He transferred his attention to the cobbled streets of the castle forecourt as they began their journey and Kiki sighed. That was that, then.
How had she ended up in a royal car with an autocratic old despot?
‘If you don’t mind me asking, why am I with you today, Prince Paulo?’
The Prince turned back to her. ‘Because Stefano is not. Too often he neglects his royal duties for his passion with surgery.’ He glanced back out of the window. ‘And see where that gets him.’
Kiki’s sense of fairness disputed that. Couldn’t he see the good Stefano did? The depth of care and kindness his son showed his patients was admirable, even if that kindness didn’t extend to her at the present time.
Kiki narrowed her eyes on the back of the Prince’s head. ‘Your son saves lives. Has there not been a physician in your family since the first Mykonides?’
That turned his head. Now he was every inch the monarch. His bristled white brows soared, his eyes narrowed, and in that moment she saw the dark eyes of his son at their most arctic.
‘Who are you to presume to tell me my own history?’
But strangely Kiki wasn’t afraid or uncomfortable. It was as if a calm voice whispered in her ear to let him bluster.
She should say she was the woman pretending to be engaged to his son to help the family’s good name. But she didn’t need this man as her enemy.
‘My apologies, Your Highness.’
But they both knew she wasn’t cowed by him, and she wondered if she could detect just a glimpse of approval in his eyes.
In a more conciliatory tone she went on, ‘I’m saying his skills as a surgeon are a gift.’
The Prince shrugged and allowed himself to stop pretending he was enraged. ‘So they say.’ He turned to look out of the window and she heard him mutter, ‘He should be more of a prince.’
Kiki turned to her own window as they began their spiral descent of the mountain. ‘He could hardly be more.’
She heard the indrawn breath of the old man but she couldn’t regret it. What could he do? Put her out of the car. Well, she was happy with that idea.
‘So you champion a man who leaves you pregnant in another country?’
It seemed the old man had rallied.
They faced each other like circling dogs.
‘Circumstances were not kind to us.’
‘If he has any of me in him he will not be kind to you either.’ He glared at her, and then slowly his gaze softened. ‘You remind me of someone I knew long ago. She too was fearless.’ He laughed without amusement. ‘And stubborn. This may not turn out badly yet.’
Kiki had nothing to say to that. Now she felt less sure of herself, and wondered what had possessed her to take him on.
The drive through the olive groves passed silently and Kiki chewed on her lip as she worried what would be asked of her today.
Finally the Prince roused himself. ‘I think you should address the women. The patronesses. It is a gynaecological ward we are opening. Thank them for their donations which have helped create the facility and they will be happy.’
Her worst nightmare. What should she say? ‘Surely they would prefer your address to mine?’
‘Ha! You are a woman.’ He turned away. ‘I have decided.’
Typical. Like father, like son, she thought with an unhappy sigh.
* * *
As Kiki came to the end of her speech—more of a lecture on meeting health needs as all women deserved— than an informal thank-you, and Prince Paulo seemed happy enough. It had proved less of a trial than she had anticipated. But it had been stressful, and underneath she seethed.
She’d had an epiphany. Here she was for these women, and today of all days Stefano, of course, was not here for her.
Kiki estimated there were about fifty well-dressed women, most of them around her age. With women’s health so important she’d spoken from the heart, because that way at least she could be happy with what she said.
Until she asked for questions and of course the most difficult one surfaced.
Kiki looked at the woman and something warned her. Despite her designer clothes, her coiffed hair, she had sad, sad eyes, and Kiki knew this woman struggled in a dark place too.
The woman moistened her lips and Kiki leaned forward slightly to hear. ‘Are you afraid of miscarrying again?’
Kiki sighed and nodded. ‘But as a doctor I remind myself that one miscarriage, or even two miscarriages, does not mean I am more at risk. Yes, it crosses my mind, but I have to trust in the future.’
The woman smiled gently, closed her eyes and nodded. Then she whispered, ‘I lost my baby last month.’
Kiki felt her eyes sting and stepped down off the little podium. The others parted to let her through, and the two women embraced. Quietly, but unashamedly, so it carried to everyone in the room, Kiki said, ‘My baby would have been due today.’
When they drew apart and smiled mistily at each other Kiki knew she had found a friend, and for the first time she thought perhaps there were things she could achieve here if she and Stefano ever worked it out. But at this moment that seemed very unlikely. And the waste made her angrier.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Prince Paulo gesture to the Mayor to conclude the event, and she mentally prepared herself for the trip back with the Prince.
Bruno directed her to the podium again and then turned to the audience. ‘Thank you so much, Dr Fender, for your sincerity. We are all deeply appreciative of your presence today.’
Kiki stepped back, the crowd began to disperse, and she gathered her emotions and control. Just.
Until she saw Stefano arrive and cross to his father. She narrowed her eyes. Typical. Great timing, she thought, when it’s too late to support me, but in time to judge me. Her anger stepped up another notch. Of all days she had had to do this and he didn’t even know.
Stefano spoke briefly to his father and she saw Prince Paulo pat his son’s shoulder in an unusual gesture of affection. He nodded in her direction, and with his entourage cordially turned away.
Stefano crossed to her side. He seemed bemused. ‘My father said you did well. That the women liked you. Congratulations.’
Something snapped inside her. ‘Gee, thanks.’ She saw he didn’t miss the sarcasm and was glad. How dared he? She ‘did well’? So magnanimous of him. Was she supposed to be thrilled at his approval? And what if she hadn’t done well? Would he have been here to support her?
His gaze narrowed. ‘You’re angry? With me?’
‘Do you know what I told them?’
He shook his head warily, and she could feel emotion bubbling when she wanted to be ice-cold. Angry tears stung her eyes and she turned away from him, because the words wouldn’t come. She wanted them to spill out, hurt him as they hurt her, but she couldn’t make her mouth work.
* * *
He followed her as she walked blindly along the corridor back towards the entrance, and once he steered her gently when she would have taken a wrong turn.
Stefano didn’t know what to do. He could see that Kiki seethed with emotion. Had he pushed her too far by expecting her to do this today? But he’d had to operate. He reminded himself that she hadn’t been trained for these occasions as he had, and yet every time he asked something of her she responded magnificently. But at what cost?
She swept out of the hospital and he kept pace, nodding at those he passed as if it was his decision to continue this headlong race she had begun. She stopped at his car and spun to face him. The look in her eyes made him step back.
‘Do you know what you asked of me today?’
He didn’t want to know right here, right now, because it was not going to be pretty. He opened her door. ‘Please, first sit.’
She opened and shut her mouth, and
with relief he saw she would do as he asked. When he slid behind the wheel her emotion was like a wall between them and he put up his hand as if to touch it.
‘Can I ask you to wait a few more minutes? For the privacy you deserve, not for me. I wish to give you my undivided attention.’
Again she nodded, and he started the car and drove along the road until he came to a lay-by that overlooked the olive groves. He turned the engine off and faced her.
Finally the words spilled like bullets, and he winced.
‘Since yesterday morning my life has not been my own.’ She drew a breath. ‘You have accused me of many things, all of them incorrect, and you have constantly thrown me into situations that were beyond my control.’
He knew it was true. Last night, when he’d finally stopped thinking about himself, he had begun to realise just what he had put her through. And yet still she had been there for him. The more he had considered it the more he’d been able to see how he had failed her.
He deserved every accusation for the mistakes he’d made. For the need he couldn’t let go of to maintain control over his life. He wanted to say he was sorry for whatever he’d done, to hold her, comfort her. But the wall between them kept him back.
‘Can you tell me what happened in there?’
She jabbed her finger towards his head. ‘Can you tell me what happens in there? In your closely guarded mind that simply refuses to open to me. To trust.’ She shook her head with frustration. ‘You expect so little from me...’
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ Kiki insisted. ‘You would rather think I am a woman who will fail you than a woman who can succeed. I can succeed at anything.’ She looked at him sadly. ‘And I can succeed without you, Stefano.’
‘You have more than proved that.’ And then he looked at her. ‘Not once have you failed me. It is the other way round.’
‘I know. Why is that?’
He had no answer. He watched her shudder against the door as she leaned as far away as possible from him. His hand clenched uselessly, because he couldn’t mistake her aversion to any movement towards her on his part.
She stared out through the front windshield. ‘Today I was there for those women in a way you have never been for me. And it came home to me just how much you have let me down. The waste when we could have been so good. And, yes, it makes me very angry.’
She pointed an accusing finger at him.
‘I gave more than I thought I would have to. Again without your support. In the last few days I have been forced to publicly expose my pain again and again—and you know what? I can’t do it any more.’
She was right, and he hastened to reassure her. ‘I won’t ask it of you.’
She turned towards him and he saw the tears in her eyes, could feel her hurt in his own chest. She finally lifted her chin. As always, her strength astounded him.
He could hear the control she clung to in her voice. ‘You’ve missed the whole point of what I needed from you. Especially today.’
The words captured him. Something in her voice... ‘Why today?’
She didn’t answer that right away, and he almost missed the significance—again.
‘Because it’s heartbreaking to lose a baby. And today should have been about life. Not loss.’
‘Today?’ The full import of what she was saying finally seeped into his consciousness along with the anguish in her voice.
He read the confirmation on Kiki’s face and realised he truly did deserve to lose not only his child but this woman. And just when he’d come to understand how much he needed her in his life.
That he didn’t ever want to lose her.
Couldn’t lose her.
He was so afraid he had finally completely driven her away?
Stefano knew it was time to battle his own demons. To risk everything. Because if he didn’t he would lose the best thing that had ever happened to him. He reached for her, and to his shuddering relief this time she didn’t pull away.
He slid his finger under her chin and gently turned her to him, so he could cradle her face in his hands, stare into her beautiful eyes. ‘I am so sorry.’
He saw the reflection of his own sense of loss for what they’d had between them and ached to ease her pain.
‘I am sorry,’ he said again, and sighed. Why did he always do and say the wrong thing around this woman? ‘What I have done to you is unforgivable.’ He reflected over the last twenty-four hours and winced. His voice was bitter at his own stupidity. ‘My bullying and my anger at the public scrutiny didn’t take into account the cost to you.’
Mental screenshots flickered past like a horror film—the way he had dragged her to the palace, thrust his mother’s ring on her finger, installed her in his mother’s isolated rooms with barely an explanation. Left her alone to suffer while he’d worried more about others.
To make matters a hundred times worse he had then forced her to attend a ceremonial function that very night—most probably because he had truly expected her to fail. Then he would have been able to tell himself it would never work.
How could she ever love the monster he had become?
He heard the rasp as she drew in her breath. Watched her blink away the tears that glittered on her lashes as she raised her head.
He had lost her.
‘I was a monster to you.’
‘Yes, you were.’ But then she hugged him. ‘All that and more.’ She shifted her head back a little, so she could focus. ‘Why?’
He had nothing left to give her but the truth. ‘Because I was afraid.’
‘Of me?’
‘Of course of you.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘Of losing control of my life.’
She shook her head. He could see she didn’t understand that he knew she was already gone. That he knew he’d knew left his run too late.
She said again. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Already I have hurt you in so many ways because of my fears. I will take you back to the mainland this afternoon.’
‘You still don’t get it. I don’t want to go. You’ve been horrible, but I’ll survive.’
His hand lifted and one finger stroked her silken cheek. ‘Of course you will survive. You are magnificent. Last night you rose and faced them all as if you had been born to stand head and shoulders above the world.’ He was so proud of her, and ashamed of being the man who had subjected her to that. ‘No thanks to me.’
She went on in the same hard little voice. ‘And today I was there for those women in a way you have never been for me. It came home to me just how much you have let me down. And, yes, it makes me very angry.’
Her lips tilted, teased him, and his fear eased a little that she could still smile his way.
‘Some things I can thank you for. You rescued me from the press at the dock.’
‘Pah.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘That is nothing. I should not have left you. Well before that I was not there when you needed me the most.’
Stefano leant across and gathered her in next to him, felt her slight weight against him and wanted to protect her from the world. It had taken him too long to realise that was his mission.
‘You are here now,’ she said.
He drew her even closer. ‘Is it true that our baby was to have been born today?’
She nodded her head against him. Whispered, ‘Yes,’ and his heart contracted.
He moistened his lips, prayed she would hear the truth in his words, and finally said what he should have said when he’d first found out that they had made a baby together. ‘I am so sorry I was not there with you when our child slipped away from us.’
Her eyes shadowed as she returned to her most painful memory, allowed him to see through a small window to how it had been. She acknowledged his right to see, a
nd he realised that was the greatest gift she had given him yet.
‘It was night and I was alone.’ Kiki pressed her lips together to stop their wobble.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, more ashamed than he had ever been in all his life. ‘My poor, poor love. I wish I could have held you and shared your grief. I should have been there. Let me share it now.’ He squeezed her to him as he felt the dampness of his own eyes. ‘Please.’
Kiki turned her face into his chest and he stroked her hair as she remembered that night in the hospital. Her tiny, solitary room, dark and metallic, the loneliest place in the world when the pains had increased. Within minutes the bleeding had been so great that by the time a nurse arrived and rushed her off to Theatre her life had almost drained away.
She whispered into the silence between them, in a tiny sports car pulled over at the side of the road, on an island in the Mediterranean Sea with her prince beside her.
‘I knew that when I woke up from the anaesthetic it would be gone. Not just our baby, but any link to you.’
And then the tears came, great gulping sobs, and the tearing of her heart that she could finally share with Stefano as she was wrapped in the very arms she’d needed so badly that night so many lonely nights ago. And at last, after far too long, the final healing could begin.
Stefano held her tightly against him, gathering her shudders of grief as he gathered her closer, inhaling the scent of her hair, stroking her over and over again with all the tenderness he had in him. He had never felt as close to anyone in his whole life as he did to this woman at this moment. Had never allowed himself to do so in case he lost himself. But now he wanted to be lost.
Lost with her.
Random flashes of his past with Kiki rolled through his mind.
The first time he’d seen her, like a ray of sunshine in his day, radiant, confident, joyous. A heroine on her quest to help mankind.
The first time he’d held her hand and sensed there was something between them that defied description yet was instantly recognisable—something he would never forget despite all the obstacles fate had thrown up against them.
And that magical week when she had opened her home, her arms and her heart just for him. Stefano the man—not Stefano the Prince. Even when he’d been away, recovering, she’d been like a shadow behind him that refused to be forgotten.
The Prince Who Charmed Her Page 14
