Page 24 of Impossible Heir for the King

‘Here. I learned to catch it and prepare it too.’ He stared at her soft lips, watching the tantalising flick of her tongue, absurdly pleased to see her enjoyment.

‘You’ve been coming to this island since you were little?’

Now he was happy to answer her questions and keep his mind out of dangerous waters. ‘We came a lot when I was very young. A lot of long weekends.’ His mother had rested on that veranda. He’d not realised that she needed the quiet to restore her fragile emotional energy. He’d not understood how much she needed to convalesce that until he was older—when hearing his father chastised yet again by his grandparents. ‘Less in my early teens, I was sent overseas to a boarding school.’

‘Why overseas?’ She looked surprised.

‘It was considered a vital part of my education to mingle with other future leaders and nobility. To learn other languages, history, science and the arts of diplomacy.’ He’d made a good friend in particular there. ‘I got to see a lot of the world and do things that I might not have had the chance to do otherwise. After my mother died it was a help to be busy there. It wasn’t long after I finished that my father then died and I became the heir. I needed to learn much from my grandfather so didn’t come here.’ He dragged in a breath. ‘But afterhisdeath I came here for a short period of mourning.’ He’d just needed to be alone for a few days. ‘There’d been a storm and much of the building was damaged. Over the next couple of years I refurbished it.’

‘You laid the stonework yourself?’ she challenged.

‘Some of it, yes. I hadn’t the skills for the fine details, but I worked as a labourer for the craftsmen whenever I could. This was a project I put everything I could into.’

He’d worked through his grief. His guilt. Pax had lived on-site and worked alongside him as part of his own rehabilitation. So had Aron.

‘Because you love it here.’

‘Because Ineedit.’ He froze, stunned at his emotional outburst.

To admit that heneededanything to anyone was unusual for him and he didn’t know why he had. He glanced up. She was gazing at him with those mysterious eyes. If he wasn’t careful he’d slip into them and never emerge again. But honestly, right now he wouldn’t care if he were lost in them for good.

‘What else do you need?’ she asked huskily.

He lost all power of speech. His body had the answer. Only the one.

Her eyes darkened. Hardened.

‘Don’t you need a wife who can provide you with all the usual wifely things a king requires?’ She licked her lips. ‘Like one who provides more than one heir? Don’t you need a woman who will provide support at events and then relaxation for you? Someone who can speak all those other languages with you, one who understands diplomatic nuances...?’ She angled her head and hit him where it hurt. ‘Shouldn’t you have a society beauty of noble birth who’s been educated inallthe arts of keeping her king content?’

The woman she described wasexactlythe kind he should have. And the last one he wanted. Emotion bubbled again but she didn’t know how close to the edge he was and she didn’t stop.

‘Wouldn’t your parents have wanted to approve of—’

‘My parents were a love match,’ he interrupted her harshly. ‘My father refused to accept the marriage that was arranged for him. My mother was a local girl he’d met as a teen.’

Maia’s eyes widened. And yeah, she knewnothing.

‘They married in secret so they couldn’t be stopped. The formal, public ceremony was a cover-up that took place several weeks later.’

They’d been teen sweethearts who’d vowed to do anything for each other. And had.

‘Were they happy?’

He paused and went for the truth. ‘They loved each other to the end but no, they weren’t happy.’

Maia flinched and suddenly he was compelled to hold nothing back.

‘It wasn’t a fairy tale, Maia. Love wasn’t enough for it to work. My mother was unsuited to palace life and family dynamics were difficult. He tried to protect her but she wouldn’t let him sacrifice his duty for her. She tried but it wore her out.’

Look after her.

His father had instructed him every time he left to work and Niko and his mother had come here. Because—soft and empathetic—she was worn out easily simply by loving too much.

‘My father loved her and she loved him but she couldn’t quite be happy there.’ Nor had Niko been able to make her happy—he’d not been able to help her, he’d not been able to stop her from driving away that night. All of that hurt and he couldn’t forgive himself for any of it. For his aunt’s misery. His mother’s. And ultimately, for both their deaths. ‘She couldn’t cope with his parents’ disapproval...’

Maia swallowed. ‘What happened?’

‘She spent as much time here as she could.’

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