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‘Enough.’

She was damp and her hair had dripped on his suit so he brushed it down with his free hand.

‘Sorry to get water on your suit.’ Allegra huffed. ‘I thought I was supposed to be more affectionate.’

‘Allegra. I couldn’t care less about the water...but there are more appropriate times to be affectionate, and you hardly dressed and dripping wet and tasting of watermelon...’ He halted his words, dropped her wrist. ‘There are limits.’

Then he strode off and Allegra couldn’t help but smile.

The queen smiled too, and walked over to Allegra. ‘I might go and have a little rest—it is terribly warm already.’

‘I thought you wanted to discuss designers...’ Allegra started, then remembered her place. ‘Of course, I mean, I hope you have a nice rest.’

She headed up to her suite, and surprisingly Alex was there, but he ignored her when she walked in. Instead he carried on speaking to his phone while Allegra showered and changed into a robe. She would decide what to wear later, heartily sick of the clothes that had been chosen for her, all so formal, so co-ordinated, so thought out.

She wandered into the bedroom where Alex was concluding his call and the butler had brought in her morning tea and also a glass that contained crystals fizzing in water for Alex. It was the only noise in the room when the butler left.


‘What’s that?’

He did not answer, just downed the drink and then spoke. ‘I will be going to London in the next few days.’

‘London!’ Her eyes lit up. ‘I’ll come—’

‘I am there for business.’


‘I won’t get in the way. I can see my family, spend some time—’

‘You will not be coming,’ Alex said. ‘I am going for a very discreet business trip. I am trying to arrange a meeting with a sheikh who is considering buying my business—if we both go it will turn into a media circus.’ He shook his head. ‘You carry on with the wedding plans, writing your book....’

She was so angry. London was her home and he was the one who got to go. Instead of drinking tea and the slivers of fruit that had been delicately arranged, she headed for the wardrobe.

‘Have your tea.’

‘I don’t want tea.’ Allegra looked at the lavish array of clothes. ‘I want coffee and cake,’ she said. ‘I want a vanilla latte and I want to choose my own cake from the display.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m going out.’

‘The fiancée of the heir to the throne does not just “go out.”’ He was at his most derisive. ‘You are not in your bedsit now, you don’t just pop down the road to buy some milk and stop off at a cheap café on the way. This is how it is. If you need some fresh air you can walk in the grounds.’ He remembered the last time she’d been this angry, when he had pressed her to the wall after the engagement party just to silence her. But that was no longer an option, so instead he headed for the door. ‘I’m going to my office.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHEN he had gone, she tried ringing Izzy, but got her voice mail, tried Angel too, but the result was the same. She was so worried about Angel. She’d seen her talking to some distant cousin of Alex’s at the party, and in true Angel style, she had married him, just like that!

Except far from hearing of her wedded bliss, Allegra kept getting long emails about how Angel was going out of her mind stuck in the countryside in the middle of nowhere. She knew how she felt—she completely knew how Angel felt. But unlike her stepsister, who had begged her to keep what she wrote to herself, Allegra had been told in no uncertain terms that she could confide in no one. It wasn’t fear of repercussions that kept her silent; it was the burden it would place on any family member if she told them how it really was. In the end she took her tea out onto the balcony and rang her father.

‘They’re an odd bloody lot,’ Bobby said as the conversation turned to the party and the dramas that had played out since then. ‘You know that Ben is still on Santina, and he’s managed to get Alessandro’s sister Natalia to work for him!’


Tags: Carol Marinelli Billionaire Romance