Page 60 of Claimed By the Crown Prince

He went very still. A sense of exposure prickled over his skin. Memories of his mother screeching and crying.

He said, ‘Are you ready for this to be over?’

Now her eyes did flash. ‘You know nothing else is possible. We can’t have an affair.Ican’t have an affair.’

‘Not with someone like me.’

She shook her head. She looked drawn all of a sudden. ‘Even if I wanted to...we couldn’t.’

Dax was tempted to say,But you do want to?But those toxic memories crowded his head again. The desperation he’d seen on his mother’s face. Hewasn’tdesperate. This was different. Infinitely different.

Laia said, ‘I thought you would be happy to regain your freedom. Your life.’

It was ironic. He could now leave this island, but Dax knew that the last thing he’d feel was a sense of freedom. He saw over her shoulder that the security team’s boat was approaching the pontoon. He also noticed belatedly that she had her suitcases lined up by her feet.

‘You must have been up early.’

‘I couldn’t sleep.’

Yet Dax had slept. Like a baby. After a lifetime of insomnia.

‘Dax... I...’ She stalled. And then she said, ‘I hope you’re going to let people see the real you now.’

He looked at her. Eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You’re a good man, Dax, and you’ve been living a lie.’

Dios. This was even worse than he’d thought. She was trying to make him feel better. He welcomed a numbness building inside him.

‘Believe me, I’ve enjoyed raising hell.’

‘I’m sure. But isn’t it time to move on from that life?’

‘Settle down? Like you will?’

‘I have no choice. It’s my destiny. If I don’t have children my line dies with me. That’s hundreds of years of royal lineage.’

‘I’ve already told you that’s not what I’m interested in.’

‘But...won’t you be lonely? After all, Aristedes will be marrying too, having a family.’

‘Like you, he has no choice. But I do. I’ve seen enough of family life to do me for a lifetime. The world doesn’t need my genes passed down. Ari’s are enough.’

As if to mock himself, Dax recalled the vision he’d had the previous night of children on the beach shrieking with excitement over the phosphorescence.

His sense of exposure went nuclear.

He could see the security men getting out of the boat in the distance. Presumably coming to get Laia and bring her luggage down.

He forced himself to look into her green eyes. ‘Don’t pity me in my lonely bachelor life, Laia. I’ll be just fine.’

For a second she looked almost ill, but then she lifted her chin and said, ‘I don’t doubt you will, Dax.’

The security men arrived and wordlessly took Laia’s luggage. She paused a moment before following them and said, ‘Goodbye, Dax. I didn’t expect for any of this to happen...but I’m glad it did. I’m glad to have got to know you.’

Was it his imagination or was her voice husky? And had her eyes been shimmering...?

Before Dax could wonder at that, and figure out what it meant, Laia was down on the beach. One of the security guards helped her up onto the pontoon by taking her hand, and for a second Dax saw red.

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