Page 38 of Revelations of A Secret Princess

She hadn’t just lied about her identity. If only that were the worst of it!

He shoved his hands in his pockets, peering out at moon-washed peaks, taking in the twinkle of lights further down the valley that made him feel, for the first time in years, as isolated as he’d been as a kid, shutting himself off in an attempt to lessen the pain of his mother’s desertion.

He’d actuallyfeltfor Caro. Had wanted to care for her as much as he’d wanted her in his bed.

Whereas she didn’t want him. She wanted Ariane.

Nausea swirled in his belly and he swallowed the rancid taste of disgust.

If the investigators were right, Ariane’s birth mother was Princess Carolina of St Ancilla. Everything pointed to it. The way she’d been bundled home when news broke of her wild partying. Her seclusion at a convent on the northern end of the island for the better part of a year. The fact that Ariane’s adoption took place in the same region and there appeared to be a link to the same convent.

As if that weren’t enough, someone else had been investigating Ariane’s adoption lately, requesting records and asking questions. A lawyer in St Ancilla. A lawyer related to the countess who’d supplied a reference for her friend, the masquerading Princess.

It was easy to see what was happening. A group of aristocratic friends colluding to help each other.

Why?

The answer made Jake’s blood steam.

So the pampered Princess could get her hands on Ariane.

Jake shook his head, breathing deep and filling his lungs as far as they’d go. Even so it felt as if barbed wire wrapped around his chest, constricting his air, drawing tighter as his ire rose.

He didn’t give a damn if some party-girl princess had a change of heart about the baby she’d abandoned. Ariane was better off without her. For what was to stop her changing her mind again?

What Ariane needed was love and stability. Family. That was where he came in.Hewas family.

Carolina of St Ancilla signed away her rights years ago. It was too late to change her mind. Ariane was his niece, his only link with his beloved sister.

He had no intention of giving her up to some spoiled, deceitful woman who used her body to get her own way.

A shudder stormed his frame as he thought of her giving herself to man after man, a commodity to get what she wanted. She was an expert cheat, given the way she’d fooled him. An expert at using sex and deception.

But she’d messed up this time.

He’d never release Ariane to such a woman.

He might have been born working class and only just avoided being made a ward of the state when his older sister stepped in to raise him. But he was a man to be reckoned with. Apart from his considerable wealth, he had powerful contacts.

More, forewarned was forearmed. He wouldn’t wait till the Princess tried to snatch Ariane, or filed a lawsuit to claim her.

Right now arrangements were being made to increase security on the castle and on Ariane in particular. No one would steal her away.

As for a lawsuit... His mouth curled disdainfully. He already had a team of the best legal experts onto it. Birth mother or not, Carolina wouldn’t get custody. If he had his way she wouldn’t get access to Ariane for years. By which time her whim to be a mother would no doubt have passed.

Jake’s smile became a grin. He wanted to see her face when she discovered she’d been outmanoeuvred.

Caro’s smile felt like a rictus and her fingers ached from shaking hands with the throng of people her father had invited to the ball. Yet a glance at the mirror on the other side of the palace foyer reassured her. Her smile appeared real and she looked as regal as jewels, haute couture and years of mind-numbing training in etiquette and deportment could make her.

Her father would have nothing to complain about tonight, at least as far as she was concerned. No doubt he’d find something else to take umbrage at. He was never happy unless unhappy with something.

What had possessed him to invite such a huge crowd? Not only royals and people from both St Ancilla and Tarentia, but a slew of others. There was an unusually high number of foreign bankers and financiers.

Surely the whisper she’d heard couldn’t be true—that the royal finances were rocky.

Caro pushed the idea aside. Probably her father planned some new scheme and had decided to finance it with someone else’s money.

She smiled at another guest, answering him in his native German, hiding a wince at his too hearty handshake.

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