Two crowns, two islands, one legacy

A royal family, torn apart by pride and its lust for power, reunited by purity and passion

The islands of Adamas have been torn into

two rival kingdoms:

TWO CROWNS

The Stefani diamond has been split as a

symbol of their feud

TWO ISLANDS

Gorgeous Greek princes reign supreme

over glamorous Aristo

Smouldering sheikhs rule the desert island of Calista

ONE LEGACY

Whoever reunites the diamonds will rule all.

THE ROYAL HOUSE OF KAREDES

Many years ago there were two islands ruled as one kingdom – Adamas. But bitter family feuds and rivalry caused the kingdom to be ripped in two. The islands were ruled separately, as Aristo and Calista, and the infamous Stefani coronation diamond was split as a symbol of the feud and placed in the two new crowns.

But when the king divided the islands between his son and daughter, he left them with these words:

“You will rule each island for the good of the people and bring out the best in your kingdom. But my wish is that eventually these two jewels, like the islands, will be reunited. Aristo and Calista are more successful, more beautiful and more powerful as one nation: Adamas.”

Now, King Aegeus Karedes of Aristo is dead, the island’s coronation diamond is missing! The Aristans will stop at nothing to get it back but the ruthless sheikh king of Calista is hot on their heels.

Whether by seduction, blackmail or marriage, the jewel must be found. As the stories unfold, secrets and sins from the past are revealed and desire, love and passion war with royal duty. But who will discover in time that it is innocence of body and purity of heart that can unite the islands of Adamas once again?

THE PRINCE’S CAPTIVE WIFE

MARION LENNOX

www.millsandboon.co.uk

With thanks to my fabulous co-authors, whose

writing has made this series sizzle.

CHAPTER ONE

‘SHE was only seventeen?’

‘We’re talking ten years ago. I was barely out of my teens myself.’

‘Does that make a difference?’ The uncrowned king of Aristo stared across his massive desk at his brother, his aquiline face dark with fury. ‘Have we not had enough scandal?’

‘Not of my making.’ Prince Andreas Christos Karedes, third in line to the Crown of Aristo, stood his ground against his older brother with the disdain he always used in this family of testosterone-driven males. His brothers might be acknowledged womanizers, but Andreas made sure his affairs were discreet.

‘Until now,’ Sebastian said. ‘Not counting your singularly spectacular divorce, which had a massive impact. But this is worse. You need to sort it before it explodes over all of us.’

‘How the hell can I sort it?’

‘Get rid of her.’

‘You’re not saying…’

Sebastian shook his head, obviously rejecting the idea—though a tinge of regret in his voice said the option wasn’t altogether unattractive.

And Andreas even sympathized. Since their father’s death, all three brothers had been dragged through the mire of the media spotlight, and the political unrest was threatening to destroy them. In their thirties, impossibly handsome, wealthy beyond belief, indulged and fêted, the brothers were now facing realities they had no idea what to do with.

‘Though if I was our father…’ Sebastian added and Andreas shuddered. Who knew what the old king would have done if he’d discovered Holly’s secret? Thank God he’d never found out. Not that King Aegeus could have taken the moral high ground. His father’s past actions had got them into this mess.

‘You’ll make a better king than our father ever was,’ Andreas said softly. ‘What filthy dealing made him dispose of the royal diamond?’

‘That’s my concern,’ Sebastian said. There could be no royal coronation until the diamond was found—they all knew that—but the way the media was baying for blood there might not be a coronation even then. Without the diamond the rules had changed. If any more scandals broke… ‘This girl…’

‘Holly.’

‘You remember her?’

‘Of course I remember her.’

‘Then she’ll be easy to find. We’ll buy her off—do whatever it takes, but she mustn’t talk to anyone.’

‘If she wanted to make a scandal she could have done it years ago.’

‘So it’s been simmering in the wings for years. To have it surface now…’ Sebastian rose and fixed Andreas with a look that was almost as deadly as the one used by the old king. ‘It can’t happen, brother. We have to make sure she’s not in a position to bring us down.’

‘I’ll contact her.’

‘You’ll go nowhere near her until we’re sure of her reaction. Not even a phone call. For all we know her phones are already tapped. I’ll have her brought here.’

‘I can arrange…’

‘You stay right out of it until she’s on our soil. You’re heading the corruption inquiry. With Alex still on his honeymoon—of all the times for our brother to demand to marry, this must surely be the worst—I need you more than ever. If you leave now and this leaks, we can almost guarantee losing the crown.’

‘So how do you propose to persuade her to come?’

‘Oh, I’ll persuade her,’ Sebastian said grimly. ‘She’s only a slip of a girl. She might be your past, but there’s no way she’s messing with our future.’

* * *

It was time to leave, but of all the places Holly had to farewell, this was the hardest.

The grave was tiny—a simple stone plaque nestled under the shade of the vast river-red-gum that gave this Australian cattle station its name. The tree was ancient. The native Australians who’d lived here for generations called it Munwannay—resting place—and when Holly’s tiny son had died it had seemed the only place to let him lie.

How could she walk away?

How could she walk away from any of this? Holly sank to her knees before her son’s grave and turned to gaze back over the homestead—the rambling, old house with its wide verandas, its French windows opening the house to every breeze, the neglected garden she’d loved so much since she was a little girl.

Andreas had loved this garden.

Andreas had loved everything about this place. And she’d loved Andreas.

Well, that was another thing she needed to walk away from. The memory of Prince Andreas Karedes. He’d been twenty when he’d come here to spend six months experiencing life in Australia’s remote outback. She’d been seventeen.

She was twenty-seven now. It was more than time that she move on—from this place, as well as a love that had been doomed from the start.

She’d been stalling for as long as possible, trying to keep the property presentable in case new owners could be found, but it had been on the market since her father’s death six months ago. Financially it was impossible to keep going, and it was becoming bleaker every day as she watched it deteriorate. Finally she’d transferred her job—teaching on the School of the Air—to the educational base at Alice Springs. This was the end.

She touched her baby’s gravestone one last time, aching with regret and loss. And then she paused, looking upward as the stillness of the hot April morning was shattered.

A helicopter was arrowing in fast from the east. It was big and powerful, a much larger machine than those owned by the larger local landowners. All black, almost menacing, it swept in low across the bare paddocks, heading straight for the homestead.

Holly winced. There’d been a trickle of potential buyers looking at the place since it had gone on the market. No one had been interested. Munwannay needed a massive injection of cash and enthusiasm to build it up to the magnificent property it had once been. If these were more potential buyers sent by the rural land agents, they’d react the same as the others. They’d walk through the faded splendour of the old homestead; they’d look at the weathered outbuildings and the dilapidated infrastructure and they’d walk away. If these buyers were coming in such a helicopter they’d have more money than most, but then they could afford to buy a more prestigious place.

And she didn’t want them here now. Not on her last day.

But they were landing. She watched them as the chopper settled in a cloud of dust; as the doors opened. Four men in dark jeans and black T-shirts jumped out. Big men. Powerfully built, all of them.

Odd. Up until now potential buyers had been local farmers wanting to extend their own landholdings, distinctive by age and by weathering—or men in suits from the city.

No matter. She needed to be gracious. If this place sold it would give her a hope of settling the crippling debts left by her father’s refusal to believe his circumstances in the world had changed. She pinned a smile on her face and hurried forward, not wanting them to come here—to see the tiny gravestone she loved so much.

They were young to be buyers, she thought as they approached. And foreign? They were olive skinned, as Andreas had been. They looked serious, purposeful, striding across the paddock towards her with an intent at odds with a potential buyer’s initial appraisal.

A shiver of unease shot down her spine. She was alone here. Too alone.

She gave herself a swift mental shake. She was being fanciful. They’d hardly come here in such a helicopter with the intent to do her personal harm, and there was nothing left to steal.

She smoothed her suddenly damp palms on her jeans, tucked—or tried to tuck—her unruly blonde curls behind her ears, firmed her smile and called a greeting.

‘Hi. Can I help you?’

There was no answering smile on any of their faces, and Holly’s sense of unease deepened.

‘Are you Holly Cavanagh?’ the leading man called.

‘I am.’

Maybe they were Greek, she thought. They had the same accent as Andreas. Maybe they were even from Aristo, the island country Andreas had come from.

That was being even more fanciful. Or maybe not. She’d read that ruthless dealings by the old King Aegeus had turned Aristo into an economic force to be reckoned with. There were casinos there now, easy money, rumours of corruption in high places. Maybe there were citizens with the money to transform a place like this.

MaybeAndreas had heard Munwannay was on the market, she thought suddenly. He’d loved it. Maybe…

Maybe she needed to stop thinking, for the men had reached her.

She stretched her hand out in greeting. The first man to reach her took it, but not with the light, formal greeting she was expecting. His grip was harsh and unrelenting. She tugged back but he didn’t release her.

‘You need to come with us,’ he said, and she stared at him in blank astonishment.

‘I’m sorry?’

But he was already tugging her towards the helicopter. As she resisted one of the other men grasped her by the other arm. They had a hand under each elbow now and were almost lifting her; hauling her fast towards the helicopter.

She screamed.

There was no one to hear. Munwannay had been deserted long since by everyone but this slip of a girl, whose efforts to save the place had come to nothing.

‘Get her into the chopper, fast,’ the leader said, in a language she recognized; a language she’d learned for fun so she and Andreas could speak to each other without her parents understanding.

‘No. No!’ But she couldn’t fight them. She was one woman among four men surely trained to use brute strength to good effect.

‘Shut up,’ one of the men snapped at her, and another hauled her forward so roughly he almost dislocated her arm.

‘Don’t hurt her,’ another snapped, urgent. ‘The prince said we’re not to harm her.’

‘What…? Why?’ They were lifting her bodily into the chopper with as little trouble as if she’d been a bag of chaff.

‘Just be quiet,’ another of them said, quite kindly as if humouring a child. ‘And there’s no use in struggling. The Prince Andreas wants you, and what the Prince Andreas wants, the Prince Andreas gets.’

The call came just after dinner. The manservant beckoned Andreas discreetly from his family’s presence, and he slipped silently away.

In truth the royal family of Karedes was so caught up with the scandals rocking them right now, the absence of Andreas from their midst would hardly be missed. In his father’s time it would have been unthinkable to leave the table before port was served to the males of the family, but the king was dead.

Long live the king, Andreas thought bleakly as he made his way swiftly from the room. All they needed was a coronation. And a diamond. And no more scandal.

In this atmosphere Holly’s secret was enough to blast them off the throne.

At least the first part of Sebastian’s plan had worked. He knew it the moment he picked up the phone. ‘She’s on her way,’ Georgiou said, and he drew in his breath in relief. He hadn’t thought it would be so easy.

In truth he didn’t know what he’d thought. He’d expected Holly to be married by now. It had been a shock to hear she was still single.

That had been the least of his shocks.

And now she was on her way. To him.

‘She agreed to come straight away? There was no argument?’

There was a silence on the end of the line and Andreas’s jet-black brows snapped down. ‘Why don’t you answer?’ he demanded as the silence lengthened.

‘Our instructions were to use whatever means necessary to get her to you.’

‘But you asked her to come? Your instructions were to tell her she was needed here urgently. To offer her every comfort…’

‘And if she didn’t agree, the Prince Sebastian told us to ignore her protests. She was alone. She was expecting the land agent. Our decision was that it was wisest to move fast. Discussion would have wasted time and maybe jeopardized our ability to take her at all.’

‘So…’

‘So we put her on the helicopter whether she willed it or not, then transferred her to a plane which took us up north and then on. There’s no problem. There was no one to see us come or her go.’

He closed his eyes, appalled, the ramifications of what they’d done slamming home. ‘You abducted her.’

‘There was no choice,’ Georgiou said firmly. ‘She will not listen. All through the flight we’ve been trying to tell her you simply wish to see her, but the lady is too angry to listen. She bit Maris.’

‘There was a struggle?’

‘She didn’t wish to come. Of course there was a struggle.’

His breath hissed with dismay. For them to abduct her… What the hell must she be thinking? And if this got out… A prince of the royal house of Karedes kidnapping an Australian woman; dragging her out of the country against her will…

‘Did you hurt her?’ he demanded, incredulous.

‘We haven’t hurt her,’ Georgiou said, defensive. ‘We have our orders. Though she fights like a wildcat’

‘I don’t care how she fights,’ Andreas snapped, appalled at the results of Sebastian’s curt orders. ‘You will not retaliate. She’s just a girl.’

‘She’s a woman,’ Georgiou corrected him. ‘She’s every bit a woman. Mixed with tigress.’

Andreas thought back to the Holly he’d left ten years ago. Even at seventeen Holly had had spirit.

Years ago he’d spent a glorious six months on Holly’s parents’ property, experiencing life in the Australian outback before taking up his royal duties. It had been a dispensation granted reluctantly to a younger son by his father, the king. His relationship with Holly had flared from nowhere and turned to wildfire. The young Andreas had been desperate for it to continue, but Holly had been strong enough for both of them.

‘You don’t belong in my world and I don’t belong in yours,’ she’d said firmly as he’d held her close one last time and declared he couldn’t leave her. ‘You’re needed at home. Your life is on Aristo. You’re promised in marriage to a princess. Andreas, don’t make it harder than it needs to be for both of us. Just go.’

So he’d gone, trying hard to block the stricken expression he’d glimpsed on his beloved’s face as Holly had turned away that one last time. Yes, there had been tears—he’d been close to them himself—but she was right. He was a royal prince, already promised in marriage. Holly had aging parents to care for and a budding career as a teacher on School of the Air. Holly and Andreas belonged on separate sides of the world.

So that had been it. He’d tried not to think of her for ten long years, through a tumultuous royal marriage that ended in acrimonious divorce, through his career as a royal prince with princely duties, through a life in the goldfish bowl of royalty. His was a life of service to the crown, a crown that must be protected at all costs.

A crown that Holly herself was now threatening to undermine, whether she knew it or not.

‘Just bring her here fast,’ he said, his tone becoming harsher as he recalled all that was at stake. ‘Bring her straight to the palace.’

‘There might be problems,’ Georgiou said cautiously.

‘What sort of problems?’

‘I told you. She’s not…quiet,’ he said. ‘There’s no saying she won’t scream her head off.’

‘Why would she do that?’

Another silence. Georgiou obviously thought that was a stupid question.

Okay, maybe it was. If they’d dragged her here against her will… If she was still even slightly the Holly he knew…

‘I’ll meet you at the airport,’ he said.

‘Not the main landing strip,’ Georgiou said urgently. ‘You need to talk to the lady privately. If she’ll talk to you.’

‘She’ll talk to me,’ Andreas said grimly.

‘Maybe,’ Georgiou said. ‘How long is it since you’ve seen her?’

‘Ten years.’

‘Then maybe she’s changed,’ Georgiou said and there was suddenly a note of admiration in his tone. ‘Maybe this woman has learned to fight.’

‘She could fight ten years ago.’

‘Could you win then?’ Georgiou asked diffidently. ‘With respect, Your Majesty… It takes four strong men to hold her now. Will you be able to do it?’

* * *

They were landing.

Holly had long since stopped struggling. Once she’d been bundled ignominiously onto the jet and the jet was in the air she’d accepted that fighting was useless. She’d withdrawn into what she hoped was dignified silence.

Not that she felt the least bit dignified. She’d been wearing ancient jeans and a dust-stained shirt when she’d been grabbed. She’d just completed a last inspection of the bores and water troughs—for the sake of the kangaroos and emus on the place, for the cattle had been sold long ago—and her blonde curls were thick with dust. Twenty-four hours later that dust was still with her. She’d scrubbed her face in the airplane washroom but there was no make-up to disguise the shadows under her eyes. She looked grubby and exhausted and fearful.

Not fearful, she thought savagely. She was damned if she’d show these louts fear.

Maybe it wasn’t these men she had to fear. Andreas wanted her. Andreas had taken her, whether she agreed or not.

Ten years ago she would have agreed. Ten years ago if Andreas had said come she’d have followed him to the ends of the earth. She’d fallen so deeply in love that she’d given everything she had. She would have given more.

Then she’d been wild, passionate, desperate to find a life outside the confines of her parents’ farm. Andreas had blasted into her dreary life, tall, dark and mysterious, a royal prince, twenty to her seventeen, laughing, imperious, seemingly as eager to be a part of her world as she’d been to be part of his. Of course they’d fallen in love.

She’d thought later, in the bleak aftermath of loss, that maybe that was why her parents had arranged to hostAndreas. They’d known two young things might be drawn together as they had been. Her parents had had illusions of grandeur, and offering to host a young prince on a farm-stay when they had such a young, impressionable daughter was surely dangerous.

Maybe they’d had a royal marriage in mind. Who knew? All she knew was that her parents had achieved more than they’d bargained for.

A daughter desolate.

A tiny grandson, unacknowledged by his father. Now dead.

Don’t think of Adam, she told herself fiercely as the plane started to descend. Don’t you dare cry.

She blinked and stared fixedly out the plane window. They were circling the Adamas kingdom now. Home of Andreas.

Adamas consisted of two vast islands, the glamorous Aristo and the desert lands of Calista. Andreas had told her so much of these islands that she felt she knew them already. They were once one kingdom, ruled by the Royal House of Karedes, but now split acrimoniously into two by a warring brother and sister.

Andreas’s father ruled Aristo, and Andreas helped rule, as one of three royal sons. Andreas was married. She knew that much. The wedding had taken place soon after he’d returned from Australia. The story of the ceremony’s magnificence had even reached the women’s magazines in the Munwannay General Store. She’d read of it and wept. After that she’d studiously avoided any mention of him, but he was probably saddled with a tribe of royal children by now.

Why had he hauled her here?

Maybe he was bored in his marriage, she thought. The idea had crept into her mind as the flight wore on, a vicious stab of unwanted imagination. Andreas had been married for over nine years now. Nine years was time enough to tire of a wife, especially a wife who’d been arranged for him in the first place. Maybe he was thinking back to the wild, tumultuous passion that had sent them past the bounds of care.

Surely he wouldn’t think…

Why else would he want her?

She curled her fingers so tightly into her palms that her nails cut into her skin. Surely in this day and age he wouldn’t dare. And if he thought she would…

But… Andreas, she thought. Andreas, Andreas.

See, there was the trouble. Andreas had moved on. He’d lived another life, whereas she’d been stuck in a time warp, trying to hold the farm together for her father’s sake. Trying to forge a career for herself, while never being able to leave one tiny grave.

And never being able to forget Andreas.

Andreas was down there. Prince Andreas Christos Karedes of Aristo. A royal prince, waiting for her.

She dug her fingernails even deeper into her palms. What did he want of her?

He could have nothing. Nothing! What was between them was over. She just had to get away from these thugs and she’d find some way to leave.

But she’d see Andreas first.

The plane didn’t taxi towards the airport buildings but instead stopped far out on the runway.

Andreas drove himself out to meet it. He didn’t need Sebastian to tell him that the fewer people who saw this first reunion, the better. He’d like to get rid of Holly’s minders and the aircrew first, but that was impossible. They’d have to be paid well for their silence.

He reached the plane and waited with ill-concealed impatience for the steps to be put in place and the doors to open.

Georgiou emerged first. The big man stopped on the top step and looked helplessly down at Andreas. He held up his hands, as if in surrender.

‘You want us to carry the cargo down?’ he asked, with a wary glance at the airport workers within earshot. ‘She…we could have trouble.’

‘You and your men leave the plane,’ Andreas said grimly. ‘I’ll come up.’

‘You’ll be…safe?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped, and climbed the steps with purpose. This was getting farcical. Even though he hated the idea that she’d been abducted, he needed to remind himself that this woman had deceived him. She was here because of that deceit. He had every reason to be angry and the sooner he had it out with her, the better.

Or maybe there was some simple explanation. Maybe this could be a five-minute conversation and she could leave again. It could all be a mistake.

Maybe.

‘She’s up the back. She’s hardly spoken to us since we left Australia, and only then in anger,’ Georgiou said, standing aside, and Andreas nodded and entered the cabin. And saw her.

For a moment his world stood still.

Holly.

She was just the same. His Holly. The Holly he’d held in his heart all these years. Holly, in her tattered jeans and T-shirt, her hair wild and tumbled, always laughing, always teasing. The image he’d loved most was of her riding bareback across the paddocks, daring him to keep up with her if he could.

Lovely Holly, with her beautiful body. Her bright, sapphire-blue eyes, her fierce intelligence, her low, throaty chuckle…

She wasn’t chuckling now. Her face looked set and grim. Her arms were crossed firmly across her breasts as she sat where she’d clearly sat for the entire journey. She looked dishevelled and weary and very, very angry. She met his gaze and it was almost a physical jolt. A stormy tempest about to break.

‘Holly,’ he said, and maybe he even said it tenderly before he could help himself, but the tenderness stopped right there.

‘How dare you?’ she snapped and, as he took a step towards her, she rose and moved out into the aisle.

‘I wished to see you,’ he said and her eyes flashed fire.

‘You’re seeing me. Your thugs dragged me into their helicopter without a word. They brought me here with no explanation. Your thugs. That’s what they are, Andreas, and so are you for employing them. A stupid, cowardly thug to set four men on a defenceless woman.’

‘You’re not defenceless,’ he said, taking a further step toward her and feeling the faint tug of a smile at the corners of his eyes. ‘You bit Maris.’

‘So I did.’ If looks could kill he’d be stabbed to the heart. ‘I wish I’d bitten him harder, but then I’d probably catch something vile. You’re pond scum, the lot of you. Why have you dragged me here?’

‘There are things we need to talk about,’ he said, forcing his tone to mildness.

‘So use the phone.’

‘That wouldn’t have been wise,’ he said and took another step forward and maybe that was a mistake. For her hand came up and slapped, a solid, ringing slap that pushed his face aside and echoed around and around the confines of the cabin. He gasped, his face darkening in anger. Instinctively his hand came up and caught her wrist, dragging it down.

‘Don’t you touch me,’ she snapped and lashed out with her feet. Her leather boot hit his shin and it was all he could do not to yelp.

‘Do you know what the penalties are for assaulting royalty?’ he demanded, astounded, moving adroitly so she was held out of kicking range.

‘Do you know what the penalties are for international kidnap?’ she countered, still trying to kick. ‘For grabbing me and hauling me here against my will? I don’t know what you want with me, Andreas Karedes. Tell your thugs to turn the plane round and take me home.’

She wrenched her wrists so hard he released them. She staggered back. His hands came out and caught her shoulders. She steadied and her hand came up and slapped again. Harder.

Ouch. If he wasn’t careful he’d have a black eye to explain to the press.

‘I just want an explanation…’ he started, but she was too angry to let him go on.

‘I don’t care what you want. Let me go.’

‘Not until you tell me what I need to know.’

‘You can’t do this.’

‘Holly, it seems I already have,’ he said wearily. ‘I’m sorry you were abducted. I meant to persuade you to come—not to coerce you. But now you’re here, you need to accept the royal imperative. You’ll stay until we have an explanation.’

Um…maybe that hadn’t worked. As an apology for what had happened, maybe it lacked a certain finesse. Holly certainly seemed to think so.

She stared at him blindly, two spots of flame high on her cheeks revealing that her temper had her right out of control. She glanced out the window. There was a cluster of airport workers in sight, clearly waiting to do the plane’s routine maintenance, or at least assist it to leave the runway it was blocking.

‘Aristo is a civilized country,’ she said, suddenly thoughtful, almost civil.

‘What…?’

‘You have laws,’ she continued. ‘Laws that even include kidnapping, I believe. Royalty may have been able to rape and pillage in the past, but I’d imagine those days are well and truly over.’

‘What I say, goes,’ he snapped, startled.

‘Does it? I wonder?’ She eyed him thoughtfully. She closed her eyes—and she screamed.

It was a scream to end all screams. It was a scream perfected years ago by a lonely child who’d had a taste for dramatics and miles of open space to practise. It was a scream that had every head within two hundred yards of the plane swivelling to see what was happening.

He grabbed her and hauled her towards him, reaching for her mouth. She elbowed him in the ribs and kept right on screaming.

His fingers closed on her mouth.

She bit. Hard.

Andreas swore, then strode across to haul the door closed, giving them a measure of privacy. Just in time, for Holly had taken a breath and was opening her mouth to scream again.

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ he said, staring down incredulously at the small teeth marks on his palm. That she could do such a thing… ‘You’ll not be heard through the doors.’

‘I demand the police,’ she spat. ‘I want the consulate. You can’t do this.’

‘This is Aristo and I’m the royal family,’ he said. ‘I can do what I want.’

‘Not with me you can’t.’

And then Georgiou was back, shoving his way urgently through the aircraft door and staring at his boss’s hand in incredulity. ‘You’re bleeding.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘I hope he gets rabies and dies,’ Holly hissed.

‘So he might, being bitten by a mad—’

‘Leave it,’ Andreas snapped. ‘You’ll have to take her to Eueilos.’

‘Sir, she’s out of control,’ Georgiou said urgently. ‘There’s no one on Eueilos except Sophia and Nikos, and they’re too old to defend you.’

‘I’ll tell them to lock up the firearms,’ Andreas said dryly. ‘She won’t hurt one elderly couple who have nothing to do with this, and there’s no way she can get away from the island.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I can’t stay. I need to face parliament in an hour and if I’m not there, there’ll be questions.’

Georgiou gave a wry smile. ‘Very good,’ he murmured. ‘But can we keep this one under wraps?’

‘I’m not staying under any wraps,’ Holly hissed, kicking backward at him. ‘Andreas, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

What was he doing? He thought of the report lying on his desk at home and his face hardened. She was threatening everything. One secret, which surely he’d had the right to know…even before his marriage?

But she’d gone past the point of hysterical.

‘I’m protecting my own,’ he said at last. ‘I have no idea what happened to you after I left Australia, but it’s threatening the future of this country. I’m sorry it’s had to come to this, Holly, but I want the truth. You’ll go to Eueilos and you’ll await my pleasure. I’ll see you when I’m ready.’

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS four days before he could leave. The corruption enquiry was reaching its zenith and, as head of the investigative committee, Andreas had to work through the mess of corrupt officialdom while trying to figure when he could get to Eueilos.

Maybe Holly would be better off with time to calm down, he decided, but only he knew how hard it was to concentrate on the issues at hand. When he finally left it was with a sense of relief—but also apprehension.

The island of Eueilos, an idyllic hideaway given to him on his coming of age by his father, King Aegeus, had long been his refuge. From childhood, Andreas had shown a distaste for the pomp and splendour of royalty. He was caught in the royal web. To walk away was an impossibility instilled in him from birth, but Eueilos was his. His wife had never liked it. Christina had loved the bright lights of the city, and even the capital of Aristo was too quiet for her, so he’d always been free to do with his island as he wished.

He’d built a pavilion—a whim, fashioned on the desert tents used by his royal cousins on the neighbouring island of Calista. From a distance it looked like a series of vast marquees, joined together in a circle. As a visitor grew closer he’d realize the ‘tents’ were in fact made from whitewashed timber panels. Every wall could be drawn back, opening almost the entire pavilion to the sea breezes that blew softly all year round.

In the centre of the pavilion, exposed when the walls were drawn back, was a vast swimming pool, large enough to classify as a lagoon. The island’s beaches were wide and golden, the sea always inviting, so the swimming pool was pure luxury, for when one was simply too lazy to walk the hundred yards or so to the shore.

He came as often as he could, when the demands and public spotlight of royalty became overpowering. He had a discreet couple as housekeeper and groundsman, and that was his total staff.

He loved it, as once he’d fallen for Holly’s home, he thought as his plane came in to land. He was flying himself—a small Cessna he’d learned to fly on Holly’s farm. Holly herself had taught him the rudiments, and every time he flew he…

No. He didn’t think of her. Hell, he’d been married, divorced—so much had happened since he’d last seen her.

He was about to see her now.

His hand came up to touch his face in remembrance. His dark skin didn’t show a bruise, but he still felt the imprint of her slap. Had she calmed down yet?

She must have calmed down sufficiently to answer his questions. There was no choice. He was here to stay until his questions were answered.

And until Sebastian’s outrageous suggestion was dealt with?

Sophia, his housekeeper, met him at the entrance to the pavilion. She’d been baking, and the smell of baklava assailed his senses, making him smile as this place always did. Sophia had been his nanny until he was ten. When he’d been granted the island he’d gone to find her. She and her husband, Nikos, ran this place and their comfortable presence always had the capacity to make his cares seem less.

But: ‘She’s not here,’ Sophia said and his cares came flooding back.

‘What?’

‘She’s at the beach on the far side of the island,’ Sophia told him, watching his face. ‘It’s the furthest place from this house. Georgiou told her you would come. She says to tell you not to bother, unless it’s to arrange her flight away from here.’ She frowned at him. ‘Andreas, this woman… Holly…she is very angry.’

‘Not as angry as I am,’ Andreas said grimly.

‘I didn’t raise you to take revenge on women,’ Sophia said, and folded her arms across her bosom and glared up at him. She was five feet nothing compared to his six feet one, but height was nothing. She’d box his ears if she thought it necessary, he thought ruefully. Of all the people in his life, Sophia was the only one who didn’t treat him as a royal prince. Rather she treated him as a boy, to be indulged but also to be brought into line as necessary.

‘She’s a good girl,’ Sophia added, still aggressive. ‘And she’s frightened. I’ve told her there’s nothing to be frightened of while I’m on this island. I don’t know why you’ve brought her here, Your Majesty, but you touch her and you’ll answer to me.’

Sophia only ever called him Your Majesty when she was in the presence of others—or was really troubled. Andreas forced a smile to reassure her.

‘I won’t hurt her.’

‘You already have. There are bruises on her wrists.’

‘That wasn’t me.’

‘It was Georgiou and that’s the same thing.’

‘It’s not.’

‘Don’t give me this,’ she said, and she stood on her tiptoes and poked him in the chest. ‘You go and see her and you treat her gently. And know that you’ll answer to me if you don’t. And, no, there’s no baklava for you until you make things right with Holly. She’s borrowed swim clothes—that you have such a collection here for women to wear makes her more angry, by the way. As it makes me angry. You’ll need to tread on eggshells to make your peace with that one.’

He walked across the island to find her. He could have taken one of the Jeeps but he needed time to collect himself. To figure out how to approach what came next.

It seemed that ever since the reporter had come to him with the news about Holly, he’d been moving on autopilot. He’d been trying to get answers fast, but now it behoved him to move a little more cautiously. Sophia was right. Nothing would be gained by having Holly as hysterical as when he’d last seen her.

Mind, it was hard for him to stay calm. The words of the reporter still bit deep.

‘Did you know there’s a child’s grave on her property? The gravestone says “Adam Andreas Cavanagh. Died 7th October 2000 aged seven weeks and two days. Cherished infant son of Holly. A tiny angel, loved with all my heart.”’

Adam Andreas Cavanagh. The name—what the reporter was suggesting—had generated a pain he’d never thought he was capable of feeling. Even before he’d worked back through the dates, he’d known the truth. For he remembered her saying:

‘Your home’s Adamas? I love that. Adam’s such a strong name. If I ever have a son I’d love him to be called Adam.’

They’d been lying in thick grass on a rocky verge that looked out over her home. Normally the outback cattle station was dry and dusty, but the rains had come just before he’d left. The change to Munwannay had been almost miraculous, dust turning to verdant green almost overnight.

So they’d made love that last time on a bed of soft grass and wildflowers. She’d clung to him with fierce passion, she’d talked of naming a son—hypothetically, he’d thought—and then he’d left to get on with his real life.

Leaving behind… Adam Andreas Cavanagh. He had no doubt that the reporter’s suspicions were right. Holly had been a virgin when he’d met her. It had to be…

But if it was, it was a disaster.

‘I must have left an impression, then,’ he’d joked to the reporter. ‘For Holly to give her son one of my names. Maybe she hasn’t met many royal princes. You’d think the baby’s father might have been a bit resentful.’

It had been a remark meant to avert suspicion, but he wasn’t sure whether the reporter had swallowed it. With the current scandals rocking the royal family, anything more could cause descent into chaos. The press knew it and was actively looking for trouble.

Holly was trouble. Holly screaming her head off because he’d had her brought here. Did she realize she might have the power to bring down the throne?

He walked round the final sand-hill before the beach Sophia had said she was on, and he stopped dead.

She was lying not ten yards away. She was wearing the bottom of a tiny, crimson bikini. Nothing else. She was lying face down but she was propped up on her elbows, reading, and he could see the generous curve of her lovely breasts. Her fair curls were tangled down her shoulders. She’d been swimming and her hair was still damp. She looked…free, he thought suddenly; free in a way he could never be. And quite extraordinarily beautiful.

The knot of anger and tension that had been clenched inside him for weeks dissolved, just like that. It was replaced by a sensation so strong he had to fight to stand in the one spot. She hadn’t noticed his approach. He could just walk forward and lie down beside her, let his body touch hers, take her in his arms as he’d taken her all those years ago.

Right. He was here to avert calamitous gossip—not make more.

‘Get yourself decent,’ he growled in a voice he scarcely recognized, and her head jerked up and she hauled herself upright in fright, reaching for her discarded bikini top. She clutched it, hauling it against her but not before he’d seen what lay beneath.

She was almost ten years older than last time he’d seen her. She had a woman’s body now. A full, sensuous collection of curves that together could make a man…

‘What are you doing here?’ she snapped, cutting across his thoughts. She frantically retied her top, then reached down and grabbed her towel, wrapping it round herself tightly and hanging on to it for dear life.

‘I own the island,’ he said mildly and waited for her reaction.

It didn’t come. She didn’t say anything.

‘I need to speak to you,’ he said at last. ‘That’s why I brought you here.’

‘You could have telephoned. We aren’t exactly in the Dark Ages.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘But telephones are bugged.’

‘Yours?’

‘Yours.’

She gasped at that, incredulous. ‘Why would anyone bug my telephone?’

‘Because my entire kingdom wants to know what happened with us.’ He hesitated. ‘Let’s go back to the house.’

‘If you want to drag me back screaming.’

‘Holly, cooperate.’

‘Give me one good reason why I should.’

‘You owe me the truth!’ It was said with such passion that it brought her up short. Her eyes widened and there was suddenly a trace of uncertainty in her eyes.

‘I owe you nothing,’ she whispered.

‘You bore my son.’

It was said with such heaviness, such dull certainty that it hurt. He saw her flinch. The fingers that had been clutching her towel so tightly loosened. It was as if she suddenly had nothing more to protect.

‘I did,’ she whispered. Her gaze met his, steady, unapologetic, but behind the defiance he saw a hurt that ran bone deep.

‘You never told me.’ The roughness had gone from his voice. The confused fury that had driven him for the last weeks had unexpectedly weakened.

‘No.’ It was a flat negative, nothing more.

He said nothing. There was almost perfect stillness around them—the faint lapping of the water on the golden sand but nothing, nothing, nothing.

Nothing to distract them from this thing that was between them. This awful, immutable truth.

‘I believe I had the right to know,’ he said at last, heavily, and he watched as the anger flashed back into her eyes.

‘As I had the right to receive the letters you told me you’d write. Not a phone call, Andreas. Nothing. One polite note to my parents thanking them for their hospitality, written on royal letterhead—typed by some palace secretary—and that was it.’

‘You know I couldn’t…’

‘Extend the relationship? Of course I did. You were engaged before you came to Australia. But we were kids. I was a teenager, Andreas. I’d never had a boyfriend. You had no right to take advantage…’

‘It wasn’t all one way!’

‘It wasn’t, was it?’ she said, and he thought he saw a faint trace of a smile behind her eyes. ‘But I was still a kid.’

That was the problem. He knew it. They both knew it. She’d been seventeen when he first met her. Seventeen. Not eighteen.

It made all the difference in the world.

‘Did you know you were pregnant when I left?’ he asked, trying to focus on the personal, rather than the political, ramifications of what had happened.

‘Yes,’ she said, and he flinched. Suddenly the personal was all that mattered.

‘So that last time…’

‘Oh, I didn’t know for sure,’ she said. ‘My home is hardly the place where you can pop down to the supermarket for a pregnancy test. But I guessed.’

‘Then why…’

‘Because you were engaged to be married,’ she said, sounding out each syllable as if she were talking to a simpleton. ‘Andreas, I don’t want to talk about this. Tell me, what would you have done if you’d discovered I was pregnant?’

‘Married you.’

It was said with such certainty that she blinked. But then she smiled drearily and shook her head.

‘No. That’s air-dreaming. We talked about it—don’t you remember? How we loved each other and wanted to be together for always. How you’d take me to Aristo and I’d be a princess. How my parents would cope without me and your father would forgive you eventually. Only there was already a princess, Andreas. Christina was waiting in the wings, and your marriage was meant to help to strengthen international ties. You talked about defying your father but you never once said you could break your engagement to Christina.’

‘We were promised as children,’ he said and he knew it sounded weak. It had sounded weak then, too. Holly hadn’t understood how such marriages worked. How Christina, five years older than he, had been raised from childhood to see herself as his wife. Christina would never have looked at another man. To tell Christina—aged twenty-five—that he no longer intended to marry her, would have been personally devastating to her, as well as politically disastrous.

He had a duty and he’d known it. Holly had known it, too.

She shivered and her towel dropped. She bent to retrieve it but he was before her, wrapping it round her shoulders, ignoring her involuntary protest.

‘I’m getting sunburned,’ she said, flinching at the feel of his hands on his shoulders, stepping away from him, her voice flat and dull. ‘I need to go back to the house. If that’s all you want to say to me…well, you’ve said it. Can you arrange transport back to Australia immediately?’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’ She hauled away from him, turning toward the path. She was turning her back on him? She shouldn’t do that, he thought. To turn your back on royalty…

He could have her put in prison for insubordination.

But she was already walking away. He watched her and thought she looked tired. She shouldn’t be tired. She’d had time here to rest.

There was a long, ragged scar running from the back of her knee almost to her ankle. It showed white against her tan. That hadn’t been there before.

She was a different woman from the girl he’d fallen in love with. But the girl he’d fallen in love with would never have been afraid of accusations of insubordination. Some things hadn’t changed.

She wasn’t waiting for him. She was simply ignoring him, trudging slowly back to the pavilion. He caught up with her in a few long strides and fell in beside her.

‘What happened to your leg?’

‘I don’t have to—’

‘Tell me? No, you don’t. But I’d like to know. It’s a nasty scar and I hate to think that you’ve been hurt.’

She cast him a look that was almost fearful. ‘You think a cut on the leg can hurt me? That’s a minor cut, Andreas Karedes. You have no idea what can really hurt. And don’t you turn on the royal charm to me,’ she snapped. ‘I’m impervious.’

‘Are you?’ He smiled and she gasped and turned deliberately to face ahead.

‘Leave me alone. You seduced me once. If you think you’re seducing me again…’

‘I just asked what happened to your leg. It’s hardly a come-on.’

‘I cut it on some fencing wire.’

‘You were fencing?’

‘Yes, if you must know.’

‘Your father would never have allowed you to fence.’

‘While you were around, no,’ she said. ‘There was a lot that didn’t happen when you were around.’

‘I don’t understand.’

She turned on him then, her colour high. ‘We were broke,’ she said, through teeth that were suddenly chattering. ‘I didn’t know. No one knew. Our neighbours, our friends. No one. He hid it, my father. Our homestead was grand and imposing, and the landholding vast. You know my mother was minor European royalty? She never lost her love of luxury, and my father indulged her. They both assumed things would come right. They didn’t, but that didn’t stop them spending. My father borrowed and he borrowed and he borrowed.’

‘He was rich,’ Andreas said, stunned.

‘He wasn’t,’ she snapped. ‘So when I turned seventeen they hatched some crazy plan to have me marry wealth. My mother used her connections. She wrote to every royal house in Europe; every billionaire she’d ever heard of, offering a home-stay for young men before they took over their duties. You were the first who came.’

‘There was money…’

‘It was a façade. You remember the balls, the picnics, the splendour… Until then I was a kid being home-schooled because we couldn’t afford boarding school. I worked on the farm, but as soon as you arrived I was off duty. I was a young lady. I was free to spend every minute of every day with you if I wanted. And of course it went to my head. I was free for the first time in my life and my parents were pushing me into your arms for all they were worth. Only then I got pregnant and you left and the whole pack of cards came tumbling down. My father was left with a mountain of debt. My mother simply walked out, and there I was. Pregnant. Desperate. And even lovesick, if you must know.’

‘Lovesick,’ he said faintly, but she responded with a look of scorn.

‘Leave it. You want to hear the story? I’m telling you.’ Her words were almost tumbling out, as if she was trying hard to get this over as fast as possible. ‘So, pregnant or not, I had to work, and yes I have scars but the outward ones are the least of it. No, I didn’t tell you I was pregnant even when my parents… Well, there was no way I was letting them coerce you into marriage. So I had my baby and I loved him so much he changed my world.’ She faltered but then forced herself to continue.

‘But…but when he was almost two months old he got meningitis and he died. That’s it. End of story.’ She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second and then opened them again. Story almost over. The hard part done. ‘So there it is. I got myself a university degree by correspondence so I could teach. I taught School of the Air like I’d always intended and that’s the only money that’s been coming into the farm for years. My father was incapacitated with depression but he wouldn’t hear of selling the farm and I couldn’t leave him. Six months ago he died. I put the place on the market, but it’s too run down. It hasn’t sold and I was planning to walk away when your thugs arrived. So what are you planning to do with me now, Andreas? Punish me more? Believe me, I’ve been punished enough. My Adam died.’

Her voice choked on a sob of pure fury, directed at him, directed at the death of her baby, directed at the whole world. She wiped her face desperately with the back of her hand.

He moved towards her but she backed away. ‘No!’

‘You called him Adam,’ he said, hating to hurt her more, but knowing he might never get answers at any other time than now. Now when her defences were smashed. When she was so far out of control…

‘AdamAndreas,’ she whispered. ‘For his father. He even looked like you. You should have seen… I so wanted you to see…’ She gasped and it was too much.

He moved then, like a big cat, lunging forward to grasp her shoulders. She wrenched back but he hauled her in against him and held, whether she wished it or not.

He simply held.

She was rigid in his grasp, but he could feel her shoulders heaving. ‘No…no.’

‘Let it go, Holly,’ he said, and held her tighter still and let his face rest on her lovely curls.

For a moment he thought she wouldn’t let herself succumb to his attempts at comfort. The stiffness in her body felt even more pronounced.

And then, so suddenly he almost let her go, he felt the tension release. She let her body slump against him. He tugged her into him. Her face buried into his shoulder and he felt her weep.

It lasted thirty seconds at the most. He held her close, the most primeval of emotions coursing through his veins, all to do with protection, desire, possession, and then he felt her stiffen and pull away. This woman would not give in to tears easily, he thought as she hauled herself back from him and swiped her face angrily on her towel. He remembered her refusal to weep when he’d left. He’d seen the glimmer of tears and had watched her simply shut them down, hold them back.

She did so now. Her eyes, when she finally raised them to meet his, were cold and defiant.

‘You have no right to make me feel like this,’ she whispered. ‘You have no rights at all.’

‘I had the right to know my son.’

The words shocked them both. They were said with such a harshness that both of them knew it for an inviolate truth. She stared at him for a long moment, and then simply turned her back on him. Again.

‘I know you did,’ she said, starting to trudge again toward the pavilion. ‘If he’d lived I’d have told you. I should have told you straight away. But I didn’t attempt to hide him. If you’d contacted me… But of course you didn’t. And you need to understand. The moment you left my world fell apart. The socializing we’d done had pushed us over the limit. The debt collectors pulled the place apart. They even took Merryweather.’ Her voice broke and she paused, trying to regroup. She kicked the sand out before her in anger and she trudged on.

Merryweather.

‘Your horse,’ he said, stunned, thinking back to the beautiful mare she’d loved almost as an extension of herself.

‘She was the least of it,’ she said, hauling herself back under control with an obvious effort. ‘She was a fantastic stock-horse and she was in foal to a brilliant sire. She and her foal were worth far too much to keep. My mother walked out, and my father went on a drinking binge that lasted for years. I kept my pregnancy from my father until I was six months gone, and by then you were married. By then my father knew that no amount of child support would save the farm, and I saw no point in destroying your marriage. I told my parents if they tried to blackmail you then I’d deny the baby was yours. I… I was just so tied up with putting one foot after another that I had no time to think of you.

‘Or not very much,’ she admitted. ‘I had to keep the cattle alive. I had to keep my father from self-destruction. And maybe there was also depression at play as well. I told myself I’d write to you after the birth, but I was barely over the birth when…when…’

She stopped walking but she didn’t turn. She took a deep breath, forcing the words out as if they still had the capacity to cut her to the heart. ‘When Adam died,’ she said, squaring her shoulders, every inch of her rigid with tension.

Andreas tried to imagine what that must have been like for her. He’d never had anything to do with babies. He thought of her holding a tiny child—the wild girl he’d fallen in love with, suddenly transformed into a woman. Holly breastfeeding. Holly sleeping with a baby beside her. Suddenly it was there, a mental image so strong it was as if he’d been there. Holly as a mother. The mother of his son.

‘I don’t know this…meningitis.’

‘Lucky you,’ she said drearily. ‘It happened so fast… He woke in the night with a fever. I rang the flying doctor service at six a.m. They arrived at eight and he died on the plane to the city. They said it was so appalling a case that it wouldn’t have mattered if we’d lived right by the hospital—there was simply no time for the antibiotics to work.’

‘Was your mother…?’

‘Nowhere. Back in Europe. If I wouldn’t acknowledge you as Adam’s father she washed her hands of me.’

‘But your father took care of you?’ The thought of her facing her baby’s death alone seemed insupportable.

‘Are you kidding? He’d gone on a bender the day my mother walked out and was still drunk. God knows where he was the day I buried my baby but he wasn’t with me.’ She shook her head. ‘Leave it. I’m on my own. I buried my little boy myself and I’ve taken care of myself since. Now is that all? I don’t know why you’ve brought me here, Andreas, but you might as well let me go. There’s nothing left between us but a dead baby, and that’s the truth. Let me go and be done with me.’

CHAPTER THREE

THEY walked back to the pavilion side by side. Holly said nothing and Andreas could think of nothing to say. He could barely remember the echoes of his fury that she’d borne his son and not told him. Her story had been flat and truthful and dreadful.

Her loneliness appalled him.

That he’d left her to face childbirth and the babe’s subsequent death alone seemed unthinkable. He’d been so young. He’d left her to come home to a magnificent royal wedding. Thinking of Holly had hurt so he’d tried not to think of her at all.

He’d been a boy.

That was no excuse. He should have…

‘There’s no reason to berate yourself for what happened ten years ago,’ Holly said with sudden asperity. ‘Adam’s death wasn’t your fault. For the rest… I knew I was being seduced by a prince and I liked it.’

‘You weren’t…’

‘Seduced?’ she demanded with a trace of the old Holly. ‘What do you call what happened between us? Hair like gold filigree, I believe you told me. Eyes like stars. Breasts like—’

‘There’s no need to—’

‘There’s not, is there?’ she agreed and fell silent again.

‘It was good,’ he said cautiously, glancing at her sideways. Maybe he did remember the overblown compliments. Maybe he even remembered his older brothers coaching him.

‘Being a prince has definite advantages where women are concerned.’ He remembered Alex telling him this. ‘There’s hardly a woman you can’t get into your bed. It’s just a matter of a few pretty words and they’re yours for the taking.’

It had been heady stuff for a young prince to hear. Heady advice for a young prince to live by.

Maybe, God help him, he’d even believed it.

‘It was fun,’ Holly conceded, interjecting over his thoughts. ‘But before you get all smug, if I hadn’t wanted to be seduced you wouldn’t have had a chance.’

‘As you don’t want to be seduced now?’ Hell, where had that come from? But the words were out before he could stop himself saying them.

Maybe it wasn’t the wisest come-on. And it certainly wasn’t the way to lead into Sebastian’s plan for them.

She gasped. She stopped walking—and then she started again, very fast.

‘We were children, Andreas. We’re not children now. If you think you have a snowball’s chance in a bushfire…’

He grinned, distracted as he’d been distracted years ago by her Aussie expressions. Flat out like a lizard drinking. Barmy as a bandicoot. Mad as a cut snake.

‘I remember the way you talk,’ he said and she glared back at him as if he were crazy.

‘Shut up,’ she snapped. ‘Just shut up. If I get one more compliment from you I’ll choke. How soon can I get off this place?’

‘There are things we need to sort.’

‘What things?’

‘We do need to talk,’ he said gravely, but she was hardly listening. She’d crested the last hill before the pavilion and was speeding up.

‘So we speak at dinner?’ he asked.

‘Go home, Andreas,’ she snapped.

‘This is my home.’

‘You live on Aristo. With your wife. With your children.’

‘There is no wife,’ he said. ‘No children, either.’

She whirled to face him then, her face blanching. ‘Oh, Andreas…’ She swallowed. ‘Not…not dead?’

‘Not dead,’ he said, fast, wanting desperately to take away the pain he saw surge behind her eyes. Of course. This woman had seen tragedy. It was natural she’d expect it in his. ‘Christina and I never had children,’ he said gently. ‘We divorced six months ago.’

‘Oh,’ she said, her face still white. The pain in her eyes was replaced by blank acceptance. She turned away again. ‘I’m sorry.’

But not very, he thought. Not even very interested. For a moment he came close to wishing that Christina had died, so the sympathy in her face would have stayed. What he saw now was something close to contempt.

It was a new sensation for Andreas. Women didn’t show contempt to the royal princes of Karedes.

Women?

Yes, there had been women. Christina had been a faithless wife, finally leaving him for a shipping tycoon. And Andreas…well, the last few years hadn’t been without their comforts.

They were being dredged up now, one after another, he thought bleakly, as the press scrambled to make the royal princes look a bunch of pleasure-seeking womanizers. Culminating in this. An accusation that had the capacity to bring down a throne.

The urgency of the current situation slammed back. Holly was assuming he could put her on a plane and send her calmly back to where she’d come from.

Maybe he could. If she could swear…

‘Holly, is there anyone who could prove the baby…Adam…’ he corrected himself hastily as he saw her face. ‘Is there any way it can be proved that Adam was mine?’

Until now he’d thought she was so angry she could scarcely be angrier.

He was wrong.

She’d dropped her towel at some point and had simply left it. She stood now, facing him, bare of everything but her skimpy bikini. She was only five feet four or so, but she looked much taller. She was all heaving bosom and flashing eyes—and temper to the point of explosion.

‘I beg your pardon?’ she said at last, dripping ice with every word.

But it had to be asked.

‘I have to know,’ he said. He was feeling sick at what he’d just learned but this couldn’t be the end of it. What was at stake was too important.

‘You want to know if I can prove you were Adam’s father?’ she demanded, incredulous.

‘I know I fathered your child,’ he said flatly. ‘I accept your word, the dates fit and I know you were a virgin.’

‘Thank you so much,’ she said, scorn dripping as well as ice.

‘But…’

‘But what?’ They were too close. She was glaring up at him, tugged so close he could feel her breasts beneath the fine linen of his shirt. Her anger was a palpable force, holding them together with fire.

‘Holly, I’m in trouble,’ he said simply. ‘We’re all in trouble. If anyone else can prove the baby was mine, then I’m going to have to marry you.’

As a conversation stopper it was magnificent. It set up a boundary over which Holly would not step. She stared at him for one long, incredulous moment and then she closed her eyes.

‘You’re mad and I’ll have nothing to do with you,’ she spat, and that was all she’d say. She wrenched herself away with a viciousness he could scarcely credit for a woman so small. She slapped his hands away and, unless he was prepared to hold her back with force, he had no option but to let her go.

She marched back to the pavilion with her head held high. Sophia met them at the main entrance as if she’d been on the lookout for them, her shrewd eyes filled with unasked questions.

‘His Highness has had too much sun,’ Holly said to her. ‘I think he needs a doctor. I’m going to take a shower and cool off.’

She marched across the tiled courtyard to the apartment Sophia had obviously allocated her. She hauled the oak doors wide, marched in and slammed the doors so hard behind her that the ceiling fans in the vast entrance hall wobbled on their bearings.

Sophia and Andreas were left staring after her. And staring at each other.

‘Do you want dinner?’ Sophia said at last, though Andreas knew there were a dozen other questions her eyes were asking.

‘In an hour.’

‘I’d imagine Holly will have it in her room,’ she said cautiously, staring at the very shut doors.

Enough. He was a prince of the blood. He was here with a mission. ‘Holly will have her dinner out by the pool with me,’ he snapped, a score or more of his exceedingly autocratic ancestors snapping to attention behind him, stiffening his spine. ‘Tell her that.’

‘You might want to tell her yourself,’ Sophia said, still cautious.

‘It’s your place to tell her.’

‘My Andreas is being a coward?’ Sophia said and she smiled.

‘Yes, he is,’ he admitted, raking his hair and giving her a rueful smile. Autocratic ancestors might come at will, but they never hung round long enough to be really useful. ‘Please, Sophia, would you tell her?’

‘I’ll tell her,’ Sophia said and smiled up at him some more, and then reached up and raked his black curls back into place as she’d done when he was six years old. ‘I’ll tell her you’re distressed and need to talk.’

‘No…’

‘You are distressed. You tell that one the truth,’ Sophia said sternly. ‘I’ve seen her long enough now to know that nothing but the truth will serve.’

He swam.

It was an hour until dinner, there was nothing to do but pace and he’d wear a hole in the magnificent tiles in his bedchamber if he paced as he felt like doing. So he abandoned himself to the pleasure of his internal lagoon. The pool was a perfect circle, with an island in the centre, set up with lounges, umbrellas, a bar with every drink a man—or woman—would want.

He wanted none of them now. He simply swam, circling the pool over and over, his long, lean body cutting through the water with the ease and grace that had come from years of hard physical training.

Swimming was to Andreas a time of something akin to meditation. A time when he could block out everything: the demands of royalty; the problems with a disastrous marriage; even the impending crisis of the missing diamond.

But he couldn’t block out Holly. Not here. Not now. She was in his thoughts every moment as he circled the pool, and no matter how fast he swam there was no escape.

He’d thought he’d forgotten her. Ten years ago he’d walked away from her because there was no choice. Now…now it seemed there was a choice again.

He had to be disinterested. He had to explain things calmly, setting the future before her in terms she must understand.

But she had a choice. He couldn’t marry her out of hand. Could he?

No, he conceded as he swam. The days of dragging an unwilling bride to the altar were long gone, and shame could no longer be used as an incentive.

She’d been shamed before, when he’d left. The thought of what she’d faced alone…

It couldn’t matter. He had to put the gut-wrenching emotion he’d felt as she’d described her baby’s death aside. For now, for his country’s sake, he needed to be level-headed, sharp and persuasive.

But he didn’t know how to be, when the moment he looked at her he felt like a kid again; a young prince with the world at his feet. With Holly at his feet…

Holly.

He had to get his mind clear. He had to get his arguments in order.

All he could think of was how beautiful she was. And that she’d borne his son.

He’d had a son and he’d never known him. The thought was enough to shift his foundations. To make him unsure of who he was in the world.

He’d let this woman down. She had to agree to his proposal. Somehow he had to make amends, but that had to fit with Sebastian’s demands.

The demands of his king.

He’d know she could see him.

Every apartment in the pavilion looked over the pool. Andreas swam with the ease of a shark circling his prey, she thought uneasily, watching him rounding the island with lazy ease and a speed that looked deceptively easy to obtain.

Holly conceded that he looked magnificent, but then she’d thought he was magnificent once before. This time she had to use her head. This time she had to keep her emotions firmly in the background as she held Andreas at arm’s length.

Or further.

He had to marry her? The concept was ridiculous. He was a royal prince. She was broke, a single mother of a dead baby. Her home was half a world away from here. Further.

Enough. She whirled away from the window, refusing to look at him any longer. His easy good looks, his wicked smile, his domineering personality …they had the power to rip her world apart as it had been ripped apart ten years ago.

She was not the same innocent as she was then. She’d been little more than a child. She was all woman now, and she’d meet him on her terms.

At dinner?

That was what he’d ordered and what he ordered was what Andreas generally got.

Not now. She had to stand up to him.

On equal terms, she thought, feeling desperate. She was still in her bikini. She had no clothes of her own here, apart from one battered pair of jeans and a tattered shirt.

She wouldn’t see him like that.

Well, then.

She eyed the massive wardrobe with caution. Maybe Andreas had provided her with the weapons she needed.

It would take courage, but then…what did she have to lose?

Sophia provided a dinner fit for royalty—when had she not?—but this night the meal was enough to make even Andreas’s eyes widen. He’d showered and dressed in casual trousers and an open-necked linen shirt, and then he’d thought better of it and donned a tie and jacket. It behoved him to step carefully, he thought. There were major decisions to be made tonight.

Sebastian’s words were still ringing harsh in his ears. ‘You’ll have to marry her. There’s no choice. If the child really was yours then a Cinderella wedding is the best we can ask for—a fairy tale to distract from reality. That’s what the PR people are telling us. It’ll take the sordid mess of your divorce away from people’s minds. You’ll be forgiven if you do the honourable thing, and there’s very little honour in our family right now.’

So he emerged formally attired, he glanced at the amazing table setting—glimmering crystal and silverware, a table groaning with seafood, set up under a netted canopy under the stars—and all that was missing was Holly.

All that was missing was his bride.

‘I’ve let her know dinner’s served,’ Sophia said, watching him cautiously from the shadows. ‘But she says she’s eating in her room. She’s strong willed.’

‘So am I,’ Andreas growled, and strode along the courtyard to knock at her door.

No answer.

‘Holly?’

‘Go away.’

‘Sophia will not serve you in your apartment.’

‘Then I’ll go hungry because I’m not eating with you.’

‘That’s childish.’

‘So I’m childish. You, on the other hand, are overbearing, arrogant and crazy. Go away, Andreas.’

‘I order you to—’

‘Order away, you big oaf. I’m staying here.’

His face darkened. He stared at the door in gathering anger. Then he put his shoulder against the wood and pushed.

Nothing.

Damn, this was how they did it in the movies. He tried again, shoving with all his strength.

Nothing.

He’d get Nikos. But one last shove… He gathered himself, bunching his muscles in sheer frustration and shoved for all he was worth.

The door swung inward, unlatched, free, and he sprawled full length onto the bedroom carpet.

He lay, winded. Above him Holly stood looking down, seemingly solicitous.

‘Oh, dear,’ she said, her lips twitching. ‘Did the prince fall over?’

He stared up at her and amazingly the corners of her mouth were curved into the delicious smile he’d fallen in love with ten years back. ‘Do you need a hand up?’

He put out a hand without thinking. She tugged, he came up too fast and all of a sudden they were way too close. She staggered backwards, his hands came out to steady her and they were closer still.

She felt…fabulous. She felt like the Holly he’d remembered for all these years. The smell of her was reminiscent of citrus lemon; very faint. He’d always assumed it was her perfume but she’d hardly been given time to pack perfume.

And what was she wearing?

This was no cringing kidnap victim. Nor was it a woman dressed to calmly eat in her bedroom. She was wearing a dress that was beautiful enough to make his eyes water. It was a simple jade cocktail dress, sleek, closely fitting, its tiny shoestring straps holding it just barely above the lovely curve of her breasts. The soft silk clung to every gorgeous curve. A slit in the side revealed a flash of thigh so tantalizing that he felt his body respond in primeval need.

His hands tightened on hers involuntarily in a gesture of pure possession. He’d wanted this woman the first time he’d seen her, and he wanted her now.

But she didn’t want him. Her hands came up, they wedged against his chest and she shoved so hard that he let her go. Why had he done that? It felt like tearing part of himself away.

She looked… She looked…

‘You’re staring,’ she said, almost kindly. ‘Don’t.’

‘Why are you wearing that?’

‘What does it look like on me?’ she asked, seemingly determined to be casual, even though he could see she was fighting the mounting colour on her cheeks. She deliberately twirled so he could see it from all angles—or maybe so she had some breathing space where she wasn’t forced to meet his gaze head on. ‘Compared to every other woman who’s worn it?’ she demanded, cutting across his thoughts. The amusement had gone from her voice and anger had returned. ‘Dresses in every size, Andreas. Negligees, nightwear, even lingerie. How many women do you drag here against their will and then dress in your fancy outfits? This is some harem.’

‘It’s not a harem.’

‘Not?’

Well, maybe. He thought back a few months to when Christina had finally achieved her precious divorce. ‘You’re free, brother,’ Alex had told him. ‘You set that island up for seduction and you’re set for life. Fill it with things women love. Clothes that are worth a fortune. Seriously sexy stuff. The one thing you don’t have on that island is shopping, and you need to make up for it if you want hot women. I’ll tell you what—as a gift to celebrate your divorce to that harpy I’ll equip the wardrobes for you.’

He had. Six months ago Andreas had inspected the mass of clothes Alex—or, he suspected, one of Alex’s mistresses—had chosen for his imagined stream of women and he’d laughed. Maybe it’d even be fun to use them, he’d thought.

But it hadn’t worked out like that. Life outside marriage to Christina was infinitely easier, but seduction for seduction’s sake didn’t hold any appeal for Andreas.

Though seduction with Holly… He looked at her now, in her gorgeous dress, her eyes bright with anger, mocking him in a manner no woman had ever used in his presence…and he thought seduction was a definite possibility.

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