Claiming his one-night heir

He may have craved her for a decade, but one exquisite night with Mia Rodriguez is all Nikandros Drakos, the Daredevil Prince of Drakon, will allow himself. It’s time to face his home country and the duty he’s denied for so long.

But when their sizzling liaison leads to an unexpected pregnancy, Nik won’t rest until his child is part of the Drakon legacy. Their affair was supposed to burn up along with their chemistry but now, to claim his heir, Nik must make unruly Mia both his bride—and his princess!

“My child will not be born a bastard.”

The blood drained from Mia’s face, leaving the honey-gold of her skin washed out. “What?”

“That is not acceptable. This child will be born in wedlock and will inherit everything that is rightfully his or hers.”

“You’ve lost your mind.”

The more her panic rose, as she stood straight and stiff like a glass pane about to break, the more Nikandros’s own resolve solidified. The restlessness that had clawed at him all these months—Was this the answer?

He’d realized the daredevil lifestyle had begun to lose its glitter.

Was it time for a new direction in his life?

An attraction that defied all its usual conventions and a child on the way—was it enough to make a marriage?

It had to be. For he could never walk away from his own child. And this was not an impulse. Or a challenge. This was the only rational way forward. For both of them.

“No, I’ve never actually been this lucid before. We will marry as soon as possible.”

The Drakon Royals

Royalty has never looked this scandalous!

To the outside world, the Drakon Royals have the world at their feet. Yet beneath the surface blackhearted Crown Prince Andreas, his daredevil younger brother Prince Nikandros and their illegitimate sister Princess Eleni hide the secrets of their family name…

Until one brush with desire, and then all the Drakons find themselves at the heart of their very own scandal!

Find out what happens in:

Crowned for the Drakon Legacy

April 2017

The Drakon Baby Bargain

June 2017

Look out for Andreas and Ariana’s story

August 2017

You won’t want to miss this outrageously scandalous new trilogy from Tara Pammi!

Crowned for the Drakon Legacy

Tara Pammi

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Tara Pammi can’t remember a moment when she wasn’t lost in a book—especially a romance, which was much more exciting than a mathematics textbook at school. Years later, Tara’s wild imagination and love for the written word revealed what she really wanted to do. Now she pairs alpha males who think they know everything with strong women who knock that theory and them off their feet!

Books by Tara Pammi

Mills & Boon Modern Romance

The Sheikh’s Pregnant Prisoner

The Man to Be Reckoned With

A Deal with Demakis

Brides for Billionaires

Married for the Sheikh’s Duty

The Legendary Conti Brothers

The Surpise Conti Child

The Unwanted Conti Bride

Greek Tycoons Tamed

Claimed for His Duty

Bought for Her Innocence

Society Weddings

The Sicilian’s Surprise Wife

A Dynasty of Sand and Scandal

The Last Prince of Dahaar

The True King of Dahaar

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

For Pippa—Thank you for everything!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

The Drakon Royals

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

A BANKER NAMED Melissa from LA...

A concierge named Chloe in a swanky country club in Manhattan...

A cocktail waitress...

Mia Rodriguez scrolled down her cell phone screen, bile rising in her throat.

The list of her dead husband’s affairs was endless.

The throaty purr of the fiery red exclusive sports car was like a faint echo as it put distance between her and the hungry horde of reporters.

In the blink of an eye, the press conference to announce her retirement from soccer had turned into a circus with Brian’s infidelities taking center stage. A year since his death and he was still haunting her.

Fingers shaking, she pressed the little flickering triangle on a video.

Brian was voracious when it came to sex...

Every time we met, he wore me out...

His wife, Mia, probably only had time for soccer, and it’s obvious Brian turned to me for what he didn’t get from her...

“Turn it off.”

She squeezed her eyes closed. Tears would have been a relief; tears would have meant that she could vent the tumult building up inside. Tears would mean that she felt something, anything for the man she’d married.

The anchor’s voice etched into her mind as the clip played again and again.

Mia Rodriguez was not woman enough for her husband—

“Turn that blasted thing off.”

The shuddering halt of the powerful engine pitched Mia toward the dashboard. She gasped at the tight pull of the seat belt against her chest. Her heart catapulted into her throat. Large, unfamiliar hands grabbed her cell phone and tossed it onto the backseat.

Mia followed the motion like a doll, the flickering screen sliding against the buttery leather.

“Mia...look at me.”

She raised her confused gaze from the fingers on her chin at the commanding tone.

Intense blue eyes collided with hers, driving the breath out of her lungs. A strong, aquiline nose; a wide, languid, laughing mouth; a face that made women over the world swoon and sigh. Such a man and so close...

Not just any man. A prince. Lethal masculinity and pulse-pounding charm.

Nikandros Drakos.

Daredevil Prince of Drakon, second in line to the throne, extreme adventure sport enthusiast and sexy as sin...

Intending to push him away, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. Hair-roughened skin scraped the pads of her fingers, rough and tantalizing, so wholly alien to her own... A jolt of lightning jump-started every neuron, wakened every cell from a deep, slumbering haze.

Her gaze moved to the long fingers gripping the steering wheel. From there, she followed the veins on the back of his hands to his wrists.

A Patek Philippe watch sat on his right wrist, its big dial winking at her in the low light. A sportsman’s watch. She’d been given one too, when their team had won the world championship four years ago. When Nikandros had still owned the team.

Her gaze crawled up until it reached the breadth of his shoulders, the angle of his jaw, the slightly long, dark hair curling at his collar...

“Stop listening to those horrid little interviews.”

She blinked and looked away.

He seemed huge, overwhelmingly male and far too close in the dark confines of the car. He’d been Brian’s close friend. A man she’d come to loathe, for her reckless husband had worshipped him as if he were truly his liege.

A man who had always made his opinion, that Mia wasn’t good enough for Brian, crystal clear. A man who was addicted to the thrill that came from taunting death in the face. A man with no control over his thrill-seeking impulses.

Everything Mia abhorred in a man.

The fiery resentment spurred her out of her choking self-pity.

But nothing could dim her awareness of the man waiting, far too close for comfort, and watching her from those intense blue eyes.

The silence took on a tangible quality, a jeering voice betraying her body’s near-violent reaction to him. God, she’d die if he guessed it. Even this humiliation in front of the entire world, this mockery she was being made of by the media, would still be less painful than seeing the cool, contemptuous dismissal of those ice-blue eyes.

The thought snapped her spine into place.

This awareness was a reaction to shock, a basic human need for touch in the face of adversity.

It had been months, no, three years, since a man had even touched her.

Accepting that piece of truth pumped courage into her veins.

She stared through the windshield, only now taking in their surroundings.

They had left downtown Miami behind and had reached a swanky, luxury neighborhood. The high-rise apartment complex visible from the car made this whole situation even more surreal.

She barely met his gaze, and then turned, faking interest in the surroundings. “Sorry, I should’ve given you directions. It’s going back for you but I’d appreciate it if you’d drop me at my apartment.” Good, she sounded steady, polite.

“I believe your mother and sister live in Houston, yes?”

Startled that he knew that much, she nodded. It seemed a live current pulsed to life every time their eyes met. Mia had never thought antipathy could become so tangible between two people.

“I can have the pilot fuel the jet and drop you off.”

If Brian and she had been minor celebrities with soccer fans, this man was royalty himself. He owned private jets, soccer teams and Extreme Adventure Clubs, and this was when the tabloids didn’t count the wealth he’d inherited as the scion of the powerful royal house of Drakon.

The Prince who had thrown away his legacy...

“That’s not necessary,” she managed to say. Every time he spoke, that deep voice jolted places inside of her Mia had forgotten even existed. “You’ve done far too much already.”

“You speak as if I were one of those jackals back at the press meet, as if I were the enemy too.” A hint of impatience and something else peeked through in his voice. As if something more than years-old animosity existed between them.

He was a prince—privileged in every way possible, handsome, reckless, charming, without an ounce of substance.

She—everything she had in life she’d worked damned hard for. She didn’t know when the last time she’d done anything that had amounted to fun had been. The career she’d worked toward for her whole life was over at twenty-six.

They had nothing in common.

This whole line of conversation was far too personal for her comfort. “I don’t know you enough for you to engender such strong emotion.”

“Mia Rodriguez Morgan does not show emotion, does she? I forget your reputation.”

“You know nothing of me except for the persona created by the media, Your Highness. Your friendship with Brian tells you nothing about me.”

“You’re right. I do not know you.” There was that note of annoyance in his tone again. “Tell me, should I call the pilot then?”

“Thanks for the offer. But I’ll just call a cab.” She reached between their seats and stretched her hand to grab her cell. “If you can wait till the cab gets here, I’d appreciate it. I don’t want to wait on this stretch alone.”

“I would appreciate if you would do me the courtesy of looking at me when I speak to you, Mia. We’ve known each other for a decade.”

“And we’ve disliked each other for the whole damned decade, so please, let’s not pretend otherwise.”

A stillness filled the car at Mia’s outburst.

He was right. She’d met him before she’d even met Brian. She’d been seventeen, playing for the junior team when she’d met the young European Prince of Drakon.

Like everybody else, she’d been infatuated with the charming Prince. Tales had been told of his fight with his royal family, of his escapades with women from all over the world, the reckless car races and high-adrenaline sports he engaged in. She’d always been shy when it came to men, wary and reserved of slick charmers like him.

Didn’t mean she hadn’t mooned over him from a distance. The raw, pulse-pounding energy, the sheer masculinity of him had always made Nikandros irresistible.

Surrounded by A-list actresses and svelte models, he’d barely noticed her. There had been a freedom in being beneath his notice that had left her to indulge in girlish fantasies about him. Once Brian had asked her out—solid, reliable Brian—she’d given the unreachable Prince no more thought.

The reliable, hardworking man she’d fallen in love with had almost instantly disappeared the moment his soccer career had taken off. With each new contract, big endorsements and friendships with jet-setters like Nikandros, the Brian she had married had gone away, never to return.

And yet, Nikandros had always been present, like a specter in the background, always with a new woman on his arm, a new investment venture in hand.

His friendship with Brian had been the stuff of legends but she’d never made it into his exclusive circle. And the more death-defying stunts he’d taken on, the more Brian had wanted to be Nikandros, without success.

Whether genetics or blood or whatever the hell it was that made him, Mia had known no other man could be even remotely like Nikandros Drakos. A fact, when she’d pointed it out, Brian had resented like hell.

Through the years, through it all, it seemed Nikandros’s and her mutual resentment had only thrived.

Slowly, she turned toward him. “I have had a long day, in my defense.”

He considered her warily. Given that she had been thrown under the bus by the media, he looked like the one who’d received the biggest, most humiliating news of his life.

Was Brian’s betrayal truly that much of a shock to him?

“You should not be alone over the next few days. Brian would want—”

“Brian apparently wanted a lot of things I couldn’t provide, Your Highness.”

His usually languid mouth tightened. “Do not refer to me as such.”

“But that is the correct way to address the scion of the ruling family of Drakon, yes? Now I understand the fits your aide was having when I got into your car. The last thing you need is for me to drag you into this media circus.”

“Someone should look after you—”

“I’ve been looking after myself for a long time.”

“Would your family not welcome you because of these...disgusting stories that the media has concocted?”

“Stories?” She tasted the bitterness in her mouth like it was a tangible thing. “If only I could borrow some of that delusion, I’d be able to sleep tonight.”

Mouth flat, he leveled a dark look at her. “You could give Brian...his memory...a moment’s benefit of doubt. You owe him that much. At least now.”

“At least now...” she repeated blankly. Slowly, the meaning of his accusation filtered in. “At least now when I didn’t bother when he was alive, you mean?” Emotion balled up in her tummy and rose, finding a target for her fury. “Explain yourself, Your Highness,” she said, encasing herself in steel.

Something glinted in those ice-blue eyes before that cool, icy reserve slid into place again. “Not the place or the time.”

“Since I don’t foresee a time or place when I want to see you again or have this conversation, please, indulge me with your summation of my marriage. The whole world’s doing it. You may as well put in your verdict too. Especially because your friend’s not here to defend himself.”

He didn’t look like the smooth, charming Prince that had longer relationships with his cars than his girlfriends, a man who was supposed to not give a fig about his family, or the fallout with his aging father, or his duty to his country—a man who only reveled in devilish pursuits of pleasure and sport.

The tight cast of his jawline, the way he gripped the steering wheel—she sensed that same swirling emotion in him that was within her too. “You’re angry and hurt. And this is a conversation that I never meant to have.”

For three years, she’d seen her marriage wither away inch by inch, mere months after tying the knot. For a year, she had battled the guilt of Brian’s death. And today, just when she had begun to pick up the pieces of her life, it was all back in pieces at her feet. “You should have never implied that you did.”

He turned toward her then, and the impact of his attention hit Mia like a punch. White shirt contrasting against the dark tone of his skin, he looked like a pagan god in the dark interior. A virile, pagan god, no less.

“I’m not offering excuses for what Brian did, if this is all true.”

“Blind loyalty to your fellow macho man and blame for the woman—how pedestrian you are for all your blue blood, Your Highness.”

A flare of anger in his blue eyes. “All I know is that he...he was crazy about you. He drove himself nuts wanting to fix your marriage but you froze him out. He was not the one who wanted to walk away from the marriage. Does that count for nothing?”

So he’d known that she’d asked Brian for a divorce. She hated how defensive she sounded yet she couldn’t stop the words. “Words of love, promises of devotion are cheap. Actions speak much louder.

“From the moment his career took off, he changed. From the moment he entered your exalted circle, the moment he chose to emulate you and your death-defying stunts...he was lost to me.”

The confusion she felt reflected in her voice. For three years, in the trenches of training and being uncontracted and poor, Brian had chased her with promises of forever and words of such deep affection, only to disappear the moment success had come calling.

“He chose to alienate me. He chose to get behind the wheel of that blasted car of yours and drive even though he was drunk.”

“Mia, I’m—”

“And you...you’ve never even had a girlfriend. You change models and actresses on your arm as if they were an accessory. How dare you judge me for wanting to give up on a toxic relationship. I’ve had enough of you and your stinking opinions.”

“Mia—”

She grappled for the handle of the door, the fierce knot of emotion rising from her chest to her throat. Damned man and his damned car! She felt the warmth of him caress her skin before she realized he had leaned over her to reach for the handle. Pure lean muscle grazed her heaving chest.

Her eyes closed; the whispers of her breath were like a drumbeat in her ears. Her lower belly felt molten, her entire body thrumming with tension. She willed her body to quiet down, to lose this painful awareness of his breath and breadth, of his compelling masculinity. Frustration to guilt to such deep want that it buckled her knees, she seesawed on emotions.

Finally, the handle clicked and she almost fell out.

There was a part of her that told her she was being irrational, that she couldn’t just walk away from him in the dead of night. That his opinion, far from what she’d claimed, was mattering too much. But she couldn’t grasp control over herself.

Had Brian told Nikandros everything? How Mia had stopped wanting to be near Brian, about how hard she’d found it to be touched by him once she’d learned of his first indiscretion?

Her trembling legs barely straightened when she heard him join her out on the dark road. Broad shoulders covered her. “You’re being ridiculous, Mia.”

The handle of the car pressed into her spine as she tried to melt into the door. Anything to avoid the scent of him from entrenching deep inside her. Anything to stifle the overriding need to fall apart in his arms. “Go away.”

He stretched his arms wide, jet-black hair falling forward onto his forehead. “I should not have spoken of Brian. Not tonight. Not when you’re dealing with—”

She poked him in the chest, vibrating from the force of her fury. “You’ve no right to talk about our relationship, now or ever. And if that was an apology, then it stinks.”

He caught hold of her wrist and crouched closer, his tall, lean body her entire world. Her belly dipped as he clasped her jaw, raising her chin to meet his gaze. “I’ve never apologized to a woman in my life. Except my maman.”

He said maman with a French accent, a lilt to it. Like caramel over dark chocolate. “Then I’m shocked at the number of women willing to put up with you, Your Highness.”

“Get back into the car. You can spend the entire night telling me how much I stink.”

“Why are you being kind to me all of a sudden?”

He blanched, as if he hadn’t realized it himself. The gleam of his blue eyes was mesmerizing in the moonlight. “I’m not an unkind man usually. I stayed back after that debacle at the press conference because I thought you...might need a friend.” He pushed a hand through his hair, a rough exhale leaving his mouth. “But like every other time... I lost track of what I intended.” His languid mouth curved in self-deprecation that made shock swirl through Mia. “Stay at my penthouse until this furor about Brian calms.”

“No.” Under the same roof with this man, and her emotions in a riot... A shiver snaked up her spine. “Thanks for the offer, but I... I need peace and quiet. Not Mr. Judgy looking down his nose at me when he knows zilch about relationships.”

“You know a lot about my relationships. Or the lack of.”

Her skin heated up, and she desperately prayed he couldn’t see it. “You’re not exactly known for your distance with the media. No wonder your poor aide looked like he had the worst job in the world.” She ran a hand over her nape, exhaustion slowly creeping in. “I just want to go home.”

“The press will be swarming there. My apartment has twenty-four-hour security and is a fortress against the media. You will be safe there.”

The thought of the media shoving their cameras in her face, those salacious details of Brian’s affairs—Mia sank back against the cold metal.

Hiding away in the Daredevil Prince’s lair seemed like salvation.

“Admit it, you’re tempted. This is not a situation either of us wants, but it was clear that I couldn’t leave you there.”

“Why were you at the press conference in the first place?”

After almost a year, her agent had convinced Mia that her fans needed closure, that she should announce her retirement from soccer publicly. Any contractual ties she’d had with Nik’s team had been severed months ago when she’d learned that the third injury she’d sustained would damage her knee irrevocably if she continued to play.

At least, her everyday life hadn’t been affected.

With that devastating blow and Brian’s accident, her life had been on a downward spiral. The announcement at the press conference—it was to be a new start. Only she’d been ambushed by the press about Brian’s affairs.

And Nikandros had been there.

Sweat beaded her brow. That nauseous feeling returned with a vengeance. “Did you know the news about Brian’s affairs? Why didn’t you warn me?” Her fingers bunched in his shirt, renewed betrayal coursing through her. “Or did you decide I deserved to be humiliated and turned into a spectacle for my alleged sins against Brian?”

His fingers clamped over her arms, the warmth from his body teasing her awake in more ways than one. “I did not know what was going to come out. Mia, I did not know what he...was doing with all those women. I... If nothing else, I would have told him he had a problem.”

“Somehow I doubt that the vows of marriage would mean anything to a serial womanizer like you.”

His chin drew back. “Who is drawing conclusions now?”

His eyes were hard, flat, his fingers tightening over her arms. He tensed, and then slowly the breath he’d been holding pushed out. She’d hurt him?

It was the most nonsensical thought on the most bizarre night of her life.

But then, the man she’d thought him to be would have never offered help tonight. He wouldn’t have even looked at her twice, especially since it was obvious that he’d made up his mind that she had driven Brian away.

But Nikandros had never pretended a friendship or even an acquaintance. Among Brian’s friends, he’d always maintained a polite, even wary, distance from her. As if she’d contaminate his pedigree if he got too close.

“Then why were you there? You sold the women’s team, I know. They said you were leaving Florida. Maybe even the States. You dumped your latest girlfriend.” She rattled off everything she had gathered about him from social media, a habit she hadn’t quite kicked from when he’d first appeared on the scene.

“You had to know... Don’t lie to me, Nikandros. God, please, no more lies.”

Mia closed her eyes. It made her face the one thing she’d been trying to deny—that something inside her had sparked into life tonight, inside the car. Because of the Daredevil Prince.

The sense of him around her amplified a thousand times. The scent of him—dark and delicious and so fundamentally different from her own, clung to her nostrils.

So when he spoke, when his breath feathered over her skin, when his hands descended on her shoulders and pulled her into his body, when the strength and heat of him teased her into a desperate, deep longing, she drowned in the sensations.

She felt his powerful body shudder around her, felt his sharp inhale as he buried his nose in her hair, felt the raw, shameful urge to press her body into his, vibrating through her like a quake.

“I came because I needed to say goodbye.”

A brittle laugh escaped her. “I don’t believe you. You’ve never even considered me a friend. You couldn’t stomach the idea of Brian marrying me. You—”

He pushed her away from him with a contained sort of violence that was far more terrifying than the way Brian used to lash out at her. Roughly, he pushed his hair back, his mouth curled into that familiar curve. “I couldn’t stomach the idea of him with you because... I wanted you for myself.

“From that first moment when you came onto that field like a streak of lightning all those years ago, your joy on the field, your love of the game... I wanted all of that for myself.”

Falling back a step, Mia stared. “What?”

The debacle of her marriage, the horrible truth of Brian’s affairs, diluted as he spoke with a glittering challenge. “When he married you, I thought it would be done. That this infatuation with you...would die. All these years, I hated you for freezing him out, told myself I was lucky.

“Nothing helped.

“I came tonight because...even now, even after he’s gone, I can’t seem to stop.

“Stop thinking about you. Stop wanting you.” Gripping her arms, he pulled her toward him until their faces were mere inches from each other. The gleam of his blue eyes—Mia had never seen anything so beautiful. “I came because I needed to say goodbye to a decade-old obsession. To this madness.

“Is that honest enough for you, Mia?”

CHAPTER TWO

DROPLETS OF WATER dripped from the ends of her still-wet hair, dampening the thin cotton of the oversize T-shirt that fell to her thighs. Shivering, Mia twisted the damp ends with her palm and squeezed the water onto the towel. She rubbed her hair one more time and threw the towel in the hamper.

Drying her hair seemed to need more energy than she had. Which was funny because she had just swum for an hour, running away as if from the very devil.

I wanted you for myself...

For hours on end, she found herself going back over every interaction they had had over the years, and like he said, God, they’d known each other for a decade. So many memories to sift through, so many interactions that she now viewed afresh.

How she wished she could cling to disbelief, to the outrageous hope that he had said that because he’d felt sorry for her. But the fire in his eyes—as if she were the next challenge he was contemplating.

She had no idea how she’d turned away from him and returned to the car, or what she’d even said when he’d brought her here. When he’d pointed it out, she’d fled into a bedroom and then, like clockwork, to the pool when it had struck midnight.

The corridor stretched now into the endless marble-floored open lounge with incredible views of Biscayne Bay’s spectacular skyline on one side and Miami Beach on the other side. Tall palm trees and beach views told Mia she was in Miami and yet a world apart.

She wandered the penthouse, far too wired after the disastrous day she’d had.

There was a custom wine cellar, outdoor terrace, an indoor pool and an outdoor infinity pool, and four hot tubs with a bath deck overlooking the spectacular Brickell skyline.

Her feet sank deep into thick dark carpet as she walked into the media room. Colorful images moved soundlessly on the huge screen, and cast flashes of lightning into the vast, dome-like theater.

It was a recording of one of her own games—the championship game from three years ago when her team had won the World Cup.

A deep, shuddering ache went through her.

Heart steadily climbing, she found Nikandros seated on a step in the aisle. Arms leaning on his knees, his T-shirt highlighted the fluid line of his spine. Jet-black hair glinted with wetness every time the pictures moved on the giant screen. A half-empty, or rather a half-finished, bottle stood precariously on the carpet next to him, the liquid gleaming gold in it.

As if on cue came her powerful kick from the left field and the ball zoomed toward the net and past the flailing hands of the goalkeeper. The sound was on Mute, yet the applause roared in Mia’s ears as if she were standing there on the field, the Spanish sun kissing her face.

The camera zoomed on her, sweaty and delirious with joy, her grin splitting her mouth into a wide curve.

A spark of joy lit up within Mia now, a quiet jolt as if she were being kicked back into life. On the screen, she did the victory lap around the perimeter of the ground and then that stupidly ridiculous dance, shaking her bum...

And the screen stilled on that image.

Nikandros was watching the game with an intensity that spoke of madness, obsession. It didn’t matter that the Prince was known to be a hard-core fan of the sport, that it was the game that could have arrested his attention.

But no, he was watching her.

She walked down the few steps, heart pounding in her chest. “Turn off the game.”

His body bent at an angle, he looked up. Long lashes cast crescent shadows on his cheekbones. But even those envy-inducing lashes couldn’t hide the thorough way he stared at her, all the way from her wet hair to her bare feet. That same devilish half-amusement lingered around his mouth. “Don’t tell me it’s another eccentricity of yours, not watching yourself play?”

“Another one?”

“The midnight swim?” he added, gaze focused on the wet ends of her hair. “The isolation before a big game?”

Mia shrugged, the knowledge of how keenly he was aware of her every eccentricity touching a fragile, buried part of her. His interest in her soccer career, in her, was extremely addictive. And was going straight to her head and other parts. “Only in the last few months have I been able to accept that I’ll never play again.” She looked up at the screen, an ache that never went away settling deep into her. “That part of my life is over.”

Up the steps and into the corridor she went, something uncoiling within her.

Something had changed tonight, even in the past few minutes maybe—a line had been crossed, a line between existing and living. The numbness that had descended on her seemed to crack. A steely grip on her arm halted her.

“I did not realize—” a restless kind of energy seemed to radiate from him and it touched Mia like a spark to dry tinder “—what you have gone through this past year.”

Her back to him, she pressed her forehead against the wall, unable to catch her breath. Every inch of her trembled from the small contact, every muscle locked painfully against the impulse that was coursing through her. “I hate it when you put it like that,” she said into the wall. “Like I was a victim. Of fate first, and then Brian. I find this...that feeling unbearable. As if nothing was in my control.

“For a year, I wallowed in that self-pity. With Brian’s affairs coming out—” a bitter laugh escaped her “—strangely, I seem to have found myself again. I refuse to be still anymore, refuse to be a victim.”

The grip released on her arm. Now his fingers teased her skin with soft strokes. “You astound me, Mia.” His words were deep and low, with a longing that resonated with her own.

But he still didn’t make a move on her.

Mia was terrified that he would and desolate that he wouldn’t.

“I’m grateful that you were there today, Nikandros,” she said, uncaring at this point that her voice betrayed her. “I didn’t realize until now how much I needed a...familiar face.”

Barely had her breath settled when she felt his hands slide to her shoulders. Her front was pressed against the wall, and at her back, he was a wall of warmth and want. With gentleness that undid her, he pushed her hair to the front and kneaded the hard knots on her shoulders.

His thumbs traced the sensitive skin at her nape. Breathing became a shallow exercise, a cavern of longing opening up within her. And then, just like that, he released her. “I will say good-night...and good-bye then.”

She turned around fast.

Dark stubble gave him a grungy, roguish look. His swarthy skin, as always, contrasted with the glittering blue of his eyes, making the man knee-meltingly gorgeous. Blue shadows cradled his eyes. He looked different somehow.

Charm and looks had been a common enough combination in some of the male athletes Mia had known in her career. But all of it was blunted in Nikandros’s case. As if they were nothing but surface traits.

It was the vitality that clung to his very pores, the sheer virility of a man who pitted himself against the extremes of nature and won, that made every cell in her ping with awareness.

The word good-bye sat like a boulder on her chest. She wasn’t prepared to say it. Not yet. “Where are you going?” she finally asked, carefully keeping her eyes away from the languid line of his mouth.

A self-deprecating smile carved a dimple in one cheek but left his eyes still far too intent on her. “To Drakon.”

That Nikandros had turned his back on his royal family years ago—it was a little gold nugget the media recycled every few months. With his daredevil stunts and extreme sport enthusiast career, Nikandros regularly courted the media, and like faithful little dogs, they went digging every single time. No one, however, knew the cause of the falling-out.

“You’re returning to your country?”

“For a visit, at least. My father’s dementia has become public knowledge. The Crown Prince has summoned me. My sister and my mother, even though she divorced my father a while ago, think my brother needs me. Desperately, according to them. Although I can’t imagine Andreas would know desperation if it smacked him in the face.”

“How long have you been away?”

“A decade, maybe.” The casual indifference couldn’t belie the torment in his eyes. “This is the first time my brother has sought me out.”

Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting that. “I’m sorry, Nikandros,” she finally said, sensing the ache in him.

He bent so suddenly that her breath whooshed out. One hard muscled thigh grazed the side of her legs, leaving her quaking. “Pity is not something I could tolerate.”

“Did Brian’s death make you feel sorry for me?” she countered. “Make you change your judgment of me?”

“No,” he said without missing a beat.

“Honesty, honesty, my hide for honesty,” she quipped in a singsong voice, giving in to the abrupt, insane urge to laugh.

Arms locking on either side of her head, he smiled. It touched his eyes then, which were like the sky on a summer afternoon. Time seemed to fly away, seconds turning to minutes and she felt the most insane urge to stop it. To grab it with both hands and hold on to this moment. “When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

That sinking feeling in her stomach returned. “I hope whatever it is that caused distance between your father and you...you’re able to sort it out.”

He plucked her hand from her side where she had fisted it tight. Tingles spread up her arm as he traced the half-moons left in her palm by her nails. “You and I both know that that’s not possible. That nothing can make the distances carved over years lesser.

“I wish I could tell Andreas that I don’t give a damn about our father or him or Drakon—” tension emanated from every inch of him “—but I find I can’t.”

Just when she thought she knew him, he said something like that. There was grief in his eyes, even pain. She didn’t want to learn the cause of that grief; she couldn’t ask why he’d walked away from his destiny when it was clear his family meant something to him.

“Apparently, I’m a pushover.” An edgy grin, then laced with self-mockery.

“Or you have a serious case of hero complex,” she said, wanting to make him truly smile. Even with his contempt for her, he’d stayed at the press conference, hadn’t he? Thrill chaser or not, apparently Nikandros had a sense of responsibility.

“Families are never without complications,” she offered. “But if there’s a chance to say goodbye to him, you should take it.”

“Are you estranged from your family too?”

She shrugged, not quite meeting his eyes. There was no point in dwelling on each other’s past when, come tomorrow, they would never see each other again.

The inescapable fact was that tonight he seemed to need her just as much she did him—that bolstered her courage.

Soft strokes on her palms, to her wrists and above, all the way to the sensitive skin of her elbow. And back down. Every nerve tautened like the strings of an instrument.

Mesmerized, Mia couldn’t lift her gaze from the sight of his long fingers on her skin. Those long fingers everywhere on her bare skin, stroking and caressing—she wanted to burrow into his warmth. “I don’t want to say good-night yet.”

He tensed. “If it’s a shoulder you want to cry on, keep looking.” A thread of anger touched his tone. “There’s a line between challenging oneself and tormenting oneself and I’ve already crossed it.”

Words came and fell away from her lips, desperate and hard. For the life of her, she couldn’t put her want into words. How had he so cavalierly told her that she’d been an obsession he’d carried around for so many years? How hadn’t he felt vulnerable?

Or was it strength to go after what one wanted?

Bracing herself on his shoulders, she pulled herself up and pressed her mouth to the corner of his. Stubble scraped her lips, sending sparks of rough sensation all over. His breath fell loudly in the silence. Under her questing hands, the muscles of his shoulders were like steel spikes.

Heart threatening to explode in her chest, Mia kissed the defined line of his jaw.

Another featherlight kiss over his cheek. One more at the corner of his mouth.

Icy blue eyes darkened to the color of a stormy sky as he looked into hers. Long fingers tightened against her scalp. He’d push her away, and she couldn’t allow that.

Trembling from head to toe, she pressed her mouth flush against his. Jerked at the jolt of heat that coiled and uncoiled in corners of her body she’d forgotten existed.

Whiskey and heat—he tasted of sin, of deep desires she’d never indulged in.

She hadn’t kissed a man in a long time, but this, it felt natural, almost inevitable since the moment she’d seen him stand amidst that teeming crowd.

Keeping her gaze open with a boldness she hadn’t known she had, she traced his lower lip with her tongue. Grasped the cushiony softness of it with her teeth and tugged at it. The moment she ventured inside his mouth, the tenor of the kiss changed.

It was as if an earthquake had rocked the world beneath her feet.

Wide shoulders and hard muscles, he slammed her into him, and she was drowning. He kicked her feet apart, his hard thigh shoving between her own. His tongue tangled with hers, in and out, sending such stabs of relentless heat through her that she retreated, breathless and scared.

A hand curled around her nape while another gripped her hip tight and pulled her hard against his rock-hard body. “Don’t be scared of this, Mia mou.”

Any little breath of air she had in her lungs punched out. The hard column of his thigh pressed against her core, rubbing sensitive nerves. Mia cried out, her knees jelly. His mouth devoured her as if she were much-needed air, as if he would drown without her.

It was a salve over the wounds that had dug deep during her marriage. She sank into his touch, energized by the possessiveness of it.

“Damn it, I hoped I’d be proved wrong.” He almost sounded angry, his gaze a blue fire. “I thought I’d built you up, this attraction up into something more than it was.”

Whatever little niggles Mia’s painfully developed cautious nature threw at her dissolved at the potent need swirling in his strong face. He was right. This fire between them burned hotter and brighter the more they touched each other. It didn’t matter why she was attracted to him, or why she wanted to feel the power of his honed body over hers.

She just did.

She sank her fingers into his hair, caressing the thick black locks, carving the strong lines of his face into memory when he picked her up and started walking.

His bedroom was three times the size of hers, with French doors opening out into an incredible view of the sea. Dark gray curtains and a huge plasma TV opposite the massive bed were the only belongings in the room.

Swallowing, Mia forced herself to look at the bed. The same dark gray sheets covered the sleek, contemporary bed. The image of Nik and she tangled in those sheets sent heat rushing to her face.

“You are scared.”

She tilted up her face to see Nikandros unbutton his shirt and slide it off his wide shoulders. The insecurities brought on by the bed misted away at the sight of his broad chest. Liquid longing coursed through her at the defined contours and the sleek, tight flesh of his muscles.

“I have never...” The words died an instant death at the dark scowl on his face. “I’m not scared,” she said, tilting her chin up.

Lethal challenge glinted in his eyes. “Prove it to me.”

“How?”

“I took off my shirt. Now it’s your turn.”

She moved toward the bed and pulled off the duvet when she heard his sharp No.

“What?” she said, irritably.

She’d kept to her fitness routine almost maniacally this past year, but the idea of being wanted by him would drive any woman to doubts.

“Here, Mia. In front of me.”

“You’ve too many demands,” she said, greedily taking in the bands of muscle in his abdomen. She licked her lips, imagining running her tongue over those ridged bands.

“I’m a demanding man. You will not hide from me or from yourself, pethi mou. I’m aware that you’re jumping into this because we will never see each other again.

“But this night, this is ours. I have had ten years to imagine this moment. We’re going to do this very, very thoroughly, and in full light.

“So, come, Mia. Let me see you.”

Like a chastised student called to the front of the class, she dutifully moved back to the center of the room. Unbidden, snarky comments from Brian, always in this context, rushed into her head. Remembered frustration, with herself and him, propelled Mia forward. It was time to learn the truth.

“Two more steps,” Nikandros commanded.

“You’re enjoying this far too much,” she complained, her eyes still glued to his bare chest.

He laughed. “I believe that is what we’re supposed to do with each other—enjoy.”

She came to stand a foot from him. And stiffened. Silvery moonlight filled the spot where she stood now. He would see every inch of her skin.

“You owe me a discarded T-shirt.”

With fingers trembling violently, Mia rolled the edges of her T-shirt and pulled it off. The breeze from the sea was a soft caress against her heated skin. She threw the tee at him, her knees locked.

His gaze moved over her breasts, barely covered in her white lace bra. Her nipples became tight points, pushing against the flimsy fabric. The dark desire in those eyes gave her the courage she needed. She didn’t wait to be commanded again. With one hand behind her back, she undid the hook and shrugged off the bra.

A gravelly whisper fell from his mouth. She’d have given anything to understand if her body pleased him.

“Come closer.” His voice was a silken rasp over her naked skin. Panting breaths, his and hers, filled the velvety night. “Christos, Mia, do not argue.”

“You owe me a piece of clothing, Prince,” she demanded, lifting her chin.

With a casual movement of his hands, he unbuttoned his trousers and boxers, and stepped out of them.

He was huge, thick, jutting out and up toward his abdomen. Christ, he was bigger than she had ever imagined.

“All you have to do is ask, Mia, and you will have it,” he purred, eating away the distance between them with one long stride. Mia realized that she had her panties on only when she felt a rush of wetness seep through the cotton fabric. She had never been this aroused even when... No, he was not allowed here, in this room, tonight.

It was just this gorgeous man and her tonight. One night.

Hands on her shoulders, Nikandros pulled her close and took her mouth in a kiss that sent rivulets of pleasure up and down her body. Calluses from the pads of his fingers scraped her skin, the difference in the texture teasing out responses like she had never known. He devoured her mouth—stroked her lips with his tongue and licked into her mouth as if he would leave no inch of her untouched.

Knuckles played over her back, digging and testing, up and down, side to side, as if she were his favorite instrument. Toes digging into the cold marble, Mia sank into his kiss. The graze of her breasts, nipples distended painfully, against his velvety smooth and hard chest sent their mingled groans out into the air.

The rub of her thighs was pure torture. Her body had always been her instrument—honed lethally with focus and determination for over ten years. And it had served her well in her career.

But now, it was totally out of control. The more Nikandros gave her, the more it craved, pulsing with longing.

With a deep groan, he lifted her off the floor until she was almost plastered to his hard body shoulder to shoulder, abdomen to abdomen. The press of his shaft against her belly seared Mia. The ache at the apex of her thighs grew as he rubbed the thickness against her belly, his hips thrusting against her.

She had no idea when he had divested her of her panties. Only when his long fingers dug into the curves of her buttocks did she realize that they were gone. Plundering her mouth, and then trailing wet, thorough kisses over her neck, he shifted her until his hip bone opened her up scandalously.

Mia sobbed, the friction opening her sex making her mindless with need. “Please, Nikandros...” she whimpered, past fear and inhibitions. Rubbing the aching folds of her sex against his bare hip wantonly.

He seated her on the high bed and stared at her breasts with an unholy gleam. She’d always been a natural athlete, her body more lean muscle than softness. Her breasts were on the smaller side too.

And yet, when Nikandros lifted them in his hands and kissed the voluptuous valley between, all the while muttering in Greek, Mia felt like the sexiest woman on earth.

When he lifted the dark, knotted nipple to his mouth and licked it, she arched her body toward him with a needy groan. He continued to lick and stroke the nipple until it was wet and so painfully sensitized that each ministration of his sent a twang of pleasure straight through to her sex. “I can’t bear it,” she whispered, her breath panting in and out of her like a whistle.

Release hovered on the edge of her consciousness, taunting and teasing, twined with this gorgeous man.

“But I have only just gotten started,” he whispered, meeting her eyes. The devilish glint in them made Mia tremble all over. Still holding her gaze, he opened his mouth and closed it over her nipple. And did something that Mia had never imagined could be done between a man and a woman, something so wantonly glorious that a line of fire tingled down her spine.

Legs locked around his hips, Mia convulsed as he suckled on that nipple, his hands stroking every inch of her skin from her back to her buttocks. When he shifted his attention to the other nipple, she protested. Her mouth found his bicep. Damp and salty, he tasted like heaven when she licked him.

He kept up the strokes of his mouth over her nipple while his fingers separated the folds of her sex. When he pressed his thumb against the crest, Mia begged, “Please, now, Nik.”

Instead, he took her mouth. The kiss was damp and hot, her erratic breathing slowly spiraling down to normal. And then he built her up again, until every muscle was taut and begging. And again. And again.

By penetrating her slick sex with two fingers.

By suckling on her nipple with such delirious intent that the peak hardened.

And every time she was near release, he pulled her back from it. Fists clenched on his muscled back, Mia sobbed his name over and over again, begging for relief.

Gentle fingers pushed her hair from her forehead, while he studied her with a slumbering gaze full of wicked fire. “What do you want?” she bit out hoarsely, lips swollen and stinging and her body trembling.

Stubble marks covered the swells of her breasts and her abdomen.

His tongue flicked out against her tight nipple, which made her core dampen even more. “To see you like this. Your brown eyes—always so wary and reserved, dark and dilated—your body, damp and flushed with need...you my slave in this bed.”

“I hate you,” she retorted, on principle, even as her body arched off the bed when he tongued her belly button.

“I know,” he said with a wicked smile, and then he was rubbing that stubbly jaw against the tender skin of her thighs. Blue-black hair tickled the sensitive skin of her lower belly. Every pelvic muscle locked, tightened against his onslaught.

Digging her fingers in his shoulders, she said, “Nikandros—”

“Tut, tut, let me in, Mia,” he said, firm hands pushing her thighs wide apart, until her slick flesh was all but open to his devouring gaze. His nostrils flared and Mia closed her eyes. Embarrassment and anticipation and soul-wrenching need—she was a cauldron of emotions.

The long muscles of her thighs convulsed when he bent his dark head and took a long lick of her damp folds.

Back arching off the bed, Mia pushed herself onto her elbows and dug her hands into his hair. Pleasure rode her lower belly hard as he kept up the strokes of his tongue. She writhed and moaned, but his arm on her belly locked her against the bed.

Again and again, he licked, driving her high, then easing up the pressure. The moment he sucked her tender flesh with his lips, Mia broke apart.

The wave of pleasure was so intense that she saw darkness and light. Deep, wrenching spasms of her muscles went on and on, while tears soaked her cheeks.

She barely caught her breath when he flipped her onto her stomach, and then pulled her up until she was on all fours. Her hair fell over Mia narrowing her view to the silvery sheets spread in front of her. She was still panting, echoes of her climax still twisting and turning deep inside her lower belly.

Only when his fingers, digging into her hips, pulled her back toward him did she realize her vulnerable position.

She tensed, the position alien and intrusive to her. How intimately he would see and know her like this...

He bent over her until his mouth reached the curve of her shoulder. Soft heat swirled through her pleasure-suffused nerves as he kissed her. His thick shaft wedged into the crease of her buttocks and Mia jerked at the strange, unraveling tingles in her sensitive tissues. Expletives filled the room, his breath hissing out of him.

“Do you not like it like this?” He sounded hoarse as if he were the one who’d already broken apart and been remade anew. Another kiss, this time with his teeth involved. The drag of his teeth against her skin made her breath rasp against the sheets.

The slide of his hot skin over hers, his breath caressing her neck, every inch of Mia felt carnal, as if her body had been made for only this purpose, only this man. Words were an impossibility.

“Ahh...and you think I’m gentleman enough to say fine.”

She licked her lips, struggling to put her thoughts into words. “I don’t know whether I will like it this way.”

She instantly knew that he didn’t like that answer. Whether he never liked hearing about his lovers’ exes or particularly Brian, she had no idea. And she didn’t care.

One long finger traced the line of her spine all the way to the crease of her buttocks, teasing and taunting. A kiss landed on her left buttock and Mia blushed and burned in turns. Her arms ached, her body felt alien in the rivulets of sensations coursing through it.

She heard the whispered tear of a condom packet, and the sinuous slide of it over his shaft. Anticipation built like a balloon inside her and she felt him come up behind her.

Strong fingers drew a line of fire from her neck to her navel. “If it kills me, I’ll make it good for you. Trust me?”

Breath on tenterhooks, Mia nodded.

“Say it, pethi mou.”

“I trust you, Nikandros. More than I’ve ever done anyone.”

Hands on her hips, he entered her with one long stroke that set fire to her nerve endings. “Christos, you are tight.” He shuddered around her, the hard muscles of his body locked tight, as if to stop himself from moving. “You needed more, Mia? Tell me you’re okay.”

First came an achy, alien sensation that threatened to buckle her legs under him. In this position, it felt like there was no part of her that Nikandros hadn’t touched and claimed. “I’m...it feels...strange, but full, Nik.”

He bent over her and kissed her damp skin, whispering endearments that sent a rush of tears to her eyes.

No, she didn’t want tenderness from him. As if she were some fragile, breakable thing that he could not use the way he wanted. She wanted to be woman enough for him.

Slowly, she wriggled her hips back and forth, side to side, getting used to his thick invasion. And with every movement, spirals of need swirled out from her sex. His breath slowed, deepened as she repeated the movements of her hips, and then pushed back in an inexperienced movement.

“Like that?” she said into the velvety dark depth of the night.

With a guttural curse, his fingers crawled up her back over her spine and into her hair. He held her so tightly that pain and pleasure infused together. Nik pulled out almost all the way, and then thrust back in so hard that Mia would have skidded across the bed if he wasn’t holding her.

Pleasure so intense and so profound that she thought she might pass out radiated down her spine and speared her lower belly.

If not for tonight, if not for Nikandros, she’d have died never knowing that it could be like this. That pleasure could be so exquisite that one’s soul could be remade from it. Her moans rose in pitch as Nikandros pounded into her, her name a guttural incantation on his lips, over and over. Mia didn’t know how it was possible but her body was greedily racing toward another peak.

As if he knew her body better than she did, Nik pulled her close, fingers bruisingly tight on her hips. His thrusts became short and tight while one hand moved between her legs. “Come for me, Mia,” he commanded, and then he gave her no choice but to follow him by tweaking her swollen clitoris between his fingers. Counterpoint to his hard thrusts.

Mia broke apart again with a soul-shattering cry.

Pleasure surrounded her in sharp, staccato bursts. He groaned as his thrusts lost the rhythm and finesse he had employed before and descended into purely animalistic movements.

This was what Mia wanted, what she needed. For this man, this gorgeous, powerful man who had given her a small part of herself back, for him to lose himself inside her. She wanted to steal away a part of him, even a tiny part, as he was doing to her.

The roar of his climax fell over her skin like some powerful magic returning and remaking her.

Tears coursing down her cheeks, Mia fell onto the bed and hid her face in the sheets. Every muscle in her body trembled. A sob fought to rise through her and she bit her lip to contain it. Limbs like rubber, she went willingly when he pulled her into the cradle of his arms. Words of gratitude, words of desperation rushed to her lips.

Her vision blurred, she looked down at them.

Moonlight played shadows over their twined naked limbs, damp, glistening skin and the rumpled sheets. Greedy even now, her gaze moved up one hair-roughened calf to the long, hard muscle of his thigh, the jut of his narrow hip bone. Carnal hunger and something else rang like a bell inside of her.

In gentle movements, he pushed back a lock of hair sticking to her damp forehead and pressed a tender kiss to her shoulder. “You’re well?”

She could only nod. There was a glitter in his eyes, as if he too was shaken by the intensity of what they had shared. As if he too was...

No!

This was the Prince, a man who was so good in bed that women over the world chased him for one night... She couldn’t make this moment any more than it was.

Her throat closed over words she couldn’t say, a sudden weight on her chest. For the first time in months, grief and fury washed away, leaving a strange awareness of herself.

When he gathered her to him and breathed against her temple, she gave herself over to the beckoning hand of sleep that was taking over her mind, body and soul.

Nikandros Drakos was a fantasy come true, and in her case, he’d given her something immeasurable, indefinable.

But that’s all he would ever be.

CHAPTER THREE

Six weeks later

“YOU’RE PREGNANT, MIA.”

Her ob-gyn’s soft declaration had kept ringing around in Mia’s head all day as she set the high school soccer team through its drills as their new assistant coach.

Sheila, who had also known Mia since their mothers had dropped them off at the same elementary school, had held Mia’s hand. “After everything you’ve been through this year, I... Mia, say something. This news could be a shock in itself but—”

“It’s a shock, yes, but, oh...” Mia didn’t know where the words had come from. She’d been alone for so long, but all she felt was overwhelming joy, a profound sense of anticipation in her chest. That night had been the beginning of a new chapter of her life and a child was the result. “I want this baby, Sheila. I...will love this baby.”

That night back at the two-bedroom apartment she’d been allotted at the campus, Mia still couldn’t stop smiling nor looking at her stomach in the mirror. Nor had her mind wavered even a little bit. But then, she’d always known her mind.

Accepting her new job, moving out of the apartment that Brian and she had shared—it had been the right move. Standing on the sidelines, watching young, ambitious players give their soul to soccer, it was fulfilling, yes, but life stretched ahead of her, a chasm of loneliness.

A baby would change everything, fill her days and nights. A baby she would love without conditions.

Even though there had been curiosity in her eyes, Sheila hadn’t pressed Mia for details about who the father was.

The father. Mia fell back onto the couch in her living room with a soft plop.

Nikandros... Cold sweat gathered on her forehead.

This baby belonged to Nikandros too.

Not a day had gone by in six weeks that Mia hadn’t thought about that night or him.

How could she escape it when every news channel was bleating on and on about the tiny principality of Drakon, the Mediterranean’s Jewel, and the decline of its King Theos into madness, a fact that had been hidden from the media and its people for a long time? When every social media site covered the smallest movement of its Princes?

With a greed she couldn’t curb, Mia had followed the news of the royal family. The media had been lambasting Nikandros yet again, for dereliction of duty and apparently not caring enough about the country.

Only Mia knew how much returning to Drakon had affected Nikandros, but even she found it easy to forget in the face of his merrymaking.

Not once had he answered the media’s questions—would he stay in Drakon now and shoulder the responsibility of its people? Would he share his brother Crown Prince Andreas’s burden?

Only deep silence from Nikandros. The pap had already caught him partying at a friend’s nightclub, racing a dangerous curve in Drakon in a hell-on-wheels red Ferrari. The media then pronounced that the reckless Daredevil Prince Nikandros had reverted to form three days after the public announcement of his father’s madness.

It was clear that the Daredevil Prince was not going to change his spots and settle down into responsibility. He had seemed so serious, so full of an unnamed pain to Mia, but now this, in front of his entire nation.

Had it all been just an act? Would he even acknowledge a child who had accidentally been conceived after a one-night stand as his?

Swallowing away the ache in her throat, the urge to share the news with him, Mia decided to wait to inform him.

At least, until she was strong enough to face Nikandros without weakening again. Until she was strong enough to face his reaction to their unborn child.

* * *

Nikandros stood on the ramparts of the King’s Palace and stared out at the panoramic views offered of Drakon and the harbor. The smallish hill on which the eight-hundred-year-old palace stood had provided a strategic defense location from the numerous attacks through the centuries, from various regional and global powers who had always wanted to assimilate the small Mediterranean gem for their own.

But the House of Drakos—his ancestors, with this palace as their stronghold—had clung on, despite the attacks and defended the little jewel.

As a kid, stuck in the palace hospice during hot summers and mild, wet winters alike, Nikandros had loved the history of Drakon.

A dragon and its treasures and one band of fierce warriors, the stories had sustained him through a wretched, ill childhood. He’d inhaled the old volumes in the vast library, breathed in every arch, wall and wing that had been added to the King’s Palace by each generation, making it impregnable. With no children to play with, he had weaved elaborate dreams picturing Andreas and himself as modern princes who would deliver Drakon from its various nemeses.

Crown Prince Andreas, his older brother, would command him, and Nikandros, his loyal knight, would jump to do his bidding.

“Why won’t he visit me, Maman?” He’d relentlessly plagued his mother with the same question every time they had seen Andreas on TV, standing proudly by their father.

“You’ll join him when you’re feeling better, ma cherie,” his maman would say.

But Andreas had never had time for the attention-craving, mostly ill Nikandros. Nor had King Theos ever shown any interest in him beyond inquiring of the doctors if his spare was going to make it.

Not until Nikandros had turned nineteen and finally, against all medical predictions, seemed to have cast off the sickness that had plagued him all his life. And then, only then, had Theos entered Nikandros’s life.

“I should have sent the guards to this terrace to look for you,” came the deep voice of his brother, Crown Prince Andreas. A small smile flitted over Andreas’s lips, as if this was one of those sweet memories that siblings shared. That is, if the siblings had come from a normal family and were not the much-adored son and heir of a little mad, power-obsessed King and the spare he had barely tolerated and known even less.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nik drawled in a careless voice, forcing himself to relax his tight grip on the stone wall.

“The nurses used to run over the palace looking for you, only to find you here amongst these ramparts, waving that rubber sword around with barely a stitch over your body. This was your favorite place,” finished Andreas, coming to stand by Nik.

“How the hell would you know?” When you barely ever saw me, he didn’t say.

“The study in my wing has a window that provides a perfect view of this very terrace. I would watch you brandish that rubber thing, fighting off imaginary enemies. If not the ramparts, it would be stables. Third choice, the kitchens.” The wistfulness in his brother’s voice cut Nikandros.

Thick silence descended over the terrace. Nik stared at the gaunt hollows of his brother’s face shadowed in the waning light of the sun.

Theos was slipping, had descended into the final stage of the dementia that had claimed him for the past few years. The sight of his once-proud and overbearing father with that crazed look in his eyes, and fragments of gibberish falling from his lips—it had shaken him deeply.

And yet it was the look in Andreas’s eyes that rooted him to the spot.

Andreas had been dealing with his father’s madness for years now, and the country’s declining morale, and the power-hungry Crown Council.

Guilt twisted deep and low in Nik’s gut. He’d known what was happening but had refused to come. “It is a little late to pretend we share a brotherly bond, Andreas.”

The infuriatingly amenable expression did not budge from his brother’s inscrutable eyes. He wished Andreas would throw a punch at him. Or call his actions despicable. But of course, his brother would never oblige.

He hadn’t back then, when Nik had told Andreas what he had done with his precious fiancée, and he wouldn’t now.

“Why did you return then, Nik? Did you finally feel pity for me? Or dare I hope that you have grown a sense of duty to your country?”

Damn Andreas for always knowing the right question to ask. Nik himself didn’t know the answer to that question.

Had he done it because the sense of history, the heritage of Drakon that he had always yearned to be a part of when he had been a little boy, had sunk its claws into him again?

Or had he done it because leaving Drakon would mean facing that all the little things that had previously given him such pleasure still paled when he thought of one ex-soccer player?

“I promised Maman I would stick around for your coronation.”

Andreas’s mouth flattened. “The coronation is postponed.”

Nik frowned. He knew that these past few years, behind the curtains, Andreas had run the show. So why was his brother, who’d been born and bred into the role of King, now postponing the coronation? “With Theos frothing at the mouth, Drakon needs you at the helm.”

“So you do think about Drakon then.”

“Why did you ask me to return? And the truth, Andreas.”

Nik folded his hands, his stance clearly belligerent. But Andreas would never take the bait. He would never do something as emotional as get into a fight with his brother.

“I need you, Nikandros.”

It was, apparently, a time for shocks. First Brian, then Mia, then his father and now Andreas.

Andreas sighed. “The Council has been getting more and more disturbed about my lack of marriage. With father’s final decline fast approaching, it is now a matter of public and political concern owing to legal and international consequences. If I should die tomorrow suddenly, our treaty with our powerful neighbor becomes void and we could be annexed.

“The economy is on a nosedive and financial analyses do not show it recovering anytime soon.”

“Then why didn’t you marry that...woman and produce heirs by now?” Nik interrupted, bile rising even at the thought of her and what he’d done.

“If you had bothered to visit once or inquired after us, you’d have learned that I broke that engagement with Isabella as soon as you left.”

“I’ve not heard a whisper of it.”

Andreas shrugged. “Because it worked well for me and Isabella to let the world believe I was engaged to her for a long while. Her brother wanted it said that she’d walked away from the alliance. Rejected the Crown Prince of Drakon.

“I agreed.”

“Father must have hated that.”

“Father and I have learned to understand each other better,” Andreas said cryptically.

“What I did then was—”

“I don’t want to dwell in the past, Nikandros. It would not show either of us well, ne? The point is I need your help, in a hundred ways. And I believe you possess a far more giving nature than I do.

“I need father declared incompetent, to build Drakon’s economy back up again and its morale, to stop the Crown Council from dictating my life.”

Nikandros had heard from numerous sources of his own the unrest among the populace, the slow exodus of businesses to their competitive neighbor, of deals falling through and investors pulling out because Andreas would not announce the date of his engagement, much less the wedding.

Because Andreas would not bow to the Crown Council’s demands, and he, Nikandros, had turned his back long ago on Drakon.

Which was why he’d stayed longer than he’d planned to, the challenge it presented to his business sense engaging his interest despite himself. The economy of Drakon was ripe for the taking. Tourism could be boosted, some of the old ways let go of... Much as he wanted to deny the knowledge, Nikandros understood perfectly what Andreas wanted and Drakon needed—fresh blood. “Then marry, Andreas.”

“I will not rush into any alliance before weighing the long-term needs of Drakon. I have to appoint you the Hereditary Heir, Nik.”

Nikandros had walked out on his family years ago, publicly declaring that he was renouncing his status as second in line to the throne.

But Andreas’s words began to tug at a powerful desire he’d denied for so long. Christos, once he’d loved his homeland with everything he had. Walking away from it had almost destroyed him. It had also been his salvation because only away from his father’s and Andreas’s shadows had Nikandros come into his own.

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