Harlequin Presents: Once Upon A Temptation June 2020--Box Set 1 of 2

by Dani Collins

  ‘The staff will tidy up.’

  ‘I’m not leaving this mess for them.’ She sent him a scandalised look. ‘They’ll think we had a massive fight or something.’

  He grinned as he scooped up an armful of pillows and put them away with surprising speed. ‘Or something.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  HESTER GAZED UP at the double-storeyed mansion set in the centre of green lawns and established trees. ‘I didn’t think there could be anything more beautiful than the palace or the castle, but this is—’

  ‘Very different from either of those places.’ Alek said.

  ‘Yes, it’s…’ She trailed off, unsure she wanted to elaborate; he seemed oddly distant.

  Only then he wasn’t.

  ‘What?’ He stepped in front of her, his gaze compelling. ‘Tell me what you think.’

  It was impossible to deny him anything when he stood that close.

  ‘It doesn’t seem like a royal residence. It’s more like a home.’ Admittedly a beautiful, luxurious home—but there was something warm and welcoming and cosy about it.

  ‘It was home.’ Something softened in his eyes. ‘My mother designed it and my father had it built for her before I was born.’ His lips twisted in a half-smile.

  ‘You grew up here?’

  He nodded. ‘She wanted us here as much as possible. School had to be in the city, of course, but before then and every holiday during. It was our safe place to be free.’

  Hester was fascinated and honoured that he’d brought her somewhere clearly so special to him. ‘Was?’

  ‘My father never returned here after she died.’ He gazed across the fields before turning to walk towards the homestead. ‘Because she died here.’

  Hester stilled. But he strode ahead and clearly had no desire to continue the conversation.

  She couldn’t catch her breath as she followed him through the living area. The interior of the homestead was much more personal than the palace. Large, deep sofas created a completely different space—it was luxurious and comfortable and she felt as if she was encroaching on something intimate and deeply personal.

  ‘You really love horses,’ she muttered inanely when it had been silent too long and because out of every window she saw the beautiful animals grazing in the fields.

  He chuckled at her expression. ‘You’ve never ridden?’

  ‘I’m nowhere near co-ordinated enough. I’ve seen video of Fiorella, though. She’s amazing.’

  ‘She likes show jumping. I prefer polo.’

  ‘Whacking things with your big stick?’ She smirked.

  He eyed her, that humour and wickedness warming his gaze. ‘At least I’m not afraid of them.’

  ‘They’re huge and powerful and they could trample me to death. Of course I’m afraid of them.’

  ‘They’ll sense your fear. Some will behave badly.’

  ‘A bit like people, really,’ she muttered.

  ‘True.’ He laughed as he led her up the stairs. ‘Come up and appreciate the view. All the staff have gone away for these couple of nights so we’re completely alone.’

  His phone pinged and he frowned but paused to check the message.

  ‘It never ends for you, does it?’ she asked.

  ‘I imagine it’s the same for you,’ he replied as he tapped out a quick reply. ‘Students pulling all-nighters wanting help with their due essays. Fi’s correspondence is mountainous.’

  ‘I like being busy,’ she said. ‘I always took extra sessions at the drop-in centre.’

  ‘What drop-in centre?’ He glanced up and pocketed his phone. ‘For the students?’

  ‘No, an advice bureau in the city. I helped people fill in forms and stuff.’

  ‘Is that where you sent that first tranche of money?’

  ‘Yes.’ She blushed. ‘Something charitable, as you said. I couldn’t ignore that.’

  But his gaze narrowed. ‘I had the feeling it was more than charitable. That it might’ve been personal.’

  ‘Okay.’ Her heart thudded; of course he’d seen that. ‘You’re right. I’ve asked the centre to give it to a young mother and her daughter,’ she confessed. ‘Lucia’s on her own. She’s trying to make a better life for her daughter. I used to hold the strap of my mum’s bag the way Zoe holds Lucia’s.’

  Alek soaked up the information. The trust blooming in Hester’s eyes was so fragile but he couldn’t resist seeking more. ‘Tell me about her—your mother.’ He wanted to understand everything.

  She looked at him, her golden eyes glowing with soft curiosity of her own. ‘Tell me about yours,’ she countered.

  His jaw tightened, but at the same time his lips twisted into a reluctant smile. Her question was fair enough. ‘Her name was Aurora and she was from a noble family on the continent. Apparently my father saw her riding in an equestrian event and fell for her instantly. She loved her horses so he built these stables for her to establish a breeding programme. It was his wedding gift to her.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘They struggled to have me and it was a long time before they got Fiorella after me. So I’ll admit I was very spoiled.’

  ‘Everyone should be spoiled sometimes.’ Hester suddenly smiled. ‘Especially by parents, right?’

  Warmth blossomed in his chest and he took her by the hand and led her to the second-storey veranda.

  ‘My mother passed her love for horses on to me—they were our thing,’ he said as he tugged her to sit down on the large sofa with the best view in the world—over horse-studded fields, to his favourite forest and the blue sea beyond. ‘She had such a gift with them. Meanwhile, my father was very busy and dignified.’ He rolled his eyes but was actually warming to the topic because he’d not spoken of her in so very long. ‘She was vivacious—he was the shadow, the foil to her light.’

  ‘They sound like they were good together.’

  He stretched his feet out on the sofa and tucked her closer to his side, kind of glad he couldn’t see her face, and he watched as the sky began to darken.

  ‘Yeah, they were. She softened him, kept him human. But then she got sick. It was so quick. My father wouldn’t reduce his engagements. Wouldn’t admit what was happening. Wouldn’t speak to me about it. But I was fourteen and I wasn’t stupid. I stayed with her here. I’d bring the horses by her window downstairs and we’d talk through the programme…’ He’d missed months of school that year.

  ‘And Fiorella?’

  ‘Came and went. She was young and my mother wanted to protect her. So did I. She’d go for long rides every day—she had a governess. And I sat with Mother and read to her. But she deteriorated faster than any of us expected. I wanted to call her specialists, for my father, but she wouldn’t let me. It was just the two of us.’

  The horror of that morning—that rage against his powerlessness resurged—breaking out of the tiny box he’d locked it in all these years. ‘I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t stop it.’

  What did titles or brains or money or anything much matter when you were reduced to being so completely useless in a moment of life and death? ‘I couldn’t do anything.’

  He was still furious about it.

  ‘You did do something, Alek,’ Hester eventually said softly. ‘You were there for her. She wasn’t alone. Isn’t that the best thing anyone could have done? You were with her.’

  He couldn’t answer.

  ‘Nothing and no one can stop death,’ she added quietly. ‘And being alone in that moment must be terrifying. But she wasn’t alone, because she had you. That’s not nothing, Alek. That’s about the furthest from nothing that you can get.’

  He turned. In the rising moonlight her eyes were luminous. This was someone who knew isolation. Who understood it—within herself, and within him. And she was right. A slip of peace floated over his soul, slow
ly fluttering into place, like the lightest balm on an old sore, a gossamer-thin layer of solace.

  He’d never allowed himself to think of that moment. Even the threat of recollection hurt too much. But now that memory screened slowly, silently in his head and for once he just let it.

  ‘And then what happened?’ Hester finally asked.

  He looked at her blankly.

  ‘Afterwards. Your father, Fiorella, you. How did you all cope?’

  They hadn’t. None of them had.

  ‘Your father didn’t come for you?’ Hester asked.

  ‘He never returned here.’ Alek coughed the frog from his throat. ‘He stayed at the palace and they brought her body to him. He made them bring me too.’ He’d never wanted to leave. He’d wanted to hide here for ever. ‘I fought to come back from then on because I didn’t want the stables to close. People had jobs and there were the thoroughbreds…’

  ‘And it was your mother’s project,’ she said.

  ‘Right.’ He released a heavy sigh. ‘She loved it.’ How could he let it fall to ruin? ‘I didn’t want to lose her legacy.’

  But it had been hard to come back and see that small room downstairs where she’d spent her last days. Awful to be here alone when she’d gone for ever and his family had almost disintegrated.

  ‘And Fiorella?’

  ‘The governesses kept her away and kept her busy. She was okay. But as my father retreated into his work he became even more strict and controlling over our lives. Over every aspect. I guess it was his way of handling it.’

  ‘And what was your way of handling it?’ she murmured.

  He flexed his shoulders. ‘I didn’t have one really.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘You’re thinking my social life?’ he asked—feeling weary and oddly hurt at the suggestion. ‘Maybe. It didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Maybe that was the point,’ she said lightly. ‘If it didn’t mean anything, then it couldn’t hurt, right?’

  ‘Not gonna lie—it felt good, Hester.’

  ‘Well, wouldn’t it suck if it didn’t?’ She smiled. ‘And when things really hurt you’ll do almost anything to feel better even for a little while, right?’

  He felt raw. Maybe she was right. Maybe it had been more than escape. He’d been burying frustration and grief. But he’d liked being the Playboy Prince. He’d liked encouraging zero expectations of him settling down. Only then his father had died. And then that stupid requirement had come into play and he’d been forced to create a relationship he’d never wanted. That he still didn’t want—right?

  ‘You don’t need to apologise for it,’ she said. ‘It just was what was, right? I locked myself away. That was my choice. Neither of us were right or wrong necessarily, it was just how we each coped with a really crappy time.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He’d not stopped to think about what a really crappy time it had been in so long.

  ‘So now you run the stud.’ She looked across the grounds. ‘And that was the other way of handling it—building on her legacy. Keeping something that she loved very much alive.’

  He swallowed, unable to reply.

  ‘And you freed Fiorella from that royal burden.’

  ‘Of course I did.’ He could breathe again. ‘That was easy. She didn’t need to be stuck in Triscari the same as…’

  ‘The same as you.’

  ‘It’s just fate.’ He shrugged. ‘An accident of birth. I just have to do the best I can.’

  ‘Do you worry about your ability to do the job?’ She stared at him. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘What, you have dibs on feeling insecure?’ He half chuckled. ‘Of course I worry I won’t be good enough. Being the firstborn Prince means you’re going to end up King. It’s a full-time job that starts from the moment you’re born and it takes up every minute. I’m not saying that to summon your sympathy. I know how privileged I am and I want to do what’s right for my country.’

  ‘And you do. They love you. They ask for your thoughts all the time and they trust your answers. Everyone loves you. Everyone knows you do what’s best for the country because you care. And as long as you keep caring, then you’ll do what’s right for Triscari. You’re not selfish, Alek.’ She paused. ‘You’ve given your life for duty.’

  He shot her a look. ‘I thought I was a rapscallion playboy.’

  ‘Maybe you were when you could snatch a second to yourself, but mostly you’ve done the job forced upon you. And the job you wanted to do for your mother.’ Hester realised he couldn’t separate his role as Prince from his self. It was a career like no other—too enmeshed with his very existence and it brought with it a kind of pressure she’d not stopped to consider. ‘You’re building on your father’s legacy too, by being a good king. But you’re more important than just your crown, you know—’

  ‘I know,’ he interrupted and reached out to stroke her hair back from her face. ‘Don’t worry too much, my ego is perfectly healthy.’

  She actually wasn’t so sure about that. ‘But it’s isolating, isn’t it?’ she said passionately. ‘Living with grief.’

  His eyes widened. ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Yes, you are. For your mother. For the life you’re never going to be able to have.’

  And somehow in the course of this conversation her own loneliness had been unlocked. ‘I grieve for the life I might’ve had if the accident hadn’t happened,’ she confided in an unstoppable swirl of honesty. ‘I was at the library, happily reading and waiting for them to pick me up. They never did and I never got to go home again. I was taken to the police station and after a few hours my uncle arrived and took me. Five hours of flight time later I landed in a place I didn’t know, to meet people who didn’t want me.’

  Alek just stared at her, and this time his eyes were so full of care and compassion and she wanted to share with him—because it wasn’t all awful. She’d been so lucky in so many ways.

  ‘My parents were a runaway love match.’ She smiled impishly, delighting in the romance they’d had. ‘He was the second youngest, destined to uphold their place in society, right? His family were snobs. My mother was new to town, moved into the wrong suburb…she totally wasn’t from the right background. They met at school and it was true, young love. But when she got pregnant his family came down so hard and they ran away—living transiently, working seasonal jobs, barely keeping themselves housed and fed, fighting hard to stay afloat and keep me with them. But they did it. They loved each other and they loved me. They decided they couldn’t afford more so there was just me and…not going to lie, Alek…’ she smiled cheekily at him ‘… I was spoiled too.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he said huskily. ‘I’m so glad to hear that.’

  ‘Yeah, we had nothing but we had everything, you know? And we certainly never visited his home town. So after the accident when I turned up, all that old bitterness was still real. I didn’t fit in—I looked more like my mother than my father. I had her vixen eyes. I was part of who and what stole him away and that made me bad. But they were determined to “do the right thing”. Except they had nothing good to say about my mum and they went on about my father’s selfishness and weakness. I couldn’t tell them how wonderful they really were—they didn’t want to listen and they never would’ve believed me. In the end the only way to get through it was to lock my grief away, shut it down.’ She shook her head. ‘I put everything into my studies, hoping that would lead to a way out, and eventually it did, but only once I got to university and by then… I was good at keeping others at a distance. I put the treasures into my box and I’d go for long walks.’

  ‘Walks? That was your way to feel good?’ He half laughed.

  ‘Sure. Mostly…’ She smiled more ruefully this time. ‘But a couple of times I ran.’

  ‘You shouldn’t think running away is something to be ashamed of. Or that it’s cowardly.’
>
  ‘Isn’t it though? Shouldn’t I have stood up for myself or fought harder to be heard?’

  ‘How were you supposed to do that when there were a tonne of them and only one of you?’ He shook his head. ‘I think what you did was actually more brave. Escaping that abuse, and going out on your own. Lots of people wouldn’t have the courage or the skills to be able to do that without support.’

  Alek hadn’t known it was possible to feel supremely content and disconcerted at the same time. He was both assuaged and unsatisfied. Most of all he was confused. This was not the way he’d envisaged this evening going. He’d thought they’d have been in bed hours ago—that he’d have stripped her and satisfied them both several times already. Instead they’d shared something far more intimate than if they’d spent hours having simultaneous orgasms.

  And somehow he couldn’t stop speaking. ‘Tell me more,’ he asked. ‘What were their names?’

  To his immense relief she answered—and asked questions of her own. He shared old anecdotes he hadn’t realised he’d even remembered. Making her laugh over silly, small things that were too personal to keep back. As the stars emerged he leaned back lower on the sofa, curling her closer into his side—soft and gentle and warm and appallingly tired and still talking.

  Yet the discomfort was still there. All kinds of aches weighed down his limbs as he discovered that an old hurt he’d forgotten had only been buried. It had taken so little to lift it to the surface. He wanted to resist—to pull free again. Drowsily he gazed across the fields. He’d go riding as soon as it was light. He needed to feel that liberation—the complete freedom as the wind whipped and knocked the breath from his lungs, racing faster than he could ever run, jumping high enough to feel as if he were flying for the briefest of seconds. Yes. He needed that escape. He needed to ride—hard and fast and free.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘HESTER.’

  Hester blinked drowsily. ‘Mmm…?’

  ‘Are you awake?’

  Her vision focused. Alek was in the doorway, fully dressed and looking vitally handsome in slim-fit black jeans and a black shirt and gleaming black boots.