A Whisper of Disgrace

Slowly, she turned her head and her breath froze in her throat. She could hear the loud thunder of her heart as he held up the palms of his hands, like someone in an old cowboy film, admitting surrender.

‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said.

‘Well, you did.’ She tried not to feast her eyes on him, but it was impossible. How could you not look at him and keep on looking, when he seemed like a dark and sculpted god who had just been planted in the Sicilian landscape? He was wearing pale linen trousers and a pale silk shirt—the sleeves rolled up to reveal his dark, hair-roughened arms. From this distance she couldn’t really see his expression, but as he grew nearer she noticed that his feet were bare. Kulal walking in public in bare feet? She looked over his shoulder to the landscape behind. And where were his bodyguards?

It didn’t matter. None of those questions were relevant because he was no longer part of her life. She’d escaped from him and his controlling ways. Nothing had changed. Only the externals. She had left him and his home in Paris and she was starting a new life for herself. It wasn’t going to be easy because she still wanted him, but she was going to do it. She needed to do it.

He was closer now. He was stepping down onto the veranda so that she could see the dark gleam of his eyes and she knew she ought to tell him to just go away and leave her alone, but in that moment she discovered that her sense of curiosity was stronger than her sense of self-preservation.

‘What are you doing here?’ she questioned, trying to inject just the right note of careless sarcasm into her voice. ‘No, don’t tell me—you’ve come to try to bring your little doll back to Paris. Is it time to brush her hair and put her back into her shiny box?’

Kulal stood looking down at her, reading the hurt and anger on her upturned face as he thought of all the inducements he could use to get her to return to Paris with him. He thought of all the things he could say to try to persuade her. Things she probably wouldn’t believe—and who could blame her? And he didn’t know where to begin, because this was all new to him. He clenched his fists as all his buttoned-up feelings demanded to be set free, but habit made him want to resist. Damn it, why shouldn’t he resist? There was a reason why he had put all his emotions into cold storage and it was a good reason. If you didn’t allow yourself to feel things, then you couldn’t get hurt.

But suddenly, it was no longer working. Whatever had protected him in the past was failing to protect him now for the pain in his heart was very real and very raw. He moved across the terrace and sat down beside her and he saw her body tense. For a moment there was silence.

‘I miss you,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘No, you don’t. You just think you do. It’s because I was the one who walked away and your pride is hurt. You’ll get over it.’

‘No, I won’t get over it,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to. And I don’t. I just want you back in my life because I love you, Rosa.’ The words left his mouth in a breathless rush, but his voice was shaking with emotion as he finished his quiet declaration. ‘I love you in a way I never thought I could love anyone, and that’s the truth.’

Rosa could feel a horrible lump forming in her throat and the betraying flavour of salt in her mouth but she wasn’t going to cry. Damn him—she wasn’t going to cry. And she wasn’t going to listen to his empty words either. He might have all the real power—the social and the economic power which came with his royal title—but she had power too. She had the power to live her life as she wanted to. Without pain and without heartbreak. She shook her head. ‘It’s too late, Kulal.’

‘No!’ In the growing darkness his word was fervent as it rang out on the still, Sicilian air. ‘Don’t tell me that we don’t all deserve a second chance when we screw up so spectacularly. And I recognise that I’ve behaved like a fool. You said in my office that you wanted to love me but that I wouldn’t let you close enough. But I’m letting you close now. Are you telling me that your feelings for me have changed, Rosa? That twenty-four hours have altered the situation so radically?’

She tried not to be affected by the look of raw pain on his face as he spoke, but it was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. Because of course she hadn’t stopped loving him. Love wasn’t something you could just turn on and off, like a tap. She wanted to take him into her arms and cradle him. She wanted to lose her heartache in the sweetness of his kiss—but what good would that do? This is short-term pain for long-term gain, she told herself fiercely. He just needs to win at everything and that’s why he wants you back.