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‘Antonietta, for what it is worth, I will not tell your mother.’
‘I don’t care any more.’
She would have dreaded that a short while ago, but no longer. She had spent these last years frozen at age twenty-one, desperate to reclaim their approval.
‘I cannot keep apologising for being me.’
‘No,’ Francesca said. ‘And neither should you. I think your parents’ treatment of you has been terrible and I have told your mother the same. We are no longer speaking.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No more saying sorry,’ Francesca said.
‘One more apology,’ Antonietta replied.
In the last hour she had learnt many lessons, and she now felt all of her twenty-six years. She knew that Francesca was being stern out of kindness and to protect her.
‘I will always be Aurora’s best friend, but I will never use that friendship again. At work, I answer only to you.’
‘Thank you,’ Francesca said.
It felt right. And for a moment the world felt a lot better than it had in recent years. But now came the hard part. The hardest part.
To let Rafe go with grace and not let him see the agony in her heart.
Antonietta knocked on the door, and instead of being called to come in, or using her swipe card, this time Rafe opened it.
He wore black jeans and a black shirt and was unshaven, yet somehow he seemed so immaculate and regal that Antonietta wondered how she had not known he was royal on sight.
‘Come in,’ Rafe said. ‘How did you get on?’
‘Okay, I think,’ Antonietta said.
And because she felt as if her knees might give way she chose to take a seat opposite the chair on which Francesca had folded her uniform dress, on the sofa on which they had made love the previous evening.
‘I have assured her that it will never happen again.’
‘You are hardly going to make a habit of sleeping with the guests.’
‘I think she understands that it won’t happen again. And I won’t be coming to your suite again.’
Rafe actually opened his mouth to dispute that. To wave his royal wand, or rather have things smoothed over, but to what end?
He was leaving, and it was far better to end it now. Cleanly. He did not want to follow his father’s example.
Rafe glimpsed it then—a future for them of the kind his father had described. He could return to Silibri at every whim. Take out a permanent lease on the August Suite...
No. Better he followed his mother’s example and killed this now.
Or let her think that she had.
‘Perhaps that would be for the best.’ His voice was steady and he watched her rapid blinking.
‘So I’m dismissed?’ Antonietta could not keep the hurt at his cold reply from her voice.
‘You are the one saying that you won’t be returning to my suite,’ Rafe pointed out. ‘You are the one saying that you cannot see me any more.’
‘Yes, but...’ She had hoped for some protest, some indication—anyindication—that this was hurting him even a fraction of how much it was killing her. Yet he seemed unmoved.
