AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘BEN, Ben…’ Too late, Melissa reached for the pot of organic raspberry yoghurt her son was waving in the air—just in time to see it spill in a pink and lumpy cascade onto his dark curls. ‘Oh, Ben!’ she cried in horror.
‘Den!’ came his ecstatic response, because he hadn’t yet got to grips with the letter B, and he fixed his mother with a gappy, happy grin.
Melissa plucked him out of his high chair and sent an agonised glance at the clock which was ticking on the wall. Only fifteen minutes before Casimiro was due to get here and the little boy she’d dressed so carefully was covered in gunge and smelling like a fruit sundae. His woefully inadequate bib was now sodden and she rued her decision to feed him this close to the King’s arrival—but she hadn’t bargained on him deciding that he was hungry and deciding that he was going to have a screaming paddy if he didn’t have some pudding.
And if you hadn’t been gazing at yourself in the mirror—you might have realised that he was about to dress himself in yoghurt.
Trying to calm the worryingly baleful expression in his wide amber eyes, she began to remove the ruined clothing. She’d been having a last minute look at herself only because she’d been so busy—frantically trying to make Ben look like the best-dressed and most well-adjusted baby in the world. So that she’d barely had time to do anything about her own appearance. And realising too late that she looked awful. Just the way she always seemed to look awful when Casimiro was around.
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.
&
nbsp; ‘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.’
