by Nina Milne
Put like that, he had to admit it sounded arrogantly self-involved. And yet... ‘We spent more than one night together, Sunita.’
A wave of her hand dismissed his comment. ‘A publicity stunt—nothing more.’
‘OK. Let’s play it your way. I can just about buy it that those weeks were all about publicity for you, but what about that night? Was that all for publicity?’
These were the questions he should have asked two years ago.
Her gaze swept away from him. ‘No. It wasn’t. I didn’t intend that night to happen.’
‘Is that why you left?’
It was as though the years had rolled back—he could almost imagine that they were in that five-star hotel in Paris, where they’d played truant from the glitzy party they’d been supposed to be at. Attraction had finally taken over and—
Whoa! Reel it in, Frederick!
‘Yes, that’s why I left. I broke my own rules. By sleeping with you I became just another notch on your bedpost—another woman on the Playboy Prince’s conveyor belt. That was never meant to happen.’
‘That’s not how it was.’
‘That’s exactly how it was.’ Tawny eyes challenged him.
‘And if I’d asked you to stay?’
‘You didn’t.’
Her voice was flat and who could blame her? The point was that he hadn’t. Because it had been easier to believe that she’d never cared, to stick by his easy come, easy go motto.
‘But this is all beside the point—there was never a future for us. People don’t change.’ Her voice held utter conviction. ‘You were The Playboy Prince...’
‘And you were very clear that you had no desire for a relationship because you wanted to focus on your career. Then, just weeks later, you met Sam and realised he was the one and your career was no longer important?’ It was impossible for Frederick to keep the scepticism out of his voice.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘So you changed.’
‘Love changes everything.’
Damn it—he’d stake his fortune on the sincerity in her voice, and there was that irrational nip of jealousy again.
‘So, yes,’ she continued, ‘I met Sam and I decided to take a break, and the break has extended to a couple of years. Simple. No mystery. That’s what you came here to discover.’
Now her tone had lost the fervour of truth—he was nearly sure of it.
‘You promise?’ The words were foolish, but he couldn’t hold them back.
She nodded. ‘I promise...’
He studied her expression, saw the hint of trouble in her eyes and in the twist of her fingers under the table.
‘No scandal will break over Lycander.’
‘Then my work here is done.’
Yet an odd reluctance pulled at him as he rose from the chair and looked down at her, sure now that there was more than a hint of trouble in her eyes. Not his business. She’d made a promise and he believed her. He had a country to run, a destiny to fulfil...
‘I wish you well, Sunita. I’m glad you’ve found happiness.’
‘I wish you well too.’
In one lithe movement she stood and stretched out a hand, caught his sleeve, stood on tiptoe and brushed his cheek with her lips. Memory slammed into him—her scent, the silken touch of her hair against his skin—and it took all his powers of self-control not to tug her into his arms. Instead, he forced his body to remain still, to accept the kiss in the spirit it was being given—whatever that might be—though he was pretty damn sure from the heat that touched her cheeks that she wasn’t sure either.
‘I...goodbye.’ Once again her hands twisted together as she watched him.
‘Goodbye, Sunita.’
He headed for the door, stopped at her audible intake of breath, half turned as she said his name.
‘Yes?’
‘It...it doesn’t matter. It was good to see you again.’
That only confirmed that she had intended to say something else, but before he could respond Sam entered and glanced at them both. ‘All OK?’
‘Everything is fine.’ Sunita’s voice was over-bright now. ‘Frederick is just leaving.’
Minutes later he was in a taxi, headed back to the hotel. But as the journey progressed doubts hustled and bustled and crowded his brain. Something was wrong. He had no idea what, and it most likely had nothing to do with him. Quite possibly he had the wrong end of the stick. Undoubtedly wisdom dictated that he should not get involved. Sunita was more than capable of looking out for herself, and she had Sam to turn to. But what if Sam was the problem?
Hell.
Leaning forward, he gave the driver Sunita’s address.
* * *
Damn it all to hell and back! Sunita strode the length of her lounge and resisted the urge to kick a bright red bean bag across the room. Venting wouldn’t stem the onrush, the sheer onslaught of guilt, the veritable tsunami of distaste with herself.
Why, why, why had he turned up? Not telling Frederick for two years had been hard enough—lying directly to Frederick’s face was another ballgame altogether. Especially as it was a face that mirrored Amil’s—the angle of his cheekbone, the colour of his eyes, the subtle nuances that couldn’t be ignored.
The guilt kept rolling on in and her stride increased. Focus. Concentrate on all the sensible, logical justifications for her actions.
The decision to keep Amil a secret had been one of the toughest she had ever faced, but it was a decision she still believed to be right. She’d done her research: the Lycanders had a track record of winning custody of their children and hanging the mothers out to dry.
Frederick’s father, Prince Alphonse, had fathered five children by four wives; his first wife had died, but he’d fought and won vicious custody battles against all the other three.
Ah, pointed out her conscience, but Alphonse is dead, and in any case Frederick is Amil’s father.
But Frederick was also his father’s son, and who knew what he might do? The scandal of an illegitimate baby was the last thing Lycander’s Prince needed at this juncture, and she had no idea how he would react.
She didn’t like any of the possible scenarios—from a custody battle to show his people that he looked after his own, to an outright and public rejection of Amil. Well, damn it, the first would happen over her dead body and the second made her shudder—because she knew exactly how awful that rejection felt and she wouldn’t put Amil through it.
But the Frederick she’d seen today—would he be so callous?
She didn’t know. Her thoughts were muddled by the vortex of emotion his arrival had evoked. Because something had warmed inside her, triggering a whole rush of feelings. Memories had swooped and soared, smothering her skin in desire. Flashes of his touch, of their shared joy and passion...all of that had upended any hope of rational thought or perspective. Just like two years before.
When she’d first met Frederick she’d expected to thoroughly dislike him; his reputation as a cutthroat businessman-cum-playboy had seen to that. But when he’d asked her to dinner she’d agreed to it for the publicity. And at that dinner he’d surprised her. At the next he’d surprised her even more, and somehow, as time had gone on, they had forged a connection—one she had tried oh, so hard to tell herself was nothing more than temporary friendship.
Hah!
And then there had been that stupid tug of attraction, which had eventually prevailed and overridden every rule she’d set herself.
Well, not this time.
To her relief the doorbell rang. Amil’s arrival would put an end to all this.
She dashed to the door and pulled it open, a smile of welcome on her face. A smile that froze into a rictus of shock.
‘Frederick?’
She didn’t know wh
y she’d posed it as a question, since it clearly was Frederick. Her brain scrambled for purchase and eventually found it as she moved to swing the door shut, to hustle him out.
Too late.
He stepped forward, glanced around the room, and she could almost see the penny begin to drop—slowly at first, as cursory curiosity morphed into deeper question.
‘You have a baby?’
His hazel eyes widened in puzzlement, and a small frown creased his brow as he took another step into her sanctum. His gaze rested on each and every item of Amil’s.
‘Yes.’ The word was a whisper—all she could manage as her tummy hollowed and she grasped the doorjamb with lifeless fingers.
‘How old?’
Each syllable was ice-cold, edged with glass, and she nearly flinched. No, she would not be intimidated. Not here. Not now. What was done was done, and—rightly or wrongly—she knew that even if she could turn back time she would make the same decision.
‘Fourteen months.’
‘Girl or boy?’
‘Boy.’
Each question, each answer, brought them closer and closer to the inevitable and her brain wouldn’t function. Instead, all she could focus on was his face, on the dawn of emotion—wonder, anger, fear and surely hope too?
That last was so unexpected that it jolted her into further words. ‘His name is Amil.’
‘Amil,’ he repeated.
He took another step forward and instinctively she moved as well, as if to protect the life she had built, putting herself between him and her home.
‘Is he mine?’
For an instant it was if the world went out of focus. She could almost see a line being drawn in the sands of time—this was the instant that separated ‘before’ and ‘after’. For one brief instant she nearly took the coward’s route, wondered if he would swallow the lie that Amil was Sam’s. Then she realised she could not, would not do that.
‘Yes. He is yours. Amil is your son.’
Now she understood the origins of a deafening silence. This one rolled across the room, echoed in her ears until she wanted to shout. Instead she waited, saw his body freeze, saw the gamut of emotion cross his face, watched as it settled into an expression of anger so ice-cold a shiver rippled her skin.
Panic twisted her insides—the die had been cast and she knew that now, whatever happened, life would never be the same.
CHAPTER THREE
STAY STILL. FOCUS ON remaining still.
The room seemed to spin around him, the white walls a rotating blur, the floor tilting under his feet. Good thing he didn’t suffer from seasickness. Emotions crashed into him, rebounded off the walls of his brain and the sides of his guts. His heart thudded his ribcage at the speed of insanity.
A child. A son. His child. His son.
Fourteen months old.
Fourteen months during which his son had had no father. Anger and pain twisted together. Frederick knew exactly what it was like to have no parent—his mother had abandoned him without compunction in return for a lump sum, a mansion and a yearly stipend that allowed her a life of luxury.
Easy come, easy go.
Yes, Frederick knew what it was like to know a parent was not there for him. The anger unfurled in him and solidified.
‘My son,’ he said slowly, and he couldn’t keep the taut rage from his voice.
He saw Sunita’s awareness of it, but she stepped forward right into the force field of his anger, tawny eyes fierce and fearless.
‘My son,’ she said.
Stop.
However angry he was, however furious he was, he had to think about the baby. About Amil. Memories of the horrendous custody battles his father had instigated crowded his mind—Stefan, Emerson, Barrett—his father had treated all his sons as possessions.
‘Our son,’ he said.
The knowledge was surreal, almost impossible to comprehend. But it was imperative that he kept in control—there was too much at stake here to let emotion override him. Time to shut emotion down, just as he had for two long years. Move it aside and deal with what had to be done.
‘We need to talk.’
She hesitated and then nodded, moving forward to close the front door. She watched him warily, her hands twisted together, her tawny eyes wide.
‘How do you know he’s mine and not Sam’s?’
The look she gave him was intended to wither. ‘I’m not an idiot.’
‘That is a questionable statement. But what you have shown yourself to be is a liar. So you can hardly blame me for the question, or for wanting a better answer than that. How do you know?’
Her eyes narrowed in anger as she caught her lower lip in her teeth and then released it alongside a sigh. ‘Sam isn’t my boyfriend. He has a perfectly lovely girlfriend called Miranda and they live together. I asked him to fake it to try and explain to you why I left the modelling world.’
‘Is there a boyfriend at all?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
So there had been no one since him. The thought provoked a caveman sort of satisfaction that had no place in this discussion. Sunita had deceived him to his face in order to hide his son from him—now was not the moment to give a damn about her relationship status. Apart from the fact that it meant Amil was his.
Hold it together, Frederick. Shelve the emotion...deal with the situation at hand.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Sunita started to pace. Her stride reminded him of a caged animal.
‘Because I was scared.’
Halting in front of him, she looked so beautiful it momentarily pierced his anger.
‘I know how hard this must be for you, but please try to understand I was terrified.’
For an instant he believed her, but then he recalled her profession, her ability to play to the camera, and he swatted down the foolish fledgling impulse to show sympathy and emitted a snort of disbelief.
‘Terrified of what? What did I ever do to make you fear me?’
The idea was abhorrent—he’d witnessed his father in action, his delight in the exertion of power, and he’d vowed never to engage in a similar manner. Thus he’d embarked on a life of pleasure instead.
‘It wasn’t that straightforward. When we split obviously I had no idea I was pregnant. I found out a few weeks later and I was in shock. I did intend to tell you, but I decided to wait until I got to twelve weeks. And then your brother died. I couldn’t tell you then, so I decided to wait some more.’
Now her expression held no apology, and her eyes met his full-on.
‘And?’
‘And obviously there was a lot of press at the time about Lycander. I did some research, and it’s all there—your father fought custody battles over every one of his children except Axel, and that was only because Axel’s mother died before he could do so. Your mother never saw you again, his third wife fought for years before she won the right even to see her son, and wife number four lost her case because he managed to make out she was unfit and she had to publicly humiliate herself in order to be granted minimal visiting rights.’
‘That was my father—not me.’
‘Yes, but you had become the Lycander heir. Are you saying your father wouldn’t have fought for custody of his grandson? Even if you’d wanted to, how could you have stopped him? More to the point, would you have cared enough to try?’
The words hit him like bullets. She hadn’t believed he would fight for the well-being of their child. She’d thought he would stand back and watch Alphonse wrest his son away.
He shook his head. Do you blame her? asked a small voice. He’d been the Playboy Prince—he’d worked hard, played harder, and made it clear he had no wish for any emotional responsibilities.
‘I would ne
ver have let my father take our child from you.’ He knew first-hand what it felt like to grow up without a mother. All the Lycander children did.
‘I couldn’t take that risk. Plus, you didn’t want to be a father—you’d made it more than clear that you had no wish for a relationship or a child.’
‘Neither did you.’
His voice was even, non-accusatory, but she bristled anyway, tawny eyes flashing lasers.
‘I changed.’
‘But you didn’t give me the chance to. Not at any point in the past two years. Even if you could justify your deceit to yourself when my father was alive, you could have told me after his death.’
His father’s death had unleashed a fresh tumult of emotion to close down. He’d had to accept that he would now never forge a relationship with the man who had constantly put him down—the man who had never forgiven him for his mother’s actions. And on a practical level it had pitchforked him into the nightmare scenario of ascension to the throne.
But none of that explained her continued deceit.
‘I read the papers, Frederick. You have had enough to contend with in the past year to keep your throne—the revelation of a love-child with me would have finished you off. You were practically engaged to Lady Kaitlin.’
‘So you want my gratitude for keeping my child a secret? You’ve persuaded yourself that you did it for me? Is that how you sleep at night?’
‘I sleep fine at night. I did what I thought was right. I didn’t want Amil to grow up knowing that he had been the reason his father lost his throne, or lost the woman he loved. That is too big a burden for any child.’
The words were rounded with utter certainty.
‘That was not your decision to make. At any point. Regardless of the circumstances, you should have come to me as soon as you knew you were pregnant. Nothing should have stopped you. Not Axel, not my father, not Kaitlin—nothing. You have deprived him of his father.’
‘I chose depriving him of his father over depriving him of his mother.’ Her arms dropped to her sides and a sudden weariness slumped her shoulders. ‘We can argue about this for ever—I did what I thought was best. For Amil.’
