The Future King's Love-Child. Melanie Milburne

the post?’ she asked.

      ‘Not unless you want to take the risk of it being mislaid or perhaps even stolen,’ he said. ‘I would prefer to hand it over to you face to face. It looks rather valuable.’

      ‘It is,’ Cassie said, her heart sinking as she realised she would have no choice but to accompany him back to the palace. They had met in secret so many times in the past, just the thought of doing so again conjured up so many intimate images. She wondered if Sebastian was revisiting any of them in his own mind.

      ‘Come.’ He placed a firm hand at her elbow. ‘There is a back entrance to the palace a couple of blocks from here.’

      Cassie reluctantly fell into step beside him, her flesh burning under the touch of his hand. They walked in silence, she because she didn’t know what to say and he—she assumed—because he was waiting until he had her somewhere secluded to discuss whatever he had planned for her. That there was a plan she was in no doubt. Proud men like Sebastian Karedes did not take rejection on the chin, and her rejection of him had been particularly cruel.

      Sebastian led her through a wrought-iron gate where an aide was waiting. They exchanged a brief exchange before the man led the way to a suite of rooms down a long, marbled corridor. The walls were lined with generations of the Karedes family; all their eyes seemed to be following Cassie as she walked soundlessly by Sebastian’s side.

      The aide opened a door leading into a private lounge. The furniture was modern and, although the palace was centuries old, somehow the mix of old and new worked brilliantly.

      ‘So, Cassie,’ Sebastian said once the aide had closed the door on his exit. ‘This is like old times, is it not?’

      Cassie searched his features for a moment but couldn’t read his inscrutable expression. ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ she hedged, although her mind had already taken a wild guess.

      He reached out and lifted her chin with the blunt end of one of his long fingers. She felt a shiver of reaction cascade like a shower of exploding fireworks down her spine at that jolt of skin-to-skin electricity passing from his body to hers. It had always been this way between them. The air in the room was charged with the electric tension of sexual attraction. She could see it in the dark, brooding intensity of his gaze; she could sense it in the sensual curve of his mouth and, God help her, she could feel it in the core of her body where her intimate muscles were already starting to ache.

      ‘You and I always met in secret, did we not?’ he said, looking down at her mouth for a pulsing moment. ‘I see no reason to change that now.’

      Cassie stepped back out of his light but eminently disturbing hold, her legs almost tripping over themselves in her haste to put some distance between her body and his. ‘You are surely not suggesting we resume our illicit affair?’ she said in a brittle keep-away-from-me tone.

      He gave a little shrug. ‘We were good together, Caz,’ he said, using the private nickname he had chosen for her all those years ago. ‘You know we were.’

      Cassie wanted to cover her ears and block out the sensual lure of his deep velvet-toned voice. God, did he have any idea of how he still affected her? How could he possibly think she had forgotten how good they had been together? The moment she had set eyes on him again it had been as if the faint background pulse in her body she had done her best to ignore had suddenly come to fervent life again. It was thumping now beneath her skin, so strong and heavy it made her feel dizzy.

      She had been so strong for all this time. Now was not the time to fall apart. Not now when she was so close to final freedom. She had just a matter of weeks to go until her parole period was finished. Once that time was up she would leave Aristo with Sam, making a new life for them both. This was not the time to be drawn back into Sebastian Karedes’s sensual orbit, no matter how very tempting it was.

      Cassie pulled back her shoulders and sent him a glittering glare. ‘You seem to be forgetting something, Sebastian. We ended our association six years ago.’

      ‘You ended it, Cassandra. I did not,’ he said with an unmistakably embittered edge to his voice.

      Cassie lifted her chin even higher. ‘I can still call you Sebastian, can’t I, or would you prefer Your Royal Highness? Should I have bowed or curtsied when I ran into you on the street? How very remiss of me.’

      Something moved at the side of his mouth as if her words had pulled on a tight string beneath the skin on his jaw. ‘Sebastian will be fine,’ he said through tight lips. ‘At least while we are alone.’

      This time it was Cassie’s mouth that went tight. ‘I do not intend being alone with you in future,’ she said with a deliberately haughty look. ‘Please give me back my bracelet. I need to get home.’

      His eyes burned into hers. ‘You are forgetting yourself, Cassie,’ he said. ‘That is not the way to speak to a member of the royal household. I will dismiss you when I see fit, not the other way around.’

      ‘What are you going to do about it, Sebastian?’ she asked, throwing him another mocking glare. ‘Lock me up in the palace tower and throw away the key? I’m sure I’ll institutionalise rather quickly considering where I’ve spent the last few years, don’t you agree?’

      He held her gaze for an interminable pause but Cassie was determined not to look away first.

      She could do this.

      She could stand here and fire back at him without breaking down.

      She had to do this.

      His expression was nothing short of contemptuous as he held her look. ‘Your anger towards me is rather misplaced, Cassie,’ he said. ‘You were the one to bring an end to our affair by flaunting a host of lovers in my face. If anyone has a right to be angry it should be me.’

      Cassie gave herself a mental kick. He was right. She had told him a parcel of lies in an attempt to get away from the island, never dreaming it would backfire on her the way it had.

      ‘Is that not correct, Cassie?’ he prompted again with steely purpose.

      She pressed her lips together and lowered her gaze from the searing probe of his. ‘Yes…’ she said. ‘That is correct.’

      ‘Is that who you are rushing off to return to now?’ he asked. ‘One of your many lovers? No doubt you are keen to make up for lost time, ne?’

      Cassie now understood what it felt like to be hoist with one’s own petard and it wasn’t particularly comfortable. ‘There is just the one person I care about now,’ she answered.

      There was a short but tense pause.

      ‘Do you intend to marry this man?’ he asked.

      Cassie brought her eyes back to his. ‘No, I do not.’

      She saw the disdain in his gaze as it warred with hers, and, although he didn’t say the words out loud, she could hear them ringing in the stiff silence.

      Whore.

      Slut.

      Jailbird.

      ‘I want to see you again,’ Sebastian said with a masklike expression. ‘Here, tomorrow, for lunch, and do not think about saying no.’

      Cassie felt her eyes go wide and struggled to control her escalating panic. ‘I-I’m working at the orphanage t-tomorrow,’ she stammered. ‘We’re short staffed as it is. I can’t just breeze out for lunch.’

      His stance was implacable. It was clear in the months since his father had died Sebastian had become accustomed to having each and every one of his words obeyed. ‘I will have my personal secretary notify the head of the orphanage that you have an official appointment at the palace.’

      Cassie gave a tight swallow. ‘What will the press make of that if they hear about it?’ she asked.

      ‘They will not hear about it from me,’ he said. ‘If on the other hand you get it