Theseus Discovers His Heir

As the deadline for the biography’s completion was so tight, Fiona had been emailing each chapter as she’d finished it so they could be immediately edited. The editor working on it had spent the past six weeks or so with a distinctly frazzled look about her.

‘Fiona has completed the bulk of the biography, but there is still another twenty-five years of my grandfather’s life to be written about. I appreciate this must sound daunting, but you will find when you read through the research papers that there is much less complexity there than in his early years. Are you confident you can do this within the time constraints?’

‘I wouldn’t have accepted the job if I wasn’t.’ Fiona’s editor, who Jo was now working with, had assured her that the last three decades of King Astraeus’s life had been comparatively quiet after his early years.

But Jo had accepted the job before discovering who she would be working for and exactly who he was.

As she clung to the gold banister that lined the wall above a wide, cantilevered staircase that plunged them into another warren of passageways and corridors Jo remembered a trip to Buckingham Palace a few years back, and recalled how bright and airy it had seemed. The Agon Royal Palace matched Buckingham Palace for size, but it had a much darker, far greater gothic quality to it. It was a palace of secrets and intrigue.

Or was that just her rioting emotions making her read more into things? Her body had never felt so tight with nerves, while her brain had become a fog of hurt, anger, bewilderment and confusion.

‘I don’t remember you speaking Greek when we were on Illya,’ he said, casting her a curious, almost suspicious glance that made her heart shudder.

‘Everyone spoke English there,’ she replied in faultless Greek, staring pointedly ahead and praying the dim light bouncing off the dark hardwood flooring would hide the burn suddenly ravaging her skin.

‘That is true.’ He came to a halt by a door at the beginning of another wide corridor. He turned the handle and pushed it open. ‘This is your apartment for the duration of your stay. I’m going to visit my grandfather while you settle in—a maid will be with you shortly to unpack. Dimitris will come for you in an hour, and then we can sit down and discuss the project properly.’

And just like that he walked back down the corridor, leaving Jo staring at his retreating figure with a mixture of fury and incredibly lancing pain raging through her.

Was that it?

Was that all she was worth?

A woman he’s once been intimate with suddenly reappears in his life and he doesn’t even ask how she’s been? Not the slightest hint of curiosity?

The only real reference to their past had been a comment about her speaking his language.

He’d sought her out back then. It had been her comfort he’d needed that night. And now she wasn’t worth even a simple, How are you? or How have you been?

But then, she thought bitterly, it had all been a lie.

This man wasn’t Theo.

A soft cough behind her reminded her that Dimitris was still there. He handed her a set of keys, wished her a pleasant stay and left her alone to explore her apartment.

* * *

Theseus blew air out of his mouth, nodding an automatic greeting to a passing servant.

Joanne Brookes.

Or, as he’d known her five years ago, Jo.

Now, this was a complication he hadn’t anticipated. A most unwelcome complication.

Hers was a face from his past he’d never expected to see again, and certainly not in the palace, where a twist of fate had decreed she would spend ten days working closely with him.

She’d been there for him during the second worst night of his life, when he’d been forced to wait until the morning before he could leave the island of Illya and be taken to his seriously ill grandmother.

Jo had taken care of him. In more ways than one.

He remembered his surprise when he’d learned her age—twenty-one and fresh out of university. She’d looked much younger. She’d seemed younger than her years too.

He supposed that would now make her twenty-six. Strangely, she now seemed older than her years—not in her appearance, but in the way she held herself.

He experienced an awful sinking feeling as he remembered taking her number and making promises to call.

That sinking feeling deepened as he recalled his certainty after they’d had sex that she’d been a virgin.

She couldn’t have been. She would have told you. Who would give her virginity to a man who was effectively a stranger?

Irrelevant, he told himself sharply.

Illya and his entire sabbatical had been a different life, and it was one he could never return to.

He was Prince Theseus Kalliakis, second in line to the Agon throne. This was his life. The fact that the new biographer was a face from the best time of his life meant nothing.

Theo Patakis was dead and all his memories had gone with him.

* * *

‘This is where I’ll be working?’ Jo asked, hoping against hope that she was wrong.

She’d spent the past hour giving herself a good talking-to, reminding herself that anger didn’t achieve anything. Whatever the next ten days had in store, holding on to her fury would do nothing but give her an ulcer. But then Dimitris had collected her from the small but well-appointed apartment she’d been given and taken her to Theseus’s private offices, just across the corridor, and the fury had surged anew.

Her office was inside his private apartment and connected to his own office without so much as a doorway to separate them.

‘This is the office Fiona used.’ Theseus waved a hand at the sprawling fitted desks set against two walls to make an L shape. ‘Nobody has touched it since she was admitted into hospital.’

‘There’s a spare room in my apartment that will make a perfectly functional office.’

‘Fiona used that room when she first came here, but it proved problematic. The research papers I collated and my own notes only give the facts about my grandfather’s life. I want this biography to show the man behind the throne. As I know you’re aware, this project is going to be a surprise for my grandfather so any questions need to be directed to me. With the time constraints we’re working under it is better for me to be on hand for whatever you need.’

‘Whatever you feel is for the best.’

A black eyebrow rose at her tone but he nodded. ‘Are you happy with your apartment?’

‘It’s perfectly adequate.’

Apart from being in the same wing as his.

How was she going to be able to concentrate on anything whilst being in such close proximity to him? Her stomach was a tangle of knots, her heart was all twisted and aching...and her head burned as her son’s gorgeous little face swam before her eyes.

Toby deserved better than to have been conceived from a lie.

She knew nothing of this man other than the fact that he was a prince in a nation that revered its monarchy.

He was descended from warriors. He and his brothers had forged a reputation for being savvy businessmen. They’d also forged a reputation as ruthless. It didn’t pay to cross any of them.