‘Paparazzi…’ Jenny said faintly.
‘Leave now, Ramón, and don’t go near her again. She needs space to see what a mess this situation is.’
‘She doesn’t want space.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Jenny said. Philippe? Paparazzi? There were so many unknowns. What was she getting into?
She felt dizzy.
She felt bereft.
‘Jenny,’ Ramón said urgently but Sofía was before him, pushing herself between them.
‘Leave it,’ she told them both harshly. ‘Like it or not, Ramón is Crown Prince. He needs to fit his new role. He might think he wants you but he doesn’t have a choice. You don’t belong in our world and you both know it.’ She glanced along the corridor where there were now four servants waiting. ‘So… There’s to be no seduction tonight. We’re all calmly eating muffins and going to bed. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ Jenny said before Ramón could reply. She didn’t want to look at him. She couldn’t. Because the laughter in his eyes had gone.
The servants were waiting to take over. The palace was waiting to take over.
She lay in her opulent bed and her head spun so much she felt dizzy.
She was lying on silk sheets. When she moved, she felt as if she was being caressed.
She wasn’t being caressed. She was lying in a royal bed, in a royal boudoir. Alone. Because why?
Because Ramón was a Crown Prince.
Even when she’d lain with him in his wonderful yacht, believing he was simply the skipper and not the owner, she’d felt a sense of inequality, as if this couldn’t be happening to her.
But it had happened, and now it was over.
What else had she expected?
Since she’d met Ramón her ache of grief had lifted. Life had become…unreal. But here it was again, reality, hard and cold as ice, slamming her back to earth. Grief was real. Loss was real. Emptiness and heartache had been her world for years, and here they were again.
Her time with Ramón, her time tonight, had been some sort of crazy soap bubble. Even before Sofía had spelled it out, she’d known it was impossible.
Sofía said she was totally unsuitable. Of course she was.
But…but…
As the night wore on something strange was happening. Her grief for Matty had been in abeyance during the two weeks with Ramón, and again tonight. It was back with her now, but things had changed. Things were changing.
Ever since Matty was born, things had happened to Jenny. Just happened. It was as if his birth, his medical problems, his desperate need, had put her on a roller coaster of emotions that she couldn’t get off. Her life was simply doing what came next.
But the chain of events today had somehow changed things. What Sofía and then Perpetua had said had stirred something deep within. Or maybe it was how Ramón had made her feel tonight that was making her feel different.
She’d seen the defeat on Ramón’s face and she recognized that defeat. It was a defeat born of bleak acceptance.
Once upon a time she’d shared it. Maybe she still should. But…but…
‘Why should I run?’ she whispered and she wondered if she’d really said it.
It didn’t make any sense. Sofía and Perpetua were right. So was Ramón. What was between them was clearly impossible, and there’d be a million more complications she hadn’t thought of yet.
Philippe? The child Sofía had talked of?
She didn’t go near children. Not after Matty.
And royalty? She had no concept of what Ramón was facing. Threats? The unknown Carlos?
There were questions everywhere, unspoken shadows looming from all sides, but overriding everything was the fact that she wanted Ramón so much she could almost cry out loud for him. What she wanted right now was to pad out into the palace corridor, yell at the top of her lungs for Ramón and then sit down and demand answers.
She’d had her chance. She’d used it making muffins. And kissing her prince.
He’d kissed her back.
The memory made her smile. Ramón made her smile.
Maybe the shadows weren’t so long, she thought, but she knew they were.
‘I’d be happy as his lover,’ she whispered to the night. ‘For as long as he wanted me. Just as his lover. Just in private. Back on his boat, sailing round the world, Ramón and me.’
It wasn’t going to happen. And would she be happy on his island, being paid occasional visits as Sofía had suggested?
No!
She lay back on her mound of feather pillows and she stared up at the ceiling some more.
She stared at nothing.
Jenny and Ramón, the Crown Prince of Cepheus? No and no and no.
But still there was this niggle. It wasn’t anger, exactly. Not exactly.
It was more that she’d found her centre again.
She’d found something worth fighting for.
Gianetta and the Crown Prince of Cepheus? No and no and no.
The thing was, though, sense had gone out of the window.
The car crash that had killed his mother and his sister had left him with an aching void where family used to be. For years he’d carried the grief as a burden, thinking he could bear no more, and the way to avoid that was to not let people close.
He loved his work in Bangladesh-it changed people’s lives-yet individual lives were not permitted to touch him.
But there was something about Jenny…Gianetta…that broke the barriers he’d built. She’d touched a chord, and the resonance was so deep and so real that to walk away from her seemed unthinkable.
For the last three months he’d tried to tell himself what he’d felt was an illusion, but the moment he’d seen her again he’d known it was real. She was his woman. He knew it with a certainty so deep it felt primeval.
But to drag her into the royal limelight, into a place where the servants greeted you with blank faces…into a place where his father had died and barely a ripple had been created…where Carlos threatened and he didn’t know which servants might be loyal and which might be in Carlos’s pay…here his duty lay to his people and to have his worry centred on one slip of a girl…
On Jenny.
No.
Could he love her enough to let her go?
He must.
He had a deputation from neighbouring countries meeting him first thing in the morning to discuss border issues. Refugees. The thought did his head in.
Royalty seemed simple on the outside-what had Jenny said?-cutting ribbons and making speeches. But Cepheus was governed by royalty. He’d set moves afoot to turn it into a democracy but it would take years, and meanwhile what he did would change people’s lives.
Could he do it alone? He must.
He had no right to ask Jenny to share a load he found insupportable. To put her into the royal limelight… To ask her to share the risks that had killed his father… To distract himself from a task that had to be faced alone…
There was no choice at all.
CHAPTER NINE
J ENNY didn’t see Ramón all the next day. She couldn’t. ‘Affairs of State,’ Sofía told her darkly, deeply disapproving when Jenny told her she had no intention of leaving until she’d spoken to Ramón. ‘There’s so much business that’s been waiting for Ramón to officially take charge. Señor Rodriguez tells me he’s booked for weeks. Poor baby.’
Poor baby? Jenny thought of the man whose boot she’d pulled off, she thought of the power of his touch, and she thought ‘poor baby’ was a description just a wee bit wide of the mark.
So what was she to do? By nine she’d breakfasted, inspected the palace gardens-breathtakingly beautiful but so empty-got lost twice in the palace corridors, and she was starting to feel as if she was climbing walls.
She headed out to the gardens again and found Gordon, pacing by one of the lagoon-sized swimming pools. It seemed the darkness and the strange city last night had defeated even him.
‘All this opulence gives me the creeps,’ he
said, greeting her with relief. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. How about if we slope off down to the docks? It’s not so far. A mile or so as the crow flies. We could get out the back way, avoid the paparazzi.’
‘I do need to come back,’ she whispered, looking at the cluster of cameramen around the main gate with dismay, and Gordon surveyed her with care.
‘Are you sure? There’s talk, lass, about last night.’
And there it was again, that surge of anger.
‘Then maybe I need to give them something to talk about,’ she snapped.
The meetings were interminable-men and women in serious suits, with serious briefcases filled with papers covered with serious concerns, not one of which he could walk away from.
This country had been in trouble for decades-was still in trouble. It would take skill and commitment to bring it back from the brink, to stop the exodus of youth leaving the country, to take advantage of the country’s natural resources to bring prosperity for citizens who’d been ignored for far too long.
The last three months he’d spent researching, researching, researching. He had the knowledge now to make a difference, but so much work was before him it felt overwhelming.
He should be gearing up right now to spend the next six months supervising the construction of houses in Bangladesh, simple work but deeply satisfying. He’d had to abandon that to commit to this, a more direct and personal need.
And this morning he’d had to abandon Jenny.
Gianetta.
The two words kept interplaying in his head. Jenny. Gianetta.
Jenny was the woman who made muffins, the woman who saved whales, the woman who made him laugh.
Gianetta was the woman he took to his bed. Gianetta was the woman he would make his Princess-if he didn’t care so much, for her and for his country.
Where was she now?
He’d been wrong last night. Sofía had spelled out their situation clearly and he could do nothing but agree.
He should be with her now, explaining why he couldn’t take things further. She’d be confused and distressed. But there was simply no option for him to spend time with her today.
So… He’d left orders for her to be left to enjoy a day of leisure. The Marquita was a big boat; it was hard work to crew her and she’d been sailing for three months. Last night had been…stressful. She deserved to rest.
He had meetings all day and a formal dinner tonight. Tomorrow, though, he’d make time early to say goodbye. If she stayed that long.
And tomorrow he’d promised to visit Philippe.
He glanced at his watch. Tomorrow. It was twenty-two hours and thirty minutes before a scheduled visit with his woman. Wedging it in between affairs of state and his concern for a child he didn’t know what to do with.
Jenny. How could he ever make sense of what he felt for her?
He knew, in his heart, that he couldn’t.
The Marquita meant work, and in work there was respite.
The day was windless so they could unfurl the sails and let them dry. The boat was clean, but by common consensus they decided it wasn’t clean enough. They scrubbed the decks, they polished brass, they gave the interior such a clean that Martha Gardener would be proud of them.
Jenny remade the bed in the great stateroom, plumped the mass of pillows, looked down at the sumptuous quilts and wondered again, what had she been thinking?
She’d slept in this bed with the man she loved. She loved him still, with all her heart, but in the distance she could see the spires of the palace, glistening white in the Mediterranean sunshine.
The Crown Prince of Cepheus. For a tiny time their two disparate worlds had collided, and they’d seemed almost equal. Now, all that was left was to find the courage to walk away.
Perhaps.
Eighteen hours and twenty-two minutes. How many suits could he talk to in that time? How many documents must he read?
He had to sign them all and there was no way he could sign without reading.
His eyes were starting to cross.
Eighteen hours and seven minutes.
Would she still be here?
Surely she wouldn’t leave without a farewell.
He deserved it, he thought, but please…no.
They worked solidly until mid-afternoon. Gordon was checking the storerooms, taking inventory, making lists of what needed to be replaced. Jenny was still obsessively cleaning.
Taking away every trace of her.
But, as the afternoon wore on, even she ran out of things to do. ‘Time to get back to the palace,’ Gordon decreed.
‘We could stay on board.’
‘She’s being pulled out of the water tonight so engineers can check her hull in the morning. We hardly have a choice tonight.’
‘Will you stay on as Ramón’s skipper?’
‘I love this boat,’ he said simply. ‘For as long as I’m asked, I’ll stay. If that means staying at the palace from time to time, I’ll find the courage.’
‘I don’t have very much courage,’ she whispered.
‘Or maybe you have sense instead,’ Gordon said stoutly. He stood back for her to precede him up to the deck. She stepped up-and suddenly the world was waiting for her.
Paparazzi were everywhere. Flashlights went off in her face, practically blinding her. She put her hand over her eyes in an instinctive gesture of defence, and retreated straight back down again.
Gordon slammed the hatch after her.
‘Tell us about yourself,’ someone called from the dock. ‘You speak Spanish, right?’
‘We’re happy to pay for your story,’ someone else called.
‘You and Prince Ramón were on the boat together for two weeks, alone, right?’ That was bad enough. But then…
‘Is it true you had a baby out of wedlock?’ someone else called while Jenny froze. ‘And the baby died?’
They knew about her Matty? They knew…
She wanted to go home right now. She wanted to creep into a bunk and stay hidden while Gordon sailed her out of the harbour and away.
Serenity. Peace. That was what she’d been striving for since Matty died. Where was serenity and peace now?
How could she find it in this?
‘I’ll talk to them,’ Gordon said, looking stunned and sick, and she looked at this big shy man and she thought why should he fight her battles? Why should anyone fight her battles?
Maybe she had to fight to achieve this so-called serenity, she thought. Maybe that was what her problem had been all along. She’d been waiting for serenity to find her, when all along it was something she needed to fight for.
Or maybe it wasn’t even serenity that she wanted.
Then, before she had time to decide she’d lost her mind entirely-for maybe she had; she certainly wasn’t making sense to herself and Gordon was looking really worried-she flung open the hatch again and stepped out onto the deck.
His cellphone was on mute in his pocket. He felt it vibrate, checked it and saw it was Gordon calling. Gordon wouldn’t call him except in an emergency.
The documents had just been signed and the Heads of State were lining up for a photo call. These men had come for the coronation and had stayed on.
Cepheus was a small nation. These men represented far more powerful nations than his, and Cepheus had need of powerful allies. Nevertheless, he excused himself and answered.
‘Paparazzi know about Jenny’s baby,’ Gordon barked, so loud he almost burst Ramón’s eardrum. ‘They’re on the jetty. We’re surrounded. You need to get her out of here.’
He felt sick. ‘I’ll have a security contingent there in two minutes,’ he said, motioning to Señor Rodriguez, who, no doubt, had heard every word. ‘I need to get to the docks,’ he told him. ‘How long?’
‘It would take us fifteen minutes, Your Highness, but we can’t leave here,’ Rodriguez said. The man was seriously good. He already had security on his second phone. ‘Security will have dealt with it before we get there. Th
ere’s no need…’
There was a need, but as he glanced back at the Heads of State he knew his lawyer was right. To leave for such a reason could cause insupportable offence. It could cause powerful allies to turn to indifference.
His sense of helplessness was increasing almost to breaking point. He couldn’t protect his woman.
‘You can see, though,’ Señor Rodriguez said, obviously realising just how he was torn. He turned back to the men and women behind him. ‘If you’ll excuse us for a moment,’ he said smoothly. ‘An urgent matter of security has come up. We’ll be five minutes, no more.’
‘I will go,’ Ramón said through gritted teeth.
‘It will be dealt with before you arrive,’ Señor Rodriguez said again. ‘But we have security monitors on the royal berth. I can switch our cameras there to reassure you until you see our security people take over. If you’ll come aside…’
So Ramón followed the lawyer into an anteroom. He stared at the monitor in the corner, and he watched in grim desperation as his woman faced the press.
They’d pull her apart, he thought grimly-and there was nothing he could do to help her.
The cameras went wild. Questions were being shouted at her from all directions.
Courage, she told herself grimly. Come on, girl, you’ve hidden for long enough. Now’s the time to stand and fight.
She ignored the shouts. She stood still and silent, knowing she looked appalling, knowing the shots would be of her at her worst. She’d just scrubbed out a boat. She didn’t look like anyone famous. She was simply Jenny the deckhand, standing waiting for the shouting to stop.
And finally it did. The journalists fell silent at last, thinking she didn’t intend to respond.
‘Finished?’ she asked, quirking an eyebrow in what she hoped looked like sardonic amusement, and the shouting started again.
Serenity, she told herself. She tapped a bare toe on the deck and waited again for silence.
‘I’ve called His Highness,’ Gordon called up from below. ‘Security’s on its way. Ramón’ll send them.’
Cinderella: Hired by the Prince Page 14