Society Secrets. Sharon Kendrick

could you? She’d tried it when she arrived yesterday. According to her aunt, Ben had kept trying to snatch the handset and hurl it to the ground—and once he’d worked out that it was his mother at the other end of the line he had burst into noisy howls of rage.

      Instead, Melissa packed her small suitcase—layering in her jeans and her tops and her work-clothes. Afterwards, she stripped off her clothes and took a shower—telling herself that tomorrow night she would be standing beneath the half-hearted splutter of tepid water in her tiny bathroom at home and to make the most of this unparalleled luxury while she had the chance.

      But it was hard to be enthusiastic in such circumstances and the powerful jets of water and the lavish array of soaps and shampoos did little to distract her swirling thoughts. Plan A had been to tell Casimiro about Ben—and that had failed spectacularly. She didn’t even have a Plan B.

      Towelling herself dry and raking a comb through the dark wet strands of her hair, Melissa pulled on the oversized T-shirt which had been given to her by one of her clients and which she now wore as a nightie. She’d just finished boiling the kettle to make herself a cup of herbal tea when there was a low but insistent knocking at the front door, and she glanced at her watch and frowned.

      Getting on for two o’clock—surely Stephen wouldn’t come calling this late?

      The tapping resumed and her heart began to pound—because unless it was the dreaded Orso about to kick her off the complex, there was only one person Melissa could imagine knocking this late.

      Tiptoeing over to the door, she drew a deep breath. ‘Who is it?’

      ‘Who the hell do you think it is?’

      He didn’t sound like a king when he said that, and when Melissa pulled open the door, he didn’t much look like a king either. In those faded denim jeans which showcased his endlessly long legs and a black T-shirt emphasising the muscular wall of his torso, he looked more like some off-duty film star.

      But the way he strode past her and then kicked the door shut with an impatience he couldn’t conceal was pure royal arrogance and anger.

      As he turned to face her, trying to control the ragged rage of his breathing, Casimiro’s eyes scanned her in disbelief. Her long dark hair was drying in some kind of wild cloud around her head and she was wearing an awful shapeless grey garment which carried a picture of a giant cell phone and asked the question: Are You Turned On?

      His lips curved in distaste—but the tacky sentiment must have subliminally registered in his subconscious because he started noticing that her long legs were completely bare. And that she had no polish on her toes. And that her small breasts were pushing against the fabric of her T-shirt—their shape outlined and their tips as hard as tiny diamonds.

      It was inexplicable and ridiculous that he should find such a woman attractive and yet he would have been a liar if he had denied the stab of desire which began to tug at his groin.

      But he swiftly pushed that from his mind—acknowledging that her extraordinary statement had somehow managed to influence him and that he had stopped short of giving his abdication speech. How dared she? How dared she?

      ‘Wh-what are you doing here?’ she questioned as she met the blaze of fury which sparked from his amber eyes.

      What indeed? Hadn’t the faint drift of her lilac scent been as much a driving force as his need to call her bluff and establish that she was nothing but a fantasist? ‘I want to know what it is you want from me,’ he demanded.

      ‘I want you to be part of your son’s life.’

      ‘No.’ He shook his dark head. ‘You’re missing the point. You don’t seem to realise that your little fantasy is a complete waste of time. Get real, why don’t you?’ Amber eyes iced into her. ‘You see—you are the last person who would ever be the mother of my child.’

      She stared at him in confusion. ‘What…what are you talking about?’

      ‘Weren’t you listening earlier?’ He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘I tend to climb a little higher up the social ladder when I’m choosing lovers, cara.’

      Don’t react to his insults, she told herself fiercely. Because that’s what he wants you to do. You need to hang onto every shred of self-control you possess. Because this had now transcended everything other than her fight for her little boy and she was like an angry tigress protecting her cub. Let him say what he liked about her—but she would hold firm in her conviction. Tilting her chin in defiance, she felt the drying strands of her thick hair falling down her back as she met his arrogant stare—no longer cowed by the distaste that she met in the amber eyes.

      ‘But other than my obvious social unsuitability to cavort with a monarch—there are no other reasons?’ she questioned coolly.

      ‘Oh, there are plenty,’ he demurred silkily. ‘I like my women blonde. And curvy. You’re neither. In addition, I expect them to dress exquisitely. In fact, the kind of woman with whom I’m intimate puts only the finest silk-satin and lace lingerie next to her body.’ His lips curved in derision as they flicked over her T-shirt. ‘Not something which might be worn by someone living by the roadside.’

      Still she didn’t react, even though she felt as if he were aiming darts at her heart. Destroying all the feelings she’d once had for him—feelings she’d allowed to grow as Ben had grown. She’d remembered his kindness to her. His tenderness when he’d held her in his arms. In her head, she had built on those memories, brick by brick. She had nurtured a fantasy man in her imagination, she realised—because the real man was nothing but an arrogant and hurtful bastard.

      ‘So my hair’s the wrong colour, my body’s the wrong shape and I dress like a tramp.’ Melissa paused and then looked at him boldly. ‘Anything else you’ve missed?’

      Casimiro frowned, because her persistence was surprising. By now she should have caved in. Started blubbing and giving him some hard-luck story about how she really needed money. She wanted financial aid for an ailing donkey sanctuary. She was battling to preserve a rare butterfly threatened by the proposed new road which would raze through its natural habitat. She was sorry to have invented such a far-fetched story but she was desperate…

      ‘Actually, yes.’ His voice was stealthy now. ‘I always use protection when I make love to a woman.’ He saw her cheeks grow pink. Would this graphic truth be enough to get her to back down? he wondered. ‘There’s a general consensus, you see—which deems that my seed is precious stuff. More precious than most.’ His mouth twisted into a knowingly sarcastic smile. ‘It’s a King thing.’

      She paused for a moment to let this outrageous comment die away. ‘So why are you here?’ she questioned quietly.

      Again, her general unflappability when faced with his unmistakable anger slightly wrong-footed him. Why was he here? If he had really believed that she was some cheap con-artist then she wouldn’t have got within a million miles of him. So why? Why was it that when he looked at her, he felt the faint tug of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on? Something which felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

      Since his accident—when his life had hung in the balance for days—so many of his usual pastimes had been curtailed that it felt an age since he had tasted danger. But he could taste it now. It seemed to linger in the air about him—tantalising him—just as the highest jump on one of his beloved horses had always tantalised him.

      He hadn’t ridden since the accident—but now came enticement in a different and unexpected form. Not blonde. Not petite, nor curvy—but bold and brunette with long, long legs and eyes which were the greenest he had ever seen. Almost emerald…Once again he felt the distant tug of something nebulous—some tantalising memory which hovered just out of reach.

      He touched the tip of his tongue to his upper lip, slid it slowly over the surface. ‘Maybe I came looking for something to nudge my memory,’ he said softly.

      She hadn’t realised what he