The Future King’s Love-Child (14 page)

He saw her stiffen before she turned to face him. ‘What scar?’

He got to his feet and came over to where she was standing. ‘I think you know what I am talking about. I’ve never seen it before.’

‘Yes, well, I’ve never been totally naked with you before,’ she said, flashing her green eyes at him in irritation.

He placed his hands on her shoulders to stop her from spinning away. ‘You don’t have to cover up for him now, Cassie,’ he said in as gentle a tone as he could. ‘If your father did that to you then you have no reason not to tell me.’

He felt the tremble of her body under his hands and his heart contracted when he saw fresh tears well in her eyes. ‘Look, it was a long time ago and I’d rather just forget about it,’ she said.

‘How long?’

She bit her lip. ‘The night I got home from breaking off things with you…’

Sebastian closed his eyes for a moment before drawing her close, his hands touching her as if she were a fragile work of art, his gut wrenching all over again as his fingers traced over the ribbed flesh of her back. ‘I know it is of no comfort, but if you had told me it would have been me in that jail, not you,’ he said. ‘I would have killed him for what he has done to you. I swear to God I would have torn him from limb to limb.’

‘I wouldn’t have wanted you to do that,’ she said, looking up at him.

Sebastian brought one of her hands to his mouth and brushed his lips over the back of her knuckles. ‘Come with me upstairs,’ he said. ‘I want to spend tonight holding you in my arms.’

She looked as if she was going to say no, but then she gave him a smile tinged with sadness. ‘I guess we should make the most of the time we have left…’

Sebastian didn’t want to think about how each day was slipping through his fingers like fine grains of sand. All he could hope for was a few more days to keep Sam and Cassie close while he sorted through his options. Everything had happened so quickly and he was still coming to terms with it all. Not just Sam’s existence but how his feelings for Cassie were rising up to the surface after years of being shoved down.

He led her upstairs to his bedroom, closing the door softly behind them. ‘I was thinking about having a shower,’ he said. ‘Would you like to join me?’

‘It’s all right,’ she said, perching on the edge of his bed, not quite meeting his eyes. ‘I’ll wait until you’re finished and then have one.’

It struck him then, how shy she was. No doubt ashamed of how disfigured her body was by that
horrible scar. His gut clenched all over again at what she had suffered at that madman’s hands. ‘No,’ he said, keeping his voice steady but only just. ‘You go first. I have a couple of calls to make in any case.’

When he came back she was lying in amongst his pillows, looking small and fragile and uncertain. He came over to her and, picking up one of her hands, brought it up to his mouth, kissing her palm and then each of her fingers in turn. ‘I just checked on Sam,’ he said. ‘He was fast asleep.’

Sebastian leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. ‘I am going to have a quick shower. Don’t go to sleep on me now, will you,
agape mou?
’

She gave him a small smile but there was still that haunting air of sadness in her green eyes. ‘I won’t.’

Cassie waited for him, her heart feeling like an engine in her chest when he came back out of the bathroom, dressed in nothing but a towel tied loosely at his hips. He was so magnificently built, so commandingly male. He dropped the towel and turned back the sheets to slip in beside her, taking her in his arms and holding her close for a long time without speaking.

She listened to his breathing, heard his heartbeat pounding against her cheek, storing away the clean male scent of him to comfort her in the lonely years to come.

She had thought he had fallen asleep but slowly his hands began to move over her, slow, gentle caressing movements, a touch that was almost reverent.

‘Your skin feels like silk,’ he breathed against her ear.

She shivered as his mouth sealed hers in a kiss of passionate possession, his tongue meeting hers in a slow tango that stirred her deeply.

He lifted his mouth off hers to kiss each of her breasts, taking his time, his tongue rolling and licking and tasting her until her back was arching off the bed.

He moved down her body, dipping into the cave of her belly button before going to the secret heart of her, tasting her, teasing her until she was gasping her way through a shattering release.

Cassie wanted to pleasure him but he seemed in no hurry to have her do anything but lie there and have him worship her body. He kept pushing her hands away, kissing her into silence, stroking all of her tension away with the glide of his hands.

At one point he turned her over. She resisted at first but he kissed away her doubts and gently turned her onto her stomach. She felt each and every kiss as he travelled down the length of her spine, his lips lingering over her scar, as if he
wanted to take away the pain of the memories it had scored on her brain, much less her skin.

When he turned her back over he could see the tears in her eyes and dabbed them away with the edge of the sheet. ‘I wish I could make the past go away for you, Cassie,’ he said. ‘I want to bring this out in the open, to tell the people of this island how unjustly you were treated.’

She moved out of his embrace. ‘It’s over and I need to move on for Sam’s sake. I don’t want him to know about any of this, that’s why I want to get right away where no one knows me. He’s already heard too much.’

‘Cassie, I can’t allow you to leave Aristo until I think it is appropriate,’ he said with a frown. ‘Surely you understand that?’

‘I do understand the situation you are in and I am making no demands on you other than to give me my freedom.’

His eyes warred with hers for several tense seconds. ‘I am not going to let you walk away, Cassie. If I have to lock every door you are behind, I will do it.’

Cassie swung away in fury, ripping the sheet off the bed to cover herself. ‘I suppose not using a condom downstairs was part of your insurance policy, was it?’ she bit out bitterly.

‘What?’

She turned back to look at him. ‘I’m not on the pill, Sebastian, so you had better start crossing your fingers and hope and pray that lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice.’

Sebastian stared at her for a stunned moment or two. ‘Do you think it’s possible?’ he finally managed to croak out. ‘Where are you in your cycle?’

‘There is never a safe time,’ she said. ‘If I fell pregnant on the pill, God only knows how quickly I will do so without it.’

He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I need some time to think about this…’

‘Why don’t you get back to me in, say, six years?’ she said with an embittered look.

He set his mouth. ‘I know I probably more than deserve that, Cassie, but I did not intend for you to be put in such a compromising situation. Not the first time and certainly not now.’

‘Do you think I wanted this to happen all over again?’ she asked. ‘You were the one to suggest we rake over the coals of the past by sleeping together again.’

He knew she was right. He had pressured her into an affair that could only have one outcome.

‘I can say no to anyone else but you,’ she said. ‘I hate you for it.’

He moved over to her, taking her by the upper
arms, his hold firm but gentle. ‘I know you hate me, Caz. I hate myself, to tell you the truth. But hate is going to get us nowhere. It is important for Sam that he sees us getting along as any other mature and sensible couple would do.’

‘But we’re not a couple,’ she said, wriggling out of his hold. ‘We never have been and we never will be.’

Sebastian couldn’t read her expression, which frustrated him more than he wanted to admit. What was she implying? That she wanted something more permanent, had
always
wanted something more lasting? His mind whirled as he thought about all the obstacles they would face if he presented her to the public as his chosen partner. And there was Sam to consider. How would he cope with suddenly being in the spotlight? Sebastian knew the people of Aristo would never accept Cassie Kyriakis as their queen. Even if he hired every top lawyer to clear her name he wasn’t sure if it would achieve much. People formed their own opinions and were loath to change them, even if a solid case was put before them.

As to his own feelings, well, Sebastian was still trying to sort it all out in his head. He had been so determined to right the wrongs of the past with a short-term affair with her, but it had blown up in his face upon finding out about Sam, not to
mention the harrowing details of Cassie’s home life. The love he had felt for her six years ago had been locked away—he had thought for ever. He had duties to face, responsibilities and expectations he had been schooled and prepared for all his life. Walking away from all that was rightly his and expected of him by the people of Aristo was not something to be taken lightly.

And there was his brother Alex to consider. He and his wife Maria were expecting the birth of their first child in a day or two. Alex had always expressed his reluctance to take up the throne. How would he feel if Sebastian gave him no other choice?

‘Cassie, it is not my intention to imprison you, anything but. You will be safe here without the press hounding you. Believe me that is my only motivation, to keep you and Sam safe.’

‘All right,’ she said on an expelled breath. ‘You’ve got two weeks but that’s all.’

‘D
ADDY
says I can have a real paint set and brushes and a…a…
weasel
all to myself!’ Sam announced proudly as he came running towards Cassie one morning four days later.

‘Easel,’ she said as she bent down to kiss his forehead. ‘It’s called an easel. A weasel is a small furry animal.’

‘Oh…’ Sam went on excitedly. ‘I’ve got a new tip truck and a kite Daddy and me are going to use on the beach and Daddy promised me I can have a camera all of my own when I am six.’

Cassie forced a smile in spite of her inner turmoil. How could she tell Sam this week of indulgence was soon to end? She had no doubt Sebastian would continue contact with his son; he had made that very clear every night they had spent together. In such a short time he had established a loving relationship with Sam that had many times brought tears to her eyes. It made
what she had missed out on during her childhood all the more painfully apparent. But in spite of the tenderness and passion they had shared night after night Sebastian had mentioned nothing about her place in his life. Cassie knew Sam would always be known as the king’s love-child, a mistake from his past, the one blemish he couldn’t erase. And as the child’s mother she would be shunted sideways; there would be no place for her once he stepped up to the throne.

‘Daddy’s going to have breakfast with me,’ Sam said. ‘I’m going to have pancakes. He said I could have anything I wanted.’

‘Darling…’ Cassie took his hands in hers. ‘I don’t think it’s—’

‘It’s all right,’ Sebastian said from just behind her. ‘I’ll deal with this.’

Something about his demeanour alerted her to an undercurrent of tension. He had brought it into the room with him, like a blast of cold air when someone opened a door leading into a warm room.

He crouched in front of Sam. ‘Sam, Mummy and I have some things to discuss. Eleni will see to your breakfast this morning but I promise I will have lunch with you instead.’

‘What sort of things do you have to talk about?’ Sam asked with a worried look between his parents.
‘I’m not going back to the orphanage, am I? I don’t want to go back. I like being with you, Daddy, and Mummy does too, don’t you, Mummy?’

Cassie forced her mouth to smile in response. ‘I love being anywhere you are, darling.’

‘I know you like being here, Sam,’ Sebastian said after glancing for a moment at Cassie. ‘I love having you here with me.’

‘Can I stay for ever?’ Sam asked with hope shining brightly in his chocolate-brown eyes. ‘I love you. I’ll be very good. I promise. I won’t wet my pants any more. I’ll try really hard. Really,
really
hard.’

Sebastian felt his heart lodge itself halfway up his throat so he could barely speak. ‘Sam, you don’t have to do anything but be yourself,’ he said. ‘I love you just the way you are.’

‘So I’m not going to be sent away?’ Sam asked.

Sebastian could feel the tension coming off Cassie standing at his left shoulder. ‘Here is Eleni now. I will come back for you later.’

Cassie watched as Sam scampered off towards Eleni before she turned to face Sebastian. ‘Nice one, Karedes,’ she sniped at him. ‘How to bribe a little kid away from its mother in just over a week. God, you make me sick.’

A flicker of anger passed through his dark eyes as they clashed with hers. ‘I am doing no such
thing. Come into the study out of the hearing of the staff.’

‘I know what you’re doing,’ she said as she trotted to keep up with his long strides. ‘You’re making Sam so dependent on you he won’t even notice when I’m gone. That’s what your plan is, isn’t it? To get me out of the picture as soon as you can. You’re showering him with toys and giving him choices and opportunities I could never give him. It will make him think I don’t love him the way you supposedly do.’

He frowned down at her. ‘You consider what I feel for Sam is not genuine?’

She captured her lip between her teeth. ‘No…no, I’m not saying that… I know you love him and he loves you.’

‘How could I not love him?’ he asked, holding open the study door for her to pass through. ‘He is so engaging and so innocent I want to protect him as much as possible. He has been through so much for one so young. I am doing what I can to make it up to him.’

‘I don’t want him to be hurt,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t really understand the circumstances of your life. He thinks things will continue as they are, but they can’t and you need to prepare him for it.’

He closed the study door and, moving across
the room, picked up a newspaper. ‘If you did not want to see Sam hurt, then why on earth did you do this?’ he asked, handing her the paper.

Cassie stared down at the headlines. There was a photograph of Sam on the front page with: F
UTURE
K
ING’S
L
OVE-CHILD
R
EVEALED BY
E
X-PRISONER
C
ASSIE
K
YRIAKIS
emblazoned beneath. She looked up at Sebastian’s glittering gaze. ‘You think
I’m
responsible for this?’ she choked.

He folded his arms, one ankle crossing over the other as he leaned back against his desk in an accusatory manner. ‘Don’t play games with me, Cassie. I know, in spite of what we have shared over the last couple of weeks, deep down you have always wanted to get back at me for how I let you down. But using Sam as a pawn is taking things a little too far. The press have gone wild with this. There are camera crews and television vans at the gate as we speak.’

Cassie took an uneven swallow. ‘I didn’t speak to anyone… How can you think I would do something like this?’

‘Have you spoken to your flatmate in the last couple of days?’

Cassie suddenly remembered the call she had received from Angelica a couple of days ago. Angelica had heard rumours circulating and had wanted to know what was going on. Cassie had
confessed all and had sworn her to silence, trusting her implicitly to keep Sam’s paternity a secret.

‘Cassie?’ Sebastian’s voice was brittle. ‘Have you spoken to Angelica about this?’

‘Yes, but she would never—’

He let out a stiff curse. ‘And you trusted that junkie?’ he asked incredulously.

She set her mouth. ‘Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. I trust her more than I’ve ever trusted anyone.’

His eyes remained hard. ‘Do you recognise the photo?’

She looked at it again. ‘Yes…yes, I do,’ she said. ‘It’s one of the ones I lost somewhere.’

He hooked one dark brow upwards. ‘Lost or sold to the press via your drugged-up flatmate?’

She put the newspaper down with an unsteady hand. ‘Angelica is not a drugged-up junkie. She is my best friend—she stood by me when no one else could give a toss.’

‘That’s what this is about, isn’t it?’ He waved the paper in her face. ‘I didn’t stand up for you when you needed me to so this is payback time.’

‘How could you possibly think I would betray you or Sam in such a way?’ Cassie asked, tears starting to spring to her eyes as she looked deeply into his. ‘I love you both too much to ever do that.’

He went very still, his eyes losing some of their hardness. ‘You love me?’ he asked huskily.

Cassie pressed her lips together. ‘I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have let that slip out. I don’t want to make things any more complicated than they already are.’

He pushed himself away from the table. ‘Is this a new thing or an old thing?’

‘Me loving you?’ she asked, sweeping her tongue over her dry lips uncertainly.

He nodded without speaking, but she saw his throat rising and falling over a swallow, as if her confession had stunned him, but he was trying to conceal how much.

She twisted her hands together. ‘It’s an old thing…six years to be exact…I have always loved you, Seb.’

The silence hung like an axe over Cassie’s head. She held her breath, wondering what he was going to say in response or if he was going to try and ignore her declaration of love because of the circumstances that made it impossible for them to ever be together.

‘Remember I said the first night we spent together I had a photograph of you that you hadn’t seen?’ he said in a tone that had softened considerably.

‘Yes…I forgot to ask you to show it to me,’ she said, and felt her cheeks grow warm as she remembered
why she hadn’t thought to ask. She had been too distracted making love with him to think of anything but the pleasure he had made her feel.

He walked over to a table where a frame was sitting next to a vase of flowers. He came back over and handed her the frame and she looked down at it for a long time without speaking. It was a side-on shot of her, standing looking out to sea close to sunset, some strands of her long hair blowing across her face. Cassie could remember the exact day. It was two days before her father’s death. She had gone down to the shore after a particularly nasty argument with him. He had raged at her over something insignificant and petty, slapping her across the face, not hard enough to leave a mark but enough to make her skin burn for hours afterwards. Once he had gone upstairs to drink himself into oblivion, as had become his habit, she had slipped out to walk along the beach, knowing if she stayed out long enough he would be asleep by the time she got back.

She had walked along the shore, stopping now and again to look out to sea, agonising over what to do about her relationship with Sebastian. How ironic he had captured the very moment she had decided to end their affair. She had stood there, mentally rehearsing what she was going to say to
him, word by word, over and over until she had felt confident enough to convince him every lie was true.

Cassie had known one of Sebastian’s hobbies was photography. She had seen several shots Sebastian had taken in the past, but there was something about this photograph that showed how talented he really was. He had not only captured a moment in time, he had captured a mood and made it almost tangible.

Cassie felt tears stinging at the backs of her eyes for how much her life had changed in the space of those next two days. She had been so young, so lost and alone in spite of all the people she had surrounded herself with.

To conceal her emotions she handed him back the frame with a stiff smile. ‘You should have told me you were taking it,’ she said. ‘I would have fixed my hair at the very least.’

He looked at the photograph for a moment before putting it aside. ‘I was about to call out to you but then I stopped. I decided to capture your image without you knowing you were being photographed.’

‘Why did you keep it?’ Cassie asked after a tiny pause.

His dark eyes meshed with hers. ‘Have you ever had an item of clothing in your wardrobe you
don’t wear any more but still don’t feel quite ready to discard it?’

She gave him an ironic look. ‘I am quite sure you are not the one in your household to sort through your socks and underwear drawer. You have numerous servants who do that for you.’

His smile was a little crooked. ‘Yes, perhaps you are right. There are not many things I do for myself these days.’

‘Including choosing a wife?’ Cassie wished she hadn’t let it slip out, for she was sure she sounded as jealous as she felt.

He held her gaze for an interminable moment. ‘As future King I am expected to marry and marry well. But I will have no one else make the final choice for me.’

A silence began to thicken the air.

‘I have a meeting with my brother Alex later this morning back at the palace,’ Sebastian said. ‘In time I will be making my own statement to the press about Sam.’

Her eyes flared in alarm. ‘What?’

His mouth was set in a determined line. ‘I want to present Sam as my son. I don’t want him hidden away as if I am ashamed of him. I am not. He is my flesh and blood.’

‘But what about what I want?’ she said. ‘Do you have any idea of what the press will do to me?
They’ll crucify me all over again. I know they will. Look at what they have already said. How can I stop Sam hearing that stuff about me?’

‘I realise the implications for you, Cassie, and I will do my best to defend you.’

‘You weren’t too keen on defending me a few minutes ago,’ she threw back. ‘You were accusing me of selling this scandal to the press. It just shows how little you know me.’

‘I apologise for jumping to conclusions,’ Sebastian said. ‘I didn’t think it through logically. You are the last person to have spoken to the press. My absence from the palace has no doubt added to the speculation along with the issue of the missing diamond.’

‘What missing diamond?’

Sebastian waited a beat before telling her. She had a right to know what he had been facing over the last few months. He could trust her to keep it quiet, of that he was now sure. Her love for him was something he had not been expecting, although it warmed him to the very core of his being. He just wanted a few more days to give Alex time to think over the proposition he had put before him.

‘So can’t you be King without the diamond?’ she asked once he had finished.

‘The coronation is still being planned, but there
is no guarantee the diamond will be located in time,’ he said. ‘This must go no further than these four walls, Cassie.’

‘You can trust me, Sebastian.’

He bent down and brushed his mouth against hers. ‘I know I can,
agape mou
,’ he said, and, touching her briefly on the curve of her cheek, added gently, ‘I just wish I had trusted you from the beginning.’

The news about Sebastian’s love-child went on for several days, which rather ironically made Cassie glad he had insisted she stay at Kionia with Sam. She had hardly seen Sebastian over the last four days; he had come back late at night, spending long hours in his study or pacing the floor of his room. She had wanted to go to him so many times but felt if he wanted to be with her he would have said so by now. In spite of her confession of love, he had not spoken of his own feelings. She was left in limbo, wishing and hoping for something that deep down she knew could never be.

The day of her parole came and she came to a decision. She called Angelica, who agreed to meet her and Sam at the front gates of the hideaway just as the guards were changing shifts. It was a risky move, but Cassie felt if she didn’t
leave now it would make it all the more difficult for Sam in the long run. She packed the things she had brought plus as much of what Sebastian had given Sam as he could fit into two bags.