To Claim His Heir by Christmas

As for his darkly intoned question—she’d lied through her teeth because all she cared about was making sure Augustus never put two and two together if he was ever faced with Natanael.

Natanael… Oh, Lord. She’d wanted to text him before he went to sleep. But it was far too risky to fish her phone from her handbag right now. The bag she clutched to her stomach like a lifeline. Thank goodness she’d carried it and not left it with her case.

More to the point, thank heavens she hadn’t brought Nate to the Alps with her. The thought of Thane discovering him…carting him off to Galancia… No, that could never happen. Never. Thane was descended from a long line of militia. Royal males trained in guerrilla warfare. The best fighter pilots in the world. Some said all the boys were taken to the barracks to learn how to become soldiers at eight years old. The mere thought of Nate holding a weapon in four years’ time made acid rise and coat her throat. Plus, she really had no idea what Thane was capable of. Considering abduction was his modus operandi for their reunion.

She shuddered where she sat, swelling until she felt she might burst with the need to protect Nate at all costs. She hadn’t kept his identity a secret all this time to lose him now. Her little boy was having a long, happy and healthy life even if it killed her.

At this rate, Luce, it just might.

When she realised Thane was speaking again, she turned to face him and watched the soft skin around his eyes crinkle as he narrowed those black sapphire peepers on her.

‘So you do not care? You do not care that your fiancé may no longer want you—?’

‘He is not my fiancé.’ Not yet anyway. And she’d rather bask in the fantasy of freedom a while longer, thank you very much.

‘Now, are you sure about that, Luciana?’ he jeered. ‘Because he seemed to think you are. Or is your word now as empty as it was five years ago?’

She made a tiny choked squeak of affront. ‘And what exactly do you mean by that?’

Brooding and fierce, he leaned forward, attacking her brain with another infusion of his darkly sensual scent. ‘You made a promise to me. That you’d stay another week. That we would talk.’

She could virtually feel how tightly reined in he was, and Luciana delved into his turbulent stormy eyes because…was that hurt in his voice? Surely not. How could she possibly hurt this man? No. If anything she’d bruised his male ego. A man who wielded his kind of power likely wasn’t accustomed to being deserted.

Though either way, to be fair, she had promised him she would stay. Hadn’t she?

Yes. She had. They’d become hot and heavy so fast she’d wanted to tell him who she really was. Not to have lies whispering between the damp, tangled sheets. Because in her mind there’d been something so beautiful and pure about what they’d had together the dishonesty had shredded her heart.

She swallowed around the great lump in her throat. It was torture to remember. Utter torture. ‘I did promise you—you’re right. But that was before I found out who you were.’

With his bent elbow resting on the lip of the window, he curled his index finger over his mouth pensively and stared at her. ‘So you didn’t know who I was all along?’

Mouth arid, she licked over her lips. ‘No, I didn’t know who you were. Of course I didn’t.’

‘Are you telling me the truth? You swear it?’

‘Yes.’ Did he think she’d duped him? ‘I couldn’t have set up the way we met even if I tried, Thane. Don’t you remem—?’

Slam! She locked the vault shut before all the memories it had taken her so long to ensnare were unleashed. Escaping to create havoc in her soul. Best to forget. For all their sakes.

‘Let’s just call it an ironic twist of fate,’ she said, hearing the melancholy in her voice. ‘We were young. Stupid. Reckless. I didn’t know you at all. I’d fallen into bed with a stranger…’ And I awoke to a nightmare. ‘I found your papers, Thane.’

She’d never forget that moment as long as she lived. Standing in the dim light of their bathroom, feeling naked and exposed, his nationality papers for travel that she’d stumbled across quivering in her hand. The realisation she was sleeping with the enemy.

‘And after three, almost four weeks,’ he said fiercely, ‘of our being inseparable, spending every waking and sleeping moment together, your first instinct was to run? With not one word? Do you have any idea…?’

Veering away from her, he clenched his jaw so tight she heard his molars groan in protest. And she swiftly reassessed the idea that she’d caused him pain by leaving the way she had.

Remorse gathered in the space behind her ribs and trickled down into her stomach to merge with the ever-present pool of guilt that swelled and churned with her secrets every minute of every day. The painful struggle between truth and darkness.

But, looking back, she remembered she’d been consumed with the need to flee.

First had come denial and bewilderment. She’d been unable to match the dark, dangerous, merciless Prince with the somewhat shy—at least around women—rock music lover who’d held her cherishingly tight through endless nights of bliss. Then terror had set in, leaving her panic-stricken, contemplating how he’d react when he discovered who she was. And heartache, knowing she had to leave before he found out. Knowing that while she toyed with the temptation of staying in touch, meeting up again, suddenly another hour was too much of a hazard, a risk, never mind some far-off midnight tryst.

So she’d run. Taken the good memories instead of tainting them with bitterness and regret. Run as fast as she could with her heart tearing apart.

Glancing out at the snow-capped peaks of the Tarentaise Valley, she took a deep breath and then exhaled, her warm breath painting a misty cloud upon the window. If he needed closure in order to forget and let her go, then so be it.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I was leaving. Write you a note or something. I didn’t mean to hurt you that way. But it was over. We had an affair—that’s all. There could never have been a future for us.’

Chills skittered over her skin and she crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing the gooseflesh from her shoulders. She was so lost in thought she didn’t notice his hand reaching across the back of the bench seat until it was in her periphery and she flinched. Hard. Unsure what to expect from him.

‘Are you afraid of me now?’ he asked, his voice gruff as if she’d sanded the edge off his volatility.

Was she afraid of him? Genuinely?

No. Though she couldn’t really understand why.

Because deep down you know he won’t hurt you. Deep down you know the man who took your innocence with such gentle passionate persuasion would never physically hurt you in a million years.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t emotionally destroy her. And Nate. That he was capable of.

So maybe she did fear him. Just not in the way he meant.

Luciana gave her head a little shake and he picked up a lock of her hair and rubbed the strands between his fingertips. ‘I wouldn’t have recognised you. How different you look this way.’

She had the ludicrous desire to ask him if he liked the way she looked. The real her. Or if he’d fallen for a black-haired hippy who didn’t exist. But the reality was it was best she didn’t know.

‘It was a lifetime ago,’ she said, immensely proud of her strong voice when she felt so weak when he was close. ‘Forget the person I pretended to be in Zurich. I was just…’ She had to swallow hard to push the words out. ‘Acting out. Letting loose. Having a bit of fun.’

Such a lie. But maybe if he thought their wild, hedonistic fling meant nothing to her he’d hate her. Let her go…

Et voilà.

Easing back, he created a distance that felt as deep and wide as the Arunthian falls.

‘Fun,’ he repeated tonelessly. ‘Well, that makes both of us.’

Her stomach plunged to the leather seat with a disheartened thump. Because it was just as she’d always suspected.

Stiffening her spine, she brushed her hair back from her face. ‘There you go, then. There really is no point in dragging this out.’

He said nothing. Simply leaned back and glared at her with such intensity she felt transparent.

Jittery, she shifted in her seat and rammed her point home.

‘Thane, you have to let me go back to Arunthia. To my family. They need me. I’ve got to get married soon. I—’

‘No.’