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A vice tightened around her chest. ‘She’s no longer in the picture,’ she replied, hoping he would drop the subject.
But he was an all-powerful prince, used to
getting his way.
‘Why not?’
She contemplated resisting—except he’d answered her question just now. ‘We weren’t always...destitute. My father used to own a thriving property business. Then the bottom fell out of the market. His business went under and we went from living in a ten-bedroom mansion in Surrey to a tiny flat in inner-city London.’ Her shrug didn’t quite hit the mark as painful reminders hit home hard. ‘My mother didn’t take the change of circumstances well. She left my father when I was in university.’
‘She didn’t just leave your father. She left you too,’ he stated.
Her breath caught at the unexpected gruff gentleness in his voice. She’d expected a detached response, a callous dismissal of her pain, but his gaze didn’t hold any censure.
‘That’s not all, is it?’ he murmured, those eyes that saw too much boring into her.
She snatched in a breath, the urge to unburden herself swelling inside her. ‘Does it matter?’ she asked, attempting to reel herself in.
His answer was forestalled by their arrival. But not before he shot her a fierce glance.
Exiting the car, he turned to help her out.
The disquieting sensation increased as she stepped out to an explosion of flashbulbs. Rapid-fire questions flew at her.
‘Who are you?’
‘What are you to the Crown Prince?’
‘How long have you two been together?’
She noticed the questions aimed at Remi were more subdued and a whole lot more respectful. Not that he answered any of them. He looked through the throng as if it didn’t exist, and with a suave shift of his body shielded her injured arm and wrapped his hand around her waist again.
Nudged against the hard column of his body, she felt hers screech into awareness as they travelled along the red carpet.
After a few steps he glanced down at her for a long moment. There was a look in his eyes that tightened the muscles in her belly.
‘Are you okay?’
She jerked out a nod, reminding herself sternly that it was all an act.
Still, it didn’t calm the butterflies as she entered the impressive lobby of the five-star hotel hosting the gala.
According to his email, the fundraiser was in aid of establishing sports facilities for disabled children in half a dozen developing countries. When Remi introduced her to the chairwoman of the foundation, Maddie threw herself into finding out everything she could about the work of the charity, just so she could ignore the fact that she was the avid cynosure of incredulous gazes and whispers.
She raised her chin and tried to smile through it, striving for every ounce of poise hammered into her at the nosebleedingly expensive private school her parents had enrolled her in when she was eleven.
As the evening progressed, she noticed Remi’s speculative gaze straying increasingly towards her.
‘Our meal hasn’t been served yet, so I know I don’t have spinach stuck on my teeth, or something similarly unseemly, so why are you are looking at me like that?’
He paused for a beat. ‘I’m not a man who’s easily surprised,’ he murmured, his tone low and deep as conversation hummed around them.
That earlier sting returned. ‘You think you have me precisely pegged, but you don’t. My current circumstances may be deplorable to you, but perhaps you should make an effort to look beyond that. You might be surprised.’
His grey eyes grew more contemplative. ‘Very well. Tell me why you dropped out of a top-level university after one term to anchor yourself to that tawdry little café.’
The unexpected question threw her enough to draw an unguarded gasp. ‘It wasn’t tawdry. It was...okay.’
‘You almost sound as if you miss it.’
