While she read, she tried to focus her mind on things she could do to fill her time. As her royal engagements were cancelled until after the baby was born, she would need to find something to keep her occupied. The long days stretched ahead of her interminably. She needed to broach the subject with Nathaniel. But not in her nightdress.
Heat flamed her cheeks as she remembered standing before him and the stark realisation the passageway’s lighting had caused her nightdress to become see-through. Then heat flamed a more intimate part of her as she remembered the look in his eyes. That had been hunger there. She’d recognised it. She’d seen it the night they’d conceived their child.
It was that hunger that kept her eyes flickering to the door and her senses alert for any approaching footstep.
Would this be the night he came to her? Would he knock on her door, intent on the consummation of their marriage?
Would she let him or would she say no? Royal wives of Monte Cleure were not supposed to deny their husbands. She might have married a commoner but she was still a royal princess. Legally, she was Nathaniel’s property and would remain so until their divorce was finalised. Unless her father actively cast her out and stripped her of her HRH title, she remained bound by her palace’s constitutional laws...
It occurred to her that the constitutional laws only applied while she was on Monte Cleure...
She heard a noise and stopped breathing, her heart setting off at a canter.
After long seconds of silence she lay back against the headboard and closed her eyes, willing her pulse to slow.
No, she couldn’t swear that if he came into her room and climbed into her bed she wouldn’t open her arms and welcome him.
And neither could she swear that she wouldn’t freeze him out and demand he leave.
She never got the chance to find out what she would do.
Three hours later when midnight was but a distant memory, her tired brain finally switched off and went to sleep.
Her weary but aching heart still hurt when she awoke the next morning.
CATALINA MADE HER way from her bedroom to the dining room, Clotilde hot on her heels, opening doors for her.
To her surprise, Nathaniel was sitting at the dining table drinking coffee and reading a newspaper, an empty plate to his side.
Usually he only deigned to spend time with her at evening dinner when he would make polite enquiries about her health, exchange idle chat until their plates were clean and then excuse himself. It had been the same for the ten whole days of their marriage.
He stood to greet her. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
She took the seat Clotilde pulled out for her. After a pot of decaffeinated tea was brought to her and her breakfast order taken, she found herself alone with her husband.
‘It’s a surprise to see you here,’ she said. ‘You’re normally in your office by now.’
‘I shall work on the flight.’
This was the first she’d heard of a flight. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m going to Shanghai. There’s land for sale that I’m interested in buying.’
‘Am I not coming with you?’
‘It’s a business trip. You’d be bored.’
Knowing a snub when she heard one and too well trained to argue further, Catalina smiled graciously and took a sip of her tea, but inside she seethed. ‘How long are you going for?’
‘A couple of weeks.’
‘That long?’
‘Purchasing land there isn’t easy, especially for foreigners.’
She couldn’t help herself. ‘You’re leaving me for two weeks?’
‘My staff will take care of you.’
‘I know they will but that isn’t what I meant. Will it not seem strange you leaving your new bride for a business trip?’
Thinking of herself as a bride was a joke in itself.
How was it possible to be a bride when your groom went out of his way to avoid you and ensured zero physical contact? Forget her thoughts that he might come to her; the distance he enforced had only grown.
‘Not for anyone who knows me,’ he answered with a shrug.
‘When do you leave?’
‘In an hour.’
He was so blasé that for the first time in her entire life, Catalina wanted to hit someone.
Not even throughout all the verbal and physical abuse she’d had meted out to her by her brother had she wanted to inflict pain back.
Yet here was Nathaniel, speaking courteously to her, and all she wanted to do was rain thumps down all over him.
The fact he addressed her with politeness and courtesy meant nothing when he couldn’t wait to travel halfway around the world to get away from her.
‘Do you have many travelling plans for the foreseeable future?’ she asked, suddenly recalling all the business developments he had scattered around the world.
‘After Shanghai I’ll be back here for a few weeks then off to Greece. After that I’ll be...’
‘Can I come with you to Greece?’
He rubbed the nape of his neck and grimaced. ‘Catalina, it’ll be a business trip, not a holiday.’
‘I won’t get in your way. I’ll amuse myself.’
He shook his head, and as he did so her anger finally pushed to the surface.
‘Are you deliberately going out of your way to humiliate me?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
She stared at him with incredulity. ‘We’re barely married and you’re flying around the world without me. What kind of message does that send? And not just to the public but to me too? Am I such dreadful company you can’t bear to have me by your side even for a limited amount of time?’
‘Not at all...’ He blew out air through his teeth.
‘Then you have no reasonable excuse not to take me with you to Greece.’
‘I don’t need a reasonable excuse. The answer is no. I don’t need the aggravation of keeping watch over a princess when I’m supposed to be working. Here, in this apartment, I know you’re safe and I don’t have to worry.’
‘I might be a princess but I’m not a child.’
‘You are my responsibility.’
‘You’re making excuses to keep me at arm’s length. Have I done something to offend you? Do I have body odour?’
He quelled her with a stare. It occurred to her that he was actually looking at her rather than through her as he had done since the night he’d seen through her nightdress.
Frustration was etched on every line of his face. ‘Catalina, this isn’t a real marriage.’
‘You have made that abundantly clear.’ He still hadn’t answered her question as to why he was keeping her at arm’s length.
‘You knew what you were signing up for when you agreed to it.’