Michales… his son… was sound asleep.
His son.
He could just pick him up and take him, he thought. How easy would that be?
What did he want with a baby? With this baby?
With… his baby?
He walked over to the window—still carefully not looking at the cot—and glanced out. And there was Lily.
She was right below him, deep in the hull of an embryonic boat. The boat’s ribs stretched around her, bare, raw timber. The guy he’d met twelve months before—Lily’s boss?—was hauling a length of wood from a steaming vat.
To his amazement, it was Lily calling the shots. She was dressed in serviceable bib-and-brace overalls, workmanlike boots, a baseball cap and thick leather gloves to her elbows. She received the timber from Spiros and her orders flew, curt and incisive.
Her whole attention was on the plank. They had it in place and she was hauling it by hand, pushing, twisting… Two other men were helping, using their brute strength to help her, but Lily was doing the guiding.
He watched on, fascinated. Only when the wood was a fully formed rib, one of the vast timbers forming the skeleton of the new hull, did she stand back and look at it as a whole.
‘That’s fantastic,’ she called. ‘Ten down and a hundred and sixty to go? We’ll get them done by teatime.’
There was laughter and a communal groan.
She laughed with them. She was… one of the boys? The men were deferring to her with respect.
‘I need to check on Michales,’ she was saying. ‘He’s due for a feed. You think you can do the next one without me?’ She glanced up at the window.
She saw him.
He’d expected shock. Maybe even fear. Instead, her eyebrows rose, just a fraction. She gave him a curt nod, as if acknowledging past acquaintance, or maybe that she’d attend to him shortly, then deliberately turned her back on him. She strolled over to talk to Spiros.
Spiros was about to lower another plank, but he was looking at it doubtfully. Now he swore and thrust it aside.
‘It’s not worth it. There’s a flaw in the middle and the rest are the same. They’ll break before they ever bend. Enough. You go and feed your little one, and I’ll send the boys to get more.’ He smiled at Her with real affection. ‘Don’t you keep my godson waiting.’ Then he, too, glanced up at the window. His smile died.
Spiros stared at Alex for a long minute. What had Lily told him?
Nothing favourable, clearly.
‘Hey, look who the cat brought home,’ he said, his tone softly threatening. ‘It seems we have company.’
His big body was pure aggression. If Spiros had been Lily’s father the message couldn’t have been clearer. ‘You mess with Lily, you mess with me.’
With us. The entire team was gazing at him now. This was hostile territory.
There was a slight noise behind him. He turned and a middle-aged woman was standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed across her ample breasts. She looked immovable and as aggressive as the men on the docks.
Maybe he couldn’t just pick up Michales and take him.
‘What do you want?’ Spiros demanded from below. ‘What the hell are you doing in Lily’s apartment?’
‘It’s okay, Spiros,’ Lily said. ‘I’ve been expecting him. Though I shouldn’t have left it unlocked.’
‘It’s okay,’ the woman called to Lily. ‘I’m here.’ She stalked over to the cot and put her body between him and his… the baby.
He couldn’t look at… the baby.
Unnerved, he looked down at the docks again. Lily was only ten feet under him, giving him a bird’s-eye view. She was too thin, he thought. Her bib-and-brace overalls were loose and baggy. Her glorious curls were caught up under a boy’s baseball cap, worn back to front. She had a smudge of grease down one cheek.
She looked about fifteen.
But then, ‘I’m hoping he’s here to organise paternity payments,’ she told Spiros, and he stopped thinking of what she looked like.
‘He’s your baby’s father?’ Spiros demanded.
‘He is. This is Alexandros, Prince Regent of Sappheiros.’
If he’d expected a bit of deference he would have been disappointed. Spiros’s aggression simply doubled. Tripled. And the gasp from the woman at the cot was one of indignation and affront.
‘So where the hell have you been?’ Spiros demanded from below. ‘Alexandros of Sappheiros. A prince of the blood, leaving Lily alone with a child… What were you thinking?’
This was crazy. He didn’t need these accusations.
He should go down.
Not with the amount of aggression directed at him, he decided. He could talk a lot more reasonably from up here. Especially if he kept his back turned to Madam Fury.
‘I searched for her,’ he told the boat-builder, trying to keep his voice moderate. Reasonable. ‘You know I did.’
‘Once,’ Spiros said, and spat his disgust. ‘You came here once. If she’d been my woman I would have hunted her to the ends of the earth.’
‘I’m not his woman,’ Lily retorted.
‘He’s the father of your baby,’ Spiros countered, pugnacious. ‘Of course you’re his woman.’
‘Times change,’ she said softly. ‘You know they do. Spiros, I need to talk to him.’
‘Then talk,’ he said, glowering. ‘Go on. But, prince or no prince, remember he has no rights here. Leave your window open and call us if you need us.’ And with a humph of indignation—and a meaningful and warning stare at Alex—he turned his back on him.
HE WAS off balance. He shouldn’t have entered Lily’s apartment. It made him feel like a criminal.
What Spiros had said made him feel like a criminal.
Leaving Lily alone with a child…
How the hell was he supposed to have known?
He heard heavy boots on the stairs. Lily’s boots? The door swung open. He turned to face her but she ignored him, making a beeline for the cot.
Michales was still asleep.
Alex
