* * *

  ‘How long does it take to get to the top of the hill?’ she asked the next morning.

  ‘Too long for you today,’ he said. ‘We’d need to take supplies.’

  ‘But are there waterfalls?’

  ‘There are and you can explore them another time when you’re more...’

  ‘More what?’ She faced him. ‘I’m not weak. Niko. I get bad period pain. I thought I might struggle to get pregnant. Apparently that’s not the case. Yes, I have some bad moments. But most of the time I’m perfectly fine.’

  ‘You get faint,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Land legs,’ she said.

  ‘Not all the time.’

  She stared at him for a second then sighed. ‘I get breathless around you. That’s what that is.’

  Her confession did something funny to his heart and he tried to make light of it. ‘Honesty, Maia?’

  ‘I try to be, when I can.’ She too assumed an airiness that didn’t fool him in the least. ‘Are you honest?’

  ‘I try.’ He teased but then sobered. ‘You want to know how I feel around you?’

  She stilled. Yeah, she did.

  ‘Hungry,’ he answered simply. ‘Constantly, achingly, ravenously hungry.’

  ‘Gosh, how challenging,’ she murmured. ‘Maybe it’s hormones for you too?’

  He laughed softly and pulled her onto his lap. ‘Some kind of chemistry for sure.’

  It was another hour before they dressed. ‘If we’re going to walk it needs to be now before that weather hits.’

  He kept their pace leisurely, not moving too quickly because he suspected she was more tired than she was willing to admit. He kept his eyes on the sand, scooping up stones occasionally to inspect before either pocketing or tossing them back onto the beach.

  ‘It wasn’t to your standards?’ she teased. ‘You only keep the perfect shells?’

  ‘Not shells, pebbles.’ He shot her a smile. ‘Olivine. The glassy green ones.’

  ‘You collect them,’ she said slowly. ‘There’s that bowl on the table in the lounge.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He shook his head sheepishly. ‘Old habit. I used to take the best to my mother.’ But some days she’d been too washed out to look at them. ‘She would get headaches and we’d come here for a few days. Escape the palace!’

  Look after your mother.

  ‘Maybe she just got migraines,’ Maia said. ‘People do, you know. It might not have had anything to do with the palace. She might have gotten them even if she lived a quiet life in a fishing village on one of the outer islands.’

  He shot her a sceptical look. ‘Yeah, but I don’t think the palace helped.’

  ‘I don’t think your grandparents helped. Sounds like they were disapproving taskmasters who put pressure on both your parents.’ She shot him a laughing look. ‘I don’t blame your mother for protecting you from some of that for as long as she could.’

  ‘Protecting me?’ He was startled.

  ‘You don’t think that’s what she was doing?’

  ‘No. She came here to convalesce.’

  ‘Sure, but she brought you too. Maybe she was using her migraines to advantage you both.’

  He suddenly smiled. ‘You think?’

  His grandparents had always disapproved of his time on the island but his mother had insisted that he needed to reconnect with the land and water. She’d been right.

  ‘What happened to your mother?’ he asked. It was only fair, right? He’d answered hard questions without wanting to. Without meaning to.

  ‘She walked out when I was very young,’ Maia answered. She glanced over at him and sighed. ‘She worked on the boat as a steward. They had an affair. I came along—unplanned and not particularly wanted. She would have left him sooner if it weren’t for me, I think. But she escaped with another man who abused her worse than my father ever had. He didn’t let her contact me for years.’ She scooped up a piece of driftwood and ran her fingers over it. ‘I guess sometimes it’s better the devil you know, right?’

  ‘She didn’t try to take you with her?’

  ‘My father wouldn’t have let me go. It’s not that he actually cared about me, it’s just that he’s very controlling. He regards people as possessions and he doesn’t like to lose any of his possessions. He only likes to accumulate them.’

  ‘And use them.’ He sighed.

  ‘I was probably safer being left with Stefan than if I’d gone with her.’

  ‘And she didn’t try to help you in all this time?’

  ‘I don’t think she can help herself let alone anyone else,’ she said quietly. She gazed out across the water. ‘I want to do better for this baby.’

  ‘Yeah.’ But Niko’s bad feeling grew. Her mother had abandoned her. The one true carer in her life had been sent away when she was in her teens and she blamed herself for that. She blamed herself for her mother staying as long as she had with her father too. She felt unwanted. She’d worked hard and long—quietly keeping herself needed, safe. Barely getting the necessities she actually needed. Like basic medical attention. A cold, cold frustration built within him.

  ‘I’m okay, Niko.’ She suddenly smiled at him. ‘You don’t need to try to fix anything. It is what it is.’

  ‘I only want to ensure the baby and you both have all you need.’

  Maia didn’t deserve the difficulties and demands that came with him. His mother hadn’t coped with them. His grandmother had built an emotional wall that nothing and no one could get through. But Maia wouldn’t have to participate in public life. He could keep her sheltered here. She wouldn’t have to work in the way she’d had to all her life.

  ‘We’re too far from the house,’ he growled as the rain began to fall in large splots. ‘We’re going to get drenched.’

  She chuckled. ‘I don’t mind.’

  He did. He didn’t want her slipping. ‘Come on. We’ll go in there.’

  The small shelter was on a slight rise—poles and a roof and only one side, but it was better than nothing.

  But inside there was more than he’d realised. There was a small wooden table with three photo frames and a partially burned candle on top. It was neat and so carefully presented. He’d not realised Aron had set those things here—he wouldn’t have come in if he had. It was too personal.

  ‘We shouldn’t be in here,’ Maia said softly.

  But Niko was in here now and he couldn’t help walking towards that little shrine. His heart ached.

  ‘Who is she?’ Maia asked softly, looking at the central picture that he’d been gazing at for long moments. ‘A relative?’

  ‘The likeness is obvious, isn’t it?’ he muttered.

  ‘The cheekbones.’ She nodded. ‘The nose.’

  ‘Yes.’ But he pointed to the other photos first. ‘That’s Aron’s wife. These are my parents.’ His father was gazing at his mother as she smiled directly into the camera lens. It said it all to Niko. And he could hardly stand to look at it. So he returned to the photo in the centre. ‘That’s Lani. Aron’s eldest.’

  He saw the confusion flickering in Maia’s eyes and yeah, it didn’t explain the cheekbones. ‘She was my grandfather’s firstborn. She was born two years before my father. Three years after my grandfather had already married. He was a cheat. He didn’t acknowledge her—his illegitimate daughter. He didn’t care for her mother. Aron raised her and she became a maid in the palace. Ultimately she worked as my mother’s primary attendant, a nanny to me too. We were all very close.’

  Maia turned to face him. ‘Did you know who she really was? Did she?’

  ‘No. Not for all those years. She was denied her name. She was kept in seclusion, a source of shame. Never acknowledged. But never given her freedom either. She missed out on everything she should have had. She didn’t get her own damned life. I mean, Aron was wonderful. He tried. So did his wife. But it didn’t make up for the fact that she was basically kept as a playmate and then a servant for my father.’

  ‘So that’s why you want this child to be legitimate.’

  He nodded. ‘I would never do that to a child of my own.’

  Maia nodded. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘It was coming up to her birthday. She’d always wondered, I think. She’d mention it to Aron sometimes—about how she didn’t look like any of her younger siblings. He said nothing, of course. But he couldn’t reassure her enough. I think he wanted to tell her but couldn’t. She and my mother were very close and they talked about it when we were here. You can see the mirror-image bone structure with my father. I was home for the holidays, full of facts from my marvellous education. Home DNA kits had just hit the market and I suggested that she could get one if she really wanted to find out. She got all excited. She told Aron. And that was when Aron finally told her. I’d forced him into betraying the king.’

  ‘Maybe she should have been told so much sooner,’ Maia said. ‘I don’t think that’s something you ought to feel guilty about.’

  Yeah, well. He did. Because it had hurt Aron too. So badly. ‘Poor Aron was so loyal. He was doing what was asked of him but I think it tore him up for all those years. He loved Lani, he wanted to protect her. But...’ he looked at Maia sadly. ‘It shouldn’t have happened to her.’

  ‘What happened when Aron told her?’

  ‘Dad was away—he didn’t know Aron had said anything. My grandfather was at our house in the hills. Lani wanted to confront him—right away. And my mother offered to go with her.’ Of course she’d offered. She’d cared deeply. ‘Mum said she’d drive. I asked if she had a headache and she said she didn’t, but I could tell. So I should have stopped her. I knew those headaches affected her vision and it was always my job to look after her when she had one.’ His father had always told him to. ‘I should have stopped them both. They should have waited until the morning. They were both so upset and they left.’ He shook his head. ‘Mum drove the coastal road. She missed a corner.’

  ‘Oh, Niko.’

  Yeah. ‘They both died.’

  ‘How did your father cope?’

  ‘He didn’t. He stopped caring about anything. Especially himself. I never saw him sober again and he hardly saw me at all. He sent me back to boarding school. He blamed me for her death and he never recovered from it.’ He stared at the image of man who’d loved too much to live without his wife. ‘He banished Aron. My grandfather was furious but he just clammed up even more. He wouldn’t talk about it. Ever. And he expected Dad to be stoic and get on with the job. But Dad just never recovered from losing the love of his life. He was stuck in hellish grief. He made a bunch of poor choices, ended up with high blood pressure, high sugars and only a couple years later had a fatal stroke when he was far too young. My grandfather lost both his children right before each turned forty.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Niko.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He sighed. ‘It sucked.’

  She stood for a moment, then moved to the table and took a match from the box, lighting the candle that Aron had there.

  ‘You know it wasn’t your fault, right? Not any of it.’ She turned once the flame had steadied. ‘It wasn’t fair of him to blame you like that.’

  He swallowed hard and tried to smile. ‘Life isn’t fair though, is it? You know that too.’

  She looked up so softly. ‘I’m still sorry all that happened.’

  He nodded. They stood for a long time, just watching the candle flicker.

  ‘The rain’s stopped.’ He’d realised eventually. ‘We should go back while it holds.’

  He blew out the flame and they walked back in silence. Back at the house he felt oddly unsure of what to do with himself. But Maia went into the lounge and came back out to the pool area with something in her hand.

  ‘Want to play poker?’ She looked at him with limpid eyes.

  He stared, nonplussed. But in the next second vitality warmed his veins and a helpless laugh escaped him. ‘Maia...’

  She smiled at him. So beautiful, so sweet and she nodded towards the pile on the table where he’d emptied his pockets. ‘I’ll play for your stones.’

  ‘True treasure. Very wise.’ His mood lightened. ‘But what are you going to put on the table?’

  She shot him an arch look. ‘My knife.’

  ‘Wow, bold.’ He took a seat with a smile. ‘You’re feeling confident, then.’

  She shrugged, then winked. Easiness blossomed and her distraction—he knew it was that—worked. She brought him back to here and now and it was okay. Maybe this whole thing between them could be okay.

  She was a card shark of course. There was no way she’d spent so long on a gambling boat and not learned some tricks. But her pleasure in beating him was a pleasure for him in itself. He watched as she carefully pawed through the little stones, picking out several of a similar size. ‘These are going to be perfect,’ she muttered.

  He shook his head. He hadn’t realised she really wanted them. ‘You know I would have just given them to you if you’d asked.’

  She glanced up at him, surprise sparkling in her beautiful eyes. ‘You would?’

  He blinked. ‘Of course.’

  * * *

  Maia sat with her feet curled beneath her, pointlessly whittling a new-found piece of wood that was rapidly becoming shavings and nothing else. She’d come close to cutting herself accidentally twice in the last two minutes. Something she hadn’t done in years. But the man beside her was an appalling distraction. He was sprawled back on the cushions beside the pool, ignoring the papers scattered beside him to feast his eyes on her like a sexually satisfied sultan from centuries ago. But he was more than that. He was a nice guy who’d been so hurt. He’d suffered loss after loss after loss and had guilt piled on him when he didn’t deserve it. And here he was trying so hard to do what was right. He didn’t want to repeat any mistakes of the past. He wanted his child acknowledged. He wanted to ensure both she and the baby were well cared for because he felt as if he’d failed to do that for others in the past. And that was all so very honourable. But somehow she felt more uncertain about everything.

  It was five days since he’d brought her here. Four nights in which she’d slept not just in a bed, but in his arms. Three days of absolute pleasure. But more than that—there’d been laughter. There’d been companionship of a kind she’d never really had. And she didn’t quite know how to handle it.

  ‘I’ll get you some better wood if you want?’ he offered.

  ‘No, that’s not the point.’ She smiled. ‘The joy is in making something out of nothing very much, you know? And it doesn’t matter if you muck it up because you can just throw it away because it was just scrap anyway.’

  ‘Is that what you do with them?’ He sounded outraged. ‘You just throw them away?’

  ‘Well, no,’ she admitted sheepishly. ‘I leave them in little places. Then look for them if ever I go back.’

  ‘Like a calling card?’

  ‘More like secret graffiti—Maia was here—but only I know.’ And only she cared really.

  ‘In, like, ports?’

  ‘On beaches mostly.’ She bent closer to focus on creating a decent beak for the little bird. But once again she missed. ‘Damn.’

  His chuckle made her glance up. He had the oddest expression in his eyes.

  ‘What?’ she asked, then almost cut herself again.

  ‘No one’s going to be surprised to learn you’re pregnant.’

  ‘What? Why?’ She put her hand to her belly but it seemed as not-quite-flat as it had been the day before.

  ‘Anyone who sees you is going to know how thoroughly you’ve been...’

  She glanced back up at him sharply. ‘Been?’

  The word was crude but appallingly it turned her on anyway.

  ‘You look like you’ve spent hours in bed yet not slept a wink,’ he elaborated lazily. Leaning close he brushed her hair back over her shoulder. ‘Your hair is wild, you have a kiss-swollen mouth, two love bites on your neck and yet your nipples are still screaming at me through that bikini top. You look ravished and ready for more.’

  He sat back looking too smug. The flare of lust that had shot through her suddenly iced. Was that why he’d slept with her—why he’d been so passionate? So people would take one look at her and know she’d been his sexual plaything?

  His gaze narrowed. ‘For the record, the look suits you. Very much. You have colour in your cheeks and sparkle in your eyes and you look ten times more alive than you did the morning I took you from that tinpot boat.’

  ‘Gosh. I’m flattered,’ she said coldly. ‘Isn’t that a marvellously convenient side effect of your sexual skills? To make it look convincing to the world that yes, you’ve seduced this woman and oh look, now she’s pregnant,’ she groused. ‘But I’m so sorry you felt you had to do that.’

  ‘Maia.’ He gaped at her.

  Yes, she was grumpy. She was unaccountably, incredibly grumpy and yes, she was kicking off. But she needed to push this because she’d suddenly realised this isolated lust-fest wasn’t necessarily real. At least, not for him.

  ‘Did you sleep with me so you can sell your paternity story? Was it all about proving your virility?’

  ‘Are you serious right now?’

  Yes, she was. It suddenly all made sense. He’d only bought her to the island to create a narrative about their ‘love’ story. To have the world believe in them as a couple. It was calculating and she felt so naive. He was probably desperate to get back to his city life and not have to spend all these hours entertaining her. He’d probably been bored.

  But she hadn’t been. She’d laughed—she’d loved those long hours in bed when he’d taken so much time with her. But she’d read all of that wrong. He was only doing what he had to do, to get what he wanted. And when would she ever learn that people didn’t stick around for her for long?

 

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