready.’
Leila turned to look at Alix. ‘Press conference? Stylist? What for?’
Alix turned to face her. His expression brooked no argument. ‘A press conference to announce our engagement, Leila. After which you’ll be leaving with me to come back to Isle Saint Croix.’
For some reason Leila seized on the most innocuous word. ‘Back? But I’ve never been...’ Her brain felt sluggish, words too unwieldy to say.
A sharp pinging noise came out of nowhere and Alix extracted a sleek phone from his pocket, holding it up to his ear. He took it away momentarily to say to Leila, ‘Wait here for the stylist. I’ll be back shortly.’
And he was walking out of the room before she could react.
When she did react, Leila felt red-hot lava flow through her veins. The sheer arrogance of the man! To assume she’d meekly roll over and agree to his bidding just because he had a King Kong complex!
Leila stormed off after Alix, going down seemingly endless corridors that ended in various plush bedrooms and sitting rooms, and a dining room that looked as if it could seat a hundred.
She eventually heard low voices from behind a closed door and without knocking threw the door open. ‘Now, look here—what part of I don’t want to marry you didn’t you understand the first time I said it?’
Leila came to an abrupt halt when about a dozen faces turned to look at her. There were two women in the group, scarily coiffed and besuited. Alix was in the middle, looking stern, and they were all watching something on the television.
A man around Alix’s age detached himself from the group and came over to Leila, holding out a hand. ‘Miss Verughese—a pleasure to meet you. I’m Andres Balsak, King Alix’s chief of staff.’
Leila let him take her hand, feeling completely exposed.
Andres let her hand go and urged her in with a hand on her elbow. ‘We’re watching a news report.’
The crowd parted and Leila was aware of their intense scrutiny. She avoided looking at Alix’s no doubt furious expression.
The news report was featuring a very pretty town full of brightly coloured houses near a busy harbour. An imposing castle stood on a lushly wooded hill behind the town.
A reporter was saying, ‘Will King Alix be able to weather this scandalous storm so early into his reign? We will just have to wait and see. Back to you—’
The TV was shut off. Alix said, ‘Everyone out. Now.’
The room cleared quickly.
The reality of seeing that report, as short as it had been, brought home to Leila the stark magnitude of what she was facing.
She turned to Alix. ‘What exactly is it that you’re proposing with this press conference and by bringing me to Isle Saint Croix?’
Alix looked at Leila. She could have passed for eighteen. She was pale and even more beautiful than he remembered. Had her eyes always been that big? The moment he’d seen her standing in the foyer, his blood had leapt as if injected by currents of pure electricity.
And when she’d passed him, her scent had reminded him of too much. How easily he’d let her in. How much he still wanted her. How much he’d trusted her. Would she even have come to him to let him know about the baby? He had a feeling that she wouldn’t, and his blood boiled.
Damn her. And damn that sense of protectiveness he’d felt when she’d revealed the truth about her father. He couldn’t think of that now.
‘You’ll come because you’re carrying my heir and the whole world knows it now.’
Leila looked hunted, her arms crossed tightly over her chest again, pushing the swells of those luscious breasts up. They looked bigger. Because of the pregnancy? The thought of Leila’s body ripening with his seed, his child, gave him another shockingly sudden jolt of lust. A memory blasted—of taking a nipple into his mouth, rolling it with his tongue, tasting her sharp sweetness—he brutally clamped down on the image.
Leila was pacing now. ‘What is the solution here? There has to be a solution...’ She stopped and faced him again. ‘I mean, it’s not as if you’re really intending to marry me. The engagement is just for show, until things die down again...’
She looked so hopeful Alix almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Her reluctance to marry him caught at him somewhere very primal and possessive.
‘No, Leila. We will be getting married. In two weeks. It’s traditional in Isle Saint Croix to have short engagements.’
Leila squeaked, ‘Two weeks?’ She found a chair and sat down heavily. She looked bewildered. ‘But that’s ridiculous!’
Alix shook his head. ‘It’s fate, Leila. Our fate and our baby’s. The child you’re carrying is destined to be the future King or Queen of Isle Saint Croix. It will have a huge legacy behind it and ahead of it. Would you deny it that?’
Leila’s arms uncrossed and her hands went to her lap, twisting. Alix had to stop himself from going over and lacing his fingers through hers.
‘Well, of course not—but surely there’s a way—?’
‘And would you deny it the chance to grow up knowing its father? Surrounded by the security of a stable marriage? You of all people?’
Leila paled and stood up again. ‘That’s a low blow.’
Alix pressed on, ignoring the pang of his conscience again. ‘We have a child to think of now. Our concerns are secondary. If you choose to go against me on this I will not hesitate to use my full influence to make you comply.’
‘You bast—’
Alix spoke over her. ‘There’s not only our child to consider, but the people of Isle Saint Croix. Things have been precarious, to say the least, since I won back the throne. We are at a very delicate stage, and we desperately need to achieve stability and start getting the country back on its feet. Everything could descend into chaos again at a moment’s notice. This scandal is all my enemies need to tip the balance. Would you allow that to be on your conscience?’
Leila thought of the pictures she’d just seen on the TV of the pretty town, the idyllic-looking island.
She swallowed. ‘That’s not fair, Alix. I’m not responsible for what happens to your people.’
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘But I am, and I’m taking full responsibility for this situation.’
* * *
In the end it was the weight of inevitability and responsibility that got to Leila. And the realisation that she’d suspected all along that this might happen. Either this or Alix would have asked her to get rid of the baby. And the fact that he hadn’t...
She put her hand over her belly now, that newly familiar sense of protectiveness rising up. She’d felt it as soon as the doctor had confirmed her pregnancy beyond all question. Along with a welling of helpless love. So this was what her mother had gone through... It put a whole new perspective on her mother, and how brave she’d been to go it alone.
And Leila wasn’t even facing that. She was facing the opposite—a forced marriage to someone who pretty much despised her after she’d told him she’d used him. In a pathetic attempt to save face, to hide how hurt she’d been.
And now she’d have to live with that. But as long as she remembered Alix’s phone conversation she wouldn’t lose her way. He’d never intended this to be anything but a means to an end. And at least he hadn’t fooled her into thinking he’d fallen for her.
Her child would not suffer from the lack of a father as she had done. Feeling rejected. Abandoned. Unwanted. Alix might want this baby purely for what it represented: continuity. But it would be up to Leila to make sure it never, ever knew how ruthless its father was.
‘There, Miss Verughese, see what you think.’
Leila smiled absently at the stylist who’d been waiting with a rail of clothes when Alix had escorted her back through the suite like a recalcitrant child. Someone had also been there to do her hair and make-up.
She looked in the mirror now and sucked in a breath. She looked totally different. Elegant. She wore a fitted long-sleeved dress in soft, silky material. It was a deep green colour, almost dark enough to be blue. It was modest, in that it covered her chest to her throat, but it clung in such a way that made it not boring. It fell from her hips into an A-line shape, down to her knees.
Her hair was up in a chignon, showing off her neck. Her eyes and cheekbones seemed to stand out even more. She put it down to the artful make-up, and not the fact that her appetite had waned in the last month.
She was given a pair of matching high heels. And then Alix appeared. He’d changed suits and was now wearing one with a tie that had colours reflecting those in Leila’s dress. She reeled at the speed with which he’d reacted to the news and been prepared.
‘Please leave us.’
Once again the room emptied as if by magic. Alix’s cool grey gaze skated over Leila and she felt self-conscious. This man was a stranger to her. But a stranger who made her body thrum with awareness.
He held out a velvet box and opened it. Inside was a beautiful pair of dangling emerald and gold earrings. Ornate—almost Indian in their design.
She looked from them to him. ‘They’re beautiful.’
Alix said, ‘They’re part of the Crown Jewels. They were protected by loyalists to the crown while I was in exile. Put them on.’
Leila glared at him.
‘Please,’ he said.
She lifted them out, one by one, and put them on, feeling their heavy weight dangling near her jaw.
‘I have something else...’
Alix was holding out a smaller velvet box. Her heart thumped hard. She’d dreamed of this moment, even though she’d never have admitted it to herself—but not like this. Not with waves of resentment being directed at her.
Alix opened it and she almost felt dizzy for a moment. Inside was the most beautiful ring she’d ever seen.
Five emeralds—clearly very old. Set in a dark gold ring. It was slightly uneven, imperfect.
Leila reached out a finger and touched it reverently. ‘How old is this?’
Carelessly Alix said, ‘Around mid-seventeenth century.’
She looked at him, horrified. ‘I can’t accept this.’
Alix sounded curt. ‘It matches your eyes.’
Something traitorous moved inside her to think of him choosing jewellery because it matched her eyes. That he’d thought about it rather than just picking the first ring he saw.
Alix took the ring out of the box and took up Leila’s left hand.
Immediately her body reacted and she tensed. Alix shot her a look before sliding the ring onto her ring finger and Leila held her breath. It was as if the fates and the entire universe were conspiring against her, because it fitted her perfectly.
Alix’s hand was very dark next to her paler one, his fingers long and masculine. Hers looked tiny in comparison.
He didn’t let her go and she looked up, confused.
Alix’s expression was unreadable. ‘There’s one more thing.’
‘More jewellery? I really don’t need—’
But her words were cut off when Alix’s head lowered and his mouth slanted over hers. She was so shocked she didn’t react for a second, and that gave Alix the opportunity to coax open her mouth and deepen the kiss.
When Leila recovered her wits she tried to pull away, but Alix had a hand at the back of her head and stopped her from retreating. Everything sane in Leila was screaming at her to push him away, but her body was exulting in the kiss, drinking him in as if she’d been starved in a desert for weeks and had just found life-restoring water.
His scent intoxicated her, and before Leila could stop herself she was clutching at Alix’s jacket and pressing her body closer to his.
A sharp rap at the door broke through the fog and Alix broke contact. Leila didn’t have time to curse him or herself, because Andres was popping his head around the door and saying, ‘They’re ready for you.’
Alix said abruptly, ‘We’ll be right there.’
Andres disappeared and Leila realised she was still clinging onto Alix’s jacket. He was barely touching her. She took a step back. He was looking at her almost warily, as if she might explode. And she had almost exploded—in his arms. It was galling.
‘What was that in aid of?’ Her tongue felt too large for her mouth.
‘The world’s press are waiting for us downstairs. We need to convince them that this was a lovers’ tiff and we are now happily reunited. That the pregnancy is the happy catalyst that has brought us back together.’
The speed and equanimity with which Alix seemed to be reacting to this whole situation, not to mention his attention to detail—that kiss—just confirmed for Leila how ruthless he was. And how she’d never really known him.
She wanted to kick off her heels and run as fast as she could for as long as she could. But she couldn’t. Together they had created a baby, and that baby had to come first. Exactly as Alix had said.
She smoothed clammy hands down her dress and drew her shoulders straight. ‘Very well—we shouldn’t keep them waiting, then, should we?’
Alix watched Leila walk to the door and open it. Her spine was as straight as a dancer’s and her bearing was more innately regal than any blue-blooded princess he’d ever met. Something like admiration mounted inside him, cutting through the eddying swirl of lust that still held his body in a state of heightened awareness and uncomfortable arousal.
He’d tried to block out the effect she had on him, telling himself it couldn’t possibly have been as intense as he’d thought. But it had been more.
CHAPTER NINE
THE PLANE THAT was taking them to Isle Saint Croix was bigger than the plane Alix had used before. The fact that Leila had only ever travelled on private jets was something she should have found ironically amusing, but she couldn’t drum up much of a sense of lightness now.
The press conference had passed in a blur of shouted questions and popping cameras. Leila had just about managed to lock her legs in place so they hadn’t wobbled in front of everyone.
Andres had sent someone to retrieve her m
ost important and portable possessions from her apartment and they were in a trunk in the hold.
Alix’s staff, whom she’d seen in the suite in Paris, were all down at the back of the plane now, including Andres, and she and Alix were alone in the luxurious front. There was a sitting room, dining room and bedroom with en-suite bathroom. Stewards had offered dinner, but Leila had only been able to pick at it. Her stomach was too tied up in knots.
She thought of how Alix had responded to a question about her father at the press conference.
He’d said curtly, ‘If Alain Bastineau is so certain he is not my fiancée’s father, then let him prove it with a DNA test.’
Huskily Leila said now, ‘When they asked about my father...you didn’t need to respond like that.’
Alix looked at her. ‘Yes, I did. Any man who rejects his own child is not a man. You’re to be the Queen of Isle Saint Croix and I will not allow you to be speculated about in that way.’
Immediately Leila felt deflated. He’d only stood up for her because of concerns for his own reputation. She’d been stupid to see anything else in it, however tenuous.
‘You need to eat more—you’ve lost weight.’
Alix was looking at her intently and Leila cursed herself for having drawn his attention. She felt defensive and, worse, self-conscious.
‘Apparently it’s common to lose weight when you’re first pregnant.’
Alix’s voice was gruff. ‘We’ll arrange for you to see the royal doctor as soon as you’re settled. We need to organise your prenatal care.’
Leila was surprised at the vehemence in Alix’s voice and had to figure that all this meant so much more to him than the fact of a baby. She and the baby now represented stability for the island’s future.
She frowned then, thinking of something else. ‘How did they find out?’
Alix was grim. ‘I told you—they had that picture of us in the street and they sat on it, wanting to know more about you. Also, as I had just been crowned King again, they knew there was potentially a much bigger story in the offing. They were keeping an eye on you, Leila. We think someone went through your bins and found the home pregnancy tests you did.’