miles on the royal private jets with business trips from his offices in New York and Aristo to Bermuda. To the Bahamas. To the Virgin Islands, to Florida, to Mexico and, most recently, Japan. Successful trips, all of them, but he’d set one hell of a pace. Meetings by day; by night, the baccarat tables, high-stakes poker…
And sex.
Was it possible he’d spent the last weeks going from country to country, bed to bed, trying to wipe away the ugly memories of a night when he’d come as close as a man could to letting a woman use him?
“Sir. The king and queen are waiting for you.”
Alex blinked. Galen, his father’s major-domo, stood at stiff attention before him. From the expression on his face, he’d been there a while.
“Thank you, Galen. Efcharisto.”
“Are you well, sir?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. A little distracted.” Alex forced a grin. “There’s a lady waiting for me in town. You know how that is.”
Galen permitted himself a small smile. “I am sure the lady is happy to wait, sir,” he said, and stepped aside with a deep bow as Alex walked past him into the throne room.
His parents were not alone.
A handful of aides hovered around his father, who was seated at an antique desk liberally strewn with sheets of paper. His mother stood on the throne platform, encircled by several of her ladies-in-waiting who held lengths of silk brocade against her while a seamstress sat on the floor, pinning and tucking and doing whatever in heaven’s name women did with all those yards and yards of fabric.
Alex’s lips twitched.
Despite its elegance, the frescoes, the ceiling painted by a sixteenth-century master and a wall hung with exquisite Byzantine icons, right now the room looked more like someone’s slightly messy sitting room than a place in which the kingdom’s most formal ceremonies were held.
His father looked up. “There you are,” he said in a tone that suggested it was he who’d been kept waiting. “Well, what do you think?”
Alex raised his eyebrows. “About what?”
“About these plans, of course.” Aegeus slapped a hand on the papers spread over his desk. “Do we want a theme, or do we not?”
No, Alex thought, this was not someone’s sitting room, this was more like the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
“A theme for what?” he said carefully.
Aegeus shot to his feet, scattering the aides crowded around him.
“For your mother’s sixtieth birthday celebration, of course! If you hadn’t spent the last month doing God knows what, you’d know what was going on here!”
“Now, Aegeus.” Husband and son looked at the queen, who smiled at them both. “You know Alexandros has been busy convincing foreigners that our kingdom is the perfect place for them to invest in the future. And I’m sure we can assume he’s been successful. Haven’t you, Alex?”
Alex smiled and went to his mother. She bent toward him and he took her hand and brought it to his lips.
“Mother. I’ve missed you.”
“How was your trip?”
“It was fine.” Alex smiled. “We snared a lot of foreigners who look forward to a happy future.”
His mother laughed. “You see, Aegeus? It’s just as I said.” Tia waved the women away and came gracefully down the steps. “It’s good to have you home again, Alexandros.”
“It’s good to be here.” Alex nodded at the women gathering up the fabrics. “What’s all this?”
“I just told you what it is,” Aegeus said with impatience. “Preparation for your mother’s birthday celebration. I thought we should make the final selections of décor, color and fabric here in the throne room, where the most formal part of the ceremony will take place. Isn’t that right, gentlemen?”
The aides nodded.
“We want to be certain everything comes together properly.”
Aegeus looked at his aides, who nodded again. Alex thought of turkeys pecking for grain at the feet of the farmer who owned them and repressed a smile.
“So, what do you think, Alexandros? What theme shall we use? Our history as part of the ancient world? A link to the days of the Crusades? The time of the Ottoman Empire? All those things, as you well know, are in our bloodline.”
Who gave a damn? What mattered was the celebration of his mother’s sixtieth birthday, not his father’s lineage.
“Any of those would be fine,” Alex said smoothly, with a quick glance at his mother. “Something big and splashy. After all, we don’t want it said that only the Calistans can do parties that are showy.”
He saw his mother bite back a smile. Any mention of Calista, which had once been part of the Adamas empire along with Aristo, was enough to make his father’s hackles rise.
“Showy,” Aegeus said, frowning.
“Exactly.” Alex shook his head. “I’ve never understood why there was so much coverage of the Queen of England’s birthday celebration a couple of years ago when it was all so low-key. Have you, Mother?”
“No,” Tia said with perfect innocence, “I’ve never understood it, either. All those reporters and television people, the worldwide interest in Elizabeth and the British royals… and all of it done, as you say, Alexandros, with such quiet elegance.”
The king snorted. “What is there to understand? One either knows the virtue of simplicity or one doesn’t.” He looked down at the papers on his desk, studied them for a long moment, then swept them to the floor with his hand. “I have just chosen a theme for your birthday celebration, Tia. The coming of spring. I can envision it now. Masses of early spring flowers. The Venetian dinnerware in shades of palest green and yellow. And you, the queen, dressed in a gown the same pale pink as the diamond in the Aristan crown.”
Thank you, Tia mouthed to her son. Alex flashed her a grin.
“That sounds very nice,” she said demurely.
“Nice? It will be magnificent, especially with you resplendent in the new necklace I’ll commission as your birthday gift. Although we could add a brooch …”
“No brooch,” the queen said. “It would be inappropriate, Aegeus, to wear both a brooch and a necklace.”
The king waved his hand. “Whatever. Take it up with the craftsman.”
“The jewelry designer,” Tia commented. “That’s what she is.”
She? Alex frowned and thought back to the weekend the final half-dozen jewelry designers, selected from all around the globe, had been invited to Aristo to meet with his parents. Had there been another woman in the group? He only recalled one.
But
