Her Best Kept Royal Secret by Lynne Graham

CHAPTER FIVE

THEMUGOFcoffee in Gaby’s hand trembled and she sank down into an armchair. ‘You’d have to marry me?’

Angel swallowed hard. He would have to marry her to ensure his child was properly protected from damaging influences. After his own childhood experiences, he would have to be directly involved in the raising of his own child because the alternative would be, to his mind, a sin. He accepted that bringing up his child was his duty, but he also knew that, thanks to his own dysfunctional background, he had not a clue how to be a good husband or father, which was rather daunting. He studied Gabriella, striving to read her reaction to what he had said, but her jewel-blue eyes were unrevealing and she looked more shocked than anything else.

‘We’re jumping the gun,’ he acknowledged. ‘First, will you agree to the DNA test and will you allow me to see him?’

Gaby swallowed so hard she hurt her throat. ‘Explain why you said that you would have to marry me,’ she prompted tightly.

‘My firstborn son is the heir to the throne.’

‘But we’re not married!’ she protested.

‘We don’t have to be according to the constitution of Themos in which the firstborn son inherits. In the seventeenth century one of my ancestors was unable to have children with his wife but he already had a son by his mistress and his son took the throne after him. His father changed the rules to keep the Diamandis family in power. Married or not, if your son is mine, he will be my heir,’ Angel explained flatly. ‘And if I marry you, you will eventually be the Queen of Themos, ruling by my side.’

‘For goodness’ sake...’ Gaby set down her coffee and released a deep sigh. ‘I had no idea. I didn’t even think Alexios could ever be the heir to anything that belonged to you,’ she framed truthfully.

‘If you’re telling me the truth and I was your only lover, he won’t be illegitimate for very long because our marriage would legitimise his birth,’ Angel breathed tautly. ‘So, the DNA test?’

‘I suppose I don’t have much choice on that score because it wouldn’t be fair to you or my son to refuse. On that basis I’ll go along with it,’ Gaby muttered uneasily.

‘I’ll make the arrangements,’ Angel told her as he pulled out his phone, speaking in fast idiomatic Italian to whoever was at the other end of the line, an employee, she decided, because Angel was reeling off instructions. Someone was to come to the house to perform the DNA test and fast-track the results back to him.

He dug his phone back into the pocket of his cashmere coat and raked long brown fingers through the luxuriant ebony hair brushing his brow, tousling it. Her breath snarled up in her throat as he glanced back at her through a fringe of inky spiky lashes, his eyes a simmering slash of gold as hot as the heart of a fire, his lean, strong jaw framed and enhanced by black stubble. Her body came to life as though he had flipped a switch, her breasts tightening inside her bra, a tugging sensation clenching the heart of her. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, her colour heightening.

I will have to marry you?Not words she had ever expected Angel to say to her personally, not even in some crazy fantasy. Even as a teenaged student she had never dreamt big enough to imagine herself marrying a royal prince. But why would he have to marry her? Because Alexios was his heir? Surely if legitimacy were not demanded, marriage would be unnecessary? She could not, even in the wildest reaches of her imagination, picture being married to Angel, whose lifestyle was so far removed from her own. Themos was a very glamorous place, packed with the rich, famous and powerful. The island teemed with yachts, luxury hotels and casinos and staged world-class fashion, sport and charity events. Nobody would match someone as ordinary as she was to someone like Angel, the ruler of his own little country.

‘May I see him?’ Angel pressed.

Gaby’s lips parted to utter a negative but then she thought about it. She already knew that Alexios was Angel’s flesh and blood and soon he would know as well. What good reason did she now have to refuse him access to a mere glimpse of his sleeping son?

‘OK, but you’ll have to be very quiet. He’s cross as tacks if you wake him in the middle of a nap,’ Gaby warned, leaving him to follow her back across the hall into the kitchen, where a small corner staircase led up to her little apartment.

‘What are you doing living here?’ Angel asked.

‘Clara had knee surgery and needed someone around to help until she was mobile again. Alexios was a newborn. This arrangement suits us both because we both still have our privacy. In a few weeks, Clara will be moving into a smaller house in town, which will suit her better, and Alexios and I will be moving on.’

‘To where?’

‘I haven’t decided because Clara doesn’t have an actual moving date yet.’ Gaby opened the door of her accommodation at the top of the stairs. ‘Her son lived here until he emigrated.’

Angel thought the large room with its shabby furniture and small kitchen area at the far end was a dump. He paused by the one connecting door. ‘Is the child in here?’ he prompted.

Her face taut, Gaby stepped past him to open the door quietly and step into her bedroom, which she shared with her son. As luck would have it, Alexios was already awake, sitting up in one corner of his crib, hugging his rabbit blankie. A huge welcoming grin lit up his little face when he saw her. Behind her, she heard Angel release his breath in a sudden hiss.

‘He has my mother’s eyes,’ Angel whispered hoarsely. ‘And he looks very like baby pictures of me.’

‘Surprise, surprise,’ Gaby said drily as she bent down to lift the child already holding his arms up in anticipation. ‘I did tell you he was yours.’

Angel tensed as she spun back round to face him. He wasn’t comfortable with young children. None of his friends had had kids yet. Nobody handed him a baby and expected him to know what to do with it...but Gaby did. She plonked the child into Angel’s arms as though he were a parental veteran.

Angel stared into those vivid green eyes that reminded him so disturbingly of his late mother. His son smiled and planted a chubby little hand against the stubble surrounding Angel’s mouth, fingers exploring that interesting roughness. The baby giggled.

‘He’s not used to men, so you’ll be a novelty,’ Gaby remarked, feeling that in the circumstances she was being remarkably generous in sharing her son.

That innocent chuckle released Angel’s tension. A smile flashed across his wide sensual mouth and Gaby’s heart stuttered in receipt of that powerful flare of raw masculine charisma. Illuminated by that smile, his lean, darkly handsome features were incredibly appealing.

‘He seems to be a happy baby.’

‘He is. Why wouldn’t he be? There are no problems in his little world.’ Gaby moved back out of the bedroom. ‘Do you want to play with him?’

Angel winced. ‘I wouldn’t know how to. You called him Alexios?’

‘It’s Greek.’ Gaby coloured with self-consciousness.

‘My great-grandfather was also called Alexios,’ Angel remarked.

‘Was he?’ Gaby lifted and dropped a shoulder, refusing to be drawn as she reclaimed her son. She settled down on the rug with him and pulled over a plastic basket of toys. ‘Come on,’ she murmured ruefully. ‘You have to learn how to play with him some time.’

Angel, the picture of elegance in his designer silk-and-wool-blend charcoal-grey suit worn beneath his coat, froze and gave her a startled glance. ‘Right now?’

Gaby settled sapphire-blue eyes that gleamed on him. ‘Now would be a good time. It’s the easiest way to make him relax with you.’

Angel shed his coat and dropped down into the nearest armchair with the air of a condemned man.

Gaby disregarded his absence of enthusiasm. Angel did not like to be ignorant in any field. Anything that made him vulnerable seemed to put him on edge, but she wanted to see if he could make an effort and unbend for Alexios’s benefit. She piled up bricks and Alexios sent them flying with exuberance. She settled a toy lorry into his lap, which he lifted to chew.

‘Shouldn’t you take that off him?’ Angel enquired.

‘No. Everything goes in his mouth at present. He’s teething,’ Gaby told him, trying not to stare as Angel inched forward off the chair much as though he were approaching a snapping shark and settled a plastic car on the rug in front of her son.

Angel made what she deemed to be ‘boy’ noises with the car and Alexios was delighted. From that point on she might as well have not been there for all the attention she received from her two companions and Gaby quietly left them to it, busying herself by making her son’s lunch.

‘He’s falling asleep,’ Angel complained.

‘He will...he didn’t have his usual nap,’ Gaby reminded him, amused by his tone of disappointment. Alexios was a novelty for Angel and it worked both ways, Gaby conceded wryly. Men often played in a different way with babies than women did and Alexios had enjoyed Angel’s more physical, noisy approach. She wasn’t jealous of the bond she had seen developing between father and son because she could see how beneficial it would be for her child. ‘But try to keep him awake. I still have to feed him.’

‘And then perhaps we could talk...’

‘There’s not a lot to talk about... I mean, that reference to marriage was just pure insanity,’ Gaby told him irritably as she busied herself in the little kitchen area. ‘We’d probably kill each other by the end of the first month!’

‘But what a way to go...’ Angel husked, disconcerting her with that purred sensual response.

Sidestepping that inappropriate comment, Gaby picked up Alexios and slotted him into his high chair, attaching a bib and lifting the feeding dish. ‘Let’s stick to basics here. If you want a relationship with Alexios, I’m not planning to stand in the way.’

‘It was premature to refer to marriage. I shouldn’t have opened with the subject,’ Angel cut in smoothly.

And that interruption convinced Gaby that he had never meant to mention marriage in the first place, which made much better sense to her. In the heat of the moment, he had got carried away. Her tense shoulders relaxed a little as she fed Alexios, making aeroplane noises and gestures with the spoon to keep him awake.

‘I don’t have any lunch to offer you,’ she told Angel awkwardly. ‘Clara and I usually have a snack rather than a meal.’

‘Not a problem. I have to leave soon. I have an event to attend at home first thing tomorrow morning.’

Instead of feeling relieved by the reference to his departure, Gaby felt a sense of loss and hated herself. All right, Angel had been a colourful addition to her day, but she shouldn’t have any personal reaction to him. The drama was over, a DNA test would be done, presumably fences would be mended for the sake of peace and Angel would become an occasional visitor in his son’s life, she reasoned, censuring herself for getting more than superficially involved in his arrival.

Angel watched her tuck her sleepy son back into his cot. His proximity unnerved her. The room seemed to shrink around her as she brushed past him and closed the door. The faint tang of his cologne assailed her, firing memories of that night in Alharia, and she jerked back another step, accidentally knocking her hip against the wall.

‘You’re so jumpy around me,’ Angel remarked.

Unwarily, Gaby glanced up and was immediately ensnared by dark golden eyes that burned through her defences like hot lava. ‘Do you blame me? I mean, after what happened between us in Alharia?’ she extended uncomfortably.

‘No regrets this side of the fence, glykia mou,’ Angel husked, staring down at her, the luxuriant black tangle of his lashes intensifying his stunning gaze. ‘I’m no hypocrite. It was an extraordinary night.’

‘Oh, please, like I believe that after the number of such encounters that you must have had!’ Gaby riposted helplessly, breathless and taut in spite of every effort to remain unaffected by him.

‘Extraordinary and unforgettable,’ Angel repeated in defiance of that charge as he backed her into the wall, suddenly dangerously close and as dangerously intent on her as a tiger that had been provoked.

A ripple of awareness that was so highly charged that it almost hurt travelled through her slender frame. Her breasts felt constrained by her bra, the sensitive tips pushing to prominence against the scratchy lace while a clenching sensation tugged in her pelvis. Hot colour flooded her cheeks at that wholly primitive response that had nothing to do with logic and she trembled.

Angel scored a gentle fingertip across her cheekbone, his gaze molten gold with hunger, and it was too much for her in the mood she was in, all the emotional distress his appearance had evoked fusing with a desire she could not suppress. Stretching up on tiptoe, she claimed his wide sensual mouth for herself. He tasted of mint and fresh air and sunshine and a raw need that reverberated through her like a lightning strike. His mouth crushed hers and she felt as though she was collapsing into him until he edged her back against the wall for support. His tongue delved and liquid fire stabbed through her and that fast she wanted to rip his clothes off...

Her fingers dug into his shoulders, laced into his thick black hair. The fine fabric of his trousers couldn’t conceal the bold thrust of his erection against her midriff and her hand travelled down over his chest to trace the throbbing evidence of his arousal. He groaned under his breath, pushing against her, tugging at the waistband of her jeans, pushing down the zip.

Their mutual hunger was frantic, uncontrolled. There was nothing seemly about it, she would later concede when she thought back to that moment and shuddered with embarrassment. But right then the allure of the forbidden sucked her right in and swallowed her alive. The brush of his fingers against her stomach was familiar, the less innocent slide of his hand beneath her knickers desperately desired and his carnal touch there, where she ached most of all, unbearably exciting. She pushed against him and quivered, helplessly enthralled by the demands of her own body, her heart racing and her blood thrumming with a wild insistent beat in her veins. Desire had caught her in a steely, unbreakable hold and with every plunge of his wicked tongue and every stroke of his hand her defences splintered and weakened. Her sensation-starved body surged to a feverish peak at his command alone. In climax, she jerked and gasped and then gasped again, pleasure claiming her in long, tingling waves.

‘You drive me...insane,’ Angel groaned just as her jeans began to slide down her thighs.

In that same instant a mobile phone buzzed loudly and he looked at her and she looked at him and just when she believed that he would ignore his phone, he glanced down at his watch instead and suddenly swore in ragged Greek. ‘If I don’t leave now, the jet will miss our flight slot!’ he bit out in raw frustration.

Gaby turned crimson and yanked up her jeans, her feminine core still pulsing and her nipples as hard as bullets. She had craved sex with Angel as much as though he were an addictive drug. She couldn’t believe what she had almost done, and her sole consolation was that a glance at Angel’s unconcealed tension and discomfiture confirmed that he too was full of incomprehension at what had almost transpired. Up against the wall as well, she reflected sickly, like a wanton desperate hussy.

‘Throw me out before I do something worse,’ he urged in a driven undertone, brilliant eyes shielded by his lashes to glittering stars in darkness. ‘You destroy my self-discipline...’

And she had no discipline whatsoever around him either, Gaby acknowledged with sudden shamed bitterness as she led the way back downstairs to the separate front door she rarely utilised to speed his departure. This time, however, he took her phone number.

‘The test will be done within forty-eight hours,’ he promised her before he stepped back over the wall and climbed back into the helicopter. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

And that was that, but she was shell-shocked, deeply shaken by that encounter. Angel had played with Alexios and had warmed up to their son in a way she had not known he was capable of achieving. Angel was so shuttered, so locked up in himself most of the time, and that arrogant, bold surface gloss of his usually hid the fact from the world. It was a challenge for him to loosen up, to relax his guard and yet he had done it for a baby’s benefit. He had done silly things to amuse Alexios and that had touched Gaby in the most unexpected way. Would that willingness to get down to a child’s level last? Would her son truly become Angel’s heir? For good? Or just until Angel married and had another male child with a carefully chosen royal wife?

Those were questions and concerns that were still troubling Gaby while she walked up the gentle hill behind the farm on an afternoon six days later. She was taking a break because Alexios was having his nap and Clara had friends in for lunch.

Within twenty-four hours of Angel’s visit, a technician had arrived to perform the DNA test and in due course Angel had texted Gaby to confirm that Alexios was his son...as if she had ever been in any doubt of that fact! She had to wonder why he had bothered to send that text without sending an unreserved apology with it because the year before, when she had approached him with her pregnancy, he had treated her like a gold-digging, publicity-seeking fraudster. Did he regret that now? Did he wish he had listened, believed her? Or did the ruling Prince of Themos not concern himself with such trivia as his past mistakes?

As she reached the top of the hill and stood looking out at the view, a helicopter swooped down to land in the field fronting the farmhouse. A tall man sprang out and her nervous tension rocketed as high as the skyline as she began to move back towards the house. Within minutes, the same figure reappeared and passed through the gate behind the farm to start moving in her direction. Her breath shortened in her throat and her pace slowed as she recognised that the visitor striding through the rough field grass towards her was indeed Angel. Why on earth was he here again so soon after his last visit?

‘Gabriella...’ Angel hailed her long before he reached her, black hair tousled by the breeze above his lean bronzed face, dark eyes narrowed to focus on her with noticeable intensity. Shockingly spectacular, shockingly sexy. He stopped several feet away, an incongruous picture in his designer suit against the backdrop of a windblown field.

‘I was coming back to the house,’ Gaby muttered uncomfortably, feeling rumpled and messy in the face of his habitually immaculate presentation.

‘We can walk back together.’

Gaby shot him a fleeting look of frustration. ‘What are you doing here again?’

With sheer force of will, Angel held that darting evasive glance of hers, dark golden eyes flaring bright. ‘You should know why I’m here. I did warn you. Alexios is my son, and we will have to get married. The sooner we do the deed, the sooner life can settle down again and the less chance there will be for the press to make a spectacle of us and our child,’ he concluded grimly.

‘But you can’t be serious about us getting married?’ Gaby argued, her steps faltering as she turned round to face him.

‘I’m deadly serious,’ Angel contradicted.

‘But why?’

‘Your son’s future is in Themos and I will not allow you to deprive him of his birthright and heritage,’ Angel countered without hesitation.

An angry flush mantling her cheeks, Gaby flung her head back, copper strands sliding back from her face to accentuate her fine bone structure. ‘I have no intention of depriving my son of anything that he needs!’ she stressed.

‘That’s good, because he needs his father just as much as he needs his mother,’ Angel slotted in glibly.

‘What a shame you didn’t feel that way last year when I approached you!’ Gaby framed furiously. ‘If you had listened to me then, you would have had much more time to decide how we should move forward as parents, and I very much doubt that you would have come up with anything as crazy as marriage being the solution!’

‘Leave the past where it belongs and concentrate on our child for the moment,’ Angel urged with a rapier-sharp edge to his intonation. ‘Right now, Alexios is our most important concern. Let me tell you, I am determined that my son will have a far better and happier start to life than I ever had!’

‘That’s all very well,’ Gaby muttered, taken aback by that sudden shadowy revelation about his own childhood and tucking it away for later examination. ‘But marriage between us is not the solution.’

‘I will be straight. It is either marriage or a custody case because I will fight you through the courts before I risk allowing my son to grow up without daily access to the country which is his!’ Angel sliced back at her, stealing the breath from her lungs and freezing her in place while he strode back towards the farmhouse.

In fear, Gaby shook off her nervous paralysis and chased after him. ‘You don’t mean that, you can’t!’ she protested. ‘Would you really try to take Alexios away from me? Are you really that cruel?’

‘I would do it with great regret because a loving mother is a huge gift and I have no desire to separate you from each other. On the other hand, Alexios belongs with his father as well and if we cannot agree a compromise, I would have no choice but to fight you.’

‘And...the only available compromise is marriage?’ Gaby almost whispered, pale as death now.

‘Yes. That way he has both of us and we share him, and he grows up in the country which he will one day rule,’ Angel conceded, the harsher edge to his deep dark drawl easing a little. ‘He will be my priority in life... I promise you that. I will be a parent in every way possible to him. There is nothing that he will lack...’

Wholly taken aback now by that passionate declaration of his parental intentions from a man whom she had once naively assumed couldn’t care less about such matters, Gaby swallowed hard and said nothing, which of course turned out to be a mistake when Angel continued speaking.

‘Perhaps it would be easier for you to give him up altogether and get on with your life, unrestricted by our son’s status,’ he intoned, shocking her even more with that suggestion. ‘A royal life is full of restrictions and I believe you have less interest in such a lifestyle than many women I’ve known.’

Gaby blinked while she tried to think fast about the horrible options he was putting before her. ‘All these years and that’s the very first compliment you have ever given me that didn’t relate to my looks.’

Angel frowned. ‘No, I’m not that superficial.’

‘With me, you were, but maybe you’re always like that with women,’ Gaby remarked with a dismissive shrug. ‘I’m afraid I’m not prepared to walk away from Alexios even though I suspect that that option might suit you the best.’

‘Even though his mother walking away would break my son’s heart?’ Angel breathed with incredulous bite. ‘You don’t think much of me, do you? I would never wish such hurt on my son as abandonment by a parent would bring. It happened in my own family and the pain of it resonates even in adulthood.’

Gaby felt as though she had been thoroughly scolded. Her pallor was chased off by a guilty flush while she wondered who had been abandoned in childhood in his family circle. ‘Who in your family did that happen to?’

Angel’s lean dark features tensed. ‘That is a private family matter I cannot discuss with you.’

Gaby reddened and looked away again. ‘Let me sum up what you’ve said. According to you my choices are pretty basic. Marriage or a court battle? Not much room to negotiate there.’

‘Yes,’ Angel confirmed. ‘But there is no viable alternative.’

Gaby chewed her lip to ensure that she didn’t erupt into a flood of exasperated disagreement. In a world where single parents were commonplace, of course there were alternatives, only he was not prepared to consider them. And she didn’t feel that she was in a strong enough or safe enough position to risk angering Angel by fighting bitterly with him. Angel would make a terrifying enemy, and not only because of his stubborn, arrogant and implacable character, but also because of his standing in the world. He was incredibly rich, and he enjoyed diplomatic status. He also had many friends in high places. In a court case centred on a child with a royal birthright, a child who was undeniably important to the country he would one day rule, how could she be sure how such a judgement would go? Mothers did not automatically retain custody of their children in all circumstances. Mothers could and indeed did lose their children if the father were deemed to be the more suitable parent to have custody. Angel might well fit that category when, one day, Alexios would become King.

‘If it’s a choice between a custody battle and marriage, I’ll go for marriage,’ Gaby murmured tightly, resisting the urge to point out that, in her opinion, he was not actually giving her a choice that she could reasonably be expected to think about.

Angel flashed her a sudden brilliant smile, relief lightening his unusually expressive dark golden eyes. ‘It’s the right decision,’ he assured her.

‘But that still leaves us a lot of stuff to talk about,’ Gaby pointed out.

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Angel stated with his usual confidence. ‘Once we’re married, everything will fall naturally into place.’

‘Yes, what about...the other hundred and one things that matter in a marriage?’ Gaby pressed urgently.

‘We will be a normal couple...and we will be a family like other normal families.’ Angel had difficulty putting into words exactly what he wanted for his son, but the word ‘normal’ kept on cropping up along with his highest hopes, reminding him that nothing about his own childhood had been remotely normal...at least, only normal for a severely dysfunctional family.

Angel knew that he was struggling to find words because on many levels he was in turmoil. He had only just discovered that he was a father and to some degree that was terrifying when he looked back at how much his own parents had let him down as a child. He knew that he would have to make a lot of sacrifices to be a decent parent. He would have to be there for the big things like birthdays and the little things like learning to swim. He would have to be there when life was good, but he would have to be there even more for his child when his life was difficult. Too often, proud independence had forced Angel as a child to hide his problems and struggle to deal with them alone.

Guilt pierced him when he remembered how he had rejected Gabriella when she was pregnant, when his care for his child and his child’s mother should have begun. He had already failed them once, he could not, would not, do it ever again. He wanted Gabriella, but control with a woman was everything, he reasoned. As long as that sexual desire didn’t get out of hand or threaten to turn into anything that would put him at risk of foolishness, it would be fine, he assured himself.

Gaby studied him in shock at that announcement he had made. ‘But there’s nothing normal about the life you lead.’

‘That life of self-indulgence is over,’ Angel told her almost harshly. ‘Alexios will come first in all things. I want him to be happy in a family setting.’

‘Yes, of course, but what about all the women you currently run about with?’ Gaby vented between clenched teeth as they reached the farmhouse.

‘For once in your life, could you practise optimism?’ Angel cut in reprovingly. ‘Could you expect the best from me instead of only the worst? I can do faithful if I have to.’

Gaby was in absolute shock at the awareness that she had agreed to become Angel’s wife, even while she knew that she would sooner not have been the catalyst for Angel saying that he could do faithful if he had to. There was nothing normal about that constraint and she wondered how to tell him that creating a normal family would not be easy for a man from his very different background unless he was willing to make enormous sacrifices. Why? Angel had never in his life had to respect limits. As far as she knew he had always done exactly as he liked, and he had done so from a terrifyingly early age. How on earth did he imagine that he would give up the freedom and variety of his very active sex life with uber-glamorous women?

And how on earth could someone who, by the sounds of it, had never known normal in his own childhood declare that he would provide it for Alexios? It was annoying not to know more about his background and troubling that he was so secretive on that topic. The inner conflict he was so determined to conceal only increased her curiosity while his willingness to change his life to best accommodate their son’s needs could only impress her.