Her loneliness appalled him.
That he’d left her to face childbirth and the babe’s subsequent death alone seemed unthinkable. He’d been so young. He’d left her to come home to a magnificent royal wedding. Thinking of Holly had hurt so he’d tried not to think of her at all.
He’d been a boy.
That was no excuse. He should have…
‘There’s no reason to berate yourself for what happened ten years ago,’ Holly said with sudden asperity. ‘Adam’s death wasn’t your fault. For the rest…I knew I was being seduced by a prince and I liked it.’
‘You weren’t…’
‘Seduced?’ she demanded with a trace of the old Holly. ‘What do you call what happened between us? Hair like gold filigree, I believe you told me. Eyes like stars. Breasts like-’
‘There’s no need to-’
‘There’s not, is there?’ she agreed and fell silent again.
‘It was good,’ he said cautiously, glancing at her sideways. Maybe he did remember the overblown compliments. Maybe he even remembered his older brothers coaching him.
‘Being a prince has definite advantages where women are concerned.’ He remembered Alex telling him this. ‘There’s hardly a woman you can’t get into your bed. It’s just a matter of a few pretty words and they’re yours for the taking.’
It had been heady stuff for a young prince to hear. Heady advice for a young prince to live by.
Maybe, God help him, he’d even believed it.
‘It was fun,’ Holly conceded, interjecting over his thoughts. ‘But before you get all smug, if I hadn’t wanted to be seduced you wouldn’t have had a chance.’
‘As you don’t want to be seduced now?’ Hell, where had that come from? But the words were out before he could stop himself saying them.
Maybe it wasn’t the wisest come-on. And it certainly wasn’t the way to lead into Sebastian’s plan for them.
She gasped. She stopped walking-and then she started again, very fast.
‘We were children, Andreas. We’re not children now. If you think you have a snowball’s chance in a bushfire…’
He grinned, distracted as he’d been distracted years ago by her Aussie expressions. Flat out like a lizard drinking. Barmy as a bandicoot. Mad as a cut snake.
‘I remember the way you talk,’ he said and she glared back at him as if he were crazy.
‘Shut up,’ she snapped. ‘Just shut up. If I get one more compliment from you I’ll choke. How soon can I get off this place?’
‘There are things we need to sort.’
‘What things?’
‘We do need to talk,’ he said gravely, but she was hardly listening. She’d crested the last hill before the pavilion and was speeding up.
‘So we speak at dinner?’ he asked.
‘Go home, Andreas,’ she snapped.
‘This is my home.’
‘You live on Aristo. With your wife. With your children.’
‘There is no wife,’ he said. ‘No children, either.’
She whirled to face him then, her face blanching. ‘Oh, Andreas…’ She swallowed. ‘Not…not dead?’
‘Not dead,’ he said, fast, wanting desperately to take away the pain he saw surge behind her eyes. Of course. This woman had seen tragedy. It was natural she’d expect it in his. ‘Christina and I never had children,’ he said gently. ‘We divorced six months ago.’
‘Oh,’ she said, her face still white. The pain in her eyes was replaced by blank acceptance. She turned away again. ‘I’m sorry.’
But not very, he thought. Not even very interested. For a moment he came close to wishing that Christina had died, so the sympathy in her face would have stayed. What he saw now was something close to contempt.
It was a new sensation for Andreas. Women didn’t show contempt to the royal princes of Karedes.
Women?
Yes, there had been women. Christina had been a faithless wife, finally leaving him for a shipping tycoon. And Andreas…well, the last few years hadn’t been without their comforts.
They were being dredged up now, one after another, he thought bleakly, as the press scrambled to make the royal princes look a bunch of pleasure-seeking womanizers. Culminating in this. An accusation that had the capacity to bring down a throne.
The urgency of the current situation slammed back. Holly was assuming he could put her on a plane and send her calmly back to where she’d come from.
Maybe he could. If she could swear…
‘Holly, is there anyone who could prove the baby…Adam…’ he corrected himself hastily as he saw her face. ‘Is there any way it can be proved that Adam was mine?’
Until now he’d thought she was so angry she could scarcely be angrier.
He was wrong.
She’d dropped her towel at some point and had simply left it. She stood now, facing him, bare of everything but her skimpy bikini. She was only five feet four or so, but she looked much taller. She was all heaving bosom and flashing eyes-and temper to the point of explosion.
‘I beg your pardon?’ she said at last, dripping ice with every word.
But it had to be asked.
‘I have to know,’ he said. He was feeling sick at what he’d just learned but this couldn’t be the end of it. What was at stake was too important.
‘You want to know if I can prove you were Adam’s father?’ she demanded, incredulous.
‘I know I fathered your child,’ he said flatly. ‘I accept your word, the dates fit and I know you were a virgin.’
‘Thank you so much,’ she said, scorn dripping as well as ice.
‘But…’
‘But what?’ They were too close. She was glaring up at him, tugged so close he could feel her breasts beneath the fine linen of his shirt. Her anger was a palpable force, holding them together with fire.
‘Holly, I’m in trouble,’ he said simply. ‘We’re all in trouble. If anyone else can prove the baby was mine, then I’m going to have to marry you.’
As a conversation stopper it was magnificent. It set up a boundary over which Holly would not step. She stared at him for one long, incredulous moment and then she closed her eyes.
‘You’re mad and I’ll have nothing to do with you,’ she spat, and that was all she’d say. She wrenched herself away with a viciousness he could scarcely credit for a woman so small. She slapped his hands away and, unless he was prepared to hold her back with force, he had no option but to let her go.
She marched back to the pavilion with her head held high. Sophia met them at the main entrance as if she’d been on the lookout for them, her shrewd eyes filled with unasked questions.
‘His Highness has had too much sun,’ Holly said to her. ‘I think he needs a doctor. I’m going to take a shower and cool off.’
She marched across the tiled courtyard to the apartment Sophia had obviously allocated her. She hauled the oak doors wide, marched in and slammed the doors so hard behind her that the ceiling fans in the vast entrance hall wobbled on their bearings.
Sophia and Andreas were left staring after her. And staring at each other.
‘Do you want dinner?’ Sophia said at last, though Andreas knew there were a dozen other questions her eyes were asking.
‘In an hour.’
‘I’d imagine Holly will have it in her room,’ she said cautiously, staring at the very shut doors.
Enough. He was a prince of the blood. He was here with a mission. ‘Holly will have her dinner out by the pool with me,’ he snapped, a score or more of his exceedingly autocratic ancestors snapping to attention behind him, stiffening his spine. ‘Tell her that.’
‘You might want to tell her yourself,’ Sophia said, still cautious.
‘It’s your place to tell her.’
‘My Andreas is being a coward?’ Sophia said and she smiled.
‘Yes, he is,’ he admitted, raking his hair and giving her a rueful smile. Autocratic ancestors might come at will, but they never hung round long enough to be really useful. ‘Please, Sophia, would you tell her?’