She needed to do something slightly worthwhile because the guilt was eating her up. Her brother nodded and said nothing more. If anyone understood duty before all else, it was he.
An hour later, as she walked the corridor towards her favourite ward, that cold queasiness returned.
‘Princess Eleni?’ Kassie, the physiotherapist escorting her to the ward, stopped.
From a distance Eleni registered the woman was frowning and her voice sounded distanced too.
‘Are you feeling okay?’
* * *
Damon Gale was barely existing in a state of perpetual anger. He hadn’t left Palisades without trying to find and warn his mystery lover there might be consequences from their time together. He’d described her to his half-sister Kassie, but she’d not been able to identify the woman either. No one could. None of his subtle queries had given any answers. Where had she disappeared to so quickly? Heaven knew, when he found her he was giving her a piece of his mind. But at night she came to him in dream after dream. He woke, hard, hungry and irritable as hell. There was so much more they should have done. But now she was hiding. Not least the truth about who she was. Why?
He loathed nothing more than lies.
So this morning, weeks since that damn ball, he’d once again flown back to Palisades. Now he waited for Kassie at the hospital in her tiny office, looking at the clever pen and ink drawings of the child patients pinned to the noticeboard.
He heard a footstep and a low, hurried whisper just outside the door.
‘Ma’am, are you sure you’re feeling all right?’
That was Kassie. Damon’s muscles tensed.
‘I’m just a bit...dizzy. Oh.’ The woman groaned.
He froze, shocked at the second voice. He knew those raspy tones. She spoke in his dreams. Every. Damn. Night.
‘Do you need a container?’ Kassie asked delicately.
‘I had a bug a few days ago but I thought I was over it or I’d never have visited today,’ the woman muttered apologetically. ‘I’m so sorry. I’d never want to put any of your patients at risk.’
‘They’re a hardy lot.’ Now Kassie’s smile was audible. ‘I’m more concerned about you. Are you sure I can’t get a doctor to check you over?’
‘No, please. No fuss. I’ll quickly go back to the palace. My driver is waiting.’
Palace? Damon was unable to move. Unable to speak. His woman had known the security code to get through that second door in the palace. Did she work there? But she’d said she worked at the hospital. That was why he was back here again.
‘Maybe you should rest a moment,’ Kassie urged softly.
‘No. I need to go. I shouldn’t have come.’
Damon stood. Those words exactly echoed ones he’d heard that night at the masked ball. Those exact tones in that exact, raspy voice. It was her.
He strode across the room and out into the corridor. But his half-sister had her back to him and she was standing alone. Damon looked past her and saw no one—the corridor ended abruptly with a corner.
‘Who was that?’ he demanded harshly.
Kassie spun, startled. ‘Damon?’ She blinked at him. ‘I didn’t know you were coming back again so soon.’
‘I have another meeting,’ he clipped. ‘Who were you talking to?’
‘I’m not supposed to say because her visits are strictly private,’ Kassie answered quietly. ‘But she wasn’t feeling well today and left early.’
‘Whose visits?’ What did she mean by ‘private’?
‘The Princess.’
Damon stared dumbfounded at his half-sister.
Princess Eleni of Palisades?
Wasn’t she the younger sister of King Giorgos, a man known for his protectiveness and control over everything—his island nation, his emotions, his small family. Hadn’t he been the guardian of the supposedly shy Princess for ever?
Now the covers of the newspapers at the airport flashed in his mind. He’d walked past them this morning but paid little attention because they’d all carried the same photo and same headline—
A Royal Engagement! The Perfect Prince for Our Princess!
But the Princess was not perfect. She’d fooled around with a total stranger only a few weeks ago. And now she was engaged. Had she been rebelling like some wilful teen? Or was there something more devious behind her shocking behaviour? And, heaven have mercy, how old was she?
‘What do you think was wrong with her?’ he asked Kassie uneasily. He needed to get alone and research more because an extremely bad feeling was building inside him.
‘I’m not sure. She was pale and nau—’
‘Where did she go?’ he interrupted.
Kassie was staring at him. ‘Back to the palace. She visits my ward every Friday. She never misses, no matter what.’ Kassie ventured a small smile. ‘She doesn’t seem your type.’
He forced himself to answer idly, as if this didn’t matter a jot. ‘Do I have a type?’
Kassie’s laugh held a nervous edge as she shook her head. ‘Princess Eleni is very sweet and innocent.’
But that was where Kassie was wrong. Princess Eleni wasn’t sweet or innocent at all. She was a liar and a cheat and he was going to tear her to shreds.
Thank God he finally knew where and how he could get to her. He just had to withstand waiting one more week.
CHAPTER FOUR
IN HER BATHROOM Eleni stared at her reflection. Her skin was leached of colour and she felt sick and tired all the time. Wretched nausea roiled in her stomach yet again, violent and irrepressible. She’d been avoiding mirrors since the ball. She couldn’t see herself without seeing those two strangers entwined...
It had been over a month since that night. Now she gazed at her breasts and held in her agonised gasp. Was it her imagination or were they fuller than usual? That would be because her period was due, right? But finally she made herself face the fact she
’d been trying desperately to forget. Her period was more than due. It was late.
Two weeks late.
She’d been busy. She’d been travelling. Her cycle could be screwed up by nerves, couldn’t it?
Frigid fear slithered down her spine as bitter acid flooded her mouth again. Because a lone, truly terrifying reason for her recurring sickness gripped her.
Surely it was impossible. She’d seen him put on that condom. She couldn’t possibly be pregnant. That foul acid burned its way up into her mouth. She closed her eyes as tears stung and then streamed down her face. She needed help and she needed it now.
But there was no help to be had. She had no true friends to trust. Her childhood companions had been carefully selected for their families’ loyalty to the crown and swiftly excised from her life if they’d slightly transgressed. There were acquaintances but no real confidantes and now most were in continental Europe getting on with their careers.
Eleni had studied at home. It was ‘safer’; it endorsed their own, prestigious university; it was what Giorgos had wanted. She’d not argued, not wanting to cause him trouble.
She was terrified of troubling him now.
But she was going to have to. Shaking, she showered then dressed. She quickly typed an email to Giorgos’s secretary requesting a meeting for this evening. Her brother was busy, but Prince Xander was arriving from Santa Chiara tonight for a week’s holiday with her. They’d be travelling to the outer islands to spend more time together. She was dreading it. She had to speak to Giorgos first. She had to tell him the truth.
Still incredibly cold, she grabbed a jacket and stuffed a cap in the pocket while her maid, Bettina, phoned for her car.
It was far later than when she usually went to the hospital, but she was desperate to get away from her suite where her maid was lining up sample wedding dresses from the world’s top designers. The only thing she could do while waiting to meet Giorgos was maintain some kind of schedule. Given she’d left her visit so abruptly last week, she couldn’t miss this week as well. She’d control the nausea and control her life.