Page 33 of Off-Limits To The Crown Prince

His father threw back his head and laughed. Dressed in a favoured Savile Row suit, he remained a handsome man, although his hair was greying, and he carried a little thickness around the middle. To Alessio’s disgust, he looked more like this man than he did his beautiful mother, with her pale hair and eyes. His father’s genes had erased everything of his mother from him...almost. Not her inherent goodness, he hoped. Alessio strove to carry that always.

‘The country’s? No. We’re an absolute monarchy. Everything in Lasserno isours, to take as we see fit. Or have you forgotten? Next, you’ll be talking constitutions and presidents. Save me from a straw crown. I want none of it.’

Alessio sat still in his seat, the lessons of his childhood coming to the fore, when all he wanted was to stand and rage. But he refused to give this man the satisfaction of showing any emotion. Anyhow, toddler tantrums were his father’s specialty. He had more control. Alessio gripped the arms of his chair a little tighter, to prevent himself from leaping from it.

‘A ruler can be absolute, and still do the right thing by the country and its people.’

‘Doing what’s right for oneself is much more entertaining. Yet, despite your efforts,the peopledon’t seem to think you’re doing a good job. What are the press saying again?’

That he was cold. Autocratic. Opaque. Those words might have stung if his path weren’t clear. The people would see, once Lasserno took its rightful place on the world stage rather than being a forgotten backwater.

‘I don’t care, and that’s where our core difference lies. Since I’m a busy man fixing the messes you left, get to the point. Why did you come here? I suspect it wasn’t to criticise my decorating style.’

His father took a seat in the chair opposite Alessio’s desk, lounging in an indolent kind of way that was the man’s specialty.

‘I’ve come to congratulate you.’ His father’s gloating tone sounded a warning. ‘You’re not a lost cause yet, when for some time I thought you were all work and no play. She really is a masterstroke.’

Alessio froze. It couldn’t be. Hecouldn’tknow about Hannah. Everyone in the palace was faithful to him. No one would say a thing. He’d learned a hard lesson about misplaced trust and had rid himself of his father’s cronies and hangers-on the minute the man had walked away from the throne. Any whispers could only be rumour because he’d been seen with a woman, whose presence had been well reported before she’d even arrived in Lasserno. It was one of the few things he’d allowed Stefano to tell the press, the coup of his coronation portrait being painted by the world’s finest young artist, something to be celebrated rather than hidden.

‘Who are you talking about?’

His father waved his hand theatrically, twisting that spear even harder. His disdain for his son and only child had seemed to increase over the years. Alessio had long ceased trying to impress the man. He’d given up around the time he’d been called home from England, leaving behind his dreams of riding for his country any more. Arriving home to find Lasserno in disarray.

‘The artist. I should have done the same.’

Alessio’s veins turned to ice. ‘Stop talking in riddles.’

Yet even as he said the words his voice was like dust in his mouth, dry and lacking conviction. His father was a master of playing vicious, wicked games. He enjoyed them, and Alessio wondered whether the ?mistake’ in Hannah’s placement at his table for dinner hadn’t been a mistake at all but a move designed to create gossip.

‘Installed my mistress before marriage. What did that prim little English nanny of yours always say? Something about beginning as you mean to end things.’

Start as you mean to finish.

‘I have no mistress.’ That was not what was happening here. Hannah would be leaving soon. But the denial caught in his throat, threatening to throttle him.

His father was only guessing, assuming his son would debauch any beautiful young woman the same as he would. The bile rose in Alessio’s throat. He tried not to think that was exactly what he was doing. This was different. He didn’t have a wife; he didn’t have a child. There was nothing currently tying him to any person. He was as free as he could be.

‘You can keep telling that to your conscience. Marry the perfect ice-cold princess and have your passionate piece already installed. You’re setting the expectations of your wife early. Perfect.’

‘I have nothing to trouble my conscience. Unlike you, I’ll be a faithful husband and I would never leave my wife to die alone.’

‘Your mother wanted me nowhere near her, especially not at the end. If she had I might have spent more time with her. Let’s say she was satisfied with having an heir. She was never going to give me a spare. Trust me when I say a lack of passion makes for a very cold bed to lie in for eternity.’

Alessio stood then, began pacing the carpet.

‘Perhaps if you’d been faithful, she might have been inclined to like you rather than despise you. Take care. This is mymotherwhose memory you’re disparaging.’

‘Whose necklace you allowed your little artist to wear. Which was sensible. They form no part of the crown jewels. Sets the girl’s expectations, wearing secondary gems. She’ll always know her place.’

‘She is not my anything.’

‘Lie to yourself all you want but say it with more conviction next time. Or better, admit to your failings. You have me as a father after all. One day you’ll awaken a lonely old man and only then, when it’s too late, you’ll see I was right.’

‘Is that all you have to say?’ Alessio gritted his teeth, tried to maintain his temper. Swept his hands over the paperwork sitting on the desk. ‘Because I have work, and no time for your ravings. You chose to abdicate this responsibility. Now leave me be.’

‘Of course,Your Highness.’ His father’s voice was a cold sneer. ‘Just remember, the work is always there. As the English like to say,All work and no play makes Alessio a dull boy.My suggestion? Keep your artist and find your royal wife. What use is being a prince if you can’t have what you want?’

His father rose with the presence of a ruler, stalked to the study doors and flung them back. They smacked into the walls on either side with unnecessary force as he left the room. Alessio couldn’t stop moving, the anger burning in his gut as he paced. His father didn’t really know what was going on—he was fishing for information. But this, the palace, all the intrigue...it would sully what he had with Hannah, their last precious days spent together. He wanted perfect memories for them both. Had to get her away from here, but everywhere was fraught. Any of the other royal homes, the royal yacht, had bigger problems. Whilst he’d rid the palace in the capital of his father’s sycophants, he couldn’t be sure of elsewhere.

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