The Prince's Captive Wife. Marion LennoxЧитать онлайн книгу.

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘SHE was only seventeen?’

      ‘We’re talking ten years ago. I was barely out of my teens myself.’

      ‘Does that make a difference?’ The uncrowned king of Aristo stared across his massive desk at his brother, his aquiline face dark with fury. ‘Have we not had enough scandal?’

      ‘Not of my making.’ Prince Andreas Christos Karedes, third in line to the Crown of Aristo, stood his ground against his older brother with the disdain he always used in this family of testosterone-driven males. His brothers might be acknowledged womanizers, but Andreas made sure his affairs were discreet.

      ‘Until now,’ Sebastian said. ‘Not counting your singularly spectacular divorce, which had a massive impact. But this is worse. You need to sort it before it explodes over all of us.’

      ‘How the hell can I sort it?’

      ‘Get rid of her.’

      ‘You’re not saying…’

      Sebastian shook his head, obviously rejecting the idea—though a tinge of regret in his voice said the option wasn’t altogether unattractive.

      And Andreas even sympathized. Since their father’s death, all three brothers had been dragged through the mire of the media spotlight, and the political unrest was threatening to destroy them. In their thirties, impossibly handsome, wealthy beyond belief, indulged and fêted, the brothers were now facing realities they had no idea what to do with.

      ‘Though if I was our father…’ Sebastian added and Andreas shuddered. Who knew what the old king would have done if he’d discovered Holly’s secret? Thank God he’d never found out. Not that King Aegeus could have taken the moral high ground. His father’s past actions had got them into this mess.

      ‘You’ll make a better king than our father ever was,’ Andreas said softly. ‘What filthy dealing made him dispose of the royal diamond?’

      ‘That’s my concern,’ Sebastian said. There could be no royal coronation until the diamond was found—they all knew that—but the way the media was baying for blood there might not be a coronation even then. Without the diamond the rules had changed. If any more scandals broke… ‘This girl…’

      ‘Holly.’

      ‘You remember her?’

      ‘Of course I remember her.’

      ‘Then she’ll be easy to find. We’ll buy her off—do whatever it takes, but she mustn’t talk to anyone.’

      ‘If she wanted to make a scandal she could have done it years ago.’

      ‘So it’s been simmering in the wings for years. To have it surface now…’ Sebastian rose and fixed Andreas with a look that was almost as deadly as the one used by the old king. ‘It can’t happen, brother. We have to make sure she’s not in a position to bring us down.’

      ‘I’ll contact her.’

      ‘You’ll go nowhere near her until we’re sure of her reaction. Not even a phone call. For all we know her phones are already tapped. I’ll have her brought here.’

      ‘I can arrange…’

      ‘You stay right out of it until she’s on our soil. You’re heading the corruption inquiry. With Alex still on his honeymoon—of all the times for our brother to demand to marry, this must surely be the worst—I need you more than ever. If you leave now and this leaks, we can almost guarantee losing the crown.’

      ‘So how do you propose to persuade her to come?’

      ‘Oh, I’ll persuade her,’ Sebastian said grimly. ‘She’s only a slip of a girl. She might be your past, but there’s no way she’s messing with our future.’

      * * *

      It was time to leave, but of all the places Holly had to farewell, this was the hardest.

      The grave was tiny—a simple stone plaque