The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

      No one can know. Those had been her whispered words as she’d let him into her room, before placing her fingers to her lips and pointing to the adjoining door that led to the room her chaperone—sorry, companion—had been sleeping in.

      It had been like a game. A game with unimaginable consequences.

      ‘You forget who rules this land. This isn’t a democracy; my father’s word is law. There is nowhere to turn for appeal.’

      ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ Nathaniel held onto his veneer of calm by a whisker. ‘Is this revenge for Jenna?’

      A twitch passed over Dominic’s face. ‘This has nothing to do with Jenna.’

      ‘I would hope not. It was nearly twenty years ago.’

      ‘And in another twenty years I will still hate you for it. Jenna was mine.’

      ‘What can I say?’ Nathaniel shrugged. ‘She threw herself at me.’

      The all-girls’ sixth form college that shared their boarding school’s facilities had been invited to the Christmas party. Hormones had run rife.

      They’d been caught semi-naked when Dominic had burst into the room. The house master had quickly arrived and broken up the fight before any real damage could be done. Both boys had been hauled before the headmaster. Dominic had been sent to bed. Nathaniel, whose family had neither titles nor power or even much money, had been expelled on the spot.

      He’d been sent back to France and back into the care of his uncle and his uncle’s wife.

      That night of hijinks and hormones had lit the fuse to a chain of events that continued to affect his life to this day.

      It sickened him that that one incident had the potential to ruin Catalina’s life too.

      ‘You’ve always been an obnoxious, arrogant ba—’ Dominic seemed to remember they had an audience, glancing at his bodyguard who stood propped against the wall in the corner of the room.

      His face as red as a tomato, Dominic continued, ‘This is not about Jenna or my sister. This is about the House of Fernandez.’

      ‘Catalina’s a loyal member of it.’

      ‘Not with a bastard in her belly she isn’t. Unless you marry her and legitimise the pregnancy, she will be nothing. She will be worth nothing.’

      Nathaniel thought hard and quickly. Dominic’s demand that he marry Catalina came from his father, the King.

      The threat to his business interests in Monte Cleure was bad enough but Catalina...

      Her safety and the safety of the tiny cluster of cells in her womb were not things he could play a game of chance with. If she was carrying his baby...

      ‘Tell me what your future plans are for her,’ he demanded.

      ‘You and Catalina will be married long enough for the child to be born and the child’s legitimacy to be unquestioned. A year should do it. Then you will divorce and Catalina will publicly repent a hasty marriage with a worthless piece of scum. Your marriage won’t just legitimise the child it will legitimise her and allow us to find a suitable husband for her.’

      ‘You’ll marry her off again?’ He shook his head, incredulous that the King and his heir would go to such lengths. ‘She really is nothing but a possession to you.’

      A smug look settled on Dominic’s face. ‘Catalina is in agreement with this. She knows her place and her position.’

      Speaking through gritted teeth, Nathaniel said, ‘If I agree to this I want full rights to the child.’

      ‘You forget who is in control here.’

      Nathaniel leaned forward and stared hard at the Prince. ‘I can walk out of this building and onto my jet and you’ll never see me again, and there is nothing you or your henchman can do about it.’

      Dominic swallowed.

      Nathaniel bit back a smile of contempt. For all his swagger and cruelty, the Prince was as hard as an overset blancmange. Inches shorter than him, Dominic had turned soft and flabby over the years. He would probably hit the twenty-stone mark before he hit the age of forty. His henchman was muscular and used to throwing his weight around but Nathaniel would bet his fortune the bodyguard wasn’t used to the fight being brought to him.

      ‘If Catalina confirms your claims then I will marry her, but only if my rights as a father are guaranteed and as long as you understand I will not spend one night under the roof of your palace.’

      If she was pregnant—and he had no reason to think Dominic was lying; it was too fantastical for the Neanderthal to dream up—then he was going to be a father.

      Now the whole of Dominic’s face contorted. ‘On that we are in agreement. You think we want scum like you living in the Royal Palace of Monte Cleure? While you two are married, Catalina will live with you. You can both consider it an additional punishment.’

      Knowing that to spend another minute with Dominic would result in him smashing his fist into the Prince’s face, Nathaniel got to his feet. ‘Tell your father I will come to the palace this evening to discuss things... On second thought...’ He pulled out his phone and held it up. ‘I will tell him myself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bed to fall into. Please, see yourselves out.’

      And with that, he headed off to his sleeping quarters, smiling grimly when he heard the front door slam shut.

      The smile lasted seconds.

      The pounding in his head seemed to have turned into a pneumatic drill.

      * * *

      Catalina sat in the private family drawing room, drumming her nails against the hardwood of the armchair and staring blankly at the walls. She’d been sitting there, as ordered by her father, for over two hours.

      Her father’s anger at the situation, although less violent than her brother’s reaction, had been fearsome to behold. After twenty-five years of impeccable behaviour, the perfect daughter had blown the engagement he’d spent decades engineering. Then, having been found another suitable husband, she’d promptly added to the humiliation by getting pregnant by a notorious womanising commoner. Her apologies for the shame she’d brought on the family had fallen on deaf ears. She doubted he would ever forgive her.

      ‘You’ll have to marry him,’ he’d said coldly. ‘That’s the only way we’ll be able to mitigate the negative publicity of you getting pregnant like a common whore. And you will not refuse. You will marry that piece of garbage and legitimise the bastard growing in you.’

      She’d stood there, taking the abuse, refusing to show any emotion but inside she’d screamed.

      Her child was not a bastard. Her child was innocent.

      And Nathaniel might be a womaniser but he wasn’t garbage. He’d worked for his fortune, not had it handed to him by an accident of birth.

      The Christmas festivities had gone ahead as planned but the atmosphere had been toxic. She didn’t doubt the entire palace knew of her situation, most likely thanks to Marion, who’d spent Christmas dinner throwing her faux sympathetic glances. As if she didn’t know Marion, who thrived on secrets and intrigue and loved to spy, had been the one to tell her brother.

      Catalina’s hopes that a good night’s sleep would soften her father’s attitude had been dispelled when he’d dispatched Lauren, his private secretary, to her rooms that afternoon. Lauren had informed her she was to dine alone with only Marion for company in the family room and then wait there until further notice.

      Dominic had well and truly poisoned their father’s mind against her. It gave no satisfaction that it had taken twenty-five years for him to achieve this feat.

      Marion’s spying and sneaking skills had come into their own. She’d abandoned her post for twenty minutes, returning to inform her that Nathaniel