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‘He wants more swimming,’ Lily said without looking back.
He wants…
He definitely wanted. Michales’s full focus was on the waves.
Alex’s father had taught him to swim. It was the only memory he had of his father—blurred by time but with him still. He was floating in the water, his father’s big hands under his tummy, coaxing him to push off, to see if he could float if his father’s hands weren’t there.
And when he had… his father whirling him round and round, spinning with excitement, calling out to his mother, ‘He’s done it—our son can swim.’
Now it was… his turn?
He walked slowly back into the water, to just beyond the breaking waves. He dipped his son into the sea. He held him under his tummy.
Michales was far too young to coax as his father had coaxed him. But Michales figured out the basics as if he’d been born to the waves.
Balanced on his father’s hands, his legs and arms went like little windmills. He was a ball of splashing, chortling delight. He had no fear. He knew his father’s hands would keep him safe.
His son.
Lily was up the beach, inspecting his old boat.
His wife.
The sensations were almost overwhelming.
But then his thoughts were interrupted. Out to sea, a boat rounded the headland. A cruiser. Thirty feet long or more. New.
There were a couple of men in the bow and they had binoculars in their hands. Or cameras.
Hell, he’d wanted privacy. He might have known reporters would try and get in here.
He lifted Michales into his arms. The little boy must have finally had enough. He snuggled into his father’s bare chest—and here were more of those sensations he didn’t know what to do with.
He strode up the beach to his wife. His wife. She was still focused on the boat.
‘Lily, let’s go,’ he said urgently.
‘Why?’
‘These people… ’ He motioned back towards the cruiser and she glanced at it without interest. ‘I suspect they’re reporters.’
‘So?’ To his frustration, her attention was all on the boat. She’d crouched down to look closer. ‘She’s looking great for two years stuck on the beach. Look at the workmanship. All she needs is a couple of new spars and calking. New expoxy resin. I could make her fabulous.’ The edge of one side of the boat was half buried in the sand and she started digging.
‘Lily… ’
‘I want to see if this is intact. I bet it is. I’m wondering if the sand’s been covering her. Sometimes boats buried in the sand can last for half a century or so before they start rotting, especially if the sand stays dry.’
‘I don’t want these people to photograph you.’
‘Why not?’
Good question, he thought. Because she wasn’t glamorous? Because she wasn’t made-up for the cameras?
She was wearing a cheap, ill-fitting bathing costume and no make-up. Her short-cropped curls clung wetly around her face, escaping from her wetly limp scarf. Did she care?
‘Look at the rear thwart,’ she said reverently. ‘It’s gorgeous. That’s Huon pine. Tasmania’s the only place it grows. It’s a dream of mine, to build a boat all of Huon, only of course there’s so little left. Those babies take centuries to grow. The Tasmanians flooded a valley last century and they’re diving for the timber now. If I could get some… ’
She was lost, he thought, fascinated. She had eyes only for the boat.
The cruiser had come into shallow waters. Two men jumped overboard.
With cameras.
They were photographing as they came, as if expecting any minute they’d be noticed and their quarry would run.
Lily wouldn’t run, he thought. Not the first Lily he’d met. Not the passionate Lily. Not when she had her hands on a sick boat.
Real Huon pine. Her eyes were shining with missionary zeal.
‘Lily… ’
She didn’t look up. He groaned inwardly but gave up. How could you protect someone from herself?
Did she want protecting?
His protectiveness was mixing with something else now. Pride?
The thought was novel but there it was. She knew the reporters were here, but she wasn’t losing concentration. She’d finished digging out the side of the boat and was running her fingers gently round the timbers. Taking in every square inch of the ancient dinghy.
‘Can I fix it for you?’ she asked.
‘It’s a wreck.’
‘It’s not a wreck. Look at these timbers. They look almost as watertight as the day she was made. All she needs is lots of TLC.’
‘TLC?’
‘Tender loving care,’ she said and ran her hands over the old timbers with such a look on her face that he felt…
Jealous?
Whoa, that was nuts.
He was holding Michales. Michales was gazing down at his mother as well.
‘You’ve been usurped,’ he told the baby ruefully. ‘Your mother’s fallen in love with a boat.’ But then he figured maybe he’d better pay attention to the press. The two men were getting closer. Their trousers were wet from wading ashore. They were snapping for all they were worth, as if they thought they were about to be thrown off the beach.
He should have brought a couple of security guys down here. Instinctively, he moved to put his body between Lily and the photographers but, apart from one uninterested glance, all Lily’s focus was on the boat.
‘Ma’am?’ the younger man called and Lily tore her attention from the boat again.
‘Lily,’ she corrected him. ‘I don’t do ma’am.’ She’d spoken in Greek, almost absently. Now she went back to inspecting the boat.
The photographers were taken aback. Whatever they’d expected of her, it wasn’t this.
He’d allowed no press conferences before the wedding. There’d been such hostility towards her that he’d worried she’d get a really hard time—certainly be treated with contempt. Now he thought maybe a restricted conference might have been better—with pre-approved questions. As it was, these men knew nothing about her and they were able to ask anything.
The first question was harmless enough. ‘You speak Greek?’
‘Yes.’
‘Queen Mia didn’t.’
She sighed as if vaguely irritated but not much. ‘Mia and I were raised by different parents. My father taught me Greek. My maternal relatives were Greek and they taught me boatbuilding. My boss is Greek and I like learning. Okay?’
‘Are you really Mia’s sister?’
She didn’t answer straight away. Instead, she crawled around to the other side of the boat where the hole was a gaping mass of shattered timber. She touched the fragments of timber as a doctor might touch a fractured arm—with all the care in the world.
‘Of course I am,’ she said at last, without looking up.
‘And the baby… He’s really yours?’
‘Michales really is mine,’ she agreed. ‘Prince Alexandros has proved it. Who wants to know?’
‘Just about all the world.’
‘So how did you feel when you discovered the Queen had stolen your baby?’ one of the reporters asked and Alex stopped thinking about language. How could she answer this?
But she didn’t even have to think about it. ‘There’s no need to be melodramatic.’ She was using her hands to measure the width of the hole. ‘Mia didn’t steal him. I was ill and she cared for him.’
‘And passed him off as her own.’
‘I know nothing about that,’ she said. ‘Mia cared for my little boy, and when I was well enough I came here to fetch him. Alex supports me. So what else do you want to know?’
She’d said it as if what had happened was an everyday occurrence. As if there was no controversy at all.
‘Prince Alex says he didn’t know he was your baby’s father.’ The younger man had lowered his camera and was holding out a voice recorder. Alex thought about objecting, but then thought why? Maybe Lily’s calm pragmatism was just what was called for.
What the country needed?
What he needed.
She didn’t seem to be aware that she looked… dowdy.
No, he thought. Dowdy was the wrong word. A woman as cute as Lily could never look dowdy. Her swimsuit must have been bought before her illness—it was too big for her. Her nose was turning pink from the sun. Her scarf was slipping backwards, and her curls were twisting in damp tendrils across her forehead.
Cute? More. She was gorgeous. He was starting to feel…
‘Yes, I was dumb enough not to tell him,’ she said to the reporters. She might have been discussing the weather.
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I had my reasons.’ She sounded a bit irritated. But then she seemed to think about it. She sat back on her heels and gazed up at Alex, as if assessing him and rethinking her answer.
‘You know, the first time I met Prince Alex I thought he was wonderful,’ she admitted. ‘But I was ill and on medication and maybe I wasn’t myself. Alex didn’t know I was ill—or pregnant—only a rat would have taken advantage of me and you must know by now that the Prince is an honourable man. Now that Alex knows the truth, he’s made me an honest woman. I intend to stay here with my son and my husband, build boats and live happily ever after. I’ll start with repairing this one. Is that okay with you?’
What were the reporters supposed to say to that? They were staring at her, open-mouthed. It was so obviously not a rehearsed speech that she’d taken their breath away.
She’d taken his breath away.
She’d been ill.
She’d downplayed it, but suddenly he thought, how ill? She’d said it before, but it had been brushed aside. She’d implied she’d had a minor operation. Maybe she’d had morning sickness as well.
But… ill when she’d conceived?
And… she’d made their marriage sound ordinary.
He wouldn’t have minded if she’d looked up and smiled at him, formed some sort of connection to make these guys think that their initial attraction still held.
To make him think that initial attraction still held.
Hell, what was he thinking? One part of him wanted a marriage of convenience. The rest of him wanted to claim this woman as his.
Which was ridiculous. What had changed to make him trust her?
‘Do you have any more questions?’ she asked, rising and wiping sand from her hands on the sides of her bathing suit. ‘Michales has been in the sun for long enough. I need to take him up to the house.’ She lifted Michales from Alex’s grasp and waited—politely—for the reporters to leave.
‘Are you in love with Prince Alex?’ the older reporter asked and Alex drew in his breath. Of all the impertinences…
But Lily didn’t seem perturbed.
‘I’d imagine half the hot-blooded women in the western world are in love with His Highness,’ she said and she grinned. ‘Ask your readers.’
‘But your marriage… ’
‘The Prince is an honourable man,’ she said again, flatly. ‘He’s my husband and he’s doing right by me and my son. I think he’s wonderful. You should all be very proud of him. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must go. I’ll leave you with Prince Alexandros—he can answer any more questions you might think of. Good evening.’
‘Can we have a photograph of the three of you together?’ the cameraman pleaded. ‘One?’
‘Okay.’
Alex was too bemused to protest. Mia would never have agreed to a photograph like this, he thought, but Lily seemed unperturbed. How many photographs had been taken of her today? Obviously one more wasn’t going to do any harm.
She turned and stood beside him, holding her son. She smiled.
‘Can you lift Prince Michales a little higher?’ the cameraman called and Alex thought, damn this, he was going to be part of this photograph, too.
