Claimed: Secret Royal Son - Marion Lennox

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looked about fifteen.

      But then, ‘I’m hoping he’s here to organise paternity payments,’ she told Spiros, and he stopped thinking of what she looked like.

      ‘He’s your baby’s father?’ Spiros demanded.

      ‘He is. This is Alexandros, Prince Regent of Sappheiros.’

      If he’d expected a bit of deference he would have been disappointed. Spiros’s aggression simply doubled. Tripled. And the gasp from the woman at the cot was one of indignation and affront.

      ‘So where the hell have you been?’ Spiros demanded from below. ‘Alexandros of Sappheiros. A prince of the blood, leaving Lily alone with a child…What were you thinking?’

      This was crazy. He didn’t need these accusations.

      He should go down.

      Not with the amount of aggression directed at him, he decided. He could talk a lot more reasonably from up here. Especially if he kept his back turned to Madam Fury.

      ‘I searched for her,’ he told the boat-builder, trying to keep his voice moderate. Reasonable. ‘You know I did.’

      ‘Once,’ Spiros said, and spat his disgust. ‘You came here once. If she’d been my woman I would have hunted her to the ends of the earth.’

      ‘I’m not his woman,’ Lily retorted.

      ‘He’s the father of your baby,’ Spiros countered, pugnacious. ‘Of course you’re his woman.’

      ‘Times change,’ she said softly. ‘You know they do. Spiros, I need to talk to him.’

      ‘Then talk,’ he said, glowering. ‘Go on. But, prince or no prince, remember he has no rights here. Leave your window open and call us if you need us.’ And with a humph of indignation—and a meaningful and warning stare at Alex—he turned his back on him.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      HE WAS off balance. He shouldn’t have entered Lily’s apartment. It made him feel like a criminal.

      What Spiros had said made him feel like a criminal.

       Leaving Lily alone with a child…

      How the hell was he supposed to have known?

      He heard heavy boots on the stairs. Lily’s boots? The door swung open. He turned to face her but she ignored him, making a beeline for the cot.

      Michales was still asleep.

      Alex waited. He still didn’t look at the baby. He couldn’t. This was still too big to take in.

      Lily though…He could watch Lily. She’d been doing hard manual work. Building boats. He’d heard it before and he’d been hearing verification all week but until now he hadn’t believed it.

       Mia’s sister?

      Finally satisfied her son was safe, Lily turned to the woman.

      ‘Thanks, Eleni,’ she said. ‘I can take it from here.’

      Then, as the woman gave him a cold stare and huffed her way out of the door, she turned to him. ‘So,’ she said, coldly formal, ‘what right do you have to walk in here?’

      She was angry! There were two sides of that coin.

      ‘I might ask the same of you,’ he snapped. ‘Entering my palace, stealing the Crown Prince.’

      ‘He’s not the Crown Prince and you know it.’ She tugged her cap further down over her shortcropped curls. It really was…ridiculous.

      ‘You had no right…’ he started, but she crossed her arms over her breasts as Eleni had and glared, lioness guarding her cub.

      ‘I have every right. You can’t have him.’

      ‘I’m not saying I want him.’

      ‘No,’ she said, and then again, ‘no.’ Defiance turned suddenly to uncertainty. ‘I don’t…’

      ‘Know what you want? That makes two of us. Would you mind telling me what the hell is happening?’

      ‘Why should I?’

      ‘For a start, you’ve implied I’m this baby’s father. Am I?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said, as if it didn’t matter.

      It mattered. He’d been working on this, the worstcase scenario, all week, but it still made him feel ill.

      Again he couldn’t look at the cot. He just…couldn’t.

      ‘So you sold him to Giorgos and Mia.’

      ‘I’d never sell him. He’s mine, and if you think you’re taking him…’

      ‘I’m not here to take him, but I have the right to know what’s going on,’ he snapped back and she made an almost visible effort to get a hold on her anger.

      ‘Just tell me,’ he said. ‘You owe me an explanation.’

      ‘I owe you nothing,’ she flashed, and then closed her eyes. ‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘Not that you deserve an explanation, but here goes. I met you, I slept with you and I got pregnant. But I couldn’t care for Michales so Mia took him. She and Giorgos told the world he was theirs. I thought they were adopting him. They didn’t even do that, which has made my task of reclaiming him a whole lot easier.’

      ‘You’re saying you didn’t even check what they were doing?’

      ‘That’s right,’ she said flatly, not even bothering to be defensive. ‘I was ill during the pregnancy and I trusted Mia to care for him. I was a fool. Take it or leave it. It’s the truth.’

      He couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make sense. ‘Mia told the world she was pregnant months before Michales was born.’

      ‘Did she?’ She sounded uninterested.

      But he was working things out in his head. ‘Mia said she didn’t want anyone to know of her pregnancy until she was sure she wouldn’t miscarry,’ he said slowly. ‘By the time it was announced, she was five months gone. She was staying in the most exclusive private hospital she could find—abroad, as far from Sappheiros as she could get. Was that so she could bribe people to say your baby was hers?’

      ‘I don’t know. I don’t care.’

      What the hell…? ‘Lily, I’ve had enough,’ he snapped. ‘To be party to such a fraud…’

      ‘Am I supposed to explain?’

      In the cradle behind her, Michales was stirring. Whimpering.

      Michales.

       He had a son.

      He’d known for a week. But he needed more time to take it in. A year or so. More.

      And into his jumble of emotions came Lily. She was aggressive and uncooperative. But underneath…

      There was a reason he’d fallen for her, he thought. Beneath her anger she looked…vulnerable. And very, very desirable. Despite the overalls and the crazy cap. Despite the steel-toed boots.

      She made him feel…

      Yeah, that was what had got him into this mess in the first place, he told himself savagely. Leave feelings out of it. Find out facts.

      Like why she hadn’t told him she was pregnant.

      ‘Did I deserve this?’ he asked slowly into the silence. ‘That you not tell me you were expecting my child?’

      ‘I tried to tell you.’ She sounded tired. Flat.

      ‘I don’t believe you.’

      ‘I phoned.

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