‘I apologise for jumping to conclusions,’ Sebastian said. ‘I didn’t think it through logically. You are the last person to have spoken to the press. My absence from the palace has no doubt added to the speculation along with the issue of the missing diamond.’
‘What missing diamond?’
Sebastian waited a beat before telling her. She had a right to know what he had been facing over the last few months. He could trust her to keep it quiet, of that he was now sure. Her love for him was something he had not been expecting, although it warmed him to the very core of his being. He just wanted a few more days to give Alex time to think over the proposition he had put before him.
‘So can’t you be King without the diamond?’ she asked once he had finished.
‘The coronation is still being planned, but there is no guarantee the diamond will be located in time,’ he said. ‘This must go no further than these four walls, Cassie.’
‘You can trust me, Sebastian.’
He bent down and brushed his mouth against hers. ‘I know I can, agape mou,’ he said, and, touching her briefly on the curve of her cheek, added gently, ‘I just wish I had trusted you from the beginning.’
The news about Sebastian’s love-child went on for several days, which rather ironically made Cassie glad he had insisted she stay at Kionia with Sam. She had hardly seen Sebastian over the last four days; he had come back late at night, spending long hours in his study or pacing the floor of his room. She had wanted to go to him so many times but felt if he wanted to be with her he would have said so by now. In spite of her confession of love, he had not spoken of his own feelings. She was left in limbo, wishing and hoping for something that deep down she knew could never be.
The day of her parole came and she came to a decision. She called Angelica, who agreed to meet her and Sam at the front gates of the hideaway just as the guards were changing shifts. It was a risky move, but Cassie felt if she didn’t leave now it would make it all the more difficult for Sam in the long run. She packed the things she had brought plus as much of what Sebastian had given Sam as he could fit into two bags.
While Eleni was occupied elsewhere, Cassie carried the bags downstairs, but just as she was about to store them in a cupboard the front door opened and Sebastian came in.
His eyes went to the bags in her hands. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked with a heavy frown.
She put the bags down and faced him determinedly. ‘I am leaving with Sam,’ she said. ‘Nothing you say will stop me. I have made up my mind. My parole is up. I am a free woman.’
‘You were going to just walk out without saying goodbye?’ he asked in a flintlike tone. ‘You weren’t even going to let me speak to Sam?’
Cassie could feel the anger coming off him but stood her ground. ‘You’ve barely seen him for the last few days,’ she said. ‘I thought it best to get out before he becomes even more attached to you.’
‘You thought it best to take my son away from me?’ he barked at her. ‘How could you think that was the best thing for Sam, or even me for that matter?’
‘We don’t belong in your life,’ Cassie said, holding back tears. ‘The press have gone on and on about my background. I can’t bear it any more. I can’t even look at the paper now without feeling sick to my stomach.’
‘So you haven’t seen today’s paper?’
She shook her head. ‘No…no, I haven’t…’
‘There’s an exclusive interview with someone from the orphanage called Spiro who claims he slept with you several times.’
Cassie felt her despair hit an all-time low. ‘And you believed him?’
He let out a gust of breath after a tense moment. ‘Of course I don’t believe him. I have reason to believe he is the one behind the press leak.’
‘Thank you for believing me,’ Cassie said, blinking back tears. ‘I can’t tell you how much that means to me. No matter what happens I won’t let Sam forget how wonderful you have been to me.’
He gave her an unreadable look as he unfolded the newspaper again. ‘Since you haven’t read the rest of the news I think you should know my younger brother Alex and his wife Maria had a baby girl late last night,’ he said. ‘They have called her Alexandria.’
‘Oh, that’s lovely news,’ she said. ‘I hope everything went well with the delivery.’
He drew in a breath as he tossed the paper to one side. ‘Yes, it all went very well. Alex was over the moon, raving about the birth, how he cut the cord and held his daughter before anyone else touched her. It was obviously a very moving experience for him, and of course for Maria.’
Cassie bit down on her lip as she saw the raw emotion on his face. Even though she had shown him all the photos she had of Sam she knew it would never make up for him not being there as his brother had been for his wife for the birth of their tiny daughter. She even wondered if he truly had forgiven her for not trying harder to contact him about the pregnancy. Although he had shown amazing compassion over what she had suffered at the hands of her father, there was a part of her that suspected Sebastian had yet to process his feelings about having a love-child to a woman his people saw as not fit to stand by his side as his future queen.
‘I have to leave, Sebastian,’ she said into the creaking silence. ‘Surely you see that? This will all blow over once Sam and I are off the island. It’s the best way—the only way. If you truly love Sam then you will let me take him away where he can’t be hurt by all the speculation and innuendo.’
Sebastian knew she was right about Sam. He was far too young and vulnerable to cope with the press, but how could he let his little son go? He had only just started to get to know him. There was so much he didn’t know and would never know if he was not in close contact with his little boy. He felt as if he were being torn in two. Whatever decision he made was going to affect someone adversely.
And then there was Cassie. How could he let her leave now that he knew what he felt for her, what he had always felt for her? The last couple of weeks had shown him how much he had misjudged her. His guilt was like a yoke about his shoulders; he couldn’t shake it off no matter what she said to exonerate him. There had been so little time to right the wrongs of the past, if indeed they ever could be righted.
He had already spoken to his legal advisors about clearing Cassie’s name, but they had not been overwhelmingly positive. They had argued that it would look as if the Prince Regent of Aristo was manipulating the system in order to whitewash his mistress. Sebastian recognised it was politically sensitive, but he was more concerned about doing the right thing by Cassie and Sam. But perhaps the right thing was to let them leave Aristo, at least until the scandal died down a bit.
‘All right,’ he said, releasing a jagged sigh. ‘I will let you and Sam go, but I must insist you keep me informed at all times of where you are. I will see that you are both provided for, and I would like to see Sam when it can be arranged. I would also like to spend some time with him before you leave in the morning.’
‘Of course,’ Cassie said, swallowing against a groundswell of emotion. He was letting them go. He had made his choice and it did not include her and Sam. But then why was she so heart-wrenchingly disappointed? Hadn’t she always known she and Sebastian were never going to be together? She had known it from the very first time they had met six years ago. Sam’s existence didn’t change anything—why should it?
Sebastian had responsibilities that went back for centuries. Royal courts had dealt with this sort of situation many times before. The mistress and child were taken care of well out of the eye of the public, and in time completely forgotten.
Sebastian came up to her and, bending down, pressed his mouth to hers in a soft kiss that tasted to Cassie of goodbye. Her lips clung to his for a brief moment, as if trying to delay the final moment of separation.
She stood back from him and gave him a wry look. ‘I guess it would be rather tacky to say at this point, thanks for the memories.’
The movement of hi
s lips was nowhere near a smile, more of a grimace of regret. ‘Thank you for my son,’ he said in a deep, rough tone as he touched her on the cheek in a fingertip caress.
Cassie knew if she didn’t move away now she would crack. She pulled her shoulders back and pasted a smile on her face. ‘Thank you for my freedom,’ she said, and turned and walked up the stairs.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CASSIE was besieged by the press on her way to the ferry with Sam the next morning. Sam was already in tears, not quite understanding what was going on. Sebastian had spent some time with him earlier, but he had left before Cassie could see him one last time. Eleni had said he had been called away to something urgent at the palace, but Cassie had wondered if the old woman had been told to say that so Sebastian could avoid saying goodbye.
‘But I don’t want to leave Daddy,’ Sam wailed as she tugged him along the gangplank to board the passenger ferry.
‘Sweetie, it’s just not possible to stay here,’ she said, fighting back tears of her own at some of the vicious insults still being thrown at her from the wharf.
Cassie kept her head down as she showed their boarding passes to the ticket officer, her hands shaking so much the passes rattled like leaves in a stiff breeze.
Finally they were on their way, and Sam out of sheer exhaustion fell asleep on her lap, his face still blotchy from crying. Cassie sat stroking his hair, tears rolling down her cheeks as the island began to shrink as the ferry cut through the choppy water.
‘Dhespinis Kyriakis?’ A woman of about thirty seemed to come out of nowhere. ‘Do you mind if I sit down next to you and your little boy?’
Cassie could hardly say no as the seat next to her was vacant; in fact it was the only vacant one on that side of the ferry. ‘If you like,’ she said, and cuddled Sam closer.
‘I heard what people were saying back there on the wharf,’ the woman said after a moment.
Cassie tightened her mouth as she looked at the woman. ‘If you have something to add to what has already been said, then forget it. I have heard it all before.’
‘I am not here to insult you,’ the woman said. ‘I am here because I want to set the record straight. You see…I knew your father.’
Something about the woman’s grim tone made Cassie’s eyes widen in interest. ‘You…you did?’
‘I used to work for him ten years ago,’ she said. ‘He continually harassed me, threatened me and even on one occasion physically assaulted me, but every time I tried to report it, he circumvented it by smearing my reputation by spreading rumours around the council chambers. I was too young and inexperienced to know how to handle it, so in the end I left. It took me years before I found my feet again. I’ve only been working as a journalist in London for the last couple of years.’
Cassie felt her back stiffen. ‘A journalist?’
‘Please don’t be worried,’ the woman said. ‘I was visiting relatives on Calista and heard about the Prince Regent’s love-child. Your name leapt off the page. I knew when I read you had been imprisoned for the manslaughter of your father that there had to be more to it than that. I wanted to meet you, to interview you so you can tell your side of the story so you can receive the justice you have so far been denied. I will back you up and by doing so receive the justice I, too, was denied all those years ago.’
Cassie chewed at her lip. Should she do it, for Sam’s sake if not her own? After all, he would be the one who had to live with the stigma of having an ex-prisoner as his mother. If she could clear her name it would be one step in the long road to recovering her life. And not just her life, but this young woman’s who had also suffered at her father’s hands. ‘I’m not sure where to begin…’ she said.
The young woman offered her hand. ‘My name is Alexia and I always think the best place to start is at the beginning.’
Sebastian got down to the wharf just as the ferry was disappearing into the distance. His eyes blurred but not from staring at the shrinking vessel, nor was it because of the onshore breeze.
Behind him his bodyguards were pushing back against the assembled crowd, some of whom were holding placards with disgusting words and phrases written on them about Cassie.
Sebastian strode over and, ignoring the protests of his security team, faced the loud-mouthed crowd. He was aware of cameras flashing and every word he said being recorded, but he no longer cared. He tore strips off the gathering of people, telling them of the injustice Cassandra Kyriakis had suffered, not just at her father’s hands all her young life, but at the hands of the courts who had wrongly imprisoned her just because she had tried to protect herself from her father’s violence.
The crowd gradually began to disperse, like a pack of dogs that had been heavily chastened; their tails were between their legs as they slunk away.
Stefanos opened the car door for Sebastian. ‘You do realise that will be all over the press tomorrow, Your Highness?’
Sebastian gave him an I-couldn’t-care-less shrug. ‘If it is I will not be here to read it,’ he said with a set mouth.
‘May I ask where you will be, Your Highness?’
Sebastian glanced at the palace and then back at the faint outline of the ferry. ‘I will give you one guess,’ he said with a slowly spreading smile.
‘Does that mean you will require the royal helicopter, Your Highness?’
Sebastian turned to look at his aide. ‘You bet I will,’ he said, still smiling. ‘Take me to the heliport immediately.’
Once Cassie had settled Sam for a nap in the tiny villa she had chosen on the Greek Island of Ithaki, she came out to the terrace to breathe in the clean, salty air. The less populated island had appealed to her, for, although it didn’t have a great choice of tourist-friendly beaches, the lack of tourists meant she and Sam could melt into the background until she decided where to finally go to rebuild her life.
The sound of footsteps behind her made her turn, her eyes going to the size of saucers when she saw Sebastian standing there.
‘Are you out here to weave your shroud?’ he asked.
Cassie frowned in bewilderment. ‘Pardon?’
Amusement danced in his eyes. ‘You don’t know the legend of Penelope and Odysseus?’
‘Yes…sort of…’
‘The ancient island of Ithaca, now known as Ithaki, was Odysseus’s long-lost home,’ he explained. ‘Legend has it Penelope sat waiting for him to return to her, weaving a shroud to keep her suitors at bay, for they believed he was dead, and she had told them once the shroud was finished she would choose one of them. But each night she cleverly unravelled her work while she waited for Odysseus to return.’
Cassie felt something move inside her chest. ‘I wouldn’t know the first thing about weaving….’
‘Perhaps that is a good thing,’ he said, ‘for I would not want this particular suitor to be put off.’
She kept staring at him, trying to make sense of his words, hope like a tiny flickering flame inside her, struggling to warm the chill of the heartache she had suffered in leaving that morning.
‘Aren’t you going to say something?’ he asked.
She pressed her lips together for a moment before she returned her eyes to his. ‘If you’ve come to see Sam I’m afraid he’s just settled down for a nap,’ she said. ‘He was a bit seasick on the way.’
‘I would love to see Sam, but first I would like to talk to you.’
Cassie shifted her weight from foot to foot, her teeth having another go at her bottom lip. ‘Look, if it’s about the journalist I spoke to on the ferry across—’
‘It’s not about a journalist, and if you spoke to one then it can’t have been any worse than what I said to the paparazzi and your send-off crowd down at the wharf,’ he said with a wry twinkling smile. ‘I am almost looking forward to seeing tomorrow’s papers.’
She frowned at him. ‘You spoke to the press?’
He gave her a tender look. ‘Did you think I would not defend you, agape mou?’
Cass
ie didn’t know what to think. She was struggling to contain her emotions, her heart was beating so hard and so fast her head felt as if it were spinning.
Sebastian came up to her and took her hands in his. ‘Caz, I should have said this the day you told me about Sam—in fact I should have told you when you told me about your father and his treatment of you.’
She looked into his eyes. ‘T-told me what?’
‘You can’t guess?’
She shook her head.
He brought her hands up to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss to each of her knuckles as he held her gaze. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I have loved you for so long it felt like a limb was being torn off when you and Sam left. I was called back to the palace over some minor issue that was trumped up as being urgent because I suspect everyone knew I was going to stop you from leaving if I spent another minute with you.’
‘We have no future, Seb,’ she said. ‘You know that. The throne is—’
‘Empty until Alex makes up his mind whether he will take it or not,’ he said. ‘I do not want to rule unless you are by my side. You complete me, Caz, in a way no one else has or could ever do. This is not just about Sam—I need you to know that. If the people will not accept you as my wife then I will gladly relinquish the throne and all it entails.’
Cassie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She wanted to slap at her head, to make sure she hadn’t imagined it. ‘Your…wife?’ she finally managed to croak. ‘You want me to marry you?’
He smiled at her with love shining in his eyes. ‘As soon as it can be arranged,’ he said. ‘We have been robbed of so much time. I want to make you my wife and start working on a brother or sister for Sam. We can be a family at last. It doesn’t matter to me if it is on Aristo or somewhere else. But I suspect, after what I said to the press this morning, you will become the princess of the people in no time at all.’
Cassie couldn’t hold back the tears; they dripped from her eyes as she hugged him close. ‘I just want to be your princess,’ she said.
The Future King’s Love-Child Page 16