Her Prince's Secret Son (4 page)

She longed to go to his rooms and stay with him every minute of every day. But she knew without a doubt that if she tried to see him now, without Aleks’s permission, a host of staff would block her way.

And so she waited for him to return with the contract he
insisted she sign. A contract. Dear heaven. What had happened to the man who’d claimed to love her?

She reached for a tissue and rubbed at eyes gone raw and hot. A sob slipped from her lips. Aleks had offered her money to help her own child. How low she had fallen in his eyes that he would believe such an offer was necessary. She would do anything to see Nico well. Her demands to see him were nothing more than a bluff though she’d been praying the entire time that Aleks would fall for it. Even if he’d refused, she would never have left this castle without doing all in her power to save her child’s life.

Part of her didn’t blame Aleks for despising her. Didn’t she despise herself for letting go when she might have found a way to keep their child? Wasn’t she haunted by a host of what-might-have-beens?

The door opened and Antonia entered carrying a tray. “You must eat something, Miss Sara. Lunch is long past.”

The young woman set the tray on the small round table at Sara’s elbow. Sara took one glance at the array of beautifully prepared finger foods and shook her head. “Thank you, Antonia. I’m not hungry.”

Antonia studied her with compassion. “You are upset, miss. Let me get some cucumber slices for the swelling in your eyes. And perhaps I could arrange a soothing massage and a spa treatment?”

Sara shook her head. No amount of pampering could soothe the ache in her heart. “Not now.”

Clearly wishing to provide service, but at a loss, Antonia lingered. Except for the attendant’s fidgety movements the suite was quiet, the sounds of activity outside the door silenced by the thick stone walls.

“A refreshing candle, then,” Antonia said.

The rasp of match against striker sawed at Sara’s raw nerve endings. A teardrop flame flared, and then the smell of sulfur mingled with the clean scent of vanilla.

“If you are certain you don’t require anything—”

“Nothing.” Sara lifted a limp hand, but the effort was too much and she let it fall to her lap. “Thanks.”

“If you should change your mind, please ring. Prince Aleksandre left specific orders that you are to have everything you desire.”

Yeah, right, anything but her son. Sara gave a short, joyless laugh. “Your Prince Aleksandre is a royal jerk.”

Antonia gasped and with a polite bow made a hasty exit, apparently disturbed that anyone would speak ill of the prince. Sara supposed she should be more careful. After all, this was not America. For all she knew, she may have just committed a crime punishable by stoning.

No, Aleks wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that for certain, not because of the love they’d once shared, but because he needed her.

She reached for a strawberry but didn’t eat it. How could she eat with this enormous wad of hope and fear and longing filling up her insides? When she could touch her son and hear his voice and see him smile, then she would be filled in a way that had nothing to do with food.

If only Aleks would hurry, but she knew he would not. He was no longer the kind and playful and fiercely protective man she remembered. He was a ruling prince, unyielding and cold. Perhaps the war had done that to him. She’d been shocked to hear that he’d fought beside his men, and yet her Aleks would have done exactly that.

Her
Aleks. A bitter laugh escaped her, sounding loud in the large, quiet room. This Prince Aleksandre was not her Aleks.

Her Aleks had loved her, and she had loved him.

But she had to face the truth and her own culpability. She had killed his love by putting his son up for adoption.

She picked at the strawberry’s leafy cap.

A new fear crowded into an already overwhelmed mind.

Aleks had agreed to let her spend time with Nico now. But what would happen after the surgery, after Nico was well again?

Aleksandre d’Gabriel was the absolute law and ruler of Carvainia. She, a simple bookshop owner from Kansas, had no legal rights in this place. Once Aleks had what he wanted from her, would she ever see her son again?

S
ARA SAT ON A PLUSH CHAIR
at Nico’s bedside, waiting for her son to awaken. After two impatient hours with the doctors and a miserable thirty minutes hashing over the details of Aleks’s contract, she’d insisted on coming to Nico’s room.

“He sleeps most of the time,” Aleks had said, obviously trying to forestall her visit.

She’d hitched her stubborn chin. “Then I will watch him sleep.”

“I have a nation to run.”

After four years and thousands of miles, Sara was not about to let Aleks’s reluctance keep her away from her baby. He’d promised and he would deliver.

“The decision to be present was yours.”

Finally, he’d conceded and escorted her to this wing, which Sara understood to be a medical floor fully staffed for the royal family.

Both thrilled and terrified, but utterly determined to make up for lost time, she gazed at the sleeping baby face and waited. She may have appeared calm with her hands resting serenely in her lap, but her heart hammered and she could barely breathe.

The tension was magnified by the imposing ruler who stood like a stone sentry at the foot of Nico’s bed. Sara’s gaze flicked briefly to him. Jaw rigid, Aleks never even glanced her way. He treated her with cold courtesy and little else. She was grateful that his staff was more inclined toward friendliness. Though none of them voiced their knowledge of her unique situation, she was certain they at least suspected the reasons for her presence. Antonia knew Sara was the hoped-for organ donor. Beyond that, Sara had no idea what Aleks had told his employees about her.

Having only seen Nico briefly at birth, it was surreal to realize this was the baby she’d carried beneath her heart, the baby she’d mourned and hunted and prayed for. Over the years, she’d imagined what he would look like. She’d dreamed of finding him again, certain she would recognize her own son. She wouldn’t have. He was all Aleks and nothing of her.

And yet he was everything she’d dreamed and more.

At a movement from the pillows, Sara’s heart, already pounding out of her chest, galloped even harder. He was waking. She would meet him. Finally. She pressed her hands into her knees to keep from leaping from the chair and rushing forward.

Nico’s thick lashes fluttered upward. Glazed, feverish eyes locked on the man at the end of the bed. His thin face brightened. “Papa.”

That one small, breathy word held such power. Sara’s whole being heaved toward the sick child. And the hard and mighty ruler of Carvainia melted like butter left too long in the sun.

Aleks tweaked the boy’s sheet-covered toe. “Ah, the great and lazy Prince Nico has awakened.”

The joke must have been a familiar one for the child offered a feeble grin, his sick eyes twinkling. “A growing boy needs his rest.”

Aleks laughed softly. “Indeed. A growing boy also needs food. Maria tells me you refused your meal.”

“Food tastes nasty, Papa.” His tone apologized as though he was aware of his father’s worry and sad to make it worse.

Aleks moved to the boy’s side. “I know, son, but you must try.” He touched Nico’s cheek. “Promise Papa you will try.”

Sara shared the pleading despair in Aleks’s voice. Nico was far too thin. His arms, resting along the sides of his body on top of the damask coverlet, were like sticks and his cheekbones stood out above the hollows of his face.

The small handsome head nodded. His tongue flicked over dry lips. “I promise.”

Carefully perching on the bed’s edge so that the mattress barely shifted, Aleks reached for a glass of water. “Have a drink for Papa.”

Gently cradling Nico’s head, the prince raised the boy enough for a few sips. Then he brushed a hand over Nico’s temple, smoothing bed-tumbled hair. “Do you feel like playing a game?”

“I’m a bit tired, Papa.” For indeed, he seemed to have expended all his energy on a simple drink of water.

Aleks’s chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. He patted the child’s fragile chest and sat back in the chair, shoulders angled toward Sara. Her pulse leaped.

“I don’t want to tire him,” she murmured through dry lips. Her son was desperately ill and conversation took so much out of his frail body.

Aleks’s gaze, so warm and tender with Nico, frosted over. “Come.”

As she stood, her knees trembled in tandem with her emotions. “Maybe we should do this later. I’m content to watch him sleep.”

His Majesty didn’t look as though he bought that. He turned back to the boy. “Someone has come to say hello.”

Sara stepped closer and with the movement brushed Aleks’s knees. Once upon a time he would have pulled her onto his lap, and she would have gone willingly for kisses and laughter. Today, he shifted away as though her touch was poison. Shoulders tense and mouth grim, animosity flowed from him. Surely, Nico would feel the tension and be put off by it.

She longed to touch him, both of them, and to make them understand how sorry she was for everything. She’d made a terrible mistake in letting Nico go, but she’d also paid a terrible price. Couldn’t Aleks see that? She’d lost everything that mattered—him, her baby.

The beautiful little prince was flesh of her flesh and yet she did not know him at all. The pain of that truth would burn forever.

“Hello, Nico,” she said, amazed to sound so normal. “My name is Sara. I’m—”

As though afraid of what she’d say, Aleks interrupted. “Sara is someone I knew in America.”

Nico’s dark eyes swung up to hers. “You were my father’s friend at university?”

So sweet. So innocent. So unaware of the painful alliance between his father and herself.

A lump formed in her throat. She cleared it. “Yes.”

“Papa, did you tell me about Sara? I don’t remember her in your stories.”

Aleks shifted uncomfortably, but he kept his tone light. “Remember the girl who capsized the boat and dumped me into the river?”

Sara stared at him, stunned. He’d spoken of her to Nico? But Aleks’s expression was as hard as his jaw. If he remembered the time fondly, he wasn’t about to let her know.

Nico giggled. “That was you?”

“Yes, that was me,” she said, delighted to have found common ground. “I wasn’t the best swimmer.”

“And Papa had to save you.” Nico’s voice was weak, but he seemed to relish casting his father as a hero.

“Yes. You should have seen him. We were both laughing so hard, I think I nearly drowned him.”

“Papa said you spilled the picnic basket, too.”

“I’m afraid so. Your poor Papa went without lunch except for the chocolate bar we shared.”

They’d shared a great deal more than chocolate that weekend. A master boatman, Aleks had wanted to canoe the mighty Mississippi River, so they’d driven to St. Louis for the day and wound up spending the weekend. Sara had often wondered if she’d gotten pregnant during those magical two days before Aleks suddenly and completely disappeared from her life.

Overtaken by nostalgia, she turned to look at Aleks.

Abruptly he pushed up from the bed’s edge and stepped away. “This little trip down memory lane has been fun, but I think we should let Nico rest now.”

The interruption shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did sting. That Aleks despised her and any memory of their time together was painfully clear.

But he was also correct. The boy was visibly fading. With no forethought, Sara touched Nico’s forehead. He was too warm, but touching him was a salve for her soul. This was her baby. Her son! She couldn’t get over the thrill of it.

“Your Papa is right. You must rest and get well so you can someday have your own wonderful adventures.”

Nico’s eyelids drooped but he struggled to keep them open.

“Will you be here after my nap? And tell me about America? Papa liked America very much.”

Sara looked to the man in charge and held his frigid gaze in challenge. If his feelings about America had anything to do with her, she would never know. “I will be back, Nico. I promise.”

Aleks glared at her for one long moment, then bent low to kiss the boy’s forehead and softly murmur something. By the time he straightened, Nico’s eyes were closed.

Still the ruler prince did not move. He stared into the face of his son with an expression of love and sorrow and longing.

Prince Aleksandre loved their son. There was no denying that.

What he didn’t understand was that she loved him, too. And she would do anything, even die on the operating table, to make him well.

She glanced at the stiff-backed man who’d broken her heart, and remembered a time she would have done the same for him.

And yet, to him, she’d been nothing more than a fling.

Without a doubt the day of Nico’s surgery was the hardest day of Aleks’s life, harder even than the day he’d been wounded and nearly died, harder than the day word had come of Sara’s betrayal. Every dream and hope of the future hinged on the outcome of today’s surgery.

Twice he had gone down to his office, but his mind refused to think about anything except the transplant taking place here in the especially constructed surgical wing of the castle. For once, duty to his country took second place.

He gazed at the unconscious Sara Presley, her surgery complete. He didn’t know why he’d come here to the recovery suite to see her. Gratitude, he supposed.

She’d kept her promises thus far though she’d driven him to distraction with her demands to see Nico. He was trapped
by his own design, a poor tactic that put him in frequent contact with the enemy of his heart. Regardless of his oath to ignore her, she’d been on his mind constantly and in his presence so often that her subtle perfume seemed to linger in his nostrils long after they parted.

Queen Irena was utterly terrified of this American. Perhaps he was, too, though for different reasons.

With tubes running from her body and her lips swollen, Sara Presley looked fragile, vulnerable and utterly alone. Other than some distant relatives, she had no real family to rally round her. According to his staff, she had friends in Kansas, in particular a co-owner of a book store who she telephoned frequently, but here she was alone. Alone and at his mercy.

He’d expected to revel in the victory, but instead, he felt the troubling urge to comfort her. It was an urge he’d battled from the moment she’d entered his world a week ago, full of fire and fury and lies. He clenched his fists at his sides. It was the lies that kept him from touching her.

He knew what she’d done. No amount of talking would change it.

“When can she return to America?” Queen Irena had asked the moment Sara was wheeled out of the operating room.

“She has done us no harm, Mother,” he’d answered, too weary and worried to dwell on the dangers the American woman presented. Today she brought only good.

“But she could at any time. She is not to be trusted.”

How well he knew.

To make matters worse, in the days leading up to the surgery, Sara had hardly left Nico’s bedside. She’d read to him, played quiet games or, most often, simply sat at his side watching while he slept. More than once, Aleks had been
forced by his own unsettled emotions to leave the room, something he’d sworn not to do.

The innocent, affectionate Nico had quickly—too quickly—come to welcome her company.

Aleks squeezed the bridge of his nose.

To this point, Nico accepted Sara’s presence as a friend willing and able to help him get well. He was too small and too ill to understand more than that.

“Aleks.” The word was a husky whisper that drew him back to Sara. Her puffy-lidded eyes were opened the slightest bit. She swallowed hard as though her throat was raw. It probably was. “Nico,” she rasped. “Is Nico okay?”

“I’m still awaiting word.”

Her head moved up and down once before she closed her eyes again. A nurse moved in to read the monitors. “Miss Presley, do you need something for the pain?”

Red hair swished against the stiff linen pillow. “Nico. Is Nico okay?”

The nurse looked to Aleks and he shook his head. “I’ll let you know if she complains.”

He didn’t know why he’d said that. He had no intentions of remaining here with Sara.

The door to the room opened and Dr. Konstantine, attired in green operating scrubs, entered. Though specialists had done the transplant, the royal physician had been present at Aleksandre’s request.

“I have news, Your Majesty.”

Aleksandre spun to face him, gripping the bed rail in desperate hope. “How is he?”

The doctor’s tired face wrinkled with a smile. “Exceptional. The transplant is complete, Prince Nico came through very well, and already the tiny liver has begun to function.
Barring unexpected complications, the prognosis, according to Dr. Schlessinger and all involved, is a full recovery and a long and healthy life.”

An exultant cry of relieved joy rose in Aleks’s throat. It was all he could do not to shout it out.

Behind him, a cold hand found his and squeezed. He looked back to see Sara, forehead wrinkled with emotion as tears flowed down her face.

He carefully slid his hand from beneath hers, but not before something strong and troubling bloomed in his chest.

Sara awoke to the sound of Nico’s cries. Her side ached and she still felt as wobbly as a flat tire, but neither mattered at the moment.

Bracing her tender incision with one arm held tightly against her side, she slipped from the bed and hobbled, bent forward, across the dimly lit hallway. Her knees trembled from the effort.

She had no idea what time it was, but from the dark quiet, the hour must be late.

At Nico’s doorway, an attendant blocked her entrance. “I’m sorry, Miss Presley, we have our orders.”

She ground her teeth in frustration. How many times had she repeated this scenario in the last few days?

“He’s crying. Please. He needs me.”

“I cannot let you inside without the queen or His Majesty Prince Aleksandre.”

“Then call one of them.”

“It’s midnight. They’re asleep.”

“Nico is not asleep. He’s crying.”

The attendant remained firm. “He has a nurse.”

A nurse was not the same as a mother who adored him, whether the child knew her or not.