The Future King’s Love-Child Read Free Page A

in a dry croak.
    He bent down and retrieved the torch and, flicking it on, shone it on her face. ‘How about we go back to my private quarters and discuss it?’ he said.
    Cassie blinked against the probe of the torch’s beam. ‘I am not sure there is anything we have to discuss,’ she said, ‘or at least nothing of interest to me.’
    ‘On the contrary, I think it will be of the greatest interest to you,’ he said, and turned off the torch with a click that sounded portentous in the still night air. ‘You see, Cassie, I have something of yours.’
    Yes, well, so do I , Cassie thought wryly, once again glad of the mantle of darkness so he couldn’t read the apprehension on her face. ‘My bracelet?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Do you have it with you?’
    ‘No, it is at the palace.’
    Cassie wondered if he was telling the truth, but she could hardly ask to search him. She gnawed at her lip for a moment. ‘Could you have someone send it to me in the post?’ she asked.
    ‘Not unless you want to take the risk of it being mislaid or perhaps even stolen,’ he said. ‘I would prefer to hand it over to you face to face. It looks rather valuable.’
    ‘It is,’ Cassie said, her heart sinking as she realised she would have no choice but to accompanyhim back to the palace. They had met in secret so many times in the past, just the thought of doing so again conjured up so many intimate images. She wondered if Sebastian was revisiting any of them in his own mind.
    ‘Come.’ He placed a firm hand at her elbow. ‘There is a back entrance to the palace a couple of blocks from here.’
    Cassie reluctantly fell into step beside him, her flesh burning under the touch of his hand. They walked in silence, she because she didn’t know what to say and he—she assumed—because he was waiting until he had her somewhere secluded to discuss whatever he had planned for her. That there was a plan she was in no doubt. Proud men like Sebastian Karedes did not take rejection on the chin, and her rejection of him had been particularly cruel.
    Sebastian led her through a wrought-iron gate where an aide was waiting. They exchanged a brief exchange before the man led the way to a suite of rooms down a long, marbled corridor. The walls were lined with generations of the Karedes family; all their eyes seemed to be following Cassie as she walked soundlessly by Sebastian’s side.
    The aide opened a door leading into a private lounge. The furniture was modern and, althoughthe palace was centuries old, somehow the mix of old and new worked brilliantly.
    ‘So, Cassie,’ Sebastian said once the aide had closed the door on his exit. ‘This is like old times, is it not?’
    Cassie searched his features for a moment but couldn’t read his inscrutable expression. ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ she hedged, although her mind had already taken a wild guess.
    He reached out and lifted her chin with the blunt end of one of his long fingers. She felt a shiver of reaction cascade like a shower of exploding fireworks down her spine at that jolt of skin-to-skin electricity passing from his body to hers. It had always been this way between them. The air in the room was charged with the electric tension of sexual attraction. She could see it in the dark, brooding intensity of his gaze; she could sense it in the sensual curve of his mouth and, God help her, she could feel it in the core of her body where her intimate muscles were already starting to ache.
    ‘You and I always met in secret, did we not?’ he said, looking down at her mouth for a pulsing moment. ‘I see no reason to change that now.’
    Cassie stepped back out of his light but eminently disturbing hold, her legs almost tripping over themselves in her haste to put some distancebetween her body and his. ‘You are surely not suggesting we resume our illicit affair?’ she said in a brittle keep-away-from-me tone.
    He gave a little shrug. ‘We were good together, Caz,’ he said, using