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Eyes on Amelia, he removed his phone from a pocket and loaded up a text to Anton.
I have her. She’ll be home within the week.
He sent the message but didn’t experience an accompanying sense of relief. If anything, knowing that Anton was aware of the predicament felt strangely oppressive. It also felt like a direct betrayal of Amelia. To whom he owed nothing! And yet he found he couldn’t completely disregard her obvious misgivings about returning home.
From Benedetto’s perspective, the royal family of Catarno was surprisingly normal and loving, all things considered. He’d never had an example of that, of a real family. He’d been an only child and his father, while not physically abusive, had drunk too much and had a short fuse, meaning it hadn’t taken much for him to lose his temper and explode at whomever happened to be nearby—Benedetto, or Benedetto’s mother. As children in volatile situations often did, Benedetto had become adept from a young age at appearing to ignore the outbursts, to compartmentalise his fear and panic responses. When his father had died of a heart attack, and Benedetto was only fourteen, he’d been relieved.
Despite the fact the death had plunged Benedetto and his mother from living hand to mouth to abject poverty, the silence and lack of living on tenterhooks had been an immense relief, for both of them. They’d been happy, but only eighteen months later, his mother had been talking on the phone and stepped out from the kerb right into a bus. She’d died instantly. Her, he did mourn.
So his experience with family was limited. Meeting Anton’s brother and parents had blown him away—to see the easy love and connection, the way they were all so respectful of one another.
And Amelia had simply turned her back on that, as though it held no value whatsoever. It was a callous, childish, hurtful thing to have done, and yet he wasn’t sure Amelia was any of those things.
True, he barely knew her, but his childhood had made him an excellent judge of character. He also didn’t have the sort of pride that would prevent him from admitting when he’d made a mistake, and at least on this score he had, potentially, been wrong about Amelia.
And so what? he asked himself angrily. What did it matter to him? Beyond the wedding, he wouldn’t need to see her again. She’d be free to live her life.
And what would that look like?
Would she stay in Catarno? Would the wedding be the start of a new phase in her relationship with her parents and siblings? Or would she escape again as soon as she possibly could? Return to Valencia, or somewhere else, now that her cover had been blown?
She turned at that moment, tilting her face. He wasn’t sure if he’d moved, or done something else to draw her attention, but her eyes flicked sidewards and landed directly on his—catching him staring at her, pondering. He didn’t look away. He held his ground, arms by his sides, every part of him focused on her.
She tilted her face away again, looking out to sea, her expression mutinous.
‘It’s a far better idea if we just...ignore each other from now on.’
He’d said it. It was his idea, and it was the right idea, so why did he find his legs carrying him across the deck towards her against his own better judgement?
His shadow cast across her chest, long and dark, but it was a warm enough day not to make a hint of difference to Amelia’s enjoyment. If anything, his proximity fired something new to life inside her, so she stretched languidly, shifting one leg over the other, crossing them at the ankles, and positioning an arm behind her head, a study in relaxation.
‘Are you wearing lotion?’
She was so angry with him, and yet the hitch in his voice pulled at that anger, undoing it a little, making her vulnerable to an awareness of him she was doing her best to fight.
‘Is this your idea of ignoring me?’
‘I can hardly hand you over to your family with bright red sunburn.’
She bristled at that. ‘I’m not an object,’ she reminded him coldly. ‘No one is handing me to anyone else.’
‘I’ll take that as a no.’
She ground her teeth together. ‘It’s none of your business. I’m not your business, regardless of what you and my brother might have discussed.’
‘We have not discussed you often, cara.’
The term of endearment surprised her, but it surprised him more, going by the look on his face. He seemed to wish to swallow the word right back up again.
‘And yet you appear to know a lot about me. Or think that you do.’
‘I know what I’ve perceived, through your absence. Through how that absence has affected your family.’
She could easily believe her family was suffering, but it was nothing compared to the hell they’d be living through if she’d stayed, and they’d learned what kind of mess Amelia had exposed them to.
‘I had no interest in hurting them,’ she said truthfully. ‘And I can’t see why any of that matters to you. Friendship with Anton aside, this is a private matter.’
‘He asked me to retrieve you, and so I did.’
