The Secret That Shocked De Santis

She rested for the next twenty minutes as Eduardo sailed the small yacht right up to an ancient wooden jetty and leapt to secure it.

He grinned at her and held out his hand to help her up. ‘Come on.’

‘Where are we?’ She stretched and started walking.

‘A tiny town on the coast of Sardinia.’

Stella gaped. ‘We sailed that far?’

‘We’ve been going for hours.’ He pulled a phone from his pocket and, yanking it out of the dry bag he’d stored it in, walked along the dock with her.

‘No wonder I’m starving.’ She jogged ahead, on the lookout for the nearest eatery in this very small town.

‘Stella—’

‘Come on—I’m famished!’ she called as he lagged behind her.

She spotted a small, grimy-looking café. The ‘Closed’ sign was up, but she went inside the open doorway anyway, hoping to convince the proprietor to make them a small snack.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said rapidly in Italian to the worn-looking woman behind the counter. ‘Would you mind—?’ She broke off as sheer amazement and then blushing wonder washed over the woman’s face.

As the woman dropped into a deep curtsy Stella turned to look at Eduardo, walking up behind her. Before her eyes he was transformed from her windswept, sexy companion to ‘the Prince’—the suave, charming man on all those magazine covers. But his smile, while still gorgeous, was slightly set, and that tiny dimple had disappeared. Small changes she wouldn’t have noticed before.

And now she read the brief apology in his eyes.

But she felt sorry—because she’d broken their brief private peace. Everyone knew who he was. Everyone changed in his presence. He was ‘different’.

As the General’s daughter, in the army she’d been ‘different’ too. Their birth circumstances stood them apart from others, and they each had to play a part.

But hers had been nothing on his. Now she started to understand the strain and isolation he felt when appearing in public. From this one woman’s overwhelmed reaction she saw what it must be like for him, walking into those galleries or gardens or concert halls filled with people craning their necks to have a look at him?

And he did it alone. His brother was too busy and aloof, doing ‘important’ Crown Princely things.

But now—at least for a little while—Eduardo had her at his side. Suddenly she didn’t want to let him down. She wanted to play her new part as well as she could. Except her clothes were wet, and no doubt her hair was wild.

She should have thought before sprinting into the small town and flinging herself into the first café she’d found. But it was too late. The woman promised absolute discretion and bustled away to fix them some food.

‘I should have realised you would be hungry.’ Eduardo fetched a chair for Stella and waited until she was seated. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘We lost track of time, sailing.’ She smiled. ‘It was fun.’

That beautiful, intimate smile flashed on his face, but it disappeared almost instantly when he caught sight of something over her shoulder.

Stella turned.

It was a young child, peeking from behind the café counter. Stella turned back to see Eduardo waving the girl over with a conspiratorial wink. Two minutes later he was laughing at the manageress when she brought their dishes over and came to apologise.

‘It’s okay,’ Eduardo assured them. ‘We would love to talk with you.’

‘You’re Prince Eduardo from San Felipe,’ the girl said.

‘Yes.’

‘Who’s she?’ With the unashamed curiosity of the young, the girl stared at Stella.

‘She’s my princess,’ Eduardo answered.

The little girl’s eyes widened. ‘Did you make her a princess?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you make me a princess?’

Eduardo laughed lightly. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, I had only one crown to give and I gave it to her.’

Like a heat-seeking missile the older woman’s gaze locked on Stella’s hand. Her jaw dropped as she clocked the heavy sapphire and the gold band. Stella turned to Eduardo, but he was too busy talking to the small girl to notice. Yeah...he didn’t just win the hearts of every woman who laid eyes on him, but every person who spent more than two seconds with him.

‘You’ve made their day,’ Stella said softly when the woman returned to the kitchen with the giggling little girl running ahead.