‘So nothing,’ she said wearily. ‘Whatever moral outrage we might have created all those years ago, it’s nothing to do with me any more. Give me a piece of paper to sign that says I release you from all obligations and be done with it. I’ll sign. I just want to go home.’
‘To a bleak bedsit while you teach kids thousands of miles away from you?’
‘You’ve really done your homework,’ she answered.
‘I have, and you can’t go home. The only thing that would save me-us-is a declaration that Adam wasn’t my child. And you can’t give me that.’
‘No,’ she said softly. She was looking directly at him now, meeting his gaze calmly over the table. She’d done a huge amount of growing up in the years since he’d seen her, he thought. The eyes that gazed at him were those of a woman: thoughtful, intelligent, even compassionate.
‘I wouldn’t ask…’
‘You wouldn’t ask me to make such a declaration?’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘Says he who organized an international kidnapping. Well, maybe you will and maybe you won’t, but it’s not so simple. My mother holds copies of the results of Adam’s DNA.’
‘Your mother…’
‘There you are,’ she said, closing her eyes as if something hurt. ‘I’m not completely without family. There’s still my mother. When you left and everything fell apart she walked out. But she came back when the baby was born. For, of course, she knew who the father was. In the few days after Adam’s birth I was ill-out of it. She told the doctors I’d need DNA samples to prove Adam’s paternity and she took a copy of the results. But I guessed what she intended and was able to stop it.’
‘Stop what?’
‘Blackmail,’ she said flatly. ‘You were newly married. My mother saw Adam’s birth as a great opportunity to make serious money.’
Hell. Maybe he would have paid, too, he thought, thinking back to Christina as a new bride. She’d been jealous right from the start. News of Holly’s baby would have blown them apart.
‘It’s okay,’ Holly said wearily. ‘Or it was okay. My mother had just met another man. He had serious money and was giving her a good time. But there were things in her past I knew that…’ She shook her head. ‘No. It doesn’t matter. But it meant that if she exposed you I could expose her right back. She knew her relationship would crumble if I talked, so she had a choice-shut up and enjoy her new lifestyle or take a chance on blackmailing you. She chose to stay.’
‘Whew,’ he said.
‘Yeah, whew,’ she agreed grimly. ‘But if your reporters are fishing round now…my mother’s situation has changed. She’ll remember that piece of paper. Would the reporters pay?’
Would they ever? And if King Zakari found out…Yes, money would be offered. Serious money.
‘She’ll tell,’ Holly said bleakly. ‘I’m sorry, Andreas, but I can’t help you.’
‘Then it comes to this,’ he said heavily, thinking his options through and accepting the course of action Sebastian proposed was the only one that could possibly work. ‘We brazen it out. We say, yes, we were kids. We tell the public I didn’t know about the baby but now I do I’ll make reparation. We’ll stand in front of my people with our heads high, Holly. But it’s as I suggested on the beach. We’ll stand together as man and wife.’
CHAPTER FIVE
SILENCE. Silence, silence and more silence.
Maybe he should have gone down on bended knee, Andreas thought as the silence stretched out. Maybe he should have handed over a diamond almost as big as the missing Stefani stone.
Or maybe not. He watched a host of emotions sweeping over Holly’s face and he thought no, he had to play this straight. And he had to stay up his end of the table. For there was anger- unmistakable wrath. He didn’t want to risk another slap.
‘This is a real proposal,’ he said as the silence stretched out and the tension became almost unbearable. ‘I’d marry you in all honour.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. The words had been meant to come out as bitter sarcasm, he thought, but they broke mid try and ended up almost a frightened squeak.
‘It’s the only solution.’
‘For who? There’s two people in this equation.’
‘I could settle your father’s debts. I know you’re feeling honour bound to meet them. I could remove that pressure and more.’
That was enough to take her breath away. She pushed herself back in her chair and gazed at him as if he’d produced a hand gun. ‘How do you know?’
‘I know all about you,’ he said, forcing his voice to be gentle in the face of what seemed almost to be terror. ‘From the time we had the whisper about the baby my brother’s had investigators working round the clock.’
‘Your brother.’
‘Sebastian. Heir to the throne of Aristo. If this blows up then he loses the throne.’
‘You all lose the throne,’ she whispered.
‘My siblings and I are mere princes and princesses.’
‘Mere,’ she said, mocking now. She pushed herself to her feet. ‘Don’t do this, Andreas. You can’t buy me.’
‘I knew ten years ago that I couldn’t buy you,’ he said ruefully. ‘Do you remember I asked you to continue to be my mistress?’
‘And do you remember my answer? I would have thought you could still feel it.’
‘I do,’ he said ruefully and touched his ear-an ear that many years ago had been soundly boxed. ‘But this isn’t then, Holly, and it’s not an affair I’m asking. I’m offering marriage.’
‘And I’m supposed to be flattered. You haul me here-’
‘Why don’t we forget about the kidnapping?’
‘Why don’t we?’ she jeered. ‘Four thugs drag me forcibly from my home and dump me here and then you calmly propose marriage…Yeah, forget the first bit, think, Ooh, the great Prince Andreas of Karedes has asked me to marry him, swoon, swoon, of course, Your Majesty, how could you ever think I could refuse?’
‘You don’t think that maybe you’re getting carried away here,’ he asked dryly. ‘It wouldn’t be
‘Christina got out of the marriage pretty fast. How many women did you have on the side while you were married to her?’
‘These things are understood-’
‘In royal marriages,’ she snapped. ‘Not the marriages I know.’
‘What marriages? The one-sided affair your parents had? And you…How much experience have you had? And you’re hardly likely to marry for love now.’
Uh oh.
She’d moved behind her chair and was holding onto it as if she needed its support. Her knuckles were so stretched he could see the white of the bone under her taut skin. Maybe he’d gone too far…
‘So I’m an old maid as well as everything else,’ she hissed. ‘A fallen woman; a spinster past my use-by date. Expected to fall on my knees in gratitude at your very generous offer.’
