Read the book: «The Secret That Shocked De Santis»

CHAPTER ONE

STELLA ZAMBRANO FELT as if she was sitting outside the principal’s office, knowing she was in trouble without a clue as to why. All she could do was wait and try not to think the worst.

The military wing of the San Felipe palace was designed to impress and to intimidate. It succeeded in both. The vaulted ceilings were metres high, the floors tiled in a headache-inducing intricate mathematical pattern, and the walls plastered with gold-framed portraits of the De Santis predecessors—princes, military leaders, powerful men.

San Felipe, a famed island principality in the heart of the Mediterranean, was currently ruled by Crown Prince Antonio De Santis. Austere, yet beloved, and devoted to duty, Antonio was aided by his charming, utterly adored younger brother, Eduardo. The public face of San Felipe, risk-taking, suave Prince Eduardo almost single-handedly kept the tourism industry afloat.

The most recent portrait in the vast room depicted the two brothers standing side by side in full military regalia. It hung on the wall directly opposite, dominating Stella’s field of vision. She opted to stare at the floor. The sweat on her back iced. She desperately hoped the Princes were not present in the palace today.

‘Lieutenant Zambrano?’

She looked up as her name was called.

‘The General will see you now.’

Finally.

Stella searched the Captain’s face for clues, but saw that if he were any more expressionless he’d be dead. She was uncomfortable, conscious that she ought be wearing her sharply pressed midnight-blue trousers and a starched white shirt, topped with her gold-trimmed blue jacket. Her brass should be gleaming, her ribbons immaculate, her star straight on her shoulder. Instead she was wearing sweat-stained fatigues and muddied boots.

She’d just finished her morning run when a stony-faced sergeant had appeared and said it was urgent and that she didn’t have time to change. He’d driven her straight from the base to the palace, where the General of San Felipe’s army had his official quarters.

Now she felt conscious of the marks on her clothing, the grime on her face. But perhaps the General would overlook her untidy appearance. Perhaps this summons was to give her the overseas mission orders she’d been waiting so long for.

But the unnatural silence spiralling in the waiting room warned her differently. This call was too soon after her last rejection. Too unexpected. And the carefully blank faces of the civilian staff present... The way they wouldn’t look her in the eye...

Slimy snakes of doubt slid down her spine.

‘Lieutenant?’ the Captain repeated sharply.

She blinked, her brain lurching back to the present. Mortified, she stood. A superior officer had never been required to repeat orders to Stella before. She stiffly followed him to the large carved door that was firmly shut. He opened it and impassively waited for her to pass through.

Stilling her nerves, Stella walked into the room, then stood to attention at a respectful distance from the desk. The heavy door behind her closed with a thud.

The uniformed man seated behind the large desk didn’t look up. He didn’t tell her to stand at ease. Didn’t tell her to sit. Didn’t tell her anything. Instead he stared down at the personnel file open before him. She knew it was hers, but kept her gaze fixed on the wall behind him—yet another portrait of the Princes. Peripherally she was aware of the man’s greying hair and that he was wearing glasses to read the report. The General had been serving in this army for almost fifty years. Other men his age would have retired already. He never would. He was there for life. Because his life was the military.

She respected that. She understood that. Because she felt the same.

‘Lieutenant.’ He finally addressed her.

‘Yes, sir.’ She saluted.

He still didn’t look up. ‘On the afternoon of July the twenty-sixth you were based at the San Felipe barracks, is that correct?’

Her stomach dropped. That date was branded on her brain.

‘I believe so, sir.’ She licked her horribly dried lips.

There was no waiting now. Her instinct had been right: this wasn’t the new mission she’d been hoping for.

‘Did you remain on the base, as required, for all that afternoon and evening?’

She swallowed hard. It had been one hour. One hour in which she’d—

No. Don’t think about it. Don’t remember.

Calling on all her years of discipline, she blocked the memories from her mind, as she’d been doing almost successfully these past few weeks. But betrayal curled around her.

Someone had told.

‘Lieutenant?’ the General prompted. ‘Did you leave the base without authorisation that day?’

These past couple of months her nerves had been at breaking point as she’d wondered—waited—to see if anything would happen as a result of that madness. But nothing had and she’d finally begun to think the danger had passed and that she’d gotten away with it.

She hadn’t.

‘July twenty-sixth,’ the General repeated. ‘Do you recall that afternoon, Lieutenant?’

‘I...’ Bleakly she realised she had no answer that she could utter aloud. She licked her lips again. ‘I was nearby. I left the boundary only for a little while.’

‘You were on call at the station. You did not have permission to leave the base.’ A cold statement of fact.

She’d climbed down the cliff and gone to the bay, only metres away. She would have heard if the sirens had gone off—they hadn’t. And she knew no one had come to her room for her because surely they’d have said something later? Wouldn’t they have asked her?

‘You had your routine medical check last week.’ The General looked down at the paperwork again.

‘Yes, sir.’ Stella swallowed, nervy and surprised by the change in topic.

‘Your bloodwork showed a problem.’

Problem? Edgily she waited, only just holding her silence, knowing her superior would inform her when he was ready and not before.

But she was fine, wasn’t she? Fit and strong. Admittedly she’d been more tired than usual on her run this morning, but other than that—

‘How long have you known you’re pregnant?’

‘What?’ Stunned, she forgot to address him formally.

‘A soldier on active duty cannot be pregnant,’ he said crisply. ‘You’ve not reported your condition to your superior officer. Another rule you’re in breach of.’

Pregnant?

‘I’m not...’ She drew a shocked, shuddering breath. ‘I can’t be...’

It was impossible. There’d only been the one encounter in that one hour. And she’d used protection.

The General’s already frosty expression turned Arctic, but Stella’s blood had frozen anyway. No way could she be pregnant. It was the one thing she’d sworn would never happen.

He held up a piece of paper. ‘The test was repeated with the second sample taken. There is no question of your condition. Do not make your exit even more ignoble.’

‘My exit?’ Uncaring of proper decorum, she grasped the back of the chair beside her, her head spinning.

This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be true. It wasn’t possible.

‘You are relieved of all duties.’ He passed judgement in an expressionless drone. ‘You went off base without permission. You concealed your condition. You are discharged from the San Felipe Armed Services, effective immediately. Upon your return to the barracks you will surrender the uniform you are wearing. All other property of the San Felipe principality has already been removed from your room and your personal belongings are packed. You will take them and leave the base. You will have ten minutes before you are considered to be trespassing and escorted off.’

Nauseating dizziness swept over her and the edges of her vision blurred. She was being booted out of the army. The only place she thought of as home. The only place she had to go. And she was pregnant.

Stella struggled to process the barrage of instructions. She couldn’t be pregnant. Not by—

Bile rose, burning the back of her throat. Did they know who she’d met in that mad moment? Who it was who’d made her cast aside every inhibition as if it was as of little importance as a chocolate wrapper? Who it was who’d sparked that intensity and had her acting in a way she’d never done before? Did they know that she’d been the biggest idiot on the planet?

Pure panic threatened to derail her completely, but then her defences kicked in with a last spurt of survival instinct. She rallied, fighting to keep her thinking clear. To keep hold of her own future.

‘Shouldn’t I be court-martialled?’ she asked, ignoring the catch in her voice and hoping he would too. ‘Shouldn’t there be a soldier present, recording this conversation?’

She did not want preferential treatment. Not because of what she’d done and who she’d done it with.

Or because of who she was.

The General muttered something incomprehensible. Not a regulation response. It was his first slip in this meeting—a flash showing he might actually be human. She thought she saw a fleeting expression in his eyes before he looked down at her paperwork again.

But the expression wasn’t the one she’d wanted.

‘We thought it best to save your blushes,’ he said curtly.

His abrasiveness dashed the last of Stella’s hope.

Who was the ‘we’ who’d made this decision? And was it really to save her blushes? Or someone else’s? Someone much more important than her.

Did they want this swept under the carpet and for her to disappear quietly? For this ‘incident’ to go away? For a moment rage blinded her. She wanted to scream this betrayal to the world. This unfairness.

But she couldn’t. Because it was her own fault that her life had been totalled. Her poor choice that afternoon. But this preposterous claim that she was pregnant... It had to be false.

‘I’m not pregnant,’ she reiterated forcefully. She refused to believe it.

‘You’re dismissed.’

The blunt order stopped her cold. He’d made it clear her career was destroyed and he wasn’t interested in her reaction or her defence. He didn’t care. He just wanted her gone, quickly and quietly.

She stared at the greying, ageing man who wielded so much power. He couldn’t know who it was she’d been with, because if he did he’d be angrier than this. He would care more.

Run, her instinct screamed. She needed to run before he did find out. Before anyone found out.

But she had nowhere to go. She had no permanent home of her own. When on furlough she travelled. Often on shorter periods of leave she stayed on the base and volunteered for extra shifts. So where? She couldn’t go to him. And as for her childhood home...

She looked again at the older man who was now studiously ignoring her with that utterly impassive face. She tried to ask him. ‘Sir—’

‘You’re dismissed.’

His emotionless repetition stripped the last veneer of confidence from her. All she had left was a plea.

‘Father...’

General Carlos Zambrano, operational leader of the San Felipe Armed Services and Stella’s sole parent, didn’t respond. He merely put the paperwork back into the thin manila file that was all that remained of the military career she’d worked so long for.

She’d done the one thing she’d vowed never to do—had never done until now. She’d broken that barrier between professional and private. The barrier both she and her father had enforced.

Defeat twisted and she didn’t try to speak again. Unbearably hurt, she turned and walked to the door. With every step she hoped her father would call to her. Stop her. That he would want to help her.

But he never had before, and today there was nothing but the inevitable disappointed silence.

Disappointment on both sides.

Glancing back as she closed his door behind her, she saw him still sitting at his desk. Still looking away. Still refusing to acknowledge her.

Once more she’d let him down. And there was no coming back from something this catastrophic. She’d never redeem herself in his eyes. She’d lost everything she’d worked so hard for.

She paused, clutching the door handle for support. She had no idea what to do or where to go.

Slowly she became aware of the surreptitious, speculative glances from the personnel working in the room. It was unusual for someone of her rank to be called into the General’s office. They probably thought it was preferential treatment because she was his daughter.

But perhaps they already knew. That thought horrified her. Did they all know what she’d done and who she’d done it with?

And it was preferential treatment. She should have been dishonourably discharged or, at best, formally warned and demoted. Instead her father had used his rank to ensure her removal from the service was done in secret.

So there was no embarrassment for anyone.

Except she was left with nothing. No job. No home. The reputation she’d worked so long and so hard to build had been burned with the strike of a single match.

Everything was gone because of that one hour in which she’d lost herself. The one hour that no one was ever supposed to know about...

‘I’m ordered to drive you back to the barracks.’ The Sergeant from earlier materialised in front of her.

‘Thank you,’ she said, but the words barely sounded.

She sat in the back seat of the car and wound down the window, trying to get fresh air to clear her head. Her gaze skimmed over the grand homes, with their marble columns and gorgeous gardens, and beyond to the aquamarine waters of the glorious coastline. The beauty of the wealthy island now oppressed her. She willed the Sergeant to drive faster. She had to find a place and space to think. And that was not San Felipe.

Doubts and questions scurried in her mind. It was just over three months since that afternoon in the blazing sun. How could she be three months pregnant and not know about it? Horror filled her at the prospect—pregnancy had never been part of her life plan.

As soon as the Sergeant pulled up to the security station at the base she got out. No one came within sight as she walked to her room, but once she was there it was obvious someone had been very busy in that short time. Her space had been completely cleared. All that was left was a large duffel bag that leaned against the foot of the stripped bed. She opened it and her hurt deepened. Someone had taken methodical care to pack away her few personal possessions. It felt invasive and pointed—and why were the soldiers she’d considered more than colleagues so conspicuously absent?

Blocking the stabbing wounds and setting her mind to the task, Stella quickly phoned for a taxi to collect her at the gate, then stepped out of her drill uniform and pulled on the first things that came to hand—an old grey tee shirt, black yoga pants. She stuffed her feet into thin, flat-soled trainers. And she added a sweatshirt, because despite the early autumn heat she was freezing.

She left the clothing she’d removed in a neat folded pile on the end of her bed. Then she hoisted her duffel onto her back and walked past Security.

In and out in less than eight minutes. Not that her father was ever going to be impressed by anything she did. No matter how hard she tried.

‘San Felipe airport, please,’ she instructed the taxi driver, and slumped back against the seat.

A mere twenty minutes later she was inside the light, airy terminal. Stella ignored the award-winning architecture and walked straight to the nearest airline desk, requesting a ticket on the next plane out.

The airline attendant smiled and helpfully started typing, but only moments later confusion—and caution—lit her eyes. She kept on staring at her computer screen and tightened her grip on the passport Stella had handed to her.

‘I’m sorry...’ she said, then her voice trailed off.

Stella stiffened, casting a careful check about her. There were two uniformed soldiers in the corner. And another one heading her way. The Captain who’d been in her father’s office.

‘I need you to come with me, Ms Zambrano.’ He reached out and took her passport from the airline attendant’s hand.

Stella didn’t move.

‘Ms Zambrano?’ he repeated quietly. ‘This way.’

Not ‘Lieutenant’. Not any more. Already she’d been stripped of the title that had taken her six years to earn.

She’d been rejected by the San Felipe army initially so she’d gone to New Zealand—her mother’s birth country. As she held dual citizenship she’d been able to train there. She’d worked so hard, risen through the ranks, until she’d been able to return to San Felipe with a record that not even her father could ignore. She was too good. She’d transferred, determined to maintain the rapid ascent of her career.

Now she studied her superior officer. Only he no longer had that role, because she was a civilian. He had no authority over her. And she could take him down and run. She’d had excellent training and she’d felled taller, bigger men.

‘You don’t want to cause a scene here,’ he said, accurately reading her flash of rebellion.

Didn’t she?

‘I will carry your bag.’ The Captain already had it.

She felt like snatching it back, screaming in defiance and stamping her foot. But it would get her nowhere. And the Captain was right—she didn’t want to make a scene. She wanted to quickly skulk away and sort out her life in obscurity.

The airline attendant’s brittle smile widened into an almost comical expression of relief as Stella silently fell into step with the soldier.

‘You were at the palace,’ she said, as they walked swiftly. ‘At my f—’ She checked herself. ‘At the General’s office. Why are you here now?’

‘I’m following orders.’

‘Whose orders?’

He kept his eyes front and didn’t answer.

‘Whose orders, Captain?’ she asked again.

‘This way, Ms Zambrano.’

It couldn’t have been her father who’d sent him after her—he’d have said something back in his office. He’d made it clear he’d washed his hands of her. Which meant it was someone else making the call. Someone even more highly ranked.

If she’d felt cold before, she was hypothermic now. Under-dressed and vulnerable, she missed the weight and strength of her boots.

The Captain whisked her through several security doors and along a back corridor. The last door opened out onto the airport tarmac.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked, her apprehension growing as she saw the waiting helicopter.

‘Somewhere you will be safe.’

Because she was under some kind of threat? ‘Why wouldn’t I be safe in San Felipe?’

‘You were not planning to stay in San Felipe.’

No. She hadn’t been. Another chilly finger pressed on her spine. ‘So where are you taking me?’

But it seemed he’d used up his word allowance for the day.

The helicopter’s engine was already running, the rotor blades whirring. Automatically she ran in low, and refused the offer of assistance from another soldier waiting inside. She knew how to strap in safely—she’d done it thousands of times.

Her bag was thrown in and the Captain pulled himself up into the seat alongside her, so she was boxed in by uniformed men—as if she were about to make a break for her escape.

Or as if she needed bodyguards.

She looked past the Captain to watch out of the window as the helicopter lifted into the air, her fingers curled tight into her palms. Didn’t she have the right to know where she was being taken?

The men said nothing, but simply by watching out of the window she had the answer in less than twenty minutes.

Initially, from the air, the island looked imposing and inhospitable. It seemed little more than an oversized rock; nothing but sheer cliffs with jagged edges—a rival for Alcatraz. But as they flew closer she saw a rocky outcrop along the left side. It created a lagoon that harboured the smallest, most private of beaches. On the edge of that rocky outcrop was a tall fortress—a defence tower built centuries ago, to prevent intruders from entering the beautiful lagoon and disturbing those on the beach.

Looking back to the main chunk of the island, she could now see a large stone building. Before she’d only seen it in pictures, but she knew exactly where she was headed. This was the most private place in San Felipe. Access was forbidden unless you had a royal invitation. Because this was the island upon which the royal family vacationed in seclusion, escaping the exhaustion of their daily demands.

But this was no relaxed, simple holiday home. This was a palace, ornate and ancient, one of the many jewels in the crown of an island principality that had been celebrated for centuries.

The helicopter circled, giving Stella a perfect view of stone columns, stained glass, statues. The gardens surrounding the main building were large, formal and immaculate. Miles of hedging grew in intricate Renaissance patterns, swirling around rose beds and ponds. She caught a glimpse of a deeper blue beneath a stone archway—a pool. Another glimpse of something white. Her eyes were so wide they hurt, and there was a constriction in her throat that made breathing painful.

Most people would be thrilled to get a bird’s eye view of this utterly exclusive island—and be beyond excited at the thought of setting foot on the place. Stella wasn’t most people. Stella felt sick.

As the helicopter began its descent to a small helipad on the farthest reaches of the garden a loud drumming thundered in her ears. She couldn’t tell if the noise was her heart or the helicopter, but it was growing louder, and her breaths came shorter. Her vision blurred.

Control yourself.

She tensed her muscles and mentally issued the order. She couldn’t afford to be weak now. She had to be stronger than ever. She had to be the soldier she was and be ready to fight.

‘If you would follow me, please?’ The Captain exited the helicopter, hefting her bag onto his shoulder.

Well, it wasn’t as if she had any choice. She quickly followed him along the immaculately tended pathways, feeling as if she was in the pages of a twisted fairy tale in which she had to cross an enchanted garden to find a beastly prince waiting for her in the castle.

Except he wasn’t beastly. And that was the problem.

She wasn’t led to the ginormous archway and large heavy doors that comprised the main entrance. Instead the Captain led her along a small path and then up a narrow stone staircase that took them to a wide patio that ran the length of the building. Large windows were set back from the uniform stone columns, and every so often formed a set of French doors.

Almost at the end of the building, one set of such doors was thrown wide open. Glimpsing a gloomy interior, she could see rows of bookshelves lining the walls.

The Captain led her right to the doorway, then turned and bowed. ‘I will leave you here.’

He was gone almost instantly, his retreat swift and silent. He took her bag with him. And her passport.

Stella paused, unwilling to take the fateful step inside. She knew that Prince Eduardo De Santis would be waiting for her in that room. The piratical playboy Prince, the handsome patron of all things adventurous and glamorous in San Felipe. Capricious, spontaneous, spoiled.

Everything she wasn’t.

Yet he was her one spectacular mistake. Her one tryst. The one thing her supremely disciplined self had been unable to resist that afternoon. And it seemed she was going to pay a fearsome price for her moment of Prince Eduardo’s kind of fun. So now she was more than wary. But, despite the time she’d had to prepare herself, she felt utterly unready to face him. She had no uniform to hide behind, no tactical plan to ensure she won this battle.

And it was going to be a battle—against herself as much as against him.

‘Don’t stand out there all day.’ His voice carried through the open door. ‘Strange things sometimes happen if you stay in the sun too long.’

It was part command, part dry warning, part pointed reminder. And just his voice had her reacting in ways she didn’t want to. Memories flickered at the edge of her mind. Teasing and tempting.

She couldn’t let herself remember. Couldn’t let herself fall again. She’d lost too much already.

Prince Eduardo De Santis wasn’t so much a ruthlessly wicked rake as a seductive buccaneer. He didn’t leave masses of broken hearts in his wake, more soft-eyed smiles and ‘if only he would’ sighs. But he never ‘would’—Eduardo was too much of a freedom loving soul ever to be caught fast.

For many, that was part of his allure.

No one had a bad word to say about him, but he was most definitely not all good. He did as he pleased, and pleased as he did. A lover of action and adventure, he was a princely poster boy for all San Felipe’s outdoor amusements.

And didn’t she know that fact intimately?

Steeling herself, she walked into the room, blinking to hasten the adjustment her eyes needed to make from the brilliant sunshine to this dim interior. Despite the spots dancing in front of her eyes she saw him immediately. And quelled her quiver. He was as devastating as ever.

Tall, with thick black hair worn slightly too long, adding to his air of unruliness. His muscled body was clad in a black tee shirt and black jeans. He looked like a special ops assassin—only his feet were bare, in that arrogantly easy way that was so uniquely him. He leaned against the closed door, watching her with eyes that shone remarkably blue. The exact intense hue of the lapis lazuli the islands were famed for.