‘I’ve employed the best for you,’ he said, and there was a tinge of grim humour in his voice. ‘And, believe me, they’re good. They’re screwing us down on detail like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘I don’t think I need…’
‘You don’t know what you need,’ he told her curtly. ‘Neither do I. We’re doing what has to be done but I’m putting as many safeguards in place as I can think of. How’s Deefer?’
‘I… he’s great.’ Deefer was her one sure thing—a fluff ball, alert and intelligent and raring to bond with her. If she hadn’t had Deefer she would have gone nuts. To sit on the beach and think of nothing but her impending wedding…
‘Don’t let that nose get any redder, will you, my love?’ Andreas said softly, moving on. ‘It’ll clash with the pink roses my mother plans to decorate the chapel with.’
And he was gone, leaving her to wait. And wait and wait and wait. And go quietly nuts.
But the wedding day did happen. Sophia entered her room at dawn, pushed the drapes wide and beamed.
‘Happy is the bride who the sun shines on.’
‘You must have a whole country of happy brides,’ Holly said, feeling really wobbly and sounding grumpy. ‘This country’s too sunny by half.’
‘So smile,’ Sophia said. ‘Your wedding day…’
‘It’s not a true wedding.’
‘Is it not?’
‘You know it’s not,’ she said crossly. ‘I’m his captive wife.’
‘Ah, but his non-captive wife…’ Sophia said softly. ‘Christina… now there was a disaster. If that was the best the royal family could come up with then maybe his captive wife is who he should have had in the first place.’ Her smile faded and she crossed to the bed and looked down at Holly—and at Deefer whose small black nose just happened to be sticking out from under the duvet. ‘I’m thinking my Andreas found his bride ten years ago—he just never knew he had her.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she whispered, feeling more terrified by the minute. ‘You know this is just convenience. You know he doesn’t want a bride.’
‘I know you have a chance,’ Sophia said and put her hand on Holly’s cheek in a fleeting gesture of blessing. ‘I know my Andreas has been raised as a prince, to know what is due to him. But I also know that he has a heart and that heart has needs. Don’t you fail to take your chance for lack of courage. Now…’ Her smile softened but Holly saw lists line up in triplicate. ‘Shower. And then… I’ve laid out what you’re to wear on the helicopter. You’ll be photographed briefly in transit to the palace as you’ll be photographed from every angle today.’ She peered down at Holly’s nose and she sighed. ‘You’re still peeling. What royal bride peels? Holly, Holly, Holly, what is Andreas to do with you?’
‘Marry me?’ Holly whispered in a tiny voice.
‘Well, of course,’ Sophia said as if that was a dumb response. ‘But then what?’
And then the day started. It was okay back on the island—there were only Sophia and Nikos to see her off, Sophia sniffing into her handkerchief and Nikos just sniffing.
She sniffed herself. She sat in the back of the helicopter and hugged Deefer and decidedly sniffed. Georgiou was her pilot but she was damned if she was talking to him. She was dressed to kill in a slick little crimson suit with stiletto heels—Sophia had decreed nothing in the lavish wardrobe suitable for her first introduction to the country and had ordered Georgiou to bring this to her.
She looked as good as she could do—apart from one peeling nose.
She should have left Deefer behind. ‘I’ll mind him,’ Sophia had promised. ‘And Andreas can have him flown over after the wedding.’ But he was coming with her. Her one true thing.
Not her husband?
Andreas was waiting for her. The royal family was waiting for her. The whole damned country was waiting for her.
She hugged Deefer and she stared out the window at Andreas’s lovely island hideaway growing smaller and smaller in the distance.
And then she saw the mainland growing larger.
‘Would you like a drink before you land? There’s some in the cabinet by your side,’ Georgiou said diffidently through the headset and she flashed him a look of hatred.
‘I’d rather choke than accept a drink from you, you kidnapping toe rag.’
‘I was only following orders.’
‘Right. Well, my orders to you are to keep as far away from me as possible.’
‘I believe I can’t do that. I’m allocated as your personal bodyguard.’
‘Oh, my God,’ she said with loathing.
‘So you’ll just have to get used to me,’ he said. ‘Now, drink?’
‘I’m tempted,’ she muttered. ‘Very tempted. Is Andreas meeting the plane?’
‘He won’t see you until the wedding,’ Georgiou said, shocked. ‘It’s unlucky.’
‘So he’s not meeting the plane.’
‘I believe the entire royal family is meeting the plane,’ Georgiou said. ‘Except Andreas.’
‘Oh, goody,’ she whispered. And reconsidered. ‘Georgiou?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘I will have a drink,’ she said in a small voice. ‘A very small one. But, Georgiou?’
‘Yes?’
‘Also a very strong one.’
They were there. Lined up like in a Christmas pageant. On the tarmac with a red carpet rolled out so their precious royal feet wouldn’t have to touch anything so plebian as concrete.
She recognized them from photographs. Sebastian, Crown Prince, as handsome as his brother, looking stern, autocratic, determined. Queen Tia, elegant, composed, but with the trace of trouble behind her elderly eyes. And grief, Holly wondered. She smiled now for the cameras but her glance kept wandering to her eldest son. She’d gone through the death of her husband, the realization that he’d betrayed her, and that he’d sold or given away the diamond that held the country together. All these things Holly knew, but the face Tia presented for public consumption was almost serene. She’d been schooled for public life.
Who else? Alex, the prince who’d given Andreas his outrageous wardrobe, wouldn’t be here. He was on his honeymoon, Sophia had told her. That was part of the problem for Andreas—with so much to do and the search for the diamond taking so much time the royals were overwhelmed by work.
Andreas’s two sisters were there. The brat pack, Sophia labelled them. Kitty and Lissa. ‘They love nothing better than shocking the press,’ Sophia had said, but these two beautiful women were watching Holly approach and Holly thought judging her seemed pretty high on their priority list right now.
‘They’re waiting for you,’ Georgiou said.
‘I want… Andreas.’ She sounded like a pathetic child but she couldn’t help it.
‘He’ll be waiting for you in the chapel.’
Right.
She gulped and held Deefer tighter. And walked forward to meet her future.
And after that the cameras took over. There were flashlights, flashlights and flashlights, so many that when she thought back to that day all she could remember was a blur of white light. There was a brief hiatus when she was ushered into the presence of lawyers—serious men and women