The Impoverished Princess

by Robyn Donald

  ‘Only those so-called freedom fighters,’ she said dryly, ‘whose hides might be nailed to the wall if anyone in power in Montevel finds out what they’ve been up to.’

  He gave a short unamused laugh. ‘I could almost say it would serve them right. Alex didn’t think that would happen. The man they used as our contact—another student at college—has just been told we decided not to go ahead with it.’

  ‘How did he take that?’

  He shrugged. ‘Oh, called us cowards and so on.’

  It was obvious the accusation still stung, but he went on, ‘Which was pretty rich, because he stayed safely in Paris while we went off in that yacht. After talking to Gerd and Alex, we all decided we’d been led up the garden path, so we weren’t impressed by his ranting. I’m the only one who knows who was actually running the show, and they don’t know I know. They’ll be certain we can’t give them away. As far as anyone is concerned, we’ve been creating a game.’

  Serina said quietly, ‘That’s a relief. I’ve been so worried.’

  He hesitated, then asked, ‘Forgive me for lying to you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Just don’t ever do it again.’

  ‘Promise.’ He cheered up. ‘And, talking about a video game, guess what? One of the big gaming firms wants to have a look at the idea. Alex thinks we should go into discussion with them; he’s given us the name of a very good negotiator and says he’ll back us!’

  Serina swallowed and said brightly, ‘That’s wonderful.’

  He laughed. ‘Well, actually, we now have to come up with a proposition,’ he said, ‘but that’s OK. We always viewed it as a game anyway, so it won’t take us long to get something together.’

  Serina viewed him with wry relief. It was typical of him to put the bad things behind him and move easily onto the next part of his life.

  She’d do that too—although, she thought wearily, Alex had been such a magnificent lover she suspected she’d compare any other man with him in the future.

  A wave of revulsion at that thought made her get up and start unpacking. It would take her time to get over him.

  She could do it.

  That night Serina penned what she intended to be a brief thank you letter to Alex. By the time she’d finished it had turned into several paragraphs. She ad dressed it and sealed it. Tomorrow she’d post it, and that would be an end to everything.

  Serina sat down and opened the magazine. Her first column on New Zealand…

  How long ago those weeks seemed now. And how foolish she’d been then, how incredibly naïve. A couple of months after she’d got home, she still longed for Alex. She’d somehow assumed she could be like her father, moving from lover to lover without pain.

  Instead, she’d been forced to accept that she was her mother all over again—a one-man woman, unable to cut the bonds of her love and move on. She still dreamed of Alex, still opened her email every morning hoping to see something from him, shuffled through the post each day, still devoured the financial pages eagerly, because every so often there was something about him…

  Of course he hadn’t contacted her. He was a busy magnate, head of a huge empire, and he probably had another lover now, someone much less inhibited than she was, someone who knew the rules and wouldn’t fall in love with him.

  She picked up the magazine and flicked through the pages, her brows shooting up when she caught a feature on Rassel, who appeared to have taken his latest inspiration from space travel. If he thought women were going to wear clothes that made them look fat and ungainly, he was sadly wrong…

  Pulling a face, she found her page and settled down to check the photographs and read the copy. Halfway through it, she suddenly realised she was staring at the garden at Haruru.

  ‘No,’ she breathed, horrified. Perhaps it was an illusion—like her dreams. If she blinked, it might go away.

  But it didn’t.

  She swallowed and read on. ‘Oh, God,’ she groaned. Alex’s name was there.

  Wincing, she recalled taking the photograph—the night they’d made love…

  She’d emailed the shots to her editor to make sure they’d reproduce well enough for the magazine, stressing they were not to be used.

  How had it happened?

  Leaping to her feet, she called the editor. Ten minutes of profuse apologies later, she lowered herself into the chair again and looked once more at the photographs.

  ‘All right,’ she said aloud. She was tired of longing uselessly, weary of her own futility. This gave her the chance to contact Alex.

  She glanced at her watch, did a mental calculation and relaxed. He’d still be awake—if he was at the homestead.

  Cold with apprehension, she dialled the number, only to feel a huge let-down when the house keeper answered and told her Alex was overseas on a business trip.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know when he’ll be back. Can I get him to ring you when he returns?’ she asked politely.

  ‘Thank you,’ Serina said, equally politely.

  That night she woke in darkness into terror. Hand held over her thudding heart, she couldn’t stop shaking. Thick silence enveloped her, pressed down on her chilled skin, froze her.

  Slowly, slowly, she turned to face the thing that had hunted her for so long. At first she couldn’t see in the darkness around her, but slowly a form coalesced out of it, tall and solid, standing still and watching her.

  ‘Alex,’ she breathed in aching supplication.

  He said nothing.

  She called to him then, frantically trying to break through the cocoon of silence and rejection, and after long moments of silence his lips moved as he said her name.

  She heard it in every cell of her body.

  He turned away and walked into the darkness. Serina collapsed, sobbing, to her knees, rocking herself back and forward in paroxysms of grief.

  Now she understood just what she’d been running from all her life. Herself. The strictures she’d grown up with, the need to be always in control… Her sexuality.

  But, most of all, she’d been fleeing from love.

  The shock jolted her fully awake. She was alone in her own bedroom and she was shivering feverishly, tears burning her eyes.

  She should have heeded that dream and avoided love. It hurt so much, so much more than she’d ever imagined it could. At last she understood how her mother had felt with each in fidelity, each betrayal of her love for her husband.

  Serina pressed her hands to her eyes, wishing she could go back, reclaim her heart, go on with her cool, unemotional life…

  And knew she was lying to herself. Whatever the cost, loving Alex was worth it. With him, she’d discovered her own blossoming sexuality, a vividness to life that would fade, but that she’d remember.

  She woke the next morning with a headache and during the morning found herself flinching at the noise that poured in from the street. Memories flooded through her of Haruru, fresh and green and fragrant with flower scents, the faint tang of the sea, the clear light…

  She felt a longing that was physical, an ache in her heart for the place and the man…

  After lunch she’d have a nap, she promised herself as she tidied and cleaned the apartment. Surely that would banish the lingering miasma of the dream.

  The doorbell rang. Biting back a sigh, she walked across to the door and opened it.

  And there was Alex, tall and dominating and very controlled—except for eyes as cold as a polar winter.

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ Serina said, stark fear stopping any logical thought.

  ‘Surely you expected me?’ he enquired, all smooth menace. ‘Invite me in, Serina.’

  She wasn’t afraid of him—she was not! Stepping back, she held the door open. And she wasn’t ashamed of her apartment, either. It was all she could afford, and she’d made it as pleasant as she could.

  He didn’t even look around. That lethal gaze was fixed on her, sending a shiver scudding the length of her spine.
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br />   ‘No, I didn’t expect you,’ she told him, aching with love for him. ‘I’ve only just seen the magazine. I’m sorry. It was a mistake.’

  ‘It certainly was.’ He paused, then added softly, ‘Your mistake.’

  It was then that Serina knew she was never going to stop loving this man. Never. She’d go to her grave loving him.

  And, judging by the look on his face, that could happen sooner rather than later. In spite of his cold anger, the dull heaviness of the past few months lightened, miraculously lifting her spirits. She had to stop herself from devouring his face with loving eyes.

  Instead, she asked spiritedly, ‘Have you contacted the editor?’

  ‘Of course. She apologised. For about half an hour in a mixture of French and English.’ His tone told her he didn’t believe in the sincerity of the apology.

  ‘As I do.’ She added, ‘Alex, it was my fault for sending those first photographs to her. I have no idea how they got into the magazine—and she doesn’t seem to know either—but, believe me, neither of us deliberately organised it.’

  ‘You promised me that they wouldn’t be used.’ He paused, then added, ‘And my name is there too.’

  ‘I know,’ she said wretchedly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Eyes narrowed, he said abruptly, ‘Have you missed me?’

  Serina felt her jaw drop. ‘What?’ she asked so faintly she could barely hear her own voice.

  ‘You heard,’ he said determinedly and came towards her, his face dark and set.

  Breath blocked in her throat, eyes widening, she couldn’t move. He stopped a few inches away from her and looked down with blazing, steel-sheen eyes. ‘Because I’ve missed you,’ he said quietly. ‘Every day, every minute, every second—as though an essential part of me has been torn away. Damn it, Serina, I’ve waited over a year for you—and when at last you came to me, it was—sheer joy. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced. But then you did this.’

  Consumed by incredulous joy alloyed by bewilderment, she fixed on the one thing she could process. ‘I did not,’ she blazed, careless of the fact that she, who never lost control, had finally and completely lost it. ‘I don’t lie—and if you can’t accept my word on this, then—then—’

  She stopped as the import of what he’d actually said sank in. ‘What do you mean—you’ve waited a year for me?’

  Savagely, he said, ‘Waited for you to see me, of course—not as a substitute for Gerd, not as a temporary lover, but the man who—’

  He stopped. Serina froze, unable to speak, unable to even mentally articulate a thought. Her whole future depended on the next few moments, she thought dazedly, yet she couldn’t speak.

  Roughly, his hands clenched at his sides, he said, ‘Well, say something.’

  ‘What?’ she finally managed to choke out.

  He seemed to relax. The frozen fire of his eyes warmed and a set smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. ‘You could try saying that you missed me.’ She nodded.

  Then he laughed and caught her in his arms and kissed her, and suddenly…it was all right.

  No, she thought, every fear and inhibition evaporating as his mouth came down on hers, it wasn’t just all right; it was marvellously, wonderfully, exhilaratingly perfect.

  Opening her mouth to his ravenous demand, she melted into Alex’s kiss, so completely happy in that moment that she didn’t hear the door open behind them, or see Doran stand there, dumb founded.

  However, through the roaring of her impetuous heart in her ears, she did hear her brother say, ‘Ah— OK, I think I’d better go out and come in again.’

  Alex broke the kiss and said something she was glad she didn’t under stand. Above her head, he said curtly, ‘You have extremely bad timing, Doran. Get the hell out of here.’

  Her brother laughed. ‘I think I’d better stay and ask you what your intentions are.’

  ‘Doran!’ Serina managed in a horrified croak.

  ‘I’m planning to marry her and make her extremely happy. Any objections?’

  ‘Hell, no,’ Doran told him cheerfully. ‘Right, I’ll leave you to it, then. Serina, I’ll be back some time tonight.’

  Serina tried to tear herself free from Alex’s arms, only to find them tightening around her. She looked up into his face and said in a low, furious voice, ‘You’d better ask me for an answer, not my brother.’

  He looked down at her, his eyes gleaming, and said, ‘I know what your answer is going to be. You’re going to tell me to go to hell, and then you’re going to marry me and have my children and love me for the rest of your life—but not as much as I love you.’

  Her anger fled, leaving her shaking with such a wild mixture of emotions she had no idea of what to say or how to feel. Dimly, she heard the door close behind Doran.

  She looked up and saw something in Alex’s eyes she’d never seen there before—a fierce tenderness. Her heart stopped, then started again jerkily and, to her shock and dismay, she felt hot tears start to her own eyes.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said in an anguished voice. ‘My dearest girl, my darling, don’t—please, don’t cry.’

  But she wept until finally she calmed enough to say, ‘Why did you wait so long?’

  ‘At first—’ He kissed the top of her head and then her forehead. In a voice roughened by emotion he said, ‘I waited for a year after Gerd’s coronation because I didn’t know how you felt about him. If you’d loved him—or even banked on being his wife—’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she interrupted swiftly. ‘Not either of them—in fact, about a month before Rosie erupted into his life, I told him that, although I liked him enormously, I didn’t really feel it was a good idea for us to get too closely linked because it wasn’t going anywhere!’ She lifted her head and scowled at him. ‘You could have asked Gerd.’

  He said, ‘I did. Gerd wouldn’t discuss his relationship with you but he did say you’d indicated that you weren’t interested in him.’

  ‘So why—’

  Alex shrugged. ‘I wondered if you’d realised he didn’t feel for you what he should, and were driven by pride to call it off. So I decided to give you a year.’

  Serina made a small sound of exasperation. ‘As for seeing you—I did that right from the start. Believe me, Gerd wasn’t the only one to fall in love at his coronation ball.’

  ‘You could have given me some indication,’ he said tersely.

  ‘Would you have believed me?’

  Unusually, he hesitated before admitting with a wry smile, ‘I suppose I’m not accustomed to people I love staying around for long; my mother died, my father was rarely there, I really didn’t get to know Rosie until I grew up. Some time when I was quite young I must have decided that love meant pain. When it hit me I was—afraid…’

  Serina hugged him fiercely. ‘I know. That’s how I felt too—that terror that loving someone meant being hurt by them. But it made no difference—I loved you from the very first.’ She stopped, then said starkly, ‘I’ll love you until I die.’

  His arms tightened around her. ‘My dearest Serina.’ And kissed her—not with the intense passion of a few minutes previously, but with such gentle tenderness that her heart filled with hope.

  Against her brow he said, ‘I wish I hadn’t waited before coming. I think—I suspect it was the fear that your warmth and charm and love would dissipate with distance and time. When I saw that photograph—and my name—I grabbed at anger, because anger is much safer. I didn’t want to come to you as a supplicant. But that’s what I am.’

  ‘And you came,’ she said, shaken to the core.

  ‘I couldn’t stay away.’ He said it harshly, as though owning to a weakness, and then again, but this time simply, with a kind of awe. ‘I feel—stripped,’ he said unevenly. ‘Filled with such intense happiness because you love me, yet exposed, as though everything I’ve based my life on until now has been taken from me, and all I have to offer you is myself.’ He gave a sudden mirthless laugh. ‘And I feel that’s not enough.’


  ‘It’s everything,’ she told him, her voice trembling, unable to smile in spite of the fierce joy that shone through her, washing away the past weeks of pain and grief and longing in a torrent of delight and peace. ‘Alex, I love you so much—it’s been misery.’

  He held her out a little. ‘Would you have come to me?’

  She said, ‘I was going to ring you tonight to apologise for your garden being used in my column.’ This time she managed a smile, one that glimmered with mischief and love and such intensity that Alex felt his heart contract. ‘I was going to suggest that somehow we should get together to discuss the situation…’

  They were married on the beach outside the bach, with only their family and best friends around them. Alex had managed to fend off the insistent clamour of the media, his influence making sure that none of the helicopters in the country were hired to take photographs of the wedding.

  As she dressed in the home stead under Rosie’s supervision, Serina felt such joy well in her that she had difficulty holding back the tears.

  ‘Hey, that’s enough of that—apart from wrecking your eye make-up, it’s friends and family who cry at weddings, not the bride,’ Rosie told her briskly and hugged her, careful not to disturb her short, exquisite wedding dress and veil.

  She stood back and surveyed her with a slight frown. ‘You look—radiant,’ she said on a sigh. ‘And I’m glad you decided to wear your tiara. Little Nora is going to be ecstatic. It was a lovely thought on your part to ask her to be your flower girl.’

  ‘Alex insisted on replacing the stones with real diamonds,’ Serina said.

  ‘Of course he did,’ Rosie said practically, and beamed at her. ‘It’s great to see you both so happy. Alex is going to take one look at you and know he’s the luckiest man in the world today. Welcome to the family, Serina.’

  It was a radiant day too—a soft winter day with a blue, blue sky and the sea hushing quietly a few feet away. Doran, outrageously handsome in his wedding gear, gave Serina away and together she and Alex stood side by side and pledged their troth.

  And later, when everyone had gone, they made love in the bach and then lay in each other’s arms and talked quietly.