Betrothed: To the People’s Prince

CHAPTER SEVEN

ATHENA woke as two bodies landed on her bed. Nicky and Oscar, zooming in from the other room, launching themselves on top of her, Oscar barking and Nicky whooping.

‘Breakfast,’ Nicky said. ‘Breakfast in bed, Mama. Pancakes.’

There was a soft tap on the door.

‘She’s awake,’ Nicky yelled and a maid appeared, holding a tray.

The maid was dressed in a lovely sapphire-coloured frock, a shirt-waister, buttoned through from throat to waist, the skirt flaring out a little but not too much, tied at the waist.

The difference from the grimly clothed servants she’d seen yesterday was astonishing.

The girl was smiling. ‘Please, ma’am, I’m sorry but Nikos said we were to wake you with breakfast at ten.’

‘Nikos said…’ Her bemusement deepened. There were so many questions she needed answering. ‘Nikos gives orders to the palace staff?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ the girl said as if her question was a bit foolish. ‘For the most part there was no one else to do it.’

‘Nikos is a fisherman,’ she said cautiously. She had her arms full of dog. Oscar had obviously missed her deeply all night-and was making up for lost time.

‘Nikos has six fishing boats and employs many,’ the girl said simply. ‘When the King started taxing the fishermen so heavily they could no longer operate, Nikos started taking fish to the mainland. He organised funds there that Giorgos couldn’t touch. In the end the only way the King could stop him was by arresting him and confiscating his boats, but somehow he found the courage to face his uncle.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘The islanders love him,’ she said simply. ‘He would make a wonderful Crown Prince.’

And then…she realised what she’d said and her eyes widened in horror. ‘I didn’t mean, ma’am…I mean…we believe you’ll make a wonderful Crown Princess. It’s just that we all know Nikos and trust him.’

Despite the apology, there was still regret in her words. Athena heard it-and she even agreed.

Nikos should be Crown Prince.

He would have been, she thought. If they’d married as they’d once planned.

Marriage to the ruler meant automatic and equal status for the spouse.

So…The thought was suddenly there. What if…?

No. There wasn’t enough trust in the world to take her down that path.

Was there?

Marriage…It was such a huge concept that to take it any further seemed terrifying.

Concentrate on now, she told herself, feeling suddenly dizzy. Concentrate on what came next right now. Any more and her head might explode.

Her bed was big enough to hold a small army. Someone must have crept in earlier and rebuilt the fire. It was crackling cheerfully in the grate. The maid was pulling back the curtains. Nicky was already tucking into pancakes-made by the palace staff and brought to her in bed. The morning sun was glimmering across the terrace, and beyond the terrace was the sea.

It made her feel rich. It made her feel ostentatious. It made her feel that she had no right to be here.

‘I love your uniform,’ she managed, hauling herself back to reality. ‘Do you like it?’

The girl smoothed her skirt with pleasure. ‘Maria sewed all night. This is the first. She says if you like it she’ll make more.’

‘I love it,’ she said with enthusiasm.

Good. Think of anything but Nikos, she told herself. Anything but Nikos.

Uniforms.

‘You know, sapphire looks great on you, but some of the staff might like different colours. How about we leave the choice of colour to each person?’

‘Oh,’ the girl said, and flushed with pleasure. ‘We’d look like a rainbow.’

‘It seems there haven’t been rainbows round here for a long time. It’s a wonder Nikos hasn’t suggested change already.’

‘Oh, he has no authority to change the King’s orders,’ the girl said blithely. ‘Or yours either, ma’am. And he never would. He knows his place.’

How had they got back to Nikos again? It seemed as if her mind was a whirlpool and, in the centre…Nikos.

Give in, she thought. Just let it come.

‘And…and his place is with his fishing fleet?’

‘I…yes, ma’am.’ The girl didn’t understand what she was asking-and who could blame her? ‘He has six boats, but the one he uses is the one he built himself when he was a young man. The Athena.’

‘He has a fishing boat called the Athena?’ she said, stunned.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ the girl said and smiled. ‘It’s nice that he called his boat after his Princess.’

‘Yes, Athena said cautiously. ‘Um…Is he on his boat now?’

‘I believe he left the palace before dawn.’

So…Nikos was fishing.

While she played princess.

What did princesses do all day?

She wouldn’t mind going fishing. She wasn’t bad at hauling up craypots herself.

‘I should talk to my cousin Demos,’ she said doubtfully.

‘I believe Prince Demos left on the morning ferry for Athens,’ the girl said and blushed. ‘I…I overheard one of the security guards.’

The day spread before her. No Demos.

No Nikos.

There were probably papers she should be reading, she thought.

She glanced out of the window. The beach looked…fantastic.

‘Feel like a swim, Nicky?’

Nicky had been sharing a pancake with Oscar. He paused. She’d said the magic word.

‘Swim,’ Nicky said cautiously. ‘In the sea?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Yay,’ he yelled, and Athena found herself smiling. Life couldn’t be all bad.

Threats were a nightmare; something for the dark recesses of the night. Not for now.

Nikos had gone fishing. Long may he stay there. Just as long as he stayed out of her head.

Was he nuts to go fishing? He had a team of fishermen working for him now, and a solid fleet of boats. He hardly needed to fish himself.

But he hadn’t slept. If he couldn’t sleep he might as well work.

At least Demos had left the island. It seemed he was on his way to Athens, maybe to confer with lawyers to try to figure a way around Thena’s right to rule.

He wouldn’t get answers he’d like. Athena’s right to the throne was inviolate.

As long as she stayed safe.

But if she left as she said she would…Anything could happen to her back in Manhattan. He couldn’t watch over her.

And Nicky…How could he get to know his son if he left? And Demos would still be a threat to him as well.

What the hell to do…

He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to lift them up, sweep them under his own protection, place them in his house and leave them there.

But he had to concede it wasn’t just common sense that was telling him to do that. It was sheer unequivocal lust.

He wanted Thena. He’d wanted her ten years ago and, astonishing or not, his desire was greater than ever. But she’d walked away once because of her career and now she was threatening to walk away again.

Was one career so important? He loved fishing, but would he put it aside if the island’s livelihood was in doubt?

Of course he would.

But Thena wasn’t him. Once he’d thought he’d known her, but her leaving had shocked his foundations to the core. Not telling him about Nicky had shaken him even further.

He no longer trusted her. And she didn’t trust him. He knew why.

But, regardless, it had been Thena’s decision to walk away. She hadn’t known about Christa or Marika then. So the choice had been hers. One phone call from her and his life would have followed a completely different course.

But it hadn’t. And now he had Christa. His little daughter who he’d decided years ago would be protected against everything. Everything.

Lay craypots, he told himself sharply. Work with your hands and not with your head.

So he laid craypots. But he just so happened to have taken his trawler around the headland, into the cove below the palace. He could watch the palace from here. He could see the beach.

So he was still laying craypots when they came down for a swim. Athena and Nicky, followed by Oscar.

Unashamedly he found his field glasses and watched. They were skipping down the path leading from the palace. Laughing at their dumb dog. Wearing swimsuits and carrying towels.

Where were his men?

He scoured the cliffs and found two, watching from above. Another was melting into the shadows in the cliff below.

He relaxed. She was safe. She wouldn’t be aware of the security men. She could enjoy her swim.

They’d reached the beach. She’d thrown off her towel and was chasing Nicky into the surf.

She was wearing a bikini. Red. He could see every curve of her delectable body.

He wanted her so much…How the hell was he going to control this?

They were swimming now. Nicky was almost as strong a swimmer as his mother. They were stroking out from the shallows, while Oscar barked objections from the shore.

His heart was doing weird things in his chest. He shouldn’t be watching.

His son.

His woman?

For the first time since Nikos had found her in Manhattan, she felt at peace.

She’d swum in these waters-not in this cove, but in one like it-as a child. She loved it. In Manhattan, ocean swimming was out of the question, but she used public pools and she’d taught Nicky to swim almost before he could walk. Any time she could she’d take him swimming, and now her salary was good there’d been a couple of magic holidays where she’d been able to introduce him to waves.

He swam as well as she did.

And he loved this. She watched his face as he hit the water-watched his incredulous delight.

She knew he’d been torn since they’d arrived. Telling him Nikos was his papa had pleased him on one level, but he was also confused. He’d responded well initially, but she needed to follow up.

Or…Nikos needed to follow up, she acknowledged, and that scared her. Nikos getting to know her son.

Nikos getting to know his son.

They both needed distraction. ‘I’ll race you to the headland,’ she called, and he grinned and put his head down and swam. She could still beat him, she thought, but not for long.

He had Nikos’s long, lean body. He had a start on her now-and she’d have a struggle to catch him.

But then…The sound of an incoming boat reverberated through the water. She felt it rather than heard it.

She lifted her head to see…

Nikos was about to bait a craypot when he heard it. He paused, shielding his eyes from the sun. What the…?

A speedboat was coming in from the north. Fast. This type of boat was almost unknown on Argyros. No islander had money for a boat that didn’t pay its keep, and this one looked like a toy of the wealthy. It was built for speed, and right now the thing was almost airborne.

As it grew nearer the noise was almost deafening. It was heading across the entrance to the cove, as if its skipper was intent on circumnavigating the island as some dumb speed challenge.

He didn’t like it.

He didn’t like it one bit.

Instinctively he reached for the throttle. He was hauling on the rudder. And suddenly he was yelling.

For he knew. Suddenly, sickeningly, he knew.

‘Thena,’ he yelled. He was hauling his boat around with all the power at his disposal, yelling into the radio. ‘Get them out of the water. Get them out…’

Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe they’d pass.

But he was right. At the last minute the boat swerved in towards the beach, its engine still screaming. There were two men crouched low. Dressed in black. Hooded.

There wasn’t an identifying mark on the vessel.

All this he saw in the split second before the boat had passed. Heading straight past him, into the cove.

With one aim.

‘Thena,’ he yelled again, but his boat wouldn’t pull round fast enough. The fishing trawler was too big, she wasn’t powerful enough, he couldn’t get to the woman he loved in time to save her…

She’d just reached Nicky. She caught his foot and tugged.

He spluttered and came up laughing. ‘You little fish,’ she said and hugged him-and then glanced sideways at the source of the noise.

And grabbed Nicky, hauling him against her. They hung together in the water, watching. They were close to a beach. They were hardly out of the shallows.

The boat would veer away.

It wouldn’t. Instead it turned slightly…

‘Dive,’ she screamed to her son. ‘Dive deep, Nicky, now!’

Nikos was gunning the trawler towards the shore with a speed he’d never pushed it to before. He was yelling uselessly into the radio.

His men were out from their cover, yelling towards the speedboat.

Running down the cliff face, along the beach.

Too late. Too late.

And then the boat was spinning, making a one hundred and eighty degree turn almost on its own axis, and where there’d been woman and child there was nothing.

He was so close…So close…

The wash of the speedboat as it turned had churned the waves, making it impossible to see. It must have hit them square on. There was no sign of them, nothing…

The boat was screaming back past him. One of the hooded figures in the boat had a gun. Nikos saw it, he jerked sideways and felt the zing of a bullet, just touching his cheek.

The other figure grabbed his companion, gesticulating back at the water where they’d come from. Deciding whether to sweep in again.

There was still no sign of them…Dear God, there was no sign.

Nikos was where he’d last seen them now, searching the water. Men were still yelling from the beach. Yelling at him. Yelling at the speedboat. He glanced aside, half expecting it to scream in once more.

Men were wading into the shallows. His men were armed. He saw Zeb raise his rifle and fire.

It was enough. The speedboat’s motor screamed to full throttle and it blasted its way out of the cove and around the headland and away.

He didn’t see it go. He wasn’t looking for the boat.

He was looking for his Thena and he was looking for his son.

Nicky was better than she was at this game. They’d played it over and over-who could go furthest underwater. For the last six months he’d been able to go almost a quarter length of the pool further than she could.

He was one bright kid and he’d caught the urgency. He was pushing himself through the water beside her, at right angles to the boat, towards the rocks.

She’d go as far as he would. She’d go…

Not as far.

She shoved him away from her, gesticulated for him to keep going, and she burst upward.

Into sunlight.

Into air.

The noise of the boat was receding. Instead she heard the heavy thrum of a bigger engine.

She wouldn’t go down again. Nicky would surface in seconds-dear God, please let him get far enough away so she could distract whoever it was…the maniac…

A boat was coming nearer. Not a speedboat. Something much bigger. Much more solid.

A fishing boat.

Nikos.

She was there. He saw her surface, glance at his trawler, look frantically around, searching for the threat, searching for her son.

Hell, where was Nicky? The propeller…He cut the motor to silence.

The men on the beach were still shouting.

‘Thena,’ he called, and she swung round to face him.

‘Nicky,’ she screamed, and her voice was filled with terror.

But thirty yards away the surface of the water broke. A child’s face popped up.

‘Miles further,’ he yelled to his mother.

And then he burst into tears.

It took him seconds to haul them up, Nicky first, hugging him hard and fast, and Thena after. He hauled her on board, she slithered out of his arms and grabbed Nicky and she held him as if she’d never let go. He looked at them both-Thena and his son-and his world changed.

His trawler was wallowing in the swell close to shore. It’d be grounded if he let it drift any further. It didn’t matter-who cared about a boat? He crouched on the deck with them. He put his arms around them and held.

And he knew…

Whatever else happened, whatever Thena decided, whatever course things took from this day, this was his family.

A month ago he’d had his mother and he had Christa.

Now he had Thena and Nicky to love and to cherish as well, and he’d never let them go again.