‘The first time we met he looked at me as though I hadconnedyou into marrying me.’
‘He’s inclined to be too protective towards me but then, basically, protecting me legally is his career. Dario and I went to the same English boarding school but even he doesn’t speak to me the way you do. Probably because he’s from Mosvakia and even he can never quite forget who I am.’
‘I’m sorry I’m so...blunt.’ She used the word awkwardly, feeling embarrassed that she just had no idea how to treat royalty even though she was still married to the man. Freddy chose that moment to crawl into her lap, curl up and close his eyes with a sleepy sigh.
As he watched that display of his son’s trust and dependency on his mother, a shimmering smile chased the tension from Gaetano’s darkly handsome face and his eyes glittered pure gold below his curling black lashes. Lara’s heart skipped a beat and fireworks flared in her stomach as she looked at him. He could light her up like a fire inside herself just with a certain look. And, uneasily aware that she should no longer be reacting that way to Gaetano, Lara scrambled upright slowly because Freddy was quite a weight and said, ‘Is there any place I can put him down for a nap?’
‘He’s that tiredalready?’ Gaetano asked in surprise.
‘He’s been on the go since six-thirty and I usually let him have an hour to nap about now.’
‘It’s fortunate that I had a new cot delivered. The original was an antique,’ Gaetano told her with a chuckle as he vaulted upright and reached out quite naturally to ease his son out of her arms. ‘You forget that he’s still a baby. He looks older as I did because he’s going to be tall.’
He walked over to the cot she hadn’t noticed in the corner, and she censured herself for being so wrapped up in Gaetano’s presence that she was almost blind to her surroundings. He laid the little boy down on top of the mattress and she leant over to slip off his shoes. ‘It’s warm here so I won’t cover him, but I’ll just nip downstairs and collect his bunny in case he wakes up.’
Before Gaetano could intervene, she had flashed out of the room and he stood on the landing, watching her speed downstairs to gather up the bag she had brought with her and return. Breathless, she tucked a shabby bunny into the cot beside their son, brushed his hair back from his face and smiled tenderly down at her child. ‘He sleeps like a log. Nothing short of an earthquake would wake him when he’s tired.’
And just like that, Gaetano knew he would be doing the right thing, even if most other people, including Dario, would think that what he was about to do was the very worst thing he could do. She was a wonderful mother and, for all their sakes, he would not part her from her son, no, not even for a day. He was praying that she wasstillthat naïve woman he had married.
‘You said something about us talking...’ Lara reminded him.
Gaetano shifted position with the strangest hint of hesitancy. Even without his memory Gaetano had been a very decisive guy. ‘I have something very important to say to you,’ he announced, burnished dark eyes suddenly homing in on her wide gaze and holding it fast. ‘Let’s move across the corridor. It’s my private suite and we won’t be disturbed by the staff there.’
As he pressed a bellpush in the wall, she frowned, everything knocked out of kilter by his statement as she tried to fathom out what he could possibly want to say.
‘The nanny knows to come and take care of our son when I ring the bell,’ he explained.
‘I didn’t know big houses still had systems like that in operation,’ she confided.
‘It’s a convenience in a building this size,’ Gaetano pointed out pragmatically as he ushered her through a door opposite into a gracious drawing room.
Lara walked over to one of the three windows, which were grandly draped in extravagant curtains. She gazed out at the rolling lawn with its woodland groves and the park beyond where she thought she could see a herd of deer grazing. Gaetano lived in another world and the surroundings inside and out were a distinctly painful reminder.
‘I suggest that we forget the divorce idea for the present...’
Lara’s eyes rounded and she spun back to him, her throat tightening with nerves and that awful sense of having lost her way in the conversation because she could not think of a single reason why he should propose such an idea. ‘Right...’ she muttered uncertainly, waiting for him to finish talking, which he seemed to be in no hurry to do.
His high cheekbones were flushed, his dark eyes very level and intent on her,sointent that she went rigid with self-consciousness, her small frame bracing as though she were under attack.
‘I would like for us to try a reconciliation instead.’
Lara was so shocked and so utterly unprepared for that suggestion that she lost all her colour, her small face turning wan.‘Really?’she mumbled weakly.
Gaetano didn’t feel that her turning as white as a ghost was much encouragement and, that fast, he was wondering if there was another man in her life. He stalked forward, angry destructive feelings tugging at him even as he rammed them back down again, determined to stay in control because so much hung on her answer.
‘I don’t know what to say. You’ve really taken me by surprise,’ Lara confided, turning away and then turning back, not wishing to be rude when he had had the courage to make such a proposal.
Gaetano halted mere inches from her, making her extraordinarily conscious of his height and forcing her to turn her face up to look at him. It was a comfort to acknowledge that Gaetano looked every bit as tense as she felt and deadly serious.
‘Hear me out at least,’ he asked her in a taut undertone. ‘I want us to be a family. I didn’t have that and neither did you, from what little you have told me. Freddy deserves parents willing to make the effort to be together. But to be frank, I also wantyouback, not just Freddy...’
Lara was so shattered by that assurance that her knees went all wobbly. She blinked rapidly, her heartbeat thundering inside her tight chest, making ordinary breathing a challenge.I want you back.Never ever had she even dreamt of hearing such a declaration from Gaetano. She had left everything she felt for him behind her...hadn’t she? Wasn’t that, for her own sake, all old history not to be revisited under any circumstances?
‘And, to be even more frank, I haven’t had a single happy moment since you left me,’ Gaetano framed in an almost disjointed rush. ‘I do the job I’m expected to do and the job is my entire life, which is far from ideal.’
Her soft heart clenched. Why had she always assumed that he would be delighted to take the throne and become King? Not a singlehappymoment? A rush of tears stung the backs of her eyes and she glanced down at the rug beneath their feet, the colours blurring as she struggled to control her emotions, but just then she was feeling more emotions than she could possibly handle all at once. Disbelief, bewilderment, a literal terror of making another mistake but, ultimately, a sense of pure joy. The very first thought that raced through her, shaming her, making her despise herself was that shewantedhim, wanted him back yesterday for that matter, had probably never stopped wanting him back since she’d first walked away from him.
‘I couldn’t be a queen,’ she declared with pained certainty. ‘I haven’t got what it would take to bethat.’