Her Best Kept Royal Secret by Lynne Graham
CHAPTER TEN
ALMOSTTWOWEEKSLATER, Gaby traced idle fingers across Angel’s bronzed chest. ‘So, this not seeking an emotional connection with women,’ she mused as lightly as she could in tone. ‘What’s that all about? You made it sound like some sort of mission statement.’
Gaby wanted to know if she could ever be honest with him about how she felt about him. Or would her feelings always have to be a secret?
‘It was. It came from seeing how my father was affected by my mother. She ruined him. I think he loved her, but she wasn’t the sort of woman who made a man better and stronger for caring for her...and he was rather a weak man.’ Angel rested his head back on her lap, black lashes almost hitting his cheekbones as his long lean body stretched in relaxation. ‘I was told by a reliable source that his lifestyle only became as debauched as hers once he realised that she would never be faithful to him. Just think of how much better a man he might have been had he fallen for a classier woman.’
‘Yes, but that was him and you said he was weak. Nobody would call you weak,’ Gaby assured him with shamelessly seductive intent, slender fingers smoothing down over his bare abdomen, hearing the responsive hitch in his breath, fingertips teasing through his happy trail along the waistband of his low-slung denim shorts. ‘So, why can’t you have an emotional connection?’
‘Could be because I’m too busy handling the sexual connection!’ Angel teased with a wicked grin, rolling over and back to tumble her down flat on the rug below the trees at the edge of the woodland. It was one of the few places in the grounds of the house that they were safe from any kind of surveillance, although Gaby had heard Angel having an earnest discussion with his head of security about the risk of drones. The chances of anyone catching a snap of her in a bikini or, worse, rolling about half naked with her husband outdoors, were slim to none, she thought fondly.
The days they had spent together since the wedding had flown past at unbelievable speed, packed with outings, time spent with Alexios, nights of passion and more happiness than Gaby had even known she could feel.
He had taken them out to show them his country and they had travelled back and forth across the island, visiting the the most gorgeous beach, where Angel had built Alexios his first sandcastle and then smashed it flat to make his son laugh. They had dined at a trendy bar above the beach where everybody had watched them covertly, but they had been left in peace, neither photographed nor approached. As Alexios had dozed off in his high chair, she had realised that Angel could go nowhere on Themos without being recognised. They had spent the previous weekend sailing on his yacht with Marina in tow, so that they could go clubbing at the southern tip of the island where there was a very exclusive resort. She had swum, snorkelled, danced, slept for hours both day and night after yielding to Angel’s seemingly insatiable appetite for her, and one day had slipped so smoothly into the next that she could not now imagine a life without him.
‘You’ve got to stop trying to play games with me, hara mou,’ Angel husked, hungrily claiming her pink lips and sending her heartbeat to a racing pitch. He lifted his tousled dark head and, tawny, black-lashed eyes glittering over her, he smiled again. ‘I’m a master gameplayer and I will trump you every time. Of course I have an emotional connection with you.’
Her face was burning but her discomfiture was not sufficient to prevent her from saying uncertainly, ‘You...have?’
Angel grinned, pure devilment dancing in his eyes as he coiled back from her and started to gather up the picnic stuff. ‘Naturally. You’re my wife and the mother of my child. You belong in an entirely separate category.’
Gaby’s teeth gritted. It was one of those regular occasions when she still wanted to throw something at him for being the clever clogs he was always going to be. She didn’t want to be in a category all on her own, she only wanted to know exactly how he felt about her. She wanted to know his every thought and feeling too, she conceded ruefully, and neither desire was likely to be met.
They walked along the path by the lake until the house came into view again.
‘It really enraged me when you accused me of cheating on you all those years ago,’ Angel remarked without warning.
Gaby sighed. ‘I know that technically we had broken up and you were free to do as you liked, but I was upset. Who was she?’
‘An ex. It went no further than what you saw. I wanted to upset you,’ Angel admitted, startling her. ‘An unpleasant urge to follow, I’m afraid. We were both very young, Gabriella. You, in particular, at nineteen were far too young for me. I may only be a few years older, but I was many years older in terms of sexual experience. You were just a baby in comparison, and you were right to say no to me. I reckon you had more emotional experience then than I had, though.’
‘Sometimes you surprise me.’
‘In what way?’
‘In a good way,’ Gaby stressed helplessly because she admired his honesty as they walked back to the house by the side of the lake.
Marina was in front of the house, sitting on the grass with Alexios, and Gaby’s son lifted his arms and loosed a baby shout when he saw his parents.
‘I love being appreciated,’ Angel admitted, closing an arm to her spine. ‘Can I tempt you into having a second child with me yet?’
Shock stilled Gaby in her tracks. ‘Why?’
‘I missed out on so much the first time around.’
‘And it was all your own fault—an own goal, I think you could call it,’ Gaby pointed out gently. ‘And no, it’s too soon for me to consider another pregnancy...maybe next year.’
Just thinking about the concept blew her mind. Was she really that secure that she could even consider another baby? She couldn’t demand love from him as though it were some kind of right written into the marriage vows, could she? Self-evidently, Angel wanted their marriage to work, and he wanted it to last. He had put in the effort, baring his soul of his worst secret to explain why he suffered from such distrust. With that one act he had blown a huge hole in her defences.
Gaby believed that Angel had been more sinned against than he had sinned. The mother who should have loved him had instead withheld her love and attention and had then let him down unforgivably by succumbing to lust rather than considering or even respecting her son’s needs. He was ashamed of both his parents, ashamed and filled with distaste and regret for the different experiences other adults had with their closest relatives. At least she had warm loving memories of her parents, she reflected ruefully. Until Angel had told her about his childhood, she had not fully appreciated how lucky she was to have had fourteen years with a caring family.
They had only just stepped indoors when his mobile phone began ringing. As she carried Alexios upstairs for his bath, she heard his voice take on a clipped cold edge that was unfamiliar to her and she wondered if something had gone wrong back at the palace. Angel had made several trips back to meet obligations that could not be cancelled, and although she had offered to accompany him he had always refused, telling her that she would have her own schedule and duties to fulfil soon enough.
‘The Crown council want the Coronation held within three months and that will keep us busy for weeks,’ he had pointed out. ‘When we get time off, we take it, and I don’t want you feeling like you have to spend less time with our son.’
There was a terrible irony to the reality that she now understood exactly why Angel had insisted on marrying her. Sadly, that truth hurt. His childhood had been quite miserable. Materially he had had everything, but emotionally he had lived in a wasteland where only his parents’ employees had brought warmth into his life. As a result, Angel was determined that Alexios would have a much more positive experience, which he believed entailed two caring parents and stability. Angel set a very high value on a mother’s love. So, he had married her for their son’s sake, and he would stay married to her for their son’s sake, so naturally he was inclined to look on her a little as though she could be a baby dispenser. Having discovered to his surprise that he adored his son, he was now keen to encourage Gaby to give him another child.
With Martina’s efficient assistance, Gaby bathed Alexios and got him tucked into his sleepsuit, ready for his supper. When she walked back into her bedroom, she was surprised to find Viola already packing for her, for they had not planned to return to the palace until the following evening.
She went downstairs and discovered that Angel was still on the phone. Suppressing a groan, she grabbed a coffee from the machine in the kitchen and walked out to the terrace. Clearly there was some sort of crisis and they were leaving sooner than they had expected.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked as Angel strode out to join her.
‘An almighty mess,’ he told her grimly, his beautiful mouth compressing. ‘We’ll discuss it on the drive back to Aikaterina.’
Within twenty minutes they were on the road. Gaby cleared her throat and shot a bemused glance at Angel’s tense profile.
‘Cassia is in a cell at police headquarters,’ Angel revealed, staggering her with that news.
‘But what on earth—?’
‘The waiter serving you at that restaurant the night you were drugged went missing and, when the police tracked him down, he confessed that he had been given the pill and paid to drop it into your glass of champagne,’ Angel explained tautly. ‘His bank account contained a substantial sum of money and when the police “followed the money”, as they say, it led straight to Cassia. She was arrested. Supposedly she intended you no real harm. She expected you to collapse under the influence of the drug, and look like a drunk or behave in some foolish way that would embarrass you, and therefore me as well, in public...’
Gaby’s eyes were huge. ‘Good heavens...’ she whispered in shock. ‘And what was she hoping to achieve with that? That you would cancel the wedding? Turn your back on your son? I don’t think so.’
‘Whatever Cassia’s intentions, I now have to find a way to deal with this problem, and without blowing apart the rest of my household staff. Until I’ve had more time to think, Gabriella, I can’t discuss this further with you.’ Angel abruptly drew their conversation to a close and resumed his brooding demeanour as he stared out of the window.
Gaby felt stung that he’d shut her down so decisively. This involved her. She was the one who’d suffered at Cassia’s vindictive hands. She had every right to demand that Angel share his plans for dealing with Cassia with her. How could she ever believe that they could have anything approaching a real marriage if, even after baring his soul and seemingly accepting that she would never hurt him, Angel was still shutting her out? After all their talks over the last couple of weeks she’d felt so sure that they were starting to really connect, that maybe he could fall in love with her as she had fallen so deeply in love with him. But the moment something like this happened—something big—Angel was reverting to type.
And as angry and shocked as she was at Cassia’s actions, a tiny part of her felt some sympathy for the woman—after all, hadn’t she thrown all of her usual caution to the wind as she’d allowed herself to be swept up in the whirlwind that was Angel? Who could better understand Angel’s powerful draw than herself? Look at the lengths she had gone to to experience even a slither of his attention. She’d married the man—and not because she’d had to, but, she freely admitted now, because she was in love with him. She knew all too well the pain of loving a man who would ultimately never let himself love her back. Cassia had very obviously had deeper and more enduring feelings for Angel than anyone had realised in order to have gone as far as to drug his fiancée two days before her wedding!
They passed the remainder of the journey in stony silence, and, with Alexios sleeping peacefully in his car seat, Gaby didn’t even have the comfort of her son to distract her from her increasingly despairing thoughts. She now saw that she had a decision to make. Stay in her marriage to Angel and break her heart over him, or leave and break her heart anyway...
The moment they pulled up at the palace, Angel leapt from the car, his mobile phone pressed firmly to his ear as he marched inside and disappeared, leaving Gaby to get herself and their son out.
Gaby had spent what felt like hours holed up in the nursery with Alexios and Marina, struggling to distract herself from her spiralling thoughts concerning Angel and the future of their marriage. She wondered what was being discussed, what decisions were being made on her behalf. Would he ever tell her just what went on behind those closed doors?
The door to the nursery opened and Angel appeared.
He asked her to join him in his wing of the palace.
‘Your wing?’ she questioned, it not having occurred to her before to have wondered where his bedroom was. ‘I assumed we’d be sharing.’
‘Which I was about to suggest,’ Angel volunteered as he walked her along the wide, high-ceilinged, hugely imposing picture gallery that connected the two different sections of the palace. ‘My parents occupied separate wings.’
‘And you were on the top floor, all of you nicely separated,’ she commented.
‘That’s how they lived but it’s not how I want to live,’ Angel admitted bluntly.
His crest would have risen in her eyes had it not been for his brooding silence in the car, and the spiralling, panicked thoughts it had triggered in her. How was she supposed to know how Angel wanted to live when he never properly opened up to her? But dared she hope that was about to change? Nervous beyond belief, feeling her future happiness at stake, she couldn’t help but notice that the wing that he inhabited was much more formal and traditional with oil paintings on the walls and grand antique furniture. ‘You’ll have to give me a tour of this place. I had no idea that this side was so different from mine. I’ve seen the public rooms downstairs, of course.’
‘We only use the ground-floor reception area for major events and, since times have changed and people have become more egalitarian, I don’t use them half as much as my parents did.’
He showed her a room off a long wide marble-floored corridor. ‘I thought the nursery could move in here and we could have Alexios closer to us...there’s rooms for the staff as well.
‘This is the sitting room,’ he told her, standing back to allow her to admire a giant expanse ornamented with formal drapes and a massive marble fireplace. ‘It should be dragged into this century, like a lot of the accommodation in this wing. But I’m not interested in the décor, so I’m hoping you will step in...’
‘It’s possible,’ Gaby commented, not wishing to give a definitive answer as yet and commit to a move within the palace. She’d not even decided if she could stay in the marriage yet. What had been decided about Cassia?
‘This is the master bedroom...and it connects with another bedroom, which you could use as a dressing room or whatever.’ Angel studied her fixedly, a frown line starting to pleat his brows. ‘You’re very quiet.’
‘You’ve obviously done a lot of thinking about this rearrangement, but right now I’d prefer to talk about Cassia and why you went so broody and quiet on me in the car after telling me she was the one who drugged me,’ Gaby confessed ruefully, wandering across the huge gilded room with its ridiculously majestic bed on a low dais, which was surrounded by gilt pillars. It was a level of splendour and magnificence so far removed from her experience that she felt intimidated. Slowly, she turned back round to face him.
‘Seriously?’ Angel grimaced. ‘I’ve spent half the day having to talk about Cassia, with her parents, her friends, her colleagues—it’s been endless. I’ve had to be polite, tolerant and compassionate when only a couple of centuries ago I would more happily have stuck her in a dungeon in the basement and had her executed...and, to be quite frank, that’s the endgame I would’ve preferred!’
Astonished by that shattering declaration, Gaby gaped at him, blue eyes very wide.
‘Well, how do you expect me to feel?’ Angel demanded. ‘You could have had an allergic reaction to the drug, could have been seriously harmed by it, but Cassia didn’t care,’ Angel bit out. ‘I think she simply wanted to hurt you because you were marrying me. I am stunned that I failed to appreciate, in all the years I have known her, what a scheming, vindictive woman I had working for me!’ Angel exclaimed harshly. ‘How did I not know? How could I have been so blind to her real nature?’
‘She wasn’t family or your girlfriend,’ Gaby proffered. The depths of the turmoil Angel was finally sharing had her instinctively looking to comfort him. ‘I suspect that you never looked that closely at her. She’s poisonous but I don’t think men find that trait as easy to spot as women do. So what will happen to her now?’
‘I want to keep a lid on this whole toxic mess. I want to ban her from Themos, which, believe me, will be punishment enough.’
‘You don’t want her charged?’ Gaby countered in surprise.
‘Ultimately, as the injured party, the decision is yours. If you want her in court, you must make that choice.’
Gaby breathed in deep and slow. ‘But you would prefer to brush the whole thing under the carpet?’
‘I wouldn’t have put it in those words but, yes, that is the preferable option in my opinion. If we prosecute her, it will hit the press. I don’t want to treat the world to the story of my bride being roofied before our wedding. Regrettably, in our circumstances and with my reputation, nine out of ten people will assume that I was having an affair with Cassia and that sordid interpretation will accompany us all to our graves. Clearly, Cassia was violently jealous of you.’
‘And very possessive of you,’ Gaby filled in. ‘I think she truly believed that she would end up as your wife. Had believed that for many years.’
‘Unfortunately, most people will believe that she had cause to be jealous even though she didn’t. I do want her punished, but in a manner that also respects her family’s service to the throne and removes her from Themos and your radius,’ he extended gravely. ‘Her father, Piero, is a long-standing family friend and a very decent man. He and his wife are in pieces over their daughter’s treachery, but your safety must come first. If Cassia went to prison she would be out again within a few years. As it is, in return for her confessional statement, I will remove her citizenship and she will not be able to get back onto the island.’
Gaby nodded comprehension.
‘That is my preferred solution because I never want to lay eyes on her again in this lifetime,’ Angel continued with grim intensity. ‘It protects her parents’ reputation and residence here as well. They are wealthy and can maintain contact with their daughter however they wish in the future. I could never forgive her, though, for what she did to you...that could have had a tragic conclusion!’
His dark deep drawl roughened as he finished speaking and she gazed across the room at him, momentarily entranced by the volatile liquid gold of his gaze, sensing the powerful emotions he was restraining.
‘I’ll go with whatever you choose,’ Gaby responded with a sigh. ‘A scandal would be embarrassing, and if she went to prison—’
‘Oh, she would definitely go to prison on Themos,’ Angel incised. ‘Buying a banned drug and using it to assault my bride? She has broken several laws and the charges are serious, not inconsequential.’
Angel fell silent then and Gaby could feel the despair in him, which made her wonder if something else was wrong. ‘Angel, is there something else I need to know?’
‘You were targeted because of me. Your life was put at risk because of me.’
‘That’s not how you should view her unbalanced behaviour.’
‘No, but it’s the bald, unlovely truth!’ Angel sliced back harshly. ‘I had a dangerous employee, and I didn’t realise it. Not only didn’t I realise it, while I was refusing to give you my trust, I was giving her my trust and regarded her as a friend! Cassia could have killed you with that drug!’
‘Luckily, she only gave me a headache,’ she said soothingly.
‘Luck doesn’t count when it comes to your safety,’ Angel informed her. ‘You mean the world to our son and to me, hara mou. Anyone who wishes you even the smallest ill is unwelcome on Themos.’
Surprise filled Gaby, swiftly followed by pleasure.
‘I let you down with Cassia and I feel so guilty about that,’ Angel exclaimed abruptly, disconcerting her. ‘I let myself trust her rather than you...you, who have never done a single thing to inspire distrust!
‘I couldn’t have survived you being hurt,’ Angel confided, stalking closer, his brilliant gaze intent. ‘I need you to be happy and content here in the palace, living on Themos with me...’
Gaby could feel her heart beating very, very fast, as if she were on the point of starting a race. ‘Why?’
‘You know why,’ Angel told her confidently. ‘You own me body and soul. Why else were you asking me about why I had never wanted an emotional connection with a woman? I’m in love with you. I’ve probably been in love with you since you were a student, only I couldn’t feel safe with you then without an NDA and I turned my back on you...but I never forgot you for so much as a week at a time. I tried to find you in other women, and I couldn’t...’
‘Oh, my word,’ Gaby whispered, in so much shock that she actually felt dizzy.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ Angel exclaimed.
‘I had no idea that you loved me,’ she muttered unevenly. ‘No idea at all. I had hoped that you might come to fall in love with me, because I’ve been in love with you again since the wedding... I don’t know how, though—it’s not like you deserved love after forcing me into marrying you in the first place. But I do love you, flaws and all.’
‘That was a kind of backhanded declaration,’ Angel complained with his usual arrogance. ‘You wouldn’t have married me if you hadn’t secretly wanted to. You’re a tough cookie. You would have fought me to the last gasp if you didn’t want me as well.’
Gaby looked reflective and then nodded grudgingly, because there was a certain amount of truth in that accusation.
‘Theos mou...we’re almost fighting about it!’ Angel carolled in disbelief as he grabbed her up in his arms. ‘You crazy, wonderful woman! I love you to hell and back.’
‘It’s to the moon and back,’ she corrected.
‘No, it was hell when we were apart. We had those few weeks and I felt so alive and impossibly happy when you were around, and then it all vanished as though it had been a dream,’ he confessed in a fracturing tone of regret, his dark golden eyes full of turmoil as he remembered that period. ‘I was miserable without you in my life.’
‘That NDA,’ she reminded him gently, but she was not as unhappy as she should have been to hear that he had been miserable without her. ‘You broke my heart.’
‘Broke my own too, but I don’t think I was ready to commit to our future back then,’ Angel told her ruefully. ‘And you were too young and naive to handle me, but it’s not like that any more.’
‘No, it’s not.’ Gaby could barely credit what he was telling her, but a ball of warmth was expanding inside her chest and it was happiness, joy, all the things she had assumed she would never be able to feel with Angel except in fleeting moments. But what he was offering her now was so much more. Love would keep them together through the tougher times. Love would embrace Alexios in a cocoon of security as well. She smiled.
‘You don’t throw things now, you talk, you clarify,’ Angel pointed out lethally.
‘Keep quiet or you’ll put me in a bad mood,’ Gaby warned, trailing off his tie, embarking on his shirt with even more enthusiasm.
‘Does this mean you’re planning to move into my bedroom?’ Angel husked.
‘It’s under consideration,’ Gaby countered, not wanting to give away her every advantage at once.
‘How hard do I have to work to get what I want?’
‘I should think you’ll be very busy persuading me tonight that having you in the same bed has benefits,’ Gaby told him impishly, her sapphire eyes full of tender amusement.
Long fingers framed her vibrant face and he looked down at her with an adoration he couldn’t hide, which lit her up inside like a torch. ‘I love you so much, asteri mou...’
‘My star?’ Gaby translated. ‘Good grief, you can be romantic.’
‘Wasn’t it romantic when I asked you to keep on the wedding gown and the sapphires?’ Angel complained.
‘No, that was you living out a fantasy, but I was still underestimating you then. You were trying and I didn’t see it. You were right. My expectations were too low,’ Gaby confided, wrenching him out of his shirt with a huge smile, struggling to come to terms with the concept that Angel Diamandis was, finally, absolutely hers. ‘I will never stop loving you.’
‘I won’t let you stop. You have a lifetime ahead, which you will share with me and our family. For the first time ever, I have a family and I will do whatever it takes to keep it,’ Angel swore fiercely, and then he gathered her into his arms and passionately kissed her breathless. ‘Right now, we’re going to celebrate.’
‘Bossy...much?’ Gaby asked.
‘Secretly you like it,’ Angel told her, his lean dark devastating features illuminated by a charismatic smile.
‘Just you keep on telling yourself that. I love you in spite of your bossy taking-charge ways,’ Gaby informed him.
‘I just love you because you’re beautiful, fierce, clever and sexy,’ Angel murmured thickly as he tugged her down onto his opulent four-poster bed with sensual urgency. ‘Note that I’m not criticising anything.’
‘Hush,’ Gaby urged, resting a fingertip against his parted lips as she gazed lovingly down at him. ‘You make me incredibly happy...’
‘We have a whole lifetime ahead of being together, kardiamou,’ Angel savoured, tugging her inexorably down to him, stretching sinuously over her, all hot, sexy masculinity and unafraid to show his arousal.
Gaby emerged flushed and breathless from a passionate kiss. ‘What about dinner? Won’t the staff—?’
‘They’ll wait until we call...perks of royalty.’
‘Or being a ruthless operator,’ Gaby slotted in before he kissed her again and her worries about being more polite and considerate with the staff melted away, because when she was with Angel, nothing, absolutely nothing else, mattered and she too wanted to celebrate their new happy togetherness.