Reunited By The Royal Baby. Maisey Yates

a moment she felt like retorting that he might be King but he didn’t have the power to get her to do something she didn’t want to. Except that deep down she suspected her words might lack conviction. And maybe it would do him good to hear a few home truths for once.

      ‘When I met you—you seemed like—well, like a…’ She chose her words carefully because the last thing she wanted him to hear was how completely he had captivated her heart in those few heady days of their romance. Because even if he had lost his memory, she wasn’t stupid enough to think it had been mutual. For her, it had been a life-changing experience. And for him? Nothing more than an agreeable affair with no questions asked. ‘You seemed like a nice guy,’ she finished.

      Casimiro recoiled as if he had been struck. ‘A nice guy?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘You are trying to damn me with faint praise?’

      ‘Oh, what’s the point in raking up all this?’ she questioned tiredly. ‘It doesn’t matter what I say—all I know is that, whatever happens, we can’t get married.’

      His eyes narrowed. ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because we don’t love each other—why, we don’t even like each other!’

      Her insolence and thanklessness almost took his breath away—but he would wait until he had his ring on her finger before he attempted to show her just what he would and would not tolerate.

      ‘We have a child between us,’ he reminded her. ‘A child who is the rightful heir to my throne. A throne that I was about to renounce,’ he added bitterly, the words out before he could stop them.

      Across the candlelight, Melissa stared at him. ‘Renounce your kingdom? But why would you do that?’

      ‘Because I felt trapped,’ he snapped. ‘Unable to live my life as I wished to live it. And my brother also has a son—which is why I was about to relinquish my kingdom to him.’

      ‘B-but you’ve always been heir to the throne,’ said Melissa shakily, trying to assemble all the facts which were jumbling together in her mind. ‘You must have been used to the restrictions it put on you.’

      Of course he had. But he had been able to temporarily forget about those restrictions when he had been living his life to the full. Galloping his beloved horse, or taking out his little sailing boat and skimming it around the island. Or scaling one of the mighty peaks of the Prassino range of mountains over on the eastern side of Zaffirinthos.

      But after his fall, everything had changed and his ‘dangerous’ activities had been curtailed. The people had nearly lost their beloved King, they had argued passionately—and he must ensure that he did not place himself in such a vulnerable position again.

      Casimiro had been able see their point—even if he had not necessarily agreed with it. So that when his brother’s wife had given birth to baby Cosimo, it had occurred to him that he could give his people what they surely desired more than anything. A continuation of the royal bloodline. And his throne to a brother who had always secretly wanted it. And then along had come Miss Melissa Maguire and put paid to all his plans.

      He stared into her green eyes, at the spiky shadows made by her long lashes. ‘Because since my accident so much has been forbidden to me that I feel hemmed in,’ he said grimly. ‘Like the bird about to soar up into the sky suddenly being shut in a gilded cage. Trapped.’

      Melissa swallowed, because—despite his hateful arrogance—she could hear an awful kind of emptiness in his voice. And something in her heart went out to him—made her want to offer him comfort even though he would probably just fling it back in her face. ‘But won’t you feel even more restricted if you have to get married just because you’ve got a baby?’ she whispered.

      His eyes became shuttered. ‘I have no choice in the matter.’

      ‘No choice?’ she echoed, unsure of what he meant. ‘Surely everyone has a choice—even kings?’

      ‘Oh, how naïve you are, Melissa!’ he mocked softly. ‘Zaffirinthian law dictates that no abdication can be made while there is a living direct heir. So, you see, your revelation about…Ben…means that I am no longer free to renounce my throne.’

      She realised instantly—as perhaps he had intended her to realise—that she had effectively trapped him as well. That the baby was yet another bar in the gilded cage he had spoken of. And as Ben’s mother, so was she.

      And trapping him was the last thing she had wanted, or wished for. Yes, he had been harsh and cruel in the wake of her revelation—but, in spite of the pain it had caused her, she could understand his reaction. Yes, he was arrogant and uncaring, but once she had adored him—and she had never set out to snare him. She felt the telltale prickle of tears to her eyes.

      ‘I’m sorry, Casimiro,’ she whispered. ‘So very sorry.’

      It was the bright glimmer of tears which did it. Tears which made her eyes look as bright and as brilliant as emeralds. And their brilliant gleam—combined with the faint lilac of her scent—took him back to a place he’d thought he’d left for ever. The memory which had stubbornly stayed in the depths of his mind now rose to the surface, like a bubble of air set free.

      Emerald stars, he thought. He had once told her that her eyes were like emerald stars.

      He stared into her face. ‘I’ve remembered,’ he said coldly.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      THROUGH the flickering gleam of candlelight, Melissa saw the dawning comprehension in Casimiro’s eyes.

      ‘Remembered what?’ she questioned breathlessly.

      He rubbed his fingertip against the scar at his temple and for one brief moment he felt intense relief as his memory came flooding back, as if someone had just lifted a heavy weight from his shoulders. ‘You. Us.’ She had been telling the truth all along, he realised. She was not just some woman on the make. Not some kind of ‘crazy’ who was stalking him. She was a woman with whom he had enjoyed a brief and heady affair—but one which had never been meant to endure.

      And now? Now their destinies were entwined whether he liked it or not—but let them both be clear about the reality, lest she spin fairy-tale fantasies as women were so prone to do. ‘Except that there wasn’t really an “us”, was there, Melissa? We met at an after-show party and it happened very quickly after that. What was it, three days—or four? I hardly think our few hours of snatched sex would qualify as a grand romance, do you?’

      A few hours of snatched sex. It was as if her memory of that time had been a delicate and intricate glass structure she’d carefully preserved—and Casimiro had smashed it without thought or care. Melissa threw her napkin down over the fast-congealing fish and began to get up.

      ‘Sit down!’ he ordered.

      ‘No, I won’t sit down! I don’t care if I have to walk all the way home—I will not sit here and be insulted by you!’

      He could see that she meant it. He could also see the maître d’ hovering anxiously over in the doorway, but a faint shake of Casimiro’s head was enough to dispatch him. For a moment he was torn between fury at her outrageous insubordination—and a grudging respect for her spirit. ‘Sit down, Melissa.’ He met the unwavering resistance in her eyes. ‘Please.’

      Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of his appeal which made Melissa hesitate—or perhaps it was just the acknowledgement that this was not a word with which he was familiar. She doubted whether kings had to say ‘please’ very much in the normal run of events—and what kind of example was that to set to Ben, who she was determined was going to have the best manners in the world?

      Melissa sank back down into the chair, secretly relieved to rest the suddenly shaky legs which she doubted would carry her outside, let