‘My father had a hands-off approach when it came to the organisations he put his name to,’ he said. ‘I intend to do things differently, and what better place to start than the orphanage right on the palace doorstep?’
‘It’s hardly on the doorstep,’ Cassie said. ‘It’s practically attached to the prison.’
He rubbed at his jaw for a moment. ‘Yes, that is true. But that is something I would like to discuss with you over lunch.’ He pulled out one of the chairs next to the small dining table. ‘Would you care to sit down?’
‘Thank you,’ Cassie said, immensely glad of the seat as her legs were still trembling out of control.
She watched as he took his own seat, his longs legs brushing against hers under the table. She drew in a quick, unsteady breath and moved her legs back, but she could still sense the heat and strength of his in close proximity to hers.
Sebastian rang a small bell, and within seconds the aide appeared pushing a trolley with several covered dishes as well as iced water and a bottle of chilled white wine.
Cassie sat fidgeting with the neck of her uniform as the aide served them both the light lunch of char-grilled octopus and a Greek salad and fresh crusty rolls.
‘Would you care for some wine, Dhespinis Kyriakis?’
‘No…thank you,’ she said. ‘Water will be fine. Thank you.’
‘Thank you, Stefanos,’ Sebastian said once his wine and Cassie’s water had been poured. ‘Has a date been confirmed for the event we discussed?’
‘Yes, Your Highness,’ Stefanos said and handed Sebastian a slip of paper. ‘Your diary has been cleared.’
Sebastian glanced down at the date on the paper before he folded it and slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt. ‘That was very efficient of you, Stefanos,’ he said. ‘Well done.’
The aide bowed respectfully and left the room, closing the door softly but firmly behind him.
Sebastian picked up his glass of wine, twirling it in his hand for a moment as he centred his gaze on Cassie. ‘You do not drink alcohol any more, Cassie?’ he asked.
Cassie looked at the tiny condensation bubbles clinging to the outside of his crystal glass and wondered if she would ever be able to look at alcohol again without feeling shame. In the past she had done so many things while inebriated she would never have done normally. She cringed at the thought of how she had come across to so many people, Sebastian included. She had always been the life of the party, laughing and carefree as drink after drink had been consumed. Her worries had lessened with every mouthful and, even though the headaches the next morning had been unpleasant, she had been prepared to put up with some discomfort for the temporary reprieve the consumption of alcohol had given her.
She was suddenly conscious of the stretching silence and Sebastian’s steady dark gaze on her. ‘I lost my taste for alcohol while I was in prison,’ she said quietly. ‘I haven’t touched it since.’
‘That is probably a good thing,’ he said. ‘I don’t drink as much as I did when I was young. I guess we have grown up, ne? A glass of wine at lunch or dinner is plenty.’
‘Do you ever see any of the gang we used to hang around with?’ Cassie asked once they had commenced eating the delicious salad.
‘The brat-pack?’ he asked with a ghost of a wistful smile.
Cassie nodded, thinking of the hip crowd and the hangers-on they had associated with six years ago. She could almost guarantee she had been the only one to end up with a criminal record. The others were like Sebastian, out to have fun until family duty called. Not like she, who had been looking for something to take her mind off what she couldn’t quite face…
‘I see a few of them, of course, do business occasionally with them,’ Sebastian said, and then smiled. ‘I do not see so much of Odessa Tsoulis. Last I heard she had married a billionaire from Texas.’
Cassie felt a small smile tug at her mouth. ‘She was rather intent on landing herself a rich husband, if I recall.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Sebastian said with a small laugh. ‘She was good fun. I liked her. She was very no-nonsense if you know what I mean. What you saw was what you got.’
‘Unlike me.’ Cassie wasn’t sure why she had said it, much less how she was going to deal with it now it was said. She looked away from his suddenly penetrating gaze, and, picking up her fork with a tiny rattle against the plate, resumed eating, but with little appetite.
‘Tell me about it, Cassie,’ he pressed her gently. ‘Tell me what happened that night.’
Cassie stared at one of the octopus curls on her plate and wished herself a thousand miles away. Why couldn’t he leave the past where it belonged? What good did it do to haul over the ice-cold coals of regret? She couldn’t change anything. That had been the problem in the first place.
She couldn’t change anything.
‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ she said, and put her fork down with another little clatter against the edge of the plate.
‘Did you have an argument or something?’ he asked.
‘Or something,’ she said with a curl of her lip. ‘I said leave it, Sebastian. It’s done with. I don’t like being reminded of it.’
‘It must have been terrifying for you to be carted off to prison like that,’ he said, clearly determined to keep pressing her.
Cassie gave him a resentful look. ‘I didn’t happen to see you in the crowd to offer me your support.’
His expression darkened. ‘Would you have accepted my support if I had offered it?’ he asked. ‘You told me never to contact you again, remember? In any case I went abroad for several months after you ended our affair. I didn’t hear much about what was going on and no one in my family thought to tell me because they didn’t even know of our involvement. By the time I got back my father had already warned Lissa never to contact you and had packed her off to university in Paris before she could utter a single word of protest.’
‘So when you did get back you let me rot in prison because you didn’t want your father to find out we’d had an affair,’ she said bitterly.
‘Wrong!’ He was only a decibel or two away from shouting the word at her. ‘Cassie, why can’t you see this from my point of view?’
Cassie got up from the table, pushing in her chair with such force it sent a shock wave through his wineglass, the alcohol spilling over the edges and onto the crisp white tablecloth. ‘Oh, I can see this from your point of view, all right,’ she snipped at him. ‘A few months ago I was just yet another nameless person locked away in prison. Someone from your past you didn’t dare speak about, much less step forward and defend. Now you find I am one of the key players at the orphanage you want to support, so you think it might be timely to pour oil over troubled waters to mollify me enough to maintain your reputation in case I spill all to the press about our little clandestine affair.’
‘I care nothing for my reputation,’ he ground out with a flintlike flash of his dark eyes. ‘It
