The Prince's Chambermaid

Only then did he let go, feeling her convulse about him before allowing his own—strangely bittersweet—orgasm to follow. Afterwards he carried her over to the bed and ripped the silk gown from her body—thus ensuring she would never wear it again, for its associations were now too strongly linked to powerful emotions he would prefer not to remember.

It was a long and erotic night. He made love to her over and over again and, even while Cathy revelled in the incredible sensations he evoked in her, it felt almost as if he were trying to prove a point. What point was that? she wondered distractedly. To establish that he could reduce her to boneless longing any time he wanted to?

She woke to find him already dressed, and realised that it was the first time she had seen him in jeans since she’d arrived on the island. It was a strange moment—as memories fused and became tangled. It reminded her of the first time she’d seen him, when she had been crazily convinced that he was an itinerant worker!

Was he dressing down and reverting to the old Xaviero now that he had been freed from the burden of responsibility? And were his shadowed eyes an acknowledgement that perhaps he had been a little too hasty in acquiring a bride—that maybe he should have waited a little longer before encumbering himself?

She sat up in bed, pushing back her tousled hair—aware of the aching deep inside her body and the soft glow of her flesh. ‘You’re—you’re up early.’

Golden eyes flicked over her. ‘An emergency meeting of the government has been called.’ The sight of her rosytipped breasts was making him want to tumble her back down among the already-rumpled sheets and Xaviero walked over to the safe distance of the window. ‘We have to discuss what kind of statement we need to issue to the press,’ he added tersely.

‘Oh. I see.’ He was standing in the shadows—she could barely read the expression on his face, but that wasn’t such a new thing, was it? Wasn’t his face fathomless even in brightest sunshine—the man who never gave anything of himself away? Tell him now. Tell him while you have the courage. ‘Xaviero…this…changes everything.’

‘I know it does.’

His instant confirmation added yet another brick to the fast-building realisation that what they had between them was as fragile as one of those flowers which bloomed in the desert. Glorious for one short day—and then gone for ever.

‘You won’t want to stay on the island once Casimiro is fully recovered.’

‘I think I might cramp his style somewhat,’ he observed drily, and sent her a sarcastic glance. ‘Don’t you?’

Don’t be swayed by that glimpse of mocking humour, she told herself fiercely as she pulled a silken nightgown over her head—feeling less vulnerable now that her nakedness was hidden. Concentrate on what is real and what is not. You can’t trap him—it isn’t fair. And you can’t hold him to a union   which was made in haste for all the wrong reasons. So set him free, Cathy. If you really love him—you’ll give him his liberty.

‘I think we should dissolve the marriage,’ she said bluntly.

Perhaps it was the shock of a woman actually suggesting they end it which surprised him more than anything—for Xaviero had never been dumped by anyone. But an innate sense of his own self-worth meant that he couldn’t quite believe it. He stared at her with a sense of growing disbelief in his eyes. ‘You want that?’ he queried incredulously.

She remembered what he had said to her just yesterday, when she had been dressing for dinner. How I hate this life. Well, now he didn’t have to live it any more, did he?

‘I think it would be for the best,’ she answered carefully, praying that her voice wouldn’t tremble and give her away. ‘You’ve just said you aren’t going to want to stay here.’ The face he presented her was a cold, dark mask as she strove to make him understand. ‘So what will happen? Imagine it, Xaviero. You’ll go to South America to look at polo ponies as planned—taking with you a wife you only married because you envisaged that circumstances would be entirely different? And then what? You return to Colbridge and start up your polo school with the hotel all tarted up and me, the ex-chambermaid installed as its new chatelaine? Come on—it’s a crazy idea. Laughable. Why, the press would have a field-day!’

He couldn’t deny the essential truth in her words but what struck him was how ironic life could be. How determined and how level-headed her argument! His compliant little chambermaid sounding so quietly confident as she told him that their marriage should be dissolved. Her telling him?