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She swam in the pools, as if testing them all to see which one might be her favorite, though she could never make up her mind. The one on the cliff with the infinity pool that made the horizon seem nearlyright there, within reach? The soft, warmer pools clustered on one side of the hotel, some of them shaded, each and every one its own delight? How could anyone choose? There were also hot tubs at night. One set into the rocks outside Joaquin’s dungeon villa, where the ocean waves would sometimes splash over into the pool set into the rocks, an exhilarating punch to combat the heat.
And that didn’t begin to address the many beaches she could swim from, if she liked.
When she wasn’t swimming, she wandered the island. She climbed up and down all the stone steps she could find, finding every nook and cranny she might have missed last time. And as she did these things, she took great care that when she found herself thinking in the usual endless cycles about Ile d’Montagne, Esme, and her true identity as a farm girl from Kansas, she stopped. She breathed a bit and remembered where she was. Then she tried to put it all out of her mind.
Not because she was hiding from it, but because there was nothing she could do to solve any of those problems here. Because most of those problems weren’t her problems any longer, however strange that still was to her.
She swam. She walked. And now that the cook was back, she paused between these activities to eat. And eat. And eat. The cook, she knew, called her cuisineEuropean. She took foods from any country that grabbed her fancy. Sometimes she combined it all. Sometimes it was identifiably the food of one country, or another.
And for the first time in her life, Amalia ate with total abandon. Because why should she care if her clothes fit her? Why should she worry for even one moment more about how she would look in photographs? The older she’d gotten, the more she’d fought to maintain a frame that was at least fifteen pounds slimmer than what she would consider her normal size, so that she would appear normal when photographed. It had simply been part of her job.
The part she was happiest to give up, she acknowledged now, while always having dessert. And then, afterward, she napped in the sun, or under an umbrella, dozing off in the afternoons and letting the sun and breeze do as they would.
All of the ways she occupied her time were soothing. And good for her, she thought. But what she did mostly, in and around the rest, was try her best to please Joaquin.
Some days he was harsh, his green eyes glittering and his mouth taut. On those days, there were rules. Tasks he set for her, knowing she would fail them, so that he could mete out his brand of starkly sensual punishment.
She loved every moment of it.
Other days, he was teasing, even playful. He would come and find her in the pools, or out somewhere on the island, and he would take her there. Sometimes he would pull her into a shadowed corner. Other times he would lay her out beside one of the pools, surging between her thighs right there in the open air, which she would never have allowed when she was still the Crown Princess.
But here, with him, she was someone new.
That long-ago summer, she realized now, he had been restrained. He had held himself back, keeping himself on a leash.
He was not doing that now.
Some days, he growled strict commands that she was to stay where she was, splayed out on his bed, only breaking for necessary reasons. And he would visit her, in between meetings, to please them both excessively.
Her head was so full of him—and every last nerve ending, and her skin, and possibly even her very bones—that a full month passed before Amalia bothered to pull out her mobile phone.
It was an unusually rainy day. Joaquin had stormed off to growl at his subordinates after taking out his mood all over her, deliciously. Amalia dashed up the stone path to the grand hotel lobby, where some thoughtful staff member had already lit the great fire. She curled up before it, and powered up her phone, tucking her bare feet beneath one of the blankets on the chair she’d chosen.
“Do you really want to do this?” she asked herself softly.
And the answer was no. She did not. She was perfectly happy as she was, cut off from the world. But it was a bliss born of ignorance. And she knew that sooner or later, she would have to face reality. Better on her own schedule, she thought.
Even then, while the lock screen of her phone filled with various messages, she held off from looking more closely at any of them. Just for a few moments more.
But an hour or so later, she had deleted all the messages from various so-called journalists. She had checked in with her secret social media presence, restricted only to a very few people she knew personally who were as averse to publicity as she was. And was touched to find that all of them had checked in to make certain she was well.
But what surprised her more was that there were three other messages, all voice mails.
One from Queen Esme, a frigid inquiry into her well-being.
Some might find that off-putting. But Amalia knew the Queen. And knew that for Esme, reaching out at all must have seemed an unforgivable lapse into sentimentality.
Amalia would hold on to that.
The second message was confusing. It was Delaney Clark, her replacement. Or, she countered as she thought that, the real her.
I would love to talk to you, if that isn’t too strange, the other woman said.It’s nothing bad. I just know that you spent twenty-five years training for this job, so you’re obviously the expert. I’d love to pick your brain.
Amalia’s finger had hovered over the delete button, and she’d urged herself to press it, but...hadn’t.
She told herself she wanted no part of the palace, or anything to do with the real Crown Princess. Why would she go back there? Why would she involve herself in a life was no longer hers?
But she didn’t delete the message.
