Gaetano wasn’t there when she got ready for bed in the grand bedroom that they had shared that afternoon. He had mentioned having allowed work to pile up while he came to England to visit her. She felt alone, though, and scolded herself for it. Of course, Gaetano, the monarch, had many more responsibilities than the guy with amnesia she had first met, who had been able to devote himself unreservedly to her. My goodness, without even appreciating that truth, she had been spoilt by him!
The acknowledgement made her buck up and accept reality. He would give her and Freddy what time he had to give, and she would make the best of it for the sake of their marriage. She fell asleep feeling lonely but comforted by the pious reminder that there was no such thing as perfect in any marriage...
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEFOLLOWINGAFTERNOON, Gaetano, Lara and Freddy flew to Mosvakia. She barely recognised her own reflection in the luxury washroom on the private jet. Her glamorous powder-blue knee-length dress and light matching coat teamed with toning shoes looked incredibly elegant, although nothing could have prepared Lara for the pomp and ceremony that greeted their arrival.
‘Why didn’t you warn me?’ she gasped, as Gaetano urged her down the steps from the jet to the crowds awaiting them.
Some people were waving with enthusiasm. Many were wielding cameras. Yet more were arranged in a formal line to greet them. Off to one side a regimental band was playing an upbeat thundering tune. The smiles and the music went some way towards banishing her immediate attack of stage fright. It was a celebration, not something to fear, she registered, the tightness in her chest receding and her breath coming a little easier.
A wave of introductions followed on the tarmac, the prime minister, the chief of staff of the army and that of the police force. Those were just some of the people she met. An eye-catchingly beautiful woman with long black hair and bright blue eyes disconcerted Lara by immediately mentioning that she was an ex-girlfriend of Gaetano’s.
‘Although I’m afraid there are all too many of us inthatcategory!’ she joked with such wide-eyed amusement that Lara could only admire her good nature. Her name was Antonella. ‘I’m so happy that Gaetano has found a wife and now he has a son as well. How wonderful! I currently have an intern position at the palace, so you’ll see me again. I do hope we can be friends.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Lara responded, charmed by that frank speech as Gaetano’s hand at her spine urged her on down the line.
‘What did Antonella have to say to you that took so long?’ Gaetano enquired.
In surprise, Lara glanced up at him and immediately recognised the faint tension etched in his lean darkly handsome features, tightening his high cheekbones and bracketing his narrowed golden gaze. ‘Nothing much. She seemed charming.’
‘Oh, she is,’ Gaetano agreed calmly. ‘She’s the prime minister’s daughter, quite a privileged young woman.’
Someone else grabbed his attention and that was the end of the conversation. Lara had wanted to ask when he had dated Antonella but, on reflection, decided that that would be an unwise enquiry. How would she feel if he told her he had been seeing the beautiful woman during their marriage? And that was perfectly possible, wasn’t it? She suppressed the sense of insecurity assailing her. She didn’t want to turn into an insanely jealous woman, did she?
After all, whether she liked it or not, she had been the one to walk out on their marriage. It was even possible that she had misread Gaetano’s signals that day. She didn’t want to think that about herself. She didn’t want to think that she could have made such a ghastly mistake abouthisfeelings for her. Even so, the anger he had revealed about her disappearance from his life only a day earlier had forced her to wonder whether she had misinterpreted his reaction to their marriage after he had regained his memory.
‘You’re very quiet. There won’t usually be this amount of interest in us, but the marriage announcement two years after the event and Freddy’s existence were bound to attract attention,’ Gaetano pointed out in an effort to be soothing, because at the back of his mind he still had the fear that if Lara was thrust too fast and too deep into the limelight, which she didn’t want in the first place, she might vanish on him again. It was foolish, he told himself, but, nonetheless, that fear was alive and well just about every time he looked at her. He needed to put that anxiety behind him. He didn’t fuss over women; he didn’t normally worry about them either. Why was she so different?
‘So, why did you call Antonella “privileged”?’ Lara heard herself ask, although she had promised herself that she would not ask Gaetano a single question about his ex-girlfriend. Her curiosity betrayed her, however.
‘Her sense of entitlement and confidence have ruffled feathers on the household staff,’ Gaetano confided. ‘But to be fair to her, the staffarebehind the times. My brother preferred the old ways in every sphere but I’m of the younger generation. Antonella does all the PR and she’s the first in that position.’
Lara let the subject drop, relieved of any further concern by Gaetano’s relaxed response and explanation.
The limousine was driving now at a slower stately pace down a long steep driveway surrounded by trees. When the trees finally parted, she saw an elegant white building on a hill. Adorned with castellated towers, it bore a remarkable resemblance to a jigsaw of a fairy-tale castle she had once done as a child. Several different storeys climbed the slope. Beautifully manicured terraced gardens surrounded Gaetano’s home.
As her nerves began to nibble at her composure, she breathed in deep. Freddy, who was in top form after meeting so many strangers and receiving smiles and appreciation from them all, squealed with excitement. Gaetano dismissed the offer of assistance from one of the half-dozen hovering staff eager to help and reached in to lift his son out of the limousine himself. As Freddy squirmed in the grip of one arm, he closed his free arm round Lara’s small trembling frame with all the firmness of a prison guard.
‘No need to glad-hand anyone here. This is our home and we’re heading straight to our private apartments,’ he intoned half under his breath before he fixed a polite smile to his darkly handsome face and forged a path through the gathering crowd to take them indoors.
Lara’s eyes glazed over in the vast echoing hall where towering, majestic mirrors and chandeliers offered a myriad reflections of people awaiting their arrival.
‘My wife is very tired.’ Gaetano excused them smoothly, urging her across the hall into a lift while signalling their nanny.
‘I’m not that tired,’ Lara muttered apologetically as Gaetano lowered Freddy to the floor in the corridor they stepped into.
Gaetano stepped round her to speak to the nanny and suggest that she take their son to the nursery.
‘Gaetano, I was planning—’ she began uncomfortably.
He closed a hand over hers in a gesture that brooked no argument and urged her down the corridor and into a room with giant double doors. ‘Our bedroom,’ he told her. ‘Be grateful for the modern furniture. When my brother was alive, it was the same as it was in my great-grandfather’s day with a massive four-poster. It gave me the creeps. Giulia refurnished it for me. She did a lot of redecoration after losing Vittorio. It gave her something to do. However, you are free to change anything and everything in this wing of the palace. It is nowourhome.’
‘That’s good to know,’ Lara mumbled, still shaken by a bedroom the size of a football pitch with numerous connecting doors. It was exquisitely decorated in shades of soft blue and green with touches of white. ‘But I shouldn’t think I’d want to change anything in here. It’s stunning as it is.’
‘It’s a shame that Giulia has moved abroad. You would have liked her.’
‘You must miss her too.’