The Prince's Love-Child (The Royal House of Cacciatore 2)

Guido went out of his way to avoid her whenever he could. He spent an inordinate amount of time sailing and running and swimming—coming back each day worn out by the sheer physical endurance with which he had tested himself to his limits.

And he had a dark look of simmering rage whenever he looked at her.

Lucy, meanwhile, carried on pretending to read her book—even going to the trouble of turning several handfuls of pages by the time he returned.

But he was not easily fooled.

‘Want to tell me what the story’s all about?’ he challenged mockingly one evening, and her face flushed scarlet as she snapped it closed.

‘We can’t go on like this,’ she said on their fourth evening, when he had just arrived back from a lone trip to the beach and she had been pacing around like a caged lion.

He was right—when a couple weren’t doing what they were traditionally supposed to do on honeymoon it left an awful lot of awkward hours to fill.

He was raking his fingers through the black tendrils of his hair, all sea-damp and knotted from his swim. On the broad bank of his shoulders was the faintest sprinkling of fine white sand, which contrasted alluringly against the deep olive skin. A pair of shorts which were moulded like rubber to the hard curve of his buttocks were the only brief barrier against his nakedness.

He turned his head to look at her, enjoying the discomfiture on her face. Deliberately he jutted his hips forward and saw her colour deepen.

‘I agree,’ he said smoothly. ‘We can’t. Shall we pack up and go back to Solajoya?’

Lucy blinked. Just like that? Had she hoped for another discussion—perhaps one with a different outcome this time? One which might see them ending up in bed and letting passion wash away much of the discord?

There’s nothing to stop you going over to him now, mocked a voice in her head.

But there was—of course there was. The distance between them had grown so wide, she could imagine nothing which would bring them back together again. Instead, she was forced to endure the terrible hunger that gnawed away inside her.

And why did he not approach her? She had swallowed her pride once and offered to break the deadlock. Hadn’t it been his arrogant dismissal of her fumbling offer which had caused all this bitterness to surface?

She shrugged. ‘If you want.’

He gave a short laugh. As if she cared what he wanted!

‘Guido?’

He met her eyes. ‘What is it, my Princess?’

‘Do you think that we can start being…?’

Being what? he wondered. Lovers? He raised his eyebrows imperiously. ‘Well, what is it, Lucy?’ he questioned softly. ‘What do you want us to be?’

Friends seemed too much to ask for in the current circumstances, but surely there was a springboard from which things could move on—however slowly—and get better between them. ‘Civil,’ she said. ‘To each other.’

Civil. He thought that she had a curious choice of words at times. It was an oddly mechanical description. Or maybe not. She was, after all, describing the workings of a marriage. Did she not realise how much she was asking of him?

‘I think I can just about manage civility,’ he murmured.

She nodded, breathless in that moment as peace briefly swam in the air around them.

‘Do you want to wait outside?’ he questioned softly, and looped his thumbs inside the waistband of his shorts. ‘Because I’m just about to remove these.’

His calculated remark shattered that elusive calm, and Lucy left as swiftly as someone who had never seen a naked man before, banging the door behind her and hearing his mocking laughter ringing in her ears.

She drew in several deep and faltering breaths of the pure air as she stared at the picturesque mountains which dominated the skyline. The startling peaks were turning deepes

t blue and indigo against the flame of the setting sun, yet Lucy was immune to their beauty. She felt like someone in a spacecraft, viewing the earth from a long, long way away. Totally disconnected.

She placed a palm over her swelling belly and closed her eyes. Only her baby seemed real in this make-believe world she inhabited.

That morning there had been the merest butterfly fluttering—too fleeting and insubstantial to know whether it was movement or just indigestion. And she had felt an unbearable wave of sadness. If only things had been different she would have called him over, and he would have pressed his hand there and they would have held their breath, eyes meeting, smiling the complicit smiles of parents-to-be.