Reunited By The Royal Baby. Maisey Yates

I offer you coffee?’ she questioned politely.

      ‘I haven’t come here to endure pointless social niceties.’

      ‘So I’ll take that as a no?’

      His eyes narrowed, for he did not like that hint of sarcasm in her soft English voice. He did not like it one bit. ‘I have come here to discuss your extraordinary claim.’

      For a moment there was silence and Melissa knew that she could dance to his particular tune all evening. Both skirting around the inevitable with nothing being achieved except more and more layers of confusion. She looked into his amber eyes, knowing that she should probably feel cowed by his mighty presence in her humble home. Or slightly ashamed at the ease with which she had let him seduce her for a second time. But in truth she felt neither. Motherhood took as much from a woman as it gave—but what it infused you with more than anything was the urgent need to fight for what was your child’s right.

      ‘Except that it’s not so extraordinary now that you’ve seen him, is it?’ she questioned quietly.

      Her cool challenge took him slightly off guard. ‘Meaning what, precisely?’

      ‘You can’t deny the eyes.’

      ‘The eyes?’

      He’s deliberately misunderstanding me, thought Melissa despairingly. ‘I’ve never seen eyes that colour on anyone else but you.’

      He gave a short and bitter laugh. ‘You might have trouble standing that up as a valid argument in a court of law!’

      ‘C-court of law?’

      Sensing her sudden uncertainty, he struck. ‘Of course. You must surely have thought through the fact that this is not an ordinary paternity claim?’

      ‘I don’t…I don’t understand.’

      ‘Don’t you?’ Casimiro saw her bewilderment and felt a rush of triumph. Let her have something else to fill her head with other than thoughts of his memory loss! ‘Did you really imagine that you could approach a king…’ he paused, deliberately ‘…and announce that you had given birth to his son—and that he and all his people would rejoice at the news?’

      ‘I thought…I thought…’

      ‘What did you think, Melissa?’ ‘That you might be—’

      ‘What?’ he demanded. ‘Pleased? Delighted? The proud papa eager to introduce his offspring to the world?’

      His cruel comments deflated her growing sense of defiance, but her mother-love could see nothing but joy in her little boy. ‘I thought that you would be pleased, yes—once the initial confusion had died down.’

      ‘Initial confusion?’ he echoed furiously. ‘Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what this is going to mean?’

      She stared at him, remembering his initial assessment of his son. Is this how he always greets guests? How callous was that as a reaction—when confronted for the first time by the delicious little scrap which was Ben? And suddenly, Melissa thought that maybe no father was better than this father—because what child deserved a man who seemed incapable of any kind of real feeling?

      ‘It needn’t mean anything at all,’ she said fiercely. ‘You’re not happy about the news—fine! I’ve done my duty and told you—but we don’t need you, Casimiro. We’ve managed without you up until now and we can manage without you again. Your wish is about to come true. You can go away from here now and forget about what I’ve told you and we will never bother you again.’

      A grim smile hardened his mouth. He waited—because she was playing the inevitable game of the successful negotiator: the long, long pause before naming terms. ‘So how much?’ he questioned softly.

      ‘How much?’

      ‘Do you want me to pay you?’

      There was a moment when she really didn’t understand what he was talking about. When he might as well have been speaking in Greek. Until she saw the cynical golden gleam from his eyes and then she cottoned on, her heart lurching in her chest.

      ‘You think I’m blackmailing you?’

      ‘That’s a rather dramatic way of putting it, Melissa. I think that “buying your silence” is the generally more acceptable term in these circumstances.’

      Acceptable? Acceptable? Melissa found herself remembering the old childhood rhyme: Sticks and stones can break your bones but words can never hurt you. Who were they kidding? Words like the ones Casimiro was firing at her felt like poisoned arrows firing straight into her heart. ‘You think that I want money from you?’

      ‘Well, don’t you?’ he questioned coolly, his gaze flicking around the room in a disparaging assessment. ‘I think that if I were in your position, I would.’

      Suddenly Melissa saw her home through his eyes. The tired furniture, which no amount of bright cushions could disguise. The too-low ceilings and the windows which had obviously been low-budget when they’d been put there—but which now badly needed replacing. It was cheap. Everything in the place was on the cheap—which was why she was living here. But what would this cold-hearted beast of a man know about poverty?

      ‘I don’t want your money!’ she said proudly. ‘I don’t want anything from you!’

      ‘Well, we both know that’s a lie,’ he drawled. The amber eyes gleamed at her in provocative taunt and Melissa felt colour flaring in her cheeks. How base of him to allude to that frantic coupling back on Zaffirinthos—when she’d welcomed him into her body even though he clearly despised her and all she stood for.

      ‘Will you please go, Casimiro?’

      ‘But we haven’t made any decisions yet.’

      ‘There are no decisions to be made. You obviously don’t want to know your son and I don’t want your money. End of story.’

      ‘Oh, but that is where you are wrong, cara mia.’ Without warning, his hand snaked out and caught her—pulling her into the hard, muscular length of his body.

      ‘Casimiro!’ she gasped.

      ‘The story, you see, is only just beginning,’ he continued resolutely, as if she hadn’t spoken.

      ‘Wh-what are you talking about?’

      ‘You think that you just drop a bombshell like that and then walk away from the devastation you’ve wreaked?’

      ‘Devastation?’

      ‘Sí.’ Leaning forward, he caught the tantalising drift of lilac mixed in with soap, and yoghurt—and he felt the lustful jerk of his body in response to this strange cocktail of scents. ‘If the boy—’

      ‘Ben.’

      ‘Ben,’ he agreed reluctantly—because a sudden image of that angry little face swam uncomfortably into his mind. ‘If he is mine—then it is going to have all kinds of repercussions on his future.’ And on mine, he thought grimly.

      ‘What kind of repercussions?’

      His mind clearing, he looked down at her, at the wide-spaced eyes which today looked so incredibly green—possibly because the light in her apartment was so dim. At the trembling lips and the skin which looked markedly translucent because she’d tied her hair back in a ponytail. She was tall for a woman and she wore jeans which emphasised those long, long legs—and suddenly he remembered them wrapped around his naked back. Remembered her little gasps of pleasure as he thrust into her. And his own delicious completion which had followed.

      ‘What kind?’ she repeated.

      Her eyes looked suddenly very bright and the soft lower cushion of her lips made him want to sink right into them. Surely there could be some pleasurable outcomes