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No rejection.
Just this one night.
‘One rule,’ she said again as they reached the door to his apartment.
‘I’m the same,’ Julius agreed as he typed in a code. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty.’
He took her hand and led her inside. She had never even glimpsed inside his private residence. The ceilings were high and the floors were mosaic tiles, split by an emerald green carpet that ran the full length of the long corridor.
It looked to Beatrice as if it ran for a mile.
‘I’m not talking about condoms,’ she said.
‘What, then?’ he asked, not really waiting for an answer. ‘Wait here,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll just check someone’s not turning back the bed or something...’
‘You mean your staff could be in here?’
‘There’s a private lift,’ he said. ‘They could be preparing the bedroom suite.’
‘Julius, I cannot be seen.’
‘I am more than aware of that.’ He was a little more specific. ‘Wecan’t be seen.’ He drew her into a lounge. ‘So what’s your one rule?’
So he had been listening.
‘Just tonight.’
She saw the slightest frown pull his brows down.
‘I mean it.’ She did. ‘No repeats. No hiding in corners when you get back from your trip. We might get away with it once, but...’
She would not be his latest scandal. In fact, she would barely register as a blip; it was her own reputation she was guarding.
‘Just tonight,’ she said again.
‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep.’
He gave her a smile that warned she might rue her words, but she was very familiar with arrogance. She knew that even though she might want desperately to know what it was like to make love to somebody, she would be able to walk away afterwards.
‘Wait there,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and check.’
She stood there in the lounge of the Prince’s private apartment and tested her heart, grateful for the rule she’d spelt out.
One night was better than no nights. And, given her job, she had no ‘reform-the-playboy’ illusions.
None.
She looked at her surroundings and noted the plump leather sofas and chairs, the low music playing and the papers strewn across the table.
This was his home, for there was beautiful artwork on the walls, rather than stuffy old portraits, and there were collections of photos on occasional tables that told of happier times. Family times. It was odd to see the King smiling with his children, laughing with the Queen, looking like a father rather than a ruler. Still looking smart, but somewhat more casually dressed, with his errant son.
One photo was recent—well, a couple of years old maybe—and from the gorgeous temple and the blaze of orange trees Beatrice thought it looked like Japan. And there was a photo she almost recognised, similar to the one that had graced the covers of all the glossies when Julius had been born. Except it was abeforephoto.
Claude was lying on the bed, looking bored, Jasmine was clinging onto her mother, and the King was smiling down at his very large newborn baby. They were a family. It only really hit her then.
She picked up a photo of the three siblings. She guessed Julius to be fifteen, maybe sixteen, in it. Claude’s face looked so serious compared to Julius’s smile, and then she looked at Jasmine. Her smile was so wide it took a second for her to see there was tape on her face and a tube that ran into her nose. Beatrice looked at the protruding collarbones and pale, veiny hands and saw that Jasmine had clearly been very ill.
Was she the little grey cygnet?
