‘Of course, Your Majesty. Get back to me when you have a free moment,’ Antonella urged with a pleasant smile.
She’s a nice person, Lara reasoned, why do I feel as if I hate her? Why do I feel as if she has destroyed me?
But it wasn’t Antonella’s fault that she had brought something to light that neither Gaetano nor Lara had considered two years earlier. Why hadn’t they considered that he might have another woman in his life? Indeed, that he might even be in a relationship with someone else? On the only occasion when Larahadmentioned that possibility, Gaetano had outright laughed at the suggestion, insisting that he could never ever have forgotten someone that important to him. And she had believed that, hadn’t she? Because it had suited her to do so, her conscience pointed out. Madly in love as she had been and Gaetano hadseemedto be, the idea that he might owe loyalty to another woman would have been a devastating blow to her warmest hopes and prayers.
But for Gaetano, how much worse would it have been had he remembered that helovedthat other woman the moment he regained his memory?
And wasn’t that, bearing in mind his tension when he had seen her talking to Antonella, the more likely scenario?
After all, Antonella was absolutely gorgeous, like one of those supermodels you saw and lingered on in a glossy magazine. She was well educated, Mosvakian and from a good background. In short, Antonella was everything that Lara was not, and she was painfully conscious of the differences between them.
Gaetano had said he had not enjoyed a single happy moment since she had left their marriage, she reminded herself in desperation. But hadn’t Gaetano originally approached her looking for a divorce? And hadn’t his attitude only changed after Freddy entered their relationship and he accepted him? Freddy, the Crown Prince, their son, who was so much more important in Mosvakia than Lara in her naivety had ever appreciated. Freddy was treated in the palace like a precious jewel. Young though he was, Freddy was viewed as a future king. Here in the palace his outgoing nature was much admired. Freddy was a vital element in their marriage. Withouthisexistence would Gaetano still have wanted her back?
Such damaging fears would normally have sent Lara to bed early but instead she had to head out with Gaetano to visit Dario and Carla’s town house. Engulfed by Carla’s lively tribe of pet dogs, however, there was no time to brood. Carla was much more outgoing and casual than her husband and, not being a Mosvakian by birth, she didn’t have his reverent attitude to the monarchy. To her surprise, Lara thoroughly enjoyed the evening and noticed how much more relaxed and likeable Dario was in his wife’s company.
Lara was remembering the last time her trust in Gaetano had been tested, two years earlier, and she had run away sooner than stand her ground like an adult. She was no longer that immature and insecure, she reasoned with herself. He deserved the benefit of the doubt this time around.
She might want to confront Gaetano about Antonella, but how could she confront a man who might well have done nothing wrong? Who had had everyrightto be in love with another woman when he first met Lara even if he couldn’t remember the fact? That worrying question kept her lips sealed for the following two days while she struggled to behave normally.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FLYINGONHISprivate jet to Morocco with his family, Gaetano was brimming with dissatisfaction.
He had accepted the ugly truth that in the husband stakes he had been a disaster. He was proud that he had the humility to acknowledge that reality and he was fully committed to rectifying his mistakes. Sadly, for him, however, Lara was no longer on the same wavelength. For the very first time in his life, he was at a loss with a woman and his recently awakened conscience did not prevent him from seething with angry frustration when his attempts to improve the situation met a solid brick wall of indifference.
For the past forty-eight hours, Lara had been more distant than the Himalayas. She emanated an invisible but highly effective forcefield that repelled him. Even in bed, surely the ultimate insult, he reflected grimly, thinking of how she had muttered about how tired she was before taking refuge at the farthest edge of the bed as though he were some kind of sex fiend she was desperate to avoid.
Lara’s real problem, however, was that she was hopeless at hiding anything from him. Her smiles were stiff, her voice expressionless, her eyes unwilling to meet his. That something had gone wrong pretty much screamed from Lara. Unfortunately, she was married to a guy who was too clever by far toeverask a woman what was wrong and receive some bitten off passive-aggressive ‘Fine’ in response.
But slowly and steadily, nonetheless, Lara was driving Gaetano up the wall. Worse still, her behaviour hadshockedhim. Gaetano, who had fondly believed that he was shockproof with women. And yet here was Lara, whom he had truly believed was above such games, and she was shocking him with her detachment.Shutting him out.He couldn’t stand it; he genuinely couldn’t stand it. And it didn’t help that he didn’t know why, didn’t understand why such a change in her attitude could affect him to such an extent when no woman before her had had the ability to affect his mood.
Of course, he was accustomed to her warmth and her acceptance, and no woman had ever had the power to make him relax the way Lara did. When that was suddenly withdrawn without explanation, naturally he would feel troubled. While he had been taught to suppress his emotions, he still couldn’t manage that feat around Lara, and when one distant glance from Lara bothered him, his own overreaction made him feel out of control because he wasn’t accustomed to handling the turmoil inside him.
Maybe she had somehow got him hooked on all that touchy-feely cuddling she was so keen on. Certainly, he wasn’t stupid. He was aware that he had never had that sort of warmth from any other woman, not that it hadn’t been offered, only that he had once had the good sense to refuse that kind of empty, inappropriate affection. But Lara’s affection hadn’t felt empty or inappropriate or fake. And weirdly, hemissedit. All of it: the hand slipping into his, the hugs, the appreciative smiles, the laughter like liquid sunshine that revitalised him. His shapely mouth flattened and compressed. The awareness and the thought that had led to it only increased his annoyance.Madre di Dio...she now had him agonising over stuff as if he were a teenage girl!
As they climbed into an SUV at Marrakech Menara airport, Lara was painfully aware that she was handling what she had learned from Antonella very badly. Sadly, Antonella had struck a killing blow because Lara deeply cherished her memories of that first six weeks with Gaetano during which she had fallen in love with and married him. Antonella had struck at the very roots of that precious emotional history and squashed her flat. If the other woman was telling the truth, Gaetano had never been Lara’s except by default and his love had never been real even at the beginning, indeed, could only have been an infatuation caused by circumstance. And that hurt, good grief, thatreallyhurt, Lara acknowledged unhappily.
‘Where are we staying?’ she enquired to break the awful silence that had fallen between her and Gaetano long before they left the palace.
‘At the Palais des Roses property my grandfather built in the swinging sixties. The estate lies on the outskirts of the city. As a child I came here for regular holidays with Vittorio.’
‘Not Giulia?’
‘I was already an adult by the time my brother married Giulia. Her parents were family friends, though, and often visited the palace when I was a teenager. That’s when I watched movies with her. Vittorio had several ill-fated relationships with women and, with everyone keen to see him marry and carry on the family line, he finally settled on Giulia because she was a safe choice—’
‘That’s sad.’
Gaetano frowned. ‘It would have been even sadder if Vittorio had made the mistake of choosing a bride who only wanted him for his wealth and status. My mother married my father for his position and Vittorio watched that car crash happen. It made him very wary. Once my mother established that Mosvakia was notthemost fashionable place to be, she spent her time socialising in London with her friends. I was born there because she didn’t want to return to Mosvakia.’
Having left the buzzing, busy city behind, their convoy of cars was driving through olive groves. Soon enough they were surrounded on all sides by a plantation of soaring date palms and Lara carefully confined her attention to the view from the car windows. The SUV only slowed down when an impossibly long expanse of tall white wall appeared. The wall was divided by massive wrought-iron gates, which were swung open by two beaming older men.
A glorious wash of exquisite pastel-coloured roses in brimming beds encircled the driveway and she stepped out into the sunshine. A horseshoe arch led into a courtyard with pillars and a tiled floor sprinkled with rose petals to welcome their arrival. Water was running somewhere nearby, and a healthy collection of evergreen shrubs and small trees vied for her attention in the flower beds.
She was ushered straight into a room so packed with striking colourful features that she simply stared, taking in intricate kilim-upholstered seating, elaborate plasterwork, a carved wooden painted ceiling, and spectacular mosaic tiles applied to shoulder height on the walls. ‘My word, it’s like someArabian Nightsfantasy.’
‘It’s a house of curiosities,’ Gaetano said wryly, urging her in the direction of the concealed staircase at the rear of the room. ‘My grandfather spent years building it with teams of master craftsmen and ran himself deep into debt. Like my father, he was extravagant.’
‘There’s fireplaces everywhere,’ Lara remarked, glancing into another room as they passed it. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’