‘What’s wrong?’ Angelica asked. ‘You’ve gone as white as a ghost.’
Cassie swung around and backtracked her way to the front door of the tiny flat with agitated steps. ‘I’ve lost my bracelet,’ she said, searching the floor in rising desperation. ‘My mother’s pearl one. It must have fallen off on the way home. I was sure it was still on my wrist when I was at the palace.’
‘Maybe it fell off in the cab,’ Angelica suggested. ‘You could call up the company and ask them to look for it.’
Cassie turned to look at her friend. ‘I didn’t take a cab home.’
Angelica’s eyes widened. ‘You walked home in the dark in those shoes?’
No, I ran home in the dark, Cassie felt tempted to confess but instead said, ‘I felt like I needed the fresh air. The palace was crowded and…and stuffy.’
‘I’ll get a torch for you,’ Angelica said. ‘I’ll mind Sam while you retrace your steps, or do you think we should wait until morning when we can both search?’
Cassie shook her head determinedly. ‘No, someone might pick it up before then. I’ll go a few blocks and see if I can find it. I’m sure it can’t be too far away.’
‘Make sure you take your mobile with you,’ Angelica said. ‘You don’t know who might be out on the streets at this time of night. And you had better get changed. You are going to stick out like a sore thumb in that dress.’
Cassie quickly checked on Sam on her way to her room to change into a track suit and sneakers. He was sleeping peacefully, his beautiful face so like his father’s it made her heart contract again in unbearable pain. Her little son would never be able to run to his daddy and place his arms around his neck; he would never be able to look him in the those deep brown eyes exactly the same shade as his for reassurance, or for the guidance and support she could already see he so desperately needed.
He had been cheated of so much, just as she had, but she was going to do her utmost to make it up to him. As soon as her parole period was up she and Sam would be off the island and begin a new life, a life where no one knew who Cassie was, what she had supposedly done and—even more importantly—whose child she had secretly borne.
CHAPTER TWO
THE cobbled streets were lit with the occasional lamp post but even so Cassie felt the menacing shadows of the night creeping towards her with every step she took. She shone the narrow beam of the torch Angelica had given her around, but so far she had found nothing but the occasional cigarette butt or gum wrapper. It made her think of her father, how he as the town mayor had orchestrated a campaign to clean up the ancient streets of Aristo, even though his own home had contained the most filthy of all secrets.
Cassie gave a little shudder and forced the memories back and continued on her mission, her head down, her steps carefully measured as she went as close to the palace as she dared.
She was no more than three blocks away when she suddenly came up short, her heart thudding in fear as a pair of large male sports shoes were illuminated by her torch. She brought the beam shakily upwards to find Sebastian Karedes, dressed similarly to her in a dark track suit, his eyes unreadable as they meshed with hers.
‘Looking for something, Cassie?’ he asked.
Cassie had never imagined there would be a time in her life when she would have rather met a mugger on a dark street than the man she had once loved with all her being. She had faced fear before, many times, gut-wrenching fear that most people thankfully never had to face. But this was something else again. Sebastian had the power to destroy her in a way even her father hadn’t been able to do. Everything she had fought so long and hard for seemed to be hinged on these next few moments. The tension built in her spine; she could feel it moving up vertebra by vertebra, a vicelike grip that made her stomach crawl with the long spidery legs of apprehension.
‘I…I seem to have lost my bracelet,’ she said, lowering the torch. ‘I thought if I retraced my steps I might find it.’
‘You left without saying goodbye,’ he said. ‘I was hoping for a few more minutes with you in private. There are some things I would like to discuss with you.’
Cassie turned off the torch with her thumb in case the soft light showed the fear on her face. ‘I’m not sure it’s such a good idea for us to be seen anywhere together, Sebastian,’ she said. ‘You know what the paparazzi are like. You are about to be crowned as King. It would not do your reputation any favours being seen talking with an ex-prisoner.’
‘There is no one about now,’ he said. ‘We could go back to your place. We would not be disturbed there, I am sure.’
Cassie was glad he couldn’t see the way her eyes suddenly flared in panic. Sam was not the deepest of sleepers. He still occasionally wet the bed, which made him wake up distressed and call out for her. ‘No,’ she said, far too quickly. ‘I mean…it’s awkward…I…I have a flatmate.’
‘A man?’
‘No.’
‘You have no present lover?’
Cassie felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck start to prickle at the seemingly casually asked question. Unless she turned the torch back on she had no way of reading his expression, and even then there was no guarantee she would be able to decipher what motive lay behind his query. Sebastian was a master of disguising his feelings, if indeed he had any. She had often wondered if his aloofness and slight air of condescension were a guise or an innate part of his personality. She had never quite made up her mind either way. He had been trained from a young age to step up to the throne upon the death of his father, which had occurred only a few months ago. That he was prepared to risk being seen with her was as surprising as it was deeply disturbing.
Cassie knew she was at risk of revealing too much. She could feel it now even under the cloak of darkness. The pulse of her blood was like thunder in her veins, her breasts felt tight and sensitive, and that secret feminine place he had possessed so many times throbbed with a hollow ache that was almost painful.
‘I’ve been seeing someone,’ she lied, hoping it would put an end to the undercurrent of attraction she could feel coming towards her.
‘The same person you were seeing when you ended our affair?’ he asked with bitterness sharpening his tone.
‘No…someone else.’ Oh, how easily the second lie followed the first, she thought.
‘How serious is your relationship with this man?’ he asked.
‘Serious enough.’
‘Serious enough to risk your freedom?’
Cassie dropped the torch, but even as she heard it clatter its way over the cobblestones she was unable to move. ‘W-what are you suggesting?’ she asked in a dry croak.
He bent down and retrieved the torch and, flicking it on, shone it on her face. ‘How about we go back to my private quarters and discuss it?’ he said.
Cassie blinked against the probe of the torch’s beam. ‘I am not sure there is anything we have to discuss,’ she said, ‘or at least nothing of interest to me.’
‘On the contrary, I think it will be of the greatest interest to you,’ he said, and turned off the torch with a click that sounded portentous in the still night air. ‘You see, Cassie, I have something of yours.’
Yes, well, so do I, Cassie thought wryly, once again glad of the mantle of darkness so he couldn’t read the apprehension on her face. ‘My bracelet?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Do you have it with you?’
‘No, it is at the palace.’
Cassie wondered if he was telling the truth, but she could hardly ask to search him. She gnawed at her lip for a moment. ‘Could you have someone send it to me in the post?’ she asked.
‘Not unless you want to take the risk of it being mislaid or perhaps even stolen,’ he said. ‘I would prefer to hand it over to you face to face. It looks rather valuable.’
‘It is,’ Cassie said, her heart sinking as she realised she would have no choice but to accompany him back to the palace. They had met in secret so many times in the past, just the thought of doing so again conju
red up so many intimate images. She wondered if Sebastian was revisiting any of them in his own mind.
‘Come.’ He placed a firm hand at her elbow. ‘There is a back entrance to the palace a couple of blocks from here.’
Cassie reluctantly fell into step beside him, her flesh burning under the touch of his hand. They walked in silence, she because she didn’t know what to say and he—she assumed—because he was waiting until he had her somewhere secluded to discuss whatever he had planned for her. That there was a plan she was in no doubt. Proud men like Sebastian Karedes did not take rejection on the chin, and her rejection of him had been particularly cruel.
Sebastian led her through a wrought-iron gate where an aide was waiting. They exchanged a brief exchange before the man led the way to a suite of rooms down a long, marbled corridor. The walls were lined with generations of the Karedes family; all their eyes seemed to be following Cassie as she walked soundlessly by Sebastian’s side.
The aide opened a door leading into a private lounge. The furniture was modern and, although the palace was centuries old, somehow the mix of old and new worked brilliantly.
‘So, Cassie,’ Sebastian said once the aide had closed the door on his exit. ‘This is like old times, is it not?’
Cassie searched his features for a moment but couldn’t read his inscrutable expression. ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ she hedged, although her mind had already taken a wild guess.
He reached out and lifted her chin with the blunt end of one of his long fingers. She felt a shiver of reaction cascade like a shower of exploding fireworks down her spine at that jolt of skin-to-skin electricity passing from his body to hers. It had always been this way between them. The air in the room was charged with the electric tension of sexual attraction. She could see it in the dark, brooding intensity of his gaze; she could sense it in the sensual curve of his mouth and, God help her, she could feel it in the core of her body where her intimate muscles were already starting to ache.
‘You and I always met in secret, did we not?’ he said, looking down at her mouth for a pulsing moment. ‘I see no reason to change that now.’
Cassie stepped back out of his light but eminently disturbing hold, her legs almost tripping over themselves in her haste to put some distance between her body and his. ‘You are surely not suggesting we resume our illicit affair?’ she said in a brittle keep-away-from-me tone.
He gave a little shrug. ‘We were good together, Caz,’ he said, using the private nickname he had chosen for her all those years ago. ‘You know we were.’
Cassie wanted to cover her ears and block out the sensual lure of his deep velvet-toned voice. God, did he have any idea of how he still affected her? How could he possibly think she had forgotten how good they had been together? The moment she had set eyes on him again it had been as if the faint background pulse in her body she had done her best to ignore had suddenly come to fervent life again. It was thumping now beneath her skin, so strong and heavy it made her feel dizzy.
She had been so strong for all this time. Now was not the time to fall apart. Not now when she was so close to final freedom. She had just a matter of weeks to go until her parole period was finished. Once that time was up she would leave Aristo with Sam, making a new life for them both. This was not the time to be drawn back into Sebastian Karedes’s sensual orbit, no matter how very tempting it was.
Cassie pulled back her shoulders and sent him a glittering glare. ‘You seem to be forgetting something, Sebastian. We ended our association six years ago.’
‘You ended it, Cassandra. I did not,’ he said with an unmistakably embittered edge to his voice.
Cassie lifted her chin even higher. ‘I can still call you Sebastian, can’t I, or would you prefer Your Royal Highness? Should I have bowed or curtsied when I ran into you on the street? How very remiss of me.’
Something moved at the side of his mouth as if her words had pulled on a tight string beneath the skin on his jaw. ‘Sebastian will be fine,’ he said through tight lips. ‘At least while we are alone.’
This time it was Cassie’s mouth that went tight. ‘I do not intend being alone with you in future,’ she said with a deliberately haughty look. ‘Please give me back my bracelet. I need to get home.’
His eyes burned into hers. ‘You are forgetting yourself, Cassie,’ he said. ‘That is not the way to speak to a member of the royal household. I will dismiss you when I see fit, not the other way around.’
‘What are you going to do about it, Sebastian?’ she asked, throwing him another mocking glare. ‘Lock me up in the palace tower and throw away the key? I’m sure I’ll institutionalise rather quickly considering where I’ve spent the last few years, don’t you agree?’
He held her gaze for an interminable pause but Cassie was determined not to look away first.
She could do this.
She could stand here and fire back at him without breaking down.
She had to do this.
His expression was nothing short of contemptuous as he held her look. ‘Your anger towards me is rather misplaced, Cassie,’ he said. ‘You were the one to bring an end to our affair by flaunting a host of lovers in my face. If anyone has a right to be angry it should be me.’
Cassie gave herself a mental kick. He was right. She had told him a parcel of lies in an attempt to get away from the island, never dreaming it would backfire on her the way it had.
‘Is that not correct, Cassie?’ he prompted again with steely purpose.
She pressed her lips together and lowered her gaze from the searing probe of his. ‘Yes…’ she said. ‘That is correct.’
‘Is that who you are rushing off to return to now?’ he asked. ‘One of your many lovers? No doubt you are keen to make up for lost time, ne?’
Cassie now understood what it felt like to be hoist with one’s own petard and it wasn’t particularly comfortable. ‘There is just the one person I care about now,’ she answered.
There was a short but tense pause.
‘Do you intend to marry this man?’ he asked.
Cassie brought her eyes back to his. ‘No, I do not.’
She saw the disdain in his gaze as it warred with hers, and, although he didn’t say the words out loud, she could hear them ringing in the stiff silence.
Whore.
Slut.
Jailbird.
‘I want to see you again,’ Sebastian said with a masklike expression. ‘Here, tomorrow, for lunch, and do not think about saying no.’
Cassie felt her eyes go wide and struggled to control her escalating panic. ‘I-I’m working at the orphanage t-tomorrow,’ she stammered. ‘We’re short staffed as it is. I can’t just breeze out for lunch.’
His stance was implacable. It was clear in the months since his father had died Sebastian had become accustomed to having each and every one of his words obeyed. ‘I will have my personal secretary notify the head of the orphanage that you have an official appointment at the palace.’
Cassie gave a tight swallow. ‘What will the press make of that if they hear about it?’ she asked.
‘They will not hear about it from me,’ he said. ‘If on the other hand you get it in your pretty little blonde head to inform them yourself, I have already warned you what will happen if you do.’
She glared at him in fury. ‘You think you can blackmail me, don’t you?’
He gave her an imperious smile. ‘If you want your bracelet back, then, yes, I am sure I can blackmail you to do whatever I want.’
Cassie clenched her hands into fists. ‘You bastard,’ she ground out bitterly.
‘Careful, Cassie,’ he warned her silkily. ‘I don’t think a charge of common assault will go down too well right now with your parole officer, will it?’
Right now Cassie felt as if it would be worth it just to slap that arrogant look off his too-handsome face. ‘I am going to ask you one more time,’ she said in a cold, hard tone. ‘Give me back my bracelet.’
He held u
p his hands above his head. ‘Come and get it,’ he said, nodding towards his left-hand trouser pocket.
Cassie felt her heart skip a beat at the challenging glint in his dark eyes. She pulled in a breath, and with a hand that was nowhere near as steady as she would have liked, slipped it tentatively into his pocket. Her belly quivered as she felt the distinctive swell of his body against her searching fingers, but there was no bracelet. She pulled out her hand and sent him a fulminating look.
‘Try the other one,’ he said with an inscrutable smile. ‘I must have forgotten which side I put it.’
Cassie sucked in another furious breath and a little less cautiously this time dug her hand into his right pocket, but before she could locate the circle of pearls his hands came down and held hers against his now pulsing full-on erection. Her eyes flew to his in shock, the erotic feel of him even through the layers of fabric making her heart race out of control.
‘How much do you want your bracelet?’ he asked, his eyes now almost black with diamond-hard purpose.
She felt him surging against the palm of her hand and her stomach turned over, every pore of her flesh crawling with a desire so overwhelming she was sure he could sense it. ‘What exactly are you asking me to do, Sebastian?’ she asked in a brittle tone. ‘Get down on my knees and service you like the whore you think you can make me?’
His pupils flared, making his eyes even darker, like bottomless pools of ink. ‘If anyone has made you a whore it is yourself,’ he said. ‘I know the game you are playing, Cassie. You deliberately left that bracelet behind this evening, did you not?’
Cassie threw him a withering look. ‘That really would have been casting pearls before swine, now, wouldn’t it?’
He pulled her hands away from his body, bracketing her wrists either side of her body in a movement so sudden she felt every last breath of air rush out of her chest. ‘I must say I like this new hard-to-get game you are intent on playing,’ he said, pressing his hardened lower body into the softness of hers. ‘It makes me all the more determined to have you.’
The Future King's Love-Child (The Royal House 0f Karedes Book 6) Page 2
