Free Her Prince's Secret Son by Linda Goodnight

wine from the basket and studied the label. “Quite the contrary. Perhaps if you had been…”
    Sara’s heart clattered in her chest like a marble in a tin can. What was he saying? That if she’d demanded more, she would have got it?
    But that wasn’t her way. She believed love was a gift. If he had loved her enough, he would have gone on loving her, regardless of time and distance, the way she had gone on loving him.
    The thought brought her up short. Was she still in love with Aleksandre d’Gabriel?
    Her gaze flicked to his and then away to stare at an iridescent dragonfly flitting along the shore.
    By all that was good, she hoped not. Her greatest fear was to become vulnerable to him again. He’d hurt her before, but this time, with Nico involved, he could destroy her. He was arrogant and curt and loathed her. How could she even consider loving a man such as that?
    A little voice whispered inside her heart. She could love him because she’d known the man beneath the prince. And he was wonderful and brave and good. No other man had ever made her feel as precious and loved. He had loved her then, perhaps not in the way she’d thought, perhaps far more selfishly, but he had loved her.
    And her traitorous heart could not forget.
    “Papa, come quick.” Nico’s excited voice interrupted. “I found something.”
    Sara’s hand went to her chest. “I hope it’s not a snake.”
    With a half laugh, Aleks pushed to his feet. “We have no snakes in Carvainia. They were banished by proclamation.”
    She looked up the tall length of him. “Is that true?”
    Eyes dancing in a way that filled her with foolish, foolish yearning, he reached out a hand. “Come and see for yourself.”
    She put her hand in his and he pulled her up. She expected him to release his hold, but he tugged her across the sweet-scented grass toward their son.
    Her heart skittered in her chest. Their son. She couldn’t help wondering what life would have been like if Aleks had never left America, if they had married, if the three of them were a family.
    But they weren’t. And regardless of her silly fantasies, Aleks was no longer the man she recalled any more than she was the same, gullible college girl. By Aleks’s own admission, he had played her for a fool even then—a rich, international playboy having his fling with a naive American. He’d no more expected the liaison to result in a child than she had.
    He had known what she hadn’t. He was a royal, no doubt expected to marry royal. American college girls were only playmates.
    An ache much greater than the pain of surgery stole her breath.
    She tugged her hand from Aleks’s grip. He gave her a puzzled look, but they had reached Nico and his attention went to the little boy. Squatted beside a mound of rocks and weeds, hands on his thighs, Nico peered intently at the ground.
    “What have you found, son?” Aleks asked, going to his haunches, too.
    “That.” Without turning his head, Nico pointed a finger. “Will it bite me?”
    Above the two dark heads, Sara bent low enough to see a small turtle. Aleks reached into the grass and picked it up. The animal promptly withdrew into its shell.
    Nico gasped and turned huge black eyes on his father. “Papa, what did you do to him?”
    From her vantage point, Sara could see the side of Aleks’s face. His cheeks creased in an indulgent smile.
    “We frightened him.” Holding the turtle with a thumb and middle finger, he offered the animal to Nico. “He won’t bite unless you put your finger in his mouth.”
    In total awe, Nico took the two-inch reptile in both his small hands. He lifted the shell to eye level and peeked inside. “Come out. I’m not a mean boy.”
    Sara’s chest squeezed at the sweetness. How many of these moments had she missed? “Is this your first time to find a turtle?”
    He nodded, but his focus remained on his father. “May I keep him?”
    Aleks shook his head. “No. He would not be happy living in the