Читать книгу Society Secrets - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 13

‘BEN, Ben…’ Too late, Melissa reached for the pot of organic raspberry yoghurt her son was waving in the air—just in time to see it spill in a pink and lumpy cascade onto his dark curls. ‘Oh, Ben!’ she cried in horror.

‘Den!’ came his ecstatic response, because he hadn’t yet got to grips with the letter B, and he fixed his mother with a gappy, happy grin.

Melissa plucked him out of his high chair and sent an agonised glance at the clock which was ticking on the wall. Only fifteen minutes before Casimiro was due to get here and the little boy she’d dressed so carefully was covered in gunge and smelling like a fruit sundae. His woefully inadequate bib was now sodden and she rued her decision to feed him this close to the King’s arrival—but she hadn’t bargained on him deciding that he was hungry and deciding that he was going to have a screaming paddy if he didn’t have some pudding.

And if you hadn’t been gazing at yourself in the mirror—you might have realised that he was about to dress himself in yoghurt.

Trying to calm the worryingly baleful expression in his wide amber eyes, she began to remove the ruined clothing. She’d been having a last minute look at herself only because she’d been so busy—frantically trying to make Ben look like the best-dressed and most well-adjusted baby in the world. So that she’d barely had time to do anything about her own appearance. And realising too late that she looked awful. Just the way she always seemed to look awful when Casimiro was around.

But this wasn’t supposed to be about her!

She stripped Ben off and gave him a rapid bath in a few inches of tepid and soapy water before putting his nappy back on—but by now he had begun to grow furious.

‘Shh, darling. Shh,’ she soothed as he jerked his head away from his second-best T-shirt. But all her pacifying was to no avail and she was soon engaged in a classic mother and baby battle. Normally, she would have given in gracefully—deciding that it wasn’t worth falling out over a different taste in clothes.

The sound of the doorbell stopped her in her tracks and Melissa felt that uncomfortable mixture of excitement and dread begin to grow. Casimiro. When he had telephoned and told her that he was flying to England, she hadn’t really believed it. Hadn’t dared believe it in case it hadn’t happened. For hadn’t there been a part of her which had wondered if he might just try consigning her to oblivion? Waiting to see what she would do next.

Well, it seemed that he was true to his word because he was here. Casimiro was here!

‘This is very important, darling Ben,’ she whispered as she scooped the baby up in her arms. ‘There’s a very important man at the door.’ He’s your Daddy, she thought, her heart thundering as she went to answer it.

From his position on the grubby doorstep, Casimiro waited impatiently for Melissa to let him in—even though he wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the prospect. From the moment the car had pulled up outside the poorly built apartment block—and he’d tapped impatiently on the window and asked the driver if he’d made some kind of mistake—his senses had been shaken to the core.

A letter was missing from the communal sign on the wall and there was a smashed window on the fourth floor, which someone had repaired with a piece of cardboard. Scorched brown earth stood where grass should have been and a wilting tree was the only vegetation in sight. He had seen the two bodyguards accompanying him look around in alarm but he had ignored their repeated requests to drive on.

‘I need to be here,’ he stated resolutely.

‘But, Majesty.’

‘Enough!’ he clipped out. ‘You will wait here in the car until I return—do you understand?’

Clearly they could tell he meant it—though it was equally clear they didn’t like it. He had made sure he’d looked as incognito as possible for this visit to see the boy who Melissa claimed was his flesh and blood, but one thing was for sure—what Casimiro had seen had taken him by surprise.

During his life, he had travelled as much as his role as heir apparent allowed—and his father had seen to it that every summer he had been schooled by tutors from a variety of different countries. Of course he knew that he was immensely privileged and wealthy—and of course he knew that not everyone enjoyed such a rarefied standard of living as he did. But he had never known anyone on a personal level who actually lived like this.

It didn’t get any better. The stone stairwell leading to Melissa’s flat was dark and dank and the paint on her front door was peeling. His mouth curved as he uttered a silent prayer that the whole thing had been some kind of terrible error. That in the fortnight since she’d left Zaffirinthos she’d discovered the identity of the real father. And it wasn’t him. Some postman perhaps. Or a man who worked in the local garage. Anyone but him.

Jamming his thumb on the doorbell, he was forced to wait what seemed like an age until Melissa appeared at the door holding a squirming baby who seemed only half dressed.

‘I’m s-so sorry,’ she stumbled. ‘Ben’s had a bit of an accident.’

‘An accident?’ he bit out, feeling an instinctive chill of alarm.

‘Oh, nothing serious. He’s just tipped yoghurt over himself and is furious because he had to have an emergency bath and now he’s refusing to let me dress him.’

Casimiro frowned. He was no stranger to babies—for didn’t Xaviero and Catherine have the infant Cosimo, whom he saw from time to time? But Cosimo was always drafted in on high days and holidays—looking immaculate in crisp white romper suits embroidered with blue silken rabbits or little yellow aeroplanes. Once he had seen his nephew after his bathtime but he looked nothing like this angry little creature—with his red cheeks and mop of dark curls. And the idea that he could possibly be the father of this little boy became more far-fetched by the minute.

‘May I come in?’ he questioned curtly.

‘Yes, yes—of course. Do—please—come in.’ She hated herself for caring—but naturally she cared how Casimiro saw her little home. Yes, it was humble and, no, she had neither the time nor the funds to attempt an extensive and expensive redecoration of a place she didn’t want to be living in for much longer. But she had done her best with what she’d got—and for that she was grateful to the artistic eye that her boss was always raving on about.

There were bunches of cheap flowering pot-plants from the market crammed into funky little containers, a pot of coffee bubbling away and everything was as clean and as tidy as it had ever been…except for the spilt yoghurt on the high chair, of course.

Casimiro stepped over the threshold and his towering height and general air of powerful male dominance were enough to make Ben look at his mother in alarm and then open his mouth and begin to howl.

‘Shh, Ben—it’s all right. The man won’t hurt you. Shh, darling.’

Perplexed, Casimiro stared at the bawling baby whose eyes were tightly squeezed shut and who seemed to be building up to a crescendo of tears while Melissa just stood there, chewing at her lips and looking completely powerless to stop him. He didn’t know what made him do it but suddenly he expelled a low but surprisingly piercing whistle—the kind he had used to summon his beloved horse before he’d had the damned accident.

Suddenly, the child quietened. Opened his tear-filled eyes with a mixture of surprise and alarm and stared straight into Casimiro’s face.

And Casimiro found himself looking into amber eyes a shade lighter than his own.

A shiver travelled up the entire length of his spine. A tiptoeing of some emotion he couldn’t have described with any word from his extensive and multilingual vocabulary. Perhaps shock was there. Yes, definitely shock. And recognition, too. For Casimiro might have been described by his enemies as stubborn and arrogant—but he was not a fool. And instantly he recognised the amber eye colour which had run through his aristocratic family tree since his ancestors had first settled on the idyllic Mediterranean island of Zaffirinthos.

Melissa found herself regarding the profile of the man who dominated her small sitting room while unable to stop a sense of hope from fizzing through her veins as she saw his body suddenly tense.

‘What…what do you think?’ she questioned anxiously.

Casimiro turned to her. And as the possible consequences of his discovery began to dawn on him his sense of bitter frustration increased. Could this…this sturdy little scrap of humanity really be his? And yet, given the evidence of his eyes—could he belong to anyone but him? He saw the eagerness which had crumpled Melissa’s lips and he thought that she looked like a stall-holder at the end of an unprofitable market day—who sensed that they were about to make their biggest sale of all.

‘Perhaps you could be a little more specific?’ he said tightly.

The tone didn’t sound hopeful—but Melissa refused to quieten the small prayer which was running through her mind.

‘About…’ She didn’t want to say ‘your son’—not now, not when he was here. It seemed a little presumptuous, under the circumstances. ‘About Ben,’ she finished, with a quick, apprehensive smile.

Ignoring the unfamiliar ache in his heart as he looked down at the wet-haired baby who wore nothing but a nappy, Casimiro dealt with the question on an entirely superficial level as kings could do almost better than anyone. ‘Is this how he always greets guests?’

Hiding her hurt, she drew her shoulders back defensively. ‘I told you—he tipped yoghurt over himself.’

Glancing around the shabby room, he returned his gaze to her face, but his voice was filled with concern rather than censure. ‘And is this any way to bring up a child who you claim is heir to my throne?’

‘We haven’t a lot of choice,’ she said defensively—too proud to spell out in detail her precarious financial state. ‘And anyway—he’s happy.’

‘Is he?’

Dark brows were elevated in disbelief and Melissa realised that it was a stupid thing to say under the circumstances since Ben had only just stopped crying. And looking at the scruffy room through Casimiro’s privileged eyes—could she really blame him for thinking otherwise?

‘Yes! Yes, of course he’s happy!’

But Ben had now started squirming and rubbing his fist into each eye in the way he always did when he was tired. And even though she longed to put him down in his cot—some sense of foreboding made her want to keep him up for as long as possible.

To act as a buffer between her and Casimiro? she wondered guiltily.

Ben gave another wriggle and Melissa sighed as she gave into the inevitable. ‘I’ll have to go and put him to bed.’ She hesitated as she was overwhelmed by a terrible and slightly hysterical urge to ask him in a sing-song voice if he wanted ‘to say goodnight to Daddy’? But common sense prevailed and she turned on her heel and went to get her son ready for bed, aware that Casimiro didn’t follow her. So there was to be no touching fairy-tale scene where the King’s hard heart melted over a bedtime story.

Somehow, she carried on with her usual routine. She wound up the brightly coloured plastic mobile above his bed which played ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ and she joined in with the nursery rhyme the way she always did. Smoothing her fingers through the silken tumble of his curls, she ran a gentle and loving palm down the side of his peachy-soft skin.

‘Goodnight, darling Ben,’ she whispered as she turned on the night light.

She had taken so long to settle him that, when she returned to the sitting room, Melissa half hoped that Casimiro might have grown bored with waiting and gone away—knowing that such a hope was foolish and irrational considering all the trouble she’d gone to in order to get him here. But, no, he was still there—a captive if unwilling audience—and it was up to her to make him realise that she was telling the truth.

It had been a fortnight since she’d seen him—when she’d stupidly let him seduce her on his island of Zaffirinthos. He had left her lying naked and confused on the sofa—his back turned to her as he had dressed in stony silence—and then suddenly agreed to travel to England to meet Ben for himself.

In those two weeks she had thought about him—actually, she’d thought about little else. Not just as a prospective father, but as a lover. He had been…what? Melissa bit her lip. He had been technically perfect yet emotionally cold during that swift coupling. Like a block of ice. Almost as if he’d enjoyed the power of bringing her to orgasm so quickly. Watching her shudder and gasp with an arrogant and triumphant look on his mockingly handsome face. And then distancing himself afterwards as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her.

Well, she wasn’t going to be such easy prey today—that was for sure.

‘Can I offer you coffee?’ she questioned politely.

‘I haven’t come here to endure pointless social niceties.’

‘So I’ll take that as a no?’

His eyes narrowed, for he did not like that hint of sarcasm in her soft English voice. He did not like it one bit. ‘I have come here to discuss your extraordinary claim.’

For a moment there was silence and Melissa knew that she could dance to his particular tune all evening. Both skirting around the inevitable with nothing being achieved except more and more layers of confusion. She looked into his amber eyes, knowing that she should probably feel cowed by his mighty presence in her humble home. Or slightly ashamed at the ease with which she had let him seduce her for a second time. But in truth she felt neither. Motherhood took as much from a woman as it gave—but what it infused you with more than anything was the urgent need to fight for what was your child’s right.

‘Except that it’s not so extraordinary now that you’ve seen him, is it?’ she questioned quietly.

Her cool challenge took him slightly off guard. ‘Meaning what, precisely?’

‘You can’t deny the eyes.’

‘The eyes?’

He’s deliberately misunderstanding me, thought Melissa despairingly. ‘I’ve never seen eyes that colour on anyone else but you.’

He gave a short and bitter laugh. ‘You might have trouble standing that up as a valid argument in a court of law!’

‘C-court of law?’

Sensing her sudden uncertainty, he struck. ‘Of course. You must surely have thought through the fact that this is not an ordinary paternity claim?’

‘I don’t…I don’t understand.’

‘Don’t you?’ Casimiro saw her bewilderment and felt a rush of triumph. Let her have something else to fill her head with other than thoughts of his memory loss! ‘Did you really imagine that you could approach a king…’ he paused, deliberately ‘…and announce that you had given birth to his son—and that he and all his people would rejoice at the news?’

‘I thought…I thought…’

‘What did you think, Melissa?’ ‘That you might be—’

‘What?’ he demanded. ‘Pleased? Delighted? The proud papa eager to introduce his offspring to the world?’

His cruel comments deflated her growing sense of defiance, but her mother-love could see nothing but joy in her little boy. ‘I thought that you would be pleased, yes—once the initial confusion had died down.’

‘Initial confusion?’ he echoed furiously. ‘Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what this is going to mean?’

She stared at him, remembering his initial assessment of his son. Is this how he always greets guests? How callous was that as a reaction—when confronted for the first time by the delicious little scrap which was Ben? And suddenly, Melissa thought that maybe no father was better than this father—because what child deserved a man who seemed incapable of any kind of real feeling?

‘It needn’t mean anything at all,’ she said fiercely. ‘You’re not happy about the news—fine! I’ve done my duty and told you—but we don’t need you, Casimiro. We’ve managed without you up until now and we can manage without you again. Your wish is about to come true. You can go away from here now and forget about what I’ve told you and we will never bother you again.’

A grim smile hardened his mouth. He waited—because she was playing the inevitable game of the successful negotiator: the long, long pause before naming terms. ‘So how much?’ he questioned softly.

‘How much?’

‘Do you want me to pay you?’

There was a moment when she really didn’t understand what he was talking about. When he might as well have been speaking in Greek. Until she saw the cynical golden gleam from his eyes and then she cottoned on, her heart lurching in her chest.

‘You think I’m blackmailing you?’

‘That’s a rather dramatic way of putting it, Melissa. I think that “buying your silence” is the generally more acceptable term in these circumstances.’

Acceptable? Acceptable? Melissa found herself remembering the old childhood rhyme: Sticks and stones can break your bones but words can never hurt you. Who were they kidding? Words like the ones Casimiro was firing at her felt like poisoned arrows firing straight into her heart. ‘You think that I want money from you?’

‘Well, don’t you?’ he questioned coolly, his gaze flicking around the room in a disparaging assessment. ‘I think that if I were in your position, I would.’

Suddenly Melissa saw her home through his eyes. The tired furniture, which no amount of bright cushions could disguise. The too-low ceilings and the windows which had obviously been low-budget when they’d been put there—but which now badly needed replacing. It was cheap. Everything in the place was on the cheap—which was why she was living here. But what would this cold-hearted beast of a man know about poverty?

‘I don’t want your money!’ she said proudly. ‘I don’t want anything from you!’

‘Well, we both know that’s a lie,’ he drawled. The amber eyes gleamed at her in provocative taunt and Melissa felt colour flaring in her cheeks. How base of him to allude to that frantic coupling back on Zaffirinthos—when she’d welcomed him into her body even though he clearly despised her and all she stood for.

‘Will you please go, Casimiro?’

‘But we haven’t made any decisions yet.’

‘There are no decisions to be made. You obviously don’t want to know your son and I don’t want your money. End of story.’

‘Oh, but that is where you are wrong, cara mia.’ Without warning, his hand snaked out and caught her—pulling her into the hard, muscular length of his body.

‘Casimiro!’ she gasped.

‘The story, you see, is only just beginning,’ he continued resolutely, as if she hadn’t spoken.

‘Wh-what are you talking about?’

‘You think that you just drop a bombshell like that and then walk away from the devastation you’ve wreaked?’

‘Devastation?’

‘Sí.’ Leaning forward, he caught the tantalising drift of lilac mixed in with soap, and yoghurt—and he felt the lustful jerk of his body in response to this strange cocktail of scents. ‘If the boy—’

‘Ben.’

‘Ben,’ he agreed reluctantly—because a sudden image of that angry little face swam uncomfortably into his mind. ‘If he is mine—then it is going to have all kinds of repercussions on his future.’ And on mine, he thought grimly.

‘What kind of repercussions?’

His mind clearing, he looked down at her, at the wide-spaced eyes which today looked so incredibly green—possibly because the light in her apartment was so dim. At the trembling lips and the skin which looked markedly translucent because she’d tied her hair back in a ponytail. She was tall for a woman and she wore jeans which emphasised those long, long legs—and suddenly he remembered them wrapped around his naked back. Remembered her little gasps of pleasure as he thrust into her. And his own delicious completion which had followed.

‘What kind?’ she repeated.

Her eyes looked suddenly very bright and the soft lower cushion of her lips made him want to sink right into them. Surely there could be some pleasurable outcomes which could come out of this unholy mess. ‘This kind,’ he ground out as he lowered his mouth down onto hers.

There were all kinds of kisses, Melissa realised as she felt that first warm brush of flesh. There were tentative first kisses and those deep kisses you drowned in during sex. And then there was this kind of kiss…

It did everything a kiss was supposed to do. It made her open her lips beneath his and her knees grow weak. It made her body begin to melt against his with a terrible pent-up longing. And yet its cold execution drove home with stark emphasis just how little he respected her as a person. Devoid of any affection or regard, the seeking skill of his lips made her feel worthless—as if he had taken a hammer and whittled away at her already low self-esteem.

And she couldn’t afford to let him do that!

It took every shred of resolve she had, but somehow Melissa tore her mouth away from his—even though her traitorous body screamed out its fury.

‘No!” she exclaimed—moving away from his dangerous proximity, over to the other side of the small room. Crossing her arms over her breasts as if to hide from him their prickling response, she tried to control the erratic gasping of her breath.

‘No?’ he echoed incredulously.

‘Wh-what d-did you think was going to h-happen?’ she demanded breathlessly. ‘That I’d just let you walk in here and have sex with me?’

‘Isn’t that exactly what happened last time?’ he questioned insultingly. ‘You didn’t exactly put up a fight.’

‘And, of course, you can’t remember the time before that, can you?’ she said bitterly.

Casimiro’s expression didn’t alter. ‘Remind me—did I have to woo you with wine and roses before you’d succumb? Was it a long, hard battle to get you into my bed?’ he mocked, and the hot colour which flooded into her cheeks gave him, not only his answer—but also the upper hand.

Melissa bit her lip. What a cold-hearted brute he was. ‘Well, nothing’s going to happen this time. Apart from anything else—my son is asleep in the room next door!’

And in spite of his frustration Casimiro found her maternal prudishness oddly reassuring—since it suggested that she did not entertain a long line of lovers. ‘You will need to take a DNA test,’ he said suddenly.

Melissa blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You heard.’

‘Well, I’m not—’

‘Yes,’ he cut through her protest with an imperious raise of his hand. ‘Yes, you are, Melissa—you have to. There is no alternative. That is, if the child is to be acknowledged as my heir.’

‘But you’ve seen him!’ Melissa proclaimed. ‘You’ve seen how much he resembles you. My aunt says she’s never seen eyes that colour before.’

Casimiro couldn’t dispute the rarity of the shade nor its almost exclusive confinement to the ruling family of Zaffirinthos, but she was failing to see what for him was simply a fact of life.

‘Do you realise how many crazies we have to deal with every year?’ he questioned.

Melissa froze. ‘Crazies?’

‘It’s one of the drawbacks of the job, Melissa—it brings all kinds of people from out of the woodwork. Futurologists who want to warn me about an imminent death threat. Men who say they knew me when we were children. Women claiming…’

‘Women claiming that you’ve fathered their baby,’ guessed Melissa slowly and she lifted pained eyes to his face. ‘Is that what you think of me, then, Casimiro—that I’m some sort of “crazy”?’

For some reason her dignified little question made him feel a pang of misgiving—but he was not in a position to allow himself to listen to it. ‘No, actually I don’t,’ he said simply. ‘And none of this is about my thoughts or feelings, Melissa. It is about dealing with this matter to the best of my ability—and working out how best to present it to my people. I’ve examined my diary and the dates you indicated,’ he continued. ‘And you say the child is, how old?’

‘Thirteen months,’ she said dully.

He nodded. ‘Yes, the times tally. I was indeed in England during the period you’ve indicated.’

‘So if the times tally and he has the same rare eyes—then why must I have a DNA test?’ she whispered.

‘Because I am a king who is ruled by the constitution of my land,’ he said, and his words had a sudden bitter resonance. ‘And I do not have the freedoms which most men take for granted.’

It was an oddly brutal assessment of life at the top. Instead of all the riches and glory which came with his kingdom, Melissa suddenly caught a glimpse of an arid and rule-bound personal landscape and a feeling of foreboding began to feather her skin. Just what can of worms was she opening up for her beloved son?

‘Oh,’ she said quietly. ‘I see.’

He thought of his abdication speech and looked at her with renewed bitterness. ‘I cannot ask my people to accept a commoner’s word on a matter of such significance. Proof of paternity must be provided and a DNA test must and will be done. I have consulted with my advisors and they tell me there is no way round it.’

Melissa trembled at the sudden hard timbre of his words and the steely glint of resolution in his eyes. Hadn’t she wished above all else for Casimiro to acknowledge his son—and didn’t it seem as if that was exactly what he was about to do? Except that now she was going to have to go through the indignity of having to prove it.

Her future and Ben’s determined in some anonymous laboratory.

She bit her lip. What else was it that people sometimes said? Only unlike the playground taunt of sticks and stones breaking bones—this one was true. Oh, yes…

Be careful what you wish for—because it may just come true.