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‘You will stay on at the hotel,’ Xavier went on, as if she had any choice. ‘The designer will return for a last fitting of the dress, while make-up artists and hairdressers will attend you on the day. It will be easier for you to stay here than to go back to the island. Don’t look so worried. I guarantee I’ll be back for the wedding.’
‘It would be a half-hearted affair without you,’ she joked weakly.
‘Does nothing get you down, Rosie Clifton?’
Plenty. The lack of love in their arrangement got her down. She had never expected any, and so she couldn’t admit to being disappointed in that direction. Her concern for a child not yet born got her down even more. She had done what she had thought was for the best, and was now left with the growing suspicion that she’d only made things worse. Was this what Doña Anna had intended?
‘If anything gets me down, I’ll bounce back up again,’ she said in an attempt to convince herself as much as Xavier. Exactly how she was going to do that, she didn’t have a clue.
‘This is a difficult situation for both of us,’ Xavier remarked. ‘Doña Anna was always tricky to handle, but her
swan song takes some beating. And you definitely don’t want the ring? You can keep it if you want to,’ he offered.
‘I definitely don’t want it,’ Rosie confirmed with a wry smile. ‘Honestly, it’s absolutely unnecessary.’
Something like admiration crossed Xavier’s face, and then he stowed the ring away in the back pocket of his jeans as if it were a penny sweet. ‘What are you thinking about now?’ he prompted with interest when she frowned and chewed her lip.
‘I was thinking back to the orphanage,’ she admitted.
‘Look forward instead,’ Xavier advised.
Rosie had been remembering when she used to sit on a scraggy patch of grass with her chin on her knees, dreaming about her wedding day. The day would be all misty white, and she would be dressed in a billowing gown. There would be crowds of guests and loads of flowers, and a fabulously handsome husband would be waiting to take her away from the colourless institution.
‘I was just dreaming about happily-ever-after,’ she admitted recklessly. ‘I know it won’t come to that for us, because ours is an arrangement, but maybe it won’t be all bad?’
‘I hope not,’ he said with feeling. ‘And dreams are free, Rosie Clifton, so you can dream all you like.’
In less than a week her dream would be dust.
‘Your life has changed now,’ Xavier told her, ‘so no more talk of the orphanage.’
She still felt as if she were on the outside looking in.
‘Rosie?’ Xavier prompted, seeing her abstraction. ‘I think we should lay this ghost once and for all,’ he said in a voice she couldn’t ignore. ‘I want you to tell me about your worst time in the orphanage.’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘I really do,’ he said.
She wouldn’t tell him about her wedding day fantasy. He’d think her soft. ‘Christmas was the worst time,’ she said after a moment’s thought.
‘Why?’ He frowned.
‘Because well-intentioned people arrived with gifts, and that gave us children a tantalising glimpse of the outside world.’
‘But surely you’d rather have those people come to visit at Christmas than not?’
‘Of course, and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.’ But she had felt like an animal in the zoo, to be cooed over, petted and fed a titbit before the visitors went away again. She had always imagined the visitors returning to their warm and cosy homes to open their presents beneath a massive Christmas tree, before stuffing themselves with food until they couldn’t stand up. But what had given her the biggest pang of all was the thought of them sharing the happiness of a family united over the holiday season. How she’d envied that, until she’d found the same warmth and welcome waiting for her on the island. ‘I’m frightened our wedding’s going to be like that,’ she admitted.
‘Like what?’ Xavier pulled back his head with surprise. ‘What’s wrong with Christmas?’
‘Absolutely nothing. I’m just afraid that I’ll be put on show at our wedding, and then whisked away to be impregnated with the Del Rio heir.’
‘For goodness’ sake,’ Xavier exclaimed. ‘What a thing to say. And now you’re shivering.’ He drew her close. ‘I didn’t realise you were so upset about it. Why didn’t you say?’
‘I’m dreading it,’ she admitted.
‘The impregnation, or the wedding?’
