Princes Waitress

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I was naïve.’ He removed his hand from hers. ‘I was young enough and arrogant enough not to question her notion of love. I thought she cared about me and that what we shared was real.’

‘The accident.’

Casper drew in a breath. ‘We were on a skiing trip, Antonia and I. My brother joined us unexpectedly, and that was when I realised what was going on. Stupidly I confronted both of them, right there, at the top of the mountain where the helicopter had dropped us. My brother skied off and she followed.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘I went after them but I was quite a way behind. They caught the full force of the avalanche. There was nothing I could do. I was swept into a tree and knocked unconscious.’

‘Did you tell anyone?’ Her voice was soft. ‘When you recovered, did you tell anyone the truth?’

‘The country was in a state of crisis—defiling my brother’s memory would have achieved nothing.’

‘Forget about your country—what about you?’

‘I couldn’t forget about my country. I had a responsibility to the people.’

Holly swallowed down the lump in her throat. ‘So you just buried it inside and carried on.’

‘Of course.’

‘And the only way to cope with so much emotion was to block it out.’ Impulsively she slid her arms around his waist. ‘Now I understand why you don’t believe in love. But that wasn’t love, Cas. She didn’t love you.’

He closed his hands over her shoulders and gently but firmly prised her away from him. ‘Close your book of fairy tales, Holly.’ His voice was rough. ‘The fact that you know the truth doesn’t change anything.’

‘It changes it for me.’

‘Then you’re deluding yourself.’ His tone was harsh. ‘Inside that dreamy head of yours, you’re telling yourself that I’ll fall in love with you. And that is never going to happen.’

She ignored the shaft of pain. ‘Because you’re afraid of being hurt again?’

‘After the accident I switched off my emotions because that was the only way of getting through each day. I didn’t want to feel. I couldn’t afford to feel. How could I fulfil my responsibilities if I was wallowing in my personal grief?’

‘So you shut it down, but that doesn’t mean—’

‘Don’t do this!’ With a soft curse, he lifted her face to his and forced her to meet his gaze. ‘I’m not capable of feeling. And I’m not capable of love. I don’t want love to be part of my life. We share great sex. Be grateful for that.’

That bleak confession made her heart stumble, and her voice was barely a whisper in the dimly lit room as she voiced the question that had been worrying her since the day she’d discovered she was pregnant. ‘If you really can’t love me, then I’ll try and accept that. But I have to ask you one thing, Casper.’ She was so terrified of the answer that she almost couldn’t bear to ask the question. But she had to ask it. ‘Do you think you can love our baby?’

His gaze held hers for a long moment and then his hands dropped to his side. ‘I don’t know,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

Her hopes crashed into a million pieces.

‘Don’t say that to me, Cas.’

‘You wanted the truth. I’m giving you the truth.’

And this time it was Holly who walked out of the room and closed the door between them.

‘I’m worried about her, Your Highness. She isn’t eating properly and she cancelled an engagement this afternoon.’ Emilio’s normally impassive features were creased with worry. ‘That isn’t like her. I thought you ought to know.’

Casper glanced up from the pile of official papers on his desk. ‘I expect she’s tired.’ Holly had been asleep when he’d finally joined her in the bed the previous night. Or had she been pretending? He frowned, wondering why that thought hadn’t occurred to him before. ‘And pregnant women are often faddy in their eating.’

‘The princess isn’t faddy, sir.’ Emilio acted as though his feet had been welded to the spot. ‘She loves her food. Even hot-tempered Pietro didn’t have a single tantrum when he was cooking for her. Since you came back from Rome two weeks ago, she has eaten next to nothing. And she’s stopped singing.’

Casper slowly and carefully put down the draft proposal he was reading.

She’d also stopped smiling, talking and cuddling him.

Since that night in Rome, Holly had behaved with a polite formality that was totally at odds with her outgoing personality. She answered his questions, but she asked none of her own, and she was invariably in bed asleep by the time he joined her.

She was dragging herself around like a wounded animal trying to find a place to die, and Casper gritted his teeth.

He had no reason to feel guilty.

And it should be a matter of indifference to him that his Head of Security clearly suspected that he had something to do with Holly’s current level of distress. ‘You are responsible for her physical well-being, not her emotional health.’ His tone cool, Casper closed the file on his desk. ‘It isn’t your concern.’

‘The princess was extremely kind to me when Tomasso was ill.’ Emilio stood there, looking as though a hurricane wouldn’t dislodge him. ‘I want to make sure nothing is wrong. Two days ago when she opened the new primary school she just picked at her food, and yesterday when lunch was sent up to the apartment it came back untouched. Shall I ask her staff to call the doctor?’

‘She doesn’t need the doctor.’ Casper pushed back his chair violently and stood up. ‘I’ll talk to her.’

‘I think she needs a doctor.’ In response to the sardonic lift of Casper’s eyebrows, Emilio coloured. ‘It’s just that, if there is something upsetting her, she might need to talk to someone.’

‘Talk to someone?’ Casper looked at him with naked incredulity. ‘Emilio, since when did a hardened ex-special forces soldier advocate talking therapy?’

Emilio didn’t back down. ‘Holly likes to talk, Your Highness.’

‘I had noticed.’

But he wasn’t talking to her, was he? Casper lifted a hand and rubbed his fingers over his forehead. ‘I’ll talk to her, Emilio. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.’

Still Emilio didn’t move. ‘She might prefer to talk to someone outside. Someone who isn’t close to her.’

‘You think she won’t want to talk to me?’

‘You can be intimidating, sir. And you’re very—blunt. Holly is very optimistic and romantic.’

Not any more. He was fairly sure he’d killed both those traits.

Reflecting on that fact, Casper sucked in a breath. ‘I can’t promise romantic, but I will make sure I’m approachable.’

‘May I say one more thing, sir?’

‘Can I stop you?’

Ignoring the irony in the prince’s tone, Emilio ploughed on. ‘I have been by your side since you were thirteen years old. Holly—Her Royal Highness,’ he corrected himself hastily, ‘Isn’t like any of the women you’ve been with before. She’s genuine.’

Genuine? Casper shook his head, not sure whether to be relieved that she’d done such a good PR job on his staff, or exasperated that everyone just took her at face value. They saw nothing beyond the pretty smile and the chatty personality. Apparently it hadn’t occurred to a single other person that this baby might not be his. That genuine, kind Holly Phillips might have another side to her.