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The stairs were of some dark wood, and swept down to a small but high-ceilinged entranceway. It wasn’t as grand as she’d expected from a king’s residence, but she rather liked that. It felt more like a home than a palace did, and she liked the spare furnishings too. Nothing was ostentatious or overblown. Just quietly luxurious.
The staff member led her down another hallway to a door that he opened and ushered her through into the room beyond.
It seemed to be a study. Heavy wooden bookcases lined the walls closest to the door, while on the opposite side of the room big windows looked out onto an atrium-style garden, with a square colonnade with white columns around it and a fountain with a lush garden around it in the middle. Also in the room was an enormous antique oak desk with an equally enormous portrait of a man on the wall behind it.
The room was empty.
The man indicated the chair standing before the desk. ‘Please sit. His Majesty will be with you shortly.’
He withdrew, shutting the door behind him and leaving her in silence.
Solace sat, her hands clenched in her lap, and stared at the portrait behind the desk.
It was in oils, of a man standing behind a table. He was very tall, his hair more white than black, and wearing formal black clothing. There were medals on his chest and on the table was a crown. He was a handsome man, though unsmiling, fierce dark eyes looked out at the viewer in what Solace couldn’t help thinking was a slightly judgmental fashion.
She didn’t recognise the man, but the crown gave a hint.
It must be Alexandros Kouros, Galen’s father.
There wasn’t much resemblance in his face that Solace could see, but the fierce quality of that stare was unmistakable.
Suddenly the office door opened, and Galen came in and all the air in the room disappeared.
He’d changed into a fresh pair of dark grey trousers and a deep blue business shirt that accentuated the colour of his eyes. His hair was damp as if he’d freshly showered and it was clear he’d shaved.
He was absolutely devastating.
Galen strode to the desk and stood behind it, and for long moments he didn’t speak, his gaze sweeping over her, his expression impenetrable, every inch of him a king.
‘So,’ he said at last. ‘You will give me an explanation for why you changed your mind about our son, Solace Ashworth, and you will give it to me now.’
Half an hour. That was all it had been. Half an hour since he’d last seen her, after spending all night with her, and yet the moment her gaze met his, he felt the same gut punch of need that he’d felt the night before.
Except this time her eyes weren’t dark but the sharp, piercing grey that had haunted his dreams for so long, a crystalline colour like frost on a winter pond. The effect of that gaze was the same too, a sword right through his heart.
She sat on the chair in front of his desk, wearing the dress he’d had one of his staff members do a last-minute dash for—a pretty white thing that made her look pale and lovely—and all he wanted to do was to rip it off her.
It was galling that, even after the night before, the desire for her still dogged him. However, at least he was now in control of it. He wasn’t going to let it become a problem, not again.
Conscious of Alexandros’s gaze watching from the wall behind him, Galen folded his arms and waited. While he’d showered and changed, his staff had been busy confirming her identity and updating the file they already had on her. And by the time he’d finished buttoning his shirt, that file was in his hands, and he’d familiarised himself with it.
She’d indeed had a difficult life. The kind of life that might have crushed another person, yet it had not crushed her.
She sat in the chair bolt upright, hair lying in waves over her white shoulders, her chin lifted, her stare very, very sharp. The epitome of uncrushed and determinedly so.
It made him even more curious as to what had changed her mind after giving Leo away and why she was here now, six months later, prepared to blackmail him to get Leo back.
‘I didn’t change my mind.’ Anger coloured her voice, he heard it loud and clear. ‘Ineverwanted to give upmyson, I told you that.’
‘Yet you did.’ He decided to let the ‘my son’ go for the meantime. ‘I’ve seen the documents. It’s your signature on every one of them. You said something about wanting him to be safe?’
Her mouth tightened, small silver sparks glittering in her eyes. ‘Okay, you want the story? I’ll give you the story. I didn’t know I was pregnant. I found out literally a week before he arrived and when he did, he was a couple of days early. I was in shock. My last pay cheque hadn’t gone through yet and so I had no money to buy him anything. I was discharged from hospital hours after having him, and I had no support when I got home. I had no idea what to do.’
The silver sparks in her eyes were now flames. ‘Your staff arrived the next day. And they told me who you were and whose baby I’d just had. And while I was still trying to get my head around that, they said I had to come to Kalithera with them because my son’s father wanted him.’ Her jaw line was rigid, her sharp gaze not leaving his. ‘I...couldn’t think properly. It was like my head was full of cotton wool and I couldn’t understand why I was even being asked to come. I...didn’t believe them that I’d be welcome. I didn’t trust them. But I also knew he couldn’t stay with me. He was heir to a kingdom and one day he’d sit on a throne, and I wanted that for him. Because he’d have nothing if he stayed with me. A life of poverty, growing up on council estates, and drugs and who knows what else?’
Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her knuckles white. ‘I was so tired, so exhausted and all I could think about was how much safer he’d be with them, and so, yes, I gave him up. I gave him up so he could have a better life, and I regretted that decision the moment I made it. I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.’
Galen didn’t let his shock show. He hadn’t known, not any of this. He’d been very clear with his staff about how they were to go about retrieving Leo. They were to do it sensitively and Solace was to accompany them, because he wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t going to rip away a child from its mother. Yet then they’d told him that she hadn’t wanted to come and had given Leo up without protest, and he’d taken that at face value.
