with this.”
She felt all the strength rush out of the man. His hands dropped away from her and he stepped back. “My God,” he breathed. “He is my child.”
Her eyes flew open in sudden terror. “No! He’s mine, just mine and no one else’s.”
Jacob stared at her as if he still didn’t believe what he knew in his soul must be true. “Someone is that child’s father. Let me see him. I’ll know.”
“No!” she shouted. “Get out. Get out or I’ll call the police. I swear I will!”
He reached out for her, but she dodged away. A terror unlike any she’d ever experienced raced through her, blinding her to all thoughts but one. If Jacob was who he claimed to be—the man whose picture Diane had showed her in the newspaper—he had power and money enough to do anything he wished. Anything.
That included taking her child away from her, if he could prove he was Cray’s father. Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to her that she might be in real danger of losing Cray. She’d believed all she had to fear was another bruising to her heart and pride.
This was worse, far worse.
“Listen to me, Alli,” Jacob begged in a hoarse whisper. “No one is going to hurt you or that baby. You have my word.”
Maybe it was because she heard a subtle undercurrent of fear in his voice that she felt comforted. She kept her distance but turned toward him. His dark eyes looked sad, confused. This was all new to him. As he stood there, he must have been absorbing the various concepts attached to fatherhood, one at a time, but very rapidly. She’d had fifteen months to become comfortable with being a mother.
Jacob spoke to her again, his voice uneven. “I’m not going to hurt you again. I’m sorry. I didn’t know...didn’t realize—” He let the unfinished thought go. He turned his head away as if uneasy with meeting her gaze. He blinked at the wall and held himself rigid in the middle of her living room unsure of which way to move, or whether he should move at all.
Allison reached out one hand and touched the arm of her couch. Slowly, she let herself down onto a lumpy cushion, then dropped her head into her hands. “If you mean what you say about not hurting me, you’ll leave now,” she whispered dully.
“Is that really what you want?”
“Haven’t I said so a dozen times?” she moaned. “Just go away...and don’t come back.”
She heard him pacing the carpet, cursing beneath this breath. She sensed him standing over her, studying her...and she kept her eyes closed, her palms pressed over her eyes, blocking him out as best she could, as she prayed he’d do what she asked.
But when the door closed with a faint, irrevocable click, Allison felt something fragile shatter inside of her.
“Jacob?” she whispered, dropping her hands and staring at the door. “Jacob?”
The rental car was a shiny white Lincoln Continental—plush, smelling new-car pungent, richly upholstered in buff-colored butter-soft leather. Its luxurious interior contrasted sharply with the simple, homey furnishings of Alli’s beach house.
Jacob had stood helplessly over her as she collapsed onto the cheap plaid upholstered couch, which looked like something older people might have bought decades earlier and left with the house. Or maybe it was one of Alli’s yardsale treasures. He actually didn’t remember it from the summer they’d spent together.
But now he was unable to get the damn colors of the room out of his head. Shades of rust and gold matched the mustard-colored carpet that looked carefully maintained to last another twenty years. Nothing he’d seen in the house was of any real worth, except for a few pieces of antique porcelain displayed on a sideboard. The whole lot would have brought a couple hundred dollars on the auction block—less than the cost of the hand-tailored silk shirt he wore.
Back when they’d been together, she hadn’t seemed so different from him. They both loved books. They talked endlessly about their favorite kinds of music, art, literature. She daydreamed about traveling to foreign lands. He’d played along, promising to take her wherever she wanted—Rome, Vienna, Paris, Madrid—not letting on he’d already been to all the places she dreamed of visiting. And she’d laughed at him, never suspecting that he had the power to do all that he said.
Today, she seemed to him to come from another world—one where people proudly pinched pennies to afford new slipcovers, one where a two-bedroom single-bath cottage was large enough to raise a family with three or four kids. One where a young woman’s pride and love were worth more than any amount of money.
On top of all that—the existence of the child was a total shock. He had always been so careful. Hadn’t his father’s closest adviser, Frederik, constantly stressed to a young prince the dangers of unprotected contact with young women? He must have been no more than twelve years old the first time he’d suffered through the lord counselor’s tedious lecture. But soon it had come to make more sense to him. Not only was health an issue, there were vast financial and dynastic considerations.
If a young woman appeared on the castle’s doorstep with a baby, claiming it had been sired by the crown prince...at the very least, the world press corps would have a field day. But if she could actually prove the child was Prince Jacob’s bastard, all hell would break loose in Elbia. She’d have to be paid off, and handsomely. A million dollars to silence her and support the child wouldn’t be too much.
Jacob understood that his father, his cabinet and royal advisers wouldn’t object to his sowing his proverbial oats as long as he did so discreetly, with no embarrassing repercussions. During his late teen years and throughout his twenties, he’d had frequent opportunities to practice discretion. He quickly learned that money and fame were powerful aphrodisiacs. Women were more than willing to share their bodies with him, just to say they’d slept with a real prince. And he was generous during his brief affairs. He bought his lovers expensive gifts—jewelry, cars, expensive clothing. One charming lady had even merited a profitable boutique on the Rue de la Seine in Paris, in return for a few months’ companionship. If they were at all disappointed when he left them, they didn’t complain. His parting gifts had a consoling effect.
Alli had been different.
The day in June when he’d met her on the beach, he’d somehow sensed she wasn’t the kind of girl to be impressed by a title or seeing a lot of cash thrown her way. There was a quality about her that transcended the world he’d come to know. She smiled, and his heart warmed. She laughed, and he felt life was simple and free of the stifling obligations that awaited him back home in Elbia.
Alli loved books and worked in a library. Books had been his only friends as he’d grown up in a cold, friendless castle overlooking the valley of his homeland. He felt good around her. He felt like a normal man—not someone whose destiny was determined at birth, who had no choice in career or home or mate.
He had chosen her for a few weeks of love and friendship and he’d been so happy living in her world, if only for that short time.
Unlike all the other times, he had not told his mistress who he was. He was sure that if he had, Alli wouldn’t have become involved with him or allowed him to stay. For then she’d understand he couldn’t remain with her, even if he’d wanted to. That was where he’d most cruelly deceived her. He’d known she was falling in love with him. He’d known he was going to
