A pin-drop silence fell around the polished table. Suddenly realising that ten pairs of eyes were fixed on him, Casimiro also became aware that he was being asked a question. And that he didn’t have a damned clue what the question was. Because for once he hadn’t been listening properly—his attention only half given over to the contentious subject of fishing rights in a disputed area of sea. His ministers had come to the meeting well briefed, the subject was one with which he was familiar—and yet although Casimiro had tried his best to concentrate it had been to no avail.
Because all he could think of was that stubborn and out spoken wife of his and the way she had dared to remonstrate with him over breakfast!
For a while he let himself remember her stinging words. Her emotional claim that he didn’t ‘do’ feelings. His mouth twisted with scorn. What did she think he was—one of these new men who treated every conversation as if it were a therapy session?
Her accusation about not spending enough time with his son had hit him even harder. He thought of Ben’s gurgling little smile. The way his chubby little arms clamped themselves tightly around his papa’s neck. Did she imagine that he didn’t miss playing and swimming with his son? Didn’t she realise that honeymoons were not like real life—and that he would leap at the opportunity to spend more time with Ben if he were not so weighed down by the demands of being ruler? The ministers were still looking at him expectantly and Casimiro tried to shift the haunting memory of Melissa’s bright green eyes and trembling lips, and to play for time instead.
Because something was troubling him and it all boiled down to a simple sense of logic…if he didn’t ‘do’ feelings—then what the hell could explain this bleak kind of emptiness which seemed to have descended on him like a dark cloud?
He tried to shake off the inexplicable gloom by glancing across the table at Orso—knowing that his loyal aide could always gauge the mood of others, and could instinctively communicate to him what that mood was. And there had been many times when he had been grateful for Orso’s instinct in the past—when he had been shielding his memory loss from the world.
Yet now he was free of that amnesia—and it had been Melissa who had jogged his memory and made it return. Melissa who had freed him from the burden and the worry about the blankness in his mind. Had he ever thanked her for that? Made her realise how liberating it felt?
Raising his eyebrows, he turned to his aide. ‘What do you think about this proposed concession, Orso?’
Orso bowed his head in response. ‘You are the King, Your Majesty.’
Casimiro knew that his aide was playing the procrastination card and that this was a term suggesting that the deal should not be sealed today. But for once, he saw beyond the diplomatic short hand they habitually used. For once, he took the words at face value—and what he saw in them brought him up short, so that he frowned with a mixture of concern and comprehension.
Because, yes, he was the King, yet sometimes he felt more of a puppet—his strings jerked by the demands of his people. By their expectations of him and his own ideas about how those expectations should be met. Ideas which had been passed on down to him by his father, who had governed in a very different time. Yet he was the King, he reminded himself again. And his power was absolute. He could rule this kingdom of Zaffirinthos as he saw fit—and the monarchy was not set in stone. It was his—to be forged and formed as suited him and his life. And Casimiro suddenly realised that if he did not embrace the changes which were necessary to take the monarchy forward, then surely the institution ran the risk of stultifying, or dying—or simply becoming a crushing burden which no one in their right mind would want to take on.
And what kind of poisoned chalice would that be to hand onto his own son?
He was about to suggest reconvening the meeting, when they were interrupted by one of the Queen’s assistants, her face so wreathed with anxiety and her curtsey so clumsy that Casimiro bit back his instinctive rebuke at the unexpected disruption.
‘Yes, what is it?’ he clipped out.
‘It’s…it’s the Queen, Your Majesty!’
Casimiro rose from his chair. ‘What of the Queen?’
‘She has…gone!’
‘Gone?’ he bit out, unprepared for the sudden chill which iced his skin. ‘Gone where?’
‘We don’t know, sire. All we know is that the Prince Benjamin has been crying for his mother and that the Queen always wishes to be informed whenever he—’
‘Where the hell is she?’ he demanded again. ‘Somebody must know.’
‘She just said she was going out for a walk, Your Majesty.’
‘She didn’t say where?’
‘No, sire.’
With a heart which now felt like ice, Casimiro recalled more of the words Melissa had whispered to him: I’m telling you that I can’t live like that—and one of these days I might not be here when you return from one of your trips, Casimiro.
Had she meant it? Literally meant it? Found him so overbearing and forbidding that she had run away? He felt the sharp tearing of pain and the realisation of what a fool he had been. A stupid, thoughtless fool.
‘Send out search parties immediately,’ he commanded. ‘And mobilise the helicopter. Alert the airport, too. I don’t care what you have to do, just find her. Find her.’ Hands gripping into tight fists, he headed towards the door—his aides and ministers instantly moving aside as they looked at him with fear written on their faces.
He ran into the grounds, his eyes scanning the vast expanse of green lawns—as if expecting to see her suddenly walking towards him. But there was no sign of her—and the nearby whoosh of air as the helicopter began its ascent somehow filled him with a new sense of foreboding instead of providing reassurance.
Uselessly, he watched as the helicopter grew smaller—a small black dot which began to head for the dark sapphire haze of the sea—and Casimiro set out at a run in the opposite direction, when his cell phone began to sound furiously in his pocket.
Snatching it up, he listened in silence for a moment and then his mouth hardened. ‘Send the car to me. Now!’ he ordered tersely, in Greek.
Within minutes, the four-wheel drive came scorching to a halt beside him and Casimiro leapt into the front seat, exchanging no conversation with the driver or the body guard other than the clipped order to hurry as they raced along the cliff path.
Overhead, the helicopter was buzzing in one particular spot and as soon as the car screeched to a halt Casimiro jumped out, running to the edge of the jaggedly high cliff—to see the unmistakable vision of his wife wading into the clear blue water beneath.
The fierce, ragged sound he made was a cry—but instead of issuing from his lungs it seemed to have been torn from his soul itself.
‘Melissa!’
But the wind must have carried the word away—either that or she was just ignoring it—for she continued to wade into the sea. ‘Get rid of that damned helicopter!’ he demanded, and as the driver barked instructions into a handset the aircraft began to move back through the sky towards the palace.
Shaking his head as his body guard at tempted to accompany him, Casimiro began to scramble down the rocky steps—and never had a journey seemed to take so long. Only when he was almost at the bottom did he shout out her name again.
‘Melissa!’
In the water, Melissa stilled as a new sound disturbed the silence of the day. A shout which sounded louder even than the helicopter which had been circling overhead but which had now flown away. A shout she would never have recognised if she hadn’t turned around and seen the tall, dark figure of her husband descending the steep stone stairs which led down to the beach. She narrowed her eyes—wondering if the bright sunshine had conjured up some sort of illusion.
Casimiro?
He was in wall-to-wall meetings followed by a trip to the naval base, wasn’t he? But no, the renewed shout was louder still and it was definitely no illusion, for now he had reached the beach and was tearing off his jacket whil
e running across on the sand towards her with the grace and speed of a natural athlete.
Casimiro? She stood stock-still and watched him.
Kicking off his shoes, he moved fast. So fast that Melissa barely realised what he was doing until he had plunged half dressed into the sea and started wading and then swimming. All she was aware of was his hard, honed body ploughing through the azure water towards her.
‘Casimiro!’ she croaked.
But by then he had reached her, had caught hold of her—effortlessly half lifting her from the water against the water-plastered silk of his chest—his dark face a series of stark and shifting emotions: fear and anger and anguish. So that for a moment it didn’t look like Casimiro at all.
‘Che cazzo stai facendo?’ he demanded fiercely, and then when he saw her blank expression, pulled her closer still—his amber eyes burning like flames as they engulfed her in their angry blaze. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MELISSA stared into her husband’s angry face and met the hot challenge in his eyes full on, her heart crashing against her ribcage in bewilderment. ‘I…I was going swimming, of course! Wh-what did you think I was doing?’
Casimiro let out a strangled sort of sigh, which seemed to have been dragged from some dark place deep inside him. ‘How should I know?’ he exclaimed. ‘How the hell should I know?’
And suddenly Melissa saw the fear which underpinned his outward fury. The way his aristocratic features looked knife-sharp beneath the blanched colour of his olive skin. ‘You didn’t think…’ Confused thoughts crowded into her head. ‘You didn’t think I was walking out to sea—about to end it all because we’d had a row?’ Now the thoughts became more focused. And her own fury rose up to match his. ‘When I have a beautiful little son waiting for me back there at the palace? Do you really think I place so little value on him, Casimiro—or on me?’
He stared down into her green eyes and shook his head, feeling the mad race of his heart against his sodden shirt. ‘I wasn’t thinking at all,’ he said, in a raw voice. ‘I was acting on pure instinct.’ Some primitive instinct which had made him want to run straight into the sea and haul her into the safety of his arms.
‘And instinct demanded that you rush fully clothed into the sea, did it?’ she questioned, trying to pull away from him, but he wasn’t having any of it, his grip like an iron clamp around her waist.
He gave an odd kind of laugh. ‘Just what would you expect me to do, Melissa? When one of your staff burst into my meeting and told me they couldn’t find you. That you were gone—only nobody knew where. And that you hadn’t even taken a body guard with you. This is unprecedented behaviour for the monarch’s consort—how was I to know what had happened?’
She heard the unfamiliar tremor which shook his deep voice and for the first time Melissa realised that her need to escape had been completely thoughtless. That it had fed the well-founded fears of a powerful man who had always lived his life in the shadow of danger.
‘It was never my intention to alarm you,’ she said woodenly. ‘I’m sorry.’
His fingers bit into her flesh as he held her tighter. ‘So what did happen, Melissa? Why did you take off without warning? Was it to punish me?’
‘To punish you?’
He stared at her. Could he have blamed her for wanting to punish him? And wasn’t he now forced to confront the truth—no matter how painful that truth might be? ‘For my high-handedness,’ he said bitterly. ‘For treating you as a possession instead of as a partner. For failing to talk to you properly, or listen to you.’
Her heart began to pound. Was this the prelude to making some kind of unexpected announcement—for telling her that it was never going to work and that he was going to give her back the freedom she so obviously craved? Had her brief flirtation with rebellion back fired spectacularly on her—had he given into the ultimatum he’d accused her of issuing?
Suddenly she caught the blinding flash of light from higher up and realised that they were being watched. And that whatever Casimiro had to tell her, she would accept it with dignity. She had to—for hadn’t she already tried harder than most women would have done in a doomed attempt to make their relationship deeper than it could ever be? But with the best will in the world, even she didn’t think she could accept the end of her marriage being played out in front of an audience.
‘You do realise that your security people have got binoculars trained on us? And that we’re standing half sub merged in water—you dressed only in a shirt and a pair of trousers. And maybe we shouldn’t be having this discussion here.’
Glancing upwards, he scowled. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said, and then, without warning, he bent and lifted her into his arms and began to carry her towards the shore.
‘Casimiro, please. This is crazy—’
‘Damned right it is,’ he said grimly.
‘I’m perfectly capable of walking.’
‘And maybe I’m afraid that you just might run off again.’
‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous!’
‘Ridiculous, am I, cara? I don’t think so.’
By now they had reached the dry sand, but still he had her in his arms—and her heart was racing with a tumult of confused feelings as she felt her skin sizzling against his wet clothes. ‘Look, will you put me down?’ she said breathlessly. ‘I promise I won’t run anywhere. Please.’
‘No.’ Still holding her, he continued to walk over to where a crop of high overhanging rocks provided a shaded haven beneath. Only then did he lower her gently to her feet, but he stood his ground, legs parted, his body gleaming with droplets of water. Fixing her in the spotlight of his gaze, his dark golden eyes captured and held her. ‘So what happened, Melissa?’ he repeated softly. ‘I want to know.’
But Melissa shook her head, suddenly loath to tell him of all the doubts and fears which haunted her and made her feel so hopeless about the future—for now that the chips were down, it seemed too big a gamble to take. Wouldn’t an admission like that make her more vulnerable still? A slave to his imperious mood if he knew that somehow she couldn’t help herself from loving him. Hadn’t he made it clear from the very start that he was not the kind of man who wanted that love—and hadn’t his actions since only driven that fact home?
‘Why are you here?’ she asked bluntly.
He was aware that she was stalling. Batting back his questions in a way he wasn’t used to—for the King always received immediate answers. But not from his wife, it seemed. His gaze raked over her face and suddenly Casimiro saw the apprehension widening her green eyes and an overwhelming sense of remorse filled him.
Still he hesitated, knowing that he had to tell her everything—but how to begin? How did a man start to express feelings when he had done his level best to deny their existence all his life? ‘Because I need to talk to you.’
The words sounded symbolic—but maybe that was just a figment of Melissa’s imagination. She could hear the rhythm of the waves, but they sounded a long way away—just as everything seemed a long way away at that moment. It was only her and Casimiro thrashing out differences which had always seemed in surmountable—and the bitter truth was that they still did.
She stared at him. ‘Why—what have you got to say?’
The coolness in her voice chilled him as he realised that this wasn’t going to be easy. That he must bare his soul to her if he was to have any kind of chance for the future—and never had a single action seemed quite so daunting. ‘What if I told you that I’ve been a stupid, unthinking fool—that I’ve put up so many barriers and risked losing the most important things in my life, which are you, and Ben? And what if I told you that I want to trust you?’ he questioned quietly. ‘That I’ve realised we can’t have any kind of marriage without trust and I can’t bear to watch the growing sadness in your eyes as I throw back everything you keep trying to offer me.’
She shook her head. ‘Stop it,’ she whispered. ‘Just stop it. Y
ou don’t have to say things you don’t mean—just because you think I want to hear them.’
‘You believe that?’
Her laugh was tinged with bitterness. ‘Can you blame me?’ Melissa stared down at the sand so that he wouldn’t see the traitorous tears which had blurred her eyes. ‘Why should you suddenly have changed?’
The whispered accusation hurt, but he could not deny its accuracy. No, he couldn’t blame her. Not for any thing. He thought of how he’d lashed out at her—at how his coldness and his refusal to communicate might have driven her away. Might still drive her away.
And as he stared at her bent head he felt a pain at his heart—a terrible tearing pain he had felt as a teenager when his father had fiercely told him that princes did not cry. That he must be dry-eyed as he walked behind his mother’s coffin on that cold and leafless winter day. He had vowed never to feel that kind of pain again—to protect himself from its merciless onslaught—and yet he was feeling it now. He recognized now that pain was the price you paid for love. And recognized, too, that a hurt even greater lay waiting unless he could convince his wife that he was prepared to change.
He became aware that she was shivering. ‘Wait here,’ he said tersely, returning just seconds later with his discarded jacket, from which he shook stray grains of sand, and then looped it gently about her shoulders.
Melissa inhaled deeply—she just couldn’t help it. Because the jacket smelt of him—his own distinctive scent—all musk and sandalwood and pure, unadulterated male. She felt surrounded by him—cocooned by him—and wasn’t that a perilous way to feel?
‘Sit down,’ he said softly.
Aware that he was trying to cajole her—and she still wasn’t quite sure why—Melissa sank down onto the shaded sand and stared up into his golden eyes. ‘Okay, I’m sitting down and I’m warm. So why don’t you tell me what it is you want to say, Casimiro?’
Casimiro saw the way she had crossed her arms tightly over her chest—in a gesture which unmistakably said go away. He wanted to reach out and touch her but somehow he recognised that touch would blur the edges of what he knew he had to say—that he needed to do this without any reliance on the senses.
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