by Penny Jordan
His mouth was white-tipped as he looked down at her. ‘You seem to have made up your mind about this. Is there any point in me trying to convince you otherwise?’
‘What would be the point?’ she asked. ‘You have responsibilities to face now that people know who you are. Like my brothers, I no longer want to live my life in the shadow of what my father did. If I remain involved with you, even temporarily, it will cause further shame and hurt for me and I just can’t face it.’ She stepped towards him and offered him her hand. ‘Goodbye, Alex.’
He took her hand and held it for longer than necessary. ‘Where will you stay?’ he asked, his fingers intertwining with hers.
She hoped he couldn’t see the glimmer of tears in her eyes as she raised her gaze to his. ‘Signora Gravano is planning to visit her daughter. I will probably house-sit for her until I decide what to do.’
He gave her a ghost of a smile. ‘If ever you need to take the short cut I’ll make sure that bramble is under control.’
She smiled at his attempt at his old humour. ‘I won’t be taking any short cuts any more. I think I might too move on once I get a bit of money behind me.’
His eyes were dark and serious as they held hers. ‘If you need anything I’d be happy to help. Money or whatever, you only have to ask.’
Amelia adopted a flippant tone for the sake of her pride. ‘I guess I could always get a personal reference from you. Now that would look good on my CV. I’d be able to get any job I wanted.’
A small frown began to wrinkle his brow. ‘The press will no doubt start hounding you. Can I trust you to keep our previous relationship out of the newspapers?’
It hurt her that he even had to ask, but she did her best not to show it. ‘What happened between us was a little fling that has no relevance to anyone but us.’ She gave him a fabricated smile and hoped it would pass for the real thing. ‘I bet you won’t even remember what my name was in a year’s time, Alex—or should I call you Prince Alessandro?’
His eyes fell away from hers as he released her hand. ‘Right at this moment, little elf, I don’t know who the hell I am.’
‘You’ll always be Alex Hunter to me,’ she said softly, but she wasn’t sure if he’d even heard her. He had moved to stand in front of the window, his eyes looking out to the distance, his back turned towards hers, his shoulders looking as if the weight of the whole new world he was about to face were pressing down on them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
’OF COURSE you can stay with me,’ Signora Gravano said as she ushered Amelia inside her cottage. ‘So it’s true then? Dr Hunter is actually the prince?’
‘Yes, it’s true,’ Amelia said, letting her small bag drop to the floor with a sad little thud. ‘He is the prince.’
‘The poor man.’ Signora Gravano sighed. ‘Think of what he must be going through.’
‘I know,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I can’t help thinking about his adoptive family as well. This sort of thing affects everyone.’
‘I know it must be hard for you too, Amelia, but you surely can’t have been thinking there was a future in your relationship with him, especially once you knew who he really was?’
Amelia sank to the nearest chair and put her head in her hands. ‘I know…but a girl can always dream, can’t she?’
The old woman stroked the black silk of Amelia’s hair. ‘I feel sorry for both of you. You have both been caught between two very different worlds. He has responsibilities he must face now that he has discovered his birth origins.’
‘I just wish I could have had more time with him.’
‘He is a member of a royal family, my dear. You have to accept that.’
Amelia lifted her reddened eyes to the old woman’s. ‘I know…it’s just hard to fall in love with someone and then they suddenly turn into someone else…someone unreachable. unattainable…’
‘You poor child—so you have truly fallen in love with him?’
She nodded miserably. ‘I just couldn’t help it.’
‘What about his feelings?’
‘He’s not in love with me,’ she said miserably. ‘He just wanted a quick fling and, fool that I am, I agreed to it.’
‘How has he coped with the news of his past? It must have come as a complete shock to find he is a prince.’
Amelia thought about it for a moment. ‘He’s definitely changed. When I first met him he was so funny…so light-hearted and easygoing. I really liked that about him. But since he found out about his past he’s become…I don’t know…sort of different…serious, and he hardly smiles any more.’
‘It is a highly unusual set of circumstances,’ the old woman pointed out. ‘Most people who go in search of their birth parents worry they might uncover some sort of abuse or criminal behaviour in their family of origin. Instead, Dr Hunter has found out he is heir to a throne, not to mention the details of his kidnap as an infant.’
‘Which my father was responsible for,’ Amelia reminded her unnecessarily.
‘Yes, that makes it all the more difficult, but if he had genuine feelings for you he would not let something like that stand in his way.’
Amelia let out a heavy sigh. She had been thinking the very same thing. If Alex Hunter wanted her in his life on a permanent basis wouldn’t he have said so by now?
‘He doesn’t have genuine feelings for me. Right from the start I’ve known he’s been here for a good time, not a long time. Even now that he’s found out who he really is doesn’t change that. If he decides to stay and take up the throne there would be no way he would be able to have me as his partner. The king has already dismissed me as his nurse and Alex stood there and said nothing in my defence as the officials delivered the news. But even if he did choose to return to his life in Australia and took me with him, how could his adoptive parents ever accept me given my background and my father’s role in his kidnap?’
Signora Gravano gave her a sympathetic look. ‘It seems you are not unlike your dear mother after all, Amelia. You fell in love with the wrong man at the wrong time.’
Amelia felt the weighty truth of her elderly friend’s words like a burdensome yoke around her neck. Her mother’s dreams of a happy, settled life with the man she loved so desperately had been totally shattered by circumstances beyond her control. And now Amelia’s life was heading along the same pathway to destruction, there seemed no way of avoiding similar heartbreak. She loved a man whom she could not have, a man who did not want her, and—even if he did—would have to give up everything in order to have her.
Amelia was glad her part-time shifts at the community health centre kept her away from the Free Hospital for the next couple of days. The thought of running into Alex in the hospital corridors or on the ward was far too upsetting. She still couldn’t quite believe she had managed to convince him she was no longer interested in him. She had secretly hoped he would have put up more of a fight, but he had taken her rejection with barely a flinch of male pride.
She had heard that the king was now back at the palace, having made an excellent recovery from his surgery and, as expected, the press had gone wild with the news of Alex Hunter’s true identity. For the most part she had tried to ignore the news reports and papers, but it was impossible to escape the sense of excitement filling the island at the news of the prince’s return to his rightful home.
Late one afternoon Amelia ran into Lucia as she was doing a last-minute errand for an elderly patient.
‘Amelia, I’m so glad I caught you. There’s been a journalist hanging out at the hospital for days desperate to speak to you.’
‘They want to speak to me?’ Amelia blinked at her friend in shock.
‘Of course they want to speak to you,’ Lucia answered. ‘It’s exactly what the big-name magazines are looking for, the interview with the prince’s recent love interest. You could make an absolute fortune out of it.’
Amelia’s heart began to thud in alarm. ‘You didn’t tell them anything, did you?’
Lu
cia looked a little shamefaced. ‘Well…er…not much.’
Amelia gave her a penetrating look. ‘How much?’
Lucia bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry…but the journalist was so persistent and since you don’t have a phone…I sort of told them what I knew.’
Amelia closed her eyes as she pinched the bridge of her nose in distress. ‘Oh, Lucia, how could you?’
‘I’m sorry. I just thought since it was all over between you now you wouldn’t mind. It’s not like you’re seeing him any more. He’s up at the palace being briefed on what’s expected of him now he’s finished his work at the hospital.’
So that was why she hadn’t seen any sign of him at the cottage, Amelia thought as she chewed the rough end of one nail.
‘I’m sure it won’t do much harm for people to know you and Prince Alessandro were an item,’ Lucia said. ‘The journalist was intrigued with the whole Vialli bandit thing. It gave it that whole star-crossed lovers angle.’
‘I’ll have to see Alex and explain it wasn’t me,’ Amelia said, beginning to gnaw at her bottom lip instead of her nail.
‘Why shouldn’t you cash in on this, Amelia?’ Lucia asked. ‘It’s not as if this won’t happen again. Any woman he looks at in the future will be instant newspaper fodder. You might as well get something out of it while you can. The way I see it, he used you. He had his little fling, but as soon as he found out who he really was he let you go.’
Amelia didn’t bother telling Lucia it was her who had been the one to put an end to their relationship. ‘Has the article been printed yet?’ she asked.
‘It came out this morning,’ Lucia said, and, rummaging in her bag, handed her a glossy magazine. ‘It’s on page three.’
Amelia opened the magazine and grimaced as she saw a photo of Alex and her sitting at the restaurant in Santa Fiera on their first date. ‘How on earth did they get this photo?’ she asked.
‘Someone must have taken it in the restaurant and sold it to the magazine,’ Lucia suggested.
Amelia quickly read through the article and closed the magazine with trembling fingers. ‘Oh, Lucia, it makes me sound like a social-climbing tart using him to make myself a fortune.’
‘Yes…well, the journalist did stretch the truth a bit, I thought,’ Lucia said with another sheepish look as she took the magazine back and stuffed it in her bag.
Amelia let out her breath in a ragged stream. ‘He asked me not to speak to anyone about our relationship. I’ll have to see him and apologise.’
‘I don’t like your chances,’ Lucia said. ‘He’s a prince now, remember? You can’t just turn up and see him or even make an appointment. Any contact you have has to be approved by the palace officials.’
Amelia knew she wasn’t going to be welcome at the palace, but she had to see Alex again regardless. She made her way there as soon as she could, but, as she had more or less expected, the guards refused her entry. She pleaded with them, but they remained coldly resolute until Alex appeared from around a corner.
‘It’s all right, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Miss Vialli will not be here for long.’
Amelia felt the bite of Alex’s fingers as he practically dragged her into one of the side doors of the ancient palace by one arm. ‘Just the person I want to see,’ he said, closing the door behind them.
She tried to pull out of his hold but his fingers tightened. ‘I should have known you weren’t to be trusted,’ he ground out. ‘How much did they pay you for that interview?’
‘I didn’t give an interview—’ she began, but he cut her off.
‘You probably knew all along who I was. No doubt your family put you up to this. You’re a Vialli, after all. Treachery is in your blood. You saw a chance to make a fortune out of this and you went for it the first chance you could.’
‘No…that’s not true, Alex—’
‘Don’t insult me by lying to me now you’ve achieved what you set out to achieve,’ he lambasted her. ‘You lied to me from the start. No doubt that little convent story was part of the whole attempt to lure me in. But you’re no innocent. You’re a scheming little traitor like the rest of your family. I feel disgusted with myself for falling for it. You were simply waiting until you could get what you wanted out of it.’
‘No—’ Her one-word denial came out strangled, but he carried on as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘I even fancied myself in love with you for a time, but that was all part of your plan, wasn’t it?’ he asked coldly. ‘To get me to the point where I had to choose between you and the throne. I can’t have both and you knew it. What a victory that would have been for your republican family. The kidnapped heir was finally returned, but he was as good as useless as he wanted the very thing that would take away his right to the kingdom.’
‘No,’ she began again, her stomach churning in despair. ‘You don’t understand…’
His eyes blazed like black diamonds as they hit on hers. ‘You’ve wasted your efforts, Amelia. I don’t want you or the throne,’ he said. ‘I’ve made up my mind. I’m going back to Australia to continue my work. I’ve already told the king.’
Amelia moistened her dry mouth as she struggled to take in what he’d said.
He dragged a hand through his hair and continued, ‘They’re not happy, of course, but I have to do what is right for me. My real family is the one who reared me and loved me for the last thirty-four years. I had nothing to do with what happened in the past. It was a quirk of fate, and I don’t see why I should give up years of intensive training to take on a role I have no desire for. I might be a prince by birthright, but that’s not who I am now.’
She stared at him speechlessly, her emotions in complete turmoil. He was turning down his right to the throne, but for all the wrong reasons. It had nothing to do with her. She would never have stood in his way, even though it would have cost her everything.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything in your defence?’ he asked. ‘Haven’t you got some carefully prepared speech to convince me of your innocence? That’s what I would expect from someone like you.’
Amelia met his glittering gaze. ‘I can’t change your mind, Alex. You’ve come to the decisions you’d made on the basis of what you believe to be true and no doubt anything I say will not change your views. I didn’t know you were a prince. In fact I didn’t even know who you were the first time I met you. You could have been a peasant just like me rather than the esteemed surgeon you are, but I loved your quirky sense of humour and the way you laughed at life.’
Alex watched as she brushed a tear from the corner of her eye, but he didn’t reach out to her.
‘I feel sad that you no longer have that ability,’ she went on in a soft, regretful tone. ‘You’ve changed since you’ve found out about your birth origins. I liked the old Alex much more than the new one, but I guess that’s what life has dished up to you. You are not one person now, but two, and, as you said, you’ve had to decide which one you will be from now on. I admire your decision to be Alex Hunter the cardiac surgeon, for I think he is the real you, not the Prince of Niroli.’
Alex swallowed, trying to get control of his emotions. Could he have got it wrong about her? The palace officials had hinted at her younger brother’s involvement in a second-wave rebellion against the monarchy, warning him of the danger of trusting anyone from within the Vialli family.
‘I’m sorry about the article you saw,’ Amelia said into the silence. ‘I know you won’t believe me but I had nothing whatsoever to do with it. I have been working at the community health centre for the last two days. I haven’t been in contact with any journalists, but unfortunately one of my colleagues at the Free Hospital took it upon herself to speak for me to a journalist. I am sorry you have been hurt by that disclosure. She meant no harm, so please don’t hold it against her.’
Alex watched in silence as she moved past him to leave. He didn’t stop her even though he wanted to. The door closed behind her and he was left with the faint scent of her presence lik
e a ghost coming back to haunt him.
The pastel fingertips of dawn were streaking the sky when Amelia returned to the palace the following morning on a completely different mission. She had determined she would pay her respects to the innocent little boy whom nobody seemed to be considering now the real prince had been found. She had gathered some wildflowers, the early-morning dew still clinging to their delicate petals like crystal tears.
Fortunately one of the guards on duty recognised her from the previous day and allowed her through. She thanked him and moved like a shadow towards the family graveyard only to come up short when she saw a tall figure standing there looking down at the tiny headstone.
Alex looked up at the sound of her footfall, his expression looking pale, as if he hadn’t slept well. His lips moved in the semblance of a rueful smile. ‘I thought for a moment you were a ghost.’
She gave him a wry look. ‘I would have thought that should have been my line.’
His forehead creased into a frown as he turned back to look at the tiny grave in front of him. ‘It’s weird looking down at this little grave thinking it could have been me.’
She came to stand next to him, bending down after a moment to carefully arrange the flowers she had brought.
Alex shifted his gaze to the two larger graves with his biological parents’ names written above the family motto, an aching poignancy filling his chest that they would for ever remain strangers to him.
‘I thought I should do this one last time, but I wonder if anyone will tend to this little boy’s grave now,’ Amelia said as she straightened and dusted off her hands. ‘Maybe they’ll dig it up and remove it. After all, he’s not the real prince, just a little peasant boy of no significance.’