On a guy they’d be gorgeous.

On Matty they were gorgeous.

Her son.

There were vague sounds from outside and she looked out of the window in time to see the security guards wandering past her back fence. Yes, she should get up and close the blind. It wasn’t safe.

It was safe, for just through the door Rafael de Boutaine was stretched out on her settee.

Her son was in bed beside her. The Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel was just through the door.

‘As if that makes us safe,’ she muttered into the night.

But…but…

‘He’s different from Kass. He’s honourable, I know.

‘How do you know?’ She was whispering into the dark. Her hand was lying on Matty’s pillow. She wouldn’t touch him. She wouldn’t for the world wake him, startle him. But with her hand on his pillow she could feel his breathing. It was enough.

‘Rafael brought him home.

‘There must be some underlying motive.

‘Maybe, but he’s brought him home,’ she whispered and the thought of Rafael lying in the darkness just through the door remained solid. Good. Comforting in a way she hadn’t been comforted for years.

Her little boy was asleep beside her. Rafael had brought him to her.

What more could a woman want?

‘I have my son,’ she whispered into the dark and thought how could she sleep with such happiness?

But she was still recuperating from the flu. She hadn’t slept well for weeks.

She leaned up on her elbows and gazed for one long last moment at her son. She touched her lips with her finger and then transferred the kiss to her son with a feather touch that wouldn’t disturb him for the world.

She snuggled down on to her pillows where she could watch her son’s breathing.

He breathed. He breathed.

Rafael was just through the door. Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel. A prince who’d brought her son to her.

She felt warm and safe and almost delirious with love.