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How she’d do all of that with a child she had no idea, but she’d work it out. First, and most important of all, was getting that child back where he belonged. With her.
Solace slowly leaned over the side of the bed and reached for her clutch.
Behind her, Galen shifted, his arm tightening.
She froze, trying not to breathe. If he woke up now, it would ruin everything.
If only she’d done this last night, it would have been easier. She should have stayed awake until he’d gone to sleep and then taken some pictures. But she hadn’t. She’d gone straight to sleep, lying warm and sated in his arms.
You were a fool.
Yes, and now she had to make up for it.
She waited until Galen’s breathing had evened out, then reached for the clutch again. This time he didn’t move so she was able to grab the bag and extract her phone. Typing in her code to unlock it, she pulled up the camera app and switched it to selfie mode.
It was a good phone, one she’d paid for with the blood money the Kalitherans had put into her account after she’d let them take her baby away. Because her old one was cheap, and the camera was terrible, and she’d needed a good camera if she was going to do this properly.
Putting her head back down on the pillow, she lifted the phone, holding it so Galen’s face was clearly in the shot while hers was mostly out of it, leaving only her pale hair and a bare shoulder so people knew exactly what was going on here.
Taking pictures of him was wrong. It was a gross breach of his trust, of his privacy, and she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to blackmail him either.
But she’d exhausted every other avenue she could think of. She had to have her baby back, fix the terrible mistake she’d made in giving him up. Because while she might be a bad mother, she knew what it was like to grow up without one, and surely even a bad mother was better than none at all.
Maybe not. Maybe he’s better off here. Maybe he’s better off without you.
No, she didn’t believe that. She couldn’t.
Her hand shook as she fumbled for the button to take the picture, so the first shot was blurry, but through sheer force of will she steadied it and took a few more. Then she lowered the phone and shut her eyes, her heartbeat racing.
There, it was done. The photos would automatically go into her cloud storage, and she could access them anywhere from there. She already had a list of media organisations she knew would be more than happy to receive them.
But taking the pictures had been one of the easier parts of this mission. Now, she had to face the hardest part of all: blackmailing a king.
There was movement behind her, and she only had time to take a sharp, surprised breath before she was pulled over onto her back, her wrists taken in strong hands and pinned to the pillow on either side of her head. An extremely powerful male body shifted between her thighs, holding her down, and then she was looking up into a pair of furious blue eyes.
‘What are you doing?’ Galen demanded.
Ice flooded through her, freezing her solid.
His gaze went to the phone she had still clutched in her hand and back again. ‘You took pictures.’
‘I didn’t, I—’
His head lowered, blue fire in his eyes, his voice low and very, very dangerous. ‘Do. Not. Lie. To. Me.’
Fear wrapped icy claws around her throat and for a second all she could do was lie there, flattened by the force of his rage.
Remember what he did. He might be a king, but you are a mother, and he took your son from you.
True. She hadn’t come all the way to Kalithera, bribed her way into an exclusive club, and seduced a king only to cower before him like a kicked dog.
She’d come to take back what he’d stolen from her.
Shewasa mother and, while she might not have the first idea how to be one, she certainly knew how to fight and so she’d fight for her son.
Clinging to that thought, Solace forced away the fear and steeled herself, reaching for her own anger as she stared straight back into Galen’s burning blue eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said coldly. ‘I took some pictures. Of you and I.’
