CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘M EL, HONEY, WHEN exactly are you planning to head back to Androvia?’ Elise Taylor’s voice was concerned but firm at the other end of the phone line.
Mel gazed out of the kitchen window of the small cottage in Wales, where she had been staying for over a week.
Not staying. Hiding, she thought miserably.
The drystone walls at the back of the property framed the view over the still waters of Llyn Dinas towards the dramatic rocky peaks of Dinas Emrys where, according to local legend, the white dragon of the Saxons and the red dragon of Wales had fought each other.
‘Soon,’ Mel replied to her mother, hating the halting note in her voice. She’d got a flight to London from St Thomas but had only been at her mother’s house in Paddington for twenty-four hours before a press photographer had appeared. So she’d fled to this off-grid bolthole in Wales, owned by one of her mum’s friends. Ironically, it was the same bolthole they’d used once before, during that soul-destroying Christmas after her parents’ divorce. She never would have thought she could feel more adrift, more unsure, more unhappy than she had that winter. She’d been wrong.
She let out a heavy sigh. What she needed was to get back to work, back to her life in Androvia. But she didn’t want to bring more negative media attention on Isabelle and Travis. Or rather, that was what she’d been telling herself religiously each day, while reading all the books on her e-reader which she hadn’t had time for in years, or trekking through the forests of the Snowdonia National Park to the picturesque mountain village of Beddgelert to buy supplies and catch up with as much of her workload as she could in a café with an internet connection, while avoiding going on any of the news or gossip sites.
‘How soon?’ her mother said gently. ‘Because Her Majesty phoned me again this afternoon. She’s worried about you, Mel, and so am I.’
‘You didn’t tell her where I am, did you?’ she asked, hating the panic in her voice and the echo of cowardice. What was wrong with her? She needed to contact Isabelle properly, instead of sending her daily texts and then switching off her phone before her friend could reply.
‘You asked me not to, so I didn’t,’ her mother said carefully, as if she were talking to the little girl Mel had once been, who had always needed so much reassurance that she was worthy and important, after her father’s desertion, instead of the strong, determined woman she had become. But then that woman would not still be hiding out in Wales, nursing her completely self-inflicted heartbreak, instead of dealing with the fallout from the end of her fake engagement.
‘This isn’t like you, Mel,’ her mother added, sighing. ‘What happened in the Caribbean?’ she asked, finally addressing the subject Mel had been busy avoiding. ‘Because Prince Rene hasn’t issued any statement about the engagement being off, sweetheart.’
What? Why not?
She frowned as she watched the mist roll off Dinas Emrys and the clouds darken.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked. She hadn’t wanted to read any of the stories, because it would just make coping with the massive hole in her heart even harder.
But why hadn’t he issued a press release announcing their breakup a week ago?
She’d been clear in her note. That she wasn’t pregnant and he didn’t have to feel bound by the promises he’d made to protect her, because she could protect herself.
But it had been over a week… And how could she return to Androvia until the whole story had been given a chance to settle? Which couldn’t happen until the story broke in the first place. What on earth was he waiting for?
‘Yes, of course I’m sure. I’ve been doorstepped by paparazzi for the last seven days, darling, asking where you are and where he is and why you’re not together,’ her mother added, the rueful, patient note making guilt snake into Mel’s stomach.
Where Rene was? What the…?
‘I’m so sorry, Mum…’ she began, then jumped and almost dropped the phone at loud rapping on the front door of the cottage. Who on earth could that be?
‘Listen Mum, I’ll ring you back. I think someone must be lost.’ It wasn’t the first time in the past week that a stranded hiker had needed directions.
‘Call Her Majesty first, before you call me back,’ Elise instructed, her no-nonsense tone reminding Mel of how her mother had spoken to that fragile child instead of the woman she was now. ‘She’s your friend as well as your employer, Mel, and she wants to know what the hell is going on. As do I.’
‘Right,’ she said, then managed to say her goodbyes before her mum went into lecture mode, which she totally deserved but wasn’t sure she was strong enough to deal with yet.
Wow, Mel. Pathetic much?
She walked through the cottage kitchen to the front door, the banging getting louder and more insistent. Whoever this hiker was, they were pretty entitled.
But then she spotted a mud-splattered Jeep parked in the front yard. Not a hiker. Was that the forest ranger’s vehicle? Maybe there was a wildfire, although it seemed unlikely, given the persistent rain.
Pulling the old-fashioned dead bolt, she wrenched the heavy oak door open. ‘Hold onto your…’
Then heat flushed through her whole body and her heart stopped dead, before careering into her throat to cut off her air supply.
‘ Rene? ’ she whispered, so shocked to see him standing in a field in Wales, wearing jeans, boots and a sheepskin jacket and checked shirt, the collar turned up against the cold, his dark hair glittering with raindrops, she wondered if she was hallucinating.
Her fingers lost their grip on the door. He slapped his palm against the wood to shove the door open and stepped into the cramped hallway. He slammed the door shut behind him with a loud bang.
‘Correct,’ he said, his voice low with what she could already see darkening his eyes.
Fury .
‘W-what are you d-doing here?’ she stuttered, although the quiver in her voice was nothing compared to the trembling starting to make her body shake as she retreated down the hallway.
Why was it so good to see him again, even though he looked so angry with her?
‘You little coward… You ran out on me.’ He grasped her upper arm and marched her through into the kitchen.
‘Let go of me!’ she said, trying to tug her arm free. A losing battle as it turned out, because his fingers only tightened on her arm like a manacle—and sent sensation shooting through her body right beside the shivers of shock and yearning.
He yanked her around to face him, then cupped her head to pull her towards him, forcing her to inhale a lungful of that stunning scent of cedarwood and man.
His forehead dropped to hers, and suddenly she could feel the shivers racking his body as well as hers.
‘Dammit, you little fool,’ he murmured, caressing her neck, the words choked out on ragged pants. ‘I didn’t know where the hell you’d gone, Melody.’ The snap of anger was replaced by something else—something hollow and broken and scared… ‘I’ve been searching for you like a madman. Don’t you ever do that to me again, or I swear you will not be able to sit down for a week.’
She wanted to be indignant at the dictatorial tone, to cover the aching pain in her heart at seeing him again, at feeling his body pressed against hers, inhaling his scent, his sadness. But she knew his threat was an empty one because she could hear the fear and panic in his voice, feel it in the fury of his kiss when he captured her mouth with his.
She should tell him no, should push him away, should stand her ground, but instead her lips opened instinctively to let him in.
He claimed her, branded her with the furious kiss, devouring her breathy sobs, thrusting his tongue inside to reach all the empty recesses of her heart, her soul.
His hands grappled with her sweatshirt, tugging it over her head, then he scrambled to release her bra. Her head dropped back, her moan of desperation broken and yearning as his mouth found the aching tips of her bared breasts. He suckled strongly, drawing arrows of sensation down to her throbbing sex.
She thrust greedy fingers into his hair to drag him closer, arched her back to give him better access, her sobs becoming heady pleas of desperation.
He lifted his head suddenly, to search her face, his eyes wild, his need transparent, his desire fierce and elemental and untamed.
‘I need to be inside you…’ he croaked, part plea, part demand.
She nodded, unable to speak, not knowing what was happening but knowing it was everything she had ever wanted because the same urgency, the same desperation she had felt for days, weeks, months, maybe even years—ever since that first time—was reflected now in his face.
Not just the physical need but also emotional, the intimate connection between them so vivid, so clear, so undeniable.
He grasped her waist, lifted her onto the kitchen table, then set about tugging off her sweatpants, yanking down her panties. Suddenly she was naked, vulnerable, her emotions like her body, laid bare.
But as she banded an arm over her aching breasts he ripped open his fly, tugged down his shorts and the heavy erection burst free—hard, long and thrusting upwards.
He cupped her buttocks, dragged her towards him, adjusting her hips, lifting her knees to leave her fully exposed, her core already slick and swollen with her juices.
But then she slapped her hand against his chest, which heaved beneath the soft cotton.
‘We need a condom,’ she managed.
He stared at her. ‘Do we?’ he asked as his eyes searched hers. ‘Because there’s nothing I want more in this world right now than to get you pregnant. So you can never leave me like that again.’
She shuddered, the raw longing in his gaze and the husky truth in his voice shattering her heart all over again.
The thick ridge pressed against her centre—hard, huge, insistent—but as her body yearned for the heavy thrust which would lodge him to the hilt and make her his again, he stood, holding her gaze, waiting for her answer.
She swallowed the boulder of emotion which had derailed her before and barely shrunk at all in the past week, and clasped his face in unsteady hands.
She took a torturous breath and forced herself to finally say what she had wanted to say a week ago.
‘You need to know first, Rene, that I love you.’ Tears stung her eyes, the vulnerability overwhelming, when he swore softly. But she didn’t see fear any more, she saw acceptance.
Her whole body began to shiver, despite the warmth from the iron stove behind them. She needed an answer from him—something, anything to give her some hope—because having him want her, having him need her wasn’t enough.
‘I think I’ve always loved you,’ she managed, the hiccup of breath threatening more tears. ‘I understand if you don’t love me back now. If you’re not there yet. But I can’t live without the chance that there will be more one day. I just can’t.’
He pressed his forehead to hers, the thick erection sliding up to brush the bundle of nerves at her core and making her jolt. But instead of thrusting inside her, he held her close and breathed into her ear.
‘I know, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wouldn’t let you say it.’
She reared back, terrified of what he was going to say next. What was he sorry for? Was he going to tell her what she had suspected a week ago? Was he going to confirm that she had been right to run after all?
‘I was terrified, I admit it,’ he murmured, the tone tortured. ‘I didn’t want you to say it because I thought I would never be able to say it back and mean it. But when I found that note…’ He cursed and let out a shuddering sigh, his arms wrapping so tightly around her he nudged that molten spot again, melting the last of her resistance. But it was the desperate conviction in his voice, in his eyes, which melted her heart. ‘So polite, so reasonable, and so unlike you. And all I could think about was how I couldn’t lose you. That I couldn’t ever be without you by my side…’ he pressed his palm to her cheek, the sheen of longing in his eyes so vivid, so vulnerable and yet also no longer afraid ‘…as my princess, my partner, my lover, my everything. To be perfectly honest, the strength of what I feel for you right now seems more like insanity than love. But is that enough?’
She nodded, covering her mouth, the tears scalding her cheeks. ‘Yes, yes, it is,’ she said.
She threw her arms around his shoulders and adjusted her hips to press against the huge head of his erection. ‘Now, for Pete’s sake put us both out of our misery,’ she demanded.
He choked out a raw laugh. ‘Have I told you I even love how damn bossy you are?’
But, before she could reply, he grasped her hips and slid hard and deep, impaling her to the hilt in one all-consuming thrust.
She let out a broken sob, the feeling immense and as overwhelming as always, but as he began to rock his hips out and back, forcing her to take all of him, driving them both towards that glorious oblivion with dizzying, devastating purpose, she clung to his shoulders and moved with him.
Agonising bliss charged towards her—hard and fast—cresting and crashing as her sobs of release matched his harsh grunts of pleasure.
His hot seed burst inside her—finally branding her for ever as his.
As her heart shattered with love and hope, she stroked his neck, tumbling into the sweet, stunning rush of afterglow, and pressed her lips to the scar beneath his hairline, branding him for ever as hers, too.
A while later he finally let her go, to gather his clothing. She stepped off the table, but when her knees wobbled he scooped her into his arms, dropping a kiss to one thrusting nipple.
‘I want to protect you, always,’ he said, his gaze fierce.
It was an expression she had seen many times before on his face, but why had she allowed her own insecurities to misinterpret it?
Of course he loved her. He just didn’t know how to say it, how to talk about it, how to show it or even understand it, because he’d spent his childhood with a man who had made him feel unlovable.
‘So don’t ever run out on me again, okay?’ he demanded.
She nodded, humbled by the passion in his voice, and the determination.
‘Okay, but you’ve got to let me protect you too, Rene,’ she said, brushing his hair back to stroke the scar. ‘Don’t shut me out again. Will you promise?’
‘It’s a deal,’ he said, hugging her close, his breathing harsh. ‘Now, show me where the damn bedroom is, so I can get naked too and we can seal this damn deal properly.’
She let out a raw laugh and pointed to the staircase.
But as he marched up the stairs, holding her securely in his arms, she knew, as much as she would love to have his child, it really didn’t matter if he got her pregnant. Because he would always be hers now. And she would always be his.