He didn’t understand this. Any of it.
A sob racked her frame and she covered her mouth with one hand, fingers quivering over her lips. Lips bruised red and swollen from his kisses.
Dios, he had just made love to a deceitful, dishonourable bitch. He had just been embedded inside a liar and a thief. The woman who had stolen his son. Who did such a thing?
She’s an Arunthian, Thane, what did you expect?
His brain was working so fast his thoughts tripped over themselves before he could even process the last.
‘No one ever asked? Suspected?’ he asked, dark incredulity pouring from his tone.
Sitting at the base of the bed, she bent her knees and wrapped her arms around them, curling that incredible hateful body into a defensive ball.
‘No. We had a nanny—Crista—who has a son of her own. Very few other staff. I wanted him to have a normal childhood. A free life without the constraints of the crown. Without being suffocated by duty—’
Thane flung his arms wide. ‘Yet you take away his rights as a born royal! Why didn’t you tell me? Were you ever going to tell me I had a son?’
Dios, he had a son. Maybe if he kept repeating the words it would sink in.
‘I tried. So many times. I wrote letters—so many. I burned them. We didn’t really know each other, Thane—you didn’t even know my true identity.’
With the tips of her fingers she rubbed the moisture from the tender skin beneath her eyes and took a deep breath.
‘Our countries are enemies—you know this. Only yesterday you admitted you almost assassinated my father. He knew, Thane. He knew it was you. I was so scared. And the rumours, the horrors I’d heard of this place—they chilled me. Your childhood…’ She rocked a little, as if the mere thought of his youth pained her. ‘The fact that you’re staunch militia…raised for war, for fighting. I couldn’t bear the thought of him being raised like that. Getting hurt. I still can’t.’
She looked up at him through the veil of her lashes, those huge eyes pleading. Thane had to stiffen himself against their power.
‘Please try to understand. I didn’t even know you and your uncle were divided. I just—’
‘Stop. Just stop.’
He couldn’t abide her voice any more. Because it was becoming increasingly clear that the person she’d been trying to protect their son from was him. The only woman he’d ever let past his shields, the only woman he’d wanted to live his life with, thought him so monstrous that she’d feared for their son’s life. And that almost killed him right where he stood.
‘I cannot bear to hear your excuses any longer. Where is he? Where is my son?’
‘At…at home—’
He sliced her off with a razored slash of his hand through the air. ‘No, Luciana. He is not at home. His home is here—with me.’
Unable even to look at her, he pulled on his T-shirt and bounded out onto the deck. Oblivious to where he was going. Blind to what he was doing.
He felt vile. That ever-present blackness was rising like a demonic tide inside him, swirling like a toxic storm. He despised it. Despised her for causing it. Would do anything to stop feeling—anything. And she’d done that too. Torn down the walls that had barricaded his emotions, leaving him defenceless, only to stab him in the back.
He brought his hand up in front of his face, watched his flesh tremble and gritted his teeth as he balled it savagely until his knuckles and wrist cracked and his strength began to return. Until his heart was black and his blood ran cold. Then he spun on his heels to stride across the patio.
‘Thane, wait. Where are you going?’
That was one thing he did know.
‘To get my son.’
A flash of memory arrowed through his mind and he crashed to a halt. Turned with lethal calm to see her climb from the bed and stand tall on those amazing legs—such works of art. He’d had them wrapped around his waist as he’d taken her against the shower wall, not two hours ago, and it sickened him.
‘The photograph I saw. Of you pushing a young boy on a swing. In a park. When you were in China. He had ebony hair just like mine…’
Dios, he’d been staring at a picture of his own son.
She frowned and her flawless skin went impossibly paler. ‘Photograph?’
‘Si. I pulled files on you back in Courchevel. I saw him and I didn’t even think he could be mine. Didn’t even think you would be capable of such a heinous crime.’