ALISON was more than thankful for having an opportunity to get out of the palace later that day. The meeting with the men and women she was working with to organize the Turani branch of the CF Foundation had gone well. And it had provided some much-needed distraction from the anxiety of waiting for the test results, from the stifling solitude that came from being in a huge building surrounded by people who basically never talked to her. But most of all, she needed a distraction from her earlier revelation.
She didn’t want to love Maximo. She was saving her love for her child. She didn’t want to have her emotions tangled up in loving him, not when he was only going to hurt her. She didn’t want to be like her parents. Didn’t want to become a bitter, angry person simply because her strongest emotions had been tied up in someone who neither wanted, nor deserved them.
She hiked her purse up higher on her shoulder, clinging to the leather strap as if it might offer her some kind of support. How had she let Maximo come to mean so much to her? He was infuriating. He always thought he was right and he was ridiculously self-confident. And he was handsome. Smart. Funny. A great conversationalist. And great in bed.
She sighed audibly. She couldn’t even list his sins without turning sappy. And lustful. Even now, when she was furious at him, she wanted him. The mental countdown to when she would be able to see him tonight had already begun, and she was more than a little ashamed to admit that.
“Excuse me, miss.”
Alison turned her head sharply to follow the sound of the person who’d spoken to her and a flash went off in her face. Putting her head down she walked faster, her face set into the most hostile expression she could manage. She wasn’t about to be intimidated by an idiot reporter, and she certainly wasn’t going to stop and answer questions.
“Miss Whitman, is it true you recently underwent a paternity test?” A second voice, a woman’s, joined the first.
Alison’s heart jolted. They knew about the baby. About the test. She doubted it was the doctor who’d told. The position of private physician to royalty probably paid way too much to betray confidences. A lab tech, though, might be tempted. However it happened, the news was out and she’d have to deal with it as best she could.
The jostle of equipment behind her grew louder and more questions, by more people, starting swirling around her.
“Is it the prince’s baby?”
“Who’s the father?”
“How many men are being tested?”
She bit her lip to contain an onslaught of angry words. She wasn’t going to turn around and freak out at all of the people holding cameras. That photo was not going on the front page of a tabloid.
The knot of people caught up to her and suddenly she was in the middle of them, cameras and tape recorders being shoved at her from every direction. One of the men got pushed into her and she wobbled, losing her balance and falling onto the sidewalk.
That didn’t seem to bother any of the rabid paparazzi. They continued to snap pictures and shout anything to get a response from her, questions, accusations.
“Alison?”
She recognized Maximo’s voice over the din that surrounded her. One of the reporters who’d been leaning over her jerked back sharply, a look of shock on his face. Then she saw Max. He reached down and took her hand, pulling her gently to her feet. The reporters weren’t at all deterred by his presence and they continued to crowd in.
One of the men physically grabbed Alison’s arm in an attempt to slow her down. A feral growl escaped Maximo’s lips and he released his hold on Alison, grabbing the man’s camera and smashing it against the side of one of the brick buildings that lined the sidewalk.
“Do not lay a hand on my woman,” Max gritted, his voice fierce, his normally subtle accent thick.
The photographer paled and fell back, as did the rest of them, obviously sensing impending violence if they continued their assault.
“Get in the car.” Max didn’t have any tenderness for her, either. He jerked open the passenger door of the black sports car that was parked against the curb.
She wasn’t exactly thrilled at the thought of being in an enclosed space with him in his current mood, but she’d rather take her chances with him than have him leave her with the pseudopress. She got in and buckled up quickly.
Maximo didn’t speak the entire drive back to the palace. He sat straight, gripping the steering wheel, his jaw locked tight, tension radiating off him. And she wasn’t going to be the one to break that silence, not when she knew any words coming from him were going to be extremely unpleasant.
As soon as they were closed into his bedroom he unleashed his rage. “What were you thinking? You didn’t tell me where you were going, you didn’t take a bodyguard. I had to find out by calling your driver and he informed me you were at a meeting. Alone. That was incredibly irresponsible of you.”
“Irresponsible?” she shot back. “I was trying to keep busy, trying to do something worthwhile. I am not going to sit around the castle by myself until you need me to be your royal accessory!”
“I never said that I expected you to that, but I do expect you to possess some modicum of sense.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him, bringing her tight against his chest. “Do you have any idea what might have happened to you?”
Maximo took a sharp breath. Anger and panic roared through him, mingling with the fierce pumping of adrenaline in his veins. She affected him far too much. He had been there. He’d tried love and marriage. It had been hell. Losing Selena by increments, and finally to death, had been an exercise in torture. He had no desire to go back to that, to ever feel that way again.
When he’d seen Alison on the ground with that pack of wolves surrounding her … it had taken all of his self-control to stop himself from beating the man who’d touched her until he was unconscious. In that moment, seeing the paparazzi around her … it had been a return to the darkest moments of his life. He’d been able to imagine far too clearly what it would be like to lose her, to lose the baby. It had felt as though his world was caving in. She was starting to matter far too much, this whole tentative future with a wife and child was starting to mean too much. He had let it all go before, had had no choice but to give up on that desire. And now it had become the center of everything again. He had not intended for that to be the case.
It had seemed a simple task to keep her at arm’s length. And she’d seemed more than happy to hold herself separate from him. He’d thought he could exorcize the intense passion he felt for her by making love with her, and yet every night his need for her only seemed stronger.
He’d loved Selena, but he had been in control of that love. She’d needed him, had looked to him for her everything, for comfort, for strength. That had been a role he was comfortable with then. He’d liked that she’d depended on him.
But Alison had burrowed beneath his skin. She had made herself important to him, essential in so many ways.
“Nothing was going to happen to me!” she protested.
“They knocked you over and still their only thought was getting the dirt on you, on us, digging up whatever scandal they possibly could. The night Selena was killed, they’d been following her. After the accident they took pictures,” he spat. “They wanted to know if she was drunk, or on drugs. They wanted scandal.”
Alison’s face paled. “I never knew. It was never in the paper … it didn’t …”
“I paid them off,” he said, his voice low. “There was no scandal anyway, but I feared they might publish the pictures. I bought them and had them destroyed.”
Her eyes filled with tears, for him, for Selena. It rocked him, made his heart seize and his chest ache. She cupped his face and kissed him tenderly, her lips soft against his.
“I’m