Leaning on her elbow, she looked at him. His arrogance was breathtaking—but sometimes even he overstepped the mark. Yet what could she say? Wouldn’t he laugh in her face if she told him that her ‘secret’—if that was what you could call it—was that she had schooled herself to forget that he was a prince? That at least in his arms she could pretend that he was the uncomplicated flirty man in denim she’d been so powerfully attracted to—the man with the golden eyes. And maybe he would take it the wrong way—because he wasn’t that man, was he? Not really.
‘Actually, no—I haven’t. Those books aren’t really directed at chambermaids,’ she answered, deadpan.
‘No. I don’t suppose they are.’ He surveyed her thoughtfully, and realised he couldn’t keep putting off the inevitable. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking…do you want me to help you find some other kind of job? Something different to do when…’
Cathy stilled as his words trailed off, the unusual hesitation alerting her to trouble. ‘When…what, Xaviero?’
His eyes narrowed as he watched her, sizing up her reaction and preparing for tears, maybe hysteria. ‘When all this is over.’
The silence grew like a gathering storm cloud while Cathy tried to dampen down the terrible feeling of fear which was clutching at her heart. Telling herself that she had known this was coming. It was just she hadn’t been expecting it. Not now. Not yet.
‘And…and is it all over?’ she managed at last.
Xaviero relaxed a little. No tears. That was good. ‘Not yet. But soon,’ he murmured as he kissed the curving line of her jaw. ‘Probably sooner than I thought.’
‘Oh.’
‘You’ve known all along that I’ve been planning to go to South America for the winter to look at horses?’
‘Yes, of course,’ answered Cathy, marvelling at the way she could make her voice sound so bright when inside her heart felt as if it were breaking in two.
‘Well, a stallion I’ve had my eye on may be coming onto the market and it makes sense to go out there to look at it within the next few days. I complete on the hotel next week and I’ve been meeting with architects. The whole building is going to be remodelled to my specifications while I’m away—and I’m planning to keep on any existing staff who may wish to stay once it reverts into being a private house again.’ He looked into her wary blue eyes. ‘I’m just not sure how appropriate that might be, in your case.’
In the pause which followed, Cathy felt as if someone had taken a jagged shard of glass and speared it hard through her heart. She felt faint, dizzy, as his words had sent a chill of fear icing down her spine. ‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean,’ she said slowly.
Xaviero sighed. He had hoped that she might make this easy for him—without him actually having to spell out the gulf of inequality which would make any further liaison impossible. ‘You know we can’t continue being lovers when I return,’he said softly. ‘I’ll be building a settled life here, and it won’t look good—not for either of us.’
‘But especially not for you?’
He saw the hurt in her eyes which she was doing her best to disguise, but he knew he had to be honest with her. With a sudden sharp pang, he remembered how the doctors and even his own father had prevaricated when he had asked them whether his mother would live. They had given him hope. Stupid, misplaced hope. So that Xaviero had learnt there was only one solution to misplaced hope—and that was to kill it.
‘No,’ he agreed heavily. ‘You may find it uncomfortable if you stay here, Cathy. One of these days I may get around to looking around for a suitable partner,’ he said, and then added, just so that there could be no possible misunderstanding, ‘A bride. Because sooner or later I’m going to have to think about settling down.’ He felt her stiffen. ‘And I’m not sure how easy you might find that, either. If you were still employed here in some kind of chambermaid capacity, and I was bringing a woman back here and—’
‘Asking me to change your dirty sheets?’ she questioned bluntly.
‘Cathy!’
‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it?’ Because he had sketched out the possible scenario and now wasn’t it up to her to colour in the blanks? To imagine the whole ghastly reality of what he was saying to her. And that way, surely, there would be no space left for illusion or any more hurt? ‘And, yes, you’re right, Xaviero. It really would be very awkward for both of you if I were still around.’
‘Well, there isn’t any both, is there? At least, not yet there isn’t.’ He traced the trembling line of her lips with a questing fingertip but she did not clamp her little white teeth around it and suck on it, as usually she would have done. ‘Though I don’t want you to feel you have to leave, just because of me.’
She stared at him, his royal status now forgotten—because in the circumstances it was irrelevant. This was her life, she realised—a life so very different from his. And it was where their two lives had merged and were now about to divide again, propelling her towards a scary and unknown future. ‘Oh, of course I have to leave, Xaviero. There’s no other alternative.’ Or did he imagine that she would hover in the background of his life—some pale-faced little ghost of a woman he’d once known, while he made a new life and a family with his suitable bride?
Desperately, she tried to scrabble back a little dignity. ‘But please don’t feel bad about it, when we both know it’s inevitable—we’ve known that all along. It’s probably just the kick-start I needed. I’ve been telling myself I’ve been in a rut for ages and kept meaning to change—I just never got around to it before.’
His eyes narrowed as they studied her. ‘If you want—I could perhaps help.’ He saw the confusion in her face. ‘You know—set you up in something, somewhere else.’
She recoiled. ‘You mean…like…pay me off? What’s that for—services rendered?’
‘That isn’t what I meant at all!’ he snapped.
‘Well, that’s what it sounded like!’
For a moment he was tempted to leave her right then, to storm out of her little cottage and its surprisingly beautiful garden. A place where he had been able to shrug off privilege and position with his biddable little virgin whom he’d transformed into a near-perfect lover. And another man would one day benefit from all his tuition, he thought—with a sudden and unexpected spear of jealousy.
‘Cathy, don’t let’s fight—not now,’ he said, in as placating a tone as he had ever used, pulling her face towards his.
And to Cathy’s everlasting shame, she let him begin to kiss her. Even after all the things he had said to her, she just let him. All those stark statements he’d made which had hammered home her rightful place in the Prince’s life. Which was nowhere. What woman with a shred of pride could sink back and revel in his expert caresses like this? But she wanted one more taste of him. One more erotic coupling with a man she recognised would never be equalled—not in anyone’s life, but certainly not in hers.
He lifted his head and looked down into her wide aquamarine eyes and saw in them the telltale glimmer of tears. But for once he accepted the unnecessary intrusion of emotion—knowing that his biddable little pupil was about to learn that saying goodbye was the hardest lesson of all.
WITHOUT Xaviero, life suddenly felt lonely and scary—but Cathy did what all the advice columns suggested as a way of trying to forget him. Instead of sitting around and moping, she changed her life