Heir in Exile (2 page)

The time for facing down the King and Queen was upon them.

. . .

As the helicopter flew over Ahtissari Castle, Chey stared down at the turrets and spires with bittersweet nostalgia and a wealth of unease. She'd met Sander while staying there. Had almost lost her life. Within those walls, she had grown and matured as a person, learned that not everything was always as it seemed. She felt stronger now, more ready to deal with the unpleasant aspects of dating a man whose parents strongly disapproved of her.

Accepting Sander's hand out of the aircraft when it landed, she followed him to the waiting limousine and slid inside. Her stomach somersaulted with a fresh bout of nerves. There was no turning back now. Already she could see the curious glances some of the security were giving her, puzzling over her presence with Prince Dare.

Sander grew more grim and quiet on the short drive through the gates and up into the courtyard. Once parked out front of the steps, he disembarked and held a hand down. Chey accepted the aid and gave his fingers a faint squeeze before hooking a hold under his elbow.

Allar Kusta, one of the original security members who had come to Seattle for Chey, waited near the open doors. He clipped a wink at Sander that must have had some underlying meaning. She just didn't know what. Perhaps Allar had made sure that Chey's arrival remained unexpected until the last possible second, giving the King and Queen no time to prepare any ugly surprises.

Sander stalked through the doors with her on his arm as if this was
his
castle, as if
he
were already King. His presence grew and expanded right before Chey's eyes, until the air all but crackled with his animal magnetism.

Two advisers standing near the open doors of a parlor glanced, then glanced again. One bristled, shoulders stiffening under the fine lay of his clothing. Both bowed their heads in deference, however, giving respect where it was due.

Sander returned a brief nod of his own and that was all. Like a freight train, he led Chey into the parlor full steam, ignoring one of the advisers blustering attempts to call out and warn the King and Queen at the last second.

Aksel and Helina, perched in chairs that resembled small thrones, both had drinks in their hands. Each wore decadent clothing for the meeting, replete with fur mantles and a crown for Aksel's head. The King was going all out. There was no denying this was a man of power and authority; he wore his regal nature like a second skin, with shrewd eyes and a jut to his whiskered chin that suggested no small amount of arrogance. Helina lounged, as she was wont to, resonating a bored air.

The second Aksel and Helina saw Chey, the proverbial gloves came off. Chey recognized the change with the narrowing of Helina's eyes and in the sudden flare of anger in Aksel's.

Sander was pushing their buttons left and right.

“What,” Aksel asked with a breathless pause. “Is the meaning of this?”

Sander brought Chey within ten feet of their seats and bowed his head.

Chey dipped the expected curtsy.

“Father, Mother,” Sander said with no small amount of mockery. “I'm sure you remember Miss Sinclair. She will be my official date to the ball in Dubai. After the Valentina scandal and my ensuing annulment, I felt it in my best interest to take someone I could
trust.”

Chey forced herself not to cringe. The palpable tension in the room made goosebumps break out along her arms and down her legs.

Aksel never looked away from Sander. He set his glass on a small side table and rose slowly to his feet. The blood red cloak he wore swished around his booted ankles as he approached. Coming face to face, Aksel and Sander stared each other down. Sander had a few inch height advantage over his father that he used to its full potential.

“So this is what has kept you so busy. I wondered,” Aksel said. “I should have known you would run back to the most inappropriate woman available. You, Sander Darrion, are a disappointment as a son. Not only have you failed to take a fitting, proper wife, you have failed your country.”

“Not nearly as badly as you have failed as King,” Sander replied, nonplussed. “You put this country in jeopardy with your greed and your ignorance. Allowing a mere Princess to use you to such a degree—it's a wonder you can look at your own reflection with any amount of pride.” He paused while Aksel sucked in a furious breath, then added, “I'm here, yet again, doing the right thing. Presenting the woman I intend to court, which will be made public knowledge at the ball in Dubai. In this, you have no say.”

“She is banned from this country and should be arrested immediately,” Aksel said when he got his breath back. “What, are you going to take on the entire military?”

Chey felt a stirring of fear. Maybe Sander had misjudged the King after all. Would Aksel go so far as to call in the military to arrest and detain her? He had already detained her once already. Her fingers shifted on Sander's arm.

“If you so much as raise your pinky in gesture for the armed guards, I will invoke an Heir's First Right on the grounds of impairment and take the throne right out from underneath you.” Sander took a threatening step forward. “Go ahead. Try me.”

Helina's glass hit the floor and shattered. She broke into a tirade in their mother tongue, skin pale, hands fluttering wildly.

Chey had never seen the woman so distraught. What was this Heir's First Right? Did Sander really have that kind of power?

Aksel snarled just as several security members swarmed into the room via the open door. They stalked closer, looking warily between faces.

“You,” Aksel wheezed in fury at Sander, “have just gone too far. What befalls you from here is your own doing.” He retreated with a swirl of his cape and a snap of his fingers at the guards. Whatever he bellowed was in a language Chey didn't understand. Tense, expecting them to fall on her and wrest her away from Sander's side, Chey tightened her grip and glanced over her shoulder. The security didn't come for her, they came for her and Sander both.

Sander, refusing to budge until he was good and ready, stared at the back of the King's head. Finally, he pivoted, Chey's fingers trapped under his elbow, and stalked out of the parlor under his own power. No one, Chey noticed, dared touch him. Either of them. Regardless that the King wanted him removed, the guards treated Sander with the respect his position demanded.

Instinct warned Chey not to speak while they were in the castle itself. Shocked at the vehement display, she wondered how long tensions had been this high between Aksel and Sander. She waited until they were back in the limousine en route for the helipad to dare ask any questions.

“Sander, what happened?” She glanced sideways. His face was a mask of anger.

“I threatened to have him yanked off the throne, that's what. Suggesting he has become too impaired to make sound judgments for this country.” Sander clenched his teeth, a muscle flexing in his jaw.

“By that Heir's First Right? What is that?” Chey whispered, as if she feared the driver and accompanying guard beyond the divider window might hear.

“It's a special addendum that allows the official Heir to the Throne—which I currently am—to over ride the sitting King if there is proof that the King is showing signs of obvious impairment in regard to ruling the country. I believe I can do that, considering he married me to a woman carrying another man's son. In court, I will win that fight. It's an extremely grievous error, him allowing a pregnant woman to persuade him to give her the ascending Heir. Should a bastard take the throne of Latvala, it could change
everything.”

Chey studied Sander's profile as he talked. A muscle kept flexing in his jaw and several of his words clipped tight past his teeth. Sander meant every word he said. She wondered if anything this serious had ever happened in the Ahtissari reign.

“Would you really do it?” she whispered. “Have him removed?”

“If he called the military in to arrest and detain you? You bet your sweet ass I would.” Sander paused, then said, “Some of this animosity goes back before you ever arrived. He is a tough man, and a tougher father. Some of his decisions regarding our stance for other countries have not been in Latvala's best interests. There has been mild tension between Aksel and the council members, his advisers and others before. He and I do not always share the same line of thought.”

“I see.” Relieved that she wasn't the whole cause of all the tension between father and son, Chey relaxed against the seat. Her stomach had taken to doing flips once more, and she rested a hand against it over the coat. They arrived at the helipad before Chey could really delve into the subject and with Sander's aid, made the transfer from car to aircraft with little trouble.

Soon they were flying over the choppy water toward the island.

Chapter Two

Dubai was unlike any city Chey had ever seen. Tall skyscrapers scratched the underbelly of the atmosphere, commanding and ultra modern, while businesses in glass buildings crowded close to a waterway that snaked between commercial districts. She felt like she'd been transported to another world, in a future century, where everything was new and on the cutting edge of architecture.

To accentuate the foreign nature, patches of raw desert could be seen from the air, tucked between highways and new construction. It made a striking contrast butted up against the greenery, foliage and palms lining the water.

Once on the ground ensconced in a sleek silver limousine, the effect intensified. To her utter amazement, she saw three robed men on camels meandering through the sand in the heart of the city.

“Pretty amazing, isn't it?” Sander asked. He sat beside her, resplendent in a black suit, the snowy shirt beneath open at the throat to expose a swath of golden skin.

In the three days since their disastrous meeting with the King, Sander had been brooding and quiet. He hadn't neglected her; to the contrary, he was possessive, attentive and at her side more often than not. He chose to express his distaste of the situation with his father in thoughtful silence, which Chey was more than happy to give him. She didn't need endless conversation to be comfortable in his presence.

“I feel like I'm on another planet,” she admitted. “Did you see those camels?”

“It's a common enough sight here,” he replied, looking ahead rather than out the windows.

Chey glanced over to Sander. “I wonder if I'll ever be able to look at all these new things with the same casual regard you have. When does it become 'normal'? Or is it just that you've grown up around it and expect it now?”

He finally met her eyes. “It's funny that you wonder if you'll ever be indifferent—and I often wonder what it would be like to see it through
your
eyes. I get a glimpse now and then being around you, but yes, I expect all this now. It's never been any other way, hm?”

Chey hadn't thought about the situation in reverse. It surprised her to think he envied anything about her. “How many times have you been here? Wasn't it new when you first came?”

“I've watched it grow over the years. It takes some of the edge off, though I do remember being impressed on my first visit. As for how many?” He tongued the edge of his teeth. “I've been here ten or so times.”

It occurred to Chey then that she didn't even know how old Sander was. Obviously older than her, which explained why he'd been around the world more than she'd first thought. “How old
are
you, anyway?”

He laughed. For the first time in three days, he actually laughed. “Thirty-three. And you're twenty-four, twenty-five on April twenty-second.”

“How did you know my birthday?”

“I made it my business to find out.”

“Well, aren't you resourceful.”

“I can be.”

She scoffed. Several resources came to mind, all right, but they had nothing to do with information gathering. Color stained her cheeks for the thoughts that rioted around her head for a moment.

“You're blushing. That means--”

Chey cut him off. “I'm not blushing.”

“Yes, you are. I always know when you're thinking about
that.
”

“Do I have a neon sign on my forehead?”

“You might as well. Right now it says,
what he did with his tongue last night--”

“You're so full of it,” she said, laughing. Her face felt like it was on fire.

“But you enjoy it,” he pointed out, with no small amount of mirth and conviction.

“Yes,
yes
I enjoy it when you're being a rogue. Okay?” She brushed a wayward strand of hair away from her cheek and tugged on the shortcoat of the cream colored suit she wore. Her lips continued to tremble with the urge to suppress another smile.

He caught her chin between his fingers and gently turned her head away from the window. His eyes, such a vivid blue, were intent and focused on her own. Without any more warning than that, he kissed her. Slow, reminiscent of other kisses in recent days that had preceded a hot night of passion.