Best Friend To Royal Bride / Surprise Baby For The Billionaire. Annie Claydon

status as if they didn’t exist. All she cared about was that she hadn’t known his name.

      ‘King is a translation of König. Alex is my middle name…’ He ventured an explanation.

      She shook her head. ‘I thought I knew you, Alex…’

      There was no point in telling her that a lot of people changed their names, or that a lot of people came from unhappy families. Marie was hurt that he’d never told her about any of it before. Maybe if she’d known his father she would have understood a little better.

      ‘Rudolf König was the name my father gave to me to remind everyone who my family was. I wanted to make my own way in life, Marie, and to be measured by what I’ve done.’

      ‘Yeah. I see that.’ She was staring fixedly out of the window and didn’t turn to face him.

      ‘Then…?’

      ‘Give me a minute. I’m processing.’

      Okay. Processing didn’t sound so terrible. If Marie could come to any conclusions then he’d like to hear them, because all he’d felt since he’d heard about his father’s will was that he was being dragged back into a life from which he’d previously torn himself. Money and status had soured his parents’ lives, and it already felt like it was slowly squeezing all the joy out of his.

      She turned slowly, leaning back against the windowsill and regarding him thoughtfully.

      ‘So…it’s still Alex, is it?’ Not Your Majesty…?’

      ‘You don’t need to rub it in, Marie. Who the hell else do you think I know how to be?’

      Her face softened and she almost smiled. It was one step towards the warmth that he craved.

      ‘Sorry.’ She pressed her lips together in thought. ‘Who knows about this?’

      ‘A few people that I know from school. No one here. But it’s not a secret. I just don’t talk about it.’

      She turned to face him, her eyes full of violet fire. ‘Isn’t that what secrets are? Things you keep from your friends?’

      ‘I never lied.’ He heard himself snap, and took a breath. ‘I want the clinic to be about the work and not about me.’

      ‘It is about you, though. You built it.’

      ‘I facilitated it. I want people to talk about the things we do here, and talking about who I am is only going to divert attention away from that.’

      Alex decided to leave aside the fact that he really didn’t want to talk about who he was, because that would be a matter of reopening old wounds.

      Marie was nodding slowly. It was time to take a risk.

      ‘If you’re not interested in a job here you can always just walk away.’

      She pursed her lips. ‘I never said I wasn’t interested.’

      Good. That was a start. He knew she’d seen the possibilities that the clinic offered, and maybe it was a matter of getting her to look at those and not at him. Not at the friend who’d broken the rules and kissed her. The friend who’d never told her about where he came from.

      ‘This is the deal, then. This clinic is a flagship development, which is funded and run entirely by a trust I’ve set up with part of my inheritance. I don’t want it to be the only one of its kind; it’s intended that what we do here will be a model for future clinics all over the country. In order to achieve that we’ll need to attract extra funding from outside sources.’

      ‘You always did think big, Alex.’

      He saw a flicker of excitement in her eyes. That was exactly the way he wanted to feel.

      ‘I want you to share that vision with me as my co-director for the whole project. This clinic and future developments as well. You’ll be able to dictate policy and do things on your own terms.’

      She stared at him. ‘Me? You want me to do that?’

      Marie hadn’t said no yet. He resisted the impulse to laugh and tell her that she could do anything she set her mind to doing. He was offering her the job on purely business grounds and he had to treat this conversation in that light.

      ‘Your professional experience in A&E and diagnostic wards makes you ideally suited to the work here, where we’re suggesting effective therapies and ways forward for patients. And you’re not afraid of a challenge.’ Alex allowed himself the smallest of smiles. ‘That’s one thing I happen to know about you.’

      ‘This would be the first time I’ve taken on a management role.’ Marie gave a little frown, obviously annoyed that she’d betrayed a little too much interest. ‘If I decide to take the job, that is.’

      ‘We already have a practice manager on board. She’s very experienced and can advise on the practical aspects. It’s your vision that matters, and your knowledge of what this community needs.’

      ‘Is that your way of saying that you don’t understand “poor people” and I do?’

      She crooked two fingers to indicate quotation marks. There was a touch of defiance in her tone, and it would be very easy for Alex to say that the thought had never occurred to him.

      ‘I think you understand some of the issues that people who live in this neighbourhood face. I want to formulate policies that are appropriate and which are going to work. If you want to boil that down to understanding poor people then be my guest.’

      She grinned. He hadn’t given her the expected answer, but it had been the right one.

      ‘I think I could help…’

      ‘I don’t want you to help. This is a full partnership and I expect you to tell me what’s wrong with my thinking.’ He could trust Marie to do that. Their friendship was founded on it.

      ‘It’s a big step for me, Alex. I need to think about it.’

      ‘Of course. Take as long as you like.’

      Alex knew that Marie wouldn’t take too long; she was nothing if not decisive. If she said no then that would be the end of it. But if she said yes then maybe, just maybe, she’d save him from being the man his father had wanted him to be and make him into the one he wanted to be.

      By the time she got home Alex’s email was already in her inbox, with a full job description and a detailed brief of his plans for the clinic appended. It took a while to read through it all, and Marie didn’t finish until the early hours. She decided to sleep on it.

      But sleeping on it didn’t help, and neither did extending her usual running route around the park to almost twice the distance. Neither did staring at the wall or surfing the internet.

      She wanted the job—very badly. It would give her a chance to shape policy and to be part of a bold initiative that promised to be a real force in helping people to live fuller and better lives.

      But Alex…

      Before she’d kissed him, before she’d known that he wasn’t who he’d said he was…

      That wasn’t entirely fair. Thinking back, he’d never actually said anything about who he was. If it hadn’t occurred to her to ask if his father was an immeasurably rich king in exile then maybe that was a lapse in imagination on her part.

      But it still felt as if she’d kissed a man she didn’t really know at all and had let herself fall a little in love with him. A future working closely with Alex seemed fraught with the dangerous unknown.

      By Sunday evening she’d distilled it all down. There was no doubt in her mind that this was her dream job, but there were three things she wanted to know from Alex. Could he forget the