The Royals Collection. Rebecca Winters

meant by his words, but there was no question they were intended to wound. And she wasn’t about to stand by while anyone tried to hurt Demyan.

      She pushed open the door to what turned out to be a very impressive masculine study and crossed to Demyan’s side quickly.

      His dark gaze flared with something that looked like worry before pleasure at her presence sparked to life, as well. “Hello, sérdeńko.”

      “What are you doing here?” the king asked with his usual less-than-warm attitude toward her.

      “The reception was getting too loud.”

      “You cannot abandon your responsibilities as a hostess on a whim.”

      “Really? Then what are you doing back here?” she asked with enough sarcasm to be mistaken for her sister. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it your name on the invitation listed as host of this party?”

      Demyan laughed, taking her hand and pulling her to his side. “You make an excellent case, little one.”

      Everyone in the room except Chanel showed differing levels of surprise at his humor. The king recovered first, giving her a grudging look of respect when she’d expected a frown and polite dressing-down.

      She had a lot of experience with both and a lifetime realizing she was no good at taking the path of least resistance, even if it meant avoiding them.

      “Point taken,” King Fedir said. “We should all be getting back.”

      “Does she know yet?” the duke asked, his expression calculating, his tone undeniably malicious.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHANEL DIDN’T ASK what he meant, or even acknowledge the man had spoken.

      He’d done it in Ukrainian. Somehow she doubted Demyan had been into sharing confidences with the older man, which meant the duke had no idea she understood the language. That made his choice to converse in it pointedly without courtesy.

      “You will be silent,” the king replied in the same language to his brother-in-law, his tone harsh.

      Ignoring both posturing men, Chanel smiled up at Demyan. “I missed you.”

      “Oh, how sweet,” Princess Svitlana said in a tone that made it clear she thought it was anything but.

      Demyan’s expression was an odd mixture of tenderness and a strange underlying anxiety as he looked down at Chanel. “I am very proud of you. Not many science geeks would do so well at an affair of state with so little training.”

      “You assigned a very potent group of babysitters.”

      His nostrils flared as if her words surprised him.

      “You didn’t think I realized you’d asked them to watch over me?” Once she had, she’d felt very well cared for.

      Demyan would never leave Chanel to sink or swim in the shark-infested waters of his life.

      “I could not be with you the entire time,” he said by way of an explanation.

      Not that she’d needed one. “Because you’re a prince.”

      “It’s a nominative title only,” his birth mother said with more venom, in English this time. “He’s no more a prince than you are a well-bred princess.”

      Chanel gave the older woman a measure of her attention, but kept her body and clear allegiance toward Demyan. “I am not a horse and I wasn’t born in a breeding program. While I won’t claim to be a princess, Demyan is definitely a prince.”

      “He won’t inherit. Not now that Princess Gillian is carrying the next heir to the throne.”

      “But he is the king and queen’s son. That makes him a prince.”

      “I gave birth to him,” the duchess said.

      Chanel found it odd that the duke never verbalized his claim at fatherhood. “Congratulations.”

      “Are you mocking me?”

      “No. I don’t know what your other children are like. Hopefully more like their older brother than their parents, but I do know you gave birth to an amazing man in Demyan. I’m sure you are very proud of that accomplishment, but you aren’t his mother any more than I am a princess.”

      “Oxana is my mother,” Demyan asserted with absolute assurance.

      “And you would do anything for her and the man you consider your father, even marry some socially backward American scientist to protect the Yurkovich financial interests.” She said scientist as if it was a dirty word.

      Chanel almost smiled. She’d never considered her vocation as beyond the pale before.

      “That is enough, Svitlana.” The king’s tone was again harsh, his expression forbidding.

      “Oh, so you haven’t told her?” Duke Zaretsky asked snidely, clearly ignoring his king’s evident wrath and this time taking evident pleasure in speaking English. “I could almost feel sorry for her. She gave up hundreds of millions of dollars by marrying you and she doesn’t even know it.”

      There could be no doubt the duke was talking about Chanel, but the words made absolutely no sense.

      “I didn’t give up anything and gained everything marrying Demyan,” she fiercely asserted.

      The duchess looked at her pityingly. “You have no idea, but no matter what kind of prenuptial agreement these two convinced you to sign, until you spoke your vows three hours ago, you were a twenty-percent owner in Yurkovich Tanner.”

      “I wasn’t. My great-great-grandfather left his shares to the Volyarussian people.” He’d told her great-grandmother so in a letter still in Chanel’s possession, along with the family Bible.

      “And they have been used to finance infrastructure, schools and hospitals since then,” the king assured her.

      She smiled at him, holding no grudge for his unwelcoming demeanor. “I know. I did some research when I got the scholarship. Your country is kind of amazing for its progressive stance on the environment and energy conservation.”

      “I am glad you think so.”

      “That money was yours,” the king’s sister insisted. “Until you married my son.”

      The claims were starting to make an awful kind of sense, but Chanel had no intention of allowing the two emotional vultures in front of her to know about the splinters of pain slicing their way through Chanel’s heart.

      She simply said, “He’s not your son.”

      “Would you like to see your grandfather’s will?” the duke asked, clearly unwilling to give up.

      Two things were obvious in that moment. The first was that there had to be some truth to what the duke and his wife were saying. If there wasn’t, Demyan and the king would have categorically denied it.

      Also, they were both way too tense now for the claims to be entirely false.

      Second, whatever the duke and Princess Svitlana’s motives for telling Chanel, it had nothing to do with helping or protecting anyone. Her least of all.

      In fact, she was fairly certain their intention was to hurt the son who had finally made a public alliance with the family who had raised him.

      She turned away from the duke and duchess to face Demyan. “Tell me your siblings don’t take after your egg and sperm donors.”

      Duplicate sounds of outrage indicated the Zaretskys had heard her just fine.

      Demyan didn’t respond, an expression she’d never seen in his eyes. Fear.

      She wasn’t sure what he was afraid