This was what she should have done at the beginning. She had to make amends now—to all the people she’d involved. ‘And please don’t blame Tony for losing track of me. It wasn’t his fault.’
‘Your protection officer has no idea where you’ve gone. He’s clearly incompetent. He has been dismissed.’
‘But it’s not his fault.’ Eleni’s voice rose. Tony had been with Eleni for years. He had a wife and two children. He needed the work. ‘I told him—’
‘Lies,’ Giorgos snapped. ‘But it is his fault that he lost track of you. His employment is not your concern.’
‘But—’
‘You should have thought through the consequences of your actions, Eleni. There are ramifications for all the people of Palisades. And Santa Chiara.’
Twin tears slid out from her closed eyes. She would make it up to Tony somehow. Another atonement to be made.
‘How do I stop a scandal here, Eleni?’ Giorgos asked.
She cringed. Was that what mattered most—the reputation of the royal family? But she knew that was unfair to Giorgos. He was trying to protect her. It was what he’d always done. Too much.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said dully. ‘I take full responsibility. I will be in touch when I can.’
She ended the call before her brother could berate her any more. She turned and saw Damon casually leaning against the back of the sofa as if he were watching a mildly entertaining movie.
‘Did you have to listen in?’ Angered, she wiped the tears away. ‘You know they’ll have traced the call.’
‘And they’ll find it leads to some isolated shack in Estonia.’ He shrugged. ‘I work in the tech industry, Eleni. They won’t find us in the next few days, I promise you that. We’re hidden and we’re safe.’
‘What, this is some superhero space boat that can engage stealth mode?’ She shook her head. ‘They’ll be checking the coastline.’
‘And we’re already miles away from it and your brother knows you’re not under duress. You’ve shocked him, Eleni. I’m sure he’ll wait to hear from you. The last thing he’ll want now is the publicity from mounting a full-scale search and rescue operation.’
She’d shocked Giorgos. Once he’d got past that, the disappointment would zoom in. She was glad she wasn’t there to see it.
‘There’s one option we haven’t talked about,’ Damon said expressionlessly. ‘It is early enough in the pregnancy for termination to be—’
‘No,’ she interrupted him vehemently.
She had such privilege. She had money. This child could be well cared for.
And it was hers.
That was the thing. For the first time in her life she had something that was truly, utterly her own. Her responsibility. Her concern. Hers to love and protect. No one was taking it away from her. There was a way out of this if she was strong enough to stand up to her brother’s—and her nation’s—disappointment. And she was determined to be.
‘I’m not marrying Prince Xander,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m not marrying you. I’m not marrying anyone. But I am having this baby.’ She pulled herself together—finally feeling strong. ‘I have the means and the wherewithal to provide for my baby on my own. And that is what I will do.’
‘Do you?’ Damon looked sceptical. ‘What if Giorgos cuts you off completely? How will you fend for yourself then?’
‘He wouldn’t do that.’ Her brother would be beyond disappointed, but he wouldn’t abandon her. She should have trusted him more, sooner.
‘Even so, what price will you pay for one moment of recklessness?’ Damon badgered. ‘The rest of your life in disgrace.’
‘I could step away from the spotlight and live in one of the remote villages.’ She would ask for nothing from the public purse.
It was the personal price that pained her. She’d let her brother down in both public and private senses. But she would not let this baby down. She’d made her first stand, and now she had to follow through and not let Damon block her way either.
‘So that’s your escape neatly done,’ he noted softly. ‘But what price will my child pay if you do that?’
She flushed, unsettled by his cool sarcasm. He made it sound as if she was thinking only of herself, not her baby. But she wasn’t. She’d understood what he’d said about a child growing up with all that expectation and wasn’t this a way of removing that?
But he clearly considered that she’d been stifled and cloistered and, yes, spoilt. He thought her behaviour with him at the ball a direct consequence of that. Maybe he was right. That flush deepened. She loathed this man.
‘I’m not marrying you,’ she repeated. She couldn’t.
* * *
The absolute last thing Damon Gale wanted to do was marry—her or anyone—but damn if her rejection didn’t just irritate the hell out of him. What, was his billionaire bank balance not good enough for her spoilt royal self?
He’d sworn never to engage in even a ‘serious’ relationship. But the worst of all possible options was a ‘politically expedient’ wedding. Yet now he was insulted because, while she’d agreed to a political marriage once already, she was adamantly refusing his offer. Why? Because he wasn’t a prince?
‘I’ll never let you use my baby for your political machinations.’ He glared at her.
All she did was stick her chin in the air and glare back.
His body burned and he paced away from her. That damned sexual ache refused to ease. Heaven only knew why he wanted this woman. But it had been like this since the moment he’d first seen her at that ball. To his immense satisfaction, he’d had her—there and then. He’d immediately wanted more, but then she’d fled.
Now he’d finally found her again, yet within moments of getting her alone on his boat he’d totally lost control and done exactly what he’d promised himself he wouldn’t. He’d touched her. Instead of verbally tearing her to shreds, he’d pressed his mouth to her until she’d warmed like wax in his hands. Pliable and willing and ultimately so wanton and gorgeous. It had taken every speck of self-control to not claim her completely there on the sofa.
He knew he could use this mutual lust to get the acquiescence to his proposal he needed, but he wanted more than her gasping surrender. He wanted her to accept that he was right. Poor little princess was going to have to marry a mere man. A man she wanted in spite of herself, apparently.
‘What were you thinking at that ball?’ He couldn’t understand why she’d taken such a massive risk. Was it just lust for her too or had there been more to it? Had she been trying to sabotage that engagement? But to throw away her virginity?
‘Clearly I wasn’t. What were you thinking?’
He leaned back against the wall. He’d been thinking how beautiful she was. How something vulnerable in her had pulled him to her.
‘I tried to find you because I realised the condom had torn, but you’d vanished from the ball like a—’ He broke off. ‘I was on a flight the next day. I came back several times, but couldn’t find any information about you. I asked—’
‘You asked?’
‘Everyone I knew. No one had seen you there. You never went back into the ballroom.’ He shook his head and asked again. ‘Why did you do it?’
Her shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug.
He hesitated but in the end was unable to stop the words coming out. ‘Did you even think of trying to get in touch with me?’
Her beautiful face paled. ‘I didn’t know your name. I wasn’t about to run a search on all the guys who’d been at that ball. I couldn’t risk anyone suspecting me. How could I tell anyone?’
‘How hard would it have been to go through that guest list?’ he asked irritably. ‘To identify men between a certain age? To look at security footage? You could easily have found out who I was, Eleni. You just didn’t want to.’ And that annoyed him so much more than it should.
‘If I’d tried to do that, people would have asked why.’
‘And you didn’t want them to do t
hat, because you’d already made a promise to another man.’ He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. ‘I’ve seen those “official” photos. They weren’t taken the day after you slept with me. They were taken before, weren’t they?’
She couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘Yes.’
Damon’s blood pressure roared. ‘Yet you never slept with him.’
‘You’re going there again?’
‘But you kissed him?’ He pressed on, relentless in his need to make his point.
‘You can watch it on the news footage.’
He had already. Chaste, passionless kisses. She’d looked nothing like the siren who had writhed in his arms and pulled him closer, begging him with her body. The Princess that Damon had kissed was hot and wanton.
‘The only time you kiss him is when there are cameras rolling?’ He moved forward, unable to resist going nearer to her. ‘You don’t kiss him the way you kiss me.’
She flung her head up at that. ‘Are you jealous?’
So jealous his guts burned right now. ‘He doesn’t want you,’ he said bluntly.
Something raw flashed across her face. ‘What makes you say that?’
He stopped his progress across the room and shoved his fists into his trouser pockets. ‘If he wanted you the way he ought to, then he’d have moved heaven and earth to find you already. But he hasn’t found you. He hasn’t fought at all.’
That engagement was a political farce, so he had no reason to feel bad about cutting in and claiming what was already his. They’d sacrifice a year of their lives in sticking it out in a sham of a marriage until the baby was born. That was the only solution. Lust faded and there sure as hell was no such thing as for ever. Princess Eleni here was just going to get over her snobbishness and accept her marriage, and her divorce. And that he was no prince of a man.
* * *
Eleni inwardly flinched at that kicker. Because there it was—the cold, unvarnished truth.
Her fiancé didn’t want her. Her brother found her an irritant. She had no worthwhile job. And now that her ‘purity’ was sullied, she’d no longer be desired as a prince’s wife anyway. ‘I guess my value’s plummeted now I’m no longer a virgin,’ she quipped sarcastically.
‘Your value?’ Damon’s eyes blazed. ‘He shouldn’t give a damn about your virginity.’
His anger surprised her. ‘In the way you don’t?’
A different expression cut across his face. ‘Oh, I care about that,’ he argued in a slow, lethal whisper.
‘It was none of your business,’ she said haughtily.
‘You don’t think?’ He laughed bitterly. ‘That’s where you’re so wrong. And who you sleep with is now my business too.’
‘I’m. Not. Marrying. You.’ She utterly refused.
‘It won’t be for ever, Eleni,’ he assured her dispassionately. ‘We can divorce easily enough in time, without destroying the union of two entire nations,’ he added pointedly. ‘I will retain custody of our child. You will go back to being a princess.’
‘Pardon?’ The air was sucked from her lungs.
‘I’ll raise our child alone, without the pressure of public life.’
‘What?’ She stared at him, horrified to read the utterly cool seriousness on his face. ‘But I’m this child’s mother. A child needs her mother.’ If anyone knew that, she did.
There was a thick silence.
His expression shuttered. ‘A child needs parents who want her. Who love her. And if they’re together, they need to be in love with each other.’ His words dropped like heavy stones into a still pond. ‘While we want each other, we don’t—and won’t—love each other. This isn’t some fairy-tale romance, Eleni. This is real. And we have a real problem to deal with. As adults.’
Not a fairy tale.
She knew theirs was a connection forged by nothing but lust and hormones. But now? What he’d just said came as a greater shock than any the day had brought so far.
He wanted to take her baby from her.
‘You’ve had a long day. You must need something to eat.’ He changed the subject easily, as if he hadn’t just shaken her whole foundation.
‘I couldn’t...’ She was too shocked to contemplate something so banal as food.
‘Suit yourself.’ He shrugged carelessly. ‘You obviously need sleep to get your head together. But starting tomorrow we’ll look at ensuring your diet is appropriate.’
Appropriate? What, he thought he was going to dictate every aspect of her life now?
‘How lovely of you to care,’ she said acidly.
‘I care about my child.’ He turned his back on her. ‘I’ll show you to your quarters.’
Silently she followed him along the gleaming corridor of the large yacht that was still steaming full-speed away from Palisades.
He stopped almost at the end. ‘You’re in here,’ he said briefly, gesturing through the doorway. ‘I’m in the cabin next door, if you decide you do need something.’
She didn’t move into the room immediately; she was too busy trying to read him. Beyond the too-handsome features, there was intense determination.
A fatalistic feeling sank into her bones. There was no escaping, no getting away from what he wanted. And he didn’t actually want her—only her baby.
But earlier she’d felt his hardness, his heat, she’d heard his breathlessness as he’d kissed her into ecstasy. Surely he’d wanted her? But he hadn’t taken her. And he could have, they both knew that.
All of which merely proved that it had been just sex for him, while she’d thought it had been somehow special...
Strain tightened his features. ‘I’m not going to kiss you goodnight,’ he muttered. ‘I’m too tired to be able to stop it from escalating.’
As if she’d been waiting for him to kiss her? Outraged, she snarled. ‘You don’t think I could stop it?’
‘Maybe you could,’ he said doubtfully. ‘But I’m not willing to take the risk.’
She stepped into the cabin and slammed the door right in his face.
Not a fairy tale.
No. This was nothing less than a nightmare. She glanced angrily at the large, smooth bed. As if she were ever going to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘ELENI.’
The whisper slipped over her skin like a warm, gentle breeze. Smiling, she snuggled deeper into the cosy cocoon.
‘Eleni.’
She snapped her eyes open. Damon was leaning over her, his face only a breath from hers.
‘Oh...hey... What are you doing in here?’ she asked softly.
‘Making sure you’re okay,’ he answered, equally softly.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ She’d been buried deep in the best sleep she’d had in weeks.
His smile appeared—the magnetic one that had melted all her defences that night at the ball. The one she hadn’t seen since. ‘Well, I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up.’
Why would he think she wouldn’t? Had he been trying to rouse her for hours already? His smile diverted her sleepy thoughts onto a different track—had he been about to try waking her with a kiss?
Blood quickening, she clutched the sheet to her chest and tried to sit up.
‘Easy.’ He held her down with a hand on her shoulder. ‘Not so fast.’ He sat on the edge of her bed and pointed to the bedside table. ‘I brought food and water. You must be hungry now.’
The dry crackers on the plate brought her fully awake with a sharp bump. This was no fairy tale. Damon had no thought of romance, only practicality—preventing her morning sickness from surfacing.
‘Thank you.’ She pulled herself together, determined to be polite and battle him with calm rationality. No more emotional outbursts that only he drew from her. All she needed now was for him to leave.
But clearly he didn’t hear her unspoken plea, because he watched her expectantly. With an expressive sigh she lifted the glass of water.
‘You normally sleep this late?’ Damon asked.<
br />
‘What time is it?’
‘Almost eleven.’
She nearly spat out the mouthful of water she’d just sipped.
That amused grin flashed across his face again. ‘I take it you don’t usually sleep in.’
Of course not. Never in all her life.
‘Has anyone been in contact?’ she asked, trying to distract herself from how infuriatingly gorgeous he looked in that old tee and jeans combo.
‘You’re asking if they’ve tracked you down?’ He shook his head. ‘Radio silence.’
She didn’t quite know how to feel about that. ‘Perhaps they’re planning a rescue raid and are about to break in and arrest you,’ she muttered acidly. ‘Any second now.’
‘You came willingly.’ That evil amusement lit his eyes. ‘More than once.’
Uncontrollable heat washed through her, threatening an emotional outburst. Eleni levered up onto her elbow and glanced about for her robe. It wasn’t there. Of course. None of her wardrobe was. The clothes she’d worn yesterday were on the floor where she’d left them. She blushed, imagining the reprimand.
Lazy, spoilt princess.
Awareness prickled. She snuck a look at him from beneath her lashes.
‘Got a problem, Princess?’ The slightest of jeers, low and a little rough and enough to fling her over the edge.
‘Yes,’ she said provocatively. ‘I don’t have anything fresh to wear.’
His eyes widened and for the briefest of seconds his raw reaction to her was exposed. He wanted her still. She was too thrilled by the realisation to stop.
‘Hadn’t thought of that in all your evil planning, had you?’ she purred.
But his expression blanked. ‘Maybe I felt clothes weren’t going to be necessary.’
‘Oh, please.’
But he’d turned that desire back on her, teasing her when she’d wanted to test him.
‘You love the idea.’ He leaned closer, his whispered words having that warm, magnetic effect on her most private parts. ‘And as we’re going to be married, there’s no need to be shy.’
Her reaction to his proximity was appalling but all she wanted now was to know he was as shattered as she.
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