Added to that, she had been crying for the best part of an hour. He never took advantage.
Yet the air was charged. She looked as if he’d just kissed her, and he could feel the energy between them and her increasing awareness of him.
His sad maid looked exactly as she might if he had her pressed against the wall.
‘I could have one of my security detail come and speak with you?’
‘Why would they need to speak with me?’ She frowned, trying to untangle her thoughts from his words. Trying to remind herself that she was at work. ‘Is there a problem with security in the suite?’ She was desperately trying to hold a normal conversation as her body screamed for contact with his. ‘If that’s the case I can let Francesca know.’
She knew nothing about his ways, Rafe realised.
‘It’s fine,’ Rafe said. ‘My mistake.’
‘Mistake?’ Antonietta checked, and he could see that her eyes were perturbed, that she assumed she’d said something wrong.
But she’d said everything right.
For this was far more straightforward and yet way more complicated than a contracted affair.
This was pure, unadulterated lust.
From both of them.
And he actually believed now that she had no idea who he was.
Crown Prince Rafael of Tulano.
‘RAFAEL, BY ALL accounts you could have been killed.’
Rafe had spoken with his father since the accident, but the King hadn’t called to enquire as to his health. ‘Had you died as my sole heir,’ the King continued in reprimand, ‘the country would have been plunged into turmoil and well you know it. Did you think of that as you hurled yourself down the mountain?’
‘Actually,’ Rafe responded, ‘I did.’
As he had fallen—as he had realised the seriousness of the unfolding incident—it had dawned on him that this might well be it and he had thought of his country. He had thought of the royal lineage shifting to his father’s brother, of his idle, ignorant, spoiled cousins ruling the land that Rafe loved and their undoubted glee that finally the reckless Crown Prince had succumbed.
‘Thank God it has been kept out of the press,’ the King went on. ‘Our people have thankfully been spared from knowing how close this country came again to losing its Crown Prince. But it is not enough, Rafe. You need to temper your ways.’
‘Then give me more responsibility. Transition some of your power to me.’
It was the same argument they had had of old. Rafe was a natural-born leader who had been raised to be King and already wanted a more prominent role than merely making staged appearances. He did not want to be a pin-up prince; he wanted active power and to be a voice amongst world leaders, yet his father resisted.
‘You know the answer to that,’ the King responded tartly.
Yes.
Marriage.
And a suitable bride chosen for him by his father the King.
Rafe did not trust his father with that decision. After all, he had witnessed first-hand the hell of his parents’ suitable marriage.
There was a reason that Rafe was the only heir to the Tulano throne—after he had been born his father had resumed his rakish ways.
His mother understood her duty to the country, and the impact of a divorce, and so it had never been considered. Emotions and feelings were rarely taken into account at the palace. The King and Queen’s marriage was a working relationship only. The Queen met with the King daily, accompanied him on formal occasions and hosted functions with grace, but she had her own wing at the palace and had long ago removed herself from his bed.
And there was no ‘family life’ as such. Rafe had been raised by palace nannies and had later attended boarding school.
No, there was nothing Rafe had witnessed that endeared him to marriage or to the idea of starting a family of his own.
‘I expect you back here on Christmas Eve,’ the King said. ‘Preferably in one piece and without scandal attached. Do you think you can possibly manage that?’
Rafe wasn’t sure.
As luxurious as the Old Monastery was, he was already climbing the walls and ready to check out. In fact, he had been about to call Nico to thank him for his hospitality when the call from the palace had come.
‘I shall put your mother on.’
To his mother, he was an afterthought. She would never think to call him herself. Instead, when he spoke to his father, she occasionally deigned to come to the phone.
As he awaited the Queen, Rafe decided that if he was going to hide from the public eye then it might as well be on a yacht. Somewhere warm, with requisite beauties. The Caribbean was calling, Rafe thought as he heard his mother’s icy tone.
‘Rafe.’
‘Mother.’
‘What a foolish waste of a great ruler it would have been had you been killed.’
‘What a foolish waste it is now,’ Rafe responded. ‘I am told I’m expected to return for Christmas to inspect an army I can no longer fight alongside because you both deem it too dangerous. Perhaps the balcony I have to stand on and wave from is too high? Too much of a risk.’
‘Don’t be facetious.’
‘I am not,’ Rafe responded. ‘I am bored with being an idle prince…’
‘Then act accordingly and you will be given the responsibility you crave.’
Marriage.
All conversations, all rows, all roads led to that. And the pressure did not come solely from his family but from the people, who longed to see their reckless Prince settled.
‘I don’t require a wife in order to make decisions.’
‘You need to temper your ways. At least in the eyes of the public.’
‘So as long as I am discreet I can carry on as before?’ Rafe checked, and there was no disguising the disgust in his tone.
But his mother was unmoved. ‘You have your father’s heart, Rafe,’ Queen Marcelle responded matter-of-factly. ‘No one expects you to be faithful—we all know that your love is reserved for your country. And that country wants to see its Prince married and with heirs.’
‘I decide when.’
‘Fine,’ said his mother. ‘Until then, enjoy waving from the balcony!’
They had had this discussion on many occasions, though the news that he could take mistresses, like his father did, was a new development. But not a welcome one. Rafe admired many things about the King, but abhorred plenty.
He had the last word, Rafe knew. But he could not force him to marry.
And yet he could feel the pressure to conform tightening.
Rafe had not been lying when he’d told the King that his country had been on his mind as he’d fallen. Perhaps it was time to take a break from his partying ways, for Rafe was surprised to find himself growing tired of them.
Back on the balcony, he was thinking of one particular beauty. It was too confined here. That must