Society Secrets: The Royal Baby Revelation / Back in the Headlines / A Scandal, a Secret, a Baby

Casimiro frowned, because her persistence was surprising. By now she should have caved in. Started blubbing and giving him some hard-luck story about how she really needed money. She wanted financial aid for an ailing donkey sanctuary. She was battling to preserve a rare butterfly threatened by the proposed new road which would raze through its natural habitat. She was sorry to have invented such a far-fetched story but she was desperate…

‘Actually, yes.’ His voice was stealthy now. ‘I always use protection when I make love to a woman.’ He saw her cheeks grow pink. Would this graphic truth be enough to get her to back down? he wondered. ‘There’s a general consensus, you see—which deems that my seed is precious stuff. More precious than most.’ His mouth twisted into a knowingly sarcastic smile. ‘It’s a King thing.’

She paused for a moment to let this outrageous comment die away. ‘So why are you here?’ she questioned quietly.

Again, her general unflappability when faced with his unmistakable anger slightly wrong-footed him. Why was he here? If he had really believed that she was some cheap con-artist then she wouldn’t have got within a million miles of him. So why? Why was it that when he looked at her, he felt the faint tug of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on? Something which felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

Since his accident—when his life had hung in the balance for days—so many of his usual pastimes had been curtailed that it felt an age since he had tasted danger. But he could taste it now. It seemed to linger in the air about him—tantalising him—just as the highest jump on one of his beloved horses had always tantalised him.

He hadn’t ridden since the accident—but now came enticement in a different and unexpected form. Not blonde. Not petite, nor curvy—but bold and brunette with long, long legs and eyes which were the greenest he had ever seen. Almost emerald…Once again he felt the distant tug of something nebulous—some tantalising memory which hovered just out of reach.

He touched the tip of his tongue to his upper lip, slid it slowly over the surface. ‘Maybe I came looking for something to nudge my memory,’ he said softly.

She hadn’t realised what he was about to do—because in Melissa’s book, you didn’t come onto a woman if you had just spent the last ten minutes insulting her and looking at her as if she’d crawled out from underneath a stone.

But to her shock he was pulling her into his arms with a proprietary and arrogant air. Pulling her really close—so that all that lay between her and his hard, lean torso were just two thin layers of their respective T-shirts. Suddenly, she could feel the sheer pleasure of being touched by him again and—despite the circumstances—it felt just as amazing as it had ever done. Her skin began to sing and her heart to pound, but this wasn’t right. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t right…

‘What…what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she breathed.

Her stumbled little protest both angered and inflamed him, so that another hot urgent jerk of desire pressed hard against the denim of his jeans. Pushing a strand of dark hair away from her pale face, he stared down into the pure green colour of her darkening eyes.

‘Make your mind up, cara mia,’ he bit out throatily. ‘You say that I’ve been your lover—’

‘I say it because it’s true!’

‘Then maybe the taste of your lips and the feel of your body will jog my memory. Capisca?’

He lowered his mouth onto hers, capturing her lips in a kiss so hard that it made her shudder for all kinds of reasons. She shuddered because, as a kiss, it felt almost contemptuous and a million miles away from any real tenderness or regard. And she shuddered because he kissed with a masterly skill which took her breath away. And, of course, because it had been so long. Much, much too long.

‘Casimiro,’ she breathed—the word itself a luxury, because surely you were permitted to call a king by name when he was kissing you?

‘Dio—’ He felt her lips open beneath his—and her instantaneous response cut through his defences—as if he had been unprepared for such immediate passion. Had he expected more of a fight? Even wanted more of a fight—so that he would have had to kiss her into some sort of submission and force her to retract her ridiculous claim?

But there was no fight as her rangy body melted against his—the small but perfect breasts flowering into life, her sighing delight made irresistible by the accompanying soft swivel of her hips. Casimiro felt his jutting erection positioned in perfect alignment to her and he uttered a small curse beneath his breath.

He had meant to give her a swift demonstration of his sexual power. To have her weak and wanting him—her body soft with yearning—and in this he had succeeded. But by now he should have terminated the kiss. To have thrust her away with a contemptuous remark about how any man could surely be the father of her child if she was so free and easy with her favours.

So why were his lips plundering hers with a hunger which had never felt so keen? And why were his fingers clasping one of her breasts—feeling the iron-hard little peak puckering through her T-shirt?

‘Oh!’ she gasped, knowing that she should stop him—but how the hell could her love-starved body stop him from doing something which was so incredible? Running her fingers distractedly through the thick tumble of his ebony hair, she felt a faint little raised line which zigzagged from behind his ear to just beside his temple, and for a brief second she frowned. But only for a second—because the way he was touching her drove all sane thoughts from her mind. ‘Casimiro,’ she breathed again, the word sounding like a prayer and an incitement.

Her easy acquiescence both thrilled and angered him—her breathless little moans spurring him until he was rucking up the baggy T-shirt like a schoolboy eager for his first intimate touch of a woman. And she was letting him.

He gave a groan of delight as his hand skated up and over her inner thighs and for one tantalising moment he paused, heard her hold her breath.

‘You are good,’ he ground out, tearing his lips away from hers in an attempt to suck in a ragged supply of oxygen to his lungs. Too good, he thought—as the desire to unzip himself and impale her heated his blood with a terrible kind of primitive yearning.

‘So are you,’ she whispered, wanting him to kiss her again. And more. Much more. Was he remembering the feel of her body and the fact that they were so good together—as she was? Would it be such a terrible thing to carry on with what they’d been doing—to show Casimiro that their son had been given life as a result of an act as amazing as this?

‘I want you,’ he ground out.

‘And I want…I want you,’ came her shuddered response.

Yet even as he felt the restlessness in her body which matched his own, Casimiro knew that this was crazy. Still his hand lingered on the cool thigh and the temptation to trail it towards its sweet destination almost overwhelmed him. He could have her in an instant. Here. Now. On the floor. In her bed—and then what?

‘No. This is not going to happen.’ Abruptly, he let his hand fall and stepped away from her—observing the disbelief and disappointment which had darkened her green eyes, the rapid rising and falling of her perfect little breasts as her fingers flew to her lips. And Casimiro could do nothing to stop the tide of relief which flooded over him—eclipsing even the aching frustration in his aroused body. For he had demonstrated to them both the power of his steely will! Of his iron-hard resolve. Let her know the kind of person she was dealing with—and then let her go on her way!

He allowed himself a brief moment of satisfaction—for he could not imagine any other man who would have turned down such a delicious, sensual feast, so willingly offered up. Seeing her begin to tug down the rumpled T-shirt over her slim thighs, he turned his back to allow her a moment to regain her composure. And he his.

When he turned back, she had raked her hands back through her mussed hair—its silken strands still drying in disarray over her narrowed shoulders. Her cheeks were very pink and she was staring at him with an expression which was a mixture of embarrassment and defiance.

‘You are very free with your favours,’ he observed slowly.

‘As are you with yours!’ she returned. ‘Tell me, is that why you can’t remember me—because you’ve had so many women that they all blur into one?’

There was a deliberate pause as his eyes raked over her, anger spitting amber fire from his eyes. ‘You dare to speak to me in such an insolent way?’

‘Maybe I’m just copying you!’ The words bubbled out indignantly. ‘Or do you think it’s a one-way street when it comes to insults? That I’m going to let you say what you like about me just because you happen to be a king and I’m just a lowly commoner? Especially when we both know what you’re really doing is shying away from your responsibilities.’

‘Shying away from my responsibilities?’ he echoed incredulously.

‘Well, aren’t you? All I’m asking is that you see Ben. Just once. Just see him and realise that he’s yours. What have you got to lose?’

Casimiro stared at her and gave a grim kind of smile. More than she would ever know. Much, much more. If he had an heir, then everything would change. His life and his future would alter in the most dramatic fashion.

But as he stared at her he knew that she wasn’t going to go away easily—and that if he let her it would leave a million questions unanswered. Questions which might come back to haunt him and would leave him unable to make his abdication with an easy heart.

‘And what if I do see him,’ he questioned slowly, ‘and still do not believe that he is mine—then will you agree to give up this cause of yours? Give up and go away—leave me alone for ever?’

This stark demand pained her far more than it should have done because it was an indication of just how much he wanted her gone from his life. But of course he did—he’d never wanted her in any way but as a quick fling, had he? If it had been just about her then she would have walked away right then, with her head held high—but it wasn’t just about her. And what choice did she have? Melissa knew that she was going to have to agree to his hurtful clause if ever she was going to have some sense of closure. It was a gamble, yes—but a gamble she had to take. For Ben’s sake.

Staring into the hard, golden gleam of his amber eyes, she opened her mouth to agree to his terms when something began to trouble her. Something which didn’t make sense.

Why was he agreeing to see Ben if he was so certain that the child couldn’t be his? And why couldn’t he remember her? Melissa knew that she wasn’t the kind of woman who turned heads, but this hadn’t been some forgettable one-night stand they’d shared. It had been the best part of five days and she had been a virgin. And deep down she didn’t really believe that he’d had so many partners that he couldn’t distinguish one from the other.

His face was shadowed and sombre. She looked at his thick dark hair—all ruffled where she’d been frantically running her fingers through it. At the faint scar at his temple which now lay revealed. The slightly raised little zigzagging line she had discovered when he’d been kissing her. She knew every inch of the man by heart—for hadn’t she touched him lovingly and eagerly as often as she could when they’d been lovers? And one thing was for sure—he’d never had that jagged little scar on his head back then. Which meant that it must have been a legacy from his fall.

Suddenly it all made sense. Complete and believable sense. It was so simple that she couldn’t believe why she hadn’t thought about it before.

‘That’s why you don’t remember me,’ she said suddenly.

Casimiro stilled. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘When you had your accident,’ she said slowly. ‘The one that nearly killed you. The one which meant your brother had to act as Prince Regent while you lay stricken.’

‘That’s history,’ he snapped—because the dawning look of comprehension on her face was making him uneasy. ‘Which I don’t particularly want to rake up.’

‘Maybe it is—but the past always impacts on the present, doesn’t it? You don’t remember me because you can’t. The knock on your head must have wiped the memory clean away.’ She drew a deep breath and looked at him with eyes which were suddenly soft with understanding. ‘You’re suffering from amnesia and that’s why I mean nothing to you, isn’t it, Casimiro?’