She hadn’t really travelled much since Prince Goran had died. She’d initially felt rather fraudulent travelling as an international dignitary. She had, after all, spent twenty-nine years as a commoner, and certainly not a wealthy one. She was normal, and more used to budget airlines and cheap rentals than private jets, a security detail and VIP treatment.
But she was grateful for it now. Thanks to hastily managed diplomatic discussions, no one knew she was even in Italy, beyond trusted palace staff and select members of the Italian government. No one would be able to find her here. Not Petar. Not the media.
She was in a car now, white and nondescript. A member of her palace security detail was driving; another sat in the passenger seat. That was it—just the two.
She’d never had a full entourage of security personnel, unlike King Lukas and Queen Petra, or Lukas’s brother, Prince Marko, and Marko’s new wife, Jasmine. Not that Ana minded. She was absolutely comfortable with her status as a second-tier royal—the status she would’ve held even if Prince Goran had acknowledged her at birth. Partly because she was only the child of the late King Josip’s brother, but also because Prince Goran had never really had a high profile in Vela Ada.
Was it because after his brother, King Josip, had his two children—Lukas and Marko—he’d felt the sting of being devalued to a very unlikely heir to the throne, after being the ‘spare’ for much of his life? Or maybe he’d been grateful not to be in the public eye? Ana had no idea. Her mother had never spoken about the type of man Goran had been—Ana suspected because her mother believed if you had nothing nice to say, you said nothing at all.
‘You feeling okay, Your Highness?’
Ana met her driver’s gaze in the rear-vision mirror and nodded. When his gaze swung back to the road, Ana’s lingered on the mirror, and she realised the wedding make-up she still wore was smudged. She rubbed under her eyes in a half-hearted attempt to fix her appearance. But really it was a wasted effort. She was out of her wedding dress, at least, but she still wore her fancy bridal underwear beneath her jumper, coat and jeans. Her hair was still in an elaborate low bun too, although she’d tugged out the diamond-encrusted combs, causing loose strands of hair to hang haphazardly.
Anyway, did it really matter if she looked terrible? She’d just jilted her fiancé—she probably deserved to.
For the first time since she’d dropped her bouquet, she felt tears prickle. Annoyed, Ana moved her attention to the view outside the car.
All she could see was darkness. It was late November, and the sun had long set. Wherever they were, there were minimal street lights, and the sliver of a moon gave little away.
‘Your Highness?’
This time it was the guard in the passenger seat. He was looking at her left hand, which she realised she was tapping loudly against the door handle. Did he think she was going to throw herself out of the moving car or something?
The idea made her grin, but her guard’s hand moved to his seat belt, as if he was planning to throw himself across the luxury sedan to save her. She stilled her hand.
‘Oprosti. I’m fine—really. Just a bit restless.’
He nodded but looked unconvinced.
Ana closed her eyes, resting her head against the window. She still felt the guard’s eyes on her. He was worrying about her.
As if she deserved someone whose entire job was to worry about her. Her. Ana Tomasich. Absolutely normal, no more interesting than anyone else, Ana Tomasich. She was a librarian, for crying out loud.
A librarian and a princess.
Princess Ana of Vela Ada.
Would the title ever sit comfortably on her shoulders? She couldn’t imagine it. It just didn’t seem to fit.
In fact, she’d been so certain it didn’t fit when she’d first opened that letter from her father and seen what he’d done—how he’d finally acknowledged her birth and asked King Lukas to give her her ‘rightful’ title after his death—that she’d seriously considered declining.
She’d liked her life. She’d loved her career, her friends, her apartment. Why would she give all that up? And why would she put herself forward to be scrutinised and criticised? She knew there was a part of the Vela Ada population who’d be unwilling to embrace an illegitimate princess. She knew that her life would be different. And while she’d have money, and opportunities she could never have dreamed of, she would lose her privacy, and be giving up the life she’d lived for twenty-nine years.
In many ways her decision should’ve been easy—an easy No, thanks!—because it had been more than the practicalities of her decision that had loomed large for Ana. It had been the context of this ‘gift’ she’d been presented with.
Because when it came down to it, her father had waited until his death to acknowledge her.
And that made her feel incredibly small.
Her father had felt so strongly that he didn’t want to deal with her—that he couldn’t be bothered dealing with her—that he’d left her all alone to deal with this decision herself. He hadn’t even bothered to ask her on his deathbed. He’d waited until he was gone. He’d kept all the answers to the questions Ana hadn’t even known she wanted to ask from her. For ever.
So, yes. Part of her had wanted to tell the ghost of her father to shove his decision to make her a princess up his—
Anyway.
She hadn’t.
She hadn’t because this wasn’t just about her. Her mother had fought for years for the palace to acknowledge Ana’s existence, and she hadn’t done it quietly. She’d paused in her crusade only when Ana had started kindergarten, when she’d been concerned about how Ana might be treated with such a scandal surrounding her. Her mother had always assumed Ana would pursue her father herself when she was older, but to her mother’s surprise—and disappointment—that had never been a consideration for Ana. For Ana it was clear-cut—her father didn’t want her. What was the point?
So when the decision to become a princess had so unexpectedly arisen, Ana’s answer really hadn’t been about what she wanted. It had been about her mother—it had been a public redemption twenty-nine years in the making.
And despite all that had happened since—the way her life had been turned upside down, leading to that moment outside that church—she couldn’t say she regretted her decision.
But it still felt super-strange to be addressed as Your Highness.
The car slowed and turned off the smooth bitumen they’d been travelling on for well over an hour. Its wheels now crunched over gravel, its headlights the only illumination, as there hadn’t been street lights for many kilometres. Tall trees flanked the narrow road—a driveway, maybe?—but as the car took twists and turns and climbed gradually higher Ana saw no clues to her destination.
Which was a good thing, Ana thought. The more secluded, the more private, the more remote the location the palace could find, the better.
Ever since she’d left that church all she’d wanted was to be away. Far away from her terrible decision to accept Petar’s proposal instead of coming to her senses months ago. Or, better yet, coming to her senses when they’d first met, and she’d said yes to a date purely because he’d been gorgeous and charming and it had seemed crazy not to, rather than because she’d felt a spark of attraction.
But now that she was away—whisked off to a mountain in Northern Italy, no less—what did she do?
The car rolled to a stop.
A modern single-story house constructed mostly of windows sat just above the car, on the slope of a hill. It looked expensive and architecturally designed—the type of house you’d see