‘I know why you don’t trust easily, Callie. You had a hard life with your father. Ma Brown told me a lot of it over the phone.’
‘She shouldn’t have.’
‘Yes, she should,’ he argued. ‘She cares about you, and the Browns thought I should know. When you didn’t answer my letters, I got in touch with them. They told me to stay away and give you time to take everything in. Has it worked?’ He gave her a fleeting smile.
‘And love,’ she said. ‘What conclusion did you come to?’
He considered her question. ‘I came to the conclusion that love isn’t rational, and there are no answers. There’s only this...’ Dragging her close, he kissed her, gently to begin with, and then with increasing fire, until they were kissing each other as if they were the last two people on earth.
It felt as if they were finding each other all over again. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she breathed when they finally broke apart.
‘You have no idea,’ Luca murmured as he smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘When I say that I want to know all about you, I’m not talking about the heavily edited facts you’ve fed me in the past, but the truth, all of it, good and bad. I want to face the trials and triumphs together, so we can share the feelings we’ve both steered clear of in the past. I’m still learning when it comes to emotion, but I owe it to my country to change, and I owe it to you most of all. If we don’t know sadness, how can we recognise happiness, and if we don’t feel regret, how can we look forward and plan for the future? Tell me everything,’ he insisted. ‘I’ll know if you’re holding back.’
She thought back, and started with her mother. ‘I can’t remember her...’ She paused, saddened. ‘My father blamed me for her loss. She died in childbirth,’ Callie explained. ‘And he could have been so much more,’ she said as she thought about her father.
‘But none of this is your fault,’ Luca insisted. Taking hold of her hands, he brought them to his lips and kissed them. ‘You don’t need to tell me how hard you’ve worked. Your hands speak for you.’
Callie laughed ruefully. She didn’t exactly have a princess’s hands. They were red and work-worn, having never quite recovered from scrubbing floors at the pub, but they were part of her, and she would rather have her work-roughened hands than all the pale, floaty things she’d seen at the ball.
‘What was life like before your father died?’ Luca prompted when she fell silent.
‘Life’s always been great, thanks to the Browns. Well, most of it,’ she conceded. ‘But if I didn’t have the Browns...’ That didn’t bear thinking about.
‘Good friends are beyond price,’ Luca agreed. ‘But now you have to ask yourself what you want out of life now.’
You, she thought, but you without complications, and she knew that wasn’t possible. ‘I wish life were simpler,’ she said. ‘I wish we could go back to working in the lemon groves, when I thought we were both holiday staff.’
‘We’re the same people we were then.’
‘But now you’re a prince,’ Callie argued.
‘I’m a man in love with you.’
Or in love with the thought of great sex going forward with the woman carrying his child? she wondered. ‘I just don’t know if it could work out,’ she said, speaking her doubts out loud. ‘The Princess bit, I mean.’ Lifting her chin, she stared directly at Luca. ‘Being royal seems so confining to me.’
‘Not once you learn how to pin on a tiara,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’ll soon get the hang of it.’
She shot him a warning look, but Luca was in no way deterred. ‘I’ve got homes across the world where we can be alone as much as you want, and I’ve got a superyacht to escape to.’
‘That’s just the point, isn’t it? This is all normal to you, but it’s crazy mad to me.’
‘So?’ he prompted.
‘So, no, thank you.’
‘Think about it carefully.’
‘I have,’ she assured him.
‘I realise it’s a huge commitment to make. Most people would jump at the chance of marrying into royalty and wouldn’t give a second thought to the practicalities. But that’s not you, Callie. You’re cranky, challenging, and real, and that’s why I want you at my side.’
‘Compliments?’ she said dryly. It was hard to remain neutral when Luca was working his charm. She was already warming and thrilling inside, and she didn’t need anyone to tell her how dangerous that was. ‘Or are you saying I keep your feet on the ground?’
‘That’s not the reason I want you,’ Luca assured her with one of his dark, gripping looks. ‘And, in the interest of clarity, I should make it clear that your feet won’t be on the ground for long.’
* * *
‘So,’ Callie murmured, shooting him a troubled look when they got back in the car. ‘You love me.’