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This was what she should have done at the beginning. She had to make amends now—to all the people she’d involved. ‘And please don’t blame Tony for losing track of me. It wasn’t his fault.’
‘Your protection officer has no idea where you’ve gone. He’s clearly incompetent. He has been dismissed.’
‘But it’s not his fault.’ Eleni’s voice rose. Tony had been with Eleni for years. He had a wife and two children. He needed the work. ‘I told him—’
‘Lies,’ Giorgos snapped. ‘But it is his fault that he lost track of you. His employment is not your concern.’
‘But—’
‘You should have thought through the consequences of your actions, Eleni. There are ramifications for all the people of Palisades. And Santa Chiara.’
Twin tears slid out from her closed eyes. She would make it up to Tony somehow. Another atonement to be made.
‘How do I stop a scandal here, Eleni?’ Giorgos asked.
She cringed. Was that what mattered most—the reputation of the royal family? But she knew that was unfair to Giorgos. He was trying to protect her. It was what he’d always done. Too much.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said dully. ‘I take full responsibility. I will be in touch when I can.’
She ended the call before her brother could berate her any more. She turned and saw Damon casually leaning against the back of the sofa as if he were watching a mildly entertaining movie.
‘Did you have to listen in?’ Angered, she wiped the tears away. ‘You know they’ll have traced the call.’
‘And they’ll find it leads to some isolated shack in Estonia.’ He shrugged. ‘I work in the tech industry, Eleni. They won’t find us in the next few days, I promise you that. We’re hidden and we’re safe.’
‘What, this is some superhero space boat that can engage stealth mode?’ She shook her head. ‘They’ll be checking the coastline.’
‘And we’re already miles away from it and your brother knows you’re not under duress. You’ve shocked him, Eleni. I’m sure he’ll wait to hear from you. The last thing he’ll want now is the publicity from mounting a full-scale search and rescue operation.’
She’d shocked Giorgos. Once he’d got past that, the disappointment would zoom in. She was glad she wasn’t there to see it.
‘There’s one option we haven’t talked about,’ Damon said expressionlessly. ‘It is early enough in the pregnancy for termination to be—’
‘No,’ she interrupted him vehemently.
She had such privilege. She had money. This child could be well cared for.
And it was hers.
That was the thing. For the first time in her life she had something that was truly, utterly her own. Her responsibility. Her concern. Hers to love and protect. No one was taking it away from her. There was a way out of this if she was strong enough to stand up to her brother’s—and her nation’s—disappointment. And she was determined to be.
‘I’m not marrying Prince Xander,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m not marrying you. I’m not marrying anyone. But I am having this baby.’ She pulled herself together—finally feeling strong. ‘I have the means and the wherewithal to provide for my baby on my own. And that is what I will do.’
‘Do you?’ Damon looked sceptical. ‘What if Giorgos cuts you off completely? How will you fend for yourself then?’
‘He wouldn’t do that.’ Her brother would be beyond disappointed, but he wouldn’t abandon her. She should have trusted him more, sooner.
‘Even so, what price will you pay for one moment of recklessness?’ Damon badgered. ‘The rest of your life in disgrace.’
‘I could step away from the spotlight and live in one of the remote villages.’ She would ask for nothing from the public purse.
It was the personal price that pained her. She’d let her brother down in both public and private senses. But she would not let this baby down. She’d made her first stand, and now she had to follow through and not let Damon block her way either.
‘So that’s your escape neatly done,’ he noted softly. ‘But what price will my child pay if you do that?’
She flushed, unsettled by his cool sarcasm. He made it sound as if she was thinking only of herself, not her baby. But she wasn’t. She’d understood what he’d said about a child growing up with all that expectation and wasn’t this a way of removing that?
But he clearly considered that she’d been stifled and cloistered and, yes, spoilt. He thought her behaviour with him at the ball a direct consequence of that. Maybe he was right. That flush deepened. She loathed this man.
‘I’m not marrying you,’ she repeated. She couldn’t.
* * *
The absolute last thing Damon Gale wanted to do was marry—her or anyone—but damn if her rejection didn’t just irritate the hell out of him. What, was his billionaire bank balance not good enough for her spoilt royal self?
He’d sworn never to engage in even a ‘serious’ relationship. But the worst of all possible options was a ‘politically expedient’ wedding. Yet now he was insulted because, while she’d agreed to a political marriage once already, she was adamantly refusing his offer. Why? Because he wasn’t a prince?
‘I’ll never let you use my baby for your political machinations.’ He glared at her.
All she did was stick her chin in the air and glare back.
His body burned and he paced away from her. That damned sexual ache refused to ease. Heaven only knew why he wanted this woman. But it had been like this since the moment he’d first seen her at that ball. To his immense satisfaction, he’d had her—there and then. He’d immediately wanted more, but then she’d fled.
Now he’d finally found her again, yet within moments of getting her alone on his boat he’d totally lost control and done exactly what he’d promised himself he wouldn’t. He’d touched her. Instead of verbally tearing her to shreds, he’d pressed his mouth to her until she’d warmed like wax in his hands. Pliable and willing and ultimately so wanton and gorgeous. It had taken every speck of self-control to not claim her completely there on the sofa.
He knew he could use this mutual lust to get the acquiescence to his proposal he needed, but he wanted more than her gasping surrender. He wanted her to accept that he was right. Poor little princess was going to have to marry a mere man. A man she wanted in spite of herself, apparently.
‘What were you thinking at that ball?’ He couldn’t understand why she’d taken such a massive risk. Was it just lust for her too or had there been more to it? Had she been trying to sabotage that engagement? But to throw away her virginity?
‘Clearly I wasn’t. What were you thinking?’
He leaned back against the wall. He’d been thinking how beautiful she was. How something vulnerable in her had pulled him to her.
‘I tried to find you because I realised the condom had torn, but you’d vanished from the ball like a—’ He broke off. ‘I was on a flight the next day. I came back several times, but couldn’t find any information about you. I asked—’
‘You asked?’
‘Everyone I knew. No one had seen you there. You never went back into the ballroom.’ He shook his head and asked again. ‘Why did you do it?’
Her shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug.
He hesitated but in the end was unable to stop the words coming out. ‘Did you even think of trying to get in touch with me?’
Her beautiful face paled. ‘I didn’t know your name. I wasn’t about to run a search on all the guys who’d been at that ball. I couldn’t risk anyone suspecting me. How could I tell anyone?’
‘How hard would it have been to go through that guest list?’ he asked irritably. ‘To identify men between a certain age? To look at security footage? You could easily have found out who I was, Eleni. You just didn’t want to.’ And that annoyed him so much more than it should.
‘If I’d tried to do that, people would have asked why.’
‘And you didn’t want them to do t
hat, because you’d already made a promise to another man.’ He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. ‘I’ve seen those “official” photos. They weren’t taken the day after you slept with me. They were taken before, weren’t they?’
She couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘Yes.’
Damon’s blood pressure roared. ‘Yet you never slept with him.’
‘You’re going there again?’
‘But you kissed him?’ He pressed on, relentless in his need to make his point.
‘You can watch it on the news footage.’
He had already. Chaste, passionless kisses. She’d looked nothing like the siren who had writhed in his arms and pulled him closer, begging him with her body. The Princess that Damon had kissed was hot and wanton.
‘The only time you kiss him is when there are cameras rolling?’ He moved forward, unable to resist going nearer to her. ‘You don’t kiss him the way you kiss me.’
She flung her head up at that. ‘Are you jealous?’
So jealous his guts burned right now. ‘He doesn’t want you,’ he said bluntly.
Something raw flashed across her face. ‘What makes you say that?’
He stopped his progress across the room and shoved his fists into his trouser pockets. ‘If he wanted you the way he ought to, then he’d have moved heaven and earth to find you already. But he hasn’t found you. He hasn’t fought at all.’
That engagement was a political farce, so he had no reason to feel bad about cutting in and claiming what was already his. They’d sacrifice a year of their lives in sticking it out in a sham of a marriage until the baby was born. That was the only solution. Lust faded and there sure as hell was no such thing as for ever. Princess Eleni here was just going to get over her snobbishness and accept her marriage, and her divorce. And that he was no prince of a man.
* * *
Eleni inwardly flinched at that kicker. Because there it was—the cold, unvarnished truth.
Her fiancé didn’t want her. Her brother found her an irritant. She had no worthwhile job. And now that her ‘purity’ was sullied, she’d no longer be desired as a prince’s wife anyway. ‘I guess my value’s plummeted now I’m no longer a virgin,’ she quipped sarcastically.
‘Your value?’ Damon’s eyes blazed. ‘He shouldn’t give a damn about your virginity.’
His anger surprised her. ‘In the way you don’t?’
A different expression cut across his face. ‘Oh, I care about that,’ he argued in a slow, lethal whisper.
