Книга - Royal Love-Child, Forbidden Marriage

Royal Love-Child, Forbidden Marriage
Kate Hewitt


Conveniently wedded, royally bedded!Six years ago Phoebe Wells was offered $50,000 to leave the Amarnes palace and turn her back on all that she thought she loved. She refused. Now the past is back to haunt her, and she will have to stand fast once again…The fierce Prince Leopold isn’t interested in widowed Phoebe, but he is interested in her child, his cousin’s boy, whose rightful place is as heir to the throne. Leo knows Phoebe cannot be bought, but she might be persuaded – as his convenient wife…







Phoebe’s eyes widened in shock; she still couldn’t see Leo’s face, but she could feel the pain emanating from him in sorrowful waves. ‘Leo, I’m sorry.’

He turned his head, met her gaze. ‘I couldn’t let the same happen to you,’ he continued, and Phoebe saw the honesty in his eyes. ‘Even though I was tempted.’

‘Tempted…?’

‘You were an inconvenience, remember?’ Leo gave her the ghost of a smile. ‘At least I thought of you as one until I saw you again.’

Her heart bumped painfully against her ribs. She wanted to ask Leo what he meant, wanted to hope—needed to. But the future—her son’s future—was too overwhelming.

‘So what can we do?’ she whispered. ‘We can’t—I can’t—’ She took a breath and started again, in a stronger voice. ‘I won’t be bought, and I won’t leave my son.’

‘I know.’ Leo smiled, his mouth curling upwards in a way that made Phoebe’s insides tingle with awareness. ‘I have another solution.’

He paused, and in that second’s silence Phoebe felt as if the room became hushed in expectation—as if everything had led to this moment, this question, this possibility. As if she already knew.

Leo took a step towards her, his hand outstretched. ‘Phoebe,’ he said, ‘you can become my wife.’


Kate Hewitt discovered her first Mills & Boon


romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories, and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling, and learning to knit.

After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years and now resides in New York State, with her husband, her four young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog. Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website, www.kate-hewitt.com





ROYAL LOVE-CHILD, FORBIDDEN MARRIAGE


BY




KATE HEWITT









www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)


To Aidan,

Thanks for being such a great friend—and fan!

Love, K




CHAPTER ONE


‘HOW much?’

Phoebe Wells stared blankly at the man slouched in a chair across from her. He gazed back with a sensual smile and heavy-lidded eyes, his sable hair rumpled, the top two buttons of his shirt undone to reveal a smooth expanse of golden skin.

‘How much?’ she repeated. The question made no sense. How much what? Her fingers tightened reflexively around the strap of her bag and she tried not to fidget. She’d been hustled here by two government agents, and it had taken all her self-control not to ask if she was being arrested. Actually, it had taken all her self-control not to scream.

They’d given her no answers, not even a look, as they ushered her into one of the palace’s empty reception rooms to wait for twenty panic-laden minutes before this man—Leo Christensen, Anders’s cousin—had made his lazy entrance. And now he was asking her how much, and she had no idea what any of it meant.

She wished Anders were here; she wished he hadn’t left her to suffer the scorn of his damnable cousin, the man who now uncoiled himself from the chair and rose to stand in front of her with an easy, lethal grace. She wished, she realised with a little pulse of panic, that she knew him better.

‘How much money, Little Miss Golddigger?’ Leo Christensen clarified softly. ‘Just how much money will it take to make you leave my cousin alone?’

Shock stabbed her with icy needles, but it was soon replaced by an even icier calm. Of course. She should have expected this; she knew the Christensen family—the royal family of Amarnes—didn’t want an American nobody in love with their son. The country’s heir. Of course, she hadn’t realised that when she’d met Anders in a bar in Oslo; she’d thought he was just an ordinary person, or as ordinary as a man like him could be considered to be. Goldenhaired, charming, with an effortless grace and confidence that had drawn her to his side with the irresistible force of a magnet. And even now, under Leo Christensen’s sardonic scrutiny, she clung to that memory, to the knowledge that he loved her and she loved him. Except, where was he? Did he know his cousin was trying to bribe her?

Phoebe straightened and forced herself to meet Leo’s scornful gaze directly. ‘I’m afraid you don’t have enough.’

Leo’s mouth curled in something close to a smile, the smile of a snake. ‘Try me.’

Rage coursed through her, clean and strong, fuelling her and overriding her fear. ‘You don’t have enough because there isn’t enough, Mr Christensen—’

‘Your Grace, actually,’ Leo corrected softly. ‘My formal title is the Duke of Larsvik.’

Phoebe swallowed at the reminder of just what kind of people she was dealing with. Powerful, rich. Royal. People who didn’t want her…but Anders did. That, she resolved, would be enough. Plenty.

She’d had no idea when Anders asked her to meet his family that they actually comprised the king and queen of Amarnes, an island principality off the coast of Norway. And this man too, a man Phoebe recognised from his endless appearances in the tabloids, usually the lead player in some sordid drama involving women, cars, gambling, or all three. Anders had told her about Leo, had warned her, and after just a few minutes’ conversation with Leo she believed everything he’d ever said.

‘He’s a bad influence, always has been. My family tried to reform him, they thought I could help. But no one can help Leo…’

And who was going to help her? Anders had told his parents about her last night; she hadn’t been present. Clearly, Phoebe thought, swallowing a bubble of near-hysterical laughter, that conversation hadn’t gone well. So they’d sent Leo, the black sheep, to deal with her…the problem.

She shook her head now, not wanting to speak Leo Christensen’s damn title, not wanting him to know just how out of her depth she was. Yet he knew it; of course he did. She saw it in the scornful little smile he gave her, the way his gaze flicked over her in easy dismissal, making her feel like trash.

Still, if he knew it, at least that meant there was nothing to lose. She lifted her chin. ‘Fine, Your Grace. But there’s no amount of money you could give me that would make me leave Anders.’ Brave words, she knew, and there was no way she’d take Leo’s money, but still…where was Anders?

Leo stared at her for a moment, those sensual, sleepy eyes narrowing, flaring. His mouth twisted and he turned away. ‘How quaint, my dear,’ he murmured. ‘How very admirable. So it’s true love?’

Humiliation and annoyance prickled along her skin, chased up her spine. He made what she had with Anders sound so trite. So cheap. ‘Yes, it is.’

Leo shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled to the window, gazing out at the plaza in front of Amarnes’s royal palace. It was a brilliant summer morning, the sky blue with faint wisps of cloud, the jagged, violet mountains a stunning backdrop to the capital city of Njardvik’s cluster of buildings, the bronze statues of Amarnes’s twin eagles—the country’s emblem—glinting in the sun. ‘How long have you known my cousin?’ he finally asked and Phoebe shifted her bag to her other shoulder.

‘Ten days.’

He turned around, one eyebrow arched, his hands still in his pockets. His silence was eloquent, and Phoebe felt a blush stain her throat and rise to her cheeks. Ten days. It wasn’t much; it sounded ridiculous. And yet she knew. She knew when Anders looked at her…and yet now this man was looking at her, his amber gaze sleepy and yet so sardonic, so knowing. Ten days. Ten days was nothing. And judging by the contemptuous curl of Leo’s lip, he thought so too. Phoebe straightened. What did she care what Leo Christensen, the Playboy Prince of Amarnes, thought of her? He was a man given over to pleasure, vice. Yet, standing in front of him now, she was conscious of a darker streak in him, something more alarming and dangerous than the antics of a mere playboy. An emotion emanated from him, something dark and unknowable, yet a force to be reckoned with…if only she knew what it was.

‘And you think ten days is long enough to know someone?’ Leo asked in that honeyed voice that wound around Phoebe like a spell even as alarm prickled along her spine. ‘To love him?’ he pressed, his voice so soft, so seductively mild, yet still with that thread of darkness that Phoebe didn’t understand. Didn’t want to.

She shrugged, determined to stay defiant. She wasn’t going to defend what she felt for Anders, or what he felt for her. She knew it would sound contrived, as trite and silly as Leo was determined to make it.

‘You realise,’ Leo continued in that same soft voice that made the hairs on the nape of Phoebe’s neck prickle, ‘that if he stays with you—marries you, as he has suggested—you will be queen? Something this country is not prepared to allow.’

‘They won’t have to,’ Phoebe returned. The idea of her becoming queen was utterly terrifying. ‘Anders told me he will abdicate.’

Leo’s eyes narrowed, his body stilling. ‘Abdicate?’ he said softly. ‘He said that?’

Phoebe jutted her chin. ‘Yes.’

Leo’s eyes met hers and he held her gaze with unrelenting hardness. ‘Then he will never become king.’

She would not let this man make her feel guilty. ‘He doesn’t even want to be king—’

Leo let out a bark of disbelieving laughter. ‘Doesn’t want to be king? When it’s all he’s ever known?’

‘He told me—’

He shrugged in derisive dismissal. ‘Anders,’ he said, cutting her off, ‘rarely knows what he wants.’

‘Well, he does now,’ Phoebe returned with more determination than she felt at the moment. Somehow, as the target of Leo’s incredulous scorn, she found her determination—her faith—trickling away. ‘He wants me,’ she said, and it came out sounding childish.

Leo stared at her for a moment, his expression turning thoughtful, then blank, ominously, dangerously neutral. He could be thinking anything. Planning anything. He cocked his head. ‘And you…want…him?’

‘Of course I do.’ Phoebe fidgeted again; the reception room with its heavy drapes and furniture felt oppressive. A gilded prison. Would she be allowed to walk out of here? She was conscious of her uncertain status as a foreigner in a small and fiercely independent country, and she was even more conscious of the man in front of her, a man with power and authority and clearly no compunction in using both for his own ends.

And where, oh, where was Anders? Did he know she’d been sent for? Why wasn’t he looking for her? Since he’d announced their relationship to the royal family he’d been absent, and she now felt a treacherous flicker of doubt.

‘You know him?’ Leo pressed. ‘Enough to live a life of exile?’

‘Exile from a family that doesn’t accept or love him,’ Phoebe returned. ‘Anders has never wanted this, Mr—Your Grace.’ She swept an arm to encompass the room and the entire palace with its endless expectations.

‘Oh, hasn’t he?’ Leo laughed once, a sharp, unpleasant sound. He moved back to the window, his back to her, seeming lost in thought. Phoebe waited, impatience and worse—fear—starting to fray her hope. Her faith.

‘Would ten thousand dollars, American, do it?’ Leo asked, his back to her, his voice musing. ‘Or more like fifty?’

Phoebe straightened, glad for the renewed wave of outrage that poured through her, replacing the fear and doubt. ‘I told you, no amount—’

‘Phoebe.’ Leo turned around, and the way he said her name sounded strangely gentle, although his eyes were hard, his expression remote. ‘Do you honestly think a man like Anders can make you happy?’

‘And how could a man like you possibly know?’ Phoebe flung back, annoyed and angry that he was making her feel this way. Making her wonder.

Leo stiffened, his face blanking once more. ‘A man like me?’ he enquired with stiff politeness.

‘Anders has told me about you,’ Phoebe said, both the fear and the anger spiking her words, making them hurt, making her want to hurt him—although how could you hurt a man like Leo Christensen? A man who had seen it all, done it all and cared about nothing? Or so the newspapers said, Anders said, and the man in front of her with his sardonic smile and cold voice seemed to confirm every awful thing she’d ever heard. ‘You know nothing about love or loyalty,’ she continued. ‘You care only about your own pleasure—and I suppose I’m a little inconvenience to that—’

‘That you are,’ Leo cut her off. For a second Phoebe wondered if she’d hurt him with her words. No, impossible. He was actually smiling, his mouth curving in a way that was really most unpleasant. Frightening. ‘Quite an inconvenience, Miss Wells. You have no idea just how much.’ As if drawing a mask over the first one, Leo’s expression changed. It became sleepy, speculative, his smile turning seductive. He took a step closer to her. ‘What would have happened, do you suppose,’ he asked in that soft, bedroom voice, ‘if you’d met me first?’

‘Nothing,’ Phoebe snapped, but even so her heart rate kicked up a notch as Leo kept walking towards her with languorous, knowing ease, stopping only a hairsbreadth away. She could feel his heat, smell the faint woodsy tang of his aftershave. She stared determinedly at his shirt, refusing to be intimidated, to show how afraid—how affected—she was. Yet even so, her gaze helplessly moved upwards from the buttons of his fine silk shirt to where they were undone, to that brown column of his throat where a pulse leaped and jerked, and Phoebe felt an answering response deep inside, a tug in her belly that could only be called yearning. Desire.

She flushed in shame.

Leo gave a low chuckle. He raised one hand to brush a wayward curl from her forehead, and Phoebe jerked instinctively in response, felt the heat of his fingers against her skin.

‘Are you so sure about that?’ he queried softly.

‘Yes…’

Yet at that moment she wasn’t, and they both knew it. Heard it in her ragged breathing, saw it in how she almost swayed towards him. Horrible man, Phoebe thought savagely, yet she condemned herself as well. She shouldn’t let him affect her like this, not if she loved Anders, which she did.

Didn’t she?

‘So sure,’ Leo whispered, his voice a soft sneer, and his hand dropped from her forehead to her throat, where her pulse beat as frantically as a trapped bird’s. With one finger he gently touched that sensitive hollow, causing Phoebe to gasp aloud in what—? Shock? Outrage?

Pleasure?

She could still feel the reverberation of his touch, as if a string had been plucked in her soul, and the single note of seduction played throughout her body.

‘Phoebe!’

Gasping again, this time in relief, Phoebe stumbled away from Leo, from his knowing smile and hands. She turned towards the doorway and saw Anders, appearing like the golden god Baldur from the Norse myth, smiling at Phoebe with a radiant certainty that dispelled all her own fears like the dawn mist over the mountains. ‘I’ve been looking for you. No one would tell me where you were—’

‘I’ve been here—’ tears of relief stung Phoebe’s eyes as she hurried towards him ‘—with your cousin.’

Anders glanced at Leo, and his expression darkened with a deeper emotion. Phoebe couldn’t tell if it was disapproval or fear or perhaps even jealousy. She swallowed and glanced at Leo. She saw with a sharp jolt of shock that he was staring at his cousin with a bland expression that somehow still managed to convey a deep and unwavering coldness. Hatred. And Phoebe was reminded of the ending of the Norse myth she’d read about during her travels through Scandinavia: that Baldur had been murdered by his twin brother, Hod, the god of darkness and winter.

‘What do you want with Phoebe, Leo?’ Anders demanded, and his voice sounded strained, even petulant.

‘Nothing.’ Leo smiled, shrugged, spreading his hands wide in a universal gesture of innocence. ‘She obviously loves you, Anders.’ His mouth twisted in a smile that didn’t look quite right.

‘She does,’ Anders agreed, putting an arm around Phoebe’s shoulder. She leaned against him, grateful for his strength, yet still conscious of Leo’s dark, unwavering gaze. ‘I don’t know why you were talking to her, Leo, but we’re both determined to be together—’

‘And such determination is so very admirable,’ Leo cut across him softly. ‘I will tell the king so.’

Anders’s expression hardened, his lower lip jutting out in an expression more appropriate to a six-year-old before he shrugged and nodded. ‘You may do so. If he wanted you to convince me otherwise…’

Leo smiled and that simple gesture made Phoebe want to shiver. There was nothing kind or good or loving about it. ‘Obviously, I cannot.’ He lifted one shoulder. ‘What more is there to say?’

‘Nothing,’ Anders finished. He turned to Phoebe. ‘It’s time for us to leave, Phoebe. There’s nothing for us here. We can take the ferry to Oslo and then catch the afternoon train to Paris.’

Phoebe nodded, relieved, knowing she should be excited. Ecstatic.

Yet as she walked from the room, Anders’s arm still around her shoulders, she was conscious only of Leo’s unrelenting gaze, and that dark emotion emanating from him which seemed strangely—impossibly—like sorrow.




CHAPTER TWO


Six years later

IT WAS raining in Paris, a needling grey drizzle that blanketed the royal mourners in grey, and made the images on the television screen blurry and virtually unrecognisable.

Not, Phoebe acknowledged, that she’d met any of Anders’s family besides his cousin. Leo. Even now his name made her skin prickle, made her recall that terrible, cold look he’d given Anders as they’d left the Amarnesian palace. That was the last time either she or Anders had seen any of his family, or even stepped foot in his native country.

Six years ago…a lifetime, or two. Certainly more than one life had been affected—formed, changed—in the last half-decade.

‘Mommy?’ Christian stood behind the sofa where Phoebe had curled up, watching the funeral on one of those obscure cable channels. Now she turned to smile at her five-year-old son, who was gazing at the television with a faint frown. ‘What are you watching?’

‘Just…’ Phoebe shrugged, reaching to turn off the television. How to explain to Christian that his father—the father he hadn’t ever even seen—had died? It would be meaningless to Christian, who had long ago accepted the fact that he didn’t have a daddy. He didn’t need one, had been happy with the life Phoebe had provided, with friends and relatives and school here in New York.

‘Just what?’ Christian put his hands on his hips, his expression halfway between a pout and a mischievous grin. He was all boy, curious about everything, always asking what, why, who.

‘Watching something,’ Phoebe murmured. She rose from the sofa, giving her son a quick one-armed hug. ‘Isn’t it time for dinner?’ Smiling, she pulled him along, tousling his hair, into the kitchen of their Greenwich Village apartment. Outside the sunlight slanted across Washington Square, filling the space with golden light.

Yet as she pulled pots and pans from the cupboards, mindlessly listening to Christian talk about his latest craze—some kind of superhero, or were they superrobots? Pheobe could never keep them straight—her mind slipped back to the blurry image of the funeral on television.

Anders, her husband of exactly one month, was dead. She shook her head, unable to summon more than a sense of sorrowful pity for a man who had swept into her life and out again with equal abruptness. It hadn’t taken very long for Anders to realise Phoebe had been nothing more than a passing fancy, and Phoebe had understood with equal speed how shallow and spoiled Anders really was. Yet at least that brief period of folly had given her something wonderful…Christian.

‘I like the green ones best…’ Christian tugged on her sleeve. ‘Mom, are you listening?’

‘Sorry, honey.’ Phoebe smiled down at Christian in apology even as she noticed that she’d let the water for the pasta boil dry. She had to get her mind out of the past. She hadn’t thought about Anders for years, and sometimes it felt as though that short, regrettable episode had never occurred. Yet his death had brought old memories to the surface—namely, that horrible interview at the palace. Even now Pheobe remembered the look in Leo Christensen’s eyes, the way he’d touched her…and the way she’d responded.

With a jolt Phoebe realised she was remembering Leo, not Anders. Anders had receded into her memory as nothing more than a faded, blurry image, like an old photograph, yet Leo…Leo she remembered as sharply and clearly as if he were standing right in front of her.

She glanced around the sunny kitchenette of her modest but comfortable apartment, almost as if she would see Leo standing darkly in the shadows. She gave a little laugh at her own ridiculous behaviour. Leo Christensen—all the Christensens, that entire life—was thousands of miles away. She and Anders had quietly separated just months after Leo had offered her fifty thousand dollars to leave him, and she’d never seen any of them again. She’d moved to New York with Christian, started over with the support of friends and family, and relegated the incident to a dark, unswept corner of her mind…that now felt the bright, glaring light of day.

Abruptly Phoebe turned off the stove. ‘How about pizza?’ she asked Christian brightly, who responded with a delighted smile.

‘Angelo’s?’ he asked hopefully, naming their favourite neighbourhood pizza joint, and Phoebe nodded.

‘Absolutely.’

Phoebe went to get their coats, only to stop in uneasy surprise at the sight of Christian in front of the television once more. He’d turned it back on and was watching the funeral procession, tracking the coffin’s progression down one of Paris’s main thoroughfares, the flag’s twin eagles with their austere, noble profiles visible even in the gloom. ‘Is that man dead?’

Phoebe swallowed, a pang of sorrow for Anders’s wasted life piercing her. ‘Yes, it’s a funeral.’

‘Why is it on television?’ Christian asked with his usual wide-eyed curiosity.

‘Because he was a prince.’

‘A prince?’ Christian sounded moderately impressed. As a New Yorker, he encountered people of all walks of life every day. ‘A real one?’ he asked with a faint note of scepticism.

Phoebe almost smiled. ‘Yes, a real one.’ She wasn’t about to explain to Christian about Anders’s abdication or exile, or the fact that he was his father. She’d always intended for Christian to know the truth of his birth, but not like this, with a grainy image of a funeral on TV. Besides, Christian knew what was important: that Phoebe had wanted him and loved him. Nothing else needed matter.

With decisive determination she turned the TV off, the words of the French commentator fading away into silence.

‘Crown Prince of Amarnes…inebriated…reckless driving…his companion, a French model, died instantly along with him…’

‘Come on, scout,’ she said lightly. ‘Pizza time.’

They’d almost reached the door, almost missed them completely, Phoebe thought later, when she heard the knock.

Christian’s eyes widened and they stared at each other, the only sound the awful, silent reverberation of the knock. Strange, Phoebe thought, how they both knew that knock was different. Three short, hard raps on the door, so unlike the flurry of light taps their neighbour, old Mrs Simpson, would give, along with a cheery hello.

Those short, sharp knocks which felt like a warning, a herald of nothing good, and somehow they both knew it. Phoebe felt that knowledge settle coldly in her bones, even as she wondered who—what—why. Just like Christian, she was filled with questions.

‘Who could that be?’ she murmured, trying to smile. Christian raced towards the door.

‘I’ll get it—’

‘No.’ Phoebe pushed past her son, flinging one arm out to bar Christian’s way. ‘Never answer to strangers, Christian.’

Taking a deep breath, Phoebe opened the door, and her heart sank at the two dark-suited men standing there. They had the bland good looks and ominously neutral expressions of government agents. In fact, it was men just like these who had summoned her to the palace all those years ago, ushered her into the room with Leo and his abominable offer of a pay-off.

‘How about fifty?’

Phoebe pushed the memory away and stared at the two men filling up her doorway, trying to frame a thought. A rebuke.

‘Madame Christensen?’

It was a name Phoebe hadn’t heard in a long while; she’d reverted to her maiden name when she separated from Anders. Yet the presence of these men and the sound of her married name made the years fall away and suddenly she was back in Amarnes, facing Leo…

‘Are you so sure about that?’

Even now she could remember—feel—how Leo had trailed his finger along her cheek, then lower to the V between her breasts, and she’d let him. Even now, across all the years, she remembered the inescapable fascination she’d had with him in those few brief moments, her body betraying her so quickly and easily.

Phoebe lifted her chin and met the blank face of one of the men. ‘Actually my name is Ms Wells.’

The man stuck out his hand, which Phoebe took after a second’s hesitation and then dropped almost immediately; her own hand was clammy and cold. ‘My name is Erik Jensen. We are representatives of His Majesty, King Nicholas of Amarnes. Would you please come with us?’

‘Mommy…’ Christian’s voice sounded strangled, and when Phoebe glanced back she saw her son’s face was bleached white, his eyes huge and shocked. She felt the mirror of that expression on her own face, remembering how men like this had showed up in her grotty hostel, said nearly the exact same words. Six years ago she’d been too young, too bewildered and overwhelmed to do anything but acquiesce. Now she was older, harder, tougher. She knew better.

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

Something flickered in the agent’s face and Phoebe thought for a second it looked like pity. Fear crawled along her spine and up her throat.

‘Madame Christensen—’

‘Who is that?’ Christian’s voice sounded petulant and afraid, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. ‘Why are you calling my mom that name?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Erik Jensen smiled briefly at the boy. ‘Ms Wells.’ He turned back to Phoebe. ‘It would be better,’ he said quietly, ‘if you came. There is a representative waiting at the Amarnesian Consulate, to discuss—’

‘I hardly think there is anything to discuss,’ Phoebe replied coolly. ‘In fact,’ she continued, her voice a little stronger now, ‘I think any necessary discussions were concluded six years ago.’ When she and Anders had left the palace in a shroud of disapproval. He’d signed the papers of abdication, releasing him from the burden of the throne. Not one family member had said a word or seen them out. They’d slipped like shadows from the palace, unseen, forgotten. Except, perhaps, by Leo, with his cold, unwavering stare that still chilled her all these years later.

‘Matters have changed,’ Erik replied in that same neutral yet implacable tone. ‘A discussion is necessary.’

Coldness seeped through her, swirled through her brain. Matters have changed. Such an innocuous yet ominous phrase. She felt Christian inch closer to her, his fingers curling around her leg. She felt his fear like a palpable force, and it angered her that these men could just come in here and in a matter of minutes—seconds—try to change her life. Order it around. ‘Just a minute,’ she told the agents stiffly, and turned back to the kitchen, Christian at her side.

‘Mommy—’ Christian tugged at her leg ‘—who are those men? Why are they so…’ he paused, his voice trembling ‘…so scary?’

‘They don’t mean to be,’ Phoebe said before she thought I’ll be damned if I apologise for them. ‘Anyway, I’m not scared of them.’ She tried to smile, although like her son she felt the fear, crawling, insidious.

Why were those men here? What did they want?

She took a deep breath, forcing herself to think calmly. Coolly. Undoubtedly they wanted her to sign some paper, relinquishing her rights to Anders’s money. He’d obviously had a lot of it, even though in their few weeks together he’d squandered his stipend with shocking ease. His father, King Nicholas, had insisted on his son’s abdication, yet he’d still kept him well provided for with what mattered—champagne and women.

There was no reason to panic, to be afraid. Yet even as Phoebe told herself this, she felt the fear creep in and wind around her heart. She knew how much power the royal family had. Or, rather, she didn’t know, couldn’t fathom it, and that was what scared her. They were capable of so much. She’d seen it in the way they’d cut Anders out of the royal family as ruthlessly as if wielding scissors. She’d felt it in Leo’s cold stare.

‘Mommy—’

‘I can’t explain it all now, Christian.’ Phoebe smiled down at her son, ‘but I don’t want you to be afraid. These men have a little business with me, and I need to deal with it. You can stay with Mrs Simpson for a little while, can’t you?’

Christian wrinkled his nose. ‘Her place smells like cats. And I want to stay with you.’

‘I know, but…’ Mindlessly Phoebe stroked Christian’s hair, still soft as a baby’s. Like the little boy he was, he jerked and squirmed away. ‘All right,’ she relented. Perhaps it was better if Christian stayed with her. ‘You can come.’ She tried to smile again, and managed it better. She felt her calm return, her sense of perspective. She didn’t need to panic or fear. She’d built a life for herself here, felt it shining and strong all around her, and took courage from that knowledge. The past receded once more, as it was meant to do, as she needed it to.

A few minutes, perhaps an hour at the Amarnesian Consulate, and this would all be forgotten. Her life would go on as planned.

She linked hands with Christian, and it was a sign of his nervousness that he let her. Resolutely she turned back to the government agents standing in the doorway like overgrown crows.

‘I’ll just gather a few things, and then we can be on our way.’ She took another breath, injected a certain firmness into her voice. ‘I’d like to resolve whatever discussion is necessary as soon as possible, and be home for dinner.’

Their silence, Phoebe reflected, was both ominous and eloquent.

It only took a few minutes to pack a bag with a few snacks and toys for Christian, and then she followed the men down the narrow stairs to the street. Mrs Simpson, in a frayed dressing gown and carpet slippers, poked her head out as they descended, her expression curious and a little worried.

‘Phoebe, is everything all right?’ she called, and Phoebe’s voice sounded rusty as she cleared her throat and replied as cheerfully as she could,

‘Yes, fine.’ She tried a smile, but felt it slide right off her face. She turned away, clutching Christian to her, and willed her racing heart to slow.

A sedan that screamed discretion with its tinted windows and government plates idled at the kerb, and another dark-suited agent exited the car with smooth assurance and ushered Phoebe and Christian into the back.

As she slid into the soft leather interior and heard the door’s lock click into place, she wondered if she was making the biggest mistake of her life, or just being melodramatic.

She’d sign a paper, she’d relinquish whatever rights to money that they wanted, and then she’d go home, she repeated to herself in a desperate litany. And, Phoebe added grimly, forget this had ever happened.

The sun was setting, sending long, golden rays over the mellow brick townhouses and tenements of Greenwich Village as the sedan purred through the neighbourhood’s narrow streets, the pavement cafÉs and funky boutiques possessing only a scattering of patrons on this chilly November day.

Christian sat close to her side, his expression closed yet alert. Phoebe felt a sharp pang of pride at the way he composed himself. He knew she was feeling as afraid as she was…except she was determined not to be afraid.

That time had passed.

She turned towards the window and watched as the narrow streets of the Village gave way to the wider stretch of Broadway, and then, as they headed uptown on First Avenue, to the broad expanse of the United Nations concourse. Finally the sedan pulled onto a narrow side street wreathed with the flags of various consulates, stopping in front of an elegant townhouse with steep stairs and a wrought-iron railing.

Phoebe slipped out of the car, still holding Christian’s hand, and followed the agents into the Armanesian Consulate. Inside it felt like a home, an upscale one, with silk curtains at the windows and priceless, polished antiques decorating the foyer. Phoebe’s footsteps were silenced by the thick Aubusson carpet.

As they entered, a woman in a dark suit—was it actually a uniform for these people?—her blonde hair cut in a professional bob, started forward.

‘Madame Christensen,’ she murmured. ‘You are expected.’ She glanced at Christian, who clenched Phoebe’s hand more tightly. ‘I can take the child—’

Phoebe stiffened at the words. ‘No one is taking my son.’

The woman flushed, embarrassed and confused, and glanced at Erik Jensen, who hovered at Phoebe’s shoulder.

‘There is a room upstairs, with every comfort,’ he said quietly. ‘Toys, books, a television.’ He paused diplomatically. ‘Perhaps it would be better…’

Phoebe bit her lip. She should have insisted on leaving Christian with Mrs. Simpson and spared him this. Yet she hadn’t wanted to be parted with him then, and she didn’t now. Even more so she didn’t want Christian to witness any unpleasant altercations with some palace official determined on making sure she received nothing from Anders’s death.

‘All right,’ she relented, ‘but I want him brought back down to me in fifteen minutes.’

Jensen gave a little shrug of assent, and Phoebe turned to Christian. ‘Will you be…?’

Her little boy straightened, throwing his shoulders back. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said, and his bravery made her eyes sting.

She watched as he followed the dark-suited woman up the ornately curving stairs before turning resolutely to follow Jensen into one of the consulate private reception rooms.

‘You may wait here,’ he told her as Phoebe prowled through the elegantly appointed room, taking in the gloomy portraits, the polished furniture, the Amarnesian insignia on everything from the coasters to the curtains. ‘Would you like a coffee? Tea?’

‘No, thank you,’ she said, resisting the urge to wrap her arms around herself even though the room wasn’t cold. Far from it—it was stuffy, hot. Oppressive. ‘I’d just like to get on with it, please, and go home.’

Jensen nodded and withdrew, and Phoebe was alone.

She glanced around the room, a gilded prison. This was so much like the last time she’d been summoned to the royal family—had she learned nothing in six years? She’d let herself be bullied then; she wouldn’t now. She didn’t want Anders’s money, she didn’t want anything from him that he hadn’t been prepared to give her when he was alive, and she acknowledged grimly just how much that had been: nothing.

Nothing then, nothing now. And that was fine, because she was fine. She’d sign their damn paper and go home.

She registered the soft click of the door opening and stiffened, suddenly afraid to turn around and face the person waiting for her there.

For in that moment she knew—just as she had known when she’d heard those three short raps on the door of her apartment—her life was about to change. Impossibly, irrevocably. For ever.

For she knew from the coldness in her bones, the leaden weight of her numbed heart, that a fussy palace official or consulate pencil-pusher was not waiting for her across ten yards of opulence. She knew, even before turning, who was waiting. Who had been sent to deal with her—an inconvenience, an embarrassment—again.

She turned slowly, her heart beginning a slow yet relentless hammering, a distant part of her still hoping that he wouldn’t be there—that after all these years it couldn’t be him—

But it was. Of course it was. Standing in the doorway, a faint, sardonic smile on his face and glittering in his eyes, was Leo Christensen.




CHAPTER THREE


‘WHAT…?’ The single word came out involuntarily, a gasp of shock and fear as the sight of Leo standing there so calm and assured brought the memories flooding back. Phoebe threw her shoulders back and lifted her chin. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in a calmer voice.

Leo arched an eyebrow as he strolled into the room, closing the door softly behind him. ‘Is this not the Amarnesian Consulate?’ he asked, and Phoebe was conscious of how effortlessly he made her feel like an interloper. An ignorant one.

‘Then I suppose the question to ask,’ she replied coldly, ‘is why I am here.’

‘Indeed, that is an interesting question,’ Leo murmured, his voice as soft and dangerous as it had been six years ago. Phoebe felt it wrap around her with its seductive chill and tried not to shiver.

He was the same, she thought numbly, the same as he’d always been. The same sleepy, bedroom eyes, the same aura of confident sensuality even dressed as he was in a dark suit, undoubtedly coming as he did from Anders’s funeral, although there was no sign of grief in his saturnine features.

‘How did you get here?’ Phoebe blurted. ‘You were in Paris, at the funeral—’

‘I was this morning,’ Leo agreed blandly. ‘Then I flew here.’

She tried for a laugh. ‘Am I that important?’

‘No,’ Leo replied, and turned from her to move to a small table equipped with a few crystal decanters and glasses. ‘May I offer you a drink? Sherry, brandy?’

‘I don’t want a drink,’ Phoebe replied through gritted teeth. ‘I want to know why I’m here and then go home.’

‘Home,’ Leo repeated musingly. He poured a snifter of brandy, the liquid glinting gold in the lamplight. ‘And where is that, precisely?’

‘My apartment—’

‘A one-bedroom in a rather run-down tenement—’

Phoebe stiffened, thinking of the rather astronomical rent she paid for an apartment most people would think more than adequate. ‘Obviously your opinion of what constitutes run-down differs from mine.’ She met his gaze directly, refusing to flinch. ‘I’m not sure what the point of this is,’ she continued. ‘I assume I was summoned here for a purpose, to sign some paper—’

‘A paper?’ Leo asked. He sounded politely curious. ‘What kind of paper?’ He smiled slightly, and that faint little gesture chilled her all the more. Leo’s smiles were worse than his scowls or sneers; there was something cold and feral about them, and it made her think—remember—that he was capable of anything. She’d read it in the tabloids’ smear stories; she’d felt it the last time she’d stood across from him and listened to him try to bribe her, and she’d seen it in the cold, cold look he’d given Anders.

‘Some kind of paper,’ she repeated with a defensive shrug. ‘Signing away any rights to Anders’s money—’

‘Anders’s money?’ Leo sounded almost amused now. ‘Had he any money?’

‘He certainly seemed to spend it.’ Phoebe heard the ring of bitterness in her voice and flinched at what it revealed.

‘Ah. Yes. He spent money, but it wasn’t his. It belonged to his father, King Nicholas.’ Leo took a sip of his brandy. ‘Actually, Anders hadn’t a euro or cent or whatever currency you prefer to his name. He was really quite, quite broke.’

His words seemed to fall into the empty space of the room, reverberate in the oppressive silence. ‘I see,’ Phoebe finally managed, but sadly, scarily, she didn’t. If Anders didn’t have any money…then why was she here? ‘Then is it about the Press?’ she asked. Hoped. ‘A gagging order or some such? So I don’t write some sort of embarrassing memoir?’

Leo’s smile widened; he really was genuinely amused now, and it made Phoebe feel ignorant again. Stupid. ‘Have you memoirs?’ he queried. ‘And would they be so…embarrassing?’

Phoebe felt herself flush, and she shrugged, angry now. Angry and afraid. Not a good combination. ‘Then just tell me why I am here…Your Grace.’

The smile vanished from Leo’s face before he corrected with lethal softness, ‘Actually, my title is now Your Highness. Since Anders abdicated, I am the country’s heir.’

Phoebe stilled, the realisation trickling coldly through her. She hadn’t realised Leo was now the crown prince, although of course she should have known. She knew there was no one else. Anders and Leo were both only children, which was why they’d been raised like brothers.

For a second the old myth flashed through Phoebe’s mind as it had the last time she’d seen Leo: Hod and Baldur. Twins, one dark, one light. One good, one evil. Except she knew Anders’s true colours now, and he was far from being good or light. Not evil perhaps, but silly, shallow, selfish and vain. She shook her head, banishing the memories. ‘Your Highness, then. What do you want with me? Because I’d prefer to get to the point and go home. My son is waiting upstairs and he’s hungry.’ Brave words, she knew. Strong words, but she didn’t feel particularly brave or strong. The longer she remained in Leo’s company, bearing the weight of his silence, the more she felt her strength being tested. Sapped. ‘Well?’ she snapped, hating the way he was toying with her, sipping his brandy and watching her over the rim of his glass as if she was an object of amusement or worse, pity.

‘I don’t want anything with you in particular,’ Leo replied coolly. ‘However, my uncle, King Nicholas, hasn’t been well, and he has suffered great regret over what happened with Anders—’

‘You mean forcing his son to abdicate? To leave his country in disgrace?’ Phoebe filled in.

Leo smiled over the rim of his glass. ‘As I recall, you told me Anders didn’t even want to be king.’

Phoebe coloured, discomfited that he remembered the particulars of their conversation six years ago…as did she.

‘He didn’t,’ she mumbled, turning away to gaze unseeingly out of the embassy window. Outside, night had fallen, and a passing taxi washed the room in pale yellow light before streaming onwards into the darkness. Phoebe was suddenly conscious of how long she’d been in this room with Leo, and she turned around. ‘I want to see my son.’

Something flickered across his face—what?—but then he gave a tiny shrug. ‘Of course. He’s upstairs, quite happy, but I’ll have Nora bring him down as soon as we’ve concluded our conversation.’

‘And what more is there to say?’ Phoebe demanded. ‘I’m sorry King Nicholas regrets what happened, but the past is the past and can’t be changed. And frankly none of it has anything to do with me.’

‘Doesn’t it?’ Leo queried softly, so softly, and yet it felt as if he’d dropped a handful of ice cubes down her back, or even straight into her soul. Those two little words were spoken with such confidence, such arrogance and power and knowledge, and suddenly, desperately, Phoebe wished she’d never agreed to come to the consulate. Wished, almost, that she’d never met Anders—she’d certainly wished that before—except for the saving grace of Christian.

Still, even under the onslaught of Leo’s dark, knowing gaze, those sleepy, bedroom eyes with the long lashes and golden irises now flared with awareness, with knowledge, she forced herself to continue. ‘No, it doesn’t. In fact, you most likely know that I haven’t even seen Anders in years. We separated a month after we married, Your Highness, and were practically divorced—’

‘Practically?’ Leo interrupted. ‘Had you consulted with a solicitor? Filed papers?’

Phoebe felt yet another telltale blush staining her cheeks with damning colour even as an inexplicable dread settled coldly in her stomach. ‘No, I hadn’t, but…’ She stopped, suddenly, the silence worse than any words she could say, explanations—excuses—she could give.

‘But?’ Leo filled in, his eyes, nearly the same colour as the brandy in the glass he held, glittering for a moment with—what? Mockery? Contempt? Anger? ‘Couldn’t bear to make that final cut?’ he continued in that awful, soft voice. ‘Couldn’t stand to walk away from a man like Anders?’ He took a step closer to her and Phoebe found she couldn’t move. She was mesmerised, strangely drawn by his words and yet chilled too by that unfathomable darkness in his eyes and voice, that depth of some unknowable emotion she’d sensed in him at their first meeting. Leo took another step, and then another, so he was standing only a few inches away, and she was reminded forcefully of when he’d stood so close to her before, when his fingers had brushed her in that faint, damning caress and he’d asked her, ‘What would have happened…if you’d met me first?’ Now he asked another mocking question. ‘Were you hoping he’d come back to you, Phoebe?’

Phoebe blinked, forced herself to react. His assessment was so far from the truth, and yet the truth was something she could not bring herself to tell. She stepped away and drew a breath. ‘No, I most certainly was not. And whether Anders and I divorced or even considered divorcing is of no concern to you—’

‘Actually,’ Leo corrected, taking a sip of his brandy, ‘it is.’ He watched, smiling faintly, enjoying her shock and discomfiture. Phoebe felt her hands curl into fists, her nails biting into her palms. She knew Leo was waiting for her to ask why, and she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to know.

‘It wasn’t anyone’s concern whether we married or not,’ she finally said, striving to keep her voice cool, ‘so I hardly see why it matters if we divorced or not.’ She drew herself up, throwing her shoulders back. ‘Now frankly I’ve had enough of these power games, Your Highness. You may find it amusing to keep me here like a mouse with a cat, but my son is undoubtedly unsettled and afraid and I have nothing more to say to you or anyone from Amarnes. So—’

‘Oh, Phoebe.’ Leo shook his head, and for a moment Phoebe thought he genuinely felt sorry for her, and that realisation scared her more than anything else.

‘Don’t call me—’

‘Your name? But we are relatives, of a sort.’

‘Of a sort,’ Phoebe agreed coldly. ‘The sort that have nothing to do with each other.’

‘That,’ Leo informed her, setting his glass down in a careful, deliberate movement, ‘is about to change.’

He was trying to scare her, Phoebe decided. Hoped, even. It was about power, about Leo feeling as if he was in control, and she wouldn’t let him. He might be a prince, he might have all the money and power and knowledge, but she had her courage and her child. She had her memories, her own knowledge of how the last six years had shaped and strengthened her, and she wouldn’t back down now, especially not to Leo. He’d intimidated and bullied her before; she wouldn’t let him now.

‘Why don’t you just spit it out, Leo,’ she asked, glad her voice matched his own for strength, ‘instead of giving me all these insidious little hints? Are you trying to frighten me? Because it’s not working.’ Well, it was, a bit, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. Leo merely arched an eyebrow, and Phoebe continued, her voice raw, demanding, and a little desperate. ‘What do you want? Why did your damn agents bring me here?’

‘Because the king wishes it,’ Leo replied simply. He gave her a little smile, and Phoebe pressed a fist to her lips before dropping it.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I told you, King Nicholas regrets his separation from Anders. I suppose he always did, but he didn’t realise it until too late.’ Leo’s lips twisted in something close to a smile, and Phoebe wondered what kind of man could actually smile at such a moment, at the explanation of such a futile tragedy. Well, she knew the answer…a man like Leo.

‘I’m sorry for your uncle’s loss,’ she finally said, keeping her voice stiff with dignity. ‘For everyone’s. But as I said before, it has little to do with me.’

‘But you see,’ Leo countered softly, ‘it does. Or perhaps not with you, but at least with your son.’ He paused, his words seeming to echo in the oppressive heaviness of the room, of the moment. ‘The king’s grandchild.’

Phoebe did not reply. She couldn’t think of anything to say, to think, so she turned away to the window once more, as if she could find answers there. She blinked, trying to focus on the shapes of passing cars, but she couldn’t see. Everything was blurred, and for a second she thought it was because of the rain. Then she realised it was because of the tears clouding her vision.

She took a breath, willed the tears to recede, to feel strong again. The last thing she wanted was for Leo to see her weakness, for surely if he was aware of it, he would use it.

Yet standing there, the lump of emotion still lodged in her throat, she realised she wasn’t even very surprised. Of course the royal family of Amarnes wouldn’t leave her alone. Leave Christian alone. For while they may have professed no interest in her son while Anders was alive, now that he was dead…?

Her child was all they had of him. And that was what she had to remember, Phoebe told herself, stiffening her shoulders, her spine. He was her child…in every way that mattered.

She swallowed again, meaning to turn to face Leo, but suddenly he was there, his presence behind her, like a looming shadow. It was an unwelcome surprise, as was the hand that rested briefly, heavily on her shoulder, the warmth of his fingers burning her even through the layers of her sweater and coat.

‘I’m sorry.’

It was the last thing she expected, the words, and, even more so, the raw compassion underneath them. She didn’t trust it, didn’t allow herself to. How could she? She’d trusted Anders, she wasn’t about to trust his cousin, and most of all she wasn’t about to trust herself, as much as she wanted to. For in that moment she wanted to believe Leo was sorry, she wanted to believe he could be—what? A friend?

The idea was so laughable as to be offensive. Phoebe turned around, shrugging Leo’s hand off her shoulder, and he stepped away, his expression bland once more.

‘What exactly are you sorry for, Leo?’ she asked coolly. ‘Bringing me here? Upsetting my son? Thinking you have some kind of control over me just because you’re a prince?’

Leo shrugged, his tone matching hers. ‘None of the above. I’m sorry because you obviously loved Anders, and now he’s dead.’

It was such a flat, matter-of-fact statement; it hardly could be called a condolence. Phoebe inclined her head in acknowledgement.

‘Thank you. But anything I felt for Anders ended six years ago. I’m sorry he died in such a tragic way, but…’ She drew in a breath. ‘What I had with him is far, far in the past. I have a life here now, and so does Christian, regardless of what the king of Amarnes thinks or feels. He has not tried to contact us once in the last six years. What is my son to think, to learn he suddenly has a grandfather who cared nothing for him before?’

‘I imagine he’d be grateful to learn he has some family,’ Leo replied, his tone still cool.

‘He has my mother—’

‘On his father’s side. But you’ve never even told Christian about Anders, have you? He doesn’t even know that his father is—was—a prince.’

‘And why should he?’ Phoebe flashed. ‘Anders abdicated the throne and had no interest in being a father to Christian. We’re far better here in New York with our friends and family. My mother has been a doting grandmother to Christian, and he’s wanted for nothing.’

Leo merely arched one eyebrow in silent scepticism, making Phoebe fume. ‘You don’t need to live in a palace or ride in a Rolls-Royce to be considered cared for, you know,’ she snapped. ‘Christian has had a perfectly acceptable and happy childhood—’

‘He is the son of a prince, descended from royalty,’ Leo said quietly. ‘And you don’t think he should know?’

‘None of you wanted to know,’ Phoebe returned. ‘Not once—’

‘Ah, but you see, we didn’t know about Christian,’ Leo told her softly. ‘By the time he’d made an appearance, you’d already separated from Anders—or should I say he separated from you? Either way, you disappeared from his life. And the royal family had no interest in you…until we learned you had a child. How old is he, Phoebe? Five, six?’

‘Five.’ Almost six, but she wasn’t about to tell that to Leo. Let him draw whatever conclusions he wanted.

Leo paused, took a step closer. ‘You must have fallen pregnant right away. Or did it happen after he left you? You were together for how long? A few weeks?’

‘A little over a month,’ she answered tightly.

‘What happened, Phoebe?’ Leo asked, his voice as soft as a caress. ‘Did Anders smile and say sorry as he always did? Did he make it up to you?’ Another step and she could feel his breath on her cheek, felt his hand touch her shoulder, trailing his fingers, and even now she felt a sharp, unwanted pang of need—desire—at the simple touch. She shrugged away. ‘Is that how Christian came about?’

‘It’s absolutely no concern of yours,’ she said coldly. The last thing she wanted Leo to know was the truth of Christian’s birth. Let him believe she’d, however briefly, made up with Anders. The idea was repellent, but so was the alternative…Leo knowing the truth.

‘Perhaps not,’ Leo agreed, ‘but the fact remains that Christian is my concern, or at least my uncle, the king’s.’

‘No.’ The word was torn from her, and Phoebe turned to see Leo looking at her again with a strange compassion that rested oddly on the harshly beautiful features of his face. She wasn’t used to seeing a gentler emotion softening his mouth, lighting his eyes. She didn’t like it and she didn’t trust it.

‘Yes,’ he corrected her softly, spreading his hands for a moment before dropping them again, ‘and I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do about it.’

The words buzzed like flies in Phoebe’s brain and she tasted bile. She wasn’t ready for this, she realised. She didn’t have the strength for a second round with Leo. She drew in a shaky breath. ‘I’d like to check on Christian,’ she said, and was glad her voice was steady. ‘Alone. And then we can continue this conversation.’

Something sparked in Leo’s eyes, something almost like admiration or at least a certain grudging respect, and he inclined his head. ‘Very well.’ He moved to the door and pressed an unseen button. Within seconds a dark-suited official entered almost soundlessly. Leo spoke to the official in Danish, and Phoebe could only make out a few words.

‘Sven will take you upstairs,’ Leo told her. ‘When you are satisfied Christian is comfortable, we will continue.’

Phoebe nodded, turning to follow Sven. Leo had turned his back on her and was pouring himself another drink, staring out at the black night as if he too was seeking answers in the darkness.

The door clicked softly shut behind him and Leo took a strong swallow of his drink, the alcohol burning all the way to his gut. He needed the sensation, the sedation from feeling. Remembering.

Regretting.

Anders was dead. That was enough to damn him. Dead. A wasted, reckless life, and not once had Leo tried to rein him in, teach him control. No, that hadn’t been his job. His job, Leo acknowledged sourly, had been to stay out of the way, to be the unneeded spare, and of course to keep Anders happy. Entertained.

It hadn’t been very much of a job.

Even now Leo remembered the slow burn of constant dismissals and rejection. Stay out of the way, Leo. Be quiet and do what you’re told. Do not anger the king…His mother’s pleas, the desperate attempts of a woman who had been cast off by the royal family as soon as she’d been made a widow. She hadn’t wanted the same fate for Leo.

So his fate—his duty—had been to exist as Anders’s older shadow. He’d accompanied his cousin on his escapades and he’d enjoyed them himself and now…

Now those days were over, and his duty lay elsewhere.

Leo turned away from the window, impatient with his own maudlin reflections. He thought of Phoebe, felt a flicker of reluctant admiration for her strength and courage, even though she was clearly shocked by Anders’s death…and its repercussions. Sometimes, Leo thought, he wondered if they’d ever be free of Anders’s repercussions, the messes he made, the people he disappointed.

And Phoebe and her son were just another problem Leo had to solve. Leo took another long swallow of brandy and closed his eyes. He knew what was required of him; the king had made it clear. Bring the son, pay off the girl. So simple. So cold-hearted. So treacherous.

Already he doubted the success of such a plan. Phoebe showed a fierce and unwavering loyalty to her child, and no doubt an offer of cold cash would enrage her, as it had before, and entrench her even more deeply in her disgust of Amarnes and its royal family. A subtler tactic was needed, a more sophisticated deceit.

He needed to keep her pliable, sweet, until he could decide just what he would do with her. What he wanted to do with her…Leo felt a tightening in his gut as he thought of how she responded to his lightest touch…She was so transparent in her desire. And yet he felt it as well, deep inside, a need…

He pushed the thought—as well as the feeling—away. He couldn’t afford to desire Phoebe. She was a problem to be solved, an inconvenience to be dealt with, just as she’d surmised all those years ago. Even now he remembered every word of the conversation, could feel the smooth silk of her skin against his questing hand…

No. He clamped down on the thought, straightening his shoulders, and tossed back the last of his brandy. As the first stars began to glimmer in the sky, he considered his next move.




CHAPTER FOUR


PHOEBE followed Sven up the thickly carpeted stairs, the long velvet curtains drawn against the night. Everything was silent and still, hushed and muted, so she could hear the relentless drumming of her own heart, loud in her ears.

Sven came to the end of an upstairs corridor and opened the door.

‘Mommy!’ Christian sprang up from where he’d been sitting with a scattered pile of Lego.

‘Having fun?’ Phoebe asked lightly, even as her arms ached to clasp her son to her in a tight hug and never let him go. Dash out of the consulate and run from the evergrasping claws of the royal family, with their power and their ruthless arrogance.

‘Yes…’ Christian admitted a bit grudgingly. Looking around the room, Phoebe could see that was indeed the case. The sumptuous carpet was scattered with Lego and action heroes, and a pile of Christian’s favorite DVDs rested by the large-screen plasma TV.

‘Can we go?’ Christian asked, and Phoebe saw him chew nervously on his lip. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘You can have dinner here,’ Phoebe suggested. ‘I’m sure they’ll let you order whatever you like. You can have that pizza you wanted.’

‘Of course,’ Nora murmured.

‘But I want to go now…’

So do I, Phoebe thought grimly, but she simply rested a hand lightly on Christian’s head, resisting yet again the urge to grab him and run. ‘Soon, I promise. Why don’t you watch a DVD?’ She gestured towards the huge television. ‘You’ve been asking for one of those for ages.’

‘I don’t want to watch a DVD,’ Christian said at his most obstinate, and Phoebe sighed, crouching down so she was at eye-level. ‘Christian, I’m sorry, but we have to stay a bit longer. I told you I had some business to take care of, and it will be finished—soon. I need to talk to—to Prince Leopold for a few more minutes—’

‘Prince?’ Christian repeated, his voice sharpening with curiosity and then, worse, realisation. ‘Like the prince on TV? The one who died?’

Phoebe silently cursed her son’s mental agility. ‘Ye-es,’ she agreed reluctantly, adding a caveat, ‘sort of.’

‘You know a prince,’ Christian said, sounding impressed, and then he actually puffed out his chest. ‘And so do I.’

‘A prince with a big-screen TV,’ Phoebe reminded him, desperate for a diversion. ‘I’ll just be a few more minutes, OK?’

‘OK.’ Christian nodded slowly, won over by the promise of pizza and a DVD.

Phoebe straightened, smiling in relief, even as she steeled herself for another round with Leo. Yet at that moment all she could remember was that dark look of compassion in his eyes, and the way his fingers had burned through her coat.

Sven took her back downstairs, but instead of returning to the large reception room at the front of the consuate he led her to a smaller, more private room at the back.

He opened a door and ushered her inside, retreating and closing the door softly behind him before Phoebe even had a chance to register where she was.

‘What is this?’ she demanded, and Leo turned to her and smiled.

‘Dinner, of course.’

But it wasn’t just dinner, Phoebe acknowledged with a fluttering of panic she knew she shouldn’t feel. It looked—and felt—like some kind of seduction.

The room was dimly lit by a few small table lamps, and a table for two had been laid by the marble fireplace, set with a creamy damask cloth, delicate porcelain and the finest crystal, glinting in the light. The flames of the fire cast leaping shadows over the room, and half of Leo’s face was in shadow, so she could only see the faint curling of his mouth in what she supposed was a smile.

He looked far too confident, Phoebe thought as the panic rose, far too powerful, too predatory. Too sensual. For there could be no denying that Leo Christensen was a completely sensual being.

He’d taken off his tie and undone the top two buttons of his shirt so that Phoebe’s gaze was instinctively drawn—as it had been six years ago—to the strong column of his throat. She jerked her gaze upwards, felt herself flush as she saw how Leo had been watching her. Knowing.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Phoebe said, taking a step towards the door.

‘Aren’t you?’ Leo murmured, and Phoebe’s flush intensified as though her whole body was burning. Burning not just with awareness, but with shame, for something about Leo invoked a helpless response in her that she hated.

Desire.

She felt it stretch and spiral between them, sleepy, seductive and far too powerful. No, Phoebe corrected fiercely, not desire. Fascination. It was like a child’s fascination with fire, fingers aching to touch the flickering flame, so forbidden and dangerous. It didn’t mean anything. It wouldn’t, of course it wouldn’t. She didn’t even like Leo. As long as she remembered that and kept herself well away from the flames, she’d be all right. Safe.

Except now the source of heat and danger was walking right towards her with that long, easy stride, smiling with sleepy sensuality as he held out a glass of wine he’d just poured while she’d been standing here, her mouth hanging open and her eyes as wide as a child’s, or worse, a lovesick girl’s.

‘Here.’ He handed her the glass of wine, which Phoebe accepted before she could think better of it, her nerveless fingers curling around the fragile stem.

‘You’ve gone to rather a lot of effort,’ she finally said. Leo merely raised his eyebrows.

‘I must admit I did little more than bark a few orders, but I thought we’d both be more comfortable having eaten something.’

‘Did you?’ Phoebe mumbled, taking a sip of wine, wishing she didn’t feel this helpless fascination. Already she couldn’t keep her eyes from wandering up and down the length of him, the long legs, trim hips and broad shoulders, finally resting on those full, sculpted lips, wondering how—

Stop. This was ridiculous. Dangerous.

‘Yes, I did,’ Leo replied, amusement gleaming in those golden, hooded eyes, eyes like an eagle’s, the eagles that were stamped on every piece of priceless porcelain on the table, reminding her just who she was dealing with, what—

Phoebe put her glass down with an unsteady clatter. ‘I appreciate your effort,’ she said, forcing herself to meet Leo’s gaze directly, ‘but I’d really like to finish things here and go—’

‘Home. Yes, I know. However, I’m afraid it’s not going to be that simple or quick. And I, for one, am starving, having travelled across the Atlantic this afternoon with very little to eat.’ He went to the table and began to remove the covers from several silver chafing dishes.

Leo began serving them both food, fragrant offerings that made Phoebe’s stomach clench and rumble despite her protestations that she wasn’t hungry. ‘Come, sit down,’ he said mildly. ‘There’s no reason to refuse to eat, is there?’

‘I’m not—’

‘Hungry? Yes, you are. I can hear your stomach rumbling from here. And if you’re worried about Christian, I had Nora order pizza. He doesn’t have any food allergies, I trust.’ He spoke with such confidence Phoebe knew he’d already checked. Yet despite his knowing arrogance, she was touched that he had thought to consider Christian’s needs. It was a small detail, irrelevant really, yet it still, strangely, meant something.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, still somewhat grudgingly. ‘Christian loves pizza.’

‘Come.’ He beckoned her, holding aloft a dish that was steaming and fragrant. ‘You know you want to.’

Phoebe almost resisted simply for the principle of it. She didn’t want to be seduced by Leo, not even by the food he offered. He was toying with her, she knew, teasing her because he knew he affected her, knew that there was something basic and primal that she responded to, helplessly, hopelessly.

She’d felt it back then, a little spark leaping to life deep inside her, and now she felt that spark flame to life once more, licking at her insides, threatening to burgeon into a full-grown inferno of need.

‘Fine.’ Phoebe moved over to the table and sat down, accepting the plate of boeuf Bourguignonne in its rich red wine sauce that Leo handed her. It smelled and looked delicious. ‘And now you can tell me what this is all about.’

‘Of course.’ Leo took a sip of wine, watching her over the rim of his glass. ‘Tell me, when was the last time you saw Anders?’





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