Kitabı oku: «Royals: His Hidden Secret: Revealed: A Prince and A Pregnancy / Date with a Surgeon Prince / The Secret King»

Chapter One

THE moment she saw the elegant two-storey guest house nestled in the heart of one of Australia’s premier wine-growing regions, Simone Duvalier approved of it. Granted, it was no seventeenth-century French chateau, but if one had to attend a wedding halfway around the world then this picturesque venue gave at least some consolation. Someone here had an eye for detail, reflected in the immaculately kept gardens and gleaming house. Someone here had a penchant for whimsy. The strutting metal flamingos cobbled together from nuts and bolts and what looked like spare engine parts telegraphed that.

As for the scenery…The big sky and the eucalypt-clad hills on the horizon. The tidy rows of grapevines flanking the drive…She’d been expecting a hint of wildness about the Australian landscape and it did not disappoint her, but there was order here too and that surprised her. Simone liked surprises. Surprise was an emotion that could almost compete with the nervousness that clawed through her whenever she thought about seeing Rafael Alexander again.

Rafael, her childhood playmate. Rafael, the housekeeper’s son.

Rafe the ambitious, the driven, the brilliant.

Rafael, the man she’d spurned.

Would he hold a grudge? Still? After almost nine years?

Would her soon-to-be brother-in-law be in any way pleased to see her? Probably not, but the one thing she’d made sure he could not do was throw her out. The land surrounding the guest house might have belonged to Rafael, but the guest house itself did not. And as adamant as Gabrielle had been about the wedding taking place in Australia rather than France, she’d also chosen to hold both the ceremony and the reception here at the guest house rather than at Rafe’s vineyard.

Neutral ground, and a concession for which Simone was supremely grateful.

Smiling grimly, Simone negotiated the narrow drive-way and parked her hired Audi in the car park behind the guest house before finally cutting the engine. At least she had a day to compose herself before meeting him again. Time enough to recover from her flight and the harrowing drive to the valley. Time enough for her to put on her happy face and work her way in to the moment.

‘One step at a time,’ she murmured. That was how she’d made it this far. By forcing one foot in front of the other, painting a smile on her face and making herself move towards the moment she dreaded.

Courage, mon ami, Gabrielle had whispered when she’d told Simone that the wedding would be held in Australia and that Rafael had agreed to stand as Luc’s best man.

Courage, when every instinct screamed at Simone to forgo her bridesmaid duties and run.

But Gabrielle had been adamant. It’s time you faced him again. It’s time he faced you.

Courage.

So here she was. Finally setting foot in Australia. Finally about to confront the ghosts of her past, for better or for worse. But not quite yet. Tomorrow would be plenty soon enough. For now, all she needed was her overnight bag, her car keys, Gabrielle’s gown and a room. Lord, let there be room at the inn. Simone had deliberately neglected to notify anyone of her early arrival and that included the guest-house staff.

The entrance foyer to the guest house was decorated in the French provincial style, albeit with some strikingly Australian floral arrangements. The young receptionist behind the desk smiled cheerfully, her eyes widening as she took in the garment bag draped over Simone’s arm. ‘Uh oh,’ she muttered as she hurried around the counter to take, not the garment bag, but Simone’s overnight case and car keys. ‘You’re Simone Duvalier. We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.’

‘I know. But there was a slight change of flight plans. I come in heartfelt hope that you might have a room available for me tonight.’

‘You’ve just flown in from Paris and driven here?’ asked the girl, and at her nod, ‘No wonder you look exhausted! But you’re in luck. I prepped your room earlier this morning, though I haven’t cut your flowers yet.’ She motioned for Simone to follow her along a hallway leading off from the foyer. ‘I’ll get you some later this afternoon, once the sun’s gone off them.’

‘You cut flowers from the garden outside?’ asked Simone, intrigued, as she followed the young woman along the wide hallway with its polished wooden floors and pressed metal ceilings.

‘As often as we can, yes. Want to come with me later? A lot of our guests enjoy picking out the flowers they’d like.’

‘I’m sure they do,’ said Simone, charmed. ‘How do you stop guests from choosing blooms that you don’t want cut?’

‘Easy,’ said the girl and glanced back at Simone with a dimpled smile. ‘I say “No, not that one.” Works a treat.’

‘I’m sure it does.’ Simone smiled her bemusement. She’d heard these Australians were a sunny people, given to irreverence and informality. She just hadn’t realised quite how unselfconsciously they served it up.

The room the receptionist took her to was feminine and airy, with a secluded courtyard and a separate dining area. The receptionist set Simone’s overnight case on the luggage rack, peeled back curtains and crossed to a large set of white louvre doors, opening them wide to reveal a walk-in wardrobe. Lemon-scented white linen sheets had been laid over gleaming wooden floorboards and a dressmaker’s dummy stood in the centre of the sheets, naked and waiting.

‘Gaby mentioned that you’d be bringing her wedding dress with you. Will this do for somewhere to put it?’

‘Perfect,’ said Simone. ‘The couturiers at Yves St Laurent would most definitely approve.’

‘Yves St Laurent?’ The girl eyed the garment bag in Simone’s arms with unabashed curiosity. ‘Gaby didn’t mention that. She’s wearing an Yves St Laurent wedding dress?’

‘Oui. And as soon as I shower and change into clean clothes I will call for you and we shall set the gown in place on the dressmaker’s bodice. Then we shall call the bride-to-be over to see what she thinks of it, yes?’

‘Yes,’ said the girl with another dimpled smile as Simone carefully laid the gown on the bed for now. ‘Ask for Sarah. Sarah who loves her job.’ With one last glance towards the garment bag, the girl collected herself and dangled Simone’s rental car keys from her fingers. ‘I’ll bring the rest of your luggage in.’

‘Thank you. Oh, and there are half a dozen cases of champagne in the rear of the car.’ She’d hauled them all the way from Caverness—thank heaven for porters—and the sooner she was free of them, the better. ‘Could you see that they come in as well?’

‘No problem. Where do you want them?’

‘I don’t suppose you have a dedicated drinks cool room operating at four degrees Celsius on hand?’

‘You’re in the heart of vineyard country. Of course we do.’

Of course they did. Simone was well on her way to falling in love with this fine establishment.

Sarah, who loved her job, jiggled the car keys and headed for the door. ‘I’ll send one of the cellar staff over with a receipt for your champagne. The receipt tells you exactly where we’ve stored it. When you want the champagne back just hand someone the receipt.’

‘It’s for Gabrielle’s wedding toasts. I believe the reception is to be held at the restaurant here on Sunday?’

Sarah nodded.

‘Then perhaps you could notify the maître d’ of the champagne’s arrival and location as well?’

‘Will do.’ Sarah left.

Simone waited until Sarah had closed the door behind her before crossing to her overnight case, retrieving her toiletries and heading for the bathroom, a white-on-grey marble affair with plush towels and stage-mirror lighting. ‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured. This place was just full of surprises. ‘I could get very fond of you.’

She’d been born into wealth, lots of it, and the family fortune had only risen over the years, but that didn’t mean Simone took her wealth or the benefits that came with it for granted. It was her duty to appreciate the finer things in life, and appreciate them she did.

Long minutes later, Simone emerged from the steamy shower cubicle and reached for a fluffy white towel. She’d barely finished drying her hair before a hammering noise started up at the door to her suite.

Cellar staff, Sarah had said. Impatient cellar staff.

‘Wait,’ she muttered, tucking the towel around her body and heading for the door, making sure she stood well behind it before opening it a fraction and peering out.

Not cellar staff, though he looked the part in his battered boots and well-worn work trousers. His grey T-shirt had seen better days too and could have been shapeless if not for the aid of the superbly muscled chest beneath it. His face was one she saw in her dreams, a strong and impossibly handsome face. Beloved once. Beautiful still. In her dreams those vivid blue eyes were always laughing, inviting her to share the joke and the moment with him. They weren’t laughing now.

‘Your receipt,’ he said quietly, and held it up between long strong fingers. ‘I was delivering the red wine for the wedding when the champagne came in.’

She opened the door a fraction wider and took the slip of paper from him. Their fingers did not touch. Rafael’s eyes did not warm. Not a dream then, but awkward, uncomfortable reality. ‘Merci.’

‘You’re early,’ he said next.

‘Yes.’ What could she say? That she’d arrived a day early so as to avoid having Gabrielle—or him—meet her at the airport? That she’d taken that extra time deliberately in order to armour herself against seeing him again? ‘Yes. A little early.’

Rafe’s eyes narrowed as he searched her face. ‘May I come in?’

‘No!’ Too breathless. Far too hasty. ‘No,’ she said again, trying for more composure. ‘Now’s not a good time.’

His eyed hardened. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you had company.’

Company? Company? As if she would attend this particular wedding with a lover in tow. Cursing herself for a fool, she moved out from behind the door and swung it wide open so that he could see for himself the kind of company she kept. Rafe’s hard gaze swept the room before returning to clash with hers.

Day, the household staff had named him back when they were children and Rafe had called Caverness home. Day, because of the sunshine in his nature and the brightness of his smile, never mind that he’d been the housekeeper’s unloved and unwanted son. And Lucien—her brother and Rafe’s partner in crime—Lucien with his watchful ways and inky-black hair had been Night. Somehow, it seemed as if their roles had been reversed.

‘I’m a little underdressed at the moment.’ Meeting him bereft of make-up and clad only in a towel had not been part of her master plan. ‘So if you would be so good as to leave…’

‘Being good isn’t something I excel at,’ he murmured silkily and leaned against the doorway, all raw and powerful male. His eyes made a leisurely study of her person. ‘Nice towel.’

He was fabulous when he was bad. She hadn’t forgotten. ‘Still out to defy the world, I see? How…predictable.’

‘No, I’ve given up defying the world. The reasoning was flawed.’ He sent her a devil’s smile. ‘Now I just want to rule it.’

‘Mmm.’ She sent him as cool a stare as she could manage for a woman dressed in a towel. ‘Wouldn’t a psychiatrist have fun with you.’

‘Well, she could,’ he murmured. ‘But only if she were naked and willing to be a very bad girl.’

Simone’s breath hitched in her throat and she could have sworn a flush started in the vicinity of her toes and shot straight to her scalp.

‘She could analyse herself afterwards,’ he continued in that dark, delicious rumble. ‘Give her something to do with her time because there certainly wouldn’t be any challenge in analysing me. I’m a simple soul, really.’

Not from where she was standing. Simone could feel herself being drawn towards him, moth to flame and perfectly willing to burn for just one more taste of all that barely contained heat.

Her luggage and car keys stood just inside the door. Simone reached for the suitcase handle, determined to stay calm. ‘I only arrived a few minutes ago. It’ll be ten more before I’m ready to see you,’ she murmured, and wished that her voice sounded steadier. She headed for the bathroom fast, grateful that the suitcase she towed behind her had wheels. ‘Close the door behind you if you decide not to wait,’ she added over her shoulder.

‘I’m not your servant, princess.’ There was no ignoring the bite in his words. ‘And you’ve never been ready for me.’

Finally, she thought with grim satisfaction. Finally, an honest reaction from him. ‘Yes, well…’ She reached down deep and called for calm in the face of his simmering, seething resentment. ‘I’ll be ten minutes.’

She shut herself in the bathroom, sinking back against the wall as reaction set in. She held her hands out in front of her, palms down to the floor. Shaking hands and a heavy heart at what he could still make her feel, even after all these years. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, willing strength to her limbs and resolve to her trembling heart.

Time to get dressed. Time to find clothes in her suitcase that lent confidence and poise. Clothes that armed a woman against a man such as Rafael.

Beige trousers and her favourite sleeveless shirt in rich plum colours. Add a pair of vertiginous strappy leather sandals, a Cartier watch and a gauzy rainforest-green silk scarf; run a brush through her hair, emphasise her lips and eyes with a touch of make-up and maybe, just maybe, this time she’d be ready for him.

Not that she ever had been before.

Rafael brooded in silence as he made his way from the guest room into the tiny private courtyard attached to it. Simone Duvalier wasn’t meant to be here. Not today. Not ever, if Rafael had any say in the matter. Not that he seemed to have much say in anything of late. His sister’s upcoming wedding to Luc Duvalier had seen to that. Why they weren’t getting married in France where there was a perfectly serviceable seventeenth-century chateau at their disposal was anyone’s guess, but no, Gabrielle had insisted on holding the ceremony in Australia. Which meant that the wedding party entourage—which, granted, consisted only of Luc and Simone—were coming here.

He didn’t want them here.

Not Luc, for all that they had retained some semblance of friendship over the years.

Not Simone, looking flustered and fetching and far too vulnerable for his liking.

Rafe scowled at the jasmine climbing its way up the stone courtyard wall. Hadn’t he taught her never to appear weak in the face of one’s enemies? Hadn’t she remembered any of the lessons growing up at Caverness had taught them?

Never show fear, especially when your hands were slick with it.

Never let on how much something means to you lest someone take it away.

Never back down. Never give in.

Never look back.

Simone hadn’t had to learn that last lesson, only Rafael, but he’d never forgotten it. Indeed, he’d got royally drunk on one of his first nights in Australia and had those exact three words cut into his back. Not that he’d ever seen the tattoo, mind, although more than one woman had professed herself captivated by its beauty. Not once, in all the years it had graced his skin, had he ever sought its image.

He never looked back.

What the hell was taking her so long?

He had a million things to do today. Laying down the law on exactly how Simone Duvalier would conduct herself during her stay here hadn’t been one of them. That task had been on his list of things to do tomorrow.

Not that that bothered him. Rafael was an opportunist in the purest sense of the word. Today would do just as well. ‘Here’s how it’s going to be,’ he would say. ‘You’re going to stay out of my way. I’m going to stay out of yours. And you will not set foot in my house or on my land during your time here because I don’t want you there. Ever. Clear?’ And she would say, ‘Yes, crystal clear,’ with her eyes downcast, at which point he would get the hell out of there before he changed his mind.

Rafe paced the courtyard—he figured this took all of three seconds. He considered he might just probably be climbing the courtyard walls by the time Simone deigned to put in an appearance. How could it possibly take her ten minutes to throw on some clothes and run a comb through her hair?

Exactly ten minutes later Simone emerged from the bathroom, a vision of elegant sophistication and poise. She didn’t look towards the still open door, no, she turned her head towards the courtyard and looked straight at him, as if she’d known all along that he would be waiting for her there. He felt the impact of that quiet assessing gaze hit him like a silken fist.

She stepped out into the courtyard, one elegantly sandal-clad and perfectly pedicured foot in front of the other. ‘I thought we might perhaps manage a greeting this time round, but I can see you’re not in the mood,’ she said quietly.

He wasn’t. And it rankled him mightily that she knew it.

‘Would you care for a drink?’ she said next. ‘I was about to call for some coffee.’

‘No.’

‘Or, there’s probably juice or cola in the fridge if you’d prefer something cold. Come to think of it, I’d prefer something cold. Are you sure I can’t get you something?’

She disappeared back inside, leaving Rafe to either follow her, which he would never do, or stay where he was and seethe in silence, which he accomplished effortlessly.

She returned a minute or so later with a tall glass of clear liquid. ‘They only had water,’ she said. ‘I guess you order what you want from room service. That or Sarah will restock the fridge when she does the flowers.’

‘We need to set some ground rules,’ he told her curtly.

‘Not a social visit, then? Who would have guessed?’

Rafael watched in silence as Simone sipped her drink, soft, lush lips to cool, smooth glass. Rafe hadn’t been thirsty a moment ago. Now he was parched.

‘Am I going to like these ground rules?’ she asked next.

‘You might,’ he offered, dragging his gaze from her lips. Not that he gave a damn whether she liked them or not. ‘You might find that they make your stay here easier for all concerned.’

‘Ah, yes. The easy road.’ She looked around the courtyard, her gaze following the trail of jasmine up and over the wall. ‘Why is it, do you think, that the easy road so rarely takes a person where they want to go?’

‘It can,’ he said. ‘It depends where you want to go.’

‘Call it a wild hunch, but I don’t think we’re heading for the same place.’ She slanted him a glance, heavy on the doe-eyed innocence. Warning klaxons rang in his brain. Childhood memories surfaced. The ingénue look had usually signalled Simone at her devious best. And Simone at her devious best had been very wily indeed.

‘So…about these rules…’ she said. ‘Am I to stay out of your way as much as possible? Refuse all invitations from Gabrielle to show me the vineyard you restored and made your own? Am I to pretend that our shared history does not exist?’

She knew him too well. He glared at her, but he didn’t contradict her. ‘It’s a start.’

‘It’s a mistake,’ she countered lightly. ‘Funny things, boundaries. All they ever seem to do is make a person want to push against them.’ Her gaze turned dark and knowing. ‘But then…you already know that.’

Just like that, effortlessly and with surgical precision, she cut the ground from beneath him.

‘I will not cower in the shadows during my stay here, Rafael.’ She stepped closer, too close. ‘I will not pretend polite indifference towards you. I reject your rules of engagement. Mine is a different road.’

He could smell the scent on her skin, something delicate and floral and quintessentially French. He was close enough to touch her if he wanted to. And he did want to. Not lovingly or gently but in desperation and in need. Slowly, deliberately, he jammed his hands in his pockets and stepped back. ‘Yours is a dangerous road.’

‘We played together as children,’ she said quietly. ‘I knew you then. I knew your soul and it wasn’t a simple one, but I knew it nonetheless. We loved together in our youth and I felt your dreams and breathed your fears, but duty prevented me from following where you led. Sometimes, when I look back, I regret the choices I’ve made. And sometimes I don’t.’

She looked away then, as if the sight of him hurt her eyes. ‘I cannot change our past, Rafael. It happened. It’s done. But I can influence the present and I would have us leave the past behind if we could. I want new memories to replace the old. Even bittersweet ones would be better than the ones I carry now.’

She took a shuddering breath. There was fear here; he felt it as if it were his own. Maybe it was. Run, he pleaded silently. Dear God, Simone, don’t do this. Don’t even try.

‘Do you know what I would take from you this visit?’ she said quietly. ‘Friendship.’

‘Don’t,’ he muttered. ‘Simone, don’t.’

‘Guarded if you like. Conditional if need be. But I would very much like to get to know the man you’ve become.’

‘No.’ She asked too much of him. She always had. He headed for the door, knowing it for retreat. Knowing that whatever ground he’d thought to protect, he’d somehow just lost. ‘I can’t walk that road with you,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Not now, not ever.’ He let his anger surface, he let it fan his pain and she flinched away from what she saw in his eyes and well she should have. He headed for the door, fast, before he hauled her in his arms and showed her exactly why he could never be her friend. ‘I just can’t.’

Simone stood her ground as he strode from the court-yard and then from the room without a backward glance. She knew he wouldn’t look back, he never had, even as a boy. Forward was the only way for Rafael and she had hoped to appeal to that need in him. Confront the past head on in order to move on.

So much for that particular notion.

Simone closed her eyes and let the twin blades of weariness and abandonment overtake her.

She’d come here for a wedding because she had to. She’d come here, out of her element and out of her league, to try and broker some sort of peace with her past and with Rafael.

She was trying, dammit!

Coffee would be good. Coffee, and then she and Sarah would fit the bridal gown to the dressmaker’s dummy and then she would make that call to Gabrielle. There were jobs to do. Steps to take. She would take pleasure in helping to make Luc and Gabrielle’s wedding day a perfect one. She would find joy in the little things. She would not give way to despair.

As for Rafael, with his smouldering gaze and his barely concealed anger…

Courage.