Harlequin Romance August 2014 Bundle

by Douglas, Michelle; Gordon, Lucy; Pembroke, Sophie; Hardy, Kate

  And he actually found himself writing music again—something he hadn’t done in a long, long time. He knew he’d been inspired by Indigo and the way she acted on impulse and saw joy in everything.

  Each day grew more bittersweet, because each day was nearer to the moment when he’d have to leave her.

  And then it hit him.

  He didn’t want to leave her. He liked having Indigo in his life, and he was pretty sure she liked having him in her life. OK, so they’d agreed this would be a fling and it would end when he left for Melvante. But there was no reason why they couldn’t renegotiate that agreement.

  ‘Indi—I’ve been thinking,’ he said, when they were lying on a blanket by the summer house, looking up at the stars.

  ‘Should I be worried?’ she teased.

  ‘I leave in three days.’

  ‘I know.’ She stroked his face. ‘I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I’ll miss you, too.’ He shifted so that he was facing her and could look into her eyes. ‘That’s why I’ve been thinking. It doesn’t have to be like this.’

  ‘Yes, it does. You’re going off to be King of Melvante, and I’m staying here at Edensfield to finish my work on the library windows.’

  ‘You’ve made a business commitment, and of course you want to honour that. But when you’ve finished here, there’s nothing to stop you coming to Melvante and being with me.’ He stole a kiss. ‘Between-times, we’re going to have to be pretty much long-distance, but we’re only a couple of hours apart by plane. We can work something out.’

  ‘Hang on. Are you saying you want to make this thing between us...?’ She looked at him, wide-eyed.

  ‘Official and no longer temporary. Yes.’

  * * *

  He wanted to be with her. In public as well as in private. And she wouldn’t be Indigo Moran, stained-glass restorer, any more. She’d be the equivalent of a royal WAG, living her life on a public stage, hobbled by rules and regulations.

  Yes, she’d be with Lorenzo. She wouldn’t have to give him up.

  But the misery of his lifestyle would eat into their relationship, sucking up all the love and leaving nothing but emptiness and hurt.

  And she really, really didn’t want that. She wanted to keep these memories intact. Perfect.

  ‘Indi?’ he asked.

  Telling him the truth would hurt him. But going along with what he wanted would hurt him more, in the end. ‘No, we couldn’t,’ she said softly. ‘I wouldn’t fit into your world, Lorenzo.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just do.’

  Which gave him nothing to argue against. He needed to know why she was so set against it. So he asked her straight out. ‘Indi, what’s so bad about my world?’

  ‘It’s full of rules and regulations. You’re stuck in a box and you’re expected to stay there. And you have to watch what you do, the whole time. Especially now there’s social media—it means you can never switch off. You’re being watched every second of the day. One accidental slip, and suddenly you’ve told the whole world something that maybe you would rather have kept private. It’s like talking with a megaphone in the middle of a plinth on Trafalgar Square. And it gets passed on within seconds—juicy gossip.’ She shuddered.

  ‘And then someone else does something, and what you said or did is forgotten about.’

  ‘Until the next time. Then it’s dragged up again. Every little mistake is catalogued and held against you.’

  ‘You’d be in a different position, as my partner,’ he said. ‘Nobody would try to put you down.’

  * * *

  She could see in his expression that he really believed it. For someone so clever, she thought, sometimes he just didn’t have a clue what it was like in the real world. ‘Maybe not to my face, but behind my back they would. Everyone expects you to marry a princess. And the press would be merciless. They’d want to know what you see in me. They’d dig up all the stuff about my parents.’ And about Nigel—and she really didn’t want to tell Lorenzo about that. She was too ashamed of how naive and stupid she’d been, having a relationship with a man who’d turned out to be married. And it still hurt to think about the miscarriage; talking about it was next to impossible.

  ‘You can’t be held to ransom by the choices your parents made,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t fit into your world, Lorenzo. Don’t ask me. I don’t want to be the stick that the press uses to beat you. And we only have a few days left together. Please don’t spoil it.’

  * * *

  What could he say to that?

  All he could do was hold her.

  And, that night, his lovemaking was much more intense. Yearning. If only she’d give them a chance, he was sure they could make it work.

  But stubborn was definitely her middle name, and he didn’t have a clue where to start convincing her that life with him wouldn’t be anywhere near as scary as she feared.

  * * *

  On Lorenzo’s last night, he fell asleep in Indigo’s arms. She lay there, unable to sleep and wishing that she could somehow freeze time.

  He’d asked her to make their relationship permanent. But how could she? She’d expose him to the kind of scandal he really didn’t need, especially as he was just going to start ruling Melvante. She didn’t want that tarnished.

  ‘You’re going to be a brilliant king,’ she whispered, holding him close. ‘Go with my love, always, and I wish things could’ve been different.’

  Now, she knew she was always going to be on her own, because Lorenzo had spoiled her for other men. Nobody would ever match up to him, and it wouldn’t be fair to get involved with someone else, knowing that he’d always be second best to Lorenzo. But being single was fine. She had good friends and her job. They’d see her through.

  Though, when Lorenzo did marry his suitable princess, Indigo definitely wasn’t going to tune in to the televised broadcast. She’d wish him luck, but she couldn’t watch him marry someone else.

  ‘I wish we’d met in another life,’ she said softly. ‘When things could have worked. But it wasn’t to be, and we’re going to be grown up about it. We’re going to shake hands, say goodbye, and walk away from each other with our hearts intact.’

  Even though she knew she was lying to herself.

  * * *

  When Lorenzo woke, the next morning, Indigo was still asleep. Her mermaid hair was spread all over the pillow, and her eyelashes were so long. So cute.

  ‘If only you weren’t so stubborn,’ he said softly. Why couldn’t she see that they could make it work? This was the twenty-first century, and a lot of the old social taboos had been broken. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t a princess. It didn’t matter that her parents hadn’t been married and that she was the child of an affair—it wasn’t her fault. And he knew that Indigo was strong enough to hold her own in any social situation; she had a genuine warmth and enthusiasm that would draw people to her. Even those who maybe wouldn’t want to accept her at first would come round, once they’d met her.

  But the main stumbling block was Indigo herself.

  If she didn’t believe in herself—in their relationship—then it couldn’t work.

  How could he get her to believe?

  He held her until she woke, then made love to her one last time. And he knew his own eyelashes were as wet as hers.

  ‘We don’t have to say goodbye,’ he said, holding her close. ‘We can make this work.’

  She simply shook her head, as if not trusting herself to speak.

  He sighed, and reached for his wallet. ‘Here.’

  She looked at the storage card. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘For you. I wrote a song. Well, there aren’t any words. But it’s called “Indigo”.’

  ‘You wrote a song for me?’

&n
bsp; ‘About how you make me feel.’

  ‘Nobody’s ever written a song for me before.’ She stared at him in wonder. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You might hate it.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Funny how she could be so sure of that, and yet she didn’t have that same belief in them.

  ‘Actually, I have something for you.’ She slid out of bed and rummaged in a drawer, then handed him a cardboard tube. ‘Don’t look at it now. Later.’

  She’d drawn something for him?

  ‘Thank you,’ he said softly.

  She swallowed hard. ‘I guess this is goodbye. I don’t...not in front of everyone else.’

  She’d be working when he left, he guessed. So she could hide behind her glass.

  ‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘I’m not going to say the words.’

  ‘Be happy,’ she said. ‘And you’re going to be an awesome king.’

  There was a lump in his throat and it was hard to get the words out. ‘You be happy, too. And I hope you find someone who can give you what I can’t.’ Freedom. But he was pretty sure that she wouldn’t find someone who loved her the way he’d grown to love her.

  Later, on the plane back to Melvante, he opened the cardboard tube and took out the piece of cartridge paper. She’d drawn an angel in a rose bower—and the angel had his face.

  Indigo and her angels. He smiled fondly, remembering the church they’d visited together and the joy in her face as she’d shown him the glass.

  Then he looked closer. Was it his imagination, or were those roses covering the bars of a cage?

  That was how she saw his life. Trapped in a cage.

  But it didn’t have to be that way. It could be just roses. Somehow, he was going to have to convince her. And not just her: he also had to convince his grandfather that he’d found the woman who would be right for him and right for Melvante.

  And maybe a little space between them—space where she had time to think and time to miss him—would help him do that.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE BED WAS too wide, the days were too long and everything felt muted.

  So much for being able to walk away intact at the end of their affair, Indigo thought. She’d really been deluding herself.

  Still. Lorenzo had gone back to Melvante, where he belonged, and that was that. She still had the job she loved, and some good friends who were every bit as good as family. So she’d be just fine, she told herself sternly. Crying herself to sleep was pointless and ridiculous.

  But she found it really hard to face breakfast in the mornings.

  And she kept waking up at night. Which was ridiculous. At her age, she shouldn’t need to get up in the middle of the night to go to the loo.

  And maybe it was time she started watching what she ate, because her bra was feeling too tight.

  A nasty, insidious thought wormed its way into her brain. Wonky appetite, tight bra, needing the loo in the middle of the night...She’d been there before, a couple of years ago. When her life had imploded.

  No. Of course not. She was being paranoid. She and Lorenzo had always been careful about contraception. The last thing a king-to-be needed was an accidental baby, particularly when there was no way he could marry the baby’s mother. And she had seriously unhappy memories from her miscarriage, two years ago.

  But, now she thought about it, her period was a few days late. And she was usually regular down to the hour.

  Maybe her period was late because she was stressed and upset about Lorenzo leaving. She hoped so. Because the alternative—that somehow their contraception had failed—would make life way, way too complicated.

  Toto had taken to following Indigo about since Lorenzo had left, and tended to stay by her side in the workroom. The Labrador thumped his tail against the floor and nuzzled her knee, as if to say that he could tell she was upset and he was there.

  ‘Lovely boy.’ Indigo bent to make a fuss of him. ‘I’m being stupid. Of course I’m not pregnant. I can’t be.’

  Though being pregnant would also explain why she kept crying. The tears could be due to her hormones running amok, not just because she missed the man she loved but knew she couldn’t have.

  ‘I can’t be pregnant,’ she said again.

  Though she knew she wouldn’t be able to settle until she knew the truth.

  After the visitors had left Edensfield and her workroom was silent again, she drove to the nearest large town where she knew she’d be anonymous and bought a pregnancy test from the supermarket.

  ‘Indigo Moran, you’re being totally ridiculous. Of course you’re not pregnant, and this is going to prove it once and for all,’ she told herself sternly.

  Back in her bathroom at Edensfield, she did the test, and watched the windows. One to show that she’d performed the test properly, and one that could turn her life upside down.

  The last time she’d done a pregnancy test, she’d cried with joy, thinking that although the baby wasn’t planned it would give Nigel the excuse he needed to commit properly to her. That she’d have their baby. That once again in her life she’d have someone who was related to her by blood, someone she could love and who’d love her back.

  Nigel’s reaction to the news had shocked her to the core. But she’d decided to keep the baby; after all, it wasn’t the baby’s fault that its father had turned out to be a cheat and a liar.

  And then, six weeks later, she’d felt the drag low in her belly as she’d miscarried.

  She sucked in a breath. This wasn’t going to be like that. At all. Because she wasn’t pregnant. She wasn’t. She couldn’t be.

  Shaking herself mentally, she glanced at the test stick again.

  And then she saw the result.

  Positive.

  * * *

  Melvante might be his home, but it wasn’t where his heart was, Lorenzo thought.

  Being without Indigo for the last few days had crystallised for him exactly what he wanted in a life partner—someone who was bright and sparkly in her own right, who would support him and help him think straight by asking awkward questions, and who would keep her own interests in life, too. He loved her free-spiritedness.

  Except he knew she was right about the sticking point. She’d hate what his lifestyle would become, once he was crowned king.

  But there had to be a middle way. There had to be space for compromise. And hopefully, if she missed him as much as he missed her, she’d help him work out a compromise to suit them both.

  He lasted two more days before he tackled his grandfather at the breakfast table.

  ‘Nonno, you know you said I should think about marriage?’

  ‘Yes.’ His grandfather poured them both more coffee. ‘So you’re ready to discuss it? Good. I’ve drawn up a list of suitable brides.’ He smiled at Lorenzo. ‘Just as my father did for me.’

  ‘That’s the point, Nonno. I’ve already met the woman I want to marry,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Her name’s Indigo Moran, she’s a stained-glass restoration specialist, and she’s—well, she makes me a better man. And I know I’ll be a better king if I marry for love rather than duty.’

  ‘I’ve had this conversation before.’ His grandfather grimaced. ‘With your father. He married for love, and look what happened.’

  He’d ended up driving his car into a brick wall, with Lorenzo’s mother by his side, killing them both. The rest of the world thought it was a tragic accident, but Lorenzo and his grandfather knew the truth: it had been a deliberate act, because Lorenzo’s father couldn’t bear the idea of his wife leaving him.

  Lorenzo looked his grandfather straight in the eye. ‘Nonno, I’ve spent most of my life trying to show you that I’m not my father. Indigo is nothing like my mother.’

  ‘Your father married for love and it we
nt wrong,’ his grandfather pointed out. ‘I married for duty, and your grandmother and I were happy together. We both knew what was expected of us.’

  ‘I want to marry someone who understands my work and supports me,’ Lorenzo said.

  ‘Which your grandmother did for me.’

  ‘Did you love Nonna?’ Lorenzo asked.

  ‘I respected her and I admired her,’ his grandfather said. ‘So, yes, I loved her.’

  ‘Whenever you saw her, did your heart beat faster and the world seem a little brighter?’

  His grandfather smiled ruefully. ‘Lorenzo, you’re confusing passion with love. Love is something that grows out of respect and mutual understanding. Something solid. Passion...that never lasts. It’s like a firework—it burns brightly, it feels spectacular, and it’s over almost immediately. Take my advice, and marry for sense—don’t marry for passion. Your father married for passion, and he regretted it.’

  ‘I’m not my father,’ Lorenzo said again. ‘I was thinking—you wanted to do something to mark the coronation. We could commission a rose window for the castle.’

  ‘And you just happen to know a glass specialist,’ his grandfather said wryly.

  Lorenzo smiled. ‘OK, so that was a little unsubtle. But it’s a good way for you to meet Indi without raising any expectations on either side.’

  ‘How does she feel about you?’ his grandfather asked.

  ‘That’s tricky,’ Lorenzo said. ‘She has doubts about the world we live in. She thinks it’s like a goldfish bowl.’

  ‘It is, and she’s right to have doubts. Our world isn’t an easy one.’ His grandfather sighed. ‘You need to understand that you and I have responsibilities that other people don’t. We have to put the needs of our country before our own needs. Which is why you need to marry someone who can cope with our world. Someone who’s been brought up in it. Someone who doesn’t have doubts.’