Buch lesen: «Twin Heirs To His Throne»

OLIVIA GATES has always pursued creative passions such as singing and handicrafts. She still does, but only one of her passions grew gratifying enough, consuming enough, to become an ongoing career—writing.

She is most fulfilled when she is creating worlds and conflicts for her characters, then exploring and untangling them bit by bit, sharing her protagonists’ every heart-wrenching heartache and hope, their every heart-pounding doubt and trial, until she leads them to an indisputably earned and gloriously satisfying happy ending.

When she’s not writing, she is a doctor, a wife to her own alpha male, and a mother to one brilliant girl and one demanding Angora cat. Visit Olivia at www.oliviagates.com.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

“Only family is allowed to visit Mr. Voronov, Ms. Stavros.”

“At least...”

The nurse cut Kassandra’s protest off, stonewalling her again. “Only family is allowed to learn information about his condition.”

“But...”

Refusing to give concessions they both knew she wasn’t allowed to grant, the nurse rushed away, dismissing her like everyone else had. For the past damned week. Since his accident.

The dread and desperation she’d been struggling to keep at bay rose until she felt her blood charring.

Leonid. Lying somewhere in this hospital, injured, out of reach, with her deprived of even knowing his condition. She wasn’t family. She was nothing to him, not to the rest of the world. Nobody knew of their yearlong affair.

With no one left to approach for information or reassurance, she staggered to the hectic waiting area of the highest-ranking New York City university hospital. The moment she slumped down on the first vacant seat, the tears she’d been forbidding herself to shed since she’d heard of his accident spilled right out of her soul.

Nothing could happen to him. Her vital, powerful Leonid. She couldn’t live without him, could barely remember her life before she’d first laid eyes on him three years ago.

That night, she’d been the star model and one of the top designers in a charity fashion show. As she’d walked out onto the catwalk, her gaze, which normally never focused on anyone in the audience, had been dragged toward a point at the end of the massive space. Then another unprecedented thing had happened. She’d almost stumbled, had stopped for endless, breathless moments, staring at him across the distance, overwhelmed by his sheer gorgeousness and presence.

Though tycoon gods populated her Greek-American family, and she moved in the circles of the megarich and powerful, Leonid was in a league of one. Not only was he a billionaire with a sports-brand empire, but a decathlon world champion...and royalty to boot. He was a prince of Zorya, a kingdom once part of the former Soviet Union, and annexed to Belarus since its disintegration. Though the kingdom hadn’t existed in over ninety years, he was still considered royalty in Asia and Europe—and sports and financial royalty in the rest of the world.

Not that any of these attributes had contributed to his being the only man to ever get her hot and flustered with a mere look. He’d continued to scorch her with such looks for two endless years as they’d moved in the same circles. But nothing had come of it. He’d never come closer than the minimum it had taken him to keep her inflamed and in suspense, until she’d believed that the lust she’d felt blasting from him had been wishful thinking on her part.

Then had come the wedding of one of her best friends, Caliope Sarantos, to Maksim Volkov in Russia. Leonid had been one of the groom’s guests. After every man but him had asked her to dance, frustrated out of her mind, she’d escaped outside to get some air. She’d found none when he’d followed her, at last, and taken away her breath completely.

She’d since relived those heart-pounding moments endless times, as he’d closed in on her, informing her that she could no longer run from him. Closing her eyes now, she could again feel his arms around her and his lips over hers as he’d dragged her into that kiss that had made her realize why she hadn’t ever let another near. Because she’d been waiting for him her whole life.

But before he’d taken her on what had turned out to be a magical roller-coaster ride, he’d made his intentions clear: nothing but passion and pleasure would be on offer. And Kassandra had been perfectly okay with that. At thirty, she’d never wanted to marry, and she’d long given up on meeting a man she could want, let alone that completely. Finding Leonid had added a totally unexpected and glorious dimension to her life. Having him free from expectations had been a sure path to ecstasy and a surefire guard against disappointment.

Being with him had exhilarated and satisfied her in ways she hadn’t known existed. They’d meshed in every way, met when their hectic schedules allowed, away from the world’s eyes, always starving for one another. Keeping their relationship secret from everyone, above all her conservative Greek family who’d long disapproved of her unconventional lifestyle, had made everything even more incendiary.

Then Leonid’s training for his upcoming championship had intensified, and between that and running his business empire, she’d seen less and less of him. Media scrutiny had made it impossible to even visit him while he’d trained.

That was when she’d realized she was no longer content with their status quo. But before she’d had time to ponder how to demand a change in the terms of their relationship, he’d had his accident.

From the media reports that had hailed him as a hero, she’d learned that a trailer had flown over the center divider of the I-95 heading into NYC, and into the incoming traffic. Before it had managed to pulverize a car carrying a father and his daughter, Leonid had smashed into their car’s side, ramming them out of the path of destruction. But the trailer had slammed into his car full force, catapulting his vehicle into a tumbling crash.

She’d almost fainted with horror at the sight of the crumpled wreck his car had become. It was a miracle he had come out alive.

Desperate to be by his side the moment she’d heard the news, the nightmare had only escalated when she hadn’t been able to determine where he’d been taken. Now that she’d finally found him, she’d again been denied any information. She was being treated like the stranger everyone thought she was. He was her lover. And the father of the baby she’d just yesterday found out she was carrying.

Suddenly, her heart boomed. Was that...?

Yes, yes it was. Ryan McFadden. Her old college friend who’d gone on to become a doctor. She’d seen him a couple of years ago, but he’d been working at another hospital at the time. Finding him here was a lifeline.

Before Ryan could express surprise at seeing her, she flung herself at him, begged him to let her see Leonid, or at least to let her know how he was.

Clearly used to dealing with frantic people, Ryan covered the hands clawing his arm. “I know that apart from his time in surgery, he’s been conscious since they brought him in.”

He was? And he hadn’t called her?

But what if... “C-can he talk?”

“Oh, yes. None of his injuries involved vital organs, thankfully.”

And he hadn’t left instructions to let her in, or to even let her know how he was?

At her deepening dismay, Ryan rushed on. “He was transferred to an exclusive wing with only his medical team allowed in, to guard against media infringement. But I’ll gain access to him. If he grants you permission to visit him...”

“He will.” She hugged him fervently. “Thank you.”

Giving her a bolstering grin, Ryan strode away.

After what felt like forever, he returned, giving her two thumbs up. She found herself flying to him, so he could take her to Leonid.

At the wing’s door, Ryan stopped her. “Listen, Kass, I know it’s hard for you to do in your current condition, but keep it light and short, for his sake.”

Nodding, she wiped away the tears that had gathered in her eyes again. “How...how bad are his injuries?”

“I don’t know details, but when he was brought in I heard he’d suffered compound fractures to both his legs.”

Her heart imploded all over again. His legs.

To anyone else, it would mean months of limited mobility. To Leonid, it meant his plans for a new world record were over, who knew for how long. Maybe he’d never heal enough to compete on that elite level again. When that was a major part of his being...

Stop it. She couldn’t consider worst-case scenarios. Ryan was right. She had to suppress her own anxiety. Leonid needed her support for the first time ever, and she was damned if she would fail him. Putting on a brave face, she opened the door.

He was the first thing she saw as she stepped into the exquisite suite. Only the bed with monitors surrounding it at its far end betrayed its presence in a medical facility.

Leonid, her beloved lion. He lay sprawled on his back, his perfect body swathed in a hospital gown, already diminished, both legs in full casts, arms limp at his sides, eyes closed. His almost shoulder-length hair lay tousled around a face that was unscathed, but his skin was drained of its normal vital bronze color.

Her heart lurched violently, as if to fling her across the room to him, catapulting her feet forward.

As she eagerly bent to kiss his clamped lips, he opened his eyes. Instead of the most vivid blue, they were almost black. And they slammed into her with the force of a shove. But it was what filled them that had her jackknifing up. Her nerves jangled; her balance wavered. She couldn’t be reading the aversion in his expression correctly.

But what gripped his face didn’t look like pain, or the effect of a drug. There was no distress or fogginess in his eyes, just clarity and...emptiness.

Telling herself it was an expected by-product of everything he’d gone through, she reached for his hand, suppressed a shudder at how cold it was. “Leonid, darling...”

He tugged his hand away, harder than necessary, from her trembling hold. “I’m fine.”

Reminding herself that what she felt didn’t matter, that only he did, she forced a smile. “You do look...”

His glacial look stopped her flimsy lie in its tracks. “I know how I look. But I am fine, considering.” A beat. “I hear you kicked up quite a commotion trying to get to me.”

He knew? And he hadn’t told them to let her in earlier?

His expression became even more inanimate as he looked away. “I kept hoping you’d give up and just leave.”

Her throat squeezed, making it nearly impossible to breathe. “I—I realize how you must feel. But there will be other championships...”

He cut her off again. “I’m sick of people placating me.”

Telling herself he needed her nearness even if his current mood made him pretend he didn’t, she sat down and caressed his corded forearm, trying to infuse him with her strength and let their connection bolster him. “I’m not ‘people,’ Leonid. I’m your woman, your lover, and you’re my...”

His gaze swung to hers, this time filled with frost. “You’re free to consider yourself whatever you want, but I’m certainly not your anything.”

The lump in her throat grew spikes. But still convinced it was his ordeal talking, she tried again. “Leonid, darling...”

He shook off her hand, his face twisting in a snarl. “Don’t you dare ‘darling’ me. I made my terms clear from the start. The only reason I was with you was because I thought you agreed to them.”

Shocked out of her wits at his viciousness, she again told herself she must have gravely underestimated the effects of his injuries and near-death experience, that it was better to withdraw now, before he got even more worked up.

She stood up carefully so she wouldn’t sway. “I only wanted to know you’re okay... I shouldn’t have disturbed you...”

“No, you shouldn’t have. But now I’m glad you did.”

“Y-you are?”

“That’s the one good thing that’s come out of this mess. It’s giving me the chance to do what I’ve been trying to do.”

Her heart decelerated, as if afraid to beat and let his meaning sink in. “What have you been trying to do?”

“I’ve been trying to end this.”

Her heart stopped. “This? You mean...us?”

His stone-cold gaze slammed into her, compromising what was left of her balance. “There was never an ‘us.’ I thought we had an arrangement for sexual recreation, to unwind from the stresses of the pursuits that matter in our lives. But you were only pretending to abide by my terms, until I was softened enough, or maybe weakened enough, as you must believe I am now, to change the terms to what you wanted all along, weren’t you? You’re just another status-hunting, biological-clock-ticking woman after all, aren’t you?”

Unable to breathe, she flinched away. “Please...stop...”

He pushed a button that brought him to a seated position, as if to pursue her to drive his point through her heart. “I’m not stopping until this is over, once and for all. I grabbed the opportunity of training to break it off with you naturally, but you only escalated your pursuit. And now that you think me a sitting duck, you’re here to pin me down? To smother me with solicitude at my lowest ebb? You think you’ll make me so grateful I’ll end up offering you a commitment?”

She shook her head, shook all over, the tears she’d suppressed burning from her depths again. “You know it was never like that. Please, just calm down...”

“So now you want to make it look as if I’m raving and ranting? But you’re right. I’m not calm. I’m fed up. What else can I do so you’ll understand I can’t bear your suffocating sweetness anymore?”

Shock seeping deeper into her marrow, she staggered back to escape his mutilating barrage. “Please...enough... I’ll leave...”

“And you won’t return. Ever.”

His icy savagery shredded her insides. It was as if the man she loved had never existed. As if the accident had only revealed the real him, someone who relished employing cruelty to get rid of what he considered a nuisance.

She’d swayed halfway to the door before she stopped.

She couldn’t bear telling him. It would only validate his accusations. But he had to know.

Teetering around, she met the baleful bleakness of his stare, and forced the admission out. “I—I’m pregnant.”

Something spiked in his gaze before his thick lashes lowered, and he seemed to be contemplating something horrific.

At length, demeanor emptied of all expression, he raised his gaze to her. “Are you considering keeping it?”

Her world tilted. The Leonid she’d known would have never asked this. The real Leonid did because it was clear he’d rather she didn’t.

Trying to postpone falling apart until she walked out, she choked, “I only told you because I thought you had a right to know. I guess you would have rather not known.”

“Answer me.”

The remaining notches of her control slipped. “Why are you asking?” she cried. “You made it clear you care nothing about what I do or about me at all.”

He held her gaze, the nothingness in his eyes engulfing her.

Then he just said, “I don’t.”

One

Two years later...

“After his disappearance from public view over two years ago, Prince Leonid Voronov is back in the spotlight. The former decathlon world champion dropped off the radar after suffering injuries in a car crash that took him off the competitive circuits. Now the billionaire founder and CEO of Sud, named after the Slavic god of destiny and glory, one of the largest multinational corporations of sports apparel, equipment, accessories and services, could be poised to become much more. As one of three contenders for the resurrected throne of Zorya, a nation now in the final stages of seceding from Belarus, he could soon become king. With our field reporter on the scene as the former sports royalty and possible future king exited his New York headquarters...”

Kassandra fumbled for the remote, pushing every button before she managed to turn off the TV just as Leonid appeared on the screen.

But it was too late. She’d seen him. For the first time since she’d walked out of his hospital room twenty-six months ago. That had been the last time the world had seen him, too. He’d dropped off the radar completely ever since.

But he was back. Reentering the world yesterday like a meteor, making everyone gape in wonder as he hurtled out of nothingness, burning brighter than ever.

Everywhere she’d turned in the past twenty-four hours there’d been news of him. She’d avoided getting swept up in the tide of the world’s curiosity about his reappearance, at least outwardly. Until now.

Now her retinas burned with the image of him striding out of his imposing Fifth Avenue headquarters. In spite of herself, she’d strained to see how much of the Leonid she’d known had survived his abrupt retirement from his life’s passion.

The man she’d known had been crackling with vitality, a smile of whimsy and assurance always hovering on his lips and sparkling in the depths of his eyes. He’d perpetually looked aware of everything and everyone surrounding him, always connected and tapping in to the fabric of energy that made the world. She’d always felt as if he was always ready to break out in a run and overtake everyone as easily as he breathed. Which he’d literally done for eight years straight.

The man who’d filled the screen had appeared to be totally detached, as if he no longer was part of the world anymore. Or as if it was beneath his notice.

And there’d been another change. The stalking swagger was gone. In its place was a deliberate, almost menacing prowl. Whether this and the other changes she’d observed were sequels of the physical or psychological impact of his accident, one thing was clear, even in those fleeting moments.

This wasn’t the man she’d known.

Or rather, the man she’d thought she’d known.

She’d long faced the fact that she’d known nothing of him. Not before she’d been with him, or while they’d been together, or after he’d shoved her away and vanished.

For most of that time, Kassandra had withdrawn from the world, too. After the shock of his rejection, she’d drowned in despondence as its implications and those of her pregnancy had sunk in. She’d been pathetic enough to be literally sick with worry about him, to pine for him until she’d wasted away. Until she’d almost miscarried.

That scare had finally jolted her to the one reality she’d been certain of. That she’d wanted that baby with everything in her and would never risk losing it. That day at the doctor’s, she’d found out she wasn’t carrying one baby, but two.

After the scare and the discovery, she’d forced everything into perspective, then had even progressed to consider what had happened a blessing. Before Leonid, she’d never thought she’d get married. She’d never considered marriage an option between them, not even when she’d wanted to demand a change in their arrangement. But she’d always wanted to be a mother. Especially after her best friends, Selene, Caliope and Naomi, had had their children. She’d known she wanted what they had, that she’d be good at it, that it would complete her life.

As he’d said, one good thing had come out of that mess. She would be a mother without the complication of having a man around.

Not that it had been smooth sailing. Being pregnant and alone after the unbearable emotional injury of his rejection had been the hardest thing she’d ever gone through. Her family hadn’t made it any easier. Their first reactions had ranged from mortification to outrage. Her mother had lamented that she’d deprived her of the traditional Greek wedding she’d planned for her from childhood, while her father had swung between wrathfully demanding the name of the bastard who’d impregnated and abandoned her to forbidding her to have a baby out of wedlock. Her siblings and other relatives had had a combination of both reactions to varying degrees, even those who’d tried to be progressive and supportive.

The only ones who’d been fully behind her from day one had been her trio of close friends. Not only had they always been there for her and vice versa, no questions asked, they’d once been in her situation. Even if their stories had progressed toward ecstatic endings.

But when her family realized the price for any negative stance would be never seeing her again, they’d relented. Their disappointment and misgivings had gradually melted, especially her parents’, giving way to full involvement in her pregnancy and the preparation for her delivery. After the twins had arrived, they’d become everyone’s favorites and considered to be the best thing that had ever happened to Kassandra. Everything had worked out for the best.

She’d reclaimed herself and her stability, had become even more successful career-wise, but most important she’d become a mother to two perfect daughters. Eva and Zoya. She’d given them both names meaning life, as they’d given her new life.

Then Zorya had suddenly filled the news with a declaration of its intention to reinstate the monarchy. With every rapid development, foreboding had filled her. Even when she’d had no reason to think it would make Leonid resurface.

It seemed her instincts had been correct, for here he was, back on the scene with a vengeance. In one day, he’d taken the world by storm, a mystic figure rising from the ashes of oblivion like a phoenix.

Leonid’s disappearance had been the one thing left unresolved inside her. Everything she’d ever felt for or because of him had long dissipated. But wondering where he’d gone and what he’d been up to had lingered. Now explanations would be unearthed and any remaining mystique surrounding him would be gone, so she could once again resume her comforting routines, untouched by his disruption.

Leonid was a page that hadn’t only been turned, but burned.

“Mama.”

The tension clamping her every muscle suddenly drained at the chirping call of her eldest-by-minutes daughter, Eva. The girls had started calling her Mama two months ago. She hadn’t thought it would be that big of a deal. But every time they said it, which was often now that they knew it activated her like nothing else, another surge of sheer love and indulgence flooded her. Her lips spread with delight as she strode through her spacious, cheerfully decorated Bel Air house to their room.

It had been like this for months. Eva and Zoya always woke up an hour after she put them to bed. It was as if they loathed wasting precious playtime sleeping, or thought they shouldn’t leave her alone. But since she’d gone back to work after their first birthday almost six months ago, and they spent mornings with Kyria Despina, her late uncle’s wife and now her nanny, she welcomed the extra time with them.

As she approached the nursery, she could hear the girls’ efforts to climb out of their cribs through the ajar door. They were able to do it after a few trials now, but would soon be experts at it. She debated whether to go in or to let them complete their task and toddle their way to her in their playroom, as she’d been doing lately. It was why she’d been leaving the door ajar. She had childproofed every inch of her home six thousand ways from Sunday after all.

Moments passed and neither toddler showed up at the end of the corridor. Heart booming with the always-hovering anxiety she’d learned was a permanent side effect of motherhood, she streaked inside and found both girls standing in their crib, literally asleep on their feet.

The tenacious tots were obeying their regular programming even though their strenuously fun weekend at Disneyland had left them wiped out.

Scooping them up, she held one in each arm in the way she’d perfected, cooing to them, letting them know as they nestled into her and made those sweet sleep sounds that she’d come, as she always would, that they hadn’t missed that extra time with her they’d wanted.

Once she laid them down again, each turned to her favorite position and resumed a deep, contented sleep.

Sighing at that tremor of acute love and gratitude coursing through her, she walked out, closing the door completely now that she knew they were down for the night.

The moment she exited the room, the doorbell rang.

Frowning, she remembered that the girls’ play pals, Judy and Mikey, had again left behind some toys she’d found only after a thorough tidying up. It had become a ritual for Sara, their mother and her neighbor, to come by and collect her children’s articles after she’d put them to bed. They usually ended up having a cup of tea to unwind together after their hectic days.

Rushing to the door, she opened it with a ready smile. “We should establish rules about allowing only in-house toys...”

Air clogged her lungs. All her nerves fired, short-circuiting her every muscle, especially her heart.

Leonid.

Right there. On her doorstep.

She’d visualized this encounter countless times in waking trances and suffocating dreams. The perverse yearning had risen time and again for him to show up, look down at her from his prodigious height with eyes full of all he’d deprived her of, and tell her everything that had happened since his accident had been a terrible dream. She’d hoped for it until hope had turned to ashes.

And now...out of the blue, he was here...

Oh, God! He is really here.

Almost unrecognizable. Yet distressingly the same.

Observations accumulated in the white noise that filled her mind, burying her. The most obvious change was his hair. The silk that had been long enough to wind around her hands in the throes of passion was now severely cropped. It still suited him. It actually suited him better, accentuating the dominance of his bone structure.

The other major difference was his body. It hadn’t been a distortion of the video or his size relative to others. He was bigger. Broader. More heavily muscled. The leanness of the runner had been replaced by the bulk of a supreme fitness athlete.

His every feature and nuance, familiar yet radically different, felt like a knife to the heart.

But on the whole, he looked as if everything human about him had melted away, revealing a creature of polished steel beneath. Even the way he held himself seemed...inhuman. As if he was now a being of pure intellect and purpose, like a cyborg, an animate form of artificial intelligence.

An hour could have passed as she gaped up at him and he stared blankly down at her. He’d always had that power. Time had always distorted when she’d entered his orbit.

“Invite me in, Kassandra.”

His bottomless voice yanked her out of the stupor she’d stumbled in.

“I will do no such thing.”

“Your porch isn’t the place for what I’ve come to say.”

Her mouth dropped open at his audacity. That he could just appear on her doorstep after what he’d done to her, and without even an attempt at apology or even civility, not only demand but expect to be invited in.

“There’s no place where you can say anything to me. We have absolutely nothing to say to each other.”

“After the past two years, we have plenty.”

“The past two years are exactly why there’s nothing to be said. Even if there was, I’m not interested in hearing it.”

His eyes gave her a clinical sweep, as if assessing her response for veracity and judging it to be false. It made her loathe her weakness for him all over again.

“I don’t know what you were thinking coming here like this, what you expected, but if...”

“If you’re still angry, we can discuss that, too.”

If? If?

“Are you sure you broke only your legs in that accident? Sounds as if you’d pulverized way more. Like the components that made you human.”

“I do realize showing up here must have surprised you...”

“Try appalled and outraged.”

He shifted, like the automaton she’d just accused him of becoming, as if moving into a different gear to counter her response. “That’s why I showed up. I gathered if I called ahead, you would have been just as resistant to granting me an audience. So I decided to eliminate unnecessary steps.”