Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
‘W E WILL MEET AGAIN .’
The words reverberated in her head as she walked out of her neighbour’s apartment, Max’s warm weight nestled in her arms.
‘Thank you so much for tonight, Mrs Tolson.’
The old woman waved her away, wrapping her thick shawl around her shoulders as she leaned heavily against the door. Eden felt a pang of guilt for her reliance on the old woman, whose robustness had dwindled since her hip operation. It was her insistence that she missed Max and wanted to spend time with him that had made Eden finally give in, but undoubtedly she’d been a godsend in desperate times.
‘I love spending time with this cheeky darling—you know that. And it was only for a few hours.’ She stroked Max’s cheek, earning a drowsy smile from her sleepy son before she glanced at Eden. ‘Do you know what you’re going to do after next week?’
Her insides clenched at the reminder that Mrs Tolson was moving to California, to be closer to her son, and taking Eden’s reliance on her much-needed occasional childcare with her.
‘Something will come up, I’m sure.’
Worry and scepticism creased the older woman’s face, but she nodded, caressing Max’s cheek one last time before stepping back into her apartment.
‘Come by for pancakes in the morning,’ she said, then raised a hand when Eden opened her mouth to refuse. ‘I insist. I need as much Max-time as possible before I leave.’
Feeling a clog building in her throat, Eden nodded and turned towards her apartment door, twenty feet away.
Maggie had thankfully not given her grief over her fifteen-minute disappearing act with Prince Azar. She’d been more curious than annoyed, which suggested she hadn’t heard about Eden’s rude comment to the Crown Prince. It also meant she had much-needed money in her bank account, which would keep a roof over her head for the time being.
And after that?
She swallowed and summoned a smile when Max stirred, rubbed his eyes and delivered a heart-melting smile. ‘Mama?’
‘Yes, baby boy, it’s me.’
His smile widened and his arms wrapped tighter around her neck as she burrowed into his warmth.
‘Mama!’
She laughed, feeling lighter as she went into her bedroom. ‘Did you have fun with Mrs Tolson?’
She tuned everything else out and basked in his sweet, childish babble about Lego and giraffes. He sang half a theme tune of his favourite cartoon as she gave him a quick bath and wrestled him into his pyjamas. Holding him to her chest, she breathed in his sweet baby scent, her heart lifting and swelling with love as he fell asleep.
That same heart squeezed with anguish when she laid him down in his crib, her fingers tracing his cheek before lingering on the dip in his chin. The faintest slash of memory made her breath catch, but knowing it would go nowhere, as usual, she pushed it away and pulled a light blanket over her son.
But as she undressed and readied herself for bed the events of the evening flooded her, giving her no chance to suppress them.
‘We will meet again.’
The titanium-strong conviction behind Prince Azar’s promise shook through her, jostling her confidence. She was certain there was some mistake—because even with the gap in her memory she couldn’t fathom any scenario in which she would ever cross paths with the heir to the throne of one of the wealthiest kingdoms in Europe, never mind make an impact enough for him to remember her. Even in Vegas.
Her brain insisted this was a mistake.
But…
No.
Seeing the news of Nick’s accident in Arizona, weeks after waking up from a coma with an awful three-month gap in her memory, she’d hoped it would shed light on his possible connection with her own mysterious trauma, but the police had been closed-lipped about giving details. She suspected they’d also been threatened by Nick’s family with the same lawsuit she had. Not even her shame-tinged confession that she was pregnant, and that Nick was the strongest contender as father of her child, had swayed them.
She’d returned home to Vegas pregnant, with no clue as to who the father of her baby was. Short of tracking down the hundreds of trust fund billionaires, socialites and royalty among the friends and acquaintances littering the late Nick Balas’s social media pages, she’d had to quickly resolve to embrace single motherhood. She’d decided to focus on caring for the baby growing in her womb—the baby she’d already been heads over heels in love with. That way she had also avoided exposing herself to the kind of appalling slut-shaming her father had subjected her mother to before callously disavowing Eden’s paternity.
Eden punched her pillow and flipped over, her thoughts peeling back those weeks when she’d attempted to contact Nick’s family and quickly been reminded that men like her heartless father still existed—that they remained as vile as her own parent had been, thinking nothing of viciously informing the child they’d so carelessly created that as far as they were concerned they’d never been born. That their existence meant less than nothing to them.
She’d also been reminded that men like that could shatter lives with a single call to their lawyers. The same way her father had devastated her mother, leaving her a shell of herself. Leaving Eden with a searing promise never to risk walking in her mother’s shoes. Ever.
Only to discover she might well have.
She’d heard the many horror stories of influential families wresting custody of a child from financially unstable mothers. Still, she’d given in to a sliver of granting them the benefit of doubt.
Only to receive a ‘cease and desist’ letter from Nick’s brother and father. Containing the labels she’d most dreaded.
Grasping whore… Heartless leech, preying on the memory of our dead family member.
Their vicious response had killed any desire to tell them that she might be pregnant with Nick’s son. That Nick, with his dark hair and faintly tanned colouring, might be her son’s father, even though Max’s eyes were more a silver-grey than Nick’s faint blue.
Nick. Who would have been thirty-six today…
As she rose from bed the next day at the crack of dawn, Eden wondered if it was wise to continue the ritual she’d started with Max last year, of laying flowers at Nick’s graveside.
While a part of her had questioned what she was doing, a greater part had been adamant about acknowledging the man who might have fathered her child. If— when —her memory returned, and she discovered differently, the worst that would’ve happened was her having paid respects to a man she’d known briefly.
That resolution didn’t stop her stomach from churning as she showered, dressed and went to wake Max.
The sunlight spilling through the curtains caught his dark curls, then his eyes and cheeks. Eden wasn’t sure why her heart dipped into her belly, then nosedived to her toes. Millions of men had clefts in their chin. This was merely a coincidence, she insisted, as she bundled Max into warm clothes.
At the park near her apartment they made a game of picking flowers, Max faithfully reciting the colours and excitedly clutching the bouquet as they walked the quarter-mile to the cemetery.
The churning in her belly intensified as she stood before Nick’s tombstone, suppressing her frustration and panic at the thought that she might never recover those three months she’d lost.
She urged Max forward. ‘Come on, baby. Put the flowers here.’
She smiled shakily at his faint protest at relinquishing his colourful bouquet. But glancing up at her, and perhaps sensing her mood, he stepped forward and dropped them onto the grey marble.
Crouching down to his level, she brushed a kiss on his cheek. ‘Good boy.’
She was basking in his smile when the tingling danced over the back of her neck. She glanced up. Several cars dotted the streets dissecting the cemetery, and two dark-tinted SUVs were parked a short distance away, but nothing stood out to her.
Shaking her head at herself, she silently wished Nick a happy birthday and caught her son’s plump hand in hers. She wasn’t going to dwell on her jumpy emotions. They were due at Mrs Tolson’s for pancakes in forty-five minutes, and the older woman—a former school principal—disliked tardiness, although she was a little more flexible when it came to Max.
Smiling fondly at the thought, Eden slowed her steps to match his tiny, tottering ones as they headed home.
They arrived home with five minutes to spare and stopped at her apartment to wash Max’s hands.
‘Are you looking forward to pancakes, baby?’
‘Pancakes!’
Laughing, she opened her front door.
Then squeaked at the tall, dark and deadly handsome figure filling her doorway. ‘Y-you—what are you doing here?’
Prince Azar stared down the aquiline blade of his nose at her, his stormy grey eyes faintly mocking. ‘I warned you that we would meet again, Eden. Did you think I was—?’
He froze as Max’s chubby hand grasped the door and pulled it wide, his curiosity unfettered as he looked up and up into the face of the stranger on his doorstep.
A stranger who stared back, his eyes flaring, then probing deep. Deeper. His body seemed to turn to stone and a sharp inhalation lanced from his throat a long moment later.
The human brain, as Eden had unwillingly learned over the past three years, was a peculiar, fascinating and often cruel organ. Because it chose that moment to remind her of the sharp and ominous déjà vu she’d felt looking into her son’s eyes two hours ago. To remind her of that alarming sensation when she’d touched Max chin’s last night and lingered on the shallower version of the very cleft she was staring at now.
‘I don’t care what you want. I need you to leave.’
It was a plea couched as a warning.
The fact that it took several seconds for him to hear or grasp her words spoke volumes. When he did, the eyes that met hers were at once pitying and condemning. As if strongly recommending that she mourn her old life as she knew it because he was about to steamroller and subjugate it irrevocably .
‘Who is this?’
The query was ludicrously mild, considering what his eyes and body promised. Considering his immovable position in her doorway. Considering how each bodyguard subtly positioned himself, taking cues she couldn’t entirely comprehend from their prince.
Her hand moved from Max’s to his shoulder, gathering him essentially closer, ready to protect, to die for her offspring.
‘He’s my son. Now leave,’ she repeated.
Her voice shook, but held. As visceral as the resolution in his eyes. And she made sure he witnessed the fighting resolve in hers.
‘We both know that’s not going to happen.’
A sound whistled up her throat. Dismay. Fury. Panic.
Reminding herself to remain calm for Max’s sake—a demeanour she absently realised this man was also adopting, although she suspected he was infuriatingly unflappable in most circumstances—she raised her chin. ‘I can have the authorities here in minutes.’
‘Under what charge? Visiting an old friend?’ His gaze dropped to Max. ‘Or something else?’
Her breath strangled in her lungs. ‘We’re not friends. A-and I don’t know what you mean by “something else”.’
His jaw clenched. ‘Let me save you the trouble. You’ll get nowhere by calling the police. Not least because I’ve committed no crime. And I have diplomatic immunity. Make no mistake: I’m not leaving until we’ve cleared up a few things.’ Again, his eyes dropped to Max, his chest expanding on a breath. ‘Perhaps several things.’
Accepting his words at face value was the quickest way to get rid of him, she suspected. The quickest way to remove his rabid interest from her son.
‘At least let me take him next door.’
Silver-grey eyes darted back to her, narrowed into lethal slits. ‘Who or what is next door?’ he asked, in a voice draped with silk and danger.
‘My neighbour. She—we’re having breakfast with her. She’s expecting us.’ She looked down as Max, tired of the standoff, attempted to step out.
Prince Azar stiffened, his hands slowly emerging from his coat pockets as if ready to physically restrain her son.
Eden pulled him back, then yanked him into her arms when he protested.
‘It’s okay, baby.’
‘Pancakes! Pancakes!’
Hoisting him up had brought him to eye level with Prince Azar, a foolish but ultimately inevitable move. Because his scrutiny of her son’s face was immediate, and so thorough it shook the ground beneath their feet.
‘Dios mio,’ he breathed, on the third, fourth… dozenth pass.
‘Please. I don’t want— Don’t frighten him.’
‘Mama…?’
She kissed Max’s cheek, smoothing a hand down his back as he wriggled harder.
‘Which door is your neighbour’s?’
‘Five B.’
A subtle flick of his fingers and three of the six guards were repositioned in front of Mrs Tolson’s door. Prince Azar stepped back, his eyes riveted to her.
‘Half an hour while he eats. And we talk.’
Even though she suspected it was futile, she let her speaking glare echo what she felt about his edict.
The moment she stepped out he fell into step beside her. His presence bore down on her like a ton of bricks, but a quick glance showed his attention was riveted on Max. Who in turn stared at him with wide silver eyes.
Silver eyes… Oh, God.
She swallowed her trepidation as she arrived in front of Mrs Tolson’s door. Before she could knock, one of the bodyguards stepped in front of her and rapped sharply on the door.
‘Coming,’ the voice echoed faintly from within.
As footsteps drew nearer, the bodyguard positioned himself firmly in front of the door, ensuring he was the first thing poor Mrs Tolson saw when she opened the door.
‘Great timing. I was just— Who are you?’ Thankfully there was no alarm, just the sharp query of a former educator used to dealing with people twice her size.
‘Can you move, please?’ Eden said, as firmly as possible without frightening her son.
‘Not yet,’ Prince Azar forestalled.
Then he gave one of his subtle commands.
Before his guards could act, Eden stepped closer to the door.
‘Don’t you dare!’ Everyone froze. Prince Azar’s eyes snapped with unholy fire. She didn’t care. ‘Whatever you’re ordering them to do, the answer is no.’
‘Miss Moss, security protocol dictates—’
‘I don’t care.’ She cut across the guard who’d chastised her last night. ‘You will not invade my neighbour’s privacy.’
‘Eden? What’s going on?’
Sidestepping the bodyguard—to his bristling displeasure—she managed a strained smile. ‘Do you mind having breakfast with just Max for now, Mrs Tolson? I’ll join you shortly.’
No matter what the Crown Prince dictated, she intended the encounter to be short. And uneventful.
Please, God.
She set a wriggling Max down and everyone, including the bodyguards, watched him toddle off into the apartment and head straight for the box of giant Lego Mrs Tolson kept solely for him.
‘Yes, of course,’ her neighbour echoed, but her worried eyes flittered over the men gathered behind her, inevitably lingering on the most formidable one of all. ‘Doesn’t answer my question, though.’
The Crown Prince stepped forward then, and it irritated Eden no end that his guards took a respectful step back, giving him room to slot himself next to her.
She took a breath and her stomach tightened.
Sweet heaven, he smelled delicious. Mouth-watering in a way no one hellbent on harassing a single mother and her child had a right to smell.
He held out his hand to Mrs Tolson and Eden watched her elderly neighbour’s cheek flush as she caught her first proper glimpse of Crown Prince Azar.
‘I’m Prince Azar Domene. Eden and I would be grateful if you could be with…Max for a while.’
Had his voice caught, saying her son’s name?
Eden’s insides zapped with wild currents as she watched his gaze fly to Max and linger .
‘Oh. Well, yes, of course. But—’
‘Gracias,’ he slid in smoothly. Then, with another charged stare, he stepped back. ‘Two of my guards will keep you company, if that’s not too inconvenient?’
Courteous words that didn’t give a single ounce of room for negotiation. Mrs Tolson’s head was already bobbing as he turned to Eden, clasping her arm and steering her back towards her apartment.
‘Invite me in,’ he said at the door.
Tension knotted in her chest. ‘Do I have a choice?’
He shrugged. ‘There’s always a choice. No matter how much you might want to convince yourself otherwise.’
She felt the barb lodge itself beneath her breastbone, despite having no clue what she’d done to deserve it. She entered her tiny one-bed apartment, telling herself she didn’t care what the shabby but neat space looked like to a man born into royalty, with unfathomable riches, power and influence.
But a tiny part of her couldn’t dismiss that knowledge of falling short. The reminder that, as a child, she’d dreamed of the white picket fence and the loving two-point-four children and family life. And even growing up with the often debauched excesses of Vegas, with very rare glimpses of wholesome, loving families, that kernel of hope had somehow not only survived, it had also grown with the arrival of Max.
One touch…one kiss on top of her newborn’s head and that kernel had sprouted into a towering vow to do everything in her power to create a loving home for her son. Even if that home was just for two.
Those dreams would never come true for herself. But she would take pride in knowing it hadn’t been for lack of trying. A vindictive father who’d never accepted her but ensured she could never claim anything meaningful from him for herself had seen to that. And maybe she wasn’t entirely over the heartache that the man who’d so cruelly told her he wished she’d had never been born had gone out of his way to use his money and influence to keep tabs on her, killing job opportunities before she could secure them, but as long as she had breath in her body she would not be cowed.
Pushing the bleak thoughts away, she flinched when the door clicked ominously shut behind him.
‘Speak.’
‘Excuse me?’
His nostrils flared, giving him an air of impossible regal authority. ‘I’m hanging on by a thread here, Eden.’
The faintly lyrical enunciation of her name started a shiver through her system. One she desperately clamped down upon before it took complete hold of her. This wasn’t a time to be finding anything about this man attractive. Not when her senses were shrieking of a danger far more potent than the kind she was used to from powerful men like him.
‘And that’s my fault how?’ she snapped—then held up her hand, reminding herself that she needed to get through this as quickly as possible and get back to Max. ‘Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. You seem to think you know me, but I assure you I have no recollection of our ever meeting.’
And yet more and more she suspected he had something to do with her missing memory. And that terrified her more than anything.
‘Are you for real?’ he asked.
‘You asked me that last night. My answer hasn’t changed.’
His jaw clenched so hard she feared it would crack. ‘I ought to commend you, Miss Moss. In my whole life, only one person has been able to pull the wool over my eyes so effectively. Not once, as I thought, but twice. Would you like to take a guess who that person is?’
Dread turned her bones to lead. ‘Me…?’
‘You.’ His smile was almost self-chastening. ‘Which would stun most people. Because usually I’m an excellent judge of character.’
‘What can I say? Can’t win them all.’
The last vestiges of his smile disappeared, and that ferocious gaze pinned her in place once more.
‘What were you doing at Nick’s graveside an hour ago?’
She gasped. ‘You were there? Watching me?’ At his sustained, pointed silence she blurted, ‘Why?’
‘Answer my question.’
‘Because I… I knew him?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Is that a question?’
No way was she going to tell this man about the most harrowing few months of her life—especially when she still didn’t remember most of it.
‘What do you care?’
The flash of bleakness that shadowed his chiselled features was immediately chased away by fury.
‘Mr… Prince… Your Highness,’ she said, ‘I’m going to say this once, and then I’d like you leave. Because if you don’t, I will call the police. And, contrary to how powerful you think you are, the authorities here don’t take kindly to intruders who outstay their welcome.’
That faint trace of amusement lifted the corners of his lips again, but it evaporated in a nanosecond. ‘This should be interesting.’
She ignored his arid cynicism in favour of gathering her composure to revisit a period of her life that had the ability to make her soul quake. Because it remained shrouded in thick, dense fog, with her every effort to uncover it frustratingly unsuccessful.
‘I remember Nick Balas from his visits to the casino where I worked here in Vegas three years ago. I was a waitress there, and he—he was nice to me.’ A sharp shard of memory attempted to intrude, but it soon danced away. ‘At least I think so…’
She paused when the Prince’s eyes narrowed.
‘I caution you against speaking ill of the dead, Miss Moss…’
‘If you’re going to threaten me about Nick, too, save your breath. I’ve had all the warnings I can stomach—’
‘What do you mean by that? Who has threatened you?’
The bark of laughter charred her throat. ‘It’s more like who didn’t.’ She shook her head. ‘We’re veering from the subject…and I want to get back to my son.’ She paused when he stiffened again, his eyes flashing with a fierce light before he gave a brisk nod. Sucking in deep breath, she continued. ‘I remember talking to Nick a few times…and then I woke up in hospital three months later…pregnant, and with no recollection of who I was. I was told I’d been found on the road in the middle of nowhere, but I don’t remember.’
His eyes widened fractionally. Then deep laughter rumbled from his throat.
Despite the laughter being at her expense, Eden couldn’t stop herself from gaping in wonder at the breathtaking transformation of the man. He looked carefree, as if he had everything he wished for at his fingertips, in that way he was portrayed in glossy magazines that made even the most cynical woman stop, stare and sigh. That made women hope despite suspecting those hopes would never be fulfilled because he was so far out of their league as to be in a different galaxy.
She stared. Every cell in her body tightening and straining at that soul-slashing rumble of sound. Then it was transmitted straight between her legs. Dampening her core. Plumping her flesh. Triggering a stark, breath-stealing yearning .
Even after that brief, stunning transformation was wiped away, and his implacable displeasure was re-established, the sensation remained.
‘Amnesia?’ The word was drenched with abject scepticism. ‘That’s how you want to play this?’
For a moment she was bewildered by that response. Then the fact of being ridiculed over something so vital to her sparked fresh anger. ‘How dare you?’
He stepped up to her, his face etched with superior regal effrontery. ‘How dare I? You think I should tolerate you vilifying my friend and simply accept it?’
She blinked, shock unravelling through her before a degree of understanding layered over it. ‘Is that what this is all about?’ When his face clenched again, she rushed on. ‘You think I’m playing games? I can prove I’m not.’
Keen eyes dissected her, then he nodded. ‘Fine. I’ll bite.’
She shook her head. ‘Not until you give me some answers. Why are you here? Why did you follow me?’
‘No, Miss Moss. That’s not how this is going to go. Let’s see this proof you have first.’
Eden hesitated, wondering if she’d been too rash. She didn’t know this man, after all, and baring her medical secrets to him shouldn’t have been her first choice. But the warning shrieking at the back of her head, telling her to be rid of him asap, wouldn’t let her prevaricate.
Pulling her phone from her pocket, she dialled the number she’d used far too many times in the last three years.
It was answered after three rings. ‘Dr Lloyd Ramsey speaking.’
‘Hi, Dr Ramsey, it’s Eden.’
‘Eden? You’re not due for a check-up for another month. Is everything all right? Have you had any memory issues?’
Prince Azar stiffened, his eyes narrowing at her pointed glare.
‘Um…no. Everything’s fine. But… I’m here with…with someone who is a little sceptical about my condition. I’d like you to explain it to him, please.’
A slight hesitation ensued. ‘Unfortunately this isn’t the first time one of my patients has faced this, but I’m reluctant to do this over the phone without—’
‘I’m happy for you to record my consent, Dr Ramsey. I just need to you to tell Prince—him—about my condition.’
The doctor sighed. ‘If you’re sure. Am I on speaker?’
‘Yes. Go ahead.’
In brisk words he explained her diagnosis of retrograde amnesia, how there was no telling when or if her memories would return, and the importance of her not unduly stressing over it—which was easier said than done.
Prince Azar Domene listened to the prognosis with a thunderous frown which didn’t disappear once she’d thanked her doctor and ended the call.
In silence he paced the small space, and she felt the atmosphere charging until she was seconds from exploding.
‘You visited Nick’s graveside with your son,’ he bit out, and the sharp edge to his voice jangled her nerves anew.
‘You already know that, since you had me followed.’
A tic rippled in his jaw, and there was a curious hesitation in his face before he bit out, ‘Is he Max’s father?’
Heat crept up her face. As much as she wanted to be worldly about it, or consign it to her amnesia, she couldn’t help but feel a sting of chagrin and shame for her situation. Because this time three years ago she wouldn’t have believed herself capable of sleeping with a man she’d just met—especially a spoilt trust fund playboy who believed the world was his for the taking.
‘I… I think so, yes.’
His nostrils pinched in a sharp inhalation. ‘You mean you don’t know?’
Exasperated, she waved her phone at him. ‘I can call Dr Ramsey back, if you’d like him to go over it again?’
‘He’s only given me your diagnosis. He doesn’t know everything you claim you can’t remember. You obviously knew Nick. Do you remember sleeping with him?’
The edge in his voice was deadlier, his eyes boring into hers with a ferocity that made her every nerve quiver with apprehension.
‘My private life is none of your business, Your Highness,’ she bit out, cursing the new wave of heat that rushed up her face. ‘But for the sake getting rid of you for good, I can tell you one of my last memories of Nick is of discussing a job with him. I don’t know whether or not I actually did this job. That’s the last thing I remember of my life here in Vegas before I woke up in hospital three months pregnant…’ She paused, the overwhelming memory washing over her. ‘I was told someone found me hurt and wandering near a truck stop in California.’
‘California?’ he echoed sharply, and disbelief, shock and scepticism were in his gaze.
‘Does that mean anything to you?’ she asked, equally sharply.
His nostrils flared, but he shook his head. ‘Go on.’
She bristled at the command, but she’d opened this door. She needed to finish quickly so he’d leave her alone.
‘I had no identification with me, so no one knew who I was until I woke up from my coma. Now, have I satisfied whatever morbid curiosity makes you think we’re connected?’
He stared at her for a charged minute, then he prowled close. Closer. Until she could see the flecks of molten silver in his light grey eyes. Until she feared she would be sucked into the mesmerising vortex of his aura.
‘No, Eden. We’re nowhere near done. Do you want to know why?’
She didn’t. She really didn’t. Because she was suddenly terrified of his answer. Terrified of the real reason he was here. The reason he’d reacted so viscerally to her last night.
‘Not particularly. And for the last time, you need to leave.’