This was the truth he’d dreaded hearing but the truth as he already knew it. Though he’d loved this woman, he’d never really known what she was capable of until she had abandoned their child.
“Did you hate me that much, Sara?”
He hadn’t intended to ask the question nor to sound quite as vulnerable as he feared he did.
“I never hated you, Aleks. I loved you.” Disturbingly haunted eyes implored him. “I longed for you.”
He glanced away. “You will forgive me if I don’t believe that.”
“You promised to come back. I waited.”
His lips curled in distaste. “Not for long.”
“I was pregnant with your child, alone, scared out of my mind, with no means of support. What was I supposed to do?”
Not sell my son to the highest bidder, he thought. If not for the queen’s intervention, someone else would have paid the price for the handsome male child with royal bloodlines, though another family would not have known the boy was a crown prince, and the prince of Carvainia would never have had a son and an heir. The fury of that near disaster raced through his blood with the sting of alcohol on an open wound.
Seething, he turned his back to stare blindly at a dressing table littered with feminine jars and a silver hand mirror. “The past does not matter to me. You do not matter to me.”
“Then why did you bring me here after all this time? To punish me? To let me know how much you despise me for putting our son up for adoption?”
“I never wanted you involved in his life. Let me make that clear.” Slowly, he pivoted, jaw tight enough to crack a bone. “You are here because I had no other choice.”
She didn’t need to know about the stir her presence had caused, both among the staff and within the royal family. As it was, the queen had taken to her bed with a migraine the moment Sara Presley entered the castle. He regretted that deeply.
Without his mother’s help and guidance during that terrible time five years ago, he wasn’t sure he could have survived. First, he’d lost his father. Then an old enemy, the greedy king of Perseidia had perceived a weakness in the new Carvainian government and had invaded their northern borders. Like the warriors of old and as he’d been trained, he’d led his men into battle and had come out the victor. But at what price? Wounded, and heartsick at the loss of fine young men, he’d been further shattered by the news that his former love had given birth to his son and was offering the baby to the highest bidder.
Though the queen had expressed serious doubt, Aleks was convinced the child was his. Sara had been an innocent when they’d first come together, so shy and eager and loving. He could not imagine her with another man.
She’d likely had several men by now, but he refused to care.
“How did you learn about the baby?” she asked. “How did he get here?”
“Money and power have their advantages.”
“Why didn’t you contact me? Where were you?”
“At war, fighting for my country’s independence where I belonged.” He chopped the air in impatience. “None of this matters anymore, Sara.”
“It matters to me! I’ve missed four years of my baby’s life, four years of wondering if the wealthy family that adopted him loves him, wondering if he’s all right. Then suddenly I’m whisked away from America without explanation to discover he’s been here with you all along. Why have you contacted me now when you didn’t then?”
Aleks grabbed her arm and stared down into her face with all the will he had inside him.
“Let me explain as clearly as I know how.” He swallowed, hating the words to come. “Nico…is dying.”
“No!” Sara shrank away from him, a hand to her throat. “Please no.”
The stark despair in her expression would have shaken him had he not been braced for it. She had ignored her child since birth. A pained cry and a few tears would not convince him that she cared.
“His only hope is a liver transplant.”
Sara slid onto a chair and buried her face in her hands. Once again, Aleks battled back an urge to go to her. He stood with rigid military discipline, reminding himself that this woman was the enemy. This woman had no scruples. This woman had tossed his child away like a stray dog.
When she lifted her tearstained face, his gut spasmed. She’d looked this way on the day he’d gotten news that his father was dying. She’d cried for him.
He’d been a fool then. He wouldn’t be again.
“Is he on a transplant list?” she asked. “I don’t know how things like that work here in your country. What can be done?”
“The best hope for Nico is a living donor. His body would then regenerate the donated segment into a full-sized body part while the donor’s body would also fully recover. But Carvainia is a country of genetically similar people. No one we can find shares his blood type.”
“AB negative,” she murmured.
“Yours, I assume.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Nor does anyone, including myself, my mother, nor any of the royal family share the specific blood markers that he requires.” Impatient, he chopped the air again. “I don’t pretend to understand the medical details. I only know that Nico is dying and his only hope is a living donor who matches him as exactly as possible.”
Perched on the edge of the chair, she bent forward, forearms against her thighs, hair falling over her shoulders as she looked up. “And that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? To be his donor.”
Aleks tensed. His heart galloped in his chest like one of his racehorses. If he was to gain Sara’s cooperation, he must proceed with extreme caution.
“You needn’t worry. I will pay you well.”
A soft gasp escaped her. “You’ll…pay me?”
Though she sounded less than eager, Aleks was confident she would agree once she understood the terms. Greed was a powerful incentive. A baby, a body part, it was all the same to a woman like Sara. “One million American dollars.”
Something hard shifted through her features. “No.”
Aleks blinked once, slowly, certain he had heard wrong. “No?”
Her lips tightened. “I said no.”
Sickness churned in his belly, and for the first time, he began to doubt his plan. What if he failed? What if Sara Presley was even more heartless than he’d expected?
The muscles in his neck tightened to the breaking point. “Then name your price. Whatever you want is yours.”
Sara stared back at him with eyes that had turned the color of
