Confessions of a Royal Bridegroom(155)

She stared into the woman’s pale face, taking in the deep well of sorrow in her extraordinary eyes. Yet again a whisper of familiarity tugged at Justine’s senses.

A sense of impending doom winched a tight band around her chest. “Who are you?” she whispered.

For a moment, dread seemed to shimmer in the woman’s gaze. Then she spoke in a calm voice. “I’m Chloe Steele. Your husband’s mother.”





CHAPTER Twenty-Four



An unholy combination of fury and fear hazed Griffin’s vision as he pounded on Dominic’s front door. Justine and the baby were gone, but she’d left him a brief note written in a shaky hand. The final sentence had torn through him like buckshot.




I do not know if we will ever meet again, but know that you will always have my gratitude and my fondest hopes that you will find all the happiness you so truly deserve.




She’d signed it Justine Steele.

Well, Mrs. Steele was about to discover that her foolhardy attempt to escape him was doomed to failure.

His fist was in mid-pound when the door pulled open to reveal Dominic’s butler.

“Is he in?” Griffin snapped as he pushed past Smithwell into the entrance hall.

“He’s in his study, but he’s with someone. You should wait,” the butler said in an odd voice.

Griffin cast him an impatient glance, vaguely noting that the normally impassive Smithwell looked as sallow as curdled milk.

“This can’t wait.” He strode to the stairs.

“But, sir,” Smithwell cried as he followed him, “you mustn’t barge in! Let me inform Sir Dominic you’re here.”

Griffin took the stairs three at a time. Smithwell bleated in his wake, but Griffin had no intention of waiting for him or anyone else. As furious as he was with Justine, what drove him now was fear for her safety, and the child’s. Griffin had little doubt that Count Marzano and his henchmen were even now closing in on them.

He pushed open the door to the study and strode in. Dominic was standing behind his desk, peering at the tall, slender woman in front of him.

“Forgive the interruption,” Griffin said, not feeling the least bit sorry, “but this can’t wait.”

Dominic slowly transferred his attention to Griffin. His austere features were curiously blank, and his gaze was unfocused. But what struck Griffin more than anything was how pale Dominic appeared under his normal tan, and how his forehead was sheened with a haze of perspiration. In fact, he looked on the verge of casting up his accounts.

Griffin frowned but then mentally shrugged it off. Whatever was troubling the other man could wait. “We have a problem, Dominic. A big one.”

Dominic let out a laugh that sounded like wheels crunching on gravel. “You have no idea.”

The woman standing before the desk went stiff as a board, swallowing a choked exclamation as she turned around. Frowning, Griffin took a good look at her. In return, she gazed at him with a fierce intensity that almost pushed him back a step.

She was tall—almost as tall as he was—but very slender, with handsome, elegant features. He guessed her to be in her late thirties, with thick, simply styled auburn hair that set off her pale complexion and an extraordinary pair of fawn-colored eyes.


Those eyes were staring at him as if her life depended on it.

A chill of premonition slithered down Griffin’s spine. “What’s going on?” he asked Dominic. “Who is this woman?”

Dominic started to speak, but then had to stop and clear his throat. He tried again. “Griffin, she’s your mother.”