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‘Oh,bella.’ Her eyes widened a fraction as the term of endearment slipped out unchecked.He started forward, wanting to comfort her, but that wasn’t his role. It never could be. Though the reasons for that seemed to be getting a little hazy. ‘Why were you at a boarding school?’
She walked to a portrait on the wall, another glowering ancestor, all a reminder of the job he had to do for Lasserno. He ensured they stared down on him from every private wall in the palace so he would never falter.
‘My aunt and uncle were my guardians. They didn’t have children of their own and said it would give me stability.’
‘Did it?’
‘No. It was awful. I didn’t...cope. So they brought me home and sent me to the local school. Not prestigious, but small and familiar.’
He could barely imagine the pain she had suffered, both parents lost. Being sent away from everything she’d known. The unfairness tore at him. At least when his mother had died he’d had some sympathetic courtiers, given his father was of no use.
‘I enjoyed boarding school. Away from the constraints of the palace. Away from my parents’ cold war.’ The open battles over his father’s infidelity. ‘It seemed like bliss in comparison, even though boys can be brutal.’
There was a softness in the way she looked at him now, like sympathy, when he was owed none from her. ‘Being a prince, you would have been top of the tree.’
He threw back the last of his drink. Tempting to have more, but not sensible in the circumstances. ‘That’s not always the best position to be in. It brings with it a certain entitlement which I needed to unlearn.’
She had an uncanny way of getting him to speak the truth of everything. He put his glass down on a side table. Thedomesticityof this scene assailed him once more. As if she should be here. As if this was her rightful place. A delectable sense of inevitability slid through him.
As if there was no other place she shouldeverbe.
‘You learned that at least. If you had one wish, what would it be?’
Her questions. Funny how she’d stopped asking the ones on her infernal list. However, this one seemed appropriate. He had so many wishes. That he had a sibling, so he was not all alone. That his parents had had a happy marriage like some of those he’d witnessed with his school friends. That his mother had not died. But there was one wish, above all. It came to the fore on nights like tonight, when he realised every choice was taken away by duty.Thatwish pricked at him like a dagger between the ribs, sliding true to his heart. His deepest secret, and some days his greatest shame.
‘Not being the Prince of Lasserno.’ Being an ordinary man with ordinary choices. He looked over at the decanter of Scotch sitting on the sideboard. He’d never drowned his regrets in alcohol before, but tonight he wanted to down the whole bottle. ‘And you?’
Hannah paled, her skin translucent in the lights. The antique diamonds glittering at her throat. She should always be in diamonds, this woman. Draped in jewels to frame her beauty. Her head dropped. She scuffed at the carpet with her pretty painted toes.
‘I wish I’d been in the car with my parents.’ Her voice was so soft he almost didn’t hear it, but the force of what she said struck him like a blow. His whole body rebelled at the thought she might not be here, that if she’d been in that car the world would be without her brilliance.
‘No!’ He cut through the air with his hand as her eyes widened. He was surprised by his own vehemence. The visceral horror that this was how she might feel. ‘You donotwish that.’
He strode towards her, the hectic glitter in her eyes telling him tears were close. He wasn’t good with tears. His mother had spilled enough of them in his presence, railing against his father. He’d been inured to most of them in the end, learning to comfort without feeling the pain himself.
The threat of Hannah’s ripped at the fabric of his being.
‘It’s my wish. It can be what I want.’
‘Survivor’s guilt.’ As if those two words could ease her dark thoughts. Had she had counselling after her parents had passed? Her aunt and uncle had sent her away to boarding school. Perhaps they’d expected her to get over things without the help a teenager might need after such a loss. ‘If this is the way you feel then you should—’
‘You don’t understand.’ She turned away from him, wrapped her arms round her waist. ‘If I hadn’t travelled with my friend that afternoon, we’d have gone a different way home. We wouldn’t have been on that road. The tractor wouldn’t have been on the bend. They might...’
They might be alive.
Alessio went to her, placed his hands gently on her shoulders. Her skin was warm, soft as satin. He circled his thumbs on her exposed flesh. She leaned back into him. As if taking, for a moment, the meagre solace he could provide.
‘We both want things we can’t have,’ he murmured.
‘You could give up the throne. I can’t turn back time.’
He let out a long, slow breath. Occasionally in his fantasies he’d allow himself to simply be a man, but he had the luxury of being able to think that way. ‘No. I can’t. I have a duty to my people and that duty is more important than anything. More important than a man’s desires.’
She disengaged from him and he mourned the loss of his hands on her skin, the warmth of her. ‘At least you can change things.’
‘I’ll always be the leader of Lasserno.’
‘Not everything has to be for duty. You talk about finding the perfect princess. Is that duty as well?’
