The Royal House Of Karedes: Two Kingdoms. Marion Lennox

would make that choice from a carefully vetted list of acceptable young women.

      Alex, second in line, would be under somewhat less pressure but he knew the responsibility of marriage to an appropriate bride, then children to bear his name, was in his future. It was all part of his duty to the house of Karedes.

      He would demand only that his future wife be attractive. Beyond that, he had no expectations. Companionship, passion—those things he would find in a mistress. He would be discreet; he would never deliberately do anything to insult the woman he married but a royal wife would understand that her role was to bear him children.

      Neither of them would be foolish enough to look for love. Discretion in their extra-marital affairs would be enough.

      Alex stopped pacing, jammed his hands into his trouser pockets and stared at the coat of arms on the wall over the enormous fireplace.

      There had been a woman once, years ago. A girl, really. He’d thought—never mind what he’d thought. What mattered was what she had thought, that she could use her kisses, her touch, her soft whispers to bewitch him. He’d been a boy then, led around by a part of his anatomy that had nothing to do with his brain, but he’d learned the truth about her in time and had been wiser for it.

      Since then, he had not let a woman lure him into complacency. Into forgetting that a man always had to look beyond a beautiful face to see a woman’s true agenda…

      Until that night two months ago.

      A night when a stranger had stepped into his arms, her face radiant with seeming innocence. She’d lifted her mouth to his, parted her lips to the whisper of his breath, the thrust of his tongue and the world had blurred—until the next morning, when he’d learned it had all been a lie.

      “Prince Alexandros.”

      Not just a lie. Alex’s jaw tightened. A scam. A fraud. A swindle of the first magnitude, and he had fallen for it.

      “Sir? The king and queen ask that you join them.”

      But she hadn’t gotten away with it. Instead, he’d pretended he knew nothing of her deception. She had played a part; in the harsh light of day, it had been his turn to play one, too.

      He’d taken her back to bed. Had sex with her again. And that time, when it was over and she lay sated beneath him, he’d watched her eyes fill with shock as he told her he knew who she was, what she was, and promised her that all that would come of her despicable game was defeat.

      Then he’d sent her packing.

      The incident had meant so little to him that he could not even remember her name. Despite her wiles, he’d been the victor. He’d had hours of sex that had seemed incredible, though he knew now it had only been, well, sex. And the moment of sweet revenge that followed had made everything right.

      “Your Highness? Their majesties will see you now.”

      Or had it?

      It wasn’t just women he’d had a lot of these past weeks; it was everything. He’d put endless miles on the royal private jets with business trips from his offices in New York and Aristo to Bermuda. To the Bahamas. To the Virgin Islands, to Florida, to Mexico and, most recently, Japan. Successful trips, all of them, but he’d set one hell of a pace. Meetings by day; by night, the baccarat tables, high-stakes poker…

      And sex.

      Was it possible he’d spent the last weeks going from country to country, bed to bed, trying to wipe away the ugly memories of a night when he’d come as close as a man could to letting a woman use him?

      “Sir. The king and queen are waiting for you.”

      Alex blinked. Galen, his father’s major-domo, stood at stiff attention before him. From the expression on his face, he’d been there a while.

      “Thank you, Galen. Efcharisto.”

      “Are you well, sir?”

      “Yes, yes, I’m fine. A little distracted.” Alex forced a grin. “There’s a lady waiting for me in town. You know how that is.”

      Galen permitted himself a small smile. “I am sure the lady is happy to wait, sir,” he said, and stepped aside with a deep bow as Alex walked past him into the throne room.

      His parents were not alone.

      A handful of aides hovered around his father, who was seated at an antique desk liberally strewn with sheets of paper. His mother stood on the throne platform, encircled by several of her ladies-in-waiting who held lengths of silk brocade against her while a seamstress sat on the floor, pinning and tucking and doing whatever in heaven’s name women did with all those yards and yards of fabric.

      Alex’s lips twitched.

      Despite its elegance, the frescoes, the ceiling painted by a sixteenth-century master and a wall hung with exquisite Byzantine icons, right now the room looked more like someone’s slightly messy sitting room than a place in which the kingdom’s most formal ceremonies were held.

      His father looked up. “There you are,” he said in a tone that suggested it was he who’d been kept waiting. “Well, what do you think?”

      Alex raised his eyebrows. “About what?”

      “About these plans, of course.” Aegeus slapped a hand on the papers spread over his desk. “Do we want a theme, or do we not?”

      No, Alex thought, this was not someone’s sitting room, this was more like the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

      “A theme for what?” he said carefully.

      Aegeus shot to his feet, scattering the aides crowded around him.

      “For your mother’s sixtieth birthday celebration, of course! If you hadn’t spent the last month doing God knows what, you’d know what was going on here!”

      “Now, Aegeus.” Husband and son looked at the queen, who smiled at them both. “You know Alexandros has been busy convincing foreigners that our kingdom is the perfect place for them to invest in the future. And I’m sure we can assume he’s been successful. Haven’t you, Alex?”

      Alex smiled and went to his mother. She bent toward him and he took her hand and brought it to his lips.

      “Mother. I’ve missed you.”

      “How was your trip?”

      “It was fine.” Alex smiled. “We snared a lot of foreigners who look forward to a happy future.”

      His mother laughed. “You see, Aegeus? It’s just as I said.” Tia waved the women away and came gracefully down the steps. “It’s good to have you home again, Alexandros.”

      “It’s good to be here.” Alex nodded at the women gathering up the fabrics. “What’s all this?”

      “I just told you what it is,” Aegeus said with impatience. “Preparation for your mother’s birthday celebration. I thought we should make the final selections of décor, color and fabric here in the throne room, where the most formal part of the ceremony will take place. Isn’t that right, gentlemen?”

      The aides nodded.

      “We want to be certain everything comes together properly.”

      Aegeus looked at his aides, who nodded again. Alex thought of turkeys pecking for grain at the feet of the farmer who owned them and repressed a smile.

      “So, what do you think, Alexandros? What theme shall we use? Our history as part of the ancient world? A link to the days of the Crusades? The time of the Ottoman Empire? All those things, as you well know, are in our bloodline.”

      Who gave a damn? What mattered was the celebration of his mother’s sixtieth birthday, not his father’s lineage.

      “Any of those would be fine,” Alex said smoothly, with a quick glance at his mother. “Something big and splashy. After all, we