by Annie West
‘Eva?’
She looked up and for a moment he read confusion in her stormy eyes. Then she looked down again at the tumbler, raised it and took a long swallow. This time she barely shuddered at the strong liquor.
‘Why now? Why not refuse four years ago?’
‘Because I didn’t know initially how little you wanted this match. And...’ He paused, the result of a lifetime’s training in keeping unpalatable truths hidden. ‘Soon after our engagement was announced, I discovered my father had already squandered the portion of your dowry that was transferred on our betrothal. I wasn’t in a position to pay it back.’
Did she stiffen? The gems at her ears caught the light as they swayed.
‘Ah. So we are speaking plainly.’
‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’
Not if it means you dumping me.
Eva bit her bottom lip rather than blurt out that home truth.
She didn’t know if she should feel proud or pathetic that she had to ask. ‘So you don’t need my dowry any more?’
That made him sit straighter. His shoulders drew back like a soldier on parade.
What? Had she insulted him? He was the one who wanted plain speaking.
‘Public funds are still tight in St Ancilla. But that’s not the key issue.’
‘Isn’t it?’
She recalled her father’s fury when he’d discovered, too late, the enormous ocean of debt the previous King of St Ancilla had run up. It was a secret known only to a select few. The two monarchs had earlier concocted a dynastic betrothal between Eva and Paul. It had come as a shock when King Hugo had abdicated soon after and retired to a distant island. A nastier shock when Eva’s father had learned Hugo had been secretly forced to abdicate, then had been banished, the alternative being to have stood trial on multiple counts of fraud, theft and embezzlement of public funds.
Eva’s father had wanted to cancel her engagement on the spot, but had been persuaded to let it stand rather than court unwanted media speculation. The portion of her dowry given to St Ancilla on her betrothal was long gone and she knew Paul fought to save his country from bankruptcy and scandal. From what her father had said, it would take years to make good the money stolen by King Hugo.
Even so, she’d wanted the marriage. She’d persuaded her parents to allow a long engagement, ostensibly because she and Paul were young, and so she could complete her university studies. Her parents hoped that after all this time she’d agree to end the engagement. It would surprise no one, they said, if she and Paul had grown apart over four years. That, of course, was code for the fact that there would be minimal public scandal now. Yet Eva’s plan was still to marry the one man she’d ever loved. Hoping that one day he’d come to care for her the way she cared for him.
Tonight’s bombshell threatened that dream.
Once more Paul forked his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration.
‘The financial situation is getting better. Slowly.’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t need to hear the details, Eva. The fact is I don’t want your money. It would be wrong. I intend to pay back every penny.’
‘You’re not very like your father, are you?’ She’d never liked King Hugo, an overbearing, arrogant man, far too easy to anger.
Paul’s mouth curled up in a tight smile. ‘Thank you. I can’t think of a better compliment.’
‘You’re honourable.’
His dark eyebrows twitched together. ‘Why doesn’t that sound like a positive when you say it?’
She blinked and let her eyes widen. ‘I can’t imagine. It’s one of the things I like about you.’
‘You do? I didn’t think you liked me at all.’
‘You think I’d promise to marry a man I don’t even like?’ He really did think her a door mat!
He shrugged those lovely broad shoulders but Eva kept her eyes on his. ‘My father was a master in the art of coercion and bullying. I thought...’
‘That mine is too?’ She shook her head. ‘He’s proud and stiff-necked but he’s no bully.’
It was only when Eva had shyly admitted to her parents that she wanted to marry the Crown Prince of St Ancilla that the betrothal had gone ahead.
Her mistake, apparently, had been not telling Paul himself. Because she feared he’d read her true feelings and be scared off by a clinging wife. Because he’d never been interested in her romantically. From what she’d heard and observed as a teenager, his taste ran to well-endowed blondes. Since their engagement, there’d mercifully been no gossip about him with any woman other than her.
She drew a fortifying breath. ‘My parents never forced my hand, Paul. I was content to marry you. I still am.’
‘Content?’ His mouth twisted in a grimace but even now he was the most attractive man she’d ever known.
‘Happy, then. I’m happy to marry you.’
‘You don’t give the impression of a woman who wants to marry me.’
A spark ignited deep inside. Deep where she hid her feelings behind a façade of calm composure.
‘What do you want, Paul? A fiancée who bats her eyelashes at you and follows you around like an orphaned puppy panting for attention?’
Eva feared she’d come close to that in her teenage years, using any excuse to trap him into conversation, wishing he’d see her, just once, as a desirable woman instead of someone he had to be polite to.
‘Of course not!’
‘Good.’ Her chin tilted up. ‘Because I don’t recall you being particularly lover-like either.’ Except that one time when he’d tried to kiss her. But, even she, as close to a complete innocent as you could get, had realised his heart wasn’t in it. He’d thought it expected of him, but there’d been no real enthusiasm.
Even now, years later, that hurt.
Maybe, after all, she should cut her losses. Walk away from Paul and hope, one day, to find another man who’d make her heart beat faster.
Except she couldn’t. Not while she loved him. The thought of turning her back on him carved an aching hollow right through her middle.
She was trapped by her feelings. Not by public expectations or the legal documents binding them.
‘Eva? Are you all right?’
It was the first time Paul had spoken to her like that, his voice gentle and...concerned. As if he really did care about her feelings, not about doing the honourable thing.
She blinked and discovered her eyes were too moist. Hastily she looked down at the glass in her hand, the amber liquid swirling in the bottom.
‘Well, if we’re going to be honest, I’m not sure. Why end the engagement now? If there’s someone else, or if you’ve taken me in dislike—’
‘Of course I haven’t taken you in dislike. You’re everything I could look for in a royal bride.’
But not in a wife.
There was a difference and, innocent though she might be when it came to sex, Eva was quick to understand it. A royal bride would fulfil her regal duties, something Eva had been trained to do from birth. But a wife...a wife would share his whole life, his love, his dreams...
‘And there’s no one else.’ He paused, his features taut. ‘But it’s been four years since our engagement. Time to release you. You and your family didn’t know the mess St Ancilla was in when you agreed to marry me.’
He laughed, a bitter, grating sound that made him sound a decade older. It reinforced what she’d seen for herself, how the burden of the last four years had made him stronger and tougher than the glamorous young man she’d first met. ‘I didn’t know, for that matter. It’s not fair to tie you to me and hold you to your promise. You were only twenty when we got engaged, after all, and your father wanted you to finish your degree before we married. If we separate now, people will assume we’ve simply drifted apart. This way you won’t be dogged by scandal.’
Eva was hurt and angry. Her pride was battered, and her self-esteem, for putting herself in this position. For cleaving to a man who patently didn’t want to be tied to her. Even so, her heart turned over at his words. He didn’t love her but he wanted what he believed was best for her. Even though parting ways would deny him the rest of the fortune she’d bring into the marriage.
He was noble. Self-sacrificing. Determined to set her free.
Eva didn’t know in this moment whether she loved Paul of St Ancilla or hated him.
Because he’d never looked and really seen her. The woman behind the royal façade. The woman eating her heart out for him.
She downed the last of her drink in a defiant gulp and shot to her feet, buoyed by a sudden upswing of rebellious energy.
‘Eva? What’s wrong?’ He stood before her, his brow creasing in a frown, and now his concern was like a match thrown on petrol.
That he had to ask showed how little he understood her.
It was on the tip of her tongue to lay it all out for him. Her feelings...how she’d pined for him for nine long years. How her schoolgirl crush had morphed into something stronger and deeper. Her determination to stand by his side, no matter how difficult the challenges they faced, to be the perfect supportive Queen through thick and thin. Her love for him.
But he wouldn’t thank her. He would just be horrified.
And she’d regret it when he looked at her with pity in those stunning blue eyes.
‘It’s been a very long day,’ she said through a throat that seemed lined with jagged glass. ‘Can we continue this tomorrow?’
‘It would be better to sort it out now.’ He paused, his gaze probing, as if seeing the chinks in her armour. Eva stood straighter, willing the tumbling whirl of emotions back behind her tattered veneer of composure.
Finally, Paul nodded, though she read his reluctance. ‘But if you’re tired we can talk in the morning.’
Was it imagination or did she hear relief mixed with his impatience?
‘I’ll have my secretary arrange a time.’
‘Of course you will.’
Because this was business. Not love.
He’d schedule a meeting and they’d sit on opposite sides of his desk while he told her again that he didn’t want her.
Eva’s mouth trembled as a great, welling surge of despair rose. She battened it down and swung away in a swirl of royal blue before her control slipped. ‘Till tomorrow, then.’
Eva stripped off her ball gown and placed it on a hanger. Despite her fizzing temper, and the cloud of gloom around her, she’d no more think of dropping her clothes on the floor than she’d walk naked in public. Responsibility was ingrained. Royal standards had been drilled into her. From being gracious to others, standing patiently for hours in interminably long public gatherings, down to looking after the exquisite clothes she was lucky enough to wear.
Even if the sight of this gown, the same colour as her fiancé’s eyes, made her want to fling it across the room and stomp on it.
It was no good. She couldn’t find calm.
Because, somewhere between Paul’s announcement that he was setting her free and her escaping to her room, her heart had broken.
Hands on hips, Eva bent double, her lungs cramping at the sudden shaft of pain shearing through her chest.
Surely it should make some sound—all her dreams shattering?
Yet there was only silence, unless she counted the raw grating of her laboured breaths. Even the ripping ache behind her ribs was deathly silent.
Summoning her strength, she stood straight, to be confronted by the sight of herself in the full-length mirror. Her hair was still piled high and sapphire earrings caught the light. Yet in a nude strapless bra and panties, and equally nude stockings, she didn’t look royal. Or special. Or in any way likely to capture Paul’s interest.
From her mid-brown hair and indeterminate-coloured eyes to her average body, she was completely ordinary.
She sucked in a deep breath and her breasts swelled against her bra. Even then they succeeded only in looking average. Not bounteous. She knew he liked bounteous. The way he’d smiled down at Karen Villiers tonight—she of the perfectly sculpted body and pert, prominent breasts—hadn’t been anything like the way he looked at her, his fiancée.
Ex-fiancée by morning.
Another breath-stealing cramp hit her and she had to concentrate on breathing through the pain.
Numbly, she pondered how a broken heart could be so painful. This wasn’t just sorrow. This was physical as well as mental and emotional.
Because she’d never suffered and then got over puppy love. Because when her friends had been going through the thrills and pangs of teen crushes she’d had none. She’d been the last of them to discover romance, and when she had, at fifteen, her feelings for Paul had taken permanent root.
Look where that had got her.
She was no better than a door mat. Too terrified of rejection to reveal her feelings to her fiancé and now it was too late.
Eva tilted her head, surveying her reflection. She might be ordinary but she wasn’t a troll. Some men would think her attractive.
Wouldn’t they?
She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging in the welling hurt, refusing to let the tears prickling her eyes gather and fall.
Somewhere out there was a man who’d appreciate her for herself. Not for the value of her dowry, or to strengthen dynastic links or to avoid a scandal. Her lip curled. That was what Paul was afraid of—stirring too much press attention that might lead to someone discovering the real reason his father had abdicated. That was why he’d waited four whole years to jilt her. Four years in which she’d spun fruitless fantasies of happy-ever-after.
Eva swung away, heart hammering. She wouldn’t think of Paul. Tomorrow he’d end their engagement and she’d still love him. The thought threatened to swallow her whole.
Perhaps it was the two glasses of whisky she’d had on top of earlier champagne. Or simply that she’d reached the limit of her endurance. But abruptly Eva was overwhelmed by the need to prove she wasn’t just a princess but a woman.
A desirable woman.
Pride, ego, self-respect and years of patiently waiting for Paul to notice her fused into fierce determination.
To be herself. To unwind. Not to worry about appearances or protocol. To laugh when she wanted to, talk with whomever she wanted. To go dancing, flirt with a handsome man. To live a little. To feel attractive and appreciated.
Just a few hours incognito. How could it hurt?
CHAPTER THREE
‘SORRY TO BOTHER you so late, sir, but I thought you’d prefer to know. Princess Eva has gone out.’
‘Out?’ Paul looked at the time. Two a.m. Where would she go at this time? Never in her years of visiting St Ancilla had she made an unscheduled excursion. She’d followed the timetable devised by his staff. ‘You’re sure?’
Stupid question. His Head of Security would never make mistakes like that.
‘Absolutely. She left via a back entrance and headed into the old town. One of my men is following at a discreet distance.’
Paul’s grip on the phone tightened. The man’s voice was so carefully neutral, it boded bad news. He’d been employed at the palace during King Hugo’s reign and had learned discretion in the face of royals behaving badly.
Paul wanted to protest that Eva wasn’t like that. There’d be no late-night gambling, drunkenness or temper displays. She’d probably just gone for a walk.
At two in the morning? When she had the whole of the palace gardens to walk in?
He remembered how she’d been an hour ago. The ripple of suppressed emotion...the look in her eyes that had haunted him since. Hurt or anger. He still couldn’t catalogue it. Then her abrupt departure, leaving him to the knowledge he hadn’t handled their interview
well.
It wasn’t a feeling he was used to. Usually he dealt with important matters far more smoothly.
But she’d been unexpectedly prickly. Not relieved, as he’d expected. Or biddable.
‘Where is she?’
‘At a night club.’
Paul frowned. A night club?
He couldn’t imagine Eva clubbing. She seemed so...sedate. No, that made her sound priggish. It was just that he couldn’t imagine her drinking and dancing in some badly lit venue to the throb of mind-numbingly loud music. Or cosying up to a stranger in the faux intimacy of near-darkness.
A sour taste filled his mouth.
‘Is she alone?’
‘Not at the moment.’ His Head of Security’s voice became absolutely toneless and something nasty skittered down Paul’s spine. His belly clenched hard and his fingers tightened on the phone.
He opened his mouth to ask if she was with a man then shut it.
Of course she wasn’t. Eva was the soul of discretion and, moreover, his fiancée.
Till tomorrow, a sly voice whispered in his ear. From tomorrow you and she will be as good as strangers. She’ll have no obligation to you nor you to her.
Paul’s mouth firmed. She was his responsibility. Not just because of their engagement. Or because she was a guest in his country and home, though both those factors were important.
What weighed most was the glimpse of hurt he’d seen shadow her eyes tonight. The unfamiliar slump of her shoulders, later banished by an almost fiercely regal bearing that he’d sensed hid more than tiredness.
He’d taken the easy route, though, hadn’t he? He hadn’t forced her to stay so they could sort out the tangle of their relationship. He’d known she was upset but it had been easier to let her go and hope she’d have her emotions under control by morning.
Guilt bit at his gut.
Whatever was happening, he knew Eva well enough to understand tonight’s excursion wasn’t typical. Had it been prompted by their conversation?
‘Give me the location and have a car waiting for me at the north entrance.’
