Chapter Eight
‘NAP, MY ASS.’
Poppy looked up as Stephen came into her office a couple of hours later. Her body was still tingling.
She looked at him over her glasses. ‘Is that any way to speak to your queen?’
He made a snorting sound and hitched his hip onto the corner of her desk. Poppy sat back.
‘So, you have succumbed to the considerable charms of our new king consort. I can’t say I blame you.’
Poppy fought off a blush and an illicit thrill to hear him described as our king consort. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Stephen waved a hand. ‘Oh, please, we knew within twenty-four hours of your arrival on that island that you were indulging in very traditional marital relations.’
Poppy came forward and leaned her forehead on the desk, groaning softly. But then, she should have expected as much. It wasn’t as if there were any such thing as secrets in a royal household.
She lifted her head again. ‘And if I am?’
Stephen suddenly looked more serious. ‘I heard him on the phone that day too and he laid out pretty specifically how he expects the marriage to go…’
Poppy avoided Stephen’s eye, pulling over a file. ‘Yes, I don’t need a reminder.’ Her voice was too clipped.
Stephen stood up. ‘Poppy…’
Reluctantly she looked at him and his eyes widened as if he’d seen something on her face. ‘You’re not…falling for him?’
The pit of Poppy’s stomach seemed to open up. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Stephen opened his mouth again but the ring of his phone sounded and he said, ‘Saved by the bell,’ as he answered the call and walked a little away from the desk.
Poppy stood up and walked over to the open French doors that opened out onto the terrace. She put her hands on the wall and gripped it tight, feeling a little dizzy.
It wasn’t love, she assured herself—what she was feeling for Caius. He was a sexy, charismatic man and it would be impossible not to have a monumental crush on him but that was all it was.
Poppy was making up for lost time. She’d never had her rebellious moment. What about Paris? prompted a little voice. She ignored it.
She was also coming to terms with the fact that the Caius she’d spent time with over the last few days wasn’t at all like the man she’d expected him to be.
He seduced you to pass the time on an island.
Even if he had denied that was the reason for wanting her, Poppy couldn’t afford to forget who he really was, as Stephen had just said…
Stephen wrapped up his call and Poppy turned around ready to deny Stephen’s suggestions but just as she opened her mouth, Caius appeared in the doorway of her office, saying apropos of nothing, ‘You have horses.’
‘Um, yes,’ said Poppy, a little shocked to see him there, her gaze tracking avidly over his powerful physique in dark trousers and a blue shirt that made his eyes pop even more.
His hair was still damp from the shower he’d insisted they take together after making love.
Her insides clenched. She struggled to focus.
‘We’ve always had horses here. We’re famous for our riding trails that go up into the mountains. ’
‘Is it safe for you to horse ride when pregnant?’
Poppy shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not. It’s not as if we’d be galloping.’
She looked at Stephen, who put out a hand, saying, ‘I can double-check with the doctor, but why don’t you go to the stables in the meantime and I’ll let you know?’
Poppy looked at Caius and he held out his hand. As if pulled by a stronger force she went and put her hand in his and let him lead her out of her office, studiously avoiding looking at her friend and advisor. She could feel his smirk.
An hour later, Caius was changed into jeans and a T-shirt and on a horse on a narrow winding uphill trail. Poppy was ahead of him on her own horse, similarly dressed, hair pulled back into a low ponytail, wearing a hard hat. Her hair was a vivid splash of red against the white of her polo shirt.
She moved as one with the horse with graceful command. An innate horsewoman.
Cauis had always loved horses and had played polo over the years but he’d never really had time to ride recreationally. When the trail widened out a bit, he came alongside Poppy and she looked at him and smiled. ‘You look relaxed.’
Caius realised he was relaxed. More relaxed than he could remember feeling in a long time. And he couldn’t discount the pleasurable after-effects of lovemaking lingering in his blood.
‘You have horses in Sadat?’ Poppy asked.
He shook his head. ‘Not now. We did, when I was young, but my mother had a fall and my father got rid of the horses and built over the stables.’
‘Oh no… I can understand why maybe, but to take such a drastic step?’
‘He didn’t do it out of any romantic notion for his wife’s safety, he did it because she was having an affair with one of the groomsmen.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes, oh,’ echoed Caius.
After a moment Poppy asked, ‘Was he your father? Or do you even know who he is?’
Caius’s insides clenched tight. Poppy said, ‘Forget I asked, it’s none of my business.’
Caius shook his head. ‘It’s fine. And it is your business, we’re having a child together.
The truth is that I don’t know. Both my parents had died before I knew about my birth.
I can probably do some detective work to find out, but as yet no one has crawled out of the woodwork, which is surprising given the very public nature of the way the news was announced. ’
‘How did it come out?’
‘There’s a small contingent of anti-monarchists in Sadat and they were determined to disrupt my rule.
Somehow they were able to hack into the royal family medical records and discovered I have a rare blood type, different from the rest of the family.
They did more digging and found that my father’s DNA and mine didn’t match. ’
Poppy asked, ‘How long beforehand did you know? Before it became public knowledge?’
‘Hours. We got a call from the editor of the local tabloid letting us know what they had and that they were publishing as it was in the public interest.’
Poppy winced. ‘That was rough.’
Caius let out a laugh. ‘One way of describing it.’ He could remember all too well the way his insides had seemed to turn to liquid. And the awful sense of exposure—as if the reason why he’d always felt so redundant was now laid bare for all to see and he had nothing to hide behind any more.
‘Maybe your biological father doesn’t even know, himself,’ Poppy pointed out. Caius made a dismissive sound.
‘Do you want to know who your father is?’
Caius shrugged but he was sure his nonchalance didn’t fool Poppy. He said, ‘I can’t say I’d hold out much hope for a happy reunion and my experience of fathers so far leaves much to be desired. Maybe I’m better off not knowing.’
‘You could have family, brothers and sisters.’
He looked at Poppy. ‘I have a sister.’ And he’d given her enough of a burden to carry without concerning himself with other potential siblings.
Fair enough. Poppy got the hint, subject closed. She couldn’t exactly argue with his view on fathers. She felt something poignant grip her to imagine that Caius might actually have the experience of bonding with his child in a way that could restore his faith in what a parent could be.
And this coming from her, who’d had not much better of an experience than him! But still…she had somehow managed to hold onto a sense of hope for something better.
At that moment a bird flew out from a bush nearby, startling the horses, who skittered. Caius immediately caught Poppy’s reins and held onto her horse. He looked at her. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine, it’s fine. The horses are used to wildlife in the woods.’
Neverthless, Caius got off his horse and led it and Poppy’s horse onwards.
She said, ‘Caius, really, don’t worry.’ But her heart was hammering a little bit at the lightning-fast way Caius had intercepted.
When they got to a small mountain lake, Poppy got off her horse and they tied them off to trees nearby where they could access water and be in the shade.
They sat down on a picnic blanket and Caius took out the water and snacks they’d been given to bring. Poppy said, ‘I’m meant to be taking a meeting with Stephen.’
Caius said, ‘And I’m meant to be having a conference call with my team in New York. But you can count on me for distraction and deflection, I’m an expert.’
‘Distraction from what?’ Poppy asked. But then she remembered something he’d said that had struck her days ago, but it had got pushed aside in the heat of their mutual combustion, and before he could answer she added, ‘You said something back on the island about courting the media partly to get your parents’ attention.
What else were you using them for, if not to distract? ’
Caius looked at her. ‘Do you have some kind of supersonic memory?’
She smiled sweetly. ‘No, I’m just very intelligent and I listen.’
Caius looked visibly reluctant to answer but Poppy stayed silent, waiting.
He sighed volubly. ‘I think I was always conscious of the fact that I’d been born for no other reason than to continue a line.
I never felt like I deserved to be a king.
Maybe it was because I picked up on my father’s suspicions…
who knows? I was conscious of others looking at me and wondering what my purpose was.
And I didn’t want Cassie to be brought into their crosshairs, so I distracted them. ’
That struck Poppy as being incredibly poignant. She could relate to Caius’s feeling of being an outsider, albeit for different reasons. She knew he wouldn’t welcome her sympathy though.
He put a grape in his mouth as he handed her the bunch. She took a grape too and its sweetness burst in her mouth. She’d noticed that lots of things were more heightened since she’d become pregnant.
She hoped that could explain her fascination with Caius.
He said, ‘I was born specifically to fulfil a role and I failed.’
Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘You didn’t fail. Your parents failed. You didn’t ask to be born illegitimate, into a royal family.’