The Future King's Love-Child

‘It must have been terrifying for you,’ Sebastian said, his voice sounding as if it had been dragged over something rough. ‘You were only eighteen years old.’

‘It is over now,’ she said. ‘I have many regrets over how things were handled, but the police were only doing their job. My father was a high-profile man. People wanted their scapegoat and I was it.’

‘What are you saying, Cassie? That you were forced into confessing to a crime you did not commit?’ he asked with a heavy frown.

Here’s your chance, Cassie thought. Tell himwhat it was like. Tell him everything. She even got as far as opening her mouth but the words wouldn’t come out. If she told him about her father she would have to tell him about Sam. What if Sebastian and his family decided she was not a good enough mother for a royal prince? Sam had already been wrenched out of her arms when he was little more than a baby; he would be devastated to have it happen again, even though he was close to school age. If he was taken away from her a second time her devastation would be complete. The only reason she had survived the hell of the last six years had been because of her love for her little boy. To have come this far and lose him at the last hurdle was unthinkable.

‘Cassie?’

‘No,’ she said, addressing his left shoulder rather than his all-seeing gaze. ‘No, of course I wasn’t forced. I understood what was going on and agreed to accept the lesser charge of manslaughter.’

‘Did you have good legal representation?’ he asked.

Cassie thought of the sleazy lawyer she had been assigned. During each of the long drawn-out weeks of the trial he had looked at her as if she had been sitting there naked, his snakelike eyes sliding all over her, reminding her so much of that last altercation with her father she would have agreed to a charge of murder if it had meant she could be free of the lawyer’s loathsome presence all the sooner.

‘I had a lawyer,’ she said tonelessly. ‘We didn’t exactly hit it off, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?’

Sebastian felt another knifelike twist of guilt assail him at her tone. He knew there was a lot she wasn’t telling him, but he could read between the lines enough to know a competent lawyer should have been able to get her off given her age at the time. What if she had acted in self-defence? Surely she shouldn’t have been punished under those circumstances?

But then he thought of the rumours that had been going round at the time of Theo Kyriakis’s death. Rumours of Theo’s increasing despair over his wayward daughter’s drug and alcohol problems. Sebastian knew about Cassie’s drinking but he had never seen her using or acting under the influence of drugs. That didn’t mean she hadn’t been using them, of course. Drug addicts were notoriously adept at keeping secrets. She could easily have popped any number of pills when he wasn’t with her. Their time together had been limited in any case. Keeping their relationship a secret had been his idea; he hadn’t wanted the interference of his overbearing father, not to mention the ever-present paparazzi.