The Playboy Prince and the Nanny (Royal Duology 1)
“Of course I want her to. I want to marry her.”
Raoul’s face split with the breadth of his grin. “That’s wonderful news. We all love her. And she’s very good for you.”
Diego sat again, feeling like the wind had been sucked from his sails. “I want to marry her,” he murmured, and wondered why he was suddenly so shaky.
Raoul came over and put his hand on Diego’s shoulder. “It’s a big thing, isn’t it? When you find the woman you want to spend your life with?”
Diego didn’t answer, but put his hand over top of his brother’s. They were both thinking of Ceci.
“I’ll come find you when it’s done,” Diego said, standing again.
“Please do. And if you manage to smooth things over with Rose, we’ll have a champagne toast in the library.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rose sat in the garden, deep among the roses, trying to sort out her feelings. Raoul had taken the children off to some festival event in town for an hour or two, with Marco and his private security in tow. He’d suggested, in that quiet but firm way of his, that she take a few hours off for herself.
She rather suspected he thought she and Diego would take advantage of the privacy. But she wasn’t ready to speak to him yet. Trying to separate logic from her emotions was proving too much of a challenge today.
So it was rather unfortunate when he came down the stone path, whistling lightly through his teeth, looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
Maybe he wouldn’t see her among the bushes.
“I was told I could find you here,” he said easily, coming to sit with her on the iron bench.
“I’m sure you were,” she replied, folding her hands in her lap. “Diego, this morning . . .”
“This morning neither of us were in possession of all the facts,” he interrupted as he reached into his back pocket and took out a folded envelope.
“What’s that?”
“The letter I wrote you the morning I left for Dar es Salaam. I gave it to Camila. She never gave it to you. Instead she betrayed me, you, my family . . .”
Rose gaped at him. “Camila? She’s the one?”
He nodded, and Rose could see he was upset. “I trusted her. But I shouldn’t have, I guess. When you and I . . . well, jealousy is a powerful motivator. And when opportunities can pad a bank balance nicely, apparently it’s easy to be persuaded.”
Rose didn’t know what to say. “But she hardly ever spoke to me.”
“Nor will she. She’s gone. Been gone for a few hours now.” He reached into his pocket and took out a tiny electronic card. “Minus the SIM card for her phone. Security is going to go through it to scrub all the photos or anything else she might have on there. Her computer, too.”
“So much for the confidentiality agreement we all had to sign,” Rose muttered, but in her heart she was glad. Glad that whoever had betrayed the family had been discovered. Glad Camila was gone. “Are you going to take any legal action?”
“As long as she keeps her silence, there’s no issue. We can repair the damage done. At least I hope we can.”
Except Rose had been compromised so unfairly. She wasn’t sure it was fixable.
“Read the letter, Rose.”
“Diego . . .”
“Please. I have things to say, but I want you to read it first.”
She tore open the envelope and took out the single sheaf of paper, then skimmed the words. Halfway down the page her eyes blurred with tears, and she had to blink them away in order to keep reading. For Diego to say he loved her was one thing. But for him to put his feelings into a letter, with ink and paper . . . there was something intimate and special about it.
“Rose, everything’s changed for me these past few months. When I went into the kitchen and saw you sitting at that table, with your china cup of tea and slice of cake, the world shifted. Everything started falling into place. Being with you, and Emilia and Max, and focusing on the family, and my projects . . . it seemed as if I finally knew where I was supposed to be. Who I was supposed to be.”
He turned on the bench and put his hand on her knee. It was warm and reassuring and she wanted so badly to turn into his arms. But this was too big, too important to not sort out everything, so she let him go on.