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‘Meaning what?' he challenged her frowning.
‘Meaning that I've learned enough about sex from you to know that it isn't always used as an expression of positive emotions. It's common knowledge these days that couples on the verge of splitting up do sometimes use sex as a way of venting their negative feelings. Some couples say that they had the best sex of their relationship when the emotional side of it was dying. Of course I know that we aren't emotionally intimate with one another.’
What she meant of course. Emily admitted, was that Marco had never been emotionally close with her because he didn't want to be whilst she had had to struggle not to be close when shed wanted to be. ‘But I think both of us would accept that the break-up of any relationship—even one like ours—does bring things to the surface that aren't easy to accept.'
Marco's frown deepened. She was now being far more matter-of-fact about their relationship ending than he had expected—and he didn't like that! But he was being ridiculous. He should feel very relieved that she was being so sensible, especially after her earlier, uncharacteristic outburst...
CHAPTER SIX
FROM his seat on the royal jet. Marco looked down onto his family's private runway at Niroli's airport to where a group of formally dressed courtiers and officials were waiting to greet him. The ostrich-feather plumes of their dress hats fluttered in the breeze as they stood straight-backed, ignoring the heat of the sun. Marcos lips twisted with irony at the thought of the heavily gold-braided, bemedalled uniform that his grandfather had sent him along with strict instructions that he must wear it when he landed and was greeted by the courtly welcoming committee.
In fact, the uniform, appropriate for the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in Nirolis ancient Royal Guard, was lying in its leather dress-trunk in the planes hold, whilst he wore his own handmade Saville Row suit. His grandfather wouldn't be pleased. But Marco intended to let him. and the court, know right from the word go that he would make his own decisions and judgements and he wouldn't allow them to force theirs on him.
Emily would have appreciated and understood his decision, though she would probably have laughed gently, and teased him as well into wearing that undeniably magnificent, beautifully tailored uniform. Emily...he tried to thrust the thought of her away from him along with the erotic mental image of her alongside him in his bed that was forming inside his head, but it was too late; she was there, smiling at him wanting him as he ached for her. What the hell was this?
He stood up so abruptly that the young Niroli air force aide-de-camp, who'd been sent to escort him home, was caught off guard, and his own attempt to get to his feet before Marco was severely hampered by his ceremonial sword. The red-faced young man saluted as he semi-stuttered. ‘Highness, if you wish to have more time in order to prepare, then please allow me—'
‘No. I am ready.' Marco told the aide shortly and then relented when he saw his anxious expression. It was not the lad's fault—and he was little more than a boy. A scion of one of Niroli's foremost titled families. Marco had chosen to be the man he was rather than the grandson his grandfather wanted him to be. Damn Emily for pursuing him like this, insinuating herself into his thoughts where she now had no right to be! Her abrupt departure from his apartment had decided him that he should leave London earlier than he had originally planned—much to his grandfather's delight.
Marco suspected the old king would not have been so cock-a-hoop over his victory if he had known that it owed less to his own power than to his grandson’s loss of his bed-mate.
The aide-de-camp, who was carrying his own plumed hat as protocol demanded, stood beside his king-to-be as the doors to the royal jet were opened. He bowed as Marco walked past him and stepped out onto the gangway steps and into Nirolis sunshine. Just for a few seconds. Marco stood motionless and ramrod-straight at the top of the steps, not because he was the islands future ruler, but because he was one of its returning sons.
He had almost forgotten the unique scent of sunshine and sea mimosa and lemons, all of which hit him on a surge of hot wind. Not even the strong smell of jet fuel and tarmac could detract from them, and Marco felt emotion sting his eyes: this was his home, his country, and the crowds he could see lining the wide straight road that ran from the airport to the main town were his people. Many of them had not had the benefit of being part of a wider, modern world, but he intended to change that. He would give to Nirolis young the opportunities his grandfathers old-fashioned rule had denied them. Determinedly Marco stepped forward. The waiting military band broke into Nirolis national anthem and the waiting officials removed their hats and bowed their heads. Their faces were familiar to Marco, although more wrinkled and lined than he remembered—the faces of old men.
