Читать книгу Society Secrets: The Royal Baby Revelation / Back in the Headlines / A Scandal, a Secret, a Baby - Шэрон Кендрик, Sharon Kendrick - Страница 10

CASIMIRO stared into Melissa’s white face, his heart beginning to pound with fury at her outrageous claim. He, a father of her child? He would have liked to have taken her by her shoulders and to have shaken the admission from her that her words were nothing but a sham and a lie.

But he knew that all eyes were upon him, just as they always were, for hadn’t he spent a lifetime being watched—like the human equivalent of a goldfish? Wasn’t he always seated at the top table or the raised dais for precisely that purpose? Kings were not permitted the freedom to express their feelings and therefore he could not indulge in the luxury of venting his anger towards this insolent Englishwoman. The only outward sign of his ire was the clenching of his fists beneath the table—and so great was his wrath that he barely noticed that he had crushed the heavy cream parchment of his abdication speech in the process.

He leaned towards her by a fraction—as if he were about to engage in some pleasantry about the food. ‘Are you crazy?’ he said, his accusation so soft that nobody but Melissa could hear it. ‘One of those crazy women who go around pretending to have been impregnated by powerful men?’

Melissa flinched—recoiling from the naked anger in his eyes. ‘No! No! Of course not. I’m telling the truth.’

‘And I don’t believe you.’

‘Why not?’ she whispered, shocked by his venom.

‘You want me to spell it out for you?’ He wanted to hurt her now—to lash back at her for daring to concoct such a wild fantasy. To show his extreme displeasure for daring to disrupt his plans. With the hand which wasn’t holding his crushed speech, he indicated the array of glitteringly beautiful women who sat at each sparkling and flower-festooned table gazing up at him with the adoration of teenagers at a boy-band concert.

‘You think that I can’t have any woman I want in my bed? You don’t think I’m spoilt for choice by all the females who daily throw themselves at me?’ His eyes became cold. ‘Do the maths, cara,’ he added icily. ‘If I could have my pick of the most beautiful women in the world, then why the hell would I choose someone like you?’

Melissa swallowed, knowing there was no answer to this—because, deep down, wasn’t he simply echoing her own sentiments? Hadn’t she found it unbelievable at the time that such a man should have chosen to take someone like her as his lover? So she couldn’t really blame him for coming out and saying it now. She had no right to feel hurt by what was essentially the truth—but one thing still didn’t add up. One thing that was pretty painful to accept. ‘So you don’t even remember me?’ she said woodenly.

At this, Casimiro felt his heart quicken and perhaps Orso recognised his disquiet, for his aide stepped forward at just that moment.

‘Majesty? Shall I conduct Miss Maguire back to the kitchens? The time for your speech approaches.’

Casimiro let his gaze flick briefly over the abdication speech which now lay crumpled in his hand. How your life could change in one brief second, he thought bitterly. He should have been about to announce a major change in direction. A new freedom. But now…

His gaze moved to the Englishwoman, staring at the determination in her green eyes, which was at odds with the trembling of her lips. He did not know if she was crazy, or if this was some kind of audacious blackmail scheme. But there was enough plucky defiance in her gaze to make him pause and something about her lilac-scented defiance which made him determined to delve a little deeper. He wondered how much she knew. Or guessed. And suddenly the certainty hit him. His plans were not ruined completely—but they must certainly be put on hold. At least until he established that she was simply a fantasist. And in the meantime—she must be given an indication that it was he who held the power. All the power.

‘Yes, take her away,’ he clipped out. ‘And I shall begin.’

She tried one last time. ‘Majesty—’

‘Go,’ he ordered. ‘Go!’

Melissa was so shocked at his angry dismissal—at the fact that he could wave her away like a troublesome insect in the light of what she’d just told him—that she found herself following Orso from the dais as if she were on autopilot.

Feeling numb, she halted when they had reached one of the far alcoves and the aide turned to her, his eyes making no attempt to hide their hostility.

‘You will not attempt to contact the King again,’ he said coldly. ‘Ever. Do you understand?’

Part of her wanted to cry out that it was none of his business what she did, but Melissa had neither the strength nor the wherewithal to contradict him. Besides, what could she do? If she told Orso the reason for her insistence then he really would have her removed from the palace. If Casimiro himself didn’t believe her about Ben—then it stood to reason that nobody else would. She didn’t exactly fit the profile of a discarded royal mistress, did she?

Snatches of the King’s speech echoed through the hall as she bent to pick up a spray of roses which had fallen from one of the giant flower displays. She heard him commend the marriage of his brother and the subsequent birth of their son. She heard his deep, accented voice say words like ‘celebration’ and ‘new life’ and they seemed to only add to her inner pain, if that were possible.

‘…and so I ask you to raise your glasses to my dear brother, Xaviero, and his beautiful wife, Princess Catherine.’

Melissa glanced over at the beautiful, laughing blonde English Princess and felt a lump which felt suspiciously like envy rise in her throat.

Somehow she got through the remainder of the banquet and at midnight she begged Stephen if she could slip away—something she wouldn’t normally have dreamed of until the final guest had gone home. Maybe her face was white, or maybe something in her voice alarmed him, because he frowned and asked her if she was ill—and then told her to go straight to bed.

‘Don’t forget we’re leaving in the morning,’ he said.

As if she could forget something like that. She would never set foot on this island again—nor Ben grow to know his father as she had so hoped. Nobody could say she hadn’t tried—but one day she was going to have to have a painful conversation with her beloved son.

She walked back to the house they’d provided for her, which stood within the grounds of the vast palace complex, but she didn’t go straight to bed. She was so unsettled that even attempting to sleep would have been a complete waste of time. And although there was every state-of-the-art diversion you could think of, she couldn’t imagine summoning up any interest in a DVD or one of the books which took up an entire wall of the sumptuous sitting room.

She found herself missing Ben and wishing that she could ring him. But even if it hadn’t been so late—you couldn’t really speak to a thirteen-month-old baby on the phone, could you? She’d tried it when she arrived yesterday. According to her aunt, Ben had kept trying to snatch the handset and hurl it to the ground—and once he’d worked out that it was his mother at the other end of the line he had burst into noisy howls of rage.

Instead, Melissa packed her small suitcase—layering in her jeans and her tops and her work-clothes. Afterwards, she stripped off her clothes and took a shower—telling herself that tomorrow night she would be standing beneath the half-hearted splutter of tepid water in her tiny bathroom at home and to make the most of this unparalleled luxury while she had the chance.

But it was hard to be enthusiastic in such circumstances and the powerful jets of water and the lavish array of soaps and shampoos did little to distract her swirling thoughts. Plan A had been to tell Casimiro about Ben—and that had failed spectacularly. She didn’t even have a Plan B.

Towelling herself dry and raking a comb through the dark wet strands of her hair, Melissa pulled on the oversized T-shirt which had been given to her by one of her clients and which she now wore as a nightie. She’d just finished boiling the kettle to make herself a cup of herbal tea when there was a low but insistent knocking at the front door, and she glanced at her watch and frowned.

Getting on for two o’clock—surely Stephen wouldn’t come calling this late?

The tapping resumed and her heart began to pound—because unless it was the dreaded Orso about to kick her off the complex, there was only one person Melissa could imagine knocking this late.

Tiptoeing over to the door, she drew a deep breath. ‘Who is it?’

‘Who the hell do you think it is?’

He didn’t sound like a king when he said that, and when Melissa pulled open the door, he didn’t much look like a king either. In those faded denim jeans which showcased his endlessly long legs and a black T-shirt emphasising the muscular wall of his torso, he looked more like some off-duty film star.

But the way he strode past her and then kicked the door shut with an impatience he couldn’t conceal was pure royal arrogance and anger.

As he turned to face her, trying to control the ragged rage of his breathing, Casimiro’s eyes scanned her in disbelief. Her long dark hair was drying in some kind of wild cloud around her head and she was wearing an awful shapeless grey garment which carried a picture of a giant cell phone and asked the question: Are You Turned On?

His lips curved in distaste—but the tacky sentiment must have subliminally registered in his subconscious because he started noticing that her long legs were completely bare. And that she had no polish on her toes. And that her small breasts were pushing against the fabric of her T-shirt—their shape outlined and their tips as hard as tiny diamonds.

It was inexplicable and ridiculous that he should find such a woman attractive and yet he would have been a liar if he had denied the stab of desire which began to tug at his groin.

But he swiftly pushed that from his mind—acknowledging that her extraordinary statement had somehow managed to influence him and that he had stopped short of giving his abdication speech. How dared she? How dared she?

‘Wh-what are you doing here?’ she questioned as she met the blaze of fury which sparked from his amber eyes.

What indeed? Hadn’t the faint drift of her lilac scent been as much a driving force as his need to call her bluff and establish that she was nothing but a fantasist? ‘I want to know what it is you want from me,’ he demanded.

‘I want you to be part of your son’s life.’

‘No.’ He shook his dark head. ‘You’re missing the point. You don’t seem to realise that your little fantasy is a complete waste of time. Get real, why don’t you?’ Amber eyes iced into her. ‘You see—you are the last person who would ever be the mother of my child.’

She stared at him in confusion. ‘What…what are you talking about?’

‘Weren’t you listening earlier?’ He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘I tend to climb a little higher up the social ladder when I’m choosing lovers, cara.’

Don’t react to his insults, she told herself fiercely. Because that’s what he wants you to do. You need to hang onto every shred of self-control you possess. Because this had now transcended everything other than her fight for her little boy and she was like an angry tigress protecting her cub. Let him say what he liked about her—but she would hold firm in her conviction. Tilting her chin in defiance, she felt the drying strands of her thick hair falling down her back as she met his arrogant stare—no longer cowed by the distaste that she met in the amber eyes.

‘But other than my obvious social unsuitability to cavort with a monarch—there are no other reasons?’ she questioned coolly.

‘Oh, there are plenty,’ he demurred silkily. ‘I like my women blonde. And curvy. You’re neither. In addition, I expect them to dress exquisitely. In fact, the kind of woman with whom I’m intimate puts only the finest silk-satin and lace lingerie next to her body.’ His lips curved in derision as they flicked over her T-shirt. ‘Not something which might be worn by someone living by the roadside.’

Still she didn’t react, even though she felt as if he were aiming darts at her heart. Destroying all the feelings she’d once had for him—feelings she’d allowed to grow as Ben had grown. She’d remembered his kindness to her. His tenderness when he’d held her in his arms. In her head, she had built on those memories, brick by brick. She had nurtured a fantasy man in her imagination, she realised—because the real man was nothing but an arrogant and hurtful bastard.

‘So my hair’s the wrong colour, my body’s the wrong shape and I dress like a tramp.’ Melissa paused and then looked at him boldly. ‘Anything else you’ve missed?’

Casimiro frowned, because her persistence was surprising. By now she should have caved in. Started blubbing and giving him some hard-luck story about how she really needed money. She wanted financial aid for an ailing donkey sanctuary. She was battling to preserve a rare butterfly threatened by the proposed new road which would raze through its natural habitat. She was sorry to have invented such a far-fetched story but she was desperate…

‘Actually, yes.’ His voice was stealthy now. ‘I always use protection when I make love to a woman.’ He saw her cheeks grow pink. Would this graphic truth be enough to get her to back down? he wondered. ‘There’s a general consensus, you see—which deems that my seed is precious stuff. More precious than most.’ His mouth twisted into a knowingly sarcastic smile. ‘It’s a King thing.’

She paused for a moment to let this outrageous comment die away. ‘So why are you here?’ she questioned quietly.

Again, her general unflappability when faced with his unmistakable anger slightly wrong-footed him. Why was he here? If he had really believed that she was some cheap con-artist then she wouldn’t have got within a million miles of him. So why? Why was it that when he looked at her, he felt the faint tug of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on? Something which felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

Since his accident—when his life had hung in the balance for days—so many of his usual pastimes had been curtailed that it felt an age since he had tasted danger. But he could taste it now. It seemed to linger in the air about him—tantalising him—just as the highest jump on one of his beloved horses had always tantalised him.

He hadn’t ridden since the accident—but now came enticement in a different and unexpected form. Not blonde. Not petite, nor curvy—but bold and brunette with long, long legs and eyes which were the greenest he had ever seen. Almost emerald…Once again he felt the distant tug of something nebulous—some tantalising memory which hovered just out of reach.

He touched the tip of his tongue to his upper lip, slid it slowly over the surface. ‘Maybe I came looking for something to nudge my memory,’ he said softly.

She hadn’t realised what he was about to do—because in Melissa’s book, you didn’t come onto a woman if you had just spent the last ten minutes insulting her and looking at her as if she’d crawled out from underneath a stone.

But to her shock he was pulling her into his arms with a proprietary and arrogant air. Pulling her really close—so that all that lay between her and his hard, lean torso were just two thin layers of their respective T-shirts. Suddenly, she could feel the sheer pleasure of being touched by him again and—despite the circumstances—it felt just as amazing as it had ever done. Her skin began to sing and her heart to pound, but this wasn’t right. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t right…

‘What…what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she breathed.

Her stumbled little protest both angered and inflamed him, so that another hot urgent jerk of desire pressed hard against the denim of his jeans. Pushing a strand of dark hair away from her pale face, he stared down into the pure green colour of her darkening eyes.

‘Make your mind up, cara mia,’ he bit out throatily. ‘You say that I’ve been your lover—’

‘I say it because it’s true!’

‘Then maybe the taste of your lips and the feel of your body will jog my memory. Capisca?’

He lowered his mouth onto hers, capturing her lips in a kiss so hard that it made her shudder for all kinds of reasons. She shuddered because, as a kiss, it felt almost contemptuous and a million miles away from any real tenderness or regard. And she shuddered because he kissed with a masterly skill which took her breath away. And, of course, because it had been so long. Much, much too long.

‘Casimiro,’ she breathed—the word itself a luxury, because surely you were permitted to call a king by name when he was kissing you?

‘Dio—’ He felt her lips open beneath his—and her instantaneous response cut through his defences—as if he had been unprepared for such immediate passion. Had he expected more of a fight? Even wanted more of a fight—so that he would have had to kiss her into some sort of submission and force her to retract her ridiculous claim?

But there was no fight as her rangy body melted against his—the small but perfect breasts flowering into life, her sighing delight made irresistible by the accompanying soft swivel of her hips. Casimiro felt his jutting erection positioned in perfect alignment to her and he uttered a small curse beneath his breath.

He had meant to give her a swift demonstration of his sexual power. To have her weak and wanting him—her body soft with yearning—and in this he had succeeded. But by now he should have terminated the kiss. To have thrust her away with a contemptuous remark about how any man could surely be the father of her child if she was so free and easy with her favours.

So why were his lips plundering hers with a hunger which had never felt so keen? And why were his fingers clasping one of her breasts—feeling the iron-hard little peak puckering through her T-shirt?

‘Oh!’ she gasped, knowing that she should stop him—but how the hell could her love-starved body stop him from doing something which was so incredible? Running her fingers distractedly through the thick tumble of his ebony hair, she felt a faint little raised line which zigzagged from behind his ear to just beside his temple, and for a brief second she frowned. But only for a second—because the way he was touching her drove all sane thoughts from her mind. ‘Casimiro,’ she breathed again, the word sounding like a prayer and an incitement.

Her easy acquiescence both thrilled and angered him—her breathless little moans spurring him until he was rucking up the baggy T-shirt like a schoolboy eager for his first intimate touch of a woman. And she was letting him.

He gave a groan of delight as his hand skated up and over her inner thighs and for one tantalising moment he paused, heard her hold her breath.

‘You are good,’ he ground out, tearing his lips away from hers in an attempt to suck in a ragged supply of oxygen to his lungs. Too good, he thought—as the desire to unzip himself and impale her heated his blood with a terrible kind of primitive yearning.

‘So are you,’ she whispered, wanting him to kiss her again. And more. Much more. Was he remembering the feel of her body and the fact that they were so good together—as she was? Would it be such a terrible thing to carry on with what they’d been doing—to show Casimiro that their son had been given life as a result of an act as amazing as this?

‘I want you,’ he ground out.

‘And I want…I want you,’ came her shuddered response.

Yet even as he felt the restlessness in her body which matched his own, Casimiro knew that this was crazy. Still his hand lingered on the cool thigh and the temptation to trail it towards its sweet destination almost overwhelmed him. He could have her in an instant. Here. Now. On the floor. In her bed—and then what?

‘No. This is not going to happen.’ Abruptly, he let his hand fall and stepped away from her—observing the disbelief and disappointment which had darkened her green eyes, the rapid rising and falling of her perfect little breasts as her fingers flew to her lips. And Casimiro could do nothing to stop the tide of relief which flooded over him—eclipsing even the aching frustration in his aroused body. For he had demonstrated to them both the power of his steely will! Of his iron-hard resolve. Let her know the kind of person she was dealing with—and then let her go on her way!

He allowed himself a brief moment of satisfaction—for he could not imagine any other man who would have turned down such a delicious, sensual feast, so willingly offered up. Seeing her begin to tug down the rumpled T-shirt over her slim thighs, he turned his back to allow her a moment to regain her composure. And he his.

When he turned back, she had raked her hands back through her mussed hair—its silken strands still drying in disarray over her narrowed shoulders. Her cheeks were very pink and she was staring at him with an expression which was a mixture of embarrassment and defiance.

‘You are very free with your favours,’ he observed slowly.

‘As are you with yours!’ she returned. ‘Tell me, is that why you can’t remember me—because you’ve had so many women that they all blur into one?’

There was a deliberate pause as his eyes raked over her, anger spitting amber fire from his eyes. ‘You dare to speak to me in such an insolent way?’

‘Maybe I’m just copying you!’ The words bubbled out indignantly. ‘Or do you think it’s a one-way street when it comes to insults? That I’m going to let you say what you like about me just because you happen to be a king and I’m just a lowly commoner? Especially when we both know what you’re really doing is shying away from your responsibilities.’

‘Shying away from my responsibilities?’ he echoed incredulously.

‘Well, aren’t you? All I’m asking is that you see Ben. Just once. Just see him and realise that he’s yours. What have you got to lose?’

Casimiro stared at her and gave a grim kind of smile. More than she would ever know. Much, much more. If he had an heir, then everything would change. His life and his future would alter in the most dramatic fashion.

But as he stared at her he knew that she wasn’t going to go away easily—and that if he let her it would leave a million questions unanswered. Questions which might come back to haunt him and would leave him unable to make his abdication with an easy heart.

‘And what if I do see him,’ he questioned slowly, ‘and still do not believe that he is mine—then will you agree to give up this cause of yours? Give up and go away—leave me alone for ever?’

This stark demand pained her far more than it should have done because it was an indication of just how much he wanted her gone from his life. But of course he did—he’d never wanted her in any way but as a quick fling, had he? If it had been just about her then she would have walked away right then, with her head held high—but it wasn’t just about her. And what choice did she have? Melissa knew that she was going to have to agree to his hurtful clause if ever she was going to have some sense of closure. It was a gamble, yes—but a gamble she had to take. For Ben’s sake.

Staring into the hard, golden gleam of his amber eyes, she opened her mouth to agree to his terms when something began to trouble her. Something which didn’t make sense.

Why was he agreeing to see Ben if he was so certain that the child couldn’t be his? And why couldn’t he remember her? Melissa knew that she wasn’t the kind of woman who turned heads, but this hadn’t been some forgettable one-night stand they’d shared. It had been the best part of five days and she had been a virgin. And deep down she didn’t really believe that he’d had so many partners that he couldn’t distinguish one from the other.

His face was shadowed and sombre. She looked at his thick dark hair—all ruffled where she’d been frantically running her fingers through it. At the faint scar at his temple which now lay revealed. The slightly raised little zigzagging line she had discovered when he’d been kissing her. She knew every inch of the man by heart—for hadn’t she touched him lovingly and eagerly as often as she could when they’d been lovers? And one thing was for sure—he’d never had that jagged little scar on his head back then. Which meant that it must have been a legacy from his fall.

Suddenly it all made sense. Complete and believable sense. It was so simple that she couldn’t believe why she hadn’t thought about it before.

‘That’s why you don’t remember me,’ she said suddenly.

Casimiro stilled. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘When you had your accident,’ she said slowly. ‘The one that nearly killed you. The one which meant your brother had to act as Prince Regent while you lay stricken.’

‘That’s history,’ he snapped—because the dawning look of comprehension on her face was making him uneasy. ‘Which I don’t particularly want to rake up.’

‘Maybe it is—but the past always impacts on the present, doesn’t it? You don’t remember me because you can’t. The knock on your head must have wiped the memory clean away.’ She drew a deep breath and looked at him with eyes which were suddenly soft with understanding. ‘You’re suffering from amnesia and that’s why I mean nothing to you, isn’t it, Casimiro?’