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The conversation she’d overheard echoed in her head.
She knew Rene wasn’t planning to use her to create a ‘lurve narrative’ for the media, the way his PR guy had implied. She’d heard the sharp disgust in his voice when he’d ended the conversation. And she knew him well enough now to know he did care about her because of the affection in his eyes when he smiled at her, because of the fierce passion when they made love, because of all those moments when he made her feel cherished and important. She also knew he didn’t care enough about his media image to ever propose marriage simply to sell a false narrative to the press.
But the cynicism of the discussion had made her realise how delusional she had allowed herself to become. And how naïve she had always been without ever realising it. Because she had believed with increasing conviction over the past week—every time she lay in his arms sated with afterglow, every time they laughed or joked together, every time he respected her advice and considered her opinions so carefully—that if she told him how she felt he would welcome the news. And even if he couldn’t love her yet, he would be more than willing to give love a chance to grow.
But instead, he had guessed what she was about to say and shut her down.
He was a much better man than he believed himself to be. And an exceptionally good prince. But she knew now that an offer of marriage from him would always have been based on pragmatism and practicalities. However much he enjoyed her company, however much he wanted her sexually, for him marriage would always have been a business proposition.
The foolish wish for an unplanned pregnancy had been her subconscious longing to provide her with a reason to accept such an offer. To drop even further down the rabbit hole of believing theirs could be some kind of fairy tale romance—when Rene had never been allowed the luxury of that innocence and hope, even as a boy.
She could end up spending the rest of her life hoping for something that was never going to happen. And she couldn’t bear to risk that, because it would remind her far too forcefully of that little girl who had kidded herself for so long that her father would return one day, would welcome her with open arms, would tell her the divorce had never been her fault and that he loved her unconditionally.
Waiting, hoping and eventually discovering she wasn’t enough had nearly broken her then. But she had eventually survived and prospered—thanks to her mum’s support, and Isabelle’s, and because she’d discovered a purpose and a job she loved.
Until Rene.
Until those days in the cabin, when she’d finally admitted to herself how obsessed she had always been with him—and this week, when she had come to realise he was a much more complex man than she had ever believed.
Discovering that man had been wonderful, but also terrifying. Because while she had made herself so vulnerable to love, he had been careful to keep a large portion of himself back.
He had offered her scraps—delicious, beautiful, wonderful insights into the man he might have been if his childhood had not been so broken, and he hadn’t been forced to protect himself. But she could see now that was all he would ever have to offer her.
She dressed hastily and packed the small bag she had arrived with, what felt like several lifetimes ago. She wrote a goodbye note for Rene, folded it into an envelope and placed it carefully on the dresser with trembling fingers, then walked quickly along the wooden walkway in the opposite direction from the guest cottage where Rene was making breakfast for them both—probably badly, she thought, the choking sensation in her throat becoming painful.
When she arrived at the island’s small dock the cleaning crew were busy loading up the speedboat they had arrived in, which was docked next to the power catamaran she and Rene had used to head out for a snorkel safari on the reef only the day before.
Grief and sadness pushed against her chest, but her flight instinct spurred her on.
The boat’s captain agreed to give her a lift back to St Thomas, looking nonplussed. Thankfully, though, he didn’t question her further as she sat on the small bench seat beside the cleaners.
The boat puttered away from the quay, then reared in the water to speed towards the horizon. She forced her gaze forward and refused to look back.
The last week had been a heartbreakingly beautiful dream full of so many possibilities, but she had to face a future without Rene in it. She could have made him a good wife, because he was right, they did make a great team… But she would always want so much more than that. And he had made it clear, in all the ways that counted, that he didn’t.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘MEL, HONEY, WHENexactly are you planning to head back to Androvia?’ Elise Taylor’s voice was concerned but firm at the other end of the phone line.
Mel gazed out of the kitchen window of the small cottage in Wales, where she had been staying for over a week.
Not staying. Hiding,she thought miserably.
The drystone walls at the back of the property framed the view over the still waters of Llyn Dinas towards the dramatic rocky peaks of Dinas Emrys where, according to local legend, the white dragon of the Saxons and the red dragon of Wales had fought each other.
‘Soon,’ Mel replied to her mother, hating the halting note in her voice. She’d got a flight to London from St Thomas but had only been at her mother’s house in Paddington for twenty-four hours before a press photographer had appeared. So she’d fled to this off-grid bolthole in Wales, owned by one of her mum’s friends. Ironically, it was the same bolthole they’d used once before, during that soul-destroying Christmas after her parents’ divorce. She never would have thought she could feel more adrift, more unsure, more unhappy than she had that winter. She’d been wrong.
She let out a heavy sigh. What she needed was to get back to work, back to her life in Androvia. But she didn’t want to bring more negative media attention on Isabelle and Travis. Or rather, that was what she’d been telling herself religiously each day, while reading all the books on her e-reader which she hadn’t had time for in years, or trekking through the forests of the Snowdonia National Park to the picturesque mountain village of Beddgelert to buy supplies and catch up with as much of her workload as she could in a café with an internet connection, while avoiding going on any of the news or gossip sites.
‘How soon?’ her mother said gently. ‘Because Her Majesty phoned me again this afternoon. She’s worried about you, Mel, and so am I.’
‘You didn’t tell her where I am, did you?’ she asked, hating the panic in her voice and the echo of cowardice. What was wrong with her? She needed to contact Isabelle properly, instead of sending her daily texts and then switching off her phone before her friend could reply.
‘You asked me not to, so I didn’t,’ her mother said carefully, as if she were talking to the little girl Mel had once been, who had always needed so much reassurance that she was worthy and important, after her father’s desertion, instead of the strong, determined woman she had become. But then that woman would not still be hiding out in Wales, nursing her completely self-inflicted heartbreak, instead of dealing with the fallout from the end of her fake engagement.
‘This isn’t like you, Mel,’ her mother added, sighing. ‘What happened in the Caribbean?’ she asked, finally addressing the subject Mel had been busy avoiding. ‘Because Prince Rene hasn’t issued any statement about the engagement being off, sweetheart.’
What? Why not?