Free The Future King’s Love-Child by Melanie Milburne Page A

back off his forehead she thought of those first harrowing weeks in prison, how she had tried to adjust to being constantly under surveillance, not to mention the sleepless nights and terror-filled days. And that fateful day three months into hersentence when the prison doctor had called her down to the prison surgery for the results of the blood tests that had been ordered the week before. The news of her pregnancy had been an unbelievable shock. For several stunned days Cassie had been certain there must have been a mistake—a mix-up at the pathology laboratory or something. She couldn’t possibly have been pregnant. She had been on the contraceptive pill since she was seventeen. She had not missed a period and apart from some breast tenderness and grumbling nausea and tiredness she had no other symptoms that could not have easily been put down to other causes. Stress, not eating, the death of her father…that last horrendous scene when he had tried to… Cassie had skittered away from memories, trying to keep a steady head in a world that had seemed intent on spinning out of her control, determined to find some other plausible reason why her body was so out of whack.
    But in the end there had been no escaping it. The news of her pregnancy and the subsequent birth of Sam had thankfully—and in Cassie’s opinion miraculously—never been leaked to the press. The prison authorities had made special dispensation for her to keep the baby with her until he was of nursery-school age, when he had been fostered out until her release.
    At least Cassie had been able to get Sam back, which was not always the case with other women. She thought of the frayed photograph Angelica kept by her bedside of the dark-haired little boy, Nickolas, she had lost custody of during the height of her drug addiction. The boy’s father had disappeared, taking Angelica’s only reason for living with him. It had been four and a half years and Angelica still didn’t know if her son was dead or alive.
    Cassie bent forwards and softly kissed Sam’s smooth brow. ‘I am not going to let anyone take you away from me again,’ she promised in a whisper. But the words seemed to echo faintly, as if fate had been listening on the sidelines and was already thinking of a way to step in once more.

CHAPTER SIX
    ‘Y OUR Royal Highness, I have that information you requested,’ Stefanos said as he brought in Sebastian’s coffee a couple of days later.
    Sebastian lowered the newspaper he had been reading and gave his aide his full attention. ‘What did you find out?’
    ‘Cassandra Kyriakis is living at a small flat in Paros Lane with a former drug addict, a woman by the name of Angelica Mantoudakis. Apparently they met in prison but the Mantoudakis woman was released two years ago. She works at one of the local hotels as a housemaid.’
    Sebastian’s brows came together. ‘What about a man?’ he asked.
    Stefanos shook his head. ‘There is no man. However, there is a small child, a boy of about five or so.’
    Sebastian straightened in his chair, a cold hand of unease disturbing the hairs on the back of hisneck. ‘A boy?’ he asked, frowning harder. ‘Who does he belong to?’
    ‘I made some further enquiries and found out that Angelica Mantoudakis gave birth five years ago to a boy called Nickolas,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t able to find out much else. The neighbours pretty much keep to themselves in that area, but one of them did say she sees Cassandra Kyriakis taking the little boy with her to the orphanage each day to the nursery school there, one assumes because the Mantoudakis woman’s hours at the hotel prevent her doing so herself.’
    Sebastian hadn’t even realised he had been holding his breath until he let it out in a jagged stream of relief and something else he couldn’t quite identify. ‘Thank you, Stefanos,’ he said. ‘You did well.’
    ‘The council have still not come up with any clues to the whereabouts of the Stefani