Claiming His Christmas Consequence

by Michelle Smart

  She’d been right to belittle it.

  Nathaniel had come for her because his business and liberty were threatened.

  Dominic had to be behind this. It had his fingerprints all over it. Her brother had been waiting for his chance to stick the knife properly into Nathaniel and, by leaving, she had been the one to give Dominic the ammunition needed to make her father twist that knife.

  The new independent future she’d been dreaming of was fading fast.

  ‘He’s King of his own country.’ Nathaniel’s tone was mocking but the rage in his eyes was clear. ‘He can do whatever he likes but he can’t touch me outside his kingdom. I’m a citizen of the French Republic and I have the money and contacts to fight any extradition from a tinpot dictator such as him. But...he can destroy my professional reputation with no effort at all.’

  ‘I’ll speak to him. I’ll tell him what he’s doing is wrong and deplorable.’

  ‘And you think he will listen to you? We both know your word means nothing to him any more, if it ever did.’

  Of course it never had, not even when she’d been the good, dutiful daughter. Her head spun so fast that motion sickness was in danger of setting in. ‘I knew there was danger from Dominic...’

  ‘You think your brother is behind it?’

  ‘My father’s always been strict and power-hungry but he used to have some scruples. Dominic’s influence over him has grown over the years and now he’s the first person my father listens to. Maybe the only person.’ She flashed her eyes at him. ‘Dominic hates you. I warned you to be careful of him.’

  ‘I’m not the one who ran away and started this whole ball rolling. That was you.’

  For a moment, she thought he was going to reach for her again. It had been the strangest feeling being held by him like that. There had been anger at the root of it but a tenderness in his touch that had made her breath catch in her throat.

  Instead of touching her, he folded his arms across his chest—he still wore his black lamb’s wool overcoat and navy scarf—and, his face contorted, he continued, ‘And it is up to you to put things right. I have done everything that’s been asked of me and this is how you repay me? Stealing my money and fleeing the country with my child growing within you?’

  ‘I didn’t know it would backfire on you,’ she whispered. ‘I just wanted freedom for me and our baby.’

  ‘If you had spoken to me about how you were feeling instead of running away like a guilty child I would have been able to help you.’

  A spark of fresh fury careered up her spine. ‘I tried talking to you but you ignored me. I can see that I should have been more forceful but I have spent twenty-five years keeping my thoughts and opinions to myself and denying my own feelings. It’s not been easy for me to change habits of a lifetime and you didn’t help by cutting me off at every turn and refusing to be alone with me.’

  ‘Do not twist your actions onto me.’

  ‘I’m not. I should never have taken your money...’

  ‘Forget the money, you took my child,’ he snarled.

  ‘It was for our child’s sake that I left.’ She hugged herself. ‘My father won’t be alive for ever. One day Dominic will take the throne. I don’t want our child growing up under his control. I don’t want to live under his control. I don’t want to live under anyone’s control any more. You have all the freedom you want, so can’t you understand why I would want that for our child too? I was going to call you...’

  He laughed and it was the bitterest sound she had ever heard. ‘Sure you were.’

  ‘I bought a phone this morning. If you look to your left you’ll see it’s charging. I was going to call in order to hear for myself what your feelings were for our child and to apologise for taking your money and make arrangements to return some of it to you. I didn’t realise how much I’d taken.’

  ‘How could you not know you’d taken two hundred thousand euros?’

  ‘I knew how much but I didn’t know its value. I’ve never handled money before. The palace has always paid for everything. I’d no idea how much anything costs because I’ve never had to pay or go shopping for it.’

  The anger in his expression had gone but a hardness had replaced it. Nathaniel stroked his stubbled jaw and nodded with narrowed eyes. ‘You have to come back with me. It’s the only way I can save my development. I will not have an accusation of fraud hanging over me.’

  If she’d known how to scream, it would have been the time to do it. But Catalina had never screamed in her life. But she had never been so angry and frustrated and scared, not ever.

  ‘I need a drink,’ she muttered. ‘I’m going to make tea. Would you like one?’

  He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. Which she feared she was in danger of doing. ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, I heard you.’ And now she wanted to shout, something else she had never done before. She’d never raised her voice, never behaved in any way that might be judged unfitting for a princess. ‘I thought I’d found my freedom and now you want to snatch it away from me again.’

  ‘I have no choice.’

  ‘You do. You can walk away.’ She switched on the half-full kettle.

  ‘Walk away from a two hundred million euro development?’

  ‘Why not? You have hotels and clubs and complexes all over the world. You’re a billionaire.’ She shook two teabags from a box and put them into a floral teapot.

  ‘Is that why you thought it was all right to help yourself to my cash?’

  ‘No.’ She really did feel tremendous guilt for that. ‘I know I shouldn’t have done it but I was desperate. The opportunity presented itself and I took it.’

  ‘The opportunity presented itself,’ he mimicked her. ‘Is that what you’ll use in your defence when the police question you about it?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ICE FLOODED CATALINA’S VEINS. ‘You would do that? You’d call the police?’

  ‘You’d better believe I would,’ he said grimly. ‘If you refuse to return with me then you leave me no choice. I don’t want to make threats...’

  ‘Then don’t.’

  ‘There’s a permanent video camera set up in my office.’

  The ice in her veins solidified.

  ‘It’s a security measure I take as I often have large amounts of cash delivered while the banks are closed. The feed quite clearly shows you in your nightwear opening the briefcase, then less than ten minutes later shows you stuffing most of the cash into your handbag. Come back with me and you can destroy the evidence yourself.’

  ‘That’s blackmail.’

  ‘It is. I don’t want to use it but quite honestly, mon papillon, I refuse to let your family destroy everything I’ve built up. I’ve never cared about my personal reputation but my professional reputation does mean something. Your father’s accusations will hang over me until he publicly retracts them, which he won’t do until you return. I will not have my child thinking I’m a criminal.’ He flashed her a bitter glance. ‘And I want you by my side for the rest of the pregnancy because I don’t trust that the minute you’re out of my sight you won’t take off with our baby again.’

  ‘Does our child mean that much to you?’

  ‘How can you doubt that when I married you to get my legal rights?’

  ‘You married me to protect your development.’

  ‘There were a number of factors but, trust me, the development was bottom of the list. I want our child and I want to be a father.’

  As he spoke, Catalina lifted the kettle and poured the boiling water into the pot. The motion pulled back the sleeve of her jumper.

  ‘What have you done to yourself?’ he asked, distracted as he caught sight of a surgical bandage around her wrist.

  She dropped a tea cosy onto the pot. ‘I bur
nt it on the oven when I was taking a casserole out of it a couple of days ago.’

  ‘And your fingers?’

  ‘I cut them slicing the vegetables for the casserole.’ Her body rigid, she took milk from a fridge and poured it into two mugs.

  Never in his wildest imagination could Nathaniel have pictured Catalina in such a domestic setting. His chest twisted to think of her hurting herself.

  ‘How do you know how to make a casserole?’

  ‘I can read.’ The look she fixed him with was almost, almost a glare. ‘I can follow instructions. There are shops in Benasque that sell cookbooks.’

  She removed the tea cosy, swirled the pot then poured their tea. She pushed his mug towards him.

  ‘You haven’t spent my money stocking up on bone china?’

  Without any warning, the tea cosy, which she’d been about to put back on the pot, went flying past his head. ‘Is that your entire opinion of me?’ she demanded, her voice rising an octave. ‘That I’m a useless princess who spends her time worrying about the cup she drinks from? Has it not occurred to you that I have never been given the choice over anything I do, and that includes the blasted cups I drink from?’

  It was the closest he’d heard her come to raising her voice or swearing.

  She took a visibly deep breath. ‘I’m in an impossible position here. Whatever threats you make, you can’t force me to return. This is Spain. The ownership rights you have over me in Monte Cleure do not apply here. I’m a free woman.’

  He almost laughed. ‘You consider yourself a free woman when you’re funding your “free” lifestyle with money you stole from me?’

  ‘I took your money because I was desperate. I’m your wife. I may not have many rights of my own but even in Monte Cleure maintenance for my well-being and for the well-being of my child is one of them. That’s how I justified it.’ She caught his eye and sighed. ‘But I can see that you are in an impossible position too.’

  ‘So you will come back with me of your own free will?’ He’d known even as he’d threatened her that he would never go to the police. But he also knew he couldn’t allow her to stay here. She was carrying his child. She was his.

  The proprietorial direction of his thoughts caught him off-guard.

  Catalina had proven herself a woman of unknown quantities, someone who would steal...

  But she stole that money because she could see no other way out. She did it to protect your child.

  It didn’t change what she had done. She could make all the excuses in the world but it didn’t change anything.

  Nothing could reverse what he’d done long ago either. And with Catalina he had tried to atone for those mistakes he’d made all those years ago. He’d done the right thing. He’d tried to protect her from himself and she’d run away.

  She’s been trained not to speak out, trained like a pedigree puppy to perform on command.

  She was speaking out now though.

  As all these thoughts fought for attention in his head, she looked him straight in the eye. ‘We don’t have to divorce.’

  He was taken aback.

  ‘The second I set foot back on Monte Cleure, you become my legal owner again,’ she continued. ‘My male ancestors have fine-tuned our constitution so female members of the House of Fernandez have very little rights, and that means I have no power of divorce. If you refuse to divorce me there is nothing my father can do about it, not unless he wants to rewrite a constitution that grants him so much power. It means I would never have to marry again and no other man would have any involvement in our child’s upbringing.’

  He listened with his jaw clenched. ‘As much as I can see that your idea has merit, I don’t want to be married.’ He was better on his own. He always had been.

  He didn’t want to be saved as so many women out there seemed to think he needed to be. He didn’t need to be saved. He had as much female company as a man could want and he did not want or need more. Not even from the woman he’d married and couldn’t shake from his mind. Especially not from her.

  He’d thought her different from her brother but she clearly had the same gift for deception Dominic so specialised in.

  Catalina had proven herself to be Trouble with a capital T.

  ‘I know you don’t want to be married; you’ve probably got a calendar somewhere where you’re marking off the days until you’re supposed to divorce me. But have you not been listening to me? I don’t want to be married either. Not any more. All I want is for our child to have the freedom I’ve been denied, away from my family’s influence, and to live the rest of my life free too. We won’t have to live together and you won’t have to watch someone else raise your child. Please, Nathaniel. I’d rather be a nun than the property of another man.’

  ‘It could work,’ he said with a slow nod.

  The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He didn’t want his child raised by another man. His hatred for Monte Cleure had developed to such a degree that he knew he would never conduct any further business there. He couldn’t think what had possessed him to develop there in the first place.

  The stiffness of her slender frame loosened a touch, just enough to let him see her relief.

  ‘We’ll have to return to Monte Cleure and satisfy your father that all is well. You’ll have to show your repentance. I want my land back and my reputation restored.’

  She nodded her agreement and took a sip of her tea.

  ‘As soon as I have my development back and the title deeds returned to me, I will start the process of selling it all.’

  ‘Really? But it’s not even finished yet.’

  ‘The buyer can finish it. I always knew there was something rotten about your country but now I know how deep the poison lies, I don’t want anything to do with it. I will talk to the Kalliakis Princes. They like diversity in the projects they invest in and they’re not men your father or brother would dare to threaten. It won’t be a quick process though,’ he warned her. He didn’t want her thinking that this could all be resolved in a couple of days.

  ‘As long as I know I’ll get my freedom, you can take as long as you need. But would they be interested in buying it?’ Her brow creased with doubt. ‘I thought they invested in small start-up companies.’

  ‘As a rule they do. Helios was the backer for my first project. Everything grew from that.’

  He watched her reaction to the mention of the man she had come so close to marrying. There wasn’t even a flicker of emotion in her expression.

  ‘I never knew that.’ She considered it for a while longer. ‘You’re much closer than I realised.’

  ‘Boarding school bonds,’ he answered with a shrug.

  ‘How does he feel about us marrying if you’re such good friends?’

  ‘Have you not asked him that yourself?’

  ‘No. Why would I?’ Her bafflement looked genuine.

  ‘No reason.’ He hadn’t realised he carried angst that she might still have feelings for Helios.

  He shouldn’t care if she did.

  She tilted her head. ‘I never loved him. I never had any feelings for him. But I would have been a good wife.’

  Something tight gripped hold of his vocal cords and he had to force them to work. ‘I am certain Helios will buy the development, not just because of our old boarding school friendship but because he’s been less than impressed at the way your father has treated Amy. But you realise that if we embark on this, it could see you permanently cut off from your family? Right now your father blames me and your pregnancy hormones for your disappearance. If I set you and our child up in another country, he will never forgive you.’

  There was only the slightest tremor in her hand as she took another sip of her tea. ‘My father cares only about the House of Fernandez and tightening his grip on powe
r. My best interests are never in his heart and my baby’s aren’t either.’

  He gave a decisive nod. ‘Then that is what we will do. The sooner we can both be done with your country, the better. Finish your drink and get packing. I want to be gone from this place before it gets dark.’

  She drained her cup and placed it in the sink before looking at him again. ‘I would like to stay here for one more night...’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We don’t have to show ourselves in public for almost a fortnight.’

  ‘We have to put on a united front immediately.’

  ‘What difference will one night make?’

  ‘It’s out of the question. Go and pack.’

  Her frame rapidly tightened again and her chin lifted, her eyes spitting fire at him. ‘When you speak like this you’re as bad as my father and brother.’

  ‘I am nothing like them.’

  ‘Then don’t act like them. For the duration of our marriage—the one where we pretend to be a happy couple—you will treat me with respect and you will treat me as an equal, even when we’re back in the misogynistic land of Monte Cleure. Is that clear?’

  There was something magnificent about this angry yet concise Catalina. She would make an excellent queen, he decided.

  The backbone he’d always sensed she’d had was growing before his eyes. She might be a thief but he couldn’t deny his admiration for her breaking free from the box she’d been kept in for so long.

  ‘It was never my intention to treat you with anything but respect,’ he said stiffly. Admiration didn’t mean forgiveness. And her words didn’t mean he could trust her. If she had the same opportunity, would she run again? Would she take his child and leave him a second time?

  He would never give her the chance to find out. Until their baby was safely born, he would not let her out of his sight.

  ‘We need to leave now. There’s a helicopter waiting to fly us to the airport.’

  Her head bowed. ‘I’ll get my things together.’

  * * *

  Catalina pushed the keys for the cabin through the letterbox of the next cabin along, which was used exclusively by the owner, with a short letter of thanks for his hospitality.