Her Prince's Secret Son

“You did?”

She seemed genuinely stunned by his royalty. Would she have been less treacherous, less likely to abandon him and his son if she had known the truth? Or would she have used the information to her advantage? “Remember Carlo and Stephan?”

“I thought they were students like you. Friends from your country.”

“They were both.” The knot in his stomach twisted. Though the difference in stations had separated them to some degree, he and his bodyguards were friends, as well. And Carlo had paid the ultimate price for his loyalty.

Sara Presley, the woman who held Nico’s life in her unsuspecting hands, shook her head. Hair the color of cinnamon rustled against the shoulders of a simple yellow sundress—a dress that rose and fell with the rapid in and out of her anxious breathing.

“I don’t understand.” The tip of her tongue flicked out to moisten peach-colored lips. Aleks averted his gaze. No doubt her mouth had gone as dry as his, though for far different reasons. “What is this all about, Aleks? Why am I here?”

Though he felt no humor whatsoever, he offered an amused tilt of his head. “You are our grand prize winner. Remember?”

She scoffed. “Don’t give me that. Something else is going on here.”

He was not quite ready to reveal everything. “Sit down please. You seem…disturbed.”

“Disturbed? I’ve never been so confused in my life. You disappeared five years ago and now suddenly I’m whisked out of my bookstore and into a castle. Your castle. And I didn’t even know you had a castle. After all this time, I never expected to see you again.”

He could believe that. If not for Nico, she wouldn’t have. He almost said as much but knew he must be careful. His son’s future rested with this woman. He must proceed with great caution. The battle plan was working well so far. He must not become reckless like a new recruit and ruin everything.

Sara moved to the chair he indicated, and he noticed the slightest tremor in the hands she placed on the armrests. He turned his attention to her face. Even there he saw again the vulnerability. She was nervous and uncertain…and perhaps a bit scared. She was angry, too, though she had no right to be, all things considered.

She reached for her earring—a long chain of silver—and her fingers trembled. They were cold, too, he was certain, for he remembered the subtle nuances of her emotions. He didn’t need to touch her to know she was anxious, maybe even afraid. Memories of her had tortured him enough.

He hardened his heart. Any weakness she displayed would be used to his advantage.

“If you think I’ve brought you here because I couldn’t bear to be without you any longer, think again.”

A deep rose color flushed her pale skin. “After what you did, that much is a mercy.”

After what he’d done? “I don’t equate a white lie about my royalty with outright betrayal, particularly when that white lie was intended to protect all concerned.”

Eyelashes as lush as sable blinked at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He quelled the memory of his lips against those eyelids and the feel of her lashes tickling his skin. “Oh, I think you do.”

Her chin hitched up. “No, I don’t. All I know was that your father fell ill and you had to return home. You promised to be in touch, but I never heard from you again.”

Had he not known the lengths to which his mother had gone to contact this woman, he would have believed her lies.

“Nor did I hear from you.”

You didn’t even bother to contact me about the child you were carrying. My child. But he left those last words unspoken. He would let her lies continue while she backed herself into a corner. Then, when she met Nico, she would be forced to admit her transgression and agree to his demands.

“How could I contact you? You weren’t even honest enough to tell me who you were or where you lived. I thought you lived in Italy. I thought your name was Aleks Gabriel.”

He stepped down from the raised dais where his desk was situated. “Enough!”

“Don’t ‘enough’ me, Mr. Prince. I’m not one of your subjects. I demand to know what’s going on. Why the outlandish ruse to get me here?”

“Ruse?”

“Don’t play dumb. I didn’t win any all-expense-paid vacation to a health spa.”

“Are you certain of that? Have you not been treated well by my staff? Did the masseuse and hairdresser not visit your rooms? Do you not have a personal attendant at your beck and call?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“And this treatment shall continue for the duration of your stay. Whatever you need is at your disposal.”

She blinked again, confusion warring with the need to assert herself. Aleks felt victory at hand. A confused enemy was easy to defeat.

Feeling in total control now, his emotions ruthlessly in check, he moved to her side and reached for her hand. The skin was incredibly soft and silken and every bit as cold as he’d known it would be. As cold as her soul.

Sara snatched her hand away and glared at him.

Teeth tight, he took her elbow and forced her to stand.

“Come. I want you to meet someone.”

“Who?” She tried to pull away again but Aleks held tight to her arm, propelling her to the door.

“I think,” he said through gritted teeth, “you will be greatly surprised.”

Sara’s knees trembled as Aleks’s strong fingers dug into her skin. She recalled all the times he’d placed his hand exactly there, guiding her with such courtesy and grace across campus, into a movie or a restaurant, into a car. But today, his hold was impersonal, even cruel.

Her head spun with the impact of the last few minutes. She could hardly take everything in. For a brief moment, she had entertained the hope that Aleks had brought her here to set the past straight. As furious as she was that he would contact her now when it was too late, and as much as she wanted to hate him for all the anguish she had gone through, Sara could not deny that she was still very much attracted to the man who even now rushed her past stiff-backed guards, over marbled floors and down a furnished hallway to an elevator.

Everyone they passed stopped working to pay respects to their ruler, and Sara felt the curious stares of each one fall on her, as well.

Saints alive, the man who’d left her pregnant and penniless was a prince. She couldn’t take it in. Her Aleks, the man she’d loved, the man she’d given her innocence to, was a wealthy, powerful prince. He could have easily cared for her and their baby even if he had no longer wanted her. Surely, he would have wanted his son.

Why, oh, why had he left without a word?

The bitter taste of gall rose in her throat. It was too late now. Her baby was gone and Aleks would never know what he’d thrown away. Her stomach rolled with nerves and fear and loss. She wanted to stop at a restroom and throw up.

But Aleks seemed mercilessly unaware of her distress as he thrust her into a gleaming brass-and-mirrored elevator. The door pinged shut and he loosened his grip to push a number.

She’d dreamed of him for so long and now here he was, in the flesh. But oh, that flesh was hard and unyielding, not warm and loving as she remembered.

He loathed her. That much was evident. But why? He was the one who’d abandoned her.

She longed to ask, but right now she was still in shock and if she admitted it, more than a little unnerved. Something was very wrong here and until she understood, she would play her hand very close to the vest.

During the entire elevator ride, Aleks stared straight ahead at the closed doors, avoiding eye contact, and said not a word. He was as stiff and cold as an icicle but still as handsome and dynamic as ever.

But the years had altered him. Where he’d been a charming, carefree college student, engrossed in getting his master’s degree while embracing sports and cars and the American college life, today he was a solemn man with hard eyes.

He was so near, this man who’d broken her heart that she could feel the tension in his frame and smell the fabric of his navy blue jacket. But he was also as far away as her bookstore.

She should be demanding her release, filing a kidnapping complaint, or at the least, slapping his royal face. But here she was noticing the added lines around his mouth, his beautiful, dark skin, and remembering the time he’d buried them in autumn leaves and they’d kissed and cuddled in their leafy hideaway, content to be together and so completely in love.

Or at least, she had been.

“I never knew you at all, did I?” she whispered, surprised that she had spoken aloud.

Aleks slowly turned his head and stared at her with those icy eyes. “Ours was a brief romance. A fling I think you Americans call it.”

A fling. The word seared her heart like a hot iron against tender flesh. She’d given him everything she had to give. And he called their love a fling.

How could she have fallen for a man who had deceived her so badly? He had not only walked out with little explanation but he’d never been honest with her from the beginning.

He was a royal prince, but she was a royal fool.

The elevator eased to a stop and the doors slid open. Aleks stepped aside, holding the door with one hand while motioning with the other for her to exit. She did so, her mind reeling.

Who could he possibly want her to meet? Why was she here? And why didn’t he just tell her what was going on?

The floor they stepped out on was similar to the one where her suite of rooms was situated. A long, carpeted hallway lit by sconces and new lighting—a fascinating mix of old and modern—was guarded by a pair of uniformed men. Stunning murals graced the vaulted ceilings. Tapestry and gilded paintings lined the walls above elegant furniture groupings. At one end an arched window looked out at the sunlit day. Sara had never seen a place of such over-the-top wealth and splendor.

Aleks seemed impervious to it all as he reclaimed her elbow.

Two people, a man and a woman both dressed in white uniforms, sat outside a closed door but quickly stood to attention when they saw Aleks approach. They turned curious gazes in Sara’s direction.

Aleks glanced toward the closed door. The cold mask slipped from his face. For the briefest moment, Sara was certain she saw tenderness…and fear.

“How is he?”

Something in his voice gave Sara pause. She stared at the side of his face, trying to comprehend the undercurrent flowing between him and the others.

“He’s sleeping, Your Majesty.”

The news seemed to bring relief to Aleks. Some of the tension flowed out of him.

“Excellent.” He occasioned a glance at Sara. The frosty glare was back. “We will go inside.”

Whoever resided inside that room held special meaning to the Prince of Carvainia. But what did this have to do with her?

“Who—” she started, but Aleks shot her a warning glance as if daring her to make a noise and wake the sleeper. Sara fell silent.

He pushed the door open. Sara’s pulse rate elevated with an inexplicable nervousness as they tiptoed inside.

Sara’s first impression was a smell. Though the overriding scent was antiseptic, another odor that she couldn’t quite place lingered, too. This was a medical ward, not a bedroom.

The large room was semidarkened with enough light to see and work by but not enough to disturb the sleeper. An array of medical equipment looked out of place next to a stunning iron bed canopied in blood-red draperies trimmed in gold and black. The quiet was broken only by the shoosh and burr of those machines.

At the sight of Aleks, the attendants hovering near the bed bowed and backed silently away, but not before their eyes flicked over Sara, all with the same identical and troubling expression. Sara’s nervousness increased. Her palms began to sweat.

Following Aleks’s lead, she approached the enormous, raised bed.

A handsome little boy rested against the pillows, his long eyelashes startling black against his pale cheeks. He was thin and his skin color was an odd gold-over-olive. The scent she’d noticed rose from the bed, the odor of fever.

“Is he sick?” she whispered.

A muscle jerked in Aleks’s cheek. “Very.”

“Poor little child. I’m so sorry.”

Aleks gave her a strange look. “As am I.”

They stood in silence, staring down at the sleeping child. Looking at the small boy was a powerful reminder and Sara ached both for him and for herself. Her child would have been near the age of this little boy. She prayed that wherever he was, her son was well and that no sickness ever befell him.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“A virus has attacked his liver.”

“Will he be all right?”

Aleks glared at her, his expression so bewildering and strange that she grew afraid.

“We will know soon.”

A sense of silent anticipation hovered in the room as if the people standing in the shadows held their collective breath.

“Who is he?” she whispered.

The mask of coldness seemed to slip for a moment, and Sara could have sworn he was hurting. “He is my son.”

“Your…son?” The words nearly choked her.

She placed a hand over her womb. She felt so empty. Aleks had moved on without a backward glance, marrying and producing a son. He had a child. She had nothing but an empty ache.

Did her little boy, wherever he was, look like this? Did he have Aleks’s black eyelashes and aristocratic nose?

Against the lump of regret and longing that clogged her throat, she said, “Your son is very beautiful. He deserves to be well.”

Aleks took both her elbows and turned her to face him. He stared at her long and hard and without mercy. She swallowed, the sound loud in a room where only the breath of a small boy and his incessant machinery broke the silence.

His fingers tightened. “So does yours.”

She frowned, puzzled. An erratic beat of something she couldn’t name started deep inside, shouting a warning that she did not comprehend.

“My son?” she asked, voice trembling with dread. “What do you mean?” And how did he know? How could he possibly know about her son? About their son?

Aleks’s black eyes held hers as if peering into her soul. Then slowly, slowly, they slid away to the sleeping child.

In a voice of ice and steel, he said, “Meet Nico, or as he is officially known, Crown Prince Domenico Emmanuel Lucian d’Gabriel…the child you abandoned.”

Every ounce of strength left Sara’s body. Her knees buckled. And the world went black.

Chapter Three

PRINCE ALEKSANDRE STOOD beside Sara’s bed waiting for her to regain consciousness. The fainting spell had come as a surprise. One minute she’d been staring at him in horror and the next she’d crumpled like tissue paper.

He was still pondering the meaning of her reaction.

In an effort not to disturb Nico, he’d swept her into his arms and carried her here to the guest wing. Halfway to the suite, he’d been tempted to hand her off to one of the guards trailing them. Not because she was too heavy. She weighed nothing. But because the feel of her curves pressed against him stirred more than memories.

Now as he glared down at her, willing her to awaken, he couldn’t help noticing the way her red hair spilled over the white pillow like fire on snow. Nor could he miss the gentle curve of her mouth or the tiny scar above her lip that he’d once found particularly tasty.

She moaned softly. He steeled himself with a stern reminder than his attraction to this woman had already cost him enough.

She opened her eyes and looked around, her expression clouded. He waited, silent while she regained her bearings.

With a gasp of awareness, she sat up.

Aleks pressed her back. “Lie still. You’ve had a shock.”

She slapped at him. “Get your hands off me.”

In a flurry of movement the two bodyguards flanked him, hands on their weapons. He waved them off. “Leave us.”

“But Your Majesty—”

“Leave us. This woman poses no threat.” At least not physically.

Sara swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. “That’s what you think.”

Had this been another woman or another time, Aleks would have laughed. Sara barely came to his chin and even with fists tight at her sides and eyes shooting sparks, she was no match for his size and strength.

The guards looked from Sara to Aleks, ever vigilant, but they followed his command and backed from the room. He knew very well they were both standing with ears pressed against the closed door, anxious because he was out of their sight with a fiery woman.

The moment they disappeared, Sara stormed toward him, long hair flying wildly around her shoulders. “Is Nico my son? Are you telling me the truth?”

“Nico is my son and mine alone. You gave him away.”

All of the fight went out of her. Her shoulders slumped. She pressed both hands to her stomach and bent forward so that Aleks wondered if she might faint again. He started to her but stopped when she groaned. “Oh, God, I did. I gave him away.”

This was the truth he’d dreaded hearing but the truth as he already knew it. Though he’d loved this woman, he’d never really known what she was capable of until she had abandoned their child.

“Did you hate me that much, Sara?”

He hadn’t intended to ask the question nor to sound quite as vulnerable as he feared he did.

“I never hated you, Aleks. I loved you.” Disturbingly haunted eyes implored him. “I longed for you.”

He glanced away. “You will forgive me if I don’t believe that.”

“You promised to come back. I waited.”

His lips curled in distaste. “Not for long.”

“I was pregnant with your child, alone, scared out of my mind, with no means of support. What was I supposed to do?”

Not sell my son to the highest bidder, he thought. If not for the queen’s intervention, someone else would have paid the price for the handsome male child with royal bloodlines, though another family would not have known the boy was a crown prince, and the prince of Carvainia would never have had a son and an heir. The fury of that near disaster raced through his blood with the sting of alcohol on an open wound.

Seething, he turned his back to stare blindly at a dressing table littered with feminine jars and a silver hand mirror. “The past does not matter to me. You do not matter to me.”

“Then why did you bring me here after all this time? To punish me? To let me know how much you despise me for putting our son up for adoption?”

“I never wanted you involved in his life. Let me make that clear.” Slowly, he pivoted, jaw tight enough to crack a bone. “You are here because I had no other choice.”

She didn’t need to know about the stir her presence had caused, both among the staff and within the royal family. As it was, the queen had taken to her bed with a migraine the moment Sara Presley entered the castle. He regretted that deeply.

Without his mother’s help and guidance during that terrible time five years ago, he wasn’t sure he could have survived. First, he’d lost his father. Then an old enemy, the greedy king of Perseidia had perceived a weakness in the new Carvainian government and had invaded their northern borders. Like the warriors of old and as he’d been trained, he’d led his men into battle and had come out the victor. But at what price? Wounded, and heartsick at the loss of fine young men, he’d been further shattered by the news that his former love had given birth to his son and was offering the baby to the highest bidder.

Though the queen had expressed serious doubt, Aleks was convinced the child was his. Sara had been an innocent when they’d first come together, so shy and eager and loving. He could not imagine her with another man.

She’d likely had several men by now, but he refused to care.

“How did you learn about the baby?” she asked. “How did he get here?”

“Money and power have their advantages.”

“Why didn’t you contact me? Where were you?”

“At war, fighting for my country’s independence where I belonged.” He chopped the air in impatience. “None of this matters anymore, Sara.”

“It matters to me! I’ve missed four years of my baby’s life, four years of wondering if the wealthy family that adopted him loves him, wondering if he’s all right. Then suddenly I’m whisked away from America without explanation to discover he’s been here with you all along. Why have you contacted me now when you didn’t then?”

Aleks grabbed her arm and stared down into her face with all the will he had inside him.

“Let me explain as clearly as I know how.” He swallowed, hating the words to come. “Nico…is dying.”

“No!” Sara shrank away from him, a hand to her throat. “Please no.”

The stark despair in her expression would have shaken him had he not been braced for it. She had ignored her child since birth. A pained cry and a few tears would not convince him that she cared.

“His only hope is a liver transplant.”

Sara slid onto a chair and buried her face in her hands. Once again, Aleks battled back an urge to go to her. He stood with rigid military discipline, reminding himself that this woman was the enemy. This woman had no scruples. This woman had tossed his child away like a stray dog.

When she lifted her tearstained face, his gut spasmed. She’d looked this way on the day he’d gotten news that his father was dying. She’d cried for him.

He’d been a fool then. He wouldn’t be again.

“Is he on a transplant list?” she asked. “I don’t know how things like that work here in your country. What can be done?”

“The best hope for Nico is a living donor. His body would then regenerate the donated segment into a full-sized body part while the donor’s body would also fully recover. But Carvainia is a country of genetically similar people. No one we can find shares his blood type.”

“AB negative,” she murmured.

“Yours, I assume.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Nor does anyone, including myself, my mother, nor any of the royal family share the specific blood markers that he requires.” Impatient, he chopped the air again. “I don’t pretend to understand the medical details. I only know that Nico is dying and his only hope is a living donor who matches him as exactly as possible.”

Perched on the edge of the chair, she bent forward, forearms against her thighs, hair falling over her shoulders as she looked up. “And that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? To be his donor.”

Aleks tensed. His heart galloped in his chest like one of his racehorses. If he was to gain Sara’s cooperation, he must proceed with extreme caution.

“You needn’t worry. I will pay you well.”

A soft gasp escaped her. “You’ll…pay me?”

Though she sounded less than eager, Aleks was confident she would agree once she understood the terms. Greed was a powerful incentive. A baby, a body part, it was all the same to a woman like Sara. “One million American dollars.”

Something hard shifted through her features. “No.”

Aleks blinked once, slowly, certain he had heard wrong. “No?”

Her lips tightened. “I said no.”

Sickness churned in his belly, and for the first time, he began to doubt his plan. What if he failed? What if Sara Presley was even more heartless than he’d expected?

The muscles in his neck tightened to the breaking point. “Then name your price. Whatever you want is yours.”

Sara stared back at him with eyes that had turned the color of a stormy sea. They were eyes that had beguiled him when he was young and foolish. Eyes that had promised so much and then had forgotten him. Eyes that now defied him.

With a near-regal grace, she rose, fists clenched at her side, her chin thrust upward. “Then here’s the deal, Prince Charming. I want to spend time with my son and get to know him. I want to be his mother.”

She wanted to be Nico’s mother? Cold fear sliced through Aleks. “You should have thought about that a long time ago, Sara. Nico is mine and mine alone. You will have no part in his life. None ever.”