CHAPTER NINE
‘LOOKINGFORSOMEONE?’
Despite her older brother’s insufferable arrogance, she was surprisingly glad to see him. She turned to face Anton, not sure what greeting to expect from the sibling who was much older than her, far more serious, and incredibly dedicated to his duties.
‘No,’ she denied, only realising when Anton asked the question that she had been wandering the corridors of the palace in the hope of seeing Benedetto. Even though she’d ended things between them, she still wanted to see him, and she couldn’t explain why.
‘You put us all through hell, you know,’ Anton murmured, standing in front of her, his autocratic face wiped of emotion.
She should have expected this from Anton. A lecture. After all, he had been the one to send Ben, to tell him everything about Amelia, and Ben had clearly thought the worst of her initially.
‘It’s good to see you too.’
He paused. ‘I am glad you’re home.’
‘Well, you made sure of that, didn’t you? At least I can add being kidnapped to the bucket-list items I’ve ticked off.’
‘My understanding is you chose to return of your own free will, when the option was given to you.’
So Anton and Ben had discussed it? What else had they spoken about? Her pulse ratcheted up a gear.
‘It seems as though my friend has become your knight in shining armour.’
Amelia’s cheeks flushed a telltale pink but she worked hard to maintain a neutral expression. She wouldn’t be drawn on what Ben had become to her. How could she answer that anyway, when she didn’t even know herself?
‘He told me what you did for him,’ she said instead. ‘When Sasha died. That was very kind of you, Anton, very decent.’
Anton stared at her long and hard. ‘He told you about Sasha?’
Amelia stiffened. Had she inadvertently revealed more about their relationship than she’d intended anyway? ‘A week on a boat is a long time,’ she pointed out. ‘We talked about a lot of stuff.’
‘Sasha isn’t stuff, she’s— He doesn’t open up about it. Ever. Maybe because you’re my sister,’ Anton reasoned, ‘he presumed you already knew.’
Amelia let that settle between them, lifted her shoulder. ‘Perhaps.’ And something about his egotistical presumption endeared him to her, so she closed the distance between them, pressed a kiss to his cheek. ‘I’m glad to see you, even though you drive me crazy.’
He lifted one dark brow. ‘Do I?’
‘Yes. Now, when do I get to meet your fiancée? I hear she’s got the patience of a saint.’
At that, Anton laughed softly. ‘I know you’re teasing me, but in fact, you’re right. Vanessa is—beyond compare. She’ll be at dinner tonight.’
‘Dinner?’
‘Just the family.’
Amelia’s heart sank. I’m not family, she wanted to scream. But how could she avoid this? What could she possibly say? And at least Benedetto wouldn’t be there. For as much as she wanted to see him, from a distance at least, she wasn’t sure she could trust herself to be in the same room as him and act as though he meant nothing to her.
Avoiding him was a far better idea.
As soon as Benedetto saw Amelia, he wanted to stop the clock and wind back time, he wanted to remove every last vestige of her princess life and return her to the wild, free spirit she’d been on his yacht, with hair all tousled and windswept, skin warm from the sun, face bare of make-up, clothes loose and floaty in concession to the heat, feet almost always bare. He wanted to go back to before she’d told him they should stop seeing each other and kiss the words right out of her mind. He just wanted to kiss her...
This Amelia was so different. Despite the fact it was a ‘quiet family dinner’, she was dressed to the nines. This was Her Royal Highness Princess Amelia Moretti, and she was every inch the princess indeed.
From hair that had been styled until it shone and pinned into an elegant bun low on her head, to the dainty tiara she wore, the suit—cream with gold buttons, she’d teamed a blazer with trousers and wore brown high heels that were the same shade as the small handbag she carried. Her face had been made up expertly, and at her throat she wore a simple necklace with a single diamond in the centre.
It was the first time they’d seen each other since being separated at the boat and curiosity had him staring at her intently across the room, waiting for her to notice him, but she was locked in conversation with Vanessa, who wore a pale pink gown with her dark hair loose around her face.
Frustration champed at Benedetto. He feigned interest in conversation with Rowan—who he usually liked and had a lot of time for. But at that very moment, all of his focus was absorbed by Amelia. She moved eventually from Vanessa to her mother, speaking in a low voice, smiling, laughing, and it was when she laughed that she tilted her head and her eyes met his.
Every muscle in his body tightened. The breath in his lungs caught and held. His lips parted on a short hiss of air and he had never before known a temptation quite like it: to storm across the room, throw her over his shoulder and run away with Amelia.
He forced himself to look away, back to Rowan, to nod at something he’d said, to actively listen to the conversation now, but he was conscious of her the whole time, and in the back of his mind he was planning ahead, attempting to work out how to peel Amelia away from her family, so he he could be alone with her.
Except he couldn’t. Or shouldn’t.
She was right to have put an end to what they were doing. He’d be crazy to pursue her now, here in the palace. Her life was an open book, as she’d said. That didn’t stop him from wanting her though, and from needing to know she wanted him too...
Just being back with her family was exhausting. They were all making an effort to be accepting, no one asking her about her prolonged, unexplained absence, but she felt the questions, the judgement, the low-key anger and resentment from Anton. Or perhaps it was just the secret knowledge she held that she didn’t really belong here, that she wasn’t a real princess, that was playing on her mind.
Beneath the table, she fidgeted with her fingers, twisting the large diamond ring she wore, a gift from her grandmother, who had also clearly had no idea that Amelia was an imposter in their midst.
And the one person who had the power to make her feel better, to blot out all of this tension, was as far as physically possible across the table, and being monopolised in conversation by her father and Rowan. When their eyes had met, she’d felt a surge of awareness and known she couldn’t look in his direction again. It would be too obvious. Surely someone would notice. And so she concentrated hard on being what everyone expected her to be, on smiling and nodding and ignoring Benedetto with every fibre of her being.
The night was long. Several courses, speeches, more food, and, finally, Anton signalled the evening was at an end by excusing himself and Vanessa. With immense relief, Amelia looked around, her eyes instantly latching to Benedetto’s. He was watching her and the moment she felt his gaze on her, felt it connect with hers, her stomach squeezed and her heart stammered.
‘Goodnight, darling,’ her mother murmured, leaning over and placing a kiss on her forehead. Then, ‘Tomorrow is going to be very busy, but if you’d like to join me for a walk in the morning, I’ll be leaving from the West Gate at six.’
A smile pulled at Amelia’s lips. For as long as she could remember, her mother had been conducting the same early morning walk through the gardens, past the stables, and down to the citrus grove. Amelia had often walked with her as a teenager.
‘Thank you,’ she said, without committing either way. ‘Goodnight.’
Amelia stood, but rather than leaving the room, she moved deeper into it, pretending fascination with a painting on the wall. It was hundreds of years old, a Biblical scene with angels and clouds and women reclining with their long hair draped over their bodies.
Her heart raced as she studied the painting and listened as her family slowly filtered from the room, and she held her breath, waiting, hoping. She knew the smart thing to do would be to depart likewise. She’d ended things with Benedetto for a reason—it couldn’t keep going on—but that didn’t mean she had suddenly turned into a robot. She wanted to see him. She wanted to talk to him, to be alone with him.
The room was silent for such a long time that her heart plummeted, because Benedetto must have left too and the hope she’d nurtured all night of finally being alone with him withered into nothingness.
She turned, fidgeting with her ring, and then let out a small gasp, because he hadn’t left at all. He was sitting at the table, staring straight ahead, a small coffee cup in his big, strong hands. Her heart skipped a beat and she moved to him as though being pulled by strings, gliding across the ancient carpets.
‘Hello.’
He turned to face her, his expression inscrutable.
‘How are you?’
It was a question laced with far greater meaning than the words usually asked for. He was asking how she really was. Not in the trivial sense, but in the deep emotional sense after all she’d been through today.
‘It was tough,’ she said, honestly.
‘Are you glad you came back?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’ Then, looking around the table, ‘It wouldn’t have felt right to miss it.’
‘No,’ he agreed. Then he stood, meeting her eyes, and her breath hitched in her throat, fear surging inside her. Was he going to leave? ‘They care about you a great deal.’
‘I know.’ Her voice cracked. She didn’t want to discuss her family. ‘How’s your day been?’
‘Honestly?’
She nodded.
‘Long.’
Amelia scanned his face. ‘I presumed Anton was keeping you busy.’
‘Yes, extolling the virtues of his fiancée, which I’ve heard about a thousand times, mind you.’
‘He’s madly in love.’ Amelia smiled, but there was a strange hollowness in her heart as she spoke those words. Suddenly, not being able to touch him was a form of torture, and yet she’d done this to herself. ‘Benedetto—’
‘Amelia,’ he returned, drawling her name with a hint of mockery.
She toyed with the ring she wore. ‘This is weird.’
‘Being back in Catarno?’
‘Being here with you.’
His eyes flared. ‘You are not with me.’
‘No.’ Her voice was ambivalent.
‘You can’t be,’ he reminded her, or perhaps he was reminding himself too. ‘It’s too complicated.’
Amelia nodded, but frowned. ‘Maybe it doesn’t have to be.’
Benedetto was very still. ‘Go on.’
‘There’s a way to my room through my office. You could come to me tonight.’
His nostrils flared. ‘Sneak around behind your family’s back?’
Heat flushed her cheeks. ‘I know it’s not ideal...’
‘I’m not a teenager, Amelia, and neither are you.’
‘My personal life is no one’s business,’ she said, tightly, but she was hurt, because he’d rejected her.
‘You were the one who said your life here is an open book,’ he pointed out.
‘I know. It is. But—’
‘There is no but,’ he said, with a single shake of his head. ‘We can’t do this.’
‘Damn it.’ She stomped her foot, but at that moment a team of servants burst through the doors, intent on clearing the table. Amelia’s eyes met Benedetto’s, held them, her lips parted but what more could she say?
‘Goodnight, Your Highness,’ he said, with a dip of his head.
Amelia’s heart turned cold. ‘Goodnight,’ she whispered, but Benedetto had already left.
If she hadn’t told him about the discreet access to her room, he wouldn’t have been lying in bed for hours, hard as a rock, staring at the ceiling, thinking of Amelia, craving her, wanting, wishing, needing.
But she had, and he was, and at some point in the small hours of the morning, tired of wanting and not having, he gave up on being noble and right, and decided to give into temptation. One more time. It still didn’t mean anything. It was just sex. Like on the boat, but here. What did geography matter? So long as they both understood the temporary nature of this, what was the harm?
Benedetto dressed in a pair of trousers and a shirt, slipped his feet into shoes and strode from his room, down the corridor, towards the suite of rooms he knew, from previous visits, belonged to Amelia.
He concealed a bitter smirk as he approached her doors. One wrong turn and he might very well end up in Anton’s rooms instead. How to explain that? he thought. But his memory was accurate. Silently, he pushed the heavy oak door inwards, taking in the details of Amelia’s study as he went—the floral paintings, the pretty furniture, the large windows. He closed the door then looked around, for another way into and out of the room. At first, he missed it. This doorway was only three-quarter height, a relic from a different century, when people were smaller.
He moved to it, hand on the doorknob, as he contemplated turning back.
There were a thousand reasons to resist Amelia, namely, because he wanted to be able to look back and know that he’d acted honourably towards her. That he’d never done anything to risk her heart.
Which brought him back to the necessity of being honest with her before this happened.
So long as she understood, this would all be okay.
He knocked on the door lightly, then realised how stupid that was—she was probably asleep. So he probably shouldn’t interrupt her. He should probably just go back to his room, stick to his original, much wiser idea, to ignore Amelia altogether.
‘Yes?’ Her voice was small, but audible.
His gut churned and his body tightened.
There was no way he was turning back.
He pushed the door inwards, frustration bursting through him. It was a frustration aimed mostly at himself, because he should have been strong enough to resist her. But it was also aimed at Amelia, because she’d invited him here. She’d weakened too.
‘This is a terrible idea,’ he muttered, striding across to the edge of her bed and staring down at her, wishing she didn’t look so beautiful and innocent with her knees pulled up to her chest.
‘What is?’ Her eyes were huge in her face. It was dark in the room, except for the full moon’s beam streaking through the window. He reached down, touched her cheek, felt his body galvanise with need.
He ignored her question. She’d asked him here for one reason; he’d come because of that.
‘You understand—’ He paused, scanning her face in the silver light. She looked up at him, guarded, careful, uncertain.
Benedetto cursed inwardly.
‘I’m leaving as soon as the wedding’s over,’ he said. ‘We won’t see each other again.’
She was still. He waited, on tenterhooks. ‘I know that.’
‘You understand what I’m offering.’
Her lips pulled to the side in a gesture that was now intimately familiar to him. ‘Sex,’ she murmured, and then moved to kneeling, so their faces were almost at a level. ‘The perfect, meaningless distraction,’ she added as she leaned forward and kissed him, and Benedetto relaxed into the moment, because she did understand. There was no risk here. No complication. Just perfect, meaningless, satisfying sex, for a few more nights, and then he’d leave without a backwards glance, just like always.
Amelia woke early, stretching in the bed, frowning when she couldn’t discern the familiar rhythms of the boat’s rocking, then remembering the reason for that. She was no longer aboard Il Galassia, but rather here, in the palace, her home, with her family. And Benedetto.
Her skin flushed as she remembered the way he’d made love to her the night before, his desperate need, his body so strong and commanding, so capable, hard and perfect for her. The way he’d kissed her to muffle her screams, how he’d laced their fingers together and lifted her arms over her head to stop her from touching as he simply moved inside her, stirring her to a fever pitch, pleasing her again and again until she could barely breathe, much less speak or remember who or where she was.
Her body had felt both weak and strong afterwards, legs made of jelly, heart of steel. He’d turned to her, as if trying to ascertain something in her features, and then pushed to standing. Magnificent in his nakedness, glorious and sensual.
‘You’re leaving?’
He’d dipped his head once in silent agreement.
Her heart had felt momentarily hollow, but she concealed that reaction. ‘It’s probably for the best. There’s no point letting anyone find out about this when it’s so temporary.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’
The air had pulsated between them. ‘So it’s our secret,’ she’d said, a rush of excitement exploding in her veins.
Benedetto hadn’t wanted to sneak around like a teenager, yet there they were, making exactly that sort of pact. ‘Yes,’ he’d agreed after a small pause. ‘I’ll see you soon.’
She’d wanted to ask when, but had, thankfully, stopped herself. She wouldn’t reveal any kind of neediness to him. It was the last thing he’d want, and when the wedding was over and Benedetto was gone, and Amelia had moved on, she’d be proud of herself for seeming so casual.
‘She’s been very good for him, you know,’ Anna-Maria said as they approached the crest of the hill and wound their way around the precipice, to reach a point with one of the most spectacular views of the valley. It was still early and the sun was only just cresting over the hills in the distance, casting the sky in the most spectacular oranges and pinks.
‘In what way?’ Amelia prompted, pausing to sip her water.
‘He’s far less serious. Oh, I love Anton, of course, but he can be a little intense sometimes,’ Anna-Maria said with a wink.
‘Mum!’
Anna-Maria linked her hand through Amelia’s arm. ‘You know what I mean. It’s been hard for him, having the weight of his inheritance on his shoulders, knowing all his life that he would become King. Vanessa makes him laugh at himself, makes him laugh with the rest of us. And she helps him. She’s very smart, an excellent sounding board for all manner of things. The public adores her too.’
Something like jealousy flashed in Amelia’s gut and she turned away to conceal the bitterness from showing on her face. It wasn’t the public who’d had issues with her though, but the press who’d seemed to delight in painting her as the misfit third child, who’d tormented her through their stories and lies. And the public had bought the papers and magazines, had believed so much of it. Amelia sighed softly.
Perhaps sensing the direction of Amelia’s thoughts, Anna-Maria softened her tone. ‘They never really gave you a fair shot, did they?’
‘No.’ Amelia flattened the hurt from her voice.
‘I wish I’d known how to protect you better from that. At the time, I thought we were doing the right thing, by telling you to ignore it. But that wasn’t fair. I should have done more.’
Amelia compressed her lips, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Her parents had been in a difficult position—the royal family never commented on stories in the press. It was a policy of long standing. But the thick skin needed to cope with the onslaught of publicity was something Amelia had never really developed.
‘Is that why you left?’ Anna-Maria prompted gently.
‘No,’ Amelia murmured, sipping her water. ‘But I’m not going to lie to you, the lack of press coverage over the last couple of years has been astoundingly nice. The silence has been wonderful.’
‘I can imagine,’ Anna-Maria agreed.
Amelia angled her face towards her mother’s as they began to walk once more, arm in arm. ‘You married into this lifestyle. Have you ever regretted it?’
‘I always knew I would marry him and become Queen,’ she said with a lift of her shoulders. ‘Your father and I were betrothed when I was just a girl and he a boy. It was my destiny, and his, arranged by our parents to strengthen the throne and the royal family’s place in the country’s political system. My family was politically very powerful, his royal. It made sense.’
‘I never knew that,’ Amelia said with genuine surprise. ‘You’re saying your whole life you’ve been living in an arranged marriage?’
‘Well, yes,’ Anna-Maria agreed, as if she too was a little surprised to have revealed as much.
‘But you seem—I thought you guys had fallen in love. I knew your family was powerful, I just presumed you’d come to know one another by moving in the same circles.’
‘And so we did.’
‘But you didn’t marry for love?’ Amelia asked breathlessly, piecing together an entirely different visage of her mother’s life.
Her lips twisted. ‘I married for love, in some ways,’ Anna-Maria said hesitantly. ‘I loved my parents, my country. I loved the idea of being Queen, particularly the jewels and gowns,’ she added with another wink. ‘And I liked and respected your father a great deal.’
Amelia’s footing slipped a little at the mention of her father.
‘But love took time with us. We fell in love on the job, so to speak.’
‘So you do love him now?’
‘Very much.’
‘What made you love him?’ Amelia pushed, her voice heavy with interest.
Was she imagining the way her mother’s skin paled a little?
‘Some time ago, when the boys were little and you were not yet born, a series of events led me to realise that I couldn’t live without him,’ she said. ‘It was that simple. I had fallen in love without even realising it, and only when I thought about what I could lose, if I didn’t face up to how I felt, did I finally comprehend the strength of my own feelings. I fell in love with him gently, softly, while I wasn’t even paying attention, and for a thousand different reasons. I loved him for his passion for the arts—music, theatre, opera. His skill as a polo player. His body,’ she added, knocking her hip into Amelia’s, to signal a joke, but Amelia could hardly catch her breath, much less smile. This insight into her parents’ marriage, given what she knew, was destabilising, to say the least.
‘I loved how much he thought about everything. Your father is never rash, always considerate, he looks at a problem from every conceivable angle, sometimes twice, before responding. He’s incredibly smart. And over time, he fell in love with me too.’ Anna-Maria stopped walking, turned to face her daughter.
‘You’ve been gone so long, I feel as though I have to get to know you all over again, in some ways.’ She squeezed Amelia’s forearm. ‘Tell me, have you been in love, Amelia?’
‘No,’ she answered, but not entirely without hesitation. She’d thought she’d loved Daniel, but that had been a mistake. And since then, there’d been only Benedetto. While she lusted after him around the clock, that wasn’t the same thing as love.
‘Ah. I wasn’t sure. I thought perhaps in Spain, you might have met someone.’
‘No. No one.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course. But one day, you will find your other half, and you’ll understand, when you love that person, that the idea of losing them suddenly becomes a form of torture. It wasn’t just the thought of losing your father that made me realise how much I loved him, but the idea of jeopardising our family.’
‘And so you realised you loved him, and then I was born,’ Amelia said, studying her mother with every ounce of her concentration, looking for any hint of emotion that might betray the truth of Amelia’s parentage.
But Anna-Maria smiled beatifically and nodded. ‘You were a living, breathing testament to our love. A reminder every day of how much our marriage meant to us both, of why we would always fight for it, and each other.’
Amelia let out a soft breath. Was that true? Could she be both evidence of an illicit affair and a talisman to faithfulness? If what her mother was saying was true, and Amelia could read between the lines because she had a greater knowledge of the subject than her mother realised, was it possible that by cheating on the King, and recognising that her affair would potentially end her marriage, she decided to recommit herself to the King, to love him properly and fully? It made sense. In which case, Amelia supposed she could have been just what Anna-Maria had described.
‘One day, you will fall in love, just as Anton has, and I will look forward to meeting the person who captures your heart.’ She put an arm around Amelia. ‘You are so special, darling. No matter what, don’t forget that.’