Shock Heir For The Crown Prince

‘I’d like to.’ He really would. He just didn’t know how much of an asset it would be when navigating the demands of royal existence.

* * *

Ana lived in an apartment just outside Geneva’s UN precinct. By the time they reached it, a cold, illogical fear had begun to assail him. His daughter was in there. A daughter he’d never met, who was the image of his sister. A daughter who thought him dead.

‘Ten minutes,’ he said as he exited the car and leaned against the bonnet. ‘Clothes, passports, belongings you can’t live without. Whatever you’re likely to need for your stay, bring it.’

‘You’re not coming in?’

‘Am I invited?’

‘You hijack my life and yet you stand here and ask for an invitation inside? What are you, a vampire?’

‘I’m courteous.’

She laughed as if she couldn’t help it, a sudden brightness in a night full of shadows and wrongdoing. ‘You’re everything I never wanted and can’t forget,’ she said. ‘Presumably you’ve prepared for meeting your daughter as ruthlessly as you prepared for everything else.’

‘Yes.’

She paused, both hands to the little blue door of her house. ‘If you remember nothing else, remember this. If you hurt my daughter...if you ever make her feel less than the beautiful, innocent child she is... I will make you regret it.’ Her voice was shaking and so were her hands but she turned to spear him with eyes fiercer than any eagle in his aviary. ‘I will protect my child with my last breath. It’s what mothers do.’

‘Not in my experience.’

‘Maybe you need more experience.’ She turned away from him, put the key in the lock and pushed it open. ‘My warning stands.’

He watched her enter, squared his shoulders and followed. He knew nothing of parenting, or of six-year-old girls, except that maybe, just maybe, they liked playing in royal gardens and catching dragonflies. That and they were expendable political pawns.

God help them all.

* * *

A cluttered hallway. A teenage babysitter who stood nervously when they entered the living room, a blue bedroom door—not quite closed. A sleeping child, half buried in bedclothes. These were the images that stayed with him, even as he boarded the plane forty minutes later with both Anastasia and their daughter in tow.

He hadn’t been able to stand in that doorway as his daughter awoke, he’d returned to the living room—now minus the babysitter, who had been dismissed. He needed to put some physical distance between them so he could prepare himself for the moment. How to introduce himself to a six-year-old girl who thought her father dead? A child whose life would never be the same now that he’d claimed her as his?

Ana watching him from the doorway to the living room, a child’s backpack in hand. He remembered that part.

‘There’s still time to change your mind,’ she’d said. ‘You could walk out that door and never look back. You’d never hear from me again. Whatever we had, whatever we once did...it never happened. I will take it to the grave.’

‘She’s mine.’ He’d spread his hands wide. ‘She’s in danger because of me. What kind of man would I be—what kind of father would I be—if I simply stepped back and let it happen?’

I am not my father.

Therein lay the crux of it.

And here they were on the plane. Ana getting the little one buckled into a seat for take-off. The child sleepy and wary of everything and everyone, the mother equally wary, her attention divided wholly between her daughter and him. There was a bedroom on the jet. A supper room if anyone was hungry. There was comfort here, and luxury. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned that Ana seemed to have no care whatsoever for the trappings of royalty or the security team that now surrounded them.

She’d brought the child to him in the living room of her house, both her and the girl hastily dressed in clothes for travelling. Jeans and a soft green pullover for Ana. Jeans, a teal T-shirt and a soft pink jacket cinched at the waist for his daughter. Sophia’s ponytail had been slightly lopsided, her amber eyes still bleary with sleep and she hadn’t reminded him of his sister at all in that moment. She hadn’t reminded him of anyone he’d ever met and that was as it should be.

It had allowed him to breathe.

She was a skinny little thing, this child of his, but she’d met his gaze fearlessly.

He’d crouched down, one knee to the ground, and held out his hand for her to shake it. ‘Hello.’ No way he’d been able to get his voice to come out smooth so he’d settled for gruff in the hope that it would hide some of the emotion welling in his chest at the touch of his daughter’s hand.

‘Sophia, this is His Royal Highness, Prince Casimir of Byzenmaach. He’s an old acquaintance,’ Ana had said. ‘And a prince.’

‘And your father,’ he’d said. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. Get it done, get it over with.

The girl had flinched and looked to her mother for confirmation.

‘Not dead,’ Ana had said somewhat helplessly, and left it at that, and his daughter’s wary gaze had returned to his face.

‘Your eyes are like mine,’ she’d said.

‘Yes.’

‘Maman says you have a castle,’ the girl had said next.

‘Yes.’ Yes, he did, and he wasn’t above using it to impress. ‘Would you like to see it?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘And we have puppies,’ he’d said.

‘What kind of puppies?’ She was hard to impress, this daughter of his.

‘Wolfhounds.’ He’d wondered if a six-year-old would know what that meant. ‘They’re big and shaggy and built to protect the animals in their care. Wolfhounds are almost as big as ponies, which we also have.’

‘Nice try,’ Ana had murmured, but, hey. Whatever worked. He wanted his daughter to arrive in Byzenmaach with castles, ponies and puppies on her mind rather than fear in her heart for the unknown.

Ten minutes into the flight he turned on his phone to find three urgent messages waiting, all of them from Rudolpho. ‘Flight time is five hours,’ he said to Ana as foreboding washed over him. ‘There’s food, a bed through there with a television screen on the wall. Children’s movies.’ He’d even stocked up on those. ‘Make yourselves comfortable.’ He stood and nodded towards the sole woman on his security team. ‘Katya will see to your needs.’

Ana eyed Katya with the deep distrust one might afford a rabid dog. ‘And what will you be doing while we make ourselves at home?’ she asked finally.

Casimir wasn’t used to having his movements questioned, but for her he made an exception. ‘I have some calls I must attend to. There’s an office area at the rear of the aircraft.’

‘I still have questions,’ she said.

‘Rest now.’ He wished he had that luxury. ‘There are some books on Byzenmaach in the bedroom if resting or television doesn’t appeal. English editions. Arabic editions.’ He’d offer books in his native language now that he knew she could read them. ‘You’re the mother of a royal bastard and you’re about to gain unparalleled access to me and Byzenmaach’s most trusted advisors. I want you knowledgeable when it comes to our history, our customs and our politics. I need you to be aware of the political battles in play around you and because of you.’

Not for Anastasia the kind of life his mother had led. Sidelined. Stripped of her voice and unable to influence even the most basic household decisions. Not for Casimir the choices his father had made.

‘You expect me to inhale all this knowledge in five hours? From a pile of books?’ she said.

‘Well, I hear you’re very smart and I did choose the books rather carefully,’ he offered, deadpan. ‘It’s a start. I’m arming you with the tools you’ll need to navigate my world. Knowledge that will prevent you from becoming a pawn for the ruthless. I want you to think for yourself. I need you to be able to protect yourself and our daughter. I will never deny you knowledge or a voice.’

She looked at him, and there was something wholly vulnerable in her gaze. A tiny break in her defences against him. ‘Is this who you really are? No pretence?’

‘This is me.’ His world and his choices exposed. Sometimes self-serving, sometimes in service to the crown, sometimes in need of an anchor he didn’t have but, heaven help him, he tried to be a fair and just man. And if he could be that for strangers he could sure as hell try to be that for her.

‘Okay,’ she said quietly.

‘Okay,’ he echoed, and fled before the sudden sizzling tension in the air between them got too much for him.

CHAPTER THREE

FIVE HOURS AND fifty-eight minutes later, after the flight in the royal jet followed by a helicopter ride, Ana stepped into another world.

Casimir had brought them to a pale stone fortress that shimmered in the moonlight. Floodlights lit the cobblestone courtyard that doubled as the landing pad. The walls of the fortress stretched towards the sky and dark mountains loomed menacingly to either side of it.

Ana couldn’t imagine a more remote place.

‘They’re expecting you,’ he said, as a security guard lifted his sleepy daughter from the helicopter and placed her in Ana’s arms. ‘The south wing is yours for the duration of your stay; they were my mother’s rooms and the rooms I used throughout my childhood.’ He gestured for a tall, bearded man waiting at the edge of the cobblestones to come forward. ‘This is Silas. He’ll see to your needs. I’m afraid I have to return to the capital this evening.’

‘You’re leaving?’ If she sounded panicked it was only because she was. He’d stayed in his office for the entire plane flight and had said less than two words to them in the helicopter. Granted, the helicopter was a noisy beast, not conducive to conversation, but still...

‘It can’t be helped.’

‘Why are you leaving? Where are you going?’ Ana clutched Sophia closer. ‘Why go to all this trouble to bring us here if you’re not even going to be here?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he offered. ‘I’ll return as soon as I can.’

‘You can’t just leave us here! I don’t even know where here is!’

That’d teach her to take the word of a prince as something worth having.

‘You’re at the winter fortress in the Belarine Mountains of Byzenmaach. This is my home and the people here are loyal to me. You can trust them.’

‘Why on earth would I trust them when I can’t even trust you?’

He looked torn in that moment. Not to mention utterly weary.

He took her aside, his hand at the small of her back guiding her way, and it was a gesture she’d never forgotten, not to mention a response she’d never experienced with any other man. Desire washed over her, pure and fierce and more potent than ever. Desire laced with fear.

She closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath. ‘I want to trust you to do right by us. I want to believe I’ve done the right thing by coming here. But I don’t know you. I never did. All I know is that you come into my world and turn it upside down and I lose.’

He pressed his lips to her temple and then hesitated before lifting her chin and pressing a kiss to the edge of her lips. His lips were soft and warm and so gentle, and if Ana’s eyes fluttered closed and she suddenly wanted this moment to last for ever it was only because all else seemed so harsh.

‘I don’t want to lose any more,’ she whispered, and he pulled away and drew a breath more ragged than hers.

‘Neither do I. Believe me, neither do I.’ Slowly, almost reluctantly, he tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She leaned into his touch, and maybe it was because he was the one familiar thing in a world that was cold and dark, and maybe her soul would always cry out for his touch no matter what.

‘I wanted to help you get settled. I wanted to show you my home, and I will but not tonight. My father is on his deathbed and I’ve been called to his side. That’s what all the phone calls were about—that’s where I’m going. And that is no place for a child.’ He put his fingers to her chin and tilted her head until she met his gaze. ‘We do take care of our young around here, no matter what you might think. Get Silas to show you the puppies. They’re real. It’s all real.’

‘For you,’ she said, and he smiled wryly.

‘For all of us.’

* * *

Ana watched him leave in the helicopter, a fading red light in the bleak night sky, and only once the tail light had disappeared did she realise how cold it was and how heavy six-year-old girls could be. She took a deep breath and felt Sophia’s arms tighten around her neck.

‘Maman?’

‘Hush, baby. Everything’s okay. We’ll find ourselves another bed soon.’

‘Indeed you will,’ said the bearded man, bowing slightly. ‘Ms Douglas, would you like me to carry the child?’

‘No.’

He bowed again. ‘Then please let me lead the way to your rooms.’

‘Thank you.’ She too could be courteous. And it had been one hell of a long evening.

The bedroom suite he took them to was truly fit for a queen. Silk wallpaper adorned the walls. Heavy brocade gold covers graced the bed and Ana wondered whether a body would suffocate beneath the weight of them.

His mother’s rooms, he’d said.

The one who’d lost her daughter and committed suicide.

She put Sophia down and fingered the heavy coverlet while the bearded man, Silas, looked on in silence. The floor was a pale grey stone and the ceiling soared high above them. An open fire crackled in the hearth and uniformly shaped logs had been stacked beside it.

There was a breakfast room, a dressing room, a bathroom suite and a nursery, all of it too vast and imposing to contemplate. Tears pricked at her eyes as she stood there, barely holding it together. She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around her waist and tried to imagine the comfort and familiarity of her snug apartment, but it was no use. She was thousands of miles away and drowning in uncertainty.

Casimir had come for them with conviction in his eyes and promises to protect her on his lips and she’d trusted him to do right by her.

When had he ever done that?

Opening her eyes, she faced her fear as two other people she didn’t know brought her and Sophia’s luggage into the room and began to open it.

‘Leave it,’ she snapped.

Her five-minute packing effort; her mess to sort. Their bad luck to be waiting on a woman who didn’t want any of this.

The fortress staff withdrew without a word, all except for Silas, who seemed as immovable as the stone beneath her feet. ‘We’ve been warming the suite for two days,’ he said. ‘I regret that we’re not quite ready for visitors but you came as quite a surprise. The chill should be off these rooms by tomorrow and then we can make lighter bedcovers available.’

Castle-warming. Attempting a smile at this point would only bring tears. ‘Thank you.’

‘What time would you like breakfast?’

‘What time is it?’ She’d lost track of time, not to mention time zones.

‘A little after two a.m., Ms Douglas.’

Right.

‘Or you can pick up the phone when you wake, dial one, and let us know when you would like to breakfast.’

She nodded. ‘I’d like to ring my parents and let them know where we are. Can I do that from this phone?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Dial zero, then the country code, then the number. It will dial straight out.’

‘Thanks.’ Not a prisoner then. Not quite. ‘I’ll do that tonight.’ Wake them up. Have a conversation with her parents that she’d been avoiding for almost seven years.

‘Of course,’ he said again. He turned to Sophia, bowed slightly and left.

Ana waited until the door had closed and they were alone before looking to Sophia. Her daughter’s gaze slid towards the nursery room door, her face a study in uncertainty.

‘So this is Casimir’s castle,’ Ana began.

Sophia nodded.

‘Big, isn’t it?’

Sophia nodded again.

‘It’ll be better in the morning when we can see it properly. You want to sleep with me tonight?’

A more vigorous nod.

‘I can tell you a story before we go to sleep.’

‘A story about a princess trapped in a castle and a dragon who comes to save her?’ Sophia asked.

‘Sure.’ They both knew that particular story well. Where were their pyjamas? She hadn’t packed winter ones. Why hadn’t she packed winter clothes for them?

‘Can there be a donkey and a dying king?’

‘Yes,’ Ana said, still rifling through their suitcases. She knew that story too.

‘That man—Cas—he said his father was dying.’

‘Yes.’

‘And then he kissed you.’

Yes. That. Her daughter wasn’t used to sharing and Ana had no explanation whatsoever for the kiss. ‘Okay, we’ll add a dying king and a prince—who is a donkey—to the story.’

‘Is he really my father?’ Sophia asked abruptly, and there was a world of hurt in her voice and no little accusation.

‘Yes.’

‘You said he was dead.’

‘I know. I thought—’ I thought it better to tell you that than the truth. ‘I thought wrong.’

‘What does he want?’ Sophia asked next.

‘Right now he wants to protect us.’ Give the devil his due. ‘And then I think he wants to get to know you.’

‘You’re not leaving me here and going home, are you?’ Fierce golden eyes were even more breathtaking when they were vulnerable.

‘No. I will never do that.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise. What else do you want in this story?’

‘No frogs.’

‘Got it. No frogs.’

‘And no kisses,’ Sophia said fiercely.

‘Not even a mother’s goodnight kiss for the princess?’

Sophia hesitated. ‘Am I a princess?’

Pyjamas! Finally. ‘Here. Get changed and jump into bed and then there will be storytelling. As for whether you’re a princess or not... I don’t know. Your father’s a prince. He’s about to become a king. But he and I aren’t married, and that complicates things. It’s something else to ask when we see him next.’

Mothers were wise, and it was their duty to make chewable that which was complex. Or, in this case, to avoid talking about Casimir altogether.

‘So. Let me tell you a story about a castle and a dragon and a princess. You want to hear it in Russian or in French?’

* * *

An hour later, Sophia was asleep and Ana was in the other room, castle phone in hand and too afraid to use it. She needed advice and with that came confession. For seven years she’d shut her parents out as far as the identity of Sophia’s father was concerned. They’d helped her get back on her feet after Sophia had been born. With their financial help she’d been able to continue her studies and find childcare for her baby. They hadn’t let her fall. They’d supported her.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.