Sharon Kendrick - Society Secrets

But this wasn’t supposed to be about her!

She stripped Ben off and gave him a rapid bath in a few inches of tepid and soapy water before putting his nappy back on—but by now he had begun to grow furious.

‘Shh, darling. Shh,’ she soothed as he jerked his head away from his second-best T-shirt. But all her pacifying was to no avail and she was soon engaged in a classic mother and baby battle. Normally, she would have given in gracefully—deciding that it wasn’t worth falling out over a different taste in clothes.

The sound of the doorbell stopped her in her tracks and Melissa felt that uncomfortable mixture of excitement and dread begin to grow. Casimiro. When he had telephoned and told her that he was flying to England, she hadn’t really believed it. Hadn’t dared believe it in case it hadn’t happened. For hadn’t there been a part of her which had wondered if he might just try consigning her to oblivion? Waiting to see what she would do next.

Well, it seemed that he was true to his word because he was here. Casimiro was here!

‘This is very important, darling Ben,’ she whispered as she scooped the baby up in her arms. ‘There’s a very important man at the door.’ He’s your Daddy, she thought, her heart thundering as she went to answer it.

From his position on the grubby doorstep, Casimiro waited impatiently for Melissa to let him in—even though he wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the prospect. From the moment the car had pulled up outside the poorly built apartment block—and he’d tapped impatiently on the window and asked the driver if he’d made some kind of mistake—his senses had been shaken to the core.

A letter was missing from the communal sign on the wall and there was a smashed window on the fourth floor, which someone had repaired with a piece of cardboard. Scorched brown earth stood where grass should have been and a wilting tree was the only vegetation in sight. He had seen the two bodyguards accompanying him look around in alarm but he had ignored their repeated requests to drive on.

‘I need to be here,’ he stated resolutely.

‘But, Majesty.’

‘Enough!’ he clipped out. ‘You will wait here in the car until I return—do you understand?’

Clearly they could tell he meant it—though it was equally clear they didn’t like it. He had made sure he’d looked as incognito as possible for this visit to see the boy who Melissa claimed was his flesh and blood, but one thing was for sure—what Casimiro had seen had taken him by surprise.

During his life, he had travelled as much as his role as heir apparent allowed—and his father had seen to it that every summer he had been schooled by tutors from a variety of different countries. Of course he knew that he was immensely privileged and wealthy—and of course he knew that not everyone enjoyed such a rarefied standard of living as he did. But he had never known anyone on a personal level who actually lived like this.

It didn’t get any better. The stone stairwell leading to Melissa’s flat was dark and dank and the paint on her front door was peeling. His mouth curved as he uttered a silent prayer that the whole thing had been some kind of terrible error. That in the fortnight since she’d left Zaffirinthos she’d discovered the identity of the real father. And it wasn’t him. Some postman perhaps. Or a man who worked in the local garage. Anyone but him.

Jamming his thumb on the doorbell, he was forced to wait what seemed like an age until Melissa appeared at the door holding a squirming baby who seemed only half dressed.

‘I’m s-so sorry,’ she stumbled. ‘Ben’s had a bit of an accident.’

‘An accident?’ he bit out, feeling an instinctive chill of alarm.

‘Oh, nothing serious. He’s just tipped yoghurt over himself and is furious because he had to have an emergency bath and now he’s refusing to let me dress him.’

Casimiro frowned. He was no stranger to babies—for didn’t Xaviero and Catherine have the infant Cosimo, whom he saw from time to time? But Cosimo was always drafted in on high days and holidays—looking immaculate in crisp white romper suits embroidered with blue silken rabbits or little yellow aeroplanes. Once he had seen his nephew after his bathtime but he looked nothing like this angry little creature—with his red cheeks and mop of dark curls. And the idea that he could possibly be the father of this little boy became more far-fetched by the minute.

‘May I come in?’ he questioned curtly.

‘Yes, yes—of course. Do—please—come in.’ She hated herself for caring—but naturally she cared how Casimiro saw her little home. Yes, it was humble and, no, she had neither the time nor the funds to attempt an extensive and expensive redecoration of a place she didn’t want to be living in for much longer. But she had done her best with what she’d got—and for that she was grateful to the artistic eye that her boss was always raving on about.

There were bunches of cheap flowering pot-plants from the market crammed into funky little containers, a pot of coffee bubbling away and everything was as clean and as tidy as it had ever been…except for the spilt yoghurt on the high chair, of course.

Casimiro stepped over the threshold and his towering height and general air of powerful male dominance were enough to make Ben look at his mother in alarm and then open his mouth and begin to howl.

‘Shh, Ben—it’s all right. The man won’t hurt you. Shh, darling.’

Perplexed, Casimiro stared at the bawling baby whose eyes were tightly squeezed shut and who seemed to be building up to a crescendo of tears while Melissa just stood there, chewing at her lips and looking completely powerless to stop him. He didn’t know what made him do it but suddenly he expelled a low but surprisingly piercing whistle—the kind he had used to summon his beloved horse before he’d had the damned accident.

Suddenly, the child quietened. Opened his tear-filled eyes with a mixture of surprise and alarm and stared straight into Casimiro’s face.

And Casimiro found himself looking into amber eyes a shade lighter than his own.

A shiver travelled up the entire length of his spine. A tiptoeing of some emotion he couldn’t have described with any word from his extensive and multilingual vocabulary. Perhaps shock was there. Yes, definitely shock. And recognition, too. For Casimiro might have been described by his enemies as stubborn and arrogant—but he was not a fool. And instantly he recognised the amber eye colour which had run through his aristocratic family tree since his ancestors had first settled on the idyllic Mediterranean island of Zaffirinthos.

Melissa found herself regarding the profile of the man who dominated her small sitting room while unable to stop a sense of hope from fizzing through her veins as she saw his body suddenly tense.

‘What…what do you think?’ she questioned anxiously.

Casimiro turned to her. And as the possible consequences of his discovery began to dawn on him his sense of bitter frustration increased. Could this…this sturdy little scrap of humanity really be his? And yet, given the evidence of his eyes—could he belong to anyone but him? He saw the eagerness which had crumpled Melissa’s lips and he thought that she looked like a stall-holder at the end of an unprofitable market day—who sensed that they were about to make their biggest sale of all.

‘Perhaps you could be a little more specific?’ he said tightly.

The tone didn’t sound hopeful—but Melissa refused to quieten the small prayer which was running through her mind.

‘About…’ She didn’t want to say ‘your son’—not now, not when he was here. It seemed a little presumptuous, under the circumstances. ‘About Ben,’ she finished, with a quick, apprehensive smile.