by Sarah Morgan
Holly’s mind was in turmoil. ‘Casper—’
‘We had a crisis on our hands.’ He thrust his hands into his pockets, the movement emphasising the hard masculine lines of his body. ‘My brother was dead. I was suddenly the ruling prince and I was in intensive care, hitched up to a ventilator. When I recovered, everyone was celebrating. It was the wrong time to break the news to the people that their prince couldn’t give them what they wanted.’
Holly sank her hands into her hair, struggling to take in what he was saying. ‘Who told you?’
‘The doctor who treated me.’
‘Well, the doctor was wrong.’ Her hands fell to her sides and she walked across to him, her tone urgent. ‘Look at me, Casper. Listen to me. Whatever you may have been told—whatever you think—you are not infertile. I am having your baby.’
‘Don’t do this, Holly.’ He drew away from her. ‘I’ve accepted your child as mine, and that’s all that matters. You’ve given me my heir. The public think you’re a genius.’ He stared into his drink. ‘At some point, I’ll have to tell the people the truth. Let them decide about the succession.’
As the implications of his words sank in, Holly shook her head, horrified by what that would mean. ‘No. You mustn’t do that.’
‘Because your newfound popularity would take a nosedive?’ He gave a cynical smile. ‘You think Santallia might rather not know that its new innocent princess has rather more sexual experience than they’d like?’
‘Casper, my sexual experience encompasses you and only you.’ Frustrated that she couldn’t get through to him, Holly turned away and walked over to the window. Dawn was breaking and the rising sun sent pink shadows over the sea, but she saw nothing except her child’s future crumbling before her. ‘You should see a doctor again. You should have more tests. They made a mistake.’
‘The subject is closed.’
‘Fine. Don’t have tests, then.’ Anger and frustration rose out of her misery. ‘But don’t you dare announce to the world that this isn’t your baby!’ Her eyes suddenly fierce, she turned on him. ‘I do not want our child having that sort of scar on his background. And once you’ve said something like that, you can never take it back.’
‘They have a right to know about the baby’s paternity.’
Holly straightened her shoulders. ‘Once the baby is born, I’ll prove our baby’s paternity. Until then, you say nothing.’
‘If you’re so confident about paternity, then why wait? There are tests that can be done now. Or are you buying yourself more time?’
She lifted her hands to her cheeks, so stressed that she could hardly breathe. ‘Tests now would put the baby at risk and I won’t do that. But don’t you dare tell anyone this isn’t your baby. Promise me, Casper.’
‘All right.’
Celebrating that minor victory, Holly sank onto the curved window seat and stared down at the sea lapping at the white sand below. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this when we were in London?’
‘Because you didn’t need to know.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘You wanted a father for your baby and I needed an heir. The details were irrelevant and they still are. You have a prince, a palace and a fortune. This drama is unnecessary.’
‘I wanted our baby to know its father,’ Holly whispered softly, her hand covering her abdomen in an instinctive gesture of protection. ‘I thought marrying you was the right thing to do.’
‘If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t have let you make any other decision. And I don’t want to talk about this again, Holly. You’ll have everything you need and so will the baby.’
No. No, she wouldn’t.
Holly closed her eyes, trying to ignore the raw wound caused by his admission that the whole day had been a lie.
She’d felt lonely before, but nothing had come close to the feeling of isolation that engulfed her following Casper’s rejection.
She desperately wanted to talk to someone—to confide.
But there was no one.
She was alone.
Except that she wasn’t really alone, was she? She had their baby to think about—to protect.
Once he or she was born, she’d be able to prove that Casper was the father. And until then she just had to try and keep their hopelessly unstable little family unit together.
That was all that mattered.
Starved of affection from Casper and desperately worried about the future, Holly threw herself into palace life and her royal duties.
She spent hours pouring over a map until she was familiar with every part of Santallia. Determined to develop the knowledge of a local, she persuaded Emilio to drive her round. The result was that she shocked and delighted the public by her frequent impromptu appearances. Oblivious to security or protocol, she talked to everyone, finding out what they liked and how they felt.
And one thing that always came across was how much they loved Casper.
‘You’re just what he needs,’ one old lady said as Holly sat by her bed in the hospital, keeping her company for half an hour after an exhausting morning of official visits. ‘After the accident we thought he wouldn’t recover, you know.’
Holly reached forward to adjust the old lady’s pillows. ‘You mean because he was so badly injured?’
‘No. Because he lost so much. But now he has you to love.’
But he didn’t want love, did he?
Holly managed a smile. ‘I need to go. Tonight it’s dinner with a president and his wife, no less. Do you want more tea before I go?’
‘I want you to tell me about the state visit. What will you be wearing?’
‘Actually, I’m not sure.’ Holly thought about her extensive wardrobe. No one could accuse Casper of being stingy, she thought ruefully. The trouble was, she now had such a variety of gorgeous designer clothes that choosing had become impossible, but even that wasn’t a problem, because she now had someone to do it for her. When she’d first realised that a member of staff had been employed purely to keep her wardrobe in order and help her select outfits, she’d gaped at Casper.
‘You mean it’s someone’s whole job just to tell me how to dress?’
He’d dismissed her amazement with a frown. ‘How else will you know what to wear for the various occasions? Her job is to research every engagement in advance and make the appropriate choice of outfit. It will stop you making an embarrassing mistake.’
The news that he found her potentially embarrassing had done nothing for Holly’s fragile confidence, and she’d humbly accepted the woman’s help.
Thinking of it, Holly smiled at the old lady. ‘I think I’m wearing a blue dress. With silver straps. A bit Hollywood, but apparently the president loves glamour.’
‘You’re so beautiful, he’ll be charmed. And blue is a good colour for you. I’ve been admiring your bracelet—I had one almost exactly like that when I was your age.’ The woman’s eyes misted. ‘My husband gave it to me because he said it was the same colour as my eyes. I lost it years ago. Not that it matters. The trouble with getting old is you don’t have the same opportunities to dress up.’
‘You don’t need an occasion,’ Holly said blithely, slipping the bracelet off and sliding it onto the old lady’s bony wrist. ‘There. It looks gorgeous.’
‘You can’t give me that.’
‘Why not? It looks pretty on you. I must go or they’ll start moaning at me. Try not to seduce any of the doctors.’ Holly rose to her feet, silently acknowledging that part of her was reluctant to return to the palace. She loved visiting everyone and chatting. When she was out and about and talking to people, it was easier to pretend that she wasn’t desperately lonely.
That her marriage wasn’t empty.
Casper seemed to think that presents were a reasonable substitute for his company.
It had taken only a couple of days for her to discover that he set himself a punishing work schedule, spending much of the day involved in state business or royal engagements.
Since their wedding they’d spent virtually no daylight hours alone together. Every evening there seemed to be yet another formal banquet, foreign dignitaries to be entertained, another evening of smiles and polite conversation.
And the fact that he never saw her was presumably intentional, she thought miserably as she said her farewells to all the ladies on the ward and allowed Emilio to guide her back to the car.
Casper didn’t want to spend time with her, did he?
All he wanted from the relationship was a hostess and someone with whom to enjoy a few exhausting hours of turbo-powered, high-octane sex every night.
He wasn’t interested in anything else. Not conversation. Not even a hug. Certainly not a hug.
Holly slid into the back of the car, waving to the crowd who had gathered. What would they say, she wondered, if they knew their handsome prince had never spent a whole night with her?
He just took her to bed, had sex and then disappeared somewhere, as if he was afraid that lingering might encourage her to say something that he didn’t want to hear.
Did he have another woman? Was that where he went when he left their bed?
To someone else?
Casper had a seemingly inexhaustible sex drive, and Holly was well aware that there had been another woman in his life when he’d first met her in England. One of the papers had mentioned some European princess, and another a supermodel.
Were they still on the scene?
Feeling mentally and physically exhausted, Holly rested her head on the back seat of the limousine and promptly fell asleep.
She woke at Emlio’s gentle insistence, walked into her beautiful bedroom with the view to die for and flopped down on her huge, fabulous bed.
Just five minutes, she promised herself.
Five minutes, then she’d have a shower and get ready for the evening.
Simmering with impatience after a long and incredibly frustrating day of talks with the president and the foreign minister, Casper strode through to the private wing of the palace.
In his pocket was an extravagant diamond necklace, designed for him by the world’s most exclusive jeweller who had assured him that any woman presented with such an exquisite piece would know she was loved.
Casper had frowned at that, because love played no part in the relationship he had with Holly. But she was doing an excellent job fulfilling her role as princess. She deserved to be appreciated.
And this was why she’d married him, wasn’t it?
For the benefits that he could offer her.
Contemplating her reaction to such a generous gift, a faint smile touched his mouth, and he mentally prepared himself for a stimulating evening.
Lost in a private fantasy which involved Holly, the diamonds and very little else, Casper strolled into his private sanctuary.
The first thing that hit him was the unusual silence.
Silence, he reflected with a degree of wry humour, had become something of a scarcity since he’d married Holly.
First there was the singing. She sang to herself as they were getting ready for the evening. She sang in the shower, she sang as she dressed, she even sang as she did her make-up. And if she wasn’t singing she was talking, apparently determined to fill every moment of the limited time they had alone together with details about her day. Who she’d spoken to, what they’d said in return—she was endlessly fascinated by every small detail about the people she’d met.
In fact silence was such an alien thing since Holly had entered his life, that he noticed the absence of sound like others would notice the presence of a large elephant in the room.
Slightly irritated that she obviously hadn’t yet returned from her afternoon of visits, Casper removed his tie with a few deft flicks of his fingers while swiftly scanning his private mail.
Finding it strangely hard to concentrate without background noise, he had to force himself to focus while he scribbled instructions for his private secretary. Intending to take a quick shower while waiting for Holly to return, he took the stairs up to the bedroom suite.
Holly lay still on the bed, fully clothed, as if she’d fallen there and not moved since. Her glorious hair tumbled unrestricted around her narrow shoulders and her eyes were closed, her dark lashes serving to accentuate the extreme pallor of her cheeks.
In the process of unbuttoning his shirt, Casper stilled.
His first reaction was one of surprise, because she was blessed with boundless energy and enthusiasm and he’d never before seen her sleeping during the day.
His second reaction was concern.
Knowing that she was an extremely light sleeper, he waited for her to sense his presence and stir. Contemplating the feminine curve of her hip, he felt an immediate surge of arousal, and decided that the best course of action would be to join her on the bed and wake her personally.
Glancing at his watch, he calculated that if they limited the foreplay they would still make dinner with the president.
He dispensed with his shirt, his eyes fixed on the creamy skin visible at the neckline of her flowery dress. Stunning, he thought to himself, and settled himself on the edge of the bed, ready to dedicate the next half hour to making her extremely happy.
But she didn’t stir.
Disconcerted by her lack of response, Casper reached out a hand and touched her throat, feeling a rush of relief as he felt warm flesh and a steady pulse under his fingertips.
What had he expected?
Unsettled by the sudden absence of logic that had driven him to take the pulse of a sleeping woman, he withdrew his hand and rose to his feet, struggling against an irrational desire to pick up the phone and demand the immediate presence of a skilled medical team.
She was just tired, he assured himself, casting another long look in her direction. Acting on impulse, he reached down and gently removed her shoes. Then he stared at her dress and tried to work out whether it was likely to impede her rest in any way. For the first time in his life, a decision eluded him. Did he remove it and risk waking her, or leave it and risk her being uncomfortable?
A stranger to prevarication, Casper stood in a turmoil of indecision, his hand hovering over her for several long minutes. In the end he compromised by pulling the silk cover over her body.
Then he backed away from the bed, relieved that at least there had been no one present to witness such embarrassing vacillation on his part.
He made thousands of decisions on a daily basis, some of them involving millions of pounds, some of them involving millions of people.
It was incomprehensible that he couldn’t make one small decision that affected his wife’s comfort.
Holly awoke to darkness. With a rush of inexplicable panic, she sat up and only then did she notice Casper seated by the window.
‘What time is it?’ Disorientated and fuzzy headed, she reached across to flick on the lamp by the bed. ‘It must be really late. And I need to change for dinner.’
‘It’s one in the morning. You’ve missed dinner.’
The lamp sent a shaft of light across the room, and she saw that his white dress-shirt was unbuttoned at the throat and that his dinner jacket was slung carelessly over the back of the chair.
‘I missed it?’ Holly slid her hand through her hair, trying to clear her head. ‘How could I have missed it?’
‘You were asleep.’
‘Then you should have woken me.’ Mortified, she pushed down the luxurious silk bed cover and realised that she was still wearing the clothes she’d had on when she’d done her day of royal visits. ‘I only wanted a short nap.’
‘Holly, you slept as though you were dead.’ His dark eyes glittered in the subtle light. ‘I decided that it was better to make your excuses to the president than produce a wife in a coma.’
Holly pulled a face. ‘What must he have thought?’
‘He thought you were pregnant,’ Casper drawled, a faint smile touching his mouth. ‘He and his wife have four children, and he spent
the entire evening lecturing me on how a pregnant woman often feels most tired during the first few months and how rest is important.’
‘God, how awful for you,’ Holly mumbled, forcing herself to get out of bed even though every part of herself was dying to lie down and sleep for the rest of the night. ‘I feel really bad, because I know how important this dinner was to you. Your private secretary told me that you wanted to talk about all that trade stuff and about carbon emissions or something. Some forestry scheme?’
A strange expression flickered across his face. ‘You frequently talk to my private secretary?’
‘Of course.’ Holly tried unsuccessfully to suppress a yawn as she padded over to him in bare feet. ‘Carlos and I often talk. How else am I going to know what the point of the evening is? I mean, you don’t see these people because you like their company, do you?’ Feeling decidedly wobbly, she sank down on the window seat next to him. ‘I’m sorry I slept.’
‘Don’t be. Though I must admit you had me worried for a while. It wasn’t until I was greeted with silence that I realised how accustomed I am to hearing you singing into a hairbrush.’
Holly turned scarlet at the thought that he’d witnessed that. ‘You hear me singing?’
‘The whole of the palace hears you singing.’
Horrified by that disclosure, Holly shrank back on the seat. ‘I didn’t know anyone could hear me,’ she muttered. ‘Singing always cheers me up.’
His eyes lingered thoughtfully on her face. ‘Do you need cheering up?’
How was she supposed to answer that? Holly hesitated, knowing that if she told him that she felt lonely, that she missed him, he’d withdraw in the same way he always did when she made a move towards him. He’d remind her that his company wasn’t part of their ‘deal’.
‘I just like singing,’ she said lamely. ‘But next time I’ll make sure no one is listening.’
‘That would be a pity, especially given that several of the staff have told me what a beautiful voice you have.’ He reached into his pocket and withdrew a slim box. ‘I bought you a present.’