CHAPTER THREE

THEREWERESOME things Benedetto found almost too painful to think about, some memories he kept permanently shelved because they still had the power to tear him down, even now, years after his entire life had been torn asunder.

When he thought of Sasha, he preferred to focus on what their life had been before her diagnosis. Before he’d learned that her fainting and exhaustion and poor eyesight had been caused by an inoperable brain tumour. Before he’d had to come face to face with his greatest fear as a single parent and acknowledge that he would lose her.

His best memories of Sasha were of her as a baby, her sweet, chubby, competent frame dragging across the floor at only five months of age, before she crawled a month later. She’d been walking by eight months, babbling and smiling almost constantly. There’d never been a happier child, he was sure of it.

He remembered her first day at nursery school, how she’d marched in without a backwards glance, confidently making friends and teaching the other children her favourite games, before waving him off with a grin that spread from ear to ear. He remembered how great she’d been at everything she tried—a natural reader, athletic, kind, considerate.

She had been his daughter and so he’d loved her, but it had been impossible not to love Sasha. Everyone had felt it. She had been magical.

At her funeral, the priest had said that she’d glowed so brightly, even if just for a short time, and Benedetto had been struck by the truth of that. Perhaps people were born with a certain amount of light to shine, and Sasha had shone all hers out early.

Afterwards, when she was gone, and he’d had to accept that, no matter how much money he’d spent on chasing down state-of-the-art treatments, his failure had equated to her death, he’d been in a state that defied explanation. There were no words to describe his grief. He had been bereft, almost deranged with his sadness.

He’d sought solace in liquor, in women, in dropping out of his life altogether. The fortune he’d been steadily building since seventeen, when he’d founded his first company, had gradually floundered owing to his total inattention.

And Benedetto hadn’t cared.

If it hadn’t been for Anton stepping in and appointing an interim CEO, it would have all been lost. But Anton had known.

Somehow, he’d understood that the clouds would eventually clear, that Benedetto would come up for air and look for the hallmarks of his life, for some semblance of what had been before, and that there had to be something for him to return to. Perhaps Anton had known that the challenge of rebuilding his business would be the one thing to draw Benedetto out of his grief. And so Anton had overseen operations as much as his role as heir to the throne of Catarno had allowed, had made sure that Benedetto would have something to return to one day, even when his personal wealth had been decimated.

Anton hadn’t just been there for Benedetto, he’d shown him every step of the way that he would always be there for him.

Benedetto owed him an enormous debt of gratitude, and repaying it was immensely important. While kidnapping Amelia, and whatever the hell had happened between them, didn’t sit well with him, he knew it didn’t really matter. Not as much as helping Anton.

Anton had grown up with the weight of the world on his shoulders, his royal legacy meaning he’d had to be the best at everything, had been scrutinised mercilessly lest he put a foot wrong. It was Amelia who’d had the freedom to enjoy her royal lifestyle without the responsibilities. It was high time she faced up to them, Anton was right.

The first thing Amelia did when she got to her room was drop down onto the bed and scream into one of the pillows, a scream of abject anger and frustration, of a thousand million emotions that were setting her nerves jangling and making her want to dive off the side of the boat.

The second was to move to a window to ascertain the sense of that plan. If she were to jump ship, could she actually swim to shore?

A quick scan of the view from her windows showed her that they’d moved fast—Valencia was just a speck in the distance now. Even for a confident swimmer like her, that would be pushing it.

Or was it that she didn’t truly want to escape?

As if to prove to herself that wasn’t the case, she went to reach for her camera backpack, to grab her phone, only to remember it had been left in the corridor, presumably when she’d fainted.

With a racing heart—not from fear but from the adrenaline and possibility of running into Benedetto again—she moved quickly, striding across the room, ignoring the pulsing heat between her legs, the yearning that remained unabated in her body, and dragged open the door. She looked left and right, saw no one, so stepped out, looking for her bag.

It was nowhere.

Damn it.

Might it be in the other room? Where he’d taken her when she fainted? She looked down the corridor, decided to chance it, and jogged to that door, pulled it open. A quick inspection showed the room to be empty. But her bag was also missing.

The only conclusion she could draw was that Benedetto had taken it, and, with it, her only way of contacting—

But who would she have called anyway?

Her family? Who’d clearly ordered this kidnapping? They might sympathise with her plight but inwardly they’d be rejoicing at her imminent return, even if it was against her will. And who else was there? The friends she’d unceremoniously dumped when she’d left the country because she wasn’t sure if she could trust them either? After Daniel, she hadn’t known where to turn. And who could blame her?

Suddenly, Amelia felt so unspeakably alone, so awfully ganged up on, that she ran just as quickly back through the boat, to the solitude of her room. She closed the door and slumped against it, falling to the floor in a heap and dropping her head to her knees, a silent tear trickling down her cheek as she acknowledged the helplessness of her situation.

Going home would be a disaster. She knew it would be.

She knew her family would want to know why she’d left. They’d asked her over and over in email and text, even in the voicemails they’d left when she’d first disappeared. But Amelia hadn’t answered. She hadn’t been able to.

The discovery of her illegitimacy was still too raw, too painful to discuss, too dangerous to everyone she loved most. Even to her family’s position?

That was one of the thoughts that had tortured her most. The civil war was all but a distant memory now, something that had happened three generations back, and yet, for Amelia, the thought of her family being deposed and thrown out by the people had always struck her as particularly horrifying. She’d known even as a young girl she’d do everything she could to avoid that fate.

Unfortunately for Amelia, no matter how well behaved she was, she seemed to find herself getting into some sort of scrape or another. A scandal in high school to do with her friendship group taking drugs—never Amelia, but far be it from her to tell other people how to live their lives—or a cheating scandal at college. Amelia hadn’t cheated, but the mud had stuck, and rumours continued to swirl. Even in her own family, she was sure there were suspicions about her grades. The media had loved to print stories about her, so many of them made up, some of them so wild they actually made Amelia laugh, but at the heart of it all was a deep and growing sense of not belonging. Of being different.

And then she’d learned why she’d always felt that way. The root of her sense of displacement.

She didn’t belong.

She wasn’t royal.

The blood of which her family was so proud didn’t even flow through her veins.

And in her being she held the power to destroy her parents’ marriage, her family’s happiness.

Worst of all was the knowledge that the one person she’d turned to when she’d learned the truth, whom she had believed she loved, and had loved her back, had used her secret to blackmail Amelia for financial gain. She’d confided in Daniel because she’d needed to speak to someone about it, and he’d betrayed her. That he still held this piece of information about Amelia, and could use it at any point to damage her and her family, was what had kept her in hiding for two full years.

How could she go back?

How could she risk it?

Fear made her skin crawl.

She stood and began to pace the suite she’d been dumped into, distractedly investigating it simply to assess her situation for the next week. A bathroom, palatial in size and appointment, with a window right on the edge of the boat showcasing yet another spectacular view of the still ever-diminishing Spanish mainland, framed by timber, and placed perfectly behind a claw-foot bath. There was a large shower, a double sink, and when she idly opened one of the drawers she saw that it had been stocked with high-end products—moisturisers, cleansers, even a set of nail polishes, and make-up.

The next drawer housed hair products—a brush, hairdryer, straightener, leave-in conditioner. A quick inspection of the shower confirmed that she’d also been supplied with shampoo, conditioner, toner. A very thoughtful kidnapping indeed, she admitted, but without a hint of a smile, because there was no atonement for what he’d done to her. No atonement for what he hadn’t done to her either.

Leaving the bathroom, she pressed on the next door along, gasping to discover a full wardrobe of clothes just her size. Her hands ran over the brightly coloured designer outfits—dresses, skirts, bathers, shirts, jackets, everything she could want for a year, not just a week. There were shoes too—sandals and sneakers, as if she might be going to do more than pace a hole in the floorboards of her bedroom!

The final door revealed an office of sorts. It was very small, designed to be tucked out of the way, with a narrow desk pressed to the wall, and cables for a laptop, screen, charger, anything she might need to use while here. But Amelia had brought only her camera and phone, for the simple reason that she hadn’t intended to be staying long.

With a sigh, she turned back to the bed and lay down, determined to stare up at the ceiling in the kind of grumpy state a teenager would be proud of, and she spent the next several hours mulling over her predicament and trying to fathom exactly how she could escape this situation.

Because there was no way she could go back to Catarno, and definitely not for Anton’s wedding... She simply couldn’t risk anything happening that might ruin his happiness. Staying away might have seemed heartless but Amelia had long since decided it was one of the ways in which she was being cruel to be kind.

So how could she get her grumpy captor to understand that?

By eight o’clock, Amelia was famished. She’d been in her room a long time, with no food, no drink, and no desire to go out in search of either. Pride had made her stick to that point. But as he’d ‘invited’ her to join him for dinner—or rather demanded—she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to accede.

She had to work out how to get through to him, after all.

He’d said they had a week together, from which she could only presume he intended for them to travel to Catarno by boat, and that the journey would last that duration. Okay, she could go along with that. A week would definitely afford an opportunity to make him see that she wasn’t the person he believed her to be.

Without admitting the truth behind her estrangement, she might be able to convince him of the necessity of her staying away. After all, if he was Anton’s best friend, then surely he had a reasonable side.

And pigs might fly, she thought to herself, all hopes of Benedetto being, deep down, a benevolent, kind-hearted billionaire evaporating when she stepped onto the deck to find him glaring out at the ocean as though it had personally committed some great wrong against him.

He was so entrenched in his thoughts that he didn’t hear her arrive at first, so she had a moment to study him, and in that moment all of the new-found determination to simply, logically reason her way out of this situation disappeared.

There was nothing reasonable about this man.

Nothing measured or calm.

He was pure animal, pure instinct.

And didn’t that just turn her insides to jelly?

She had always regarded herself as a feminist, so it was damned hard to make her peace with this side of her nature. Besides, that would be a job for later. For now, she had to focus on concealing how she felt, what he inspired in her.

First step? Dinner.

Finally becoming aware of her presence, he tilted his head, even that simple movement imbued with arrogant disdain, so she was aware of her hackles rising, her irritation growing back to the levels it had been earlier. And not just her irritation. Her insides churned and her skin suddenly felt clammy and warm.

She reached up and pulled her hair over one shoulder, seeking the relief of a light ocean breeze against her nape. Instead, her temperature spiked when his eyes fell from her face to her breasts as though they were his and his alone.

And she was back to feeling parched, and totally flummoxed.

‘You said dinner would be at eight?’ she reminded him crisply, doing her best to tamp down the feelings assaulting her.

But his knowing smile showed that he saw right through her. ‘Would you like a drink?’

Amelia moved to the edge of the boat, wrapped her hands around the cool metal balustrade for strength. ‘I’ll have what you’re having.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Oh?’

‘Whisky?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why not?’

He considered her a moment, shrugged as if he had not a care in the world, then disappeared inside. She watched him go, trying not to notice how pleasingly masculine his waist was, how well his trousers moulded his bottom, how tall and athletic he was. She quickly turned back to the water, seeking in it a reprieve, a blast of sanity and calm when everything else was threatening to overwhelm her. But the ocean was at her favourite state—bathed in dusk light, with the moon rising through the orange and pink sky, the waves gentle and undulating, rhythmic and talkative, so there was an inherent romance to the water that was definitely no help to her present mindset.

He returned with a whisky, handed it to her, and, despite the fact she rarely touched strong liquor, she forced herself to lift it to her lips. It practically burned, yet it also reminded her of her brothers, with whom she’d shared this drink often over the years, and her heart panged with missing them, so she threw back the entire measure to disguise her reaction.

The Scotch acted like a balm on her overwrought nerves and she expelled a long, slow breath before returning the glass to him. Her smile was over-sweet. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘No problems, Princess,’ and she felt things tip beneath her.

It had been a long time since anyone had called her that. Two years, in fact.

‘Don’t,’ she whispered, digging her nails into her palm.

‘Why not? You’re going home. Isn’t it time to get used to your title again? Or would you prefer Your Highness?’

She shook her head in consternation. ‘Neither, please.’

‘So I shall simply call you Amelia while you are on board?’

‘I prefer Millie now,’ she corrected.

‘Millie is not a princess’s name.’

‘Maybe not, but it’s my name.’

‘Are you so angry with your parents that you would even want to disavow your connection to the royal family?’

Her face drained of colour. ‘I’d prefer not to discuss it.’

‘That’s a shame, as we have nothing but time ahead of us.’

‘A week,’ she said, thinking of how much she had to achieve in six or seven days. Could she change his mind in that time? Could she convince him to let her go? It wasn’t long, and yet, with the two of them, it might turn out to be an eternity. Already she felt her nerves stretching well past breaking point.

‘Tell me how you know my brother,’ she invited, surprised that her voice could emerge so calm when her insides were fluttering.

‘We met a long time ago.’ His answer was short, his gaze direct, yet he was holding so much back, she couldn’t help but laugh.

‘That’s funny?’

‘No, but how assiduously you’re trying not to answer my question is.’

It was clear that Benedetto was not a man used to being called out. He glowered for a moment before something like a smile flickered on his face, like lightning way out on the horizon, so quick and breathtakingly bright that you could almost swear you’d imagined it.

‘We met through a mutual friend when I was in my twenties. Younger even than you,’ he drawled, as if to remind them both of the age gap between them.

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Which was how many years ago?’

‘Twelve.’ He moved closer, lifting a hand to her face on the pretence—and it was most definitely a pretence—of tucking hair behind her ear, to contain it in defiance of the light sea breeze. ‘I am thirty-six, Princess.’

Her stomach rolled with the power of these conflicting emotions. Desire warred with frustration, and fear. She wasn’t a princess, she wanted to scream, even when she knew she could never proclaim that to another soul.

‘Older than Anton,’ she murmured.

His eyes flashed with hers. ‘And too old for you.’

‘And yet you’re touching me.’

‘Haven’t we already covered that?’ he responded, but dropped his hand, so she could have kicked herself for even bringing it up. She glanced away, buying time to assume an expression of calm.

‘How come I haven’t met you?’ she pushed, but he didn’t answer immediately, instead gesturing to the table across the deck from them. Amelia eyed it, her stomach giving a little growl as she remembered that she’d been starving moments earlier.

‘Happenstance,’ he said non-committally. ‘I’ve been to Catarno a couple of times. I’ve met your parents, your brother. You weren’t at home.’

She considered that. ‘Uni, perhaps.’

‘Or with friends.’

She heard the veiled criticism and bristled. She’d gone to a few high-profile parties in her first year at university and from that moment on she’d been dubbed the Playgirl Princess. On the one hand, she’d been pleased to see that the treatment often meted out to young, single male royals was being dispensed to her—because gender shouldn’t determine such things. On the other, it had been spectacularly unfair. In reality, Amelia had worked hard at her studies and had been a member of the track and polo teams, competing at a high level for both. If she’d missed seeing Benedetto, it had probably been because she’d had a meet.

There was no point explaining that to him though. It was all too apparent he’d made up his mind about her. It pained Amelia to imagine how Anton must speak and think of her, for Benedetto to have formed such a particular dislike.

‘Why are you so loyal to him?’

He held out a seat for her, their eyes sparking as she moved towards it. She sat, ignoring the way his hands brushed her shoulders as if by accident, and the way her body responded immediately. How was it that a single touch could unsettle her so completely?

‘You don’t think he deserves it?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

Benedetto took the seat opposite, his long legs brushing hers beneath the table. Another accident? Her hand shook as she reached for her water glass, glad to take a sip to dilute the whisky flavour in her mouth.

‘I’m just curious,’ she continued after a moment in which he didn’t speak, ‘as to why you’d owe him such an allegiance that you’d consider committing a criminal offence.’

‘I’ve done more than consider it,’ Benedetto pointed out. ‘And I’m more curious as to why you’d be intent on seducing someone who’s kidnapped you. You kissed me before you knew, so you can’t blame Stockholm syndrome.’

She actually laughed, it was so absurd, but it was a laugh that bordered on the maniacal, hysterical and unhinged, so she dropped her face into her hands and held it a moment.

‘I don’t know,’ was the simple, honest answer. ‘It just felt... I just wanted to.’

A frown jerked at his lips.

‘You kept pointing out that you have more experience than me, so presumably you’ve felt that before. I don’t like you. I mean, I really, really actively dislike you, and yet there’s something about you that...’

‘Yes?’ He growled.

‘Makes me want to tear your clothes off.’ She blinked away from him, both embarrassed and proud of her frankness.

‘And you haven’t felt that before.’

She wanted to lie. She certainly didn’t want to give him the ego-boost of admitting he was the only man who’d ever had that effect on her, but to what end? His ego was already full to the brim, a little extra wouldn’t make a fundamental difference to his behaviour. ‘No.’

He arched a brow, silently imploring her to continue, but Amelia was reticent to discuss Daniel.

‘You’ve dated men?’ Benedetto pushed.

Amelia bit into her lip. ‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘You didn’t feel a desire for them?’

Amelia hesitated. ‘I’ve dated men, but only one seriously, and it was...’ she searched for the right words, her cheeks flushing pink ‘...slow to warm up.’

Benedetto’s eyes met Amelia’s and held in a way that caused her whole body to simmer.

Amelia reached for her water, and was sipping it gratefully, when Cassidy strolled towards them. ‘Sorry, guys, I burned the first set of prawns and had to make more. But they look delicious. Hope you enjoy.’

The Australian woman was a veritable breath of fresh air after the intensity of Amelia’s conversation with Benedetto—not the conversation itself, but the way she felt when they were alone, as if there were an oppressive weight bearing down on her, making it hard to breathe and think and do anything but crave him.

Cassidy placed their meals down—a serving of enormous prawns in a sticky sweet sauce with a large salad. It was exactly the kind of thing Amelia might have ordered in a restaurant, had it been on the menu, and as her gaze drifted from their dinner to the view, the dusky sky quite breathtaking from the colours that burst through it, she thought how perfect and sublime this all would be under very different circumstances. If she’d met Benedetto in a bar, or on the street, instead of like this.

‘So if I’d met you some other way, if we weren’t connected through Anton, would you have stopped us from...you know...?’

He reached for his cutlery, slicing through one of his prawns. ‘I don’t deal in hypotheticals.’

‘Sure you do. Every time you consider your options for any decision you’re planning to make, you consider the hypothetical outcomes. That is just your way of saying you don’t want to talk about this.’

A smile was her reward, his appreciation for her quick retort obvious. ‘Fine. Let’s imagine then that we met randomly, and somehow ended up in a private space, with the chemistry we share.’ He kicked back in his seat, his legs brushing hers again, but this time, they stayed where they were, forming a trap around her own legs, so every time she shifted, even a little, she felt him, the static charge of electricity energising her. ‘It’s likely we would have shared a one-night stand.’

‘Only one night?’ she prompted, then could have kicked herself. Was she really offended by his reply to a hypothetical scenario that could never be?

He lifted his shoulders. ‘Perhaps a few nights.’

‘And then what?’

‘We’d part ways.’

‘That easily, huh?’

‘Why not?’

‘I just—it seems like a very limiting way to live your life.’

‘That’s what I like about it.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I have no plans to get married, and absolutely no plans to have children. It shifts the parameters of what my relationships are about.’ His eyes scanned hers. ‘But I am not a subject we need to discuss.’

Her stomach tightened with frustration, but she let it go for now. There was no sense pushing him. Amelia needed time to regroup and form a new strategy, to reconcile what she’d learned about him tonight and how best to use it to her advantage. Lost in thought, she shifted beneath the table, their legs brushed and it was as though an invisible rubber band that had been tightening around them finally snapped.

He jerked his gaze back to her face, his eyes boring into hers, an invisible war being fought, but Amelia couldn’t have said who was winning or who was losing, she knew only that she felt as though she were fighting for her survival. Her breath was held, her body stiff, her senses all finely honed on the man opposite.

‘You need to understand, Anton is my closest friend,’ Benedetto ground out, pushing back his chair, leaving the battlefield altogether. ‘Someone who stood by me when no one else would.’ He stared at her. ‘And you are his sister.’

Anger fizzed inside Amelia. ‘I am also my own person. Me.’ She stood, jabbing her fingers towards her chest, to indicate the centre of her being. ‘I am not just an adjunct to Anton. I’m not a princess. I’m just Millie Moretti and I wish you’d—’

‘Don’t say it.’ He held up a hand, eyes warning her.

‘I wish you’d remember who I am,’ she finished defiantly. ‘Not act as if my only defining characteristic is being related to Anton. But what did you think I was going to say?’ she demanded, moving around the table, towards him, until they were toe to toe. ‘Did you think I was going to say I wish you’d make love to me?’ She threw the gauntlet down between them. ‘And if so, why are you so threatened by that?’

‘You know why. It can’t happen.’

‘I don’t even know if I want it to happen,’ she lied, hating how much she did want him. ‘But I find it strange that a man with your experience can’t be a little more sanguine about the whole affair.’

He responded with a harsh bark of laughter. ‘I have kidnapped you and yet you persist in throwing yourself at me. Why?’

If he’d intended to hurt her, then he couldn’t have chosen his words more wisely. After Daniel, she’d lost her confidence completely. She’d thought they were in love, but he’d been using her, and it had made her feel dispensable and worthless. She’d sworn she’d never let another man have that kind of power over her again, and yet here she was, not twelve hours after meeting Benedetto, and clearly he already had the ability to wound her.

She shuddered and took a step back, staring at him and trying to make sense of everything, but most of all wanting to escape, to get away from him and his intently watchful gaze.

‘You’re right.’ She shivered despite the fact it was a warm night. ‘I must be mad.’ There was no other explanation for this. It simply didn’t make sense. ‘Excuse me.’

She turned on her heel and left. But before she’d reached the door to the corridor, his voice arrested her. ‘Wait.’

She stopped walking but didn’t turn around. ‘What for, Benedetto?’

‘I meant what I said before.’

She sucked in a breath.

‘If you weren’t his sister, and we’d met, as you proposed, in some other way, you would already be naked in my bed. This is not one-sided, Princess.’

She gasped, spinning to find him standing right behind her, so close they were almost touching. ‘I don’t know what to say to that.’

He held a finger up to her lips, to silence her anyway, but it was an incendiary touch. Sparks ignited.

‘Don’t say anything. There’s no point. It’s never going to happen between us so whatever we might be tempted to, it’s a far better idea if we just...ignore each other from now on. Va bene?’

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