Claiming the Royal Innocent (Kingdoms & Crowns)

by Jennifer Hayward

  In spite of that thought, or perhaps because of it, he eased himself away from her and slid his legs over the side of the bed. He was going to pin Dimitri Smirnov down to a meeting today. Spinning his wheels, wondering if the Russian was going to pull out on him, was killing his head, destroying his productivity. It needed to be settled. Cast in stone.

  Showering and dressing, he left temptation alone, grabbed a croissant from the kitchen and made his way to his office. Carin greeted him, handed him a stack of messages and got up to get his espresso. Wandering into his office, he made for his PC.

  Carin backtracked and came to the door. “Were you just whistling?”

  “Whistling?” He frowned. “I don’t whistle.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She gave him a look. “You were whistling.”

  “First time for everything. Anything urgent in this?” He waved the stack of messages at her.

  “June. She said she sent you an urgent email.”

  Since his PR person bothered him only when something was truly important, he went right to his email, immediately thinking there’d been a crisis at one of his hotels. The last one had been a couple of rare birds who’d taken up residence in the facing of his London property. Threatened with eviction, the entire bird-loving population of London had revolted, placard-carrying activists and all. The birds had stayed.

  He clicked open June’s email, bracing himself for a political nightmare. It was a nightmare, all right, but not a political one. The photo June had sent made his head buzz. It was of him and Alex from that night on the boat, an intimate photo of them, Alex half naked, her legs wrapped around him.

  His heart sank further as he read the caption from the European entertainment website it had been posted to.

  Princess Aleksandra busy canoodling with billionaire Aristos Nicolades in the Aegean while Akathinia sits in wait.

  Canoodling? Who used that word?

  Thee mou. The enormity of the disaster sank through him as he sat back in his chair and wiped a palm across his brow. How had this happened? Paparazzi couldn’t access the island. It was impossible. It had to have been a staff member.

  His vision went red. “Carin.”

  She came in with his espresso. Took in his expression. “I take it the whistling is over?”

  “Get Yolande in here now. And Rolf.” His head of security.

  His PA departed. He took a deep, fortifying sip of the coffee to kick-start his brain. The damage was done, but he could inflict pain on whoever had done this. And he would find them.

  He was picking up the phone to call June in New York when his cell phone buzzed. Glancing at the screen, he replaced the receiver. Nikandros. He contemplated the buzzing phone, a tight feeling in his chest. He could ignore it, gather a game plan, then talk to the king. Or he could pick it up and get it over with.

  He picked it up. “Nik.”

  “You have sixty seconds to explain why I shouldn’t fly there right now and kill you.”

  “I care about her, Nik.”

  “Try again, Nicolades. You’ve never cared about a woman in your life.”

  “I care about her.”

  Silence.

  He rubbed a hand to his temple. “You were the one who insisted she come here. I didn’t want her here.”

  “And it was too much of a stretch to keep your hands off her? Off one woman, Aristos.”

  “Why?” Aristos wanted to hear Nik say it. That he wasn’t good enough for Aleksandra. That he was below her.

  “You know why. You are the most notorious womanizer on the face of the planet.”

  He digested that. Wondered for the first time if that was the core of Nik’s issue with him, rather than his bloodline.

  He closed his eyes. “It’s done, Nik. But I intend to make it right.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll marry, of course.”

  Another long silence. Had he just said that? The M-word?

  “I haven’t given you my permission.”

  Ah, there it was. He raked a hand through his hair. “You know it’s the right answer.”

  Another silence. “Get your PR team in contact with mine. Put a lid on this. Meanwhile, Alex stays on Larikos. The press can’t get to her there, and I need to focus on Idas. The rumor is he’s had a stroke.”

  His heart lifted for the first time since he’d seen that damning photo. “Substantiated?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  He prayed it was true. Crown Prince Kostas of Carnelia was a known proponent of peace and democracy. It would be a godsend for the country and for his $2.5 billion investment. “Nik—”

  “I need to think.” The line went dead.

  He pulled the phone away from his ear, a knot growing in his stomach at what he’d just done. Getting bigger by the minute. He should have ignored the call. Should have gotten his thoughts together, made a plan. Instead he’d just announced he was marrying Alex. He, who had once called marriage hell on earth, had just committed himself to that very institution.

  Rising from his chair, he paced to the window, espresso in hand. Looked out at the glorious, picture-perfect vista he so often took for granted. Was too busy to even enjoy. He’d spent three of those sun-soaked, unparalleled Larikos days with Alex, working, yes, because he needed to keep things moving, but also using the opportunity to take a step back. To allow himself a breather from the obsession with business that had consumed his life.

  He’d found himself more even-keeled, without his usual restless vibe, a perspective settling over him, a contentment. Perhaps those obsessions that had fueled him all these years had blinded him to other things...to the things he’d told himself he couldn’t have.

  He rubbed a palm over his jaw. Could he have them with Alex? Was this the solution to a problem he’d already known he’d had?

  He watched the sun reflect off an impossibly blue sea. Surprisingly, the idea of marrying Alex didn’t fill him with horror. His interest in meaningless assignations had waned months before. Having a beautiful, intelligent wife by his side to fill the empty life he’d been leading held appeal, a woman for whom his desire was showing no signs of abating, who seemed to be chipping away at his cynicism with every moment he spent with her, making him feel almost human again.

  And yet, he wondered, how far could he take it? Was he deluding himself he could ever be that man? The one who deposited his briefcase on the kitchen floor, received a kiss from his wife, went back to work the next day and did it over and over again? The man who stuck? Nik certainly seemed to be questioning it. He hadn’t even given him his permission to marry Alex.

  Memories, too close to the surface in recent days, bubbled their way to the surface. His last epic battle with his father before he’d left home for good...

  This family is better off without you, Aristos. You have no substance, no honor. Go waste your life away with those infidels. You are one of them now.

  And he had been. He would have been anything to get away from the toxic atmosphere at home. Even if it meant leaving everything he knew behind, including the brothers and sisters he’d loved. Even if it meant cutting those ties for their own safety, keeping them away from the lawless men he associated with.

  But there had been more. He’d been angry, so angry at his mother for choosing his no-good father over him, for allowing him to turn him out. Bitter to the core. That was when the murkiness of the street had climbed inside and claimed his soul.

  A text from June buzzed his mobile. Pulled him out of the past, the bitter taste of regret staining his mouth. He swung away from the window to answer it. Whether he deserved Alex, whether he was husband of the year material, was irrelevant. What mattered was repairing this situation before it spiraled out of control.

  * * *

  He’d been gone only hours and already she missed him.

  Lifting her gaze from the text blurring in front of her, Alex acknowledged that disconcerting thought. She’d started a business plan for Nina as they�
�d begun to define their partnership, the need to plan her future a necessary distraction from her present, a grounding force she desperately needed given her current reality that involved long, hot, heady nights with Aristos and the very real fact that she was half in love with him. Possibly more.

  Her risk-taking had taken her down a road she knew it wasn’t wise to go, but it really wasn’t the sort of road you just turned back from. Not when you thought the man in question might finally be letting his barriers down, slowly but surely. When you saw a potential there that was too bright and seductive to ignore.

  With every day that passed, her decision to leave Stygos seemed more right. She still got homesick, still missed so much about its peaceful allure, but she realized now how much living she had to do. How her aversion to risk-taking had limited her experiences. And Aristos was a big part of that.

  It was disconcerting how much she wanted to be the one to do the same for him. To be the one to open his world up—to show him what he was missing by cutting himself off from his emotions. To make him believe some people could be trusted, that she could be trusted.

  Dangerous thinking indeed, but not enough to prevent her from putting on her shoes and making her way over to his office with the excuse that she needed a break. Peeking inside, she found him on the phone. He beckoned to her with a crooked finger. She walked in, perched herself on the windowsill and waited for him to finish barking out instructions on how to enter the airspace at Larikos.

  “Who’s coming?” she asked when he hung up.

  “A jeweler.”

  “A jeweler?” She frowned. “Why?”

  Aristos sat back in his chair and patted the corner of his desk. She eyed the open door. His mouth curled. “As appealing as that idea is,” he drawled, “we have a situation we need to deal with.”

  It was then that she noticed the edge to him. The ruffled hair, the tight set of his mouth, the rapid-fire intensity to him.

  She slid onto the edge of the desk, a feeling of unease whispering across her skin. “What is it?”

  “The night we were on the yacht, someone took a photo of us.”

  She froze, graphic images of what they’d done that night filling her head. “You said no one could get anywhere near the island.”

  “They can’t. A staff member must have taken it.”

  A staff member? Her stomach sank, a sick feeling engulfing her. “What kind of a photo?”

  “The incriminating kind.” He sat forward and clicked a button. Her brain went into lockdown. The photo on his computer screen had been taken with a long-range lens, her in Aristos’s arms, legs wrapped around him, stark naked except for her bikini bottoms, head tossed back as she looked up at him. Thee mou. Her mouth went dry. The angle of the photo had been artfully done so nothing indecent was showing, but it was the look on her face that sent heat rushing to her cheeks. She looked...love struck.

  “Where?” she whispered. “Where did you get this?”

  “A European gossip site. But according to my PR person the rights have been sold to a handful of other daily newspapers.”

  “Can you stop it?”

  “We’re trying, but injunctions take time.”

  “What are we going to do?” Her voice had risen now. “I am naked in that photo, Aristos. I am a princess. You need to do something.”

  “I am doing something.” His dangerously low tone warned her to pull it back a notch. “I’ve done about fifteen things in the last two hours.”

  She pressed her knuckles to her cheek. “I’m sorry. This is a shock.”

  “Nikandros,” he said evenly, “called first thing this morning.”

  The blood drained from her face. “What did he say?”

  “That I had sixty seconds to give him a reason not to kill me.”

  Theos. She stared at him. “And how did you...explain it?”

  He calmly took a sip of his coffee. “The funny thing about a photo like that. It explains itself... So I didn’t so much explain it as offer a solution.”

  She didn’t like the hard glint in his eyes. “Which was?”

  “We marry.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You— I— No. That’s not a solution.”

  “By all means,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “come up with an alternative. I’m all ears.”

  She swallowed hard. “We simply explain to Nik things got a little...out of hand and I’m sure he will understand.”

  “And do we tell that to the rest of the world, too? A short little concise press release? After lusting after each other for weeks, Aristos and Alex took matters into their own hands and—”

  “Aristos.”

  “You need a better plan than that, angel. Akathinia is still under the threat of war. It does not look good.”

  She shook her head. “Nik will calm down. It will be fine.”

  “Did I mention he threatened to kill me?”

  She bit her lip. “He didn’t mean that. He was angry.”

  “Yes, Princess, very angry, which is why we are going to defuse the situation. Now. This afternoon, in fact.”

  “I am not marrying you. This is insanity.”

  “Insane but unavoidable.”

  She stared at his determined expression. Diavole, but he was serious! The phone call she had walked in on flashed through her head. “Why is the jeweler coming?”

  “So you can pick the largest, most outrageously beautiful engagement ring you want.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, rising. “We are not getting engaged.”

  He snared an arm around her waist and pulled her down onto his lap. “Nothing is going to defuse this situation but an engagement. Nothing is going to defuse Nik but an engagement. So wrap your head around it.”

  She stared at him, attempting to process the unreality unfolding around her. And suddenly, she understood what he wasn’t saying. He did business with Nik. Nik had granted him his casino license. Nik could also take it away.

  “Let me talk to him,” she said. “I’m sure he will see reason.”

  “Alex,” he said softly. “It’s not just Nik. It’s your reputation you have to consider now. You are not a normal citizen anymore. You are a princess. The rules aren’t the same. You know it and I know it. We’re both to blame for this. We need to own the consequences.”

  There it was—those consequences he’d been talking about. And, oh, how right he’d been.

  “You don’t want to get married. You swore you’d never do it.” She poked a finger against his chest. “You’ll be miserable. Why would I want to commit myself to that?”

  “I’ve had a couple more hours to wrap my head around this than you have,” he said grimly. “I’m about ten steps ahead. Besides,” he said, shifting her so her bottom fit more securely within the span of his hips, “there could be worse things than having you in my bed...every night.”

  Her chest tightened. “This is not funny.”

  “Believe me, I’m feeling a lot of things right now, Princess, but humor isn’t one of them.”

  She took a deep breath. “Aristos—this is crazy. We can’t do this. You don’t want this.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I want.” He tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “We are good together. We knew we had a problem—now we have a solution.”

  She shook her head. “You’re mad. It’s not enough for marriage.”

  “Why not? I find myself...bored with my current lifestyle. It can’t go on forever. We could do good things together.”

  Her back stiffened. “So you want me to marry you to amuse you?”

  “Yes,” he said silkily, “that and many more things.”

  “No.” She scrambled off his lap. “There has to be another way. I need to think.”

  Unfortunately, thinking didn’t provide solutions. Particularly after Nik’s phone call that afternoon in which he was short and to the point. The family didn’t need any more scandals; an engagement would be ideal. They would take an engagement photo after
she’d chosen her ring today and send it out along with a press release tomorrow morning announcing her and Aristos’s engagement. The strategy was to replace the scandalous coverage with the happy news of a pending royal match.

  Alex didn’t even think about refusing. She was too busy staring at the wall wondering how she’d gotten herself into this situation. Cringing at the disappointment that had stained her brother’s tone. Another Dimitriou royal scandal—a PR nightmare for the palace.

  Her stomach twisted, tying itself into a tight knot. How could she possibly have been so careless? So unthinking of her position when her mother’s lesson should have served as the biggest one of them all?

  Three hours later, she found herself trying on rings from one of London’s most exclusive jewelers. Numbly she chose a square-cut sapphire surrounded by diamonds, requested by her soon-to-be fiancé because it reminded him of her spectacular eyes.

  Aristos put it on her finger, the cold slide of metal against her overheated skin sending a shiver down her spine. It fit perfectly because, of course, Aristos always got the details right. Which meant it stayed there. Which meant they were engaged.

  If it wasn’t the romantic proposal she’d always dreamed of, with her suitor down on one knee, she was too dazed to much acknowledge it.

  When the photographer left, she and Aristos sat down to a late dinner and a bottle of champagne that tasted flat to her frozen senses. She told herself this wasn’t set in stone, that once the furor died down, an engagement could always be broken. Couldn’t it? But she knew in her heart that part of her decision had stemmed from her feelings for Aristos. Because she was in love with him, and maybe they could make this work.

  “What?” Aristos arched a brow at her when she was unusually silent during the meal.

  “Nothing. Did you get Dimitri tied down?”

  “Yes. He and Galina are going to come stay this weekend with us.”

  “This weekend?”

  “Yes.”

  It was the last thing she needed, to host the Russians when she was grappling with all of this, but she forced a smile to her lips. “That’s a good sign, then.”