Cinderella had his baby...

Now she’ll wear his crown

Vibrant artist Frankie is shocked when Matt, the enigmatic stranger she gave her innocence to, reappears in her life. His touch was intensely sensual, his kiss pure magic...yet their affair had consequences, and Frankie had no way to contact him. Now she’s in for the biggest shock of all—Matt is actually King Matthias! And to claim his heir, he demands Frankie become his queen!

Explore the king’s Mediterranean palace with his royal bride

CLARE CONNELLY was raised in small-town Australia among a family of avid readers. She spent much of her childhood up a tree, Mills & Boon book in hand. Clare is married to her own real-life hero and they live in a bungalow near the sea with their two children. She is frequently found staring into space—a surefire sign that she’s in the world of her characters. She has a penchant for French food and ice-cold champagne, and Mills & Boon novels continue to be her favourite ever books. Writing for Modern Romance is a long-held dream. Clare can be contacted via clareconnelly.com or at her Facebook page.

Also by Clare Connelly

Bought for the Billionaire’s Revenge

Innocent in the Billionaire’s Bed

Bound by the Billionaire’s Vows

Her Wedding Night Surrender

Spaniard’s Baby of Revenge

Christmas Seductions miniseries

Bound by Their Christmas Baby

The Season to Sin

Mills & Boon DARE

Off Limits

Forbidden

Burn Me Once

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Shock Heir for the King

Clare Connelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08782-7

SHOCK HEIR FOR THE KING

© 2019 Clare Connelly

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For romance readers everywhere, and especially my Advance readers, who are some of the best champions and friends a writer could hope for.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

PROLOGUE

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

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

THERE WERE THREE things Matthias Vasilliás loved in life. The glow of the sky as the sun dipped into the horizon, bathing the world in streaks of gold and peach; the country he was one week away from ruling; and women—but never the same woman for long, and never with any expectation of more than this: sex.

The wind blew in across the hotel room, draping the gauzy fabric of the curtain towards him, and for a moment he looked at it, his mind caught by the beauty, the brevity, of such a fragile material—the brevity of this moment.

In the morning he’d be gone, she’d be a memory—a ghost of this life. In the morning he would fly back to Tolmirós and step into his future.

He hadn’t come to New York for this. He hadn’t intended to meet her. He hadn’t intended to seduce a virgin—that wasn’t his usual modus operandi. Not when he couldn’t offer any degree of permanence in exchange for such a gift.

No, Matthias preferred experienced women.

Lovers who were au fait with the ways of the world, who understood that a man like Matthias had no heart to offer, no future he could provide.

One day he would marry, but his bride would be a political choice, a queen to equal him as King, a ruler to sit beside him and oversee his kingdom.

Until then, though, there was this: there was Frankie, and this night.

She ran her fingertips over his back, her nails digging into him, and he lost himself to her completely, plunging inside her, taking the sweetness she offered as she cried out into the balmy New York evening.

‘Matt.’ She used the shortened version of his name—it had been such a novelty to meet a woman who didn’t know who he was, didn’t know he was the heir to the throne of a powerful European country, that he was richer than Croesus and about to be King. Matt was simple, Matt was easy, and soon this would be over.

For ruling Tolmirós meant he would have to abandon his love of women, his love of sex and all that he was, outside the requirements of being King. His life would change completely in seven days’ time.

Seven days and he would be King.

In seven days he would be back in Tolmirós, the country before him. But for now he was here, with a woman who knew nothing of his life, his people, his duties.

‘This is perfect,’ she groaned, arching her back so two pert breasts pushed skyward and he shoved his guilt at this deception aside, his guilt at having taken an innocent young woman to bed for his own pleasure, to slake his own needs, knowing it could never be more than this.

She didn’t want complications either. They’d been clear on that score. It was this weekend and nothing more. But he was using her, of that he had no doubt. He was using her to rebel, one last time. Using her to avoid the inevitable truth of his life, for one night longer. Using her because right here, in this moment, sleeping with Frankie made him feel human—only human—and not even an inch royal.

He took one of her breasts in his mouth and rolled his tongue over the tight nipple. It budded in his mouth, desperate for his touch, his possession, and he thrust into her depths, wondering if any woman had ever been so perfectly made for a man?

His fingers fisted in her long, silky blonde hair and he pushed her head up to meet his, claiming her lips, kissing her until she whimpered beneath him and the whole of her body was at his command.

Power surged through him at the way this felt, but it was nothing to the power that awaited him, the duty that would soon be at his feet.

For his country and his people, he would turn his back on pleasures such as this, on women such as Frankie, and he would be King.

But not quite yet.

For a few more hours he would simply be Matt, and Frankie would be his...

CHAPTER ONE
Three years later

NEW YORK SPARKLED like a beautiful diorama, all high-rises, bright lights and muted subway noise. He stared down at the glittering city from the balcony of his Manhattan penthouse, breathing in the activity and forcing himself not to remember the last time he’d been in this exact position.

Forcing his eyes to stay trained in the opposite direction of the School of Art, and definitely not allowing himself to remember the woman who had bewitched him and charmed him.

The woman who had given him her innocence, given him her body, and imprinted something of herself in his mind.

Inwardly he groaned, her name just a whisper in his body, a curse too, because he had no business so much as thinking of her, let alone remembering everything about her.

Not when his engagement would be made formal within a month. Not when his future awaited—and duty to his country called to him as loudly as ever. Then, he’d been one week away from assuming the throne, and now he was weeks away from making a marriage commitment.

All of Tolmirós was waiting for its King to finally wed and beget an heir. An heir that would promise stability and the safekeeping of the prosperous nation: all of that was on Matthias’s shoulders, as much now as it had been then. He’d run from this fate for as long as he could. His family had died when he was only a teenager and the idea of marrying, having his own children, as though you could so easily recreate what had been lost, pressed against his chest like a weight of stone.

But it was needed; it was necessary. His country required its King to beget an heir, and he needed a wife. A suitable wife, like one of the women his assistant had vetted for him. A woman who would be cultured, polished and appropriate.

His eyes shut and there she was: Frankie. Frankie as she’d been that afternoon they’d met, her clothes paint-splattered, her hair scraped back into a ponytail, her smile contagious. His gut clenched.

His wife—his Queen—would be nothing like Frankie.

What they’d shared went beyond logic and reason—it had been an affair that had rocked him to his core because, after only a matter of hours, he’d known he was in danger of forgetting everything he owed to his people if it meant more time with the woman—she had been like some kind of siren, rising out of the sea, drawing him towards danger unknowingly.

And so he’d done what he was best at: he’d drawn his heart closed, he’d pushed his emotions deep inside, and he’d walked out on her without a backwards glance.

But now, back in New York, he found himself thinking of her in a way he’d trained himself not to. His dreams he could not control, but his waking mind was as disciplined as the man himself, and he saw no point in dwelling on the past, and particularly not on such a brief event.

Only she was everywhere he looked in this city—the lights that sparkled like the depths of her eyes, the elegance of the high-rises that were tall where she had been short, the nimble alertness, the vivid brightness—and he wondered what it would be like to see her once more. Call it idle curiosity, or simply scratching an itch.

He was a king now, not the man he’d been when they’d first slept together. But his needs were the same. His desires. He stared out at the city and the idea grew.

What harm could come from dipping into the past, just for a night?

* * *

‘The lighting is beyond perfect,’ Frankie enthused, glancing her trained artist’s eye over the walls of the midtown gallery. The showing was scheduled for the following day; this was her last chance to make sure everything was absolutely as she wanted it to be.

A frisson of excitement ran down her spine.

For years she’d been struggling. Establishing oneself as an artist was no mean feat, and every spare penny she made was funnelled into trying to keep a roof over their heads. It was one thing to be a starving artist when you were footloose and fancy-free—there was even a degree of romance to the notion.

The reality was a lot less enjoyable, particularly with a rapidly growing two-and-a-half-year-old to care for and a mountain of bills that seemed to go on for ever.

But this show...

It could be the game-changer she’d been waiting for.

Two broadsheet newspapers had already sent reviewers to have a pre-show viewing, and the opening night had been advertised across the city. Her fingers, her toes and the hairs on her head remained crossed that she might finally catch her big break into the competitive New York art scene.

‘I did think of using small spotlights here.’ Charles nodded towards some of her favourite landscapes—sun rising over oceans, but all in abstract oils—gashes of colour scratched over the paper to create the impression of day’s dawn. Each picture would be interpreted differently by the spectator, and Frankie liked that. It was her take on each day being what you made of it.

‘I like the overheads you’ve chosen,’ she demurred, another shiver running down her spine. Her whole body was a tangle of nerves—and she told herself it was because of the exposure. Not the media exposure—the exposure of herself. Every thought, lost dream, wish, fear, feeling had been captured on these canvases. Even the paintings of Leo, with his stunning crop of black curls, intense grey eyes, so shimmery they were almost silver, lashes that curled precociously and wild. He was her little love, her heart and soul, and his image now hung on the walls of this gallery, waiting to be seen by thousands, she hoped, of viewers.

‘The door,’ Charles murmured apologetically, in response to a sound that Frankie hadn’t even noticed. She was moving closer to the painting she’d done of Leo last fall.

He’d been laughing, collecting dropped leaves from the sidewalk and tossing them into the air with all the enthusiasm a two-year-old boy could muster, and as they’d fallen back to earth he’d watched their progress before crouching down and crunching a new selection into his chubby grip.

His joy had been so euphoric she’d had to capture it. So she’d snapped hundreds of photos from different angles, committing the light to her memory, and then she’d worked late into the night.

And she’d done what she did best: she’d taken a mood, a slice of one of life’s moments, and locked it onto a canvas. She’d created a visual secret for the viewer to share in, but only for as long as they looked at her work. It was a moment in time, a moment of her life, and now it was art.

‘The opening is tomorrow night, sir, but if you’d like to take a brief look at the collection...’

‘I would.’

Two words, so deep, and from a voice so instantly familiar.

A shiver ran down Frankie’s spine of a different nature now. It wasn’t a shiver of anxiety, nor joyous anticipation, it was one of instant recognition, a tremble of remembrance and a dull thudding ache of loss.

She turned slowly, as if that could somehow unstitch the reality she knew she’d found herself in. But when she looked at Charles, and then the man beside him, all her worlds came crashing down at once.

Matt.

It was him.

And everything came rushing back to her—the way she’d awoken to find him gone, no evidence he’d even slept in the same bed as her, no note, nothing. No way of contacting him, nothing to remember him by except the strange sensation of her body having been made love to, and a desire to feel that sensation again and again.

‘Hello, Frances,’ he said, his eyes just exactly as she remembered, just exactly like Leo’s. How many dreams had she spent painting those eyes? Mixing exactly the right shades of silver, grey and flecks of white to flick, close to the iris? The lashes, with their luxuriant black curls, had occupied much of her artist’s mind. How to transpose them onto canvas without looking heavy-handed? They were so thick and glossy that no one would actually believe they really existed.

It had been three years since Frankie had seen this man but, courtesy of her dreams, she remembered him as vividly as if they’d met only the day before.

Oh, how she wanted to drag her eyes down his body, to luxuriate in every inch of him, to remember the strength in his frame, the contradictory gentleness he’d shown when he’d taken possession of her body that first time, when he’d held her in his arms and removed the vestiges of her innocence. How she wanted to give into the temptation to hungrily devour him with her gaze.

With the greatest of efforts, she crossed her arms over her chest and maintained her attention on his face. A face that was watching her with just as much intensity as she was him.

‘Matt,’ she murmured, proud beyond description when her voice came out steady and cool. ‘Are you looking for a piece of art?’

Something seemed to throb between them. A power source that was all its own, that Frankie pushed aside. It wasn’t welcome.

‘Would you show me your work?’ he responded, and it wasn’t an answer. It was an invitation, one that was fraught with danger. Belatedly, she recollected that the wall of paintings behind her was of their son and if he looked a little to the left or right he’d see clearly for himself the proof of their weekend together.

‘Fine,’ she agreed, a little rushed, moving deeper into the gallery, towards another annex. ‘But I only have a few minutes.’

At this, she saw Charles frown in her peripheral vision. No wonder he was confused. Without knowing anything about Matt, it was clear that he had enough money to buy everything in the place, probably a million times over. From the fit of his suit to the gleam of his shoes, this was a man who obviously lived very, very comfortably. In normal circumstances, she wouldn’t dream of rejecting a potential investor in her work.

But Matt?

Matt who’d crashed into her world, seduced her effortlessly, triumphed over her and gone away again, just as quickly? He was danger, and not for anything would she spend more time with him than she had to.

He’s your son’s father. Her conscience flared to life and she almost stopped walking, so intense was the realisation, the moral impetus that stabbed into her sides.

‘I will take over when Miss Preston leaves.’ Charles’s offer came from just behind them.

Matt stopped walking, turning to face the other man. ‘Miss Preston’s company will be sufficient.’

Frankie saw pink bloom in the gallery owner’s face and sympathy swelled in her. Charles La Nough’s gallery was renowned in New York, and he was used to being met with respect, if not a degree of awe.

To be dismissed in such a way was obviously a new experience.

‘I’ll call if we need you,’ Frankie offered, to soften the blow.

‘Very well.’ Charles sniffed, turning and disappearing in the direction of the rooms that would eventually lead to the front door.

‘You didn’t have to be so rude,’ she responded, only this time the words were breathy and her pulse was rushing inside her. They were close—just a few feet apart—and she could smell him, she could feel his warmth and her skin was pricking with goosebumps.

Responses she had long since thought dead were stirring to life and demanding indulgence. But she ignored them—such feelings had no place here, or anywhere any more. She tilted her chin defiantly and stared at him. ‘And now that he’s gone you can tell me exactly what you’re doing here. Because I know it’s not to buy one of my paintings.’

* * *

He regarded her through shuttered eyes. Memory was a funny thing. He’d recollected her in intimate detail over the years, but there were a thousand minute differences now that he stood toe to toe with Frankie Preston. Things his mind hadn’t properly written into his memory banks, so that he wanted to hold her still and just look.

She remained the most distractingly intriguing woman he’d ever seen, and yet there was no one thing in particular he could ascribe that to. It was everything about her—from eyes that were feline in shape and just as green as he remembered, to a nose that had a tiny ski jump at its end and a flurry of pale freckles rushing over its bridge, and lips—Dio, those lips.

Pink and pillowy, soft, so that when he’d crushed his mouth to them three years earlier they’d parted on a husky sigh, surrendering to him, welcoming him. His body tightened at the recollection.

Then, she’d been coming home from an art class, carrying a rolled-up canvas in a bag, wearing a pair of paint-splattered jeans and a simple white singlet top, also marked with the signs of her artistic labour. And she’d been so distracted in her own thoughts that she’d walked right into him, smearing a healthy dose of what he’d later discovered to be Cerulean Blue on his suit.

He’d liked her in those clothes—so casual and relaxed.

Now, she wore a dress, black with puffy sleeves that just covered her shoulders and a neckline that dipped frustratingly close to her cleavage without revealing even a hint of the generous curves beneath. It fell to her ankles, and she’d teamed it with leather sandals and a bright yellow necklace. It was a more elegant ensemble, but still so very Frankie.

As she was in his mind, anyway.

But wasn’t it more than likely that the woman he’d slept with three years earlier was more a creation of his than a real-life, flesh-and-blood woman? Wasn’t it more than likely he’d created a fantasy? How well could he have really known her, given that they’d spent so little time together?

‘How do you know,’ he drawled, considering her question, ‘that I am not here to make a purchase?’

She blotted her lips together; they were painted the most fascinating shade of dark pink—as if she’d been feasting on sun-warmed cherries and the natural pigments had stained her mouth.

‘Because you’re not interested in my art.’

He thought of the piece in his office, the piece he’d bought through a dealer to keep his acquisition at arm’s length—the painting Frankie had been working on the day they’d met—and frowned slightly. ‘Why would you say that?’

A hint of pink bloomed in her cheeks. ‘Well, I remember clearly how well you played me. Pretending interest in my work is how you fooled me then. I won’t be so stupid this time around. So what is it that brings you to the gallery, Matt?’

Her use of that name filled him with a confusing rush of emotions. Shame at having given her only the diminutive of his full name, because surely it proved that he’d set out to deceive her, even from that first moment? Pleasure at the memories it invoked—no other woman had called him that; it was their name, it belonged to that weekend, and he would hear it on her lips for ever, calling out to him at the height of her passion.

He wanted her.

Even now, after three years, after walking away from her, he congratulated himself on doing the right thing. He’d been strong in the face of incomprehensible temptation, and he’d done it for his kingdom.

But...

Oh, yes. He wanted her.

Moving slightly closer, just enough to be able to catch a hint of her vanilla perfume, he spoke, his eyes intent when they met hers.

‘I am to marry. Soon.’

* * *

His words seemed to come to her from a long way away, as though he were shouting from atop a high-rise, and the floor of the gallery lifted in one corner like a rug being shaken, threatening to tip her off the sides of the earth.

I am to marry.

Her stomach rolled with what she told herself must be relief. Because his impending marriage meant she was safe—safe from the flashes of desire that were warming her insides, safe from an insane need to revisit the past even though it was so obviously better left there. How dare she feel like that, when he’d walked out on her without having the decency to leave so much as a note?

‘That’s nice,’ she said, the words not quite as clear and calm as she’d have liked. ‘So perhaps you are after a painting after all? A wedding present for your wife?’ She spun on her heel, moving deeper into the gallery. ‘I have some lovely landscapes I painted out in Massachusetts. Very pretty. Romantic. Floaty.’ She was babbling but she couldn’t help it.

I am to marry. Soon. His words were running around and around in her mind, ricocheting off the edges of her consciousness.

‘Perhaps this piece.’ She gestured to a painting of a lake, surrounded by trees on the cusp of losing their leaves, orange and bright, against a beautiful blue sky. Her heart panged as she remembered the day, that slice of life, when she’d taken Leo on their first vacation and they’d toured Paxton and its surroundings.

‘Frankie...’ His voice was deep and, though he spoke softly, it was with a natural command, a low, throbbing urgency that had her spinning to face him and—damn him—remembering too much of their time together, the way he’d groaned her name as he’d buried his lips at her neck, then lower, teasing her nipples with his tongue.

Only he was so much closer than she’d realised, his large frame right behind her, so when she turned their bodies brushed and it was as though a thousand volts of electricity were being dumped into her system.

She swallowed hard then took a step backwards, but not far enough. It gave her only an inch or so of breathing space and when she inhaled he was there, filling her senses. He’s getting married!

‘What are you doing here?’ She didn’t bother to hide the emotion in the question. He was a part of her past that hadn’t been good. Oh, the weekend itself, sure, but waking up to discover he’d literally walked out on her? To find herself pregnant and have no way of contacting him? The embarrassment of having to hire a detective who even then could discover no trace of this man?

‘I...’ The word trailed off as he echoed her movement, taking a step forward, closing the distance between them. His expression was tense; his face wore a mask of discontent. Frustration and impatience radiated off him in waves. ‘I wished to see you again. Before my wedding.’

She took a moment, letting his statement settle into her mind, and she examined it from all angles. But it made no sense. ‘Why?’

His nostrils flared, his eyes narrowed with intent. ‘Do you ever think about our time together?’

And the penny dropped and fury lashed at her spine, powerful and fierce, so she jerked her head away from him and bit back a curse her adoptive mother certainly wouldn’t have approved of.

‘Are you kidding me with this, Matt? You’re getting married and you’re here to walk down memory lane?’ She moved away from him, further into the room, her pulse hammering, her heart rushing.

He was watching her with an intensity that almost robbed her of breath. Only she was angry too, angry that he thought he could show up after all this time and ask about that damned weekend...

‘Or did you want to do more than walk down memory lane? Tell me you didn’t come here for another roll in the hay?’ she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, then wishing she hadn’t when his eyes dropped to the swell of her cleavage. Indignation made her go on the attack. ‘You can’t be so hard up for sex that you’re resorting to trawling through lovers from years ago?’

A muscle throbbed low in his jaw as her insult hit its mark. Matt Whatever-his-last-name-was was clearly all macho alpha pride. Her suggestion had riled him. Well, so what? She couldn’t care less.

‘And no, I don’t think about that weekend!’ she snapped before he could interject. ‘So far as I’m concerned, you’re just some blip in my rear-view mirror—and if I could take what happened between us back, I would,’ she lied, her stomach rolling at the betrayal of their son.

‘Oh, really?’ he asked softly, words that were dangerous and seductive all at once, his husky accent as spicy and tempting as it had been three years earlier.

‘Yes, really.’ She glared at him to underscore her point.

‘So you don’t think about the way it felt when I kissed you here?’ She was completely unprepared for his touch—the feather-light caress of a single finger against her jaw, the pulse-point there moving into frantic overdrive as butterflies stormed through her chest.

‘No.’ The word was slightly uneven.

‘Or the way you liked me to touch you here?’ and he drew his finger lower, to her décolletage, and then lower still, to the gentle curve of her breast.

Heaven help her, memories were threatening to pull her under, to drown her with their perfection, even when the truth of their situation was disastrous.

Just for a second, she wanted to surrender to those recollections. She wanted to pretend they didn’t have a son together and that they were back in time, in that hotel room, just him and her, no consciousness of the outside world.

But it would be an exercise in futility.

‘Don’t.’ She batted his hand away and stepped away from him, anger almost a match for her desire. She rammed her hands against her hips, breathing in hard, wishing there was even the slightest hint of his having been as affected by those needs as she had been. ‘It was three years ago,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t just show up after all this time, after disappearing into thin air...’

He watched her from a face that was carefully blanked of emotion, his expression mask-like. ‘I had to see you.’

Her heart twisted at those words, at the sense that perhaps he’d found it impossible to forget their night together. Except he’d done exactly that. He’d walked away without a backwards glance. He could have called her at any time in the past three years, but he hadn’t. Nothing. Not a blip.

‘Well, you’ve seen me,’ she said firmly. ‘And now I think you should go.’

‘You’re angry with me.’

‘Yes.’ She held his gaze, her eyes showing hurt and betrayal. ‘I woke up and you were gone! You don’t think I have a right to be angry?’

A muscle twisted at the base of his firm, square jaw. ‘We agreed we would just spend the weekend together.’

‘Yes, but that wasn’t tacit approval for you to slink out in the middle of the night.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I did not slink.’ And then, as if bringing himself back to the point, he was calm again, his arrogant face blanked of any emotion once more. ‘And it was best for both of us that I left when I did.’

It was strange, really, how she’d been pulling her temper back into place, easing it into the box in which it lived, only to have it explode out of her, writhing free of her grip with a blinding intensity. ‘How? How was you disappearing into thin air best for me?’ she demanded, her voice raised, her face pale.

He sighed as though she were a recalcitrant toddler and his impatience at fraying point. ‘My life is complicated.’ He spoke without apology, words that were cool and firm and offered no hint of what had truly motivated his departure. ‘That weekend was an aberration. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have let it happen. I had no business getting involved with someone like you.’

‘Someone like me?’ she repeated, the words deceptively soft when inside her cells were screeching with indignation. ‘But it was fine to sleep with someone like me?’

‘You misunderstand my meaning,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘And that is my fault.’

‘So what is your meaning?’

He spoke slowly, carefully, as though she might not comprehend. ‘I wanted you the minute I saw you, Frankie, but I knew it could never be more than that weekend. I believe I was upfront about that; I apologise if you expected more from me.’ He went to move closer but she bristled, and he stilled. ‘There are expectations upon me, expectations as to who I will marry, and you are not the kind of bride I would ever be able to choose.’

She spluttered her interruption. ‘I didn’t want to marry you! I just wanted the courtesy of a goodbye from the man I lost my virginity to. When you crept out of that hotel suite, did you stop to think about what I would think?’

She had the very slight satisfaction of seeing something like remorse briefly glance across his stony features. ‘I had to leave. I’m sorry if that hurt you—’

‘Hurt me?’ She glared at him and shook her head. It had damned near killed her, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. ‘What hurts is your stupidity! Your lack of decency and moral fibre.’

He jerked his face as though she’d slapped him, but she didn’t stop.

‘You were my first lover.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Sleeping with you meant something to me! And you just left.’

‘What would you have had me do, Frankie? Stay and cook you breakfast? Break it to you over scrambled eggs and salmon that I was going to go back to Tolmirós to forget all about you?’

Her stare was withering. ‘Only you haven’t forgotten me, have you?’

She held her breath, waiting for him to answer, her lips parted.

‘No,’ he agreed finally. ‘But I left because I knew I needed to. I left because I knew what was expected of me.’ He expelled a harsh breath, then another, slowly regaining control of himself. ‘I didn’t come here to upset you, Frankie. I’ll go away again.’

And at that, true, dark anger beat in her breast because it simply underscored their power imbalance. He’d come to her and so she was seeing him again, and he’d touched her as though desire was still a current in the room—it was all on his terms. All his timeline, his power, his control. He thought he could leave when it suited him and have that be the end of it.

Well, damn him, he had no right! ‘Did you even think about the consequences of that night, Matt? Did you so much as give even a second thought to whether or not I would be able to walk away from what we shared as easily as you did?’

CHAPTER TWO

FOR THE BRIEFEST of moments he misunderstood. Surely, he’d misunderstood.

As the heir to the throne of Tolmirós, Matthias had never taken any risks with sex. That weekend had been no different. He’d employed protective measures. He’d been careful, as always.

‘I knew there would be no consequences,’ he said, shrugging, as though his heart hadn’t skidded to a dramatic halt seconds earlier. ‘And I truly believed a clean break would be better for you.’

And for himself. He hadn’t trusted his willpower to so much as call her, to explain who he was and his reasons for needing to disappear from her life.

‘How did you know that?’

His frown was infinitesimal. ‘Are you saying there was a consequence?’

‘A consequence?’ she repeated with an arched brow. But her fingers were shaking, a small gesture but one he noted with growing attention. ‘Why are we speaking in euphemisms? Ask what you really mean.’

She spoke to him in a way no one in his life had ever dared, and it was thrilling and dangerous and his whole body resonated with a need to argue with her, just like this. Passions were stirring inside him but he shoved them aside, focusing everything on whatever the hell she was trying to say.

‘You are the one who is insinuating there was a complication from our night together.’

‘I’m telling you your arrogant presumption that you took sufficient measures to protect me from the ramifications of our sleeping together is wrong.’

He narrowed his eyes and her words sprayed around them like fine blades, slicing through the artwork on the walls.

‘Are you saying you fell pregnant?’ he demanded, his ears screeching with the sound of frantically racing blood. The world stood still; time stopped.

For a moment he imagined that—his child, growing in her belly—and his chest swelled with pride and his heart soared, but pain was right behind, because surely it wasn’t possible. His forehead broke out in perspiration at the very idea of his baby. He knew it was inevitable and necessary, but he still needed time to brace himself for that reality—for the idea of another person who shared his blood, a person who could be taken from him at any time.

Rejection was in every line of his body. ‘We were careful. I was careful. I took precautions, as I always do.’

‘Charming!’ She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Tell me more about the other women you’ve had sex with, please.’

He ground his teeth together. He hadn’t meant that, and yet it was true. Sexual responsibility was ingrained in Matthias. Anyone in his position would take that seriously.

‘What the hell are you saying?’ he demanded, all the command his position conferred upon him in those words.

She sucked in a deep breath as though she was steadying herself. ‘Fine. Yes. I fell pregnant.’ Her words hit him right in the solar plexus, each with the speed and strength of a thousand bullets.

‘What?’ For the first time in his life, Matthias was utterly lost for words.

When his family had died and a nation in mourning had looked to him, a fifteen-year-old who’d lost his parents and brother, who’d been trapped in a car with them as life had left their bodies, he had known what was expected of him. He’d received the news and wrapped his grief into a small compartment for indulgence at a later date, and he’d shown himself to be strong and reliable: a perfect king-in-waiting.

She lifted her fingertips to the side of her head, rubbing her temples, and fixed him with her ocean-green stare. Her anguish was unmistakable.

‘I found out about a month after you left.’

His world was a place that made no sense. There were sharp edges everywhere, and nothing fitted together. ‘You were pregnant?’

She pulled a face. ‘I just said that.’

His eyes swept shut, his blood raced. ‘You should have told me.’

‘I tried! You were literally impossible to find.’

‘No one is impossible to find.’

‘Believe me, you are. “Matt”. That’s all I had to go on. The hotel wouldn’t give me any information about who’d booked the suite. I had your name and the fact you’re from Tolmirós. That’s it. I wanted to tell you. But trying to find you was like looking for a needle in an enormous haystack.’

And hadn’t he planned for it to be this way? A night without complications—that was what they’d shared. Only everything about Frankie had been complicated, including the way she’d cleaved her way into his soul.

‘So you made a decision like this on your own?’ he fired back, the pain of what he’d lost, what his kingdom had lost, the most important thing in the conversation.

‘Decision?’ She paled. ‘It was hardly a decision.’

‘You had an abortion and took from me any chance to even know my child,’ he said thickly, his chest tight, his organs squeezing inside him.

She sucked in a loud breath. ‘What makes you think I had an abortion?’

He stared at her, the question hanging between them, everything sharp and uncertain now. When he was nine years old he’d run the entire way around the palace, without pausing for even a moment. Up steps, along narrow precipices with frightening glimpses of the city far beneath him, he’d run and he’d run, and when he’d finished he’d collapsed onto the grass and stared at the clouds. His lungs had burned and he’d been conscious of the sting of every cell in his body, as though he was somehow supersonic. He felt that now.

‘You’re saying...’ He stared at her, trying to make sense of this, looking for an explanation and arriving at only one. ‘You didn’t have an abortion?’

‘Of course I didn’t.’

Matthias had a rapier-sharp mind, yet he struggled to process her words, to make sense of what she was saying. ‘You did not have an abortion?’

‘No.’

And something fired inside his mind, a memory, a small recollection that had been unimportant at the time. He spun away from her and stalked through the gallery, through the smaller display spaces that curved towards a larger central room. And he stared at the wall that had framed Frankie when he’d first walked in. He’d been so blindsided by the vision of her initially that he hadn’t properly understood the significance of what he was seeing. But now he looked at the paintings—ten of them in total, all of the same little boy—and his blood turned into lava in his veins.

He stared at the paintings and a primal sense of pride and possession firmed inside him. Something else too. Something that made his chest scream and his brow heat—something that made acid coat his insides, as he stared at the boy who was so familiar to him.

Spiro.

He was looking at a version not only of his younger self, but also of his brother. Eyes that had held his, pain and anguish filling them, as life ebbed from him. Eyes that had begged him to help. Eyes that had eventually clouded and died as Matthias watched, helpless, powerless.

For a moment he looked towards the ground, his chest heaving, his pulse like an avalanche, and he breathed in, waiting for the familiar panic to subside.

‘This is my son.’ More than his son—this was his kin, his blood, his.

He didn’t have to turn around to know she was right behind him.

‘He’s two and a half,’ Frankie murmured, the words husky. She cleared her throat audibly. ‘His name is Leo.’

Matthias’s eyes swept shut as he absorbed this information. Leo. Two and a half. Spiro had been nine when he’d died, the vestiges of his boyish face still in evidence. Cheeks that were rounded like this, and dimpled when he smiled, eyes that sparkled with all his secrets and amusements.

He pushed the memories away, refusing to give into them like this. Only in the middle of the night, when time seemed to slip past the veil of living, when ancient stars with their wisdom and experience whispered that they would listen, did he let his mind remember, did he let his heart hurt.

He turned his attention to the paintings, giving each one in turn the full power of his inspection. Several of the artworks depicted Leo—his son—in a state of play. Laughing as he tossed leaves overhead, his sense of joy and vitality communicated through the paint by Frankie’s talented hand. Other paintings were a study of portraiture.

It was the final picture that held him utterly in its thrall.

Leo was staring out of the canvas, his expression frozen in time, arresting a moment of query. One brow was lifted, his lips were turned into a half-smile. His eyes were grey, like Matthias’s—in fact, much of his face was a carbon copy of Matthias’s own bearing. But the freckles that ran haphazardly across the bridge of his nose were all Frankie’s, as was the defiant amusement that stirred in the boy’s features.

Emotions welled inside Matthias, for his own face was only borrowed—first from his father, King Stavros, and it had now been passed onto his own son. What other features and qualities were held by this boy, this small human who was of his own flesh and blood?

His own flesh and blood! An heir! An heir his country was desperate for, an heir he had been poised to marry in order to beget—an heir, already living! An heir, two years old, who he knew nothing about!

‘Where is he?’ The question was gravelled.

He felt her stiffen—he felt everything in that moment, as though the universe was a series of strings and fibres connected through his body to hers. He turned around, pinning her with a gaze that shimmered like liquid metal.

‘Where.’ The word was a slowly flying bullet. ‘Is.’ He took a step closer to her. ‘He?’

All the myths upon which he’d been raised, the beliefs of his people as to the power and strength that ran through his veins, a power that was now in his son’s veins, propelled him forward. But it was not purely a question of royal lineage and the discovery of an heir. This was an ancient, soul-deep need to meet his son—as a man, as a father.

Alarm resonated from Frankie and until that moment he’d never understood what the term ‘mother bear’ had been coined for. She was tiny and slight but she looked more than capable of murdering him with her bare hands if he did anything to threaten their child.

‘He’s outside the city,’ she said evasively, her eyes shifting towards the door. Through it was the foyer, and somewhere there the man who ran this gallery. Her fear was evident, and it served little purpose. He was no threat to her, nor their son.

With the discipline he was famed for, Matthias brought his emotions tightly under control. They didn’t serve him in that moment. Just like his grief had needed to be contained when his family had been killed, so too did his feelings need to be now.

His whole world had shifted off its axis, and he had to find a way to fix that. To redefine the parameters of his being. An heir was driving his need for marriage and here, it turned out, an heir already existed! There was no option for Matthias but to bring that child home to Tolmirós.

His future shifted before his eyes, and this woman was in it, and their son. All the reasons he’d had for walking away from her still stood, except for this heir. It changed everything.

‘I had no idea you were pregnant.’

‘Of course you didn’t. How could you? You probably walked out as soon as I fell asleep.’

No, he’d waited longer than that. He’d watched her sleep for a while, and thought of his kingdom, the expectations that he would return to Tolmirós and take up his title and all the responsibilities that went with that. Frankie had been a diversion—a distraction. She’d been an indulgence when he’d known he was on the cusp of the life he’d been destined to lead.

Only she’d also been quicksand, and a fast escape had seemed the only solution. The longer he’d lingered, the deeper he’d risked sinking, until escape had no longer been guaranteed.

Besides, he’d comforted himself at the time, he’d made her no promises. He’d told her he was only in the States for the weekend. There were no expectations beyond that. He hadn’t broken his word.

‘If you’d left your number, I would have called. But you just vanished into thin air. Not even the detective I hired could find you.’

‘You hired a detective?’ The admission sent sparks through him—sparks of relief and gratitude. Because she hadn’t intentionally kept their son a secret. She’d wanted him to be a part of the boy’s life. And if he’d known of the child back then? If he’d discovered Frankie’s pregnancy?

He would have married her. Her lack of suitability as a royal bride would have been beside the point: his people cared most for the delivery of an heir.

And now he had one.

Every possibility and desire narrowed into one finite realisation. There was only one way forward and the sooner he could convince Frankie of that, the better.

‘Yes.’ She looked away from him and swallowed visibly, her throat chording before his eyes and his gut clenched as he remembered kissing her there, feeling the fluttering of her racing pulse beneath her fine, soft skin. ‘I felt you should know.’

‘Indeed.’ He dipped his head forward and then, appealing to the sense of justice he knew ran through her passionate veins, ‘Will you come for dinner with me?’

Her refusal was imminent but he shook his head to forestall her. ‘To discuss our son. You must see how important that is?’

She was tense, her face rigid, her eyes untrusting. But finally she nodded. A tight shift of her head and an even tighter grimace of those cherry-stained lips. ‘Fine. But just a quick meal. I told Becky I’d be home by nine.’

‘Becky?’

‘My downstairs neighbour. She helps out with Leo when I’m working.’

He filed this detail away, and the image it created, of the mother of his child, the mother of the heir to the throne of Tolmirós, a child worth billions of euros, being minded by some random woman in the suburbs of New York.

‘A quick meal, then,’ he said, giving no indication he was second-guessing her child-minding arrangements.

‘Well?’ The owner of the gallery appeared from behind the desk, his eyes travelling from Frankie to Matthias. ‘Isn’t she talented?’

‘Exceptionally,’ Matthias agreed, and he’d always known that to be the case. ‘I will take all of the artworks against that wall.’ He gestured through the doorway, to the display that housed the portraits of his son.

‘You’ll what?’ Frankie startled as she looked up at him, though he couldn’t tell if she was surprised or annoyed.

He removed a card from his wallet. ‘If you call the number on this card, my valet will arrange payment and delivery.’ He nodded curtly and then put a hand in the small of Frankie’s back, guiding her towards the front door.

Shock, apparently, held her quiet. But once they emerged onto the Manhattan street, a sultry summer breeze warming the evening, she stopped walking, jerking out of his reach and spinning to face him.

‘Why did you do that?’

‘You think it strange that I should want paintings of my son?’

She bristled and he understood—she had yet to come to terms with the fact that he was also the boy’s parent, that she now had to share their son.

Not only that—he couldn’t have paintings of his child, the heir to his throne, for sale in some gallery in New York. It wasn’t how things were done.

‘No,’ she admitted grudgingly, and the emotion of this situation was taking its toll on her. The strength and defiance she carried in her eyes were draining from her. Wariness took their place.

‘Come on.’ He gestured towards the jet-black SUV that was parked in front of the gallery. Darkly tinted windows concealed his driver and security detail from sight but, as they approached, Zeno stepped out, opening the rear doors with a low bow.

Frankie caught it, her eyes narrowing at the gesture of deference. It was so much a part of Matthias’s day that he barely noticed the respect with which he was treated. Seeing it through Frankie’s eyes though, he understood. It was confronting and unusual.

‘You know, I never even had your surname,’ she murmured as she slid into the white leather interior of the car—her skin was so pale now it matched the seats.

There was so much he wanted to ask about that. Would she have given their child his name if she’d known it? The idea of his son being raised as anything other than a Vasilliás filled him with a dark frustration.

He wanted to ask her this, and so much more, but not even in front of his most trusted servants would he yet broach the subject of his heir.

With a single finger lifted to his mouth, he signalled silence and then settled back into the car himself, brooding over this turn of events and what they would mean for the marriage he had intended to make.

* * *

‘I presumed you meant dinner at a restaurant,’ she said as the car pulled up to a steel monolith on United Nations Plaza. The drive had been conducted in absolute silence, except for when the car drew to a stop and he’d spoken to his driver in that language of his, all husky and deep, so her pulse had fired up and her stomach had churned and feelings that deserved to stay buried deep in the past flashed in her gut, making her nerve-endings quiver and her pulse fire chaotically against the fine walls of her veins.

‘Restaurants are not private enough.’

‘You can’t speak quietly in a restaurant?’

‘Believe me, Frankie, this is better.’ His look was loaded with intensity and there was a plea in the depth of his gaze as well, begging her to simply agree with him on this occasion. There was a part of her, a childish, silly part, that wanted to refuse—to tell him it didn’t suit her. He’d disappeared into thin air and she’d tried so hard to find him, to tell him he was a father. And now? Everything was on his terms. She wanted to rebel against that, but loyalty to their son kept her quiet. All along, she’d wanted what was best for Leo. She’d spent all her life feeling rejected and unwanted by her biological parents, and she had wept for any idea that Leo might feel the same! That Leo might grow up believing his father hadn’t wanted him.

‘Fine,’ she agreed heavily. ‘But I really can’t stay long.’

‘This is not a conversation to be rushed.’ He stepped out of the car and she followed. He placed a hand on her elbow, guiding her through the building’s sliding glass doors. The lifts were waiting, a security guard to one side.

She hadn’t noticed this degree of staff with him back then. There hadn’t been anyone except a driver, and she’d never really questioned that. It was obvious that he had money—but this was a whole new degree of wealth.

‘Have you had some kind of death threat or something?’ she muttered as the doors of the lift snapped closed behind them.

The look he sent her was half-rueful, half-impatient; he said nothing. But when the lift doors opened into the foyer of what could only be described as a sky palace, he urged her into the space and then held a hand up to still the guard.

More words, spoken in his own tongue, and then the guard bowed low and slipped back into the lift, leaving them alone.

She swallowed at that thought—being alone with him—distracting herself by studying the over-the-top luxury of this penthouse. It wasn’t just the polished timber floors, double height ceilings, expensive designer furnishings and crystal chandeliers that created the impression of total glamour. It was the views of the Manhattan skyline—the Chrysler Building, the Empire State, Central Park—it all spread before her like a pop-up book of New York city.

Large sliding glass doors opened out onto a deck, beyond which there was a pool, set against a glass rail. She imagined swimming in it would feel a little like floating, high above the city.

The contrasts between her own modest apartment in Queens and this insanely beautiful penthouse were too ridiculous to enumerate.

‘Matt,’ she sighed, turning to face him, not even sure what she wanted to say. He was watching her with a look of dark concentration.

‘My name,’ he said quietly, ‘is Matthias Vasilliás.’

It was perfect for this man—as soon as he gave her the full version of his name it resonated inside her, like the banging of a drum. Matt was too pedestrian for someone like him. He was exotic and unusual.

‘Fine.’ She nodded curtly, pleased when the word sounded vaguely dismissive. ‘Matthias.’

At this, his eyes flashed with something she couldn’t comprehend. ‘You have not heard of me?’

Something like an alarm bell began to ring inside Frankie’s mind. ‘Should I have?’

His lips twisted in a sardonic smile. ‘No.’

But it sounded like judgement rather than offence, and she bristled. ‘So? What gives?’ Her frown deepened. ‘What’s with all the security?’

He sighed heavily. ‘This is a light protection detail.’ He shrugged. ‘At home, there are many more guards.’

‘Why? I don’t get it. Are you some kind of celebrity or something?’

‘You could say that.’

He moved into the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of wine. Her stomach rolled at the memories of the wine they’d shared that night—only a few sips, but it had been the nicest she’d ever tasted. He poured her a glass and walked around to her; she took it on autopilot.

‘What’s going on, Matt—Matthias?’

His eyes narrowed and she wondered if the sound of his full name on her lips was as strange for him as it was for her. Matt had suited him, but Matthias suited him better. She liked the taste of those exotic syllables on the tip of her tongue.

‘My family was killed in an accident many years ago. When I was a boy of fifteen.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, so it was impossible for Frankie to know how those deaths had affected him. She could imagine, though.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured crisply, wishing she didn’t feel sympathy for him. Wishing she didn’t feel anything for him.

His lips twisted in acknowledgement. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘I’m sure it still hurts.’

‘I have become used to being alone.’ He brushed her concern aside. ‘My father’s brother took on many of the responsibilities of my father. At fifteen, I was too young.’

‘What responsibilities?’ she asked.

‘Shortly after their deaths, it was decided that on my thirtieth birthday I would assume my role.’ He pinpointed her with his gaze, but he was obviously back in time, reflecting on the past. ‘One week before I turned thirty, I met you. I was only in New York for the weekend. One of my last chances to travel as myself, without this degree of...company.’ His expression shifted.

‘What did your parents do?’

But this wasn’t a conversation with questions and answers. It was a monologue. An unburdening of himself, and it was an explanation she’d wanted for such a long time that she didn’t even particularly mind.

‘I shouldn’t have got involved with you, but you were so... I cannot explain it. I saw you, and I wanted you.’ He stared at her, his eyes glinting like steel, and her heart was ice in her chest. It had been that simple for him. He’d seen her. He’d wanted her. And so he’d had her.

‘I knew it would only ever be a brief affair.’

Her throat constricted with those words, damning what they’d been to such a cynical seduction. ‘Yet you did it anyway?’

He was quiet.

‘Did you think about how I’d feel?’

‘No.’ He swept his eyes shut. ‘I told myself you were just like me—looking for a weekend of pleasure. Casual, easy sex.’

‘I think the term “casual sex” is oxymoronic,’ she said stiffly, turning away from him so she didn’t see the way his expression shifted, the way a fierce blade of possession pressed into him.

‘If I had known you were a virgin...’

‘I didn’t lie to you intentionally,’ she muttered. ‘I just got caught up in how I felt. It was all so overwhelming.’

He dipped his head forward in silent concession. ‘It is in the past,’ he said. ‘What I’m interested in dealing with is our future.’

And here it was. The custody discussion she’d been dreading. And as the days had turned into months and her status as a single mother had been firmly established, she’d come to accept that it was a conversation she’d never need to have. Now, though, faced with the father of her baby, she had no interest in denying him his right to see their child. To be a part of his life. Even when his admission that he’d gone into their affair expecting it to be ‘casual sex’ had cut her deep inside.

‘After I left you, I went back to Tolmirós and took up the position that was my birthright.’

She frowned. ‘Just what kind of family business are you in?’

His smile was more like a grimace. ‘It is not a business, Frankie. My name is Matthias Vasilliás and I am the King of Tolmirós.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘I’M SORRY.’ SHE blinked slowly. ‘I thought you just said you were...’ She laughed, a brittle sound of disbelief. ‘I mean, is this some kind of joke?’

But she looked around the penthouse with new eyes, seeing the degree of luxury and wealth as if for the first time, understanding how uniquely positioned a person would have to be to enjoy this kind of residence. And it wasn’t just this ludicrously expensive apartment—how much would something like this even cost? More than she could imagine, that was for sure. And she saw everything through the veil of his words and her stomach dropped and her knees shook. Because it was so obvious now.

Even then, staying at a hotel, he’d been so different to anyone she’d ever known. He’d spoken to her of ancient myths and he’d weaved magic into her being.

He’d been totally unique. A king.

‘It’s no joke. That weekend with you was my way of trying to ignore the reality of how my life was about to change, of pretending I wasn’t about to take the throne and the mantle of King. But I do not believe in hiding, Frankie. And so I left you in order to return to my country, my people, and my role as ruler.’

His words came to her from very far away.

He was a king.

Which meant... Oh, God. She reached behind her for the sofa, dropping down into it with a thud and drinking her wine as though it were a lifeline.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, moving closer to her, the word drawn from deep in his throat. ‘Our son is my heir. He is a prince, Frankie.’

‘But...he’s not... We weren’t married.’ She clutched at straws desperately. ‘So doesn’t that mean he can’t be your heir?’

His expression darkened and he took a moment to answer. ‘It complicates matters,’ he agreed eventually, with a shrug. ‘But nothing changes the fact he is the future of my people.’

She swallowed, his certainty formidable.

‘Do you remember the Myth of Elektus?’

She swayed a little, the words he’d spoken that night burned into her memories. ‘No,’ she lied huskily, staring out at New York.

‘My family has ruled Tolmirós for over a millennium. Our line remains unbroken. Wars and famines consumed neighbouring countries but, within the borders of Tolmirós, life has been prosperous and stable. The myth of our First Ruler is one my people hold in their hearts, even now. It is believed that my family’s lineage is at the root of Tolmirós’s wealth and happiness. Leo is not simply a boy—he is the fulfilment of a myth and ruling Tolmirós is his destiny, as much as it was mine.’

The magic he’d wound around her heart was weaving into her soul once more, and her beautiful child, who was so kingly, even as a child, began to pull away from her as she saw him as a figure of the fabric of this faraway country.

But he wasn’t only the heir to Tolmirós’s throne: he was her son. A child she had grown in her belly and nursed through fevers and helped to take his first step. He was a child she’d read to every night of his life, played ball with, lain beside when night terrors had caused him to cry out.

‘My people need him to come home, Frankie. He is part of that myth—he is our future.’

Her eyes swept shut on a wave of desolation. ‘You speak of your people, and you speak of his destiny. These are the words of a king, not a father.’ She turned to face him. ‘How can you not care about him as your son? He is a little boy and for two and a half years he has existed and all you care about is his destiny to rule a country he hasn’t even heard of. You haven’t asked me a single thing about him!’

His eyes glittered at the truth of her accusation. ‘You think I am not burning to know every single detail about my son? You think I am not desperate to meet him and hold him to me, and look into his face and understand him? Of course I am. But first I must secure your understanding for what will happen next. We must move quickly if we are to control this.’

‘Control what?’

He expelled an impatient breath and his nostrils flared.

‘Our marriage.’

‘Marriage?’ She paled visibly. ‘I’m not marrying you!’

‘With respect, Frankie, that decision was taken out of our hands the minute you conceived Leo.’

‘That’s not how I see it.’

‘Then let me be clear: there is no reality where I will not be raising my son as my son and heir.’

‘Fine. Be his father. Even let him be the heir to your damned country—’

Matthias’s expression darkened.

‘But don’t think you can show up after three years and try to take over our lives. Whatever we shared that night, it was fleeting. Meaningless. Just like you said. And it’s over. You’re just some guy I frankly wish I’d never met.’

His cheekbones were slashed a dark red. ‘That may be the case, but we did meet. We slept together and now we have a son. And I cannot ignore that. We must marry, Frankie. Surely you can see it’s the only way?’

She drew in a shaking breath at the finality of that, and fear trembled inside her breast.

‘No.’

‘No?’ he repeated, and then laughed, a harsh sound of disbelief. ‘You cannot simply say “no” to me.’

‘Because you’re a king?’

His eyes narrowed watchfully. ‘Because I am his father, and I will fight you with every breath in my body to bring him home.’

‘He is home!’

‘He is the heir of Tolmirós and he belongs in the palace.’

‘With you?’

‘And you. You’ll be my wife, the Queen of a prosperous, happy country. It’s not like I’m asking you to give him up. Nor to move somewhere unpleasant. You wouldn’t even have to live with me—I have many palaces; you could choose which you wanted to reside in. Your life will be significantly improved.’

‘How can you say that? I’d be married to you.’

‘And?’

‘I hardly even know you!’ The words flew from her mouth and her body immediately contradicted them. Her body knew his well. So well. Even now, dressed as he was, she saw him naked. She saw his broad, muscular chest, his swarthy tan, his wide shoulders, and her insides slicked with moist heat as—out of nowhere—she remembered the way he’d possessed her utterly and completely.

‘We will get to know each other enough.’ He shrugged. ‘Enough to raise a family together, enough to be a good King and Queen.’

He spoke dispassionately, calmly, but the words he spoke, the images they made, filled her with a warm, tingling sense in her gut. ‘It’s that easy for you?’

‘I’ve never expected any differently.’

‘Wait a second. You told me tonight that you’re engaged. So what’s your fiancée going to say about this?’

‘There is no such person. I haven’t yet selected a bride.’

Frankie felt as if her head was about to explode. ‘“Selected” a bride?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You make it sound like shuffling a deck of cards and drawing one at random.’

‘It is far from a random process,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘Each of the women have been shortlisted because of their suitability to be my wife.’

‘So go back to your damned country and marry one of them.’

He swept his heated gaze over her body, and goosebumps spread where his eyes moved.

‘Think it through,’ he said finally. ‘What happens if I do as you say—if I return to Tolmirós and marry another woman. She becomes my Queen, and Leo is still my son. Our son, mine and my wife’s. I will fight for custody of him and, Frankie, I will win.’ A shiver ran down her spine at his certainty, because she knew he was right. She knew the danger here, for her. ‘I will win, and I will raise him. Wouldn’t you prefer to avoid an ugly custody dispute, a public battle that you would surely lose? Wouldn’t you prefer to accept this and simply agree to marry me?’

‘Simply?’ There was nothing simple about it. ‘I would prefer you to go right away again.’

He made a small sound—it might have been a laugh, but there was absolutely no humour in it. ‘No matter what we might wish, this is the reality we find ourselves in. I have a son. An heir. And I must bring him home. Surely you can see that?’

The city twinkled like a thousand gems against black velvet. She swallowed, her eyes running frantically over the vista as her brain tried to fumble its way to an alternative. ‘But marriage is so...’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s so much. Too much.’ She spun back to face him, and her heart thudded in her chest. Marriage to this man? Impossible. He had embodied so many fantasies in her mind but, over time, the lust which might have become love, given the proper treatment, had instead turned to resentment.

He’d disappeared into thin air, and she’d made her peace with that.

Now? To expect her just to marry him?

‘Why? People do it all the time,’ he said simply, moving across the room and pouring a generous amount of Scotch into two tumblers. He carried one over to her and, despite the fact she didn’t drink often and the wine had already made her brain fuzzy, she took it as if on autopilot.

‘Do what all the time?’ Her mind was still fumbling for something to offer that might appease him.

‘Get married because it makes sense.’

Now it was Frankie’s turn to make a strangled sound. Not a laugh, not a sob—just a noise driven by emotions emanating from deep in her throat. ‘People get married because they are in love,’ she contradicted forcefully. ‘Because they can’t bear to spend their lives apart. People get married because they are full of optimism and hope, because they have met the one person on earth whom they can’t live without.’

She spoke the words with passion, from deep within her soul; they were words that meant the world to her. Words by which she lived. But each word seemed to have the effect of making Matthias withdraw from her. His handsome face tightened until his features were stern and his eyes flinted like coal.

‘A fantasist’s notion,’ he said at length. ‘And not what I’m offering.’

It was such an insult that she let out a sigh of impatience. ‘It’s not what I’m asking for—not from you, anyway.’ She ignored the strange thumping in the region of her heart. ‘I’m explaining that marriage means something.’

‘Why?’ He took a step closer to her, his eyes so focused on her they were like a force, holding her to the spot.

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Why can it not just be that it makes sense?’

‘Making sense,’ Frankie said with a shake of her head, trying to break free of the power his gaze had over her ability to think straight, ‘would be us working out how we’re going to do this.’ It hurt to think of sharing Leo, but she pushed those feelings aside. This was about Leo, not her. ‘You are his father, and it was always my wish that you’d be involved in his life. I can bring him to Tolmirós for a visit, to start with, and we can allow him to gradually adjust to the idea of being the heir to your throne. Over time, he might even choose to spend more time over there, with you. And of course you can see him when you’re in New York.’ Yes. That all made perfect sense. She nodded somewhat stiffly, as though she’d ordered a box neatly into shape. ‘There’s definitely no need for us to get married.’

‘I say there is a need,’ he contradicted almost instantly. His voice was calm but there was an intensity in his gaze. ‘And within the month.’

‘A month?’ Her jaw dropped, her stomach swooped and spun.

‘Or sooner, if possible. We must act swiftly. There is much you need to learn on the ways of my people. Much Leo will have to learn too.’

‘Hang on.’ She lifted her hand, pressing it into the air between them as though it might put an end to this ridiculous conversation. ‘You can’t talk like it’s a foregone conclusion that I’ll marry you! You’ve suggested it and I’ve said, “Absolutely not”. You can’t just ride roughshod over me.’

His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. ‘Do you think not?’

‘Definitely not. Unless you think I’m not a sentient person, capable of making my own decisions?’

‘On the contrary. I think you are very capable of that—which is why I’ll expect you to make the right one. But be assured, Frankie, regardless of what you think and feel, I have no intention of leaving this country without my son. It is obviously better for everyone if you come with him as my fiancée.’

She sucked in a breath as the truth of what he was saying settled around her. ‘You’re actually threatening to take him away from me?’

‘I’m asking you to marry me.’

Her eyes swept shut. ‘Telling me, more like.’ When she blinked her eyes open he was closer, so close her palm was almost touching his chest.

‘I’m asking you,’ he insisted, almost gentle, almost as though he understood her fear and wanted to ease it. ‘I’m asking you to see sense. I’m asking you not to put me in a position where I have to fight you for our child.’

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