The Future King’s Love-Child by Melanie Milburne Page A

wonderful time and remember it for the rest of their lives.’
    ‘I would like to make it an annual event,’ he said. ‘And I would like to visit the orphanage as soon as it can be arranged.’
    ‘I am sure the director will be delighted to have you do so,’ Cassie said, even as her heart gave another gut-wrenching lurch of dread. The party at the palace was risky enough, but if Sebastian wandered around the orphanage on an official visit someone was surely going to inadvertently let the cat out of the bag over who Sam’s mother was. Cassie had already told so many fibs. It was getting harder and harder to keep each brick of untruth in place. Any minute she felt as if the wall of lies she had built would tumble down and crush her. Even the way Sebastian looked at her in that unwavering way of his made her wonder if he suspected something was amiss. At times she felt as if it were written in block letters on her forehead: I am the mother of your little son . All Sebastian had to dowas keep looking at her in that piercing way of his and he would surely see it.
    Just the way he was looking at her now…
    ‘Have you guessed where I am taking you?’ he asked after a few moments of silence.
    Cassie leaned forward to look out of the window. They had moved well beyond the town and were heading to the Bay of Kounimai where she knew the Karedes family had a private holiday retreat at a place called Kionia. Sebastian had never taken her there before but in the past he had told her of the secluded beauty of the villa with its fabulous views over the rough water of the passage separating Aristo from the neighbouring island of Calista. ‘Are we going to Kionia?’ she asked as she sat back in her seat.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I thought we could both do with some privacy. I had Stefanos organise a picnic for us. It is a pleasant evening with not too much sea breeze so we can enjoy the sunset.’
    ‘It sounds lovely,’ Cassie said. ‘I can’t remember the last time I went on a picnic. Sam’s always asking me to—’ She suddenly stopped, her heart thudding like an out-of-sync timepiece.
    Sebastian cocked his head at her. ‘Sam? You mean the little boy who drew me the picture?’
    Cassie blinked at him, her brain whirling andspinning out of control. ‘Um…he’s…Angelica’s little boy,’ she finally managed to croak out.
    He gave her a quizzical look. ‘I thought his name was Nickolas,’ he said. ‘Or at least that’s what Stefanos said it was, but then he could have got it wrong.’
    ‘N-no, that is right…’ Cassie hastily mortared another lie into her wall of deceit. ‘Angelica’s son is called Nickolas but…but he prefers his second name…’
    ‘Like my sister prefers Lissa or Liss instead of Elissa,’ he said.
    Cassie felt her tension gradually start to dissipate, but even so her stomach felt as if a hive of bees had taken up residence inside. She felt as if each wing were buzzing against the lining of her stomach, the threat of a thousand stings making the trail of perspiration along her backbone feel more like a river. ‘Yes…exactly like that…’
    ‘I told her I ran into you,’ Sebastian said. ‘She’s been in Paris studying. She came home for our father’s funeral and Kitty’s wedding, but now she’s in Australia working for a friend of Alex’s, a businessman by the name of James Black.’
    ‘How is she?’ Cassie asked, thinking with more than a pang or two of shame of the wild-child antics Lissa and she had got up to. It was hard to remember now who had encouraged whom, butCassie suspected she was the one who had been held most responsible.
    ‘You know Lissa,’ he said with a rueful twist to his mouth. ‘If there’s a party she not only wants to be there but she wants to be the centre of it. She wasn’t too keen about being packed off to Sydney but we all thought it best if she had some time in the real world. I just hope it irons out some of her wilfulness. She has always been a