The Prince's Chambermaid(30)

And then?

She didn't know and, at this moment, she didn't particularly care. She  felt like a small animal which had wandered into a trap and escaped with  wounds which might never heal.

Painfully, she watched the city walls retreating, the wide roads leading  to the airport growing suddenly narrower, and she frowned. The driver  was obviously taking a different route from the one by which she'd  arrived.

She didn't know when exactly it was that she began to get alarmed-maybe  when the car began to bump its way up a dusty road which looked as if it  led to nowhere, and then stopped completely. What was going on?

Pressing the intercom connecting her with the driver, she found herself  hoping that he spoke English-though surely even with her rudimentary  Italian she could manage to convey that she was supposed to be catching a  plane.

'Scusi, signor … ' But then the words died on her lips as she saw the  driver getting out of the car and opening her door. This was completely  unprecedented! Her heart gave a leap of fear-and then a leap of  something else entirely as she removed her dark shades. Because he was  now pulling off the peaked cap which had hidden his ebony hair and  shaded the remarkable gleam of his golden eyes.

And she found herself looking into the oddly forbidding face of her husband.





Chapter Thirteen



'XAVIERO!' Cathy gasped out. 'What … what on earth are you doing here?'

Dropping his chauffeur's cap into the dust, he moved towards her with  sinuous grace. 'I am stopping us both from making the biggest mistake of  our lives.'

'You mean you're playing another of your games of pretending to be  ordinary? Today, a driver-tomorrow, who knows? A painter and decorator  again?'

'This is no game-this is the real thing.' But a note of admiration had  entered his voice. How feisty she was! 'My brother is still reeling from  the fact that you marched out of his office without being given  permission! He said that it was the most imperiously royal gesture he  had ever witnessed!' His golden eyes raked over her face as if he had  never quite seen it before. 'Oh, Cathy, what have I done?' he groaned,  and then pulled her into his arms and started to kiss her.

For several sweet moments she gave into that kiss, feeling herself begin  to melt beneath its sensual onslaught before summoning up every ounce  of power she possessed to tear her mouth away from his and to push  uselessly at his chest. 'Don't,' she whispered. 'Just don't.'

Something in the defeated little tone of her voice stilled him. 'But you want me to.'

Frustratedly, she shook her head. 'Of course I want you to! I've always  wanted you to-that's been part of the problem. But the attraction I feel  for you has blinded me to the truth. And it's no good, Xaviero. Not any  more.'

Lifting a finger, he caught hold of a bright golden strand of hair which  had fallen over her eyes and pushed it away from her flushed face. 'Why  not?' he questioned softly.

'Because it's just … just sex.'

'I thought you liked sex.'

'You know I do.' She looked up at him. 'But it's not enough. I thought  it could be, but it can't. You wanted me compliant-and maybe I was, but  not any more. I seem to have changed-when you think about it, I suppose  it was inevitable I would. And I can't just be what you want me to  be-not any more. Can't you see that? I am not the same person. I'm no  longer just someone you can mould-so I no longer fit the bill of what  you really want from a wife.'

Xaviero's heart twisted and his breath felt hot and harsh in his throat.  He knew what she wanted from him-but couldn't she at least meet him  halfway? Because there was a sense that if he let go-really let go-and  told her what he knew deep down she needed to know, he would make  himself weak in the process. That he would lay himself open to all that  terrible pain he'd experienced when he'd discovered that love made you  vulnerable.                       
       
           



       

And yet, did he really have an alternative? Because hadn't the pain of  knowing that she was going to walk out of his life been more than he  could bear? He had tried to ignore it and then to block it-but it had  kept coming back at him like a persistent mosquito in the dead of night.  Did he somehow think he was immune to all the emotional stuff that  other people had to deal with-that he could get away with behaviour  which would be tolerated simply because of his royal status? Yes, he  did. And up until now, he always had.

But then he had discovered that, for all his protestations about wanting  to be treated like any other man-the truth was that he wanted it both  ways. All ways. That he donned the protection of his royal mantle  whenever it suited him.

'And if I told you that I think I was fooling myself all along?' he grated. 'What then?'

'That kind of admission doesn't sound like the Xaviero I know,' she answered quietly.

'No. It doesn't feel like the Xaviero I know, either. Maybe you aren't  the only one to have changed, Cathy.' He gave a short, bitter laugh.  'When I gave you that cold-blooded list of requirements for a wife I  thought I was being completely honest with you-and I've since discovered  that honest was the very last thing I was being.'

Cathy frowned. 'You mean you didn't want someone-'

'I mean that there were a million women out there who would have fitted  the bill for a marriage of convenience-even at such short notice. Pure  women. Aristocratic women. Heiresses who would have found royal life no  great challenge. I could have picked up a list of my exlovers and any  one of them would have come running.'

'But you didn't do that,' said Cathy slowly.

'No. That's right. I didn't. I chose the most unsuitable woman of  all-but she was the one who happened to make me feel stuff. The one who  provided an oasis of calm in her simple little home. The one who had  wanted me just as much when I walked into the hotel covered in mud and  sweat from a hard morning's riding as when she discovered who I really  was.' He looked at her, his eyes full of question.

'Sometimes I wanted that man more,' she admitted. 'I wanted you without all the trouble of the trappings.'

'I know,' he said simply. 'And can you understand how much that means to  me? To be wanted for who you are, rather than what you are? I've never  had that before. It made me feel … emotion.' He shrugged his shoulders.  'And that's why I fought it, just like I'd fought it all my life.'

When, as a lonely and bereaved little boy, he had sought comfort in his  horses. She pictured the isolated little figure he must have been-brave  and handsome and lonely as hell. 'Xaviero,' she whispered.

'No.' His voice was husky, thick with emotion. 'Say nothing. Just hear  me out. What I have given you and what I have offered you has not been  enough-not nearly enough. In fact, it makes me ashamed to think of how  little I was prepared to give you. I know you're not into jewels or  palaces, or fast cars or fancy planes, but I wondered if there was  something else which would win your heart and persuade you to stay with  me?'

Cathy held her breath as she stared at him, her heart missing a beat as  she dared not hope. But her fingernails dug painfully into her palms all  the same. 'Th-that depends what you're offering,' she said shakily.

'I'm offering love,' he said simply. 'How does that sound?'

Cathy couldn't speak for the lump in her throat, trying to swallow it  down, trying to tell herself he was still playing games with her. Yet  the look of intensity blazing from the golden eyes suggested the very  opposite-she had never seen such a blaze of burning emotion on Xaviero's  face before. Those hard, stern features had softened into the  expression of a man who was feeling something, who was calling out to  her. And she felt the answering call of her own heart.

But she was scared. Too scared to clutch at something and then find that  it had all been some ghastly mistake. And now she needed to be  brave-because she could no longer hide behind her feelings, either. She  needed to know exactly where she stood-and if the foundations weren't  solid enough, then she would move on. 'L-love would be enough,' she said  shakily. 'If … if it was meant.'

He drew a deep breath. He spoke three languages fluently, but in that  moment he felt like a child uttering its first words. And he knew that  he must make his intentions unmistakable, because this might be his last  chance to hold onto the most precious thing in his life.                       
       
           



       

'I love you, Cathy,' he whispered. 'I love you so much that if you leave  me now I don't know if I could bear it. I love you in a way I never  thought I could love-and it's scaring the hell out of me.'

Xaviero scared? She looked into his golden eyes, and her heart turned  over-because wasn't she scared herself? Terrified. Maybe it was the same  for every couple who were teetering on the brink of love, no matter who  they were or what their circumstances. Instinct told her to believe  him-and something else reinforced that instinct. The same something  which had brought her out to his Mediterranean island in the first  place.