Secret Child, Royal Scandal. Cat Schield

couldn’t bring herself to drop this bomb on her son until she figured out if having Christian in his life would benefit him. “Prince Christian would like to be your friend.”

      His little face screwed up in suspicion. “Does he like dinosaurs?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “Can he play football?”

      “I’m not sure.” Noelle suspected Marc had a list of activities he wanted to know about and smoothly redirected the conversation. “You’ll have to ask him what he likes to do when you see him next.”

      “Will he get me a Komodo dragon?”

      In addition to being obsessed with dinosaurs, Marc had a fascination with lizards and had received a twenty-gallon tank and a seven-inch leopard gecko from her dear friend Geoff for his fourth birthday. Since then, Marc had been lobbying for a bearded dragon, which would be twice the size of his current pet and require double the space.

      “You know very well that a Komodo dragon is not a pet. They are seven feet long.”

      “But he could keep it at the palace, and I could visit it.”

      As wild a notion as this was, Noelle wouldn’t put it past Christian to buy his son’s love with a new pet. She would have to warn Christian against such a purchase. The last thing she needed was a houseful of tanks containing lizards.

      “That’s not going to happen.” She steered the conversation back on track. “Prince Christian might come to visit in the near future and if you have anything you want to know about that, I want you to ask me.” She brushed a lock of hair off Marc’s forehead and stared into his gold eyes. “Okay?”

      The way her son was looking at her, Noelle suspected she’d bungled the conversation, but to her surprise she wasn’t barraged by questions.

      “Okay.”

      “Good. What do you want me to read tonight?”

      Unsurprisingly he picked up a book on dinosaurs. Marc enjoyed looking at the pictures as she read the descriptions. Noelle knew he had the entire volume memorized. The cover was worn, and a few of the pages had minor tears. Her active son was hard on most things, and this book was one of his favorites.

      It took half an hour to get through the book. Marc had forgotten all about Christian’s visit by the time Noelle reached the last page. To her relief he settled down without a fight, his head on the pillow. A glance at the clock told her it was not long past his normal bedtime, and she congratulated herself on her minor victory.

      Downstairs, her mother had opened a bottle of her favorite Gavi, a crisp Italian white with delicate notes of apples and honey. She handed Noelle a glass without asking if she wanted any.

      “I thought you might be in the mood to celebrate,” Mara said, eyeing her daughter over the rim of her glass.

      Resentment burned at her mother’s passive-aggressive remark. “Because Christian discovered I’ve been hiding his son all these years?” She snorted. “For the thousandth time, I’m not in love with him.”

      Mara didn’t argue. “What are his intentions toward Marc?”

      “He wants to get to know him.”

      “And that’s all?”

      “Of course. What else could there be?” Noelle had gone outside and shut the door before her conversation with Christian had gone too far, and knew her mother hadn’t overheard anything. Still, she experienced a flash of despair as she recalled how Christian had raised the notion of legitimizing Marc by marrying her.

      “The kingdom needs an heir. Now that both Prince Gabriel and Prince Nicolas are married, the media are obsessively speculating who your Prince Christian will choose to marry. The pressure is all on him to produce a son.”

      “He’s not my Prince Christian,” Noelle muttered, letting her irritation show.

      “And now he knows he has a son.”

      “An illegitimate son.” Noelle wanted to take back the reminder as soon as her mother’s eyes lit with malicious delight.

      “And here you are single and Sherdanian. Not to mention still harboring unrequited feelings for him.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to marry Christian so that he can claim Marc as his heir.”

      Her mother didn’t look convinced. “Wouldn’t it be your dream come true?”

      “You were living in Italy when I met Christian, so you don’t know what it was like between us. He’s not husband material, and I’m not going to marry him because he needs an heir.” Noelle heard heartbreak beneath the fervor in her voice. Five years had passed, but she hadn’t fully recovered from the hurt dealt to her when Christian pushed her out of his life.

      It wasn’t something she intended to forgive or forget.

      * * *

      The café table on his cramped, third-floor balcony was big enough for a cup of coffee and a small pot of hot pink petunias. Christian sat on one of the two chairs, ignoring the laptop balanced on his knee while he stared down the narrow street whose details were lost to shadow at this early hour. Thoughts on the encounter with Noelle the night before, he watched the light seep into this old section of Sherdana’s capital city of Carone.

      Although Christian had rooms in the palace for his use, he rarely stayed there, preferring the privacy of his own space. He’d lost track of how many homes he owned. He did business all over Europe and had apartments in the major cities where he spent the most time. He owned two homes in Sherdana: this cozy two-bedroom apartment in the center of the capital where he could walk to bakeries, cafés and restaurants, and a castle on a premier vineyard two hours north of Carone.

      After discovering he was a father, Christian had lain in bed, staring at the ceiling while his thoughts churned. Eventually he’d decided to give up on sleep and catch up on his emails. Nic and Brooke had gotten married on a Wednesday, which meant Christian had lost an entire day of work. He usually worked from home until late morning. His active social life kept him out late most evenings, and if he saw the sun come up, it was more likely that he was coming home after a long night rather than getting an early start on the day.

      Despite his good intentions, he couldn’t concentrate on the reports that had been compiled by his CFO regarding his purchase of a small Italian company that was developing intelligent robot technology. The columns of numbers blurred and ran together as his mind refused to focus.

      Noelle had borne him a son and hidden the truth for five years, a pretty amazing feat in this age of social media. Last night, as he’d driven back to the apartment, he’d been furious with her. It shouldn’t have mattered that he’d let her believe he wanted their relationship to end. She’d been pregnant with his child. She should have told him. And then what? He’d thought letting her go to pursue her dream of being a designer in Paris had been the best thing for her. What would he have done if he’d known she was pregnant? Marry her?

      Christian shook his head.

      It wouldn’t have crossed his mind. She’d known him well. Better than he’d known himself. As the third son, he’d had little responsibility to the monarchy and could do what he wanted. So he’d partied to excess, made a name for himself as a playboy, indulged his every desire and thought no further than the moment.

      The accident had changed all that. Changed him. He’d risked his life to save someone and had been permanently scarred in the process. But the fire that had ravaged his right side had wrought other changes. His selfless actions had impaired his hedonistic proclivities. Made him aware of others’ needs. Before the accident he’d enjoyed being selfish and irresponsible. Losing the ability to act without recognizing the consequences to others had been almost as painful as the slow mending of his burns.

      Thus, when he arranged for Noelle to train in Paris, he’d known that letting her think he no longer