The Future King's Love-Child. Melanie Milburne

she still felt the same way? Oh, please, God, don’t let him have guessed!

      Her fingers automatically went to her left wrist, her heart giving a sudden lurch of panic when she found it totally bare. ‘Oh, no!’

      ‘What’s wrong?’ Angelica asked. ‘You’ve gone as white as a ghost.’

      Cassie swung around and backtracked her way to the front door of the tiny flat with agitated steps. ‘I’ve lost my bracelet,’ she said, searching the floor in rising desperation. ‘My mother’s pearl one. It must have fallen off on the way home. I was sure it was still on my wrist when I was at the palace.’

      ‘Maybe it fell off in the cab,’ Angelica suggested. ‘You could call up the company and ask them to look for it.’

      Cassie turned to look at her friend. ‘I didn’t take a cab home.’

      Angelica’s eyes widened. ‘You walked home in the dark in those shoes?’

      No, I ran home in the dark, Cassie felt tempted to confess but instead said, ‘I felt like I needed the fresh air. The palace was crowded and…and stuffy.’

      ‘I’ll get a torch for you,’ Angelica said. ‘I’ll mind Sam while you retrace your steps, or do you think we should wait until morning when we can both search?’

      Cassie shook her head determinedly. ‘No, someone might pick it up before then. I’ll go a few blocks and see if I can find it. I’m sure it can’t be too far away.’

      ‘Make sure you take your mobile with you,’ Angelica said. ‘You don’t know who might be out on the streets at this time of night. And you had better get changed. You are going to stick out like a sore thumb in that dress.’

      Cassie quickly checked on Sam on her way to her room to change into a track suit and sneakers. He was sleeping peacefully, his beautiful face so like his father’s it made her heart contract again in unbearable pain. Her little son would never be able to run to his daddy and place his arms around his neck; he would never be able to look him in the those deep brown eyes exactly the same shade as his for reassurance, or for the guidance and support she could already see he so desperately needed.

      He had been cheated of so much, just as she had, but she was going to do her utmost to make it up to him. As soon as her parole period was up she and Sam would be off the island and begin a new life, a life where no one knew who Cassie was, what she had supposedly done and—even more importantly—whose child she had secretly borne.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE cobbled streets were lit with the occasional lamp post but even so Cassie felt the menacing shadows of the night creeping towards her with every step she took. She shone the narrow beam of the torch Angelica had given her around, but so far she had found nothing but the occasional cigarette butt or gum wrapper. It made her think of her father, how he as the town mayor had orchestrated a campaign to clean up the ancient streets of Aristo, even though his own home had contained the most filthy of all secrets.

      Cassie gave a little shudder and forced the memories back and continued on her mission, her head down, her steps carefully measured as she went as close to the palace as she dared.

      She was no more than three blocks away when she suddenly came up short, her heart thudding in fear as a pair of large male sports shoes were illuminated by her torch. She brought the beam shakily upwards to find Sebastian Karedes, dressed similarly to her in a dark track suit, his eyes unreadable as they meshed with hers.

      ‘Looking for something, Cassie?’ he asked.

      Cassie had never imagined there would be a time in her life when she would have rather met a mugger on a dark street than the man she had once loved with all her being. She had faced fear before, many times, gut-wrenching fear that most people thankfully never had to face. But this was something else again. Sebastian had the power to destroy her in a way even her father hadn’t been able to do. Everything she had fought so long and hard for seemed to be hinged on these next few moments. The tension built in her spine; she could feel it moving up vertebra by vertebra, a vicelike grip that made her stomach crawl with the long spidery legs of apprehension.

      ‘I…I seem to have lost my bracelet,’ she said, lowering the torch. ‘I thought if I retraced my steps I might find it.’

      ‘You left without saying goodbye,’ he said. ‘I was hoping for a few more minutes with you in private. There are some things I would like to discuss with you.’

      Cassie turned off the torch with her thumb in case the soft light showed the fear on her face. ‘I’m not sure it’s such a good idea for us to be seen anywhere together, Sebastian,’ she said. ‘You know what the paparazzi are like. You are about to be crowned as King. It would not do your reputation any favours being seen talking with an ex-prisoner.’

      ‘There is no one about now,’ he said. ‘We could go back to your place. We would not be disturbed there, I am sure.’

      Cassie was glad he couldn’t see the way her eyes suddenly flared in panic. Sam was not the deepest of sleepers. He still occasionally wet the bed, which made him wake up distressed and call out for her. ‘No,’ she said, far too quickly. ‘I mean…it’s awkward…I…I have a flatmate.’

      ‘A man?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘You have no present lover?’

      Cassie felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck start to prickle at the seemingly casually asked question. Unless she turned the torch back on she had no way of reading his expression, and even then there was no guarantee she would be able to decipher what motive lay behind his query. Sebastian was a master of disguising his feelings, if indeed he had any. She had often wondered if his aloofness and slight air of condescension were a guise or an innate part of his personality. She had never quite made up her mind either way. He had been trained from a young age to step up to the throne upon the death of his father, which had occurred only a few months ago. That he was prepared to risk being seen with her was as surprising as it was deeply disturbing.

      Cassie knew she was at risk of revealing too much. She could feel it now even under the cloak of darkness. The pulse of her blood was like thunder in her veins, her breasts felt tight and sensitive, and that secret feminine place he had possessed so many times throbbed with a hollow ache that was almost painful.

      ‘I’ve been seeing someone,’ she lied, hoping it would put an end to the undercurrent of attraction she could feel coming towards her.

      ‘The same person you were seeing when you ended our affair?’ he asked with bitterness sharpening his tone.

      ‘No…someone else.’ Oh, how easily the second lie followed the first, she thought.

      ‘How serious is your relationship with this man?’ he asked.

      ‘Serious enough.’

      ‘Serious enough to risk your freedom?’

      Cassie dropped the torch, but even as she heard it clatter its way over the cobblestones she was unable to move. ‘W-what are you suggesting?’ she asked in a dry croak.

      He bent down and retrieved the torch and, flicking it on, shone it on her face. ‘How about we go back to my private quarters and discuss it?’ he said.

      Cassie blinked against the probe of the torch’s beam. ‘I am not sure there is anything we have to discuss,’ she said, ‘or at least nothing of interest to me.’

      ‘On the contrary, I think it will be of the greatest interest to you,’ he said, and turned off the torch with a click that sounded portentous in the still night air. ‘You see, Cassie, I have something of yours.’

      Yes, well, so do I, Cassie thought wryly, once again glad of the mantle of darkness so he couldn’t read the apprehension on her face. ‘My bracelet?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Do you have it with you?’

      ‘No, it is at the palace.’