Shock Heir For The King

She blotted her lips together; they were painted the most fascinating shade of dark pink—as if she’d been feasting on sun-warmed cherries and the natural pigments had stained her mouth.

‘Because you’re not interested in my art.’

He thought of the piece in his office, the piece he’d bought through a dealer to keep his acquisition at arm’s length—the painting Frankie had been working on the day they’d met—and frowned slightly. ‘Why would you say that?’

A hint of pink bloomed in her cheeks. ‘Well, I remember clearly how well you played me. Pretending interest in my work is how you fooled me then. I won’t be so stupid this time around. So what is it that brings you to the gallery, Matt?’

Her use of that name filled him with a confusing rush of emotions. Shame at having given her only the diminutive of his full name, because surely it proved that he’d set out to deceive her, even from that first moment? Pleasure at the memories it invoked—no other woman had called him that; it was their name, it belonged to that weekend, and he would hear it on her lips for ever, calling out to him at the height of her passion.

He wanted her.

Even now, after three years, after walking away from her, he congratulated himself on doing the right thing. He’d been strong in the face of incomprehensible temptation, and he’d done it for his kingdom.

But...

Oh, yes. He wanted her.

Moving slightly closer, just enough to be able to catch a hint of her vanilla perfume, he spoke, his eyes intent when they met hers.

‘I am to marry. Soon.’

* * *

His words seemed to come to her from a long way away, as though he were shouting from atop a high-rise, and the floor of the gallery lifted in one corner like a rug being shaken, threatening to tip her off the sides of the earth.

I am to marry.

Her stomach rolled with what she told herself must be relief. Because his impending marriage meant she was safe—safe from the flashes of desire that were warming her insides, safe from an insane need to revisit the past even though it was so obviously better left there. How dare she feel like that, when he’d walked out on her without having the decency to leave so much as a note?

‘That’s nice,’ she said, the words not quite as clear and calm as she’d have liked. ‘So perhaps you are after a painting after all? A wedding present for your wife?’ She spun on her heel, moving deeper into the gallery. ‘I have some lovely landscapes I painted out in Massachusetts. Very pretty. Romantic. Floaty.’ She was babbling but she couldn’t help it.

I am to marry. Soon. His words were running around and around in her mind, ricocheting off the edges of her consciousness.

‘Perhaps this piece.’ She gestured to a painting of a lake, surrounded by trees on the cusp of losing their leaves, orange and bright, against a beautiful blue sky. Her heart panged as she remembered the day, that slice of life, when she’d taken Leo on their first vacation and they’d toured Paxton and its surroundings.

‘Frankie...’ His voice was deep and, though he spoke softly, it was with a natural command, a low, throbbing urgency that had her spinning to face him and—damn him—remembering too much of their time together, the way he’d groaned her name as he’d buried his lips at her neck, then lower, teasing her nipples with his tongue.

Only he was so much closer than she’d realised, his large frame right behind her, so when she turned their bodies brushed and it was as though a thousand volts of electricity were being dumped into her system.

She swallowed hard then took a step backwards, but not far enough. It gave her only an inch or so of breathing space and when she inhaled he was there, filling her senses. He’s getting married!

‘What are you doing here?’ She didn’t bother to hide the emotion in the question. He was a part of her past that hadn’t been good. Oh, the weekend itself, sure, but waking up to discover he’d literally walked out on her? To find herself pregnant and have no way of contacting him? The embarrassment of having to hire a detective who even then could discover no trace of this man?

‘I...’ The word trailed off as he echoed her movement, taking a step forward, closing the distance between them. His expression was tense; his face wore a mask of discontent. Frustration and impatience radiated off him in waves. ‘I wished to see you again. Before my wedding.’

She took a moment, letting his statement settle into her mind, and she examined it from all angles. But it made no sense. ‘Why?’

His nostrils flared, his eyes narrowed with intent. ‘Do you ever think about our time together?’

And the penny dropped and fury lashed at her spine, powerful and fierce, so she jerked her head away from him and bit back a curse her adoptive mother certainly wouldn’t have approved of.

‘Are you kidding me with this, Matt? You’re getting married and you’re here to walk down memory lane?’ She moved away from him, further into the room, her pulse hammering, her heart rushing.

He was watching her with an intensity that almost robbed her of breath. Only she was angry too, angry that he thought he could show up after all this time and ask about that damned weekend...

‘Or did you want to do more than walk down memory lane? Tell me you didn’t come here for another roll in the hay?’ she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, then wishing she hadn’t when his eyes dropped to the swell of her cleavage. Indignation made her go on the attack. ‘You can’t be so hard up for sex that you’re resorting to trawling through lovers from years ago?’

A muscle throbbed low in his jaw as her insult hit its mark. Matt Whatever-his-last-name-was was clearly all macho alpha pride. Her suggestion had riled him. Well, so what? She couldn’t care less.

‘And no, I don’t think about that weekend!’ she snapped before he could interject. ‘So far as I’m concerned, you’re just some blip in my rear-view mirror—and if I could take what happened between us back, I would,’ she lied, her stomach rolling at the betrayal of their son.

‘Oh, really?’ he asked softly, words that were dangerous and seductive all at once, his husky accent as spicy and tempting as it had been three years earlier.

‘Yes, really.’ She glared at him to underscore her point.

‘So you don’t think about the way it felt when I kissed you here?’ She was completely unprepared for his touch—the feather-light caress of a single finger against her jaw, the pulse-point there moving into frantic overdrive as butterflies stormed through her chest.

‘No.’ The word was slightly uneven.

‘Or the way you liked me to touch you here?’ and he drew his finger lower, to her décolletage, and then lower still, to the gentle curve of her breast.

Heaven help her, memories were threatening to pull her under, to drown her with their perfection, even when the truth of their situation was disastrous.

Just for a second, she wanted to surrender to those recollections. She wanted to pretend they didn’t have a son together and that they were back in time, in that hotel room, just him and her, no consciousness of the outside world.

But it would be an exercise in futility.

‘Don’t.’ She batted his hand away and stepped away from him, anger almost a match for her desire. She rammed her hands against her hips, breathing in hard, wishing there was even the slightest hint of his having been as affected by those needs as she had been. ‘It was three years ago,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t just show up after all this time, after disappearing into thin air...’

He watched her from a face that was carefully blanked of emotion, his expression mask-like. ‘I had to see you.’

Her heart twisted at those words, at the sense that perhaps he’d found it impossible to forget their night together. Except he’d done exactly that. He’d walked away without a backwards glance. He could have called her at any time in the past three years, but he hadn’t. Nothing. Not a blip.

‘Well, you’ve seen me,’ she said firmly. ‘And now I think you should go.’

‘You’re angry with me.’

‘Yes.’ She held his gaze, her eyes showing hurt and betrayal. ‘I woke up and you were gone! You don’t think I have a right to be angry?’

A muscle twisted at the base of his firm, square jaw. ‘We agreed we would just spend the weekend together.’

‘Yes, but that wasn’t tacit approval for you to slink out in the middle of the night.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I did not slink.’ And then, as if bringing himself back to the point, he was calm again, his arrogant face blanked of any emotion once more. ‘And it was best for both of us that I left when I did.’

It was strange, really, how she’d been pulling her temper back into place, easing it into the box in which it lived, only to have it explode out of her, writhing free of her grip with a blinding intensity. ‘How? How was you disappearing into thin air best for me?’ she demanded, her voice raised, her face pale.

He sighed as though she were a recalcitrant toddler and his impatience at fraying point. ‘My life is complicated.’ He spoke without apology, words that were cool and firm and offered no hint of what had truly motivated his departure. ‘That weekend was an aberration. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have let it happen. I had no business getting involved with someone like you.’