Sharon Kendrick - The Royal Baby Revelation

‘Remember what?’

Casimiro’s harsh question broke into her painful thoughts and Melissa felt her body jerk as the memories cleared and she found herself back in the present, standing beneath the imperious gaze of the man with the amber eyes in a banqueting hall full of the world’s movers and shakers. But this was no longer the anonymous lover who had kissed her so passionately in her little bedsit—but a distant and remote stranger sitting on his kingly dais.

She met the icy question in his eyes. ‘We’ve…we’ve met before, Your Majesty.’

‘And?’

Melissa blinked, confused now. ‘So you…you do remember?’

Casimiro gave a little click of disapproval as he pulled his speech from his jacket pocket and prepared to wave her away.

‘Do you realise how many people I “meet” in the course of my working life?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘And while they will each remember every detail of our encounter, most of their faces are, to me, simply a blur. What was it? Some official line-up you were on? Some catering college I was visiting?’

‘No. You don’t understand.’ Shaking her head, Melissa could see the look of surprise in his eyes as she contradicted him, but she was fearless now. This was her last chance, she realised. Her very last chance.

‘What don’t I understand?’ he asked, dangerously.

‘This was different.’

Casimiro tensed, half wondering if she was one of that thankfully rare breed of women who stalked famous men—and whether he had been foolish in granting her access. But something in the way she was looking at him made his eyes narrow and his heart began to pound. He glanced over to where Orso was clearly poised to terminate the conversation at his behest. At the guards who stood in the shadows and could be summoned at a moment’s notice. ‘Go on.’

Melissa was aware that he was in full view of everyone in the banquet hall. And that there seemed something terribly wrong about disclosing something as big as this before the curious gaze of an international audience. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather go somewhere…a little more private.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve already had more than enough concessions. You’ve got your opportunity—which is precisely two minutes—to tell me what all this damned mystery is about.’ His mouth hardened. ‘And it had better be good.’

Her voice was trembling but somehow she got the words out. ‘Our meeting was very different from most you must encounter, Your Majesty—or, at least, I’m assuming it was. It was back in the summer nearly two years ago—in England—at a party during a tour of the Zaffirinthos marbles. In fact, we did more than meet. Much more. As it happens, we had a short affair and, as a consequence…’ She saw the disbelief and the anger which was beginning to blaze from his amber eyes ‘…as a consequence, I…I have a little son. Or, rather, we have a son. What I should say is…you have a son, Your Majesty.’

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