needed to stay detached.
Impossible, but she had to try.
‘What happened with his parents’ marriage?’ she managed.
The reporter was gazing adoringly at Alex but she was still willing to talk, and she hadn’t lost the thread of their conversation.
‘Horrid story,’ she said absently. ‘Alex was their only child. Because his father was Giorgos’s brother and Giorgos was childless, until this baby was born Alex was heir to his uncle’s throne. When Alex was five his father drowned, and Giorgos banished his mother from the island. But because Alex was his heir, he kept him. He didn’t care for him, though. Alex was brought up in isolation at the castle. When he was fifteen rumour has it that he stood up to his uncle—I have no idea what he threatened him with but it worked. His mother was allowed back. She and Alex went to live in their old home but she died soon after. They say Alex hated his uncle for it—they say he hated everything to do with royalty. But now he’s stuck, minding the throne for this baby but with no real power himself.’
Suddenly the reporter’s focus was distracted. Some angle of light—something—had redirected her attention to Lily. A glance become a stare. ‘Do I know you?’ she demanded. ‘You look familiar.’
Uh-oh. She shouldn’t have talked. Not here, not at such close quarters where she could be studied. ‘I don’t think so.’ She tugged her scarf further down over her tight-cropped curls and pretended to be absorbed in the proceedings again.
‘I’m sure I know you.’ The girl was still staring.
‘You don’t,’ she said bluntly. ‘I only arrived this morning.’ To shock, to heartache and to confusion.
‘You’re a relative? A friend? An official?’ The girl was looking at her clothes. They were hardly suitable for such an event. She’d done her best, but her best was shabby. She’d gone for a plain and simple black skirt and jacket, a bit loose now on her too-thin frame. Her only indulgence was her scarf. It was tie-dyed silk, like a Monet landscape, a lovely confection of rose and blue and palest lemon.
She knew she didn’t fit in with these glamorous people from all around the world. How anyone could link her with her older sister…
‘You look like the Queen,’ the girl said, and it took all her control to stop herself flinching.
‘I’m sure I don’t.’
‘You’re not related?’
She made herself smile. ‘How could you think that?’ she managed. ‘Queen Mia is so glamorous.’
‘But she’s abandoned her baby,’ the reporter whispered, distracted from Alex’s romantic background and filled with indignation for a more recent scandal. ‘Can you imagine? The King dies and Mia walks away with one of the world’s richest men. Leaving her baby.’
Her baby. Her baby!
But still the girl was staring. She had to deflect the attention somehow. ‘I’m here in an official capacity,’ she told the reporter bluntly, in a voice that said no more questions.
She fingered the gilt invitation in her jacket pocket. When she’d arrived—in those first few dreadful minutes when she’d realised what Mia had done—she’d half expected to be turned away. But Mia had invited her and apparently she was still on the official guest list. Alex had probably long forgotten her existence. Her papers were in order. Her invitation was real. There was no problem.
Ha! There were problems everywhere. Where to go from here?
A trumpet was sounding alone now, a glorious blaze of sound that had the congregation on their feet, applauding the new Prince Regent. Prince Alexandros of the Diamond Isles swept down the aisle, looking every inch a monarch, every inch a royal. Looking worlds away from the Alex she’d fallen in love with.
He was smiling, glancing from side to side as he passed, making eye contact with everyone.
He’d be a much better ruler than the old King, Lily thought, feeling dazed. He’d be a man of the people. Others were clapping and so did she.
His gaze swept past her—and stopped. There was a flicker of recognition.
His smile faded.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them he’d passed, but once again the reporter looked at her, her face alive with curiosity.
‘He knew you,’ she breathed.
‘I’ve met him… once.’
‘Excuse me, but he looked like he hated you,’ the girl said.
‘Well, that would be a nonsense,’ Lily managed. ‘He hardly knows me and I hardly know him. Now, if you’ll excuse me… ’
She turned her back on the girl and joined the slow procession out into the morning sunshine. Only she knew how hard it was to walk. Only she knew her knees had turned to jelly.
She was here for her baby, but all she wanted was to run.
What the hell was she doing here?
Alex shook one hand after another, so many hands his arms ached. His smile stayed pinned in place by sheer willpower. Would this day never end?
And what was Lily doing here?
He’d met her once, for two days only. For a short, sweet time he’d thought it could be different. It could be… something. But then she’d left without goodbyes, slipping away in the pre-dawn light and catching the ferry to Athens before he’d woken.
It hadn’t stopped him looking for her—up and down the Eastern seaboard of the United States, searching for the sister of the Queen, who he’d been told was a boat-builder.
He hardly believed the boat-builder bit. When he’d asked Mia she’d simply shrugged. ‘My parents separated. I went with my mother, but Lily chose to stay with my father, so I’ve barely seen her since childhood. Her whereabouts and what she does is therefore not my concern. I don’t see why it should be yours.’
Undeterred, he’d kept searching. He’d finally found her employer—an elderly Greek boat-builder based in Maine, who’d eyed him up and down and decided to be honest.
‘Yes, I employ Lily, but she won’t thank me for admitting she’s the Queen’s sister. No one here knows the connection except my family. And, as for telling you where she is… In honesty, my friend, I don’t know. She left here a month ago, pleading ill health. She gets headaches—bad ones—and they’re getting worse. We told her to take a break, get healthy and come back to us. My wife is worried about her. We’re keeping her apartment over our yard because we value her, but for now… she’s gone and we don’t know where.’
So he’d been left—again—with the searing sense of loss that was grief. He’d lost his father when he was five and the old King had torn him from his mother. When finally he’d been old enough to make choices for himself, he’d been reunited with his mother, only to have her die as well.
He’d been gutted. The old King’s cruelty cut deep. He’d
