The Prince’s Royal Love-Child by Trish Morey
11
Whatever Sebastiano had thought of even more of his plans being turned upside down, Sienna couldn’t imagine, but Rafe had done it, convincing him that another day’s meetings could wait. And it was paradise.
Rafe had driven them down the mountain in the sporty Alfa Romeo car, with the top down and the wheels hugging the tight curves as sure-footedly as a cat.
At the marina they’d transferred to a luxury yacht that would take them around the island. It was more like a floating palace, Sienna decided as she was given a tour. Rich mahogany timbers were set off with gold and brass fittings, mirrors and strategic lighting making the most of the space. Not that there was any shortage of that in the vast master suite.
What would it be like to make love in a floating palace, she wondered, looking forward to finding out.
And now up on deck, with Rafe by her side, the launch sliced through the azure water, the wind whipping around them, salt spray sparkling in the air. In loafers and shorts, a casual shirt unbuttoned at his neck and his hair blown freestyle by the wind, he looked magnificent, his olive skin glowing under the sun, his white-teethed smile wide. He looked more relaxed than she’d ever seen him, more together.
He felt even better, his arm looped loosely around her shoulders, his hand on her arm as he pointed out the sights of Montvelatte’s coastline, naming the small villages dotted around the cliffs and coves, waving to people in passing vessels, who smiled and cheered when they recognised the royal launch and their new Prince on board.
It was paradise, but it was exhausting, so just as well it was only for a day. The night had been long and full, and the night to come promised to be all of that and more. And Sienna could hardly wait. Even now, just the heat from that looped arm was enough to set her skin to tingling, her pulse to racing. Just the faintest stroke of his fingers against her arm enough to make her nipples ache and firm.
As she’d lain in bed in the dark minutes before dawn, one hand down low on her belly while thinking about the babies growing deep inside and waiting for the first stirrings of the nausea she knew would come, she’d pondered her enthusiasm in his bed, a question that had been plaguing her all day. She’d refused to make love to him when she’d arrived, telling him there was no way she’d sleep with him, fighting off his advances like they were anathema to her. And yet, since the minute she’d invited herself back into his bed, she’d barely been out of it.
But why shouldn’t she enjoy making love to him? It merely meant that she enjoyed the sex, the same as he did. It was purely physical. Purely the means to an end.
Sienna looked up at him again, at the chiselled perfection of his jaw and dark beauty of his features, and for a moment was filled with a fear so huge it threatened to consume her. He was a prince, a man whose body and looks would give the gods a run for their money, a man who could move her world with just one heated look, one sensual caress. Why should he ever love her? What could she offer him but to be a willing partner in bed and a mother for his children?
She already represented those things.
Why was she was kidding herself that he would want more? She lowered her eyes, that now familiar gnawing eating away at her gut, leaving a vacuum that she didn’t understand and had no way to fill.
‘Are you enjoying yourself?’
She turned her face up to his and, even with the sun on her skin, felt the warmth of the smile that greeted her permeate all the way through to her bones. ‘Thank you,’ she nodded, knowing that whatever happened, she would treasure it forever. ‘It’s wonderful.’
The boat headed out towards the pinnacle of rock known as Iseo’s Pyramid, the mountainous sides reaching further and further into the sky as they approached, the seabirds forming a permanently changing cloud around the peak. Still some distance out, the skipper slowed the engines and cruised gently around the rock; yet even from this distance the rock rose sheer and majestic from the water, its black volcanic walls razor- sharp and magnificent. On one side a tiny beach clung at the base of a cleft in the rock, its white sand framed with wild olive trees and windswept bushes on one side, the jewel-blue sea on the other, and looking like the perfect picnic spot, exclusive, private and with a natural beauty that took her breath away. But there would be no picnic on the beach. ‘We can’t get any closer,’ Rafe explained as the boat bobbed off shore.
And when she looked closer, she could see why, the shadowed outline of rocks submerged just below the surface making any passage through a nightmare, and it was easy to see why the rock had claimed so many victims in its time. For even in the bright light of day, Iseo’s Pyramid loomed dark and menacing. To encounter it during a storm would be a living hell.
Sienna leaned against the side of the boat, her eyes scaling the mountain, trying to imagine what it was in the shape of the rock that Iseo had seen on that night, all those years ago.
‘Where does the Beast live when it’s not in residence, marauding for shipwreck survivors?’
‘The Beast of Iseo? It sleeps, far below the sea, busy digesting the contents of another wayward vessel.’
‘He must be hungry, then, this Beast of yours, given your embargo on sailings on nights with no moon.’
Rafe turned against the railing and looked down at her, his eyes obscured by dark glasses, yet the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. ‘I never thought of that. Do you think it would be wise to make a sacrifice every now and then, in the interests of increasing the opportunities for trade between Montvelatte and our neighbouring countries?’
‘Absolutely. Just make sure whoever you sacrifice is a virgin, so I have nothing to fear.’
He laughed, as he had on their cliff walk that evening, and the sound rippled through her on a wave of pleasure, and once again she asked herself why it couldn’t be like this always, when one day was so special. He did enjoy being with her. He must feel something for her, to have cancelled his appointments for a day and made the time to be with her. It wasn’t all about the sex, or they would never have left his suite this morning.
Shortly afterwards, the launch powered up and steered away from Iseo’s Pyramid, back across the passage to Montvelatte. Out on the water the wind was rising. She heard talk from the deck of a predicted summer storm but discounted it. The sky was so blue and cloudless that it reminded her of the years she’d spent with her mother in Australia, where the land had seemed to go for ever until it met the sky. She’d loved the sense of space she’d found there, the space she’d never found growing up on a tiny in-the-middle-of-an-ocean boat or in a crowded school clinging to the side of a mountain in Gibraltar. Australia had been made of space, it seemed, and Montvelatte, an island in the Mediterranean, seemed to share the best of both her worlds—space and endless skies, hers for the taking.
A wind whipped up, tugging at her hair as the launch sliced through the water. Sienna laughed as she was caught off- balance, the hair flicking loosely around her face, her hands unsuccessfully trying to recapture the wayward locks, until Rafe captured her hands in one of his own and pulled them down low. ‘Leave it,’ he said, using the sway of the boat to tilt her towards him so he could kiss her brow. ‘I love your hair just the way it is.’
And then he angled up her chin, and his lips met hers, her hair blowing unrestrained around them as the empty yawning hole inside her latched onto a single truth that jolted her to her core.
Please, no,she thought, feeling herself shrivel away from him in panic.
Please, not that.
But as his mouth moved over hers, the truth refused to be ignored, unfurling inside her, filling the vacuum in a revelation that could see her damned.
She’d fallen in love with Rafe.
Shock wrenched her from the kiss, and when he came after her she claimed the motion of the boat was making her queasy. He had no trouble believing her, just as she had no trouble convincing him, a wave of nausea snapping closely on the heels of her discovery.
She couldn’t love him.
She clung to the railing, while he insisted on fetching her some water, her world tilting and yawing in a way that had nothing to do with the motion of the boat and everything to do with a growing fear in her heart.
How could she have let that happen?
And yet, her mind recalled, one night in Paris, on a night filled with lovemaking so passionate and intense it had rocked her world, hadn’t that been exactly what she’d thought? That if a woman wasn’t careful, a man like Rafe was everything she could fall in love with?
But that had been before he’d shunted her out the door and out of his life without a second glance, and that was before he’d only wanted her back when he’d discovered she was pregnant to him. How could she fall in love with someone who’d treated her that way?
Too easily, it seemed. She’d allowed the same things she’d been attracted to from the very beginning to influence her now, overriding her reasons to hate him. He’d ridden roughshod over her at every opportunity, denying her any choice, telling her that they would be married and when. And still she’d let him under her skin, wanted him by her side, in her bed. Wanted him.
And that had been the real reason why she’d wanted to flee from Montvelatte the first chance she’d had. Not just because she was angry with him for the way he’d thrust her from his room that night, but because she’d known, ever since she’d landed on the island, how he could make her feel with just one look or one touch, and so she’d had to escape, and as soon as possible.
That had been the real reason she’d stayed. Because in spite of everything, he held the magic to make her want him.
Because she did want him.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, though. He could love her, he should love her, but she wasn’t supposed to love him, not if he could never return that love.
Sienna clung to the railing, breathing in great bursts of air, as the launch lurched over first one swell, and then another, swallowing them down and wishing she could swallow down her memories. Memories of her mother, her face contorted and tear-stained, her voice cracking as she pleaded with Sienna’s father to stay at home and not go to the bar that night. Begging him not to go. Telling him that she loved him.
And her father had bellowed back at her, calling her a stupid bitch, and yelling that he’d never loved her and never would and that the only reason he’d married her was because of the baby she’d been too stupid to get rid of. The hatch door had been slammed shut and he’d gone.
He hadn’t come home that night. Or the next. And, worried about her mother’s deepening depression, Sienna had asked her where her father was. It had been an innocent enough question. She’d known she was that baby for years, the one who had ruined her father’s life. But she’d thought in her young adolescent mind that if she could find her father and tell him that she would leave, things might once again be good between her mother and her father.
She’d only wanted to help.
But her question had only brought fresh floods of tears from her mother that had answered nothing, only bringing on a sick feeling that had buried itself deep into the pit of her stomach—that it was already too late.
And that it was all her fault
A week later Sienna had overheard the news from her friends at the English school on the side of Gibraltar’s mountain, from girls who whispered in the rabbit warren of corridors in hushed tones, that her father had moved in with the woman from the bar and that he’d been boasting to everyone that he was never going back.
In the cramped society that was Gibraltar’s marina, it was the best kind of scandal. Sex, infidelity and betrayal, all celebrated with a tinge of pathos for the child involved, the child who’d been told she was responsible for it all.
The boat lurched over the wash from a long gone passenger ferry, and a stomach that she’d been trying to keep under control lurched with it ‘Oh, God,’ she cried, clamping a hand over her mouth.
Sweat broke out on her forehead; she felt sick to her core and leaned out over the railing,concentrating so hard on not letting go that only vaguely was she aware of the shouting and of the stilling of the boat She managed a few deep gulps of air, and it was easier then to swallow back on her churning stomach, the residual wash no more than a rhythmic slap of water against the hull.
The gentle breeze cooled her sweated brow, made her aware of how hot she’d been, how close to losing everything in her stomach.
Damn it! She hated feeling this sickness, whatever the cause. Hated the feeling of vulnerability that went along with it She felt Rafe’s hand at her back, stroking her shoulder, and almost shrugged him away until she realised that if she was feeling anything, then she was already over the worst. ‘Here,’ he said, and gratefully she turned and took the goblet sipping at the cool fluid.
‘I’ll get them to radio the doctor,’ he told her. ‘He can meet us when we get back.’
She pushed die glass away. ‘I don’t need a doctor!’
‘You’re not well. You need a doctor.’
‘What I need is to have my head read,’ she snapped, wondering what perverse law of nature had decided that of all the men in the world, she should be unlucky enough to fall in love with this man. ‘And I’m quite sure your precious heirs will be fine, which is all you’re really worried about’
His hand fell away, the silence dragging. ‘What is this?’
‘Just that every time I so much as sneeze, you call in the doctors.’
‘I want you to be well. Is there anything wrong with that?’ ‘You don’t give a damn about me and don’t pretend you do! Your concern for me extends no further than as an incubator for your babies. If you could get away with plugging me into a power socket for the duration, like any other incubator, you’d be satisfied.’
‘You’re talking rubbish.’ He turned and made a signal to the skipper, who had been waiting patiently for instructions, and who now revved up the engines and cut a course back into port. ‘What are you trying to turn this into—some kind of contest about what means more to me? You know how important it is for Montvelatte—for me—to have an heir.’
She swung away from him and swept a hand across her face, pushing back the loose tendrils of her hair. ‘There is no contest. I’m merely acknowledging the truth of the matter. You’d never be thinking about marrying me if it weren’t for two small smudges on a screen. You’d never even consider marrying me if it weren’t for these two babies of yours I’m carrying.’
‘And that’s a problem?’ He moved closer, his hands held out to her, but she jumped back out of his reach just as quickly.
‘This damned marriage is all about these babies. Nothing else. If it weren’t for them, you would have let me walk away weeks ago.’
His feet planted wide on the deck, he reached a hand to his head, pushing it through his hair, irritation plainly written on his features.
‘We’ve been through this,’ he said gruffly, his patience clearly wearing thin. ‘We both know why we’re getting married. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be good together. You know that.’ ‘Sure, we have a great time in bed. Now there’s a sound basis for a marriage. Not!’
‘Even forgetting the fact we’ll have children between us, being compatible in bed is more than some people have.’
‘And it’s less than others have.’
‘I’ll settle for the sex.’
She scoffed. ‘I’d expect you to say that. And what happens when we don’t have such a great time in bed any more? When you get sick of me or I get sick of you? What happens then?’
Even behind his sunglasses, she could see his eyes narrow as they focused in on her. ‘Then we get separate beds. Is that what you want to hear?’ He looked away, his hand troubling his already tousled hair once more. ‘What is this?’ he said, turning back. ‘What are you trying to prove?’
Sienna stood at the railing, looking out to sea, the wind in her hair as the boat cut through the clear blue water, and shook her head. ‘I don’t want it,’ she said. ‘I don’t want a marriage based on becoming someone’s brood mare.’
‘A bit melodramatic, don’t you think?’
‘No, I don’t think. You need an heir. If these...’ she placed a hand low over her tummy, cradling the place her babies were growing deep below, ‘...turn out to be girls, that doesn’t help you one bit, does it? A daughter cannot become a prince. A daughter does not solve Montvelatte’s problem. You need a son.’
‘They will be boys. I know it.’
‘You can’t know it! There is no way of telling at this stage, no way of knowing. And if you’re wrong, and neither of these babies is male, what will my job be?’ She nodded, drawing herself up as still and tall as she could. ‘I’ll be expected to keep on breeding until you have an heir and a spare. But will that be enough, I wonder, given what happened to your brothers? Two sons may not be enough. So how many children must I be expected to bear? How many times will I be expected to share your bed so that you might inject me with your seed and get me pregnant? Don’t even pretend you don’t expect me to be some kind of brood mare for you.’
‘Enough!’ He drew closer. So close she could see the corded tension in his throat, the thump of his heart beating in his temples. ‘And you would have me believe that you do not enjoy sharing my bed? Dio, who was it who dressed herself like a temptress and paraded herself in front of Montvelatte’s wealthiest like some high-society whore, trawling for sex, smelling for all the world like a bitch in heat—’
Her open palm collided against his face with a crack that slammed his head sideways and left a deep red stain upon his olive-skinned cheek.
‘You bastard! I am nobody’s whore!’
He raised a hand to his face, rubbing the place she had hit and all the while he looked down at her. ‘All I am trying to do is make the best of a situation.’
‘Take advantage of it, you mean!’
‘Which is better than pretending it doesn’t exist! Don’t you think it’s about time you faced the facts? You’re pregnant with twins. My twins. What the hell else are you going to do?’ ‘I don’t know. But maybe you might have bloody well asked me to marry you, instead of just demanding I do.’
‘And would you have said yes?’
‘Not a snowball’s chance in hell.’
His jaw worked overtime, his eyes cold as flint ‘Then maybe it’s just as well I didn’t ask.’
