Page 24

‘Um… Max is taking a nap.’
‘I’m aware. Have you had lunch?’ He recalled she hadn’t eaten the pancakes this morning.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t have much of an appetite.’
Whether or not that was a dig at him, he chose not to contemplate. ‘Nevertheless, I’d prefer you eat something.’
‘Because you think whatever you’re about to throw at me requires I have sustenance?’
He allowed himself a grim smile. ‘I don’t just think,cara. I know.’
Her nostrils quivered. ‘I don’t know if that’s a joke or a veiled threat,Your Highness. But I’m not amused.’
Azar stiffened slightly, wondering if she remembered she’d used that same prim little voice to say his title three years ago. At first it had been to pretend she wasn’t interested in his advances. Then it had been because he’d demanded it while she was on her knees, driving him to heaven and back.
Now it was meant as a dig, and it would’ve been amusing had there not been so much awful stagnant water beneath that particular bridge.
He sensed Gaspar hovering behind him and turned to give the nod for their lunch to be brought out. Striding to the set table, he pulled out her chair and waited beside it.
Her gaze took in the set places, then rose to his. ‘Did you hear what I just said?’
‘I’m not deaf, Eden. Come…sit.’
He knew his even tone confused her. It had been carefully cultivated, purely for his mother, by the time he was seven years old and had come to realise that answering her shrill machinations with tantrums only made her act out more. That treating the Queen with sometimes impersonal kid gloves, like his father did, was the only way to defuse her volatile moods.
That lesson had served him well in his sexual liaisons in adulthood, effectively dismantling any foolish aspirations.
In the aftermath of Arizona, Azar had realised—to his bafflement and too late—thathewas the one who’d lost control of his emotions. And that he had played expertly into Eden’s hands. She’d used his unfettered passions to manipulate him, much as his mother had before he’d gained the upper hand.
But Eden Moss would learn that very little threw him off course these days. That his passions were very much tethered. Granted, the day’s events had made this a unique day, as had those weeks they’d spent together in the desert…
No. He wasn’t about to wonder why most of the distinctive events of his adult life involved this woman.
‘I don’t have an answer for you,’ she pre-empted, defiance edging her husky voice.
One corner of his mouth twitched. ‘You will. Today or tomorrow. Either way, things are now set in motion that cannot and will not be undone.’
‘Such as…?’
She moved from the railing, approaching with a graceful glide that drew his eyes to her swaying hips. His fingers tapped the back of the chair, and after another charged second she sniffed and took the seat.
Azar took his own seat before responding. ‘Such as my father, the King, having been informed that he is a grandfather and insisting on meeting Max at the earliest opportunity. Which means presenting my son in Cartana by Friday at the latest. Such as the private doctors at the palace waiting to provide the DNA and other tests—’
‘I didn’t agree to that,’ she protested.
Her fingers tightened around her knife and for a moment he wondered whether she would use it, much as his mother had attempted to attack him when he was twelve and he hadn’t answered one of her manic questions quickly enough.
The memory dampened his already downturned mood.
‘Unfortunately, that forms part of the protocol I mentioned…’ He hesitated a moment before deciding to divulge the rest of the news. After all, she’d discover the reality before the weekend. ‘With my father being unwell, anyone admitted to his presence needs to be medically approved. And before all of that happens we need to make a stop in Milan or Paris.’
‘Why?’
His gaze drifted over her, lingering on the faintly frayed neckline of her top. On the creaminess of the skin those cheap clothes caressed.
Focus.
‘The Royal Family of Cartana requires adherence to certain immutable high standards. Where we stop depends on which of Teo’s boutiques is ready to accommodate a complete wardrobe fitting at such short notice.’