by Dani Collins
She tried to leave it there, but he lifted a skeptical brow.
“It’s true. Our father was French, Mama is Spanish. We grew up speaking both. I only told one lie.”
“That you were on birth control.”
“That I was Angelique. You asked if I was on the pill or something. I said yes because that was true. At least, I thought it was.” She bit the corner of her lip.
“Your or something failed?”
She flinched, making him realize his voice carried a thickness close to contempt or even hatred.
He grappled to hang onto his temper. “You assured me pregnancy wasn’t possible. How have we arrived at having this conversation?”
Dumb question. They both knew how babies were made. They’d made love. She had come apart in his arms again and again. He’d been greedy as a starved beast certain he would die from the pleasure of being inside her when she shattered around him like that. Then, when he couldn’t hold back any longer, he had joyously thrown himself into the small death of simultaneous orgasm.
In that post-climactic moment, when her breaths had still been jagged and his heart had pounded against her sweating breasts, he had felt...restored. Not just a release of tension but as though deeper needs had been met. Withdrawing had provoked a painful, abandoned sensation he had impatiently tried to forget.
“Is that my child?”
She jolted at the grate in his tone. “You said you wouldn’t believe me no matter what I said.”
“You’ll submit to a blood test, then?”
Her eyes narrowed in mutiny.
“You can submit nicely or I can pin you down while my doctor takes it.” He was clearly a sadist because something in him longed for her to push him into restraining her.
“Touch me and I’ll break your nose.” She started to lift a threatening fist and flinched, quickly cradling her right hand—which is what she’d been doing since her hands had gone into her lap, he realized.
He caught her wrist and held on when she tried to pull away. The backs of her fingers were an angry red, her knuckles puffy.
His heart lurched.
“Did you break any bones? Can you move your fingers? That’s what this is for.” He picked up the ice pack, incensed all over again that she had waded into the fight.
“I know how to throw a punch.” She took the ice and flexed her fingers against it, showing only a wince of discomfort so he presumed she hadn’t fractured anything.
“What were you thinking? It’s a damned good thing his reflexes didn’t take over. You would have been on the ground.”
“My bodyguard was being assaulted.”
“No, my bodyguard was moving into position to cover me. She attacked him. Then you did. Do you understand what bodyguards are paid to do? There is no reason you should have involved yourself.”
Her brows flicked in dismissal of his concern.
Was this really the mother of his heir? If he’d gone to a brothel and bought a man, he couldn’t have picked someone less suitable.
“A simple blood test could prove I’m not the father. We could have it done before we cross the border.” He pointed at the sign they passed that stated they were less than a mile away.
“I’m afraid of needles.”
“Be afraid of me, bella.”
Her flat smile died. Something vulnerable flashed in her expression.
His conscience pinched.
“Is that the problem?” His voice still sounded gruff and aggressive. His animosity hadn’t evaporated just because he was finally getting answers. He didn’t want to soften toward her at all. She was far too dangerous. But fear was an explanation he could understand.
“Have you been afraid of my reaction? I’m not happy.” That was a gross understatement. A well-practiced aloof demeanor had always served him well, but it was impossible to find in the face of this life-altering situation. Still, he tried to reassure her. “Nothing bad will happen if the baby is mine. I’ll recognize him or her as our future monarch. We will marry so it’s legitimate. That’s all. No stake burnings or feeding to dragons. Were you afraid I’d pressure you to terminate? Is that why you’ve kept it from me?”
Silence. She turned her attention out the side window again, so he couldn’t read her expression.
“Do you not know who the father is? How many contenders are there?”
Her glare swung like a blade to slice through him.
“I don’t care how many men you’ve slept with.” Much. He was disturbed to realize he did, actually. It wasn’t because of the paternity question, either. The passion between them had been unprecedented. He didn’t like to think she reacted that way to every man she slept with. It would have made all of this even more intolerable.
“How pregnant are you? Let’s see if that eliminates me, shall we?”
“Pregnant enough to need a pit stop. Can we stop here?”
“No.” The border guard waved them through with only a very minor slowing of their speed, recognizing the plates. “We’ll be at my chalet shortly.”
The car sped along the pass that formed part of the border between Austria and Elazar. As they rounded a bend, the valley opened, allowing a glimpse of Lirona, the capital, once a modest fiefdom, now a thriving city of culture, intellect and wealth. It sat like a heart against the shore of Lac Lirona, the arms of the mountains stretching out to embrace the blue water he loved with everything in him.
Over the centuries, his ancestors had fought to maintain their governance over this small kingdom many times. His great-grandmother had taken up with one of Hitler’s top advisors to keep the Nazi invasion at occupation rather than annihilation.
That is where the bar is set when it comes to duty, his grandmother had extolled as a history lesson, explaining why Xavier’s father was unfit to rule. We are custodians. We do what we must. To put yourself before Elazar is treason.
This, because his father had followed his libido into a high-profile affair with a topless waitress from Amsterdam then married the woman’s aunt, owner of a drug café. His divorce from Xavier’s mother had already been ugly and, even worse in his grandmother’s eyes, common.
His grandmother was a hard woman—her father, King Ugo, hadn’t forgiven his wife and Queen Julia had grown up in a harsh climate of blame and sacrifice. If her spare had survived, things might have been different. Instead, she had forced her only son to renounce the throne, disowning him and keeping her grandson as Elazar’s future.
It was all on Xavier to perpetuate the monarchy into the next generation. He had planned to do so through an elegant association with Patrizia, a respected princess with a degree in social justice and a pedigree that couldn’t be faulted.
Instead, he had behaved as impulsively as his father, tangling with a fashion designer whose life was stained with one scandal after another.
He was running out of hope that her child was not his. Whether his grandmother could find it in her to forgive him for this transgression didn’t matter.
He would never forgive himself.
CHAPTER FIVE
AS SOMEONE WHO had grown up in obscene wealth, Trella didn’t bat an eye at the chalet that turned out to be a three-story modern fortress with a nod to its rustic ancestors in its gables and tiered verandas.
She was more interested in counting pairs of eyes—one at the gate, two at the door, the physician who followed them into the house, the chauffeur who took the car around to what she presumed was the garage, a butler who greeted them and a woman named Inga who was asked to prepare tea.
“Powder room?” Trella clung by her fingernails to control.
Ghosts—terrible, terrible ghosts—were creeping in at the edges of her consciousness, but something pressured to diamond brightness inside her kept her from becoming hysterical. This time
she would get away.
As each of the Prince’s attempts to draw her out had pulled at her laser-like focus, she had resentfully allowed that she was taking the rough road, not the high one. She could still call in a team to break her out if she wanted, but a furious, too often helpless, part of her demanded she prove she could rescue herself.
Over the last months, she had come close many times to calling him. The problem was, she wasn’t as stupid as many would conclude from her behavior. She knew what would happen and he had confirmed it. He would marry her.
Which meant a profile in the public eye that was even higher than the one she already occupied. One from which she couldn’t retreat at will.
Worse, it meant being honest with him. She would have to reveal exactly how crazy she was. She would have to explain these ghouls tickling across her skin, making her want to scratch herself all over. The nightmare could spring to life with a beat of her heart, the cold sweats and shaking, the profound helplessness...
She hadn’t suffered an attack since well before their night in Paris, but one ticked like a bomb inside her. She could feel it. But no. She wouldn’t succumb, even though fighting it made it worse. She knew that.
With a dry mouth, she locked herself into a bathroom that smelled of potpourri. The small space was pristine, with a porcelain sink in a cherry wood vanity. She glanced from the full bath and shower to the frosted window that, once carefully opened, looked out onto the woods at the back of the house.
No balcony below this window, but it was big enough to allow a woman with a modest six month swelling in her middle to crawl through, and close enough to the nearby balcony she could swing a leg that direction and clamber across.
Not a kidnapping? Damned right it wasn’t.
* * *
“I’m sure she’ll come around,” Xavier told Gunter. He hadn’t lied when he had threatened to hold her down, but he didn’t want to. It wasn’t his habit to manhandle any woman, pregnant or otherwise. “Did she look six months to you?”
Gunter shook his head. “It’s difficult to say. Every woman carries differently. The fact she was able to hide it so long leads me to wonder, but...”
They needed a blood test.
“And this?” Xavier waved to where she had disappeared to use the toilet.
“Extremely common. Although...” He glanced at his watch.
That’s what Xavier had thought. He hadn’t taken his eyes from the closed door and she was still in there. He didn’t want to be indelicate, but he moved to knock.
Silence.
Fainted? His heart swerved.
“Trella.” He tried the handle, found it locked and rattled it. “She wouldn’t have—” The window dropped about thirty-two feet to the ground. That’s why he hadn’t bothered assigning someone to watch that side of the chalet.
“I’ll send someone to check.” Gunter hurried away, moving through the kitchen as Inga appeared with keys and a concerned expression.
Xavier gave the key a hard twist and walked into an empty powder room. A fresh breeze came through the open window. He glanced out to see Gunter below, holding Trella’s clutch, a grim expression on his face as he tracked the distance to the nearest balcony.
At least she wasn’t lying in the dirt below. Tramping through the alps in trendy heels wasn’t much better. Damn it, this woman was turning into a nightmare.
“Alert security,” he told Inga, and he strode outside to join the search.
* * *
Crammed beneath the sink was a little too much like the horrid cellar she’d been locked in during her first kidnapping. The shelf had easily moved to the bottom of the vanity, making room for her to curl herself on top of it, but she’d had to cover herself with the towels and was overheating.
Panicking.
No. One minute at a time. Uno naranjo, dos naranjos... She counted the seconds, counted the oranges, a scent she always associated with family since they had a grove of them at Sus Brazos. She would get through this. It was another test of her ability to move on from her past.
She did her breathing exercises while she listened for footsteps. When she was confident everyone had moved outside, she carefully opened the cupboard door and groped her way out of the small space, thankful for her yoga practice.
Carrying her shoes, she paused at the door. There were security cameras. She had noted one in the foyer as they’d entered. Someone would be watching the screens. She had to move fast, but—thank you, Killian—she had what amounted to an SOS flare in her phone. It was supposed to be for signaling help, but she hoped it could have another use.
She took the device from her bra, turned on the blinding white light, and walked into the hall, aiming the beam directly at the first camera she came to. It sat like a brilliant spotlight on the dark orb. She prayed it blinded the lens as she hurried through the house to the garage.
There was no one in the kitchen and keys hung neatly on the hook beside the door. She tucked her phone back into her bra and took all the keys, deducing from a keychain which one belonged to the top-down cobalt blue Audi.
Outside the garage doors, she heard footsteps jogging across gravel.
Her entire body trembled, but she fought to keep a focused mind. She wasn’t helpless. She would get away.
She set all the keys on the passenger seat and climbed behind the wheel of the Audi, then hit the button on the visor to open the garage door, ready to start the car as soon as the door climbed high enough.
There was a click, the hum of a motor and a rattle of effort, but the door didn’t budge. She jabbed her finger onto the button again, glancing at the jumble of keys. Should she take a different car?
The door to the interior of the chalet opened and Xavier came into the shadowed garage.
Nooooo! She jabbed again and again at the stupid button, then started the car with a roar of its high-performance engine.
“The house is locked down. Don’t try to drive through the door. It’s reinforced. You’ll hurt yourself. And my car.” He moved past the other three vehicles with smooth steps, pausing beside her to lean in and turn off the engine, pocketing the key. “But that was a very good try. I’m impressed.”
She gripped the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, concentrating on not revealing the tears gathering hotly behind her eyes.
“Come back into the house.”
“No.”
“We’ll talk here then.” He moved to flick a switch on the wall. A fan came to life with a low drone, quickly sucking away the lingering exhaust.
He came back to set an elbow on the top of the windscreen. She felt his eyes studying her, but kept her nose pointed forward.
“I’m trying to be patient, bella, I really am, but I don’t understand why you’re being so combative. This doesn’t have to be a fight.”
“I could drive this, you know. Probably better than you.”
“Not without keys.”
“You’d be surprised.” She worked her hands on the steering wheel’s soft leather, more than a little enamored with cars, thanks to Ramon. “I can hotwire and drive anything. I’ve been up to two hundred and twenty on a closed circuit in my brother’s Pur Sang. The Gs nearly crack my ribs when I brake from that speed, but it’s quite a rush. Have you ever driven this the way it was designed to drive?”
“No.” His tone was one of forced patience.
“Ramon got into racing after taking evasive driving lessons. We all had to take them.” Like Ramon, she had tried to outrun herself on the track more than once, but it was never a permanent solution. At some point, she had to park the car, take off the helmet and face reality. “Because of my kidnapping.”
She sensed him grow very still, indicating she had his full attention.
Had he thought that wouldn’t come up? She hated that it d
efined her, but it did. She worked around it as often as she could, but when she did have to face it, she did it head-on with her foot to the floor, even though it also had the power to crack her ribs and shatter everything inside her.
As the silence lengthened, she suspected he was reviewing what he had said in Paris—when he had thought he was talking about her but had been speaking to her.
“You think you were worried when I was stolen.” Her voice trembled against her will. She soothed herself by running light fingers across the bumps in the bottom of the steering wheel, playing over them like keys on a piano, but her hands shook.
His voice was grave. “If I was triggering you today, you should have said.”
“Really?” A smile touched lips that felt so dry they might split. Her body vibrated with fight-or-flight. She was going to crash hard after this, but she couldn’t think about that yet. “Because I did tell you to take me back and you ignored me. Which is exactly what happened the first time.”
Her knuckles whitened where she grasped the wheel again, trying to keep a grip on herself. It was time for the head-on collision.
“I said stop, and no, and please so many times I lost count. I said it when they threw me in their van and I could see Ramon running after us. I said it when one of them pulled me onto his lap and shoved his hand under my skirt and hurt me. I said it when he slapped me because I was fighting him. I said it when he locked me in a cold, dark cellar and I said it a lot when he let me out three days later, only to put me on a filthy stinking mattress and call me lucky. Lucky. Because he was going to show me what men liked.”
She knew it was an assault to throw that at him. It was one of the reasons she rarely spoke about it, but she wanted to hurt him. She wanted to scar him.
“I should check with my therapist, see if my experience of being assaulted might create a profound desire to control my own destiny. Gosh, what an enlightening moment of self-discovery you’ve provided, Xavier. Yes, I’m quite sure that’s why I’m combative.”
* * *
He couldn’t move, wasn’t even sure he was breathing, as he tried to un-hear what she’d said. Who would do such a thing? To a child?
