There was no reason to believe him, she told herself desperately. Christa. Remember Christa.

‘Why can’t I sign the diamond mines over now?’ she demanded. ‘Put them in a community fund or something?’

‘There’s no community fund. Everything’s owned by the Crown.’

‘Then set one up.’

‘I can’t set one up, Princess. Only you can do that.’

‘Then I’ll do it,’ she said wildly. ‘Tomorrow. And don’t call me Princess.’

‘It can’t be done tomorrow. You think you can just hand that amount of wealth to the town council and walk away? I need to tell you now that it would be a catastrophe. It’ll take years to get this right. So how about it, Thene? Say you’ll stay and let me protect you. I’ve told Demos I’ll protect what’s mine and I mean just that.’

And amazingly, infuriatingly, he was smiling. That smile was so…so…Seductive. He was seducing her with his voice and with his smile, she thought wildly.

‘I’m not yours,’ she managed.

‘You’re the mother of my son.’

Oh, great. What sort of answer was that? One that joined them at the hip for ever?

‘You saw the press here tonight,’ he said. ‘The world has another princess. Do you think you can escape that? The press will follow you all the way to Manhattan. And so will Demos.’

‘You’re scaring me.’

‘You need to be scared.’ His smile faded. ‘I’m sorry, Thena, but you need to face facts.’

‘You didn’t tell me these facts when you conned me into coming here,’ she snapped. ‘That there’d be threats to Nicky…’

‘You wouldn’t have come.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You had to come. And I will protect both you and Nicky.’

‘You’re still angry I didn’t tell you about Nicky.’

‘How can I not be?’

She wrenched her hands back so strongly that this time he did let her go. ‘Well how do you think I feel? You betrayed me in the worst possible way. I thought you were my best friend as well as my lover-and nothing. Nothing!’