Sebastian could see how fragile she was now. She looked like a wraith with her too-slim body and long, blonde hair awry from dragging her fingers through it agitatedly. It awoke every protective instinct in his body to draw her close and offer what comfort he could.
‘Cassie.’ He reached out and touched her ever so gently on the arm, but she flinched away as if he had slapped her.
She looked at him, her tear-washed eyes glittering with a last stand show of defiance. ‘I don’t want to talk any more. I’m tired and my head feels as if it’s going to explode. If you had a decent bone in your body you’d realise that and let me go to bed.’
He held her challenging glare for a moment before he let out a weary sigh. ‘Of course,’ he said, holding the door open for her. ‘Kalinichta, Cassie.’
She didn’t respond, which he more or less expected, but it disappointed him all the same. He saw the shadows in her emerald eyes and knew he had played a huge part in putting them there. Now he wanted to know how on earth he was going to remove them.
CHAPTER NINE
CASSIE wasn’t sure what had woken her only an hour or so later. The silence most probably, she thought wryly as she threw back the covers to go and check on Sam, who was sleeping next door. After years in a noisy prison she still found the quietness of night faintly disturbing.
She gently pushed open the door of Sam’s room but came to a startled halt when she saw who was sitting beside the bed, with one of Sam’s tiny hands cupped in his. ‘Is…is everything all right?’ she said in a low whisper.
Sebastian tucked Sam’s hand back under the covers. ‘Yes…I was just…checking him before I went to bed.’
Cassie waited until they were out in the corridor before she spoke. ‘Haven’t you been to bed yet? It’s way past midnight.’
He rubbed one of his hands down his face, the scrape of his palm over his stubble sounding loud in the silence. ‘No, I had some things to see to,’ he said. ‘How is your headache?’
Somehow the genuine concern in his voice made Cassie’s skin tingle with awareness. So too did the fact she was standing before him in an almost sheer slip of a nightgown with only a light bathrobe covering it. ‘It’s gone…sort of…’
He lifted a hand and gently brushed back the hair off her face, his touch so light she felt every nerve spring to life. She stood stock-still, not breathing, not thinking—just feeling.
‘Do you fancy a drink or something?’ he asked in a brusque tone, shoving his hand in his pocket as if he regretted touching her. ‘I was just about to go downstairs and make one.’
She lifted her brows. ‘You fix your own drinks?’
‘Occasionally,’ he said, his expression locking her out. ‘Just because I have a late night doesn’t mean my staff have to as well.’
‘Did Sam call out?’ she asked as he led the way downstairs. ‘I checked him before I went to bed and he was fine.’
‘No, he didn’t call out,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to sit with him.’
‘Oh…’
His eyes met hers. ‘I do have the right to sit with him, do I not?’
‘Of course…’ I didn’t mean to suggest—’
He held open the door of one of the reception rooms, his eyes still boring into hers. ‘There is no question over my paternity, is there, Cassie?’
Cassie felt the question like a slap across the face. ‘No…there’s no question at all.’
He studied her for a stretched-out moment. ‘Under the circumstances royal protocol might call for proof.’
She held his piercing dark gaze, her heart contracting at the lack of trust she could see in his eyes. ‘Go right ahead,’ she said, stalking over to the middle of the room. ‘I have nothing to hide.’
‘Ah, but that is not quite true, is it, Cassie?’ he said, coming over to where she was standing. ‘You are rather adept at hiding things from me.’
Cassie took an unsteady step backwards. ‘I told you I tried to tell you about Sam…’
‘I am not just talking about Sam.’
She swept her tongue across her lips, her eyes automatically darting to the door. ‘W-what are you talking about, then?’
‘There,’ he said. ‘You did it just then. You get this cornered look in your eyes as if you think I am going to take a swipe at you. I used to think it was because of what went on in prison, but while I was thinking through some things this evening I realised I had seen that look on your face before.’
She straightened her shoulders with an effort. ‘You have a rather threatening demeanour at times, Sebastian.’
‘I would never raise my hand in anger,’ he said, frowning darkly. ‘You surely know that, Cassie. Have I ever given you a reason to think otherwise?’
‘No…no, of course not,’ Cassie said, thinking of how gentle he had been with Sam so far.
He seemed satisfied with her answer and after a moment he moved across to a drinks servery and poured some juice for her and a cognac for himself. ‘Have you had time to have a look around while you have been here today?’ he asked as he handed her the glass. ‘It occurred to me that I didn’t show you around last time you were here.’
‘Not really,’ she said, taking the drink from him. ‘I wanted to spend the time settling Sam in—he was a bit nervous about coming here. Besides, I didn’t want to get us both lost looking around by ourselves, and I wasn’t sure what to say to the staff or what they knew about us so we kept to our rooms.’
‘Eleni and, of course, Stefanos know Sam is my son, and the housekeeper who has worked here for most of my life, but that is all,’ Sebastian said. ‘I will take Sam on a tour tomorrow so he feels more secure. Finish your drink and I will show you around this floor. I think you will enjoy the views.’
Cassie followed him into the next room where the views from the large windows overlooking the ocean were stunningly beautiful, especially in the silvery darkness of a moonlit night. Lights from one of the passenger ferries to Greece or Turkey could be seen twinkling in the distance.
‘Let me show you the view from one of the east-facing rooms,’ Sebastian said. ‘You can see the Port of Aquila on Calista.’
Cassie followed him into another room, which she took to be the morning room as there was an informal dining setting, as well as a large, comfortable-looking sofa where she could imagine members of the royal family would peruse the newspapers. He was right about the view, she thought as she looked at the angry sea below.
‘As you see, it is very private,’ Sebastian said from her left shoulder. ‘The cliffs and rocks below make it impossible for anyone to access the grounds from the three seaboard sides.’
Cassie could feel the warmth of him standing so close and the deep timbre of his voice was like the melodious rumble of organ pipes. ‘It is very beautiful here,’ she said, more to fill the silence than anything else. ‘And, as you say, very private.’
‘Privacy is more valuable than you can ever imagine for people like me,’ he said, still looking at the view. ‘In fact I cannot put a price on it.’
Cassie picked up the wistfulness in his tone and turned to look at him, a small frown tugging at her brow. ‘You sound as if you are not looking forward to being crowned as King and all it entails.’
He shifted his gaze from the window to mesh with hers, the edginess she had always associated with him evident in the way he held himself. ‘No, that is not true,’ he said. ‘I am well prepared for the role and have looked forward to it for most of my life, but there are times…’ He lifted one of his broad shoulders in a shrug that communicated everything and nothing.
‘But there are times?’ Cassie prodded.
His eyes moved away from hers. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I think you would like the library and the music room. Do you still play the piano?’
‘I haven’t touched one in years,’ Cassie said as he led her to another room towards the western end of the house. ‘I wasn’t all that great at it in any case. I only did it because my father for…I mean…t
hought it was an essential part of a young lady’s upbringing to have some proficiency in the arts.’
Sebastian held the music-room door open for her, noting how she had stumbled over her choice of words. He breathed in her scent as she walked past, a mixture of her heady jasmine and his sharp citrus that unleashed a host of memories from the lockers of his mind. He had showered every time they had made love in the past, but he could have sworn there were still times he could smell her in the very pores of his skin. He could still smell her on him from last night. ‘Play something for me,’ he said, letting the door close on a soft click behind him. ‘Something to suit your current mood.’
Her eyes flicked to his, a camera-shutterlike look passing through them before they fell away and rested on the white grand piano. ‘I’m not sure I can remember anything by ear…’ she said, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip, her arms wrapped around her body like a shield.
Sebastian watched as she circled the instrument, like a wary opponent facing a much-feared foe. ‘It’s not going to bite you if you touch it, Cassie,’ he said softly.
He strode over and pulled out the stool for her and once she was seated, or rather perched on the edge of it, he lifted the lid so the sound could reverberate throughout the spacious room.
Cassie opened and closed her fingers, her pulse like a drum beneath her skin. For someone who had lived the life of a party girl she knew she was doing a very poor job of playing the role now. She hated playing in front of an audience. She had only once played in front of Sebastian in the past and that had been entirely by accident. The apartment he had borrowed from a friend for their secret trysts had an old, slightly out of tune upright piano, and, arriving earlier than him one day, Cassie had sat down and run her normally rigid-with-fear fingers over the keys. Even she had been surprised by the poignancy of the cadences she had played, and it had been some minutes before she had realised Sebastian had been leaning against the door jamb, his dark, penetrating gaze focussed on her as he listened…
Cassie pulled away from the past and placed her fingers on the keys and started to play, stumblingly at first, hesitantly, like a small child at her first pianoforte exam. She had to remind herself her father was dead. He couldn’t break a ruler over her knuckles now if she tripped over a note. He couldn’t shout from another room with biting criticisms of her technique. He couldn’t storm into the room and slam the lid down on the piano so hard she almost lost control of her insides in the most humiliating way of all.
No, he was rotting in hell where he belonged. Tears suddenly blurred her vision, but she played on, the notes rising and falling with each aching breath she took, her heart taking up far too much room in her chest as she thought of all she’d had in her hands and thrown away like stale bread crusts to the seagulls nesting on the cliffs below the windows.
Sebastian found himself transfixed. It was not just the music that was unusually poignant, but it was the fleeting shadows on Cassie’s beautiful, model-perfect face. He was close enough to see the tears rolling down her cheeks, as if the music had touched her in a way she had not intended or indeed expected it to.
She had never cried in front of him in the past, not openly at least. He was well used to female tears having grown up with sisters; he understood more than most about the shifting of hormones and the moods that came and went like the tides. But that was a side he had never seen in Cassie. She had always been so in control emotionally, or had she? The devil-may-care attitude she had brandished about in the past was no longer a part of who she was now. She was quieter, watchful and deeper, like a shallow, bubbling brook that had suddenly turned a corner and become a deeply flowing river instead.
Careful, he lectured himself as another trill of notes sent the hairs on his arms upright. She was not for ever; she was just for now. He had to remember that, even if some secret part of him would have liked things to be different. He wouldn’t have been the first royal to marry a commoner, but Cassie’s past made any such alliance impossible. Was that why he was feeling this burning ache in his throat?
She looked so beautiful sitting there like that, her long slim fingers dancing over the keys as her confidence increased. He recognised a few bars of a Beethoven sonata but she suddenly stumbled over a note and froze like one of the marble statues in the gallery three rooms away.
‘Cassie?’ He stepped towards her.
She got to her feet, the piano stool almost toppling backwards in her haste. ‘I’m sorry…’ she said, not quite meeting his eyes. ‘I was never very good at that piece. Too many sharps and flats…or something…’
Sebastian was beginning to think ‘or something’ just about summed Cassie Kyriakis up. He drew out a clean handkerchief, and came over to where she was standing with her arms folded across her chest, and gently dabbed at the tears on her cheeks. ‘I think you played rather beautifully, Cassie,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise you were so talented. That is yet another secret you have kept from me.’
Her eyes watered up again, but before he could attend to the damage she took his handkerchief from him with a slight brush of her fingers against his, a rueful twist contorting the fullness of her mouth. ‘Do you mind if I find somewhere to freshen up?’ she asked.
Sebastian felt that tight knot in his throat again. She was holding him off; he wasn’t sure why. Had he slipped under her guard, seeing more than she wanted him to see? So many clues were starting to make sense, like a crossword that had long been unsolved due to an unknown word. He could force it out of her, or he could wait for her to tell him. Something told him force was not the way to go. If what she had hinted at was true, and he was starting to suspect it was, she would need time and gentle handling to feel safe enough to reveal the full extent of her past.
‘Sure,’ he said, and led the way back out of the music room to the sweeping staircase. ‘There is a guest bathroom on the next floor, second on the right. Take your time.’
She stretched her lips into a smile that looked almost painful. ‘Thank you.’
He felt a heavy sigh bring his shoulders down once she had gracefully ascended the stairs, the invisible atoms of her perfume teasing his nostrils long after she had disappeared from sight…
Cassie leant back on the bathroom door and slowly slid to the floor, her head going forward on her bent knees, her shoulders shaking as she wrestled her emotions back into the steel chains she had long ago locked them in.
Who was she fooling? How could she possibly expect to be in Sebastian’s presence after last night and not feel vulnerable? It wasn’t just about him now knowing about Sam. She had been far too vulnerable when it came to Sebastian Karedes right from the start. But it was far worse now than it had ever been. He was starting to see things she had desperately kept hidden before. She had felt it in his steady, watchful gaze downstairs; the quizzical flicker in his eyes every now and again, as if he was trying to put a rather complicated puzzle together.
Cassie almost laughed out loud as she dragged herself to her feet. A puzzle, that was what she was. No one could figure her out because she liked it that way. What alternative did she have anyway? Who was going to believe her now?
There was a knock at the door and she almost leapt out of her skin. ‘Cassie?’ Sebastian’s voice sounded out with deep strains of concern in it. ‘Are you all right in there?’
She quickly blew her nose and tossed the tissue in the bin. ‘I’m fine,’ she said and came out, closing the door softly behind her.
The silence was like a mantle settling about them. Cassie could feel the soft cloak of muted light surrounding them. Shadows danced off the walls, tempting, taunting shadows that made her aware of how isolated they were. Sam was asleep upstairs with Eleni close by. There was no one around, no bodyguards, no lurking members of the press, just the silence and her lingering memory of last night in his arms. Could he feel it? she wondered. Was that why he was looking at her that way? His dark eyes scanning her features, as if looking for a chink in her hastily assembled a
rmour?
‘I have something to show you,’ he said. ‘It’s in my room along the hall.’
Cassie put her hands up. ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she said, backing away. ‘Don’t try that line with me. It’s so hackneyed. I’m not going to see your etchings or your anything just so you can fast track me back into your bed.’
He lifted one brow at her. ‘You think that’s what I was doing?’
She gave him a narrow-eyed look. ‘I know that’s what you were doing. Go on, admit it. You were going to lure me into your parlour and one kiss would lead to another and then we both know what would happen. I told you last night was a mistake. We should never have given into the temptation.’
‘Last night was not a mistake,’ he said. ‘I wanted you and you wanted me. Nothing has changed, Cassie.’
Cassie plugged her ears with her fingers. ‘Stop it. Stop it right now, do you hear me?’
He pulled her hands down from her face. ‘No,’ he said, suddenly deadly serious again. ‘You stop it and listen to me. I want you.’ He spaced out the words for maximum effect and Cassie had to fight not to weaken as he continued. ‘I know it’s crazy and probably downright dangerous but I want you so badly it’s like a pain in my gut that won’t go away.’
Emotion clogged her throat. ‘Please, Sebastian…’ Her voice dropped to a desperate whisper. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing…it’s hormones…or something.’
He gave her a little shake and saw the flare of her eyes, felt the stiffening of her body and the quiver of her bottom lip before she got it under control. ‘It’s the “or something” I am worried about,’ he said heavily, resting his forehead against hers. ‘What am I going to do with you, Caz, my beautiful, complicated chameleon? What on earth am I going to do with you, hmm?’
Cassie felt like candle wax melting under a powerful heat source. Her bones loosened, her ligaments softened, her heart swelled and her resolve…well, it had been a little off centre in any case. ‘You have to let me go,’ she said, but it didn’t sound anywhere near as convincing as she had wanted it to, it was too whispery, too don’t-take-me-seriously-when-I-say-this. ‘Now…right now…before we go in any deeper.’
The Future King's Love-Child (The Royal House 0f Karedes Book 6) Page 11
