Читать книгу Shock Heir For The Crown Prince - Kelly Hunter - Страница 11

CHAPTER TWO

ANASTASIA DOUGLAS DIDN’T usually attend black-tie fundraising events at the director of the United Nations Secretariat’s request. She was a lowly interpreter, one of many, even if she did have a reputation for being extremely good at what she did. She commanded five languages instead of the average three and was conversationally fluent in half a dozen more. She could navigate diplomatic circles with ease, courtesy of the training she’d received at her Russian diplomat mother’s knee. She had an intimate understanding of world politics, and enough corporate mediation experience to be of use when conversation got heated. All good things for a career interpreter’s toolkit.

It still didn’t explain why she was here in Geneva’s fading Museum of Art and History, talking black tulips with the Minister for Transport’s wife. The ticket would be held for her at the door, the director had said. It was important for her to be there, he’d said. Someone wanted to meet her in person, in advance of securing her services.

It would help mightily, Ana thought grimly, if she knew who that person was.

Twenty more minutes and Ana would cut her losses and make her exit. She was drawing enough unwanted attention as it was—possibly because she’d put her hair up and was wearing the simple black gown her mother had bought her for Christmas. It had a discreet boat neckline, no sleeves, and clung to her curves like a lover’s hand. Very little skin was showing. The dress was more than appropriate for such an event, and yet...

It didn’t matter that she never particularly wanted to draw the male gaze, she drew it regardless. And the female gaze and the gaze of the security guard stationed at the door. Sex appeal, mystery, an air of worldliness—whatever it was, people always stared. Some envious, some dazzled, others covetous. No one was ever neutral around her.

When Ana had fallen pregnant at nineteen, with barely any knowledge of the father and no way to contact him again, her mother had been horrified. All those plans for Ana to make a powerfully advantageous marriage, gone. All Ana’s formidable allure spent on a man who didn’t want her.

Only he had wanted her.

For one glorious week Ana had been the centre of a laughing, passionate, attentive man’s world and she’d gloried in it. He’d smiled at her in a bar and she’d felt the warmth of it all the way to her toes. He’d put a hand to the small of her back and held the door open for her on their way out and she’d stumbled beneath the heat of it all.

Clumsy Ana, when she’d never been clumsy before. All lit up at the touch of his hand.

So young. So utterly confident that the pulsing connection between them would last for ever. For one unforgettable week she’d found heaven here on earth. And then he’d left without a word, no farewell and no forwarding address.

He’s married, nothing surer, her mother had said.

You don’t have to have this baby, she’d said months later. You could move on with your life. Continue with your study plans.

Wise words from a woman Ana had always respected, only Ana had never quite been able to turn that stolen week into nothing. Never quite been able to wipe it from her consciousness.

She’d been nine months pregnant before she’d even figured out who Cas, her Cas, was. Not married. Not some feckless con man who’d needed a place to stay for a week.

He’d been the Crown Prince of Byzenmaach.

She’d woven that information into something she could live with; of course she had.

He hadn’t left her because he wanted to; he’d left her because duty to his crown demanded it. His father had forbidden it, and he’d fought for her, hard, but been overruled. He’d spent weeks in a dungeon, clamouring to get out and return to her. Yeah. Ana smiled ruefully. That last fantasy had always been a favourite.

Far better than the bitter knowledge that she simply hadn’t been a suitable choice for him and that he’d known it from the start and chosen to love her and leave her regardless.

She hadn’t got in touch.

The Transport Minister’s wife had exhausted the topic of tulips. By mutual consent they headed towards a larger circle of people, allowing Ana to drift away, towards a Grecian bust, champagne glass in hand. She rarely drank, although at an event such as this she would often take a glass of whatever they were offering. She liked to think it made her fit in.

The sculpture wasn’t the most impressive one in the room but studying it served the purpose of separating her from the crowd. She stood alone. Approachable. Any potential employer could introduce themselves now, in private, assuming they wanted to. If they didn’t, not a problem. She had enough work lined up to keep her and Sophia living comfortably for quite some time.

No one could accuse her of not giving her daughter a good start in life.

She felt the presence of someone at her side before she saw them. The movement of air, a dark shape in her peripheral vision. She turned to look at him, and felt the bottom drop out of her world.

She’d have known him anywhere, never mind that it had been years since she’d seen him last. She’d mapped that face with her lips and fingertips, and left not one inch of his body unexplored. Broad of shoulder and long of leg, his shoes were black and shiny and his shirt was snowy white beneath his black suit. His hands were in the pockets of his trousers, stretching the fabric taut across his abdomen and the top of his thighs.

Hurriedly, she turned her attention back to the Grecian bust, giving it far more attention than it deserved. Her palms felt suddenly slick and she longed to wipe them down the sides of her gown. Instead she wrapped both hands around her glass and tried to ignore the thunderous beating of her heart.

She hadn’t forgotten him, no, she could never do that. She woke to a living, breathing reminder of him every morning and fed her cheese on toast.

‘Hello, Ana,’ he said quietly.

‘Cas.’

‘Been a while,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re looking well. A little pale. Must be all that working indoors.’

‘You know where I work?’

‘I had you investigated.’

‘Oh.’ Stay cool, Ana. There was still a chance he didn’t know about Sophia. ‘Why?’

He smiled grimly and shook his head. Shrugging those powerful shoulders as if to say he didn’t understand it either. ‘In truth—which is more than you deserve—my father is dying and I need to marry soon. The woman my country has in mind for me is a princess from a neighbouring principality. We’ve been informally promised to each other since we were nine years old and I wanted to do right by her before making it official. I wanted to put you—and the week we once shared—out of my mind for good.’

‘That’s right. You’re the Crown Prince of Byzenmaach.’ She smiled, because she knew the power in her smile. ‘In truth, that was something I deserved to know all those years ago, when you graced my bed. Don’t you think?’

Now it was Casimir’s turn to study the Grecian bust. ‘I don’t disagree,’ he offered finally.

She looked at his proud profile and wondered for the umpteenth time why he’d done it. Spent the week with her, pretending to be someone he was not. Was his life really that bad that he’d needed to escape it? Or had he too been blindsided by attraction?

‘A lot of my choices would have been different had I known who you really were,’ she said.

‘They always are,’ he replied somewhat grimly.

‘So you had me investigated.’ Carefully, she picked up the earlier thread of their conversation. ‘How is that supposed to help put me out of your mind for good?’

‘You were supposed to have developed flaws.’

‘What kind of flaws?’

‘Any kind at all.’

‘Should I have lost teeth and grown warts?’

‘Yes.’ The glimmer of a smile chased the shadows from his eyes, but only for a moment. ‘You were supposed to have moved on.’

‘I have moved on. We had a good time. It’s done.’

‘You’re the mother of my child,’ he countered flatly.

Right. That.

As for Ana’s response, she’d prepared for this day. She had words in place in at least five languages.

‘You’re wrong.’ Those were the first words in her arsenal. She glanced up to see how he’d taken them. Not well, if his fierce and unforgiving glare was anything to go by.

‘Do I need to order a DNA test for the child?’ he enquired silkily. ‘Because I will if I have to. I will regardless, so let’s move past denial. We both know she’s mine.’

If denial wasn’t working, try reason. ‘Walk away, Your Highness. You don’t have to be here.’

‘You say that as if it’s an option.’ He kept his voice low but anger ran like a river beneath his words. ‘It’s not.’

‘Marry your princess, produce an heir to your throne and forget about me and mine. It is an option.’ She turned imploring eyes on him. ‘I’m well set up. I can provide for my daughter. You don’t have to be here.’

‘Does she ask about her father?’

Ana squared her shoulders and told it like it was. She’d tackled that question back when Sophia had been four years old. Not Ana’s finest moment. But the lie had fallen from her lips and there was no taking it back. ‘I told her you were dead. No one knows who Sophia’s father is. No one. Not even my parents.’

‘You say that as if it’s something to be proud of.’

‘Isn’t it?’ she said haughtily. ‘Think of it as protection rather than oversight, and maybe you’ll see where I’m coming from.’

His lips tightened.

‘I found out who you were purely by chance.’ Ana had the advantage so she pressed it. ‘I was nine months pregnant at the time, you were long gone and I’d already made the decision to raise my baby alone. I saw your picture in a Middle Eastern newspaper one of my mother’s guests had left behind. Suddenly your joy in the little everyday things we did made so much more sense. As did your disappearing act at the end.’

Needing distance, she walked around the statue, putting it between them even as their gazes stayed locked. ‘I researched you; how could I not? I read about your sister’s death and your mother’s suicide. Your father stood tall throughout.’ Ana badly wanted to reach out and run her fingers over the cold, smooth marble, but it wasn’t allowed. ‘I remember looking at the pictures of him and thinking how stalwart he was. The widower king who held it together, with you at his side...ten years old and so determined not to disappoint. You were your country’s last hope. You still are.’

She’d watched him walk away once before; she could do it again. ‘I’ll never know why you took up with me in the first place, but you left me behind for a reason, maybe for a whole lot of reasons. So I left your name off my daughter’s birth certificate for a reason too.’ She stared at him, willing him to understand. ‘Go home, Your Highness. I’ve got this.’

‘Come with me,’ he offered gruffly, his gaze never leaving hers. ‘Bring her.’

This wasn’t how the conversation ever went in her imagination. In her imagination he walked away, relieved by her silence. ‘You haven’t heard a word I said.’

‘On the contrary, I’m listening very carefully. You seem to know broadly what’s at stake, which makes this meeting easier than expected. I discovered my daughter’s existence three days ago. I want to meet her.’

‘No.’ She took a careful step left, partially obscuring him from her line of sight. ‘That’s not advisable.’

He tilted his head, the better to keep her in view. ‘It wasn’t a request. I have a jet waiting and a security team in place outside your house, awaiting orders.’ The smile he sent her was a worn and bitter thing. ‘I’m sorry, Ana. I had hoped for a more leisurely approach but circumstances beyond my control are against it. I need you and Sophia in Byzenmaach.’

‘No.’

‘For your own protection, as well as mine,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it’s you who needs to listen a little more carefully. Because it’s not a request.’

* * *

There were other ways he could have gone about getting access to the child. Official, less invasive ways but all of them took time and time was something Casimir didn’t have. He’d carved out the hours and minutes it took to come here to collect them, and even gaining that amount of freedom had been harder than carving granite with bare hands. He didn’t have time to ease himself slowly into Ana and his daughter’s life.

They had to come to him.

‘My car is out front,’ he said.

‘Mine is in the car park.’

And if she thought he would allow her to drive it back to her house, she was mistaken. ‘Someone will make sure your vehicle is returned to your apartment.’

‘I need to go to the ladies’ room,’ she said next, glancing around as if weighing her options.

‘By all means.’ He nodded towards the severely dressed woman who stood by the stairway, her eyes sharply trained on them. ‘Katya will escort you.’

Ana swayed suddenly and he stepped closer and put his hand to the small of her back to steady her. Her skin was warm beneath the thin fabric of her dress and her breath hitched. It was all he could do to stop from lowering his head to the curve of her neck and breathing her in. Desire hit him, stronger than the desire he’d felt for her all those years ago. A staggering certainty that this woman would always be the woman he measured all others against. ‘Are you afraid of me?’

She glanced at him and their gazes caught and held. She feared him now, this woman who’d once offered him all that she had to give. He could feel it in the slight trembling beneath his hand.

‘I’m afraid of what you might take from me, yes.’ Her quietly contained reply made honesty seem like strength.

‘Perhaps I’ll share,’ he muttered as he took her drink and gave it to a passing waiter. ‘Right now my father is ill, I need to return to Byzenmaach and I don’t have time to waste. I could have sent strangers to collect you, but I thought you might prefer a familiar face.’

He hadn’t wanted her or their daughter to feel the terror of abduction.

He steered her towards the exit and Katya fell silently into step beside them. Another security type stood waiting by the door to the museum, holding Ana’s coat over one arm. Ana faltered when she saw him and Casimir slowed his steps to match.

‘Cas, please. I don’t want this.’ She looked at him imploringly and put her hand on his sleeve to hold him back. ‘I know what will happen once you claim her. She’ll be in the spotlight. A target for those who oppose you. I don’t want her to be a target. I want to keep my daughter safe.’

It had been seven years since they’d breathed the same air, but her effect on him was as potent as he remembered. He wanted to touch and he wanted to take. Sip at her lips and drive them both mad, until memories became their reality.

‘That’s what I’m trying to do. On my grave, Anastasia. I will keep you and your daughter safe.’

* * *

She let him escort her out of the museum and towards the waiting car, and Casimir was grateful for her acquiescence. Approaching Anastasia in public had been a calculated risk that his security team had advised against. They’d wanted to approach her at her home. He’d wanted to make his approach while the child wasn’t with her and he’d only had an evening to do it in. Easy enough for him to pull strings and arrange for her to be here this evening.

She got into the car without comment and he followed, as his bodyguards peeled away, one towards another vehicle, the other sliding into the front seat beside the driver. He had a team of eight in place for the pick-up. Four here and four more at Ana’s house. Overkill, but he was taking no chances. He could see the trembling of Ana’s hands as she clenched them together in her lap. The trembling didn’t stop, so with a shaky huff of breath she shoved her tell-tale hands beneath her thighs and sat on them.

‘Better?’ he said.

‘Interpreter training didn’t encompass fearlessness in the face of abduction.’

‘You’re doing very well.’

Ana cut short what might have been a bitter laugh and looked out of the window as the museum swept from view. He let her be, more content with the darkness of the car and the silence, and her presence, than he had any right to be.

‘What’s wrong with your father?’ she asked finally.

‘Cancer.’

‘How long does he have left?’

‘Days.’

She nodded, and he appreciated her lack of false platitudes for a man she’d never met.

‘Do you want Sophia to meet him?’ she asked next, and it was a fair question. One he had yet to answer for himself.

‘I haven’t arranged it.’

‘Because your father will be disappointed that you spawned a bastard child?’

‘Because Sophia is the image of my sister at that age and my father is not always lucid,’ he countered. ‘He’ll see what he wants to see rather than reality, and I would protect her from that kind of confusion.’

‘And what will you see when you look at Sophia?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Truth again, and it sat uneasily on him after a lifetime of concealing his innermost thoughts and feelings. ‘Ask me again in fifteen minutes.’

‘Casimir, Your Highness, I’m not ready for this.’

Neither was he, but he was doing it. ‘My father resides in the royal palace in Byzenmaach’s capital but that’s not where we’re going. We’re going to my private residence instead. It’s a fortress under lockdown. There will be no press. No courtiers. You’ll be safe there.’

‘I was safe here,’ she said.

‘No, Anastasia. You weren’t. You and Sophia were already under surveillance when we came looking for you.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ She looked mutinous. ‘We are safe here. Safer than we’d be with you.’

He reached into the pocket of the seat in front of him and drew out an envelope and handed it to her. ‘This is all we’ve been able to come up with on those who have you under surveillance.’ She opened the envelope and photos spilled out. ‘That’s the school’s new contract gardener. He’s a Byzenmaach national with ties to those who took my sister.’

Ana said nothing as she flipped to the next photo, but her lips tightened.

‘Your new neighbours of three months. They live across the road from you. The woman is a Byzenmaach national. She’s the granddaughter of the speaker for the Northern mountain tribes of Byzenmaach. He unifies them. He’s also the one who ordered my sister’s abduction. That or allowed it to happen. That’s her real husband, by the way. He’s Swiss. We don’t know whether he’s part of your surveillance team or not.’

Ana’s hands trembled but she firmed them up fast and flicked over to the next photo. This one was of her sitting at a café with a co-worker. Her neighbour sat two tables away, reading the paper. ‘So they watch. So what? They haven’t done anything.’

‘Yet.’ He laid it out for her as plainly as he could. ‘The Northern rebels are ruthless. Sophia is of royal blood and may be used against me. I’d rather have her at my side than see her in their clutches. I’ve already seen one show of theirs and I don’t need a repeat performance.’

‘Cas.’ She shook her head, clearly not wanting to believe any of it. ‘I can’t—This isn’t my life.’

But it was. ‘I’m sorry, Anastasia. Had there been no other eyes on you I might have been able to leave you alone. Not saying I would have, but it was an option. That option ceased to exist the moment we identified who else we were dealing with. At that point I had to step in. Now that I have there’s no coming back from that. Not for any of us. The world you woke up to this morning is gone.’

She said nothing.

‘If it’s any consolation this is an equal opportunity disaster. The world as I know it shattered too, the moment I discovered I had a daughter.’

‘How very even-handed,’ she said faintly.

‘Isn’t it. You always were fluent in understatement.’ He’d always found it vaguely entertaining. ‘How many languages are you fluent in now?’

‘Six.’

‘Your UN résumé says five.’

‘They missed one.’

Not exactly reticent when it came to her skill set. Maybe that was a good thing, given the political world he was thrusting her into. ‘Which one did they miss?’

‘Yours.’

He blinked. Calculated the benefits of her being fluent in his native tongue and there were plenty. ‘Thank God for that.’

‘God has nothing to do with it. I learn fast. I was bored one day and picked up a dictionary.’

‘You’ll assimilate faster if you can speak the language. You may even be able to work as an interpreter for the palace.’

‘Why would I want to do that? I’ve already achieved my workplace goals,’ she snapped.

So she had. ‘Will the UN allow you to work remotely?’ They might. He’d not object.

‘Casimir, I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking, but my career is here. I’ve worked hard to build it and I have no intention of throwing it away because you think Sophia and I would be safer in Byzenmaach. You have a problem on your Northern borders? Fix it. And then we can all get on with our lives.’

‘It’s really not that simple.’ He’d expected resistance. Possibly not quite this much resistance, but still... He’d come prepared to bargain. To say whatever he had to say in order to get her on that plane. ‘Anastasia, please. Take some leave from your work, come with me to Byzenmaach—where I need to be and where I can protect you—and let us work through this. You’re right. These people may not be a threat to you or Sophia. Maybe they want to welcome you into their community with open arms and treasure you both for reasons unknown. It’s possible. But right now we don’t know what they want from you. What if I ask for a mere two weeks of your time? Enough time to build a case either for or against you and Sophia returning to Geneva. Right now I don’t consider that an option but perhaps you can convince me otherwise. I’m not an unreasonable man. We can negotiate.’

She handed the photos and the envelope back to him and stared out of the car window by way of reply.

‘The palace will provide amply for both you and Sophia. Money won’t be an issue.’ Possibly not the point but still worth mentioning.

‘Thank you,’ she grated, still not looking at him. ‘Being dependent on someone else for the roof over my head, the clothes that I wear and the food in my mouth has always been one of my primary goals.’

‘Irony, right?’

She cut him a look that could have shredded steel.

‘Just checking. Some people wouldn’t have a problem with being kept, given the circumstances.’

Although it seemed unlikely that she would be one of them and make life easier for everyone.

‘Independence is hardly a character flaw,’ she said. ‘Try thinking of it as a strength.’

‘I’d like to.’ He really would. He just didn’t know how much of an asset it would be when navigating the demands of royal existence.

* * *

Ana lived in an apartment just outside Geneva’s UN precinct. By the time they reached it, a cold, illogical fear had begun to assail him. His daughter was in there. A daughter he’d never met, who was the image of his sister. A daughter who thought him dead.

‘Ten minutes,’ he said as he exited the car and leaned against the bonnet. ‘Clothes, passports, belongings you can’t live without. Whatever you’re likely to need for your stay, bring it.’

‘You’re not coming in?’

‘Am I invited?’

‘You hijack my life and yet you stand here and ask for an invitation inside? What are you, a vampire?’

‘I’m courteous.’

She laughed as if she couldn’t help it, a sudden brightness in a night full of shadows and wrongdoing. ‘You’re everything I never wanted and can’t forget,’ she said. ‘Presumably you’ve prepared for meeting your daughter as ruthlessly as you prepared for everything else.’

‘Yes.’

She paused, both hands to the little blue door of her house. ‘If you remember nothing else, remember this. If you hurt my daughter...if you ever make her feel less than the beautiful, innocent child she is... I will make you regret it.’ Her voice was shaking and so were her hands but she turned to spear him with eyes fiercer than any eagle in his aviary. ‘I will protect my child with my last breath. It’s what mothers do.’

‘Not in my experience.’

‘Maybe you need more experience.’ She turned away from him, put the key in the lock and pushed it open. ‘My warning stands.’

He watched her enter, squared his shoulders and followed. He knew nothing of parenting, or of six-year-old girls, except that maybe, just maybe, they liked playing in royal gardens and catching dragonflies. That and they were expendable political pawns.

God help them all.

* * *

A cluttered hallway. A teenage babysitter who stood nervously when they entered the living room, a blue bedroom door—not quite closed. A sleeping child, half buried in bedclothes. These were the images that stayed with him, even as he boarded the plane forty minutes later with both Anastasia and their daughter in tow.

He hadn’t been able to stand in that doorway as his daughter awoke, he’d returned to the living room—now minus the babysitter, who had been dismissed. He needed to put some physical distance between them so he could prepare himself for the moment. How to introduce himself to a six-year-old girl who thought her father dead? A child whose life would never be the same now that he’d claimed her as his?

Ana watching him from the doorway to the living room, a child’s backpack in hand. He remembered that part.

‘There’s still time to change your mind,’ she’d said. ‘You could walk out that door and never look back. You’d never hear from me again. Whatever we had, whatever we once did...it never happened. I will take it to the grave.’

‘She’s mine.’ He’d spread his hands wide. ‘She’s in danger because of me. What kind of man would I be—what kind of father would I be—if I simply stepped back and let it happen?’

I am not my father.

Therein lay the crux of it.

And here they were on the plane. Ana getting the little one buckled into a seat for take-off. The child sleepy and wary of everything and everyone, the mother equally wary, her attention divided wholly between her daughter and him. There was a bedroom on the jet. A supper room if anyone was hungry. There was comfort here, and luxury. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned that Ana seemed to have no care whatsoever for the trappings of royalty or the security team that now surrounded them.

She’d brought the child to him in the living room of her house, both her and the girl hastily dressed in clothes for travelling. Jeans and a soft green pullover for Ana. Jeans, a teal T-shirt and a soft pink jacket cinched at the waist for his daughter. Sophia’s ponytail had been slightly lopsided, her amber eyes still bleary with sleep and she hadn’t reminded him of his sister at all in that moment. She hadn’t reminded him of anyone he’d ever met and that was as it should be.

It had allowed him to breathe.

She was a skinny little thing, this child of his, but she’d met his gaze fearlessly.

He’d crouched down, one knee to the ground, and held out his hand for her to shake it. ‘Hello.’ No way he’d been able to get his voice to come out smooth so he’d settled for gruff in the hope that it would hide some of the emotion welling in his chest at the touch of his daughter’s hand.

‘Sophia, this is His Royal Highness, Prince Casimir of Byzenmaach. He’s an old acquaintance,’ Ana had said. ‘And a prince.’

‘And your father,’ he’d said. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. Get it done, get it over with.

The girl had flinched and looked to her mother for confirmation.

‘Not dead,’ Ana had said somewhat helplessly, and left it at that, and his daughter’s wary gaze had returned to his face.

‘Your eyes are like mine,’ she’d said.

‘Yes.’

‘Maman says you have a castle,’ the girl had said next.

‘Yes.’ Yes, he did, and he wasn’t above using it to impress. ‘Would you like to see it?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘And we have puppies,’ he’d said.

‘What kind of puppies?’ She was hard to impress, this daughter of his.

‘Wolfhounds.’ He’d wondered if a six-year-old would know what that meant. ‘They’re big and shaggy and built to protect the animals in their care. Wolfhounds are almost as big as ponies, which we also have.’

‘Nice try,’ Ana had murmured, but, hey. Whatever worked. He wanted his daughter to arrive in Byzenmaach with castles, ponies and puppies on her mind rather than fear in her heart for the unknown.

Ten minutes into the flight he turned on his phone to find three urgent messages waiting, all of them from Rudolpho. ‘Flight time is five hours,’ he said to Ana as foreboding washed over him. ‘There’s food, a bed through there with a television screen on the wall. Children’s movies.’ He’d even stocked up on those. ‘Make yourselves comfortable.’ He stood and nodded towards the sole woman on his security team. ‘Katya will see to your needs.’

Ana eyed Katya with the deep distrust one might afford a rabid dog. ‘And what will you be doing while we make ourselves at home?’ she asked finally.

Casimir wasn’t used to having his movements questioned, but for her he made an exception. ‘I have some calls I must attend to. There’s an office area at the rear of the aircraft.’

‘I still have questions,’ she said.

‘Rest now.’ He wished he had that luxury. ‘There are some books on Byzenmaach in the bedroom if resting or television doesn’t appeal. English editions. Arabic editions.’ He’d offer books in his native language now that he knew she could read them. ‘You’re the mother of a royal bastard and you’re about to gain unparalleled access to me and Byzenmaach’s most trusted advisors. I want you knowledgeable when it comes to our history, our customs and our politics. I need you to be aware of the political battles in play around you and because of you.’

Not for Anastasia the kind of life his mother had led. Sidelined. Stripped of her voice and unable to influence even the most basic household decisions. Not for Casimir the choices his father had made.

‘You expect me to inhale all this knowledge in five hours? From a pile of books?’ she said.

‘Well, I hear you’re very smart and I did choose the books rather carefully,’ he offered, deadpan. ‘It’s a start. I’m arming you with the tools you’ll need to navigate my world. Knowledge that will prevent you from becoming a pawn for the ruthless. I want you to think for yourself. I need you to be able to protect yourself and our daughter. I will never deny you knowledge or a voice.’

She looked at him, and there was something wholly vulnerable in her gaze. A tiny break in her defences against him. ‘Is this who you really are? No pretence?’

‘This is me.’ His world and his choices exposed. Sometimes self-serving, sometimes in service to the crown, sometimes in need of an anchor he didn’t have but, heaven help him, he tried to be a fair and just man. And if he could be that for strangers he could sure as hell try to be that for her.

‘Okay,’ she said quietly.

‘Okay,’ he echoed, and fled before the sudden sizzling tension in the air between them got too much for him.