Page 23 of Crowned for His Son

His father hummed in approval. ‘Excelente.A good, strong name. Your great-grandfather was named Maximiliano, if you recall?’

He did, and when he’d first heard it he’d wondered if Eden had chosen the name deliberately, attempting to gain an advantage with that stroke of familial evocation. Her condition put that into doubt, though.

Ifit was true…

While the greater part of him believed her amnesia diagnosis, he couldn’t help but remember how effectively she’d pulled the wool over his eyes with her false innocent act three years ago. For weeks he’d bought that act, believing her to be a good woman caught in a bad situation, until the truth had slapped him in the face.

She’d cleverly played Nick and him against each other. Expressing interest in him before inexplicably switching to his friend, then back again. It had been the first time Azar had experienced raging jealousy, and he’d detested the turbulent emotion as much as he’d detested its instigator.

She should have been a run-of-the-mill hook-up—taken, pleasured and forgotten in the usual sequence of his liaisons.

Instead, he’d discovered that he’d bedded a virgin.

Then discovered that she’d selected him only because she’d seen him as the highest bidder.

While he’d felt a primal, borderline uncivilised satisfaction in claiming that prize, he’d been livid when she’d given herself to his best friend. When both she and Nick had taunted him with his expendability that last time before she’d slid into his car.

‘You’ve had your fun but give it up. She’s with me now.’

‘Yes, Azar. I’m with Nick now.’

Words that reminded him that even after all this time he wasn’t over the searing anathema of coming second best.Mommy issues, Teo had called it. He’d rolled his eyes yesterday. Mocked his brother. But the truth resided justthere, in a sharp starburst of indelible pain, beneath the layers of muscle close to his heart. Was it any wonder that thus far the thought of reliving any of that by saddling himself with a wife was abhorrent?

And, yes, he’d hated his own friend for that too—a situation that had only compounded his guilt when Nick had perished before they could make amends.

Those weeks in Arizona they’d both discovered their weak spot. A stunning woman called Eden. And as the final betrayal she’d chosen his best friend, slid into his sports car after witnessing the lowest point of Azar’s life—fighting over a common woman—intending to sail into the sunset with Nick.

Only for his best friend to wrap his car around a tree and for Eden to fall off the face of the earth.

She’ddone that to him. And it remained a spike stuck in his gut.

‘Azar?’

He started, realised he’d lost himself down another bitter memory lane and forgotten his father.‘Sí, Papá?’

‘I asked when you were returning home with my grandson. That is your intention, yes?’

It was couched in a question, but it was an order. And, while his father might have grown frail far too quickly over the past year, King Alfonso still commanded with an iron fist. It was a shame that iron fist had never succeeded in stamping out the acrimonious battlefield that had been Azar’s childhood…

‘Yes. I… We’ll be home in a day or two. Three at most.’

No matter what feeble protests the cheaply dressed siren next door threw up.

He was still in combat mode when he left his office two hours later. Gaspar had advised him that his son was taking his afternoon nap. Which made it the perfect time to finalise his discussion with Eden.

He found her on the terrace, with a glass of what looked like mineral water in one hand and the other hand gliding through the rich, dark butterscotch abundance of her hair. She’d discarded her coat, revealing skinny leggings that moulded her shapely legs and rounded behind. The snug hem of her beige top was bordering on threadbare, emphasising her trim waist. While she’d possessed curves in all the right places the last time he saw her, he realised again that her hips had thickened slightly.

Mouth-wateringly.

He paused in the French doorway to compose himself, unwelcome heat rising as memory struck again—this time of sinking his fingers into that heavy silk mass, gripping it tight in a sensual direction that had made her scream and turn him inside out with a scorching pleasure it had taken an infuriatingly long time for him to forget.

Long after he’d left Arizona he’d considered whether that response too had been manufactured.

His jaw clenched now as he dismissed the memory and stepped onto the terrace.

‘Eden.’

She whirled around, her eyes going wide. Her curvy bust jiggled with her motion and Azar stifled a curse when his temperature rose several more notches. This was merely residual effects of that unwanted trip down memory lane. Nothing more.

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