Claimed: Secret Royal Son

She hadn’t meant her threats but she’d used them anyway. ‘He’s your baby until proven otherwise,’ she’d told Mia. ‘I’ll bring him to you and I’ll keep on bringing him to you until you help me.’

So Ben’s money was at her disposal. She might need it still, she thought. Alex surely couldn’t carry her baby off by force but…who knew? He looked angry enough to try.

‘Let me pass, Alex,’ she said, but his hands fell onto her shoulders and held.

‘What the hell are you playing at?’

‘I’m taking what’s mine,’ she said, jutting out her chin. Trying to sound braver than she was. ‘Michales is mine.’

‘Are you kidding? He belongs to Mia and Giorgos.’

‘I just explained that was a lie.’ She took a deep breath. Okay. This had to be said some time. What better time than right now? ‘Think about why they might have lied, Alex,’ she said gently. ‘You’ll see for yourself what’s happened.’

His anger was building. ‘The three of you lied? You agreed to it?’

‘I was…ill.’

‘You mean you were paid,’ he snapped, staring around at the luxury yacht as if it had a bad smell. ‘I know your family. You don’t have a penny to bless yourself with.’

‘Let’s not get personal.’

‘This is nonsense.’ He stared down at the baby in her arms. Cocooned in a soft cream alpaca shawl, Michales slept on, oblivious to the drama being played out around him. ‘Of course the baby’s Mia’s,’ he snapped. ‘He looks like Mia, and he looks like Giorgos.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ she said, so softly that no one but Alex could hear.

‘He does.’

‘Well, maybe a bit,’ she conceded. ‘But then Mia looks like me. And Giorgos…Giorgos had the Sappheiros royal family features. Who else do I know who might have those features? Work out the dates, Alex. Go figure.’

And, with a faint smile, the result of sheer willpower, she pushed past him.

And that was it. A moment later she was in the limousine. Her baggage was in the trunk and they were moving away.

Alex didn’t make a move to follow. He simply stood on the yacht in the warm sunshine and stared after her.

It was done, she thought, shaking with reaction. She’d reclaimed her son.

She could get on with her life.

For days Lily held her breath. She didn’t think there was a danger that Alex would try to take Michales forcibly—but she didn’t know for sure.

She’d half expected a media frenzy. By reclaiming Michales she was changing the succession of three royal families. The kingdom would dissolve, and the old principalities would take their place. From what she’d figured from reading a potted history of the Isles on the Internet, Alex would now be Crown Prince of Sappheiros. He’d be the real ruler of one island, rather than the caretaker of three.

But it seemed that whatever Alex planned, he wasn’t making it public. He hadn’t publicised Michales’s disappearance either, even though an international hunt might well have blown her cover.

His silence unnerved her, but at least it gave her time to get to know her son. To fall more deeply in love than she’d ever thought she could be.

‘It’s not the living arrangements you’re used to,’ she told her tiny son as she introduced him to his new home. Her window looked out over the boatyard. Her boss and his team were at work right under her window, stretching timbers over the frame of a skiff.

She’d soon be down there. The knowledge settled her. Spiros wanted her back and she wanted to be there. If she left her window open she could hear Michales cry, and Spiros’s wife would be only too delighted to help.

This could work.

Meanwhile she sat on her faded quilt on her saggy bed and cuddled her son.

She could make him smile, and she was well enough to enjoy him. Life stretched before her, full of endless possibilities. Surely there could be no greater happiness?

Her only cloud? Alex would come, she knew this wasn’t over.

Alex—oh, if things could only be different.

They couldn’t be different. She forced herself to relax. She forced herself to be optimistic, for there was no going back. This might be Alex’s baby, but first and foremost he was hers.

It had taken Alex almost a week to sort things out in his head. Even then they didn’t feel sorted. Where to go to from here? He couldn’t simply take what Lily told him at face value, tell the islanders they’d been conned and move forward.

But at last, finally, he was starting to accept what she’d told him as the truth.

For the test results Lily had given the immigration official were watertight. Alex had stood by the man’s side as he’d rung the French authorities, and he’d heard the outrage that their tests be questioned. Lily had gone to enormous trouble to ensure these were seen as legitimate. She’d organised independent witnesses as DNA samples had been taken. She’d even agreed to have witnesses as she’d been examined to prove she’d borne a child five months ago.

Michales was her baby.

And…his? Was she serious?

He remembered the little boy as he’d last seen him, sleeping in his mother’s arms. Dark lashes. Thick black curls. Smiling even in sleep.

He was beautiful.

He was his son.

It was too big to take in.

But, believe it or not, this baby was proven to be not the natural child of Mia and Giorgos. There’d been no official adoption—only deception.

The legal ramifications were mind-blowing.

He’d needed help. He’d needed the best constitutional lawyers money could buy, and the best political advisors. He’d consulted them—they’d pored over ancient documents, they’d scratched their heads and they’d outlined facts he didn’t want to know.

This was impossible. He needed a magic wand so the past few months could disappear and he could rule without the encumbrance of a baby.

His son.

The more he thought of the lie that had been perpetrated, the sicker he became. That Giorgos and Mia had deliberately deceived the islanders…That Lily had consented…

Had she deliberately seduced him? It had to be faced. Had it been a deliberate plan by the three of them, with Mia pulling out after Giorgos’s death only when she’d realised she had no financial independence?

Was Mia’s abandonment why Lily had changed her mind and taken her baby back? And what was this illness she’d talked about? She’d been fine six weeks ago at his coronation.

Enquiries to the doctors she’d cited had been stonewalled, citing privacy. Privacy with the succession at stake? Hell, he was almost up to bribing hospital officials to get the answers he wanted.