you need help?’
She shook her head. ‘Seb and I are fine, aren’t we, Seb?’ She looked in the rear-view mirror and met familiar green eyes. Was he excited? Scared?
Emotion swept through her and she shuddered.
‘Amelie?’ Lambis’s voice was like soft suede on raw skin. It still had the ability to make her feel. To want.
She felt it now, the buzz of energy in her lower body, the trip of her pulse. Damn! She was past this. She’d moved on, determined not to wallow in regret.
This had to be exhaustion creating phantom emotions.
‘Perhaps you could carry the luggage?’ She gave him one of her polite smiles, the sort she employed with boring diplomats or boorish industrialists.
For a second that cool stare locked with hers, making her wonder how much he read in her face. Then, with a curt nod, he was gone.
It took no time to bundle up Seb in warm clothes and usher him from the car to the house. Even the crunch of fresh snow beneath his feet barely made him pause and Amelie’s heart would have cracked if it weren’t already riven. Where was the little boy she’d loved for almost five years? A year ago he’d have been whooping with glee, investigating the unfamiliar icy white.
Now he let her hold his hand. He was wide-eyed but so self-contained it would have scared her if it hadn’t become almost normal. She had to find a way to help him.
A sturdy woman with iron-grey hair held the door open, expression inquisitive. This must be the woman who’d cut Amelie off as she’d pleaded to be let in. But, instead of disapproval, Amelie caught shock on the woman’s face as she appraised them, then a wide smile of welcome as she scooped Seb in out of the cold and Amelie with him.
‘This is Anna, my housekeeper.’ Lambis launched into a flurry of Greek that had the woman nodding and smiling. Amelie heard the name Sébastien and her own, then something that made the housekeeper’s head jerk up even as she dropped into a curtsey.
‘No, please.’ Amelie put out her hand in protest. ‘Tell her that’s not necessary.’
Then the implications of Lambis identifying her sank in. She swung around to find herself facing a massive black-clad chest. She froze, refusing to back up and reveal how daunting it was to be so close to all that brawny strength. His evocative scent, so earthy and male, curled around her.
‘There was no need to tell her who I am.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘I respect Anna too much to lie.’
‘It’s not about lying. It’s about revealing only what needs to be revealed.’ The memory of the press pack outside the palace gates in St Galla, telephoto lenses trained on the windows and gardens, slammed into her. Bile rose. They’d been eager to snap the grieving Princess or ‘the tragic little King’, as they dubbed Seb. They’d even tried to bribe the palace employees.
Amelie, who’d lived all her life at the centre of public attention, had never felt so degraded. As if she and Seb weren’t real people but sideshow freaks that existed purely for the titillation of the viewing public.
‘Can you guarantee your staff won’t tell anyone we’re here?’
Lambis stiffened. His hard face became unforgiving granite, as if she’d questioned his integrity, not raised a valid concern.
‘You were the one who arrived uninvited and demanded entry. You’ll have to live with the consequences.’
Would Lambis really sell them out to the press? She didn’t want to believe it. Once she’d thought she knew him well enough to trust him with her life. But this was Seb’s life in question.
‘Answer the question, please.’
Lambis folded his arms across that massive chest, like some disapproving god of old passing judgement. It wouldn’t surprise her if he suddenly pitched a thunderbolt at her.
‘You’ve had my answer.’
Behind her Anna asked a question and Lambis responded, his tone so brusque and dismissive Seb edged up against Amelie, his teddy squeezed to his chest. Amelie put her hand on his shoulder.
It was the reminder she needed. It didn’t matter that she’d once thought Lambis Evangelos had a softer side, or that Irini, her sister-in-law, had said he was the best man alive, apart from her dear Michel. Nor did it matter that he had a reputation for integrity.
Amelie couldn’t take risks with her nephew. Despite what she’d threatened outside, Seb needed quiet, not paparazzi camped on the doorstep.
She’d thought they’d be safe with Lambis. He was the CEO of the world’s most successful international security firm. His private premises would be more secure, she suspected, even than the St Gallan royal palace. But the consequences if she and Seb had to run the gauntlet of the press whenever they stirred weren’t to be borne.
Amelie stroked her nephew’s soft hair, bending down as she spoke. ‘I’m sorry, mon lapin. I made a mistake coming—’
‘Don’t be absurd! You’re not up to driving back down the mountain tonight.’ The words were soft but the growl in that bass baritone was unmistakable.
Seb flinched and pressed his face into Amelie’s skirt, his arms wrapping round her thighs.
She stood unmoving, shocked by his first overt show of emotion in weeks. Something broke inside her as pity and protectiveness vied with a tiny pulse of hope. Heart welling, Amelie gathered him in. ‘It’s all right, mon lapin. Truly. Everything’s going to be fine.’
‘Sébastien?’ Lambis hunkered in front of the boy but didn’t touch. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m not angry, truly. You and your aunt are welcome here.’
Liar. He was furious. But Amelie had no sympathy to spare for the man staring at the little boy with all the wariness of someone facing a man-eating beast.
If the situation weren’t so dire she’d almost laugh. As if big, bad Lambis Evangelos, the man who organised protection for the world’s most eminent VIPs in some of the most dangerous places in the world, was scared of a child.
‘Seb?’ Amelie knelt and wrapped him close, inhaling the fresh scents of clean little boy and melted snow. ‘Don’t be afraid, darling. Everything will be all right. Lambis won’t hurt us. In fact—’ she lifted her head and glared at the man who hadn’t taken his eyes off Seb ‘—he’s sworn to protect you. Did you know that?’
Of course Seb said nothing and Amelie snuggled him tighter, rubbing her hands up and down his thin back.
‘Soon we’re going to have something to eat and then I think it will be time for Monsieur Bernhard—’
‘Monsieur Bernhard?’ Lambis’s eyes locked on hers, questioning. She didn’t bother to respond. If he couldn’t work out that Bernhard was a teddy bear, tough.
‘I think he’s getting sleepy. It’s almost his bedtime. Come on, mon lapin, come with Aunt Lili.’
She lifted him in her arms and
