‘I’ve done three tests and…no, that’s a lie, I did six. I am not…do not suggest that… Just know that I want nothing from you. I’m going home tomorrow to tell my mum and sister and we’ll be totally fine. I’m not alone.’
He had stood there totally motionless during her machine-gun delivery of the facts. Strangely, saying it out loud had made the secret she had nursed to herself seem slightly less surreal.
She’d thought she’d been prepared for his every reaction, most had involved noise, but him turning on his heel and walking out of the door before she could even draw breath was not one she had been prepared for.
It might have been minutes or an hour, she didn’t have a clue, but when the door had opened again she hadn’t moved from the spot where she’d been before his abrupt departure. He had re-entered, still pale but not with shock now; determination as steely as his stare had been etched into the lines of his face.
‘Well, obviously we need to get married. I don’t need to involve my family in this—it’s one of the advantages of being the spare. Carl is getting married and they probably won’t even notice. How about you?’
Carl? What did his older brother have to do with this? ‘Family…?’ Her thought processes had been lagging a confusing few steps behind his words.
‘A big wedding, given the circumstances, is not an option, but if you want your immediate family to be there I can accommodate that. I have business in the area, so how does Vegas next week sound to you?’
He had paused, presumably for breath. She had definitely needed to breathe!
‘You’re not joking…? Dante, people don’t get married because of a baby… Let’s forget you ever said that. You’re in shock.’
He didn’t appear to appreciate her consideration. ‘I may only be the spare but I am still second in line to the throne…my child will not carry the stigma of being a bastard. Believe you me, I’ve seen it and it’s not pretty.’
‘You’re insane.’
Every argument she’d made against his plan he’d had a counterargument to. The most compelling one having been it was the right thing to do for the baby’s sake, the new life that they had made.
She had ended up agreeing, of course. Saying yes to Dante was a habit she had to break if her life was going to get back on track.
As for last night! How could she have been that stupid yet again? And she had nobody to blame for it but herself! Dante didn’t have to do anything to make her act like a lemming with her sights on a cliff edge, he just had to exist.
And nobody had ever existed as much as Dante—she had never met anyone who was so alive.He had a presence that was electrifying, and there was an earthy, raw quality to the megawatt vitality he exuded that made the idea of forgetting anything connected with him laughable.
But she had to. She had to put last night behind her and start again—it would get easier. It had to! First, she couldn’t run and hide or pretend that last night didn’t happen. She just had to accept she had messed up and move on.
Again…!
‘What are you doing here, Dante?’ Falling in love was not at all as she had imagined it—in fact it really should come with a health warning, or at least a misery warning!
‘You invited me. It seemed rude—’
‘How did you know where I was? How did you know we had gone away?’ For the first few weeks after she had left Dante she had moved in with her mother, then she had taken residence on Maya’s couch until a flat they could afford together had come up.
He arched a sardonic brow and she sighed.
‘All right, stupid question.’ She had considered fighting the insistence that she needed any sort of security, even the ultradiscreet team of men who in pairs watched her around the clock, but she had learnt that it was better to fight the battles you had a chance of winning. ‘You know, there was a time when my life was my own.’
‘It will be again.’ Unlike Dante’s. The moment his brother had stepped away from the line of succession had been the moment that Dante had known his life had changed forever. He was no longer the playboy prince and unexpected father-to-be. He was the future of the monarchy.
His flat delivery brought a furrow to her smooth wide brow, but his expression told her nothing. ‘A friend of Mum’s owns the place. We used to come here when we were kids.’
His glance lifted from his grim contemplation of his clenched hands and his future, as she glanced around the wood-lined walls of the modest ski lodge.
‘Ruth, that’s Mum’s friend, had a last-minute cancellation and offered it to us for the fortnight for a song. Maya is working on ideas for a sports line and we thought the snow might inspire her.’
‘So the business is going ahead? The fashion industry is notoriously tough.’
‘Slowly,’ she said, bringing her lashes down in a glossy protective sweep as he adjusted his position, causing a rippling of the taut muscles of his lean torso. He didn’t carry an ounce of surplus flesh; his broad-shouldered frame would have made many a professional athlete sigh with envy.
She would have retreated if there had been any place to retreat to. Instead she ignored the pelvic quivering, and pretended her skin wasn’t prickling, and tossed her hair as she adjusted her sheet once more.
‘It would go a lot quicker and easier if you made the bank that is playing hardball aware of the settlement that will be yours. Do they even know you’re going to be a very wealthy woman soon?’