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Benedetto couldn’t have said if it was courage or stupidity or a strange kind of sadism that had led him to set up a news alert on Amelia’s name. Morbid curiosity? Or a desire to reassure himself that she was okay? That the press wasn’t hounding her as it once had? And what would he have done if that had been the case? Flown to Catarno and rescued her? As if he had any right.
Whatever his reasons, when an email came through some time after midnight with Amelia’s name in the headline of the article, he stopped everything he was doing and clicked into the link, breath held, eyes furiously scanning his tablet, reading everything, before he saw the photograph of her in a familiar setting, and every part of him froze.
His finger hovered over the photograph, but that jerked the article closed. He swore, reloaded it, forced himself to look but not touch.
Princess Amelia Moretti enjoys a break at a local restaurant. That was the subtitle that accompanied the photo.
But he knew which restaurant she was at—one they’d been to together. Where they’d sat and talked, and the sun had filtered in through the window and Benedetto had felt happy and relaxed and— He frowned, searching for another word to describe the elusive emotion that had coloured every moment of that day, until she’d run away. Then he’d gone from sunshine to shadow, feeling as if he’d lost everything in the world.
Until he’d arrived at the marina and Amelia had been waiting for him, and it had been as if he could breathe again; as if everything had been restored.
There was no sunshine for him now, only a heaviness he could hardly live alongside, a true absence of pleasure in every moment.
When Sasha had died, it had been truly awful. He had grieved her because he’d had to.
This was different.
Amelia was still here, alive, well, in another country. He was separated from her by choice, which made it harder to grieve her, to accept how much he missed her.
He flicked back to the photo, studied it, looking for any kind of sign that she was doing okay. Looking at her face, trying to understand her. Listening to the photo as though he might be able to hear her speak, hear her thoughts, learn something from the picture beyond the fact that she’d gone to the restaurant in the first place.
His instincts were pulling on Benedetto, telling him to stop fighting this, to go and see her, to talk to her, to just work everything out later, because suddenly nothing mattered more than at least being in the same room as her. He didn’t know what the future held, but he knew he could no longer live at this great distance from Amelia. She was in his soul, weaved into all the fibres of his being, and he was starting to realise that she always would be.
He called Anton from the air. The conversation was brief and businesslike—the content made that a necessity.
Benedetto and Anton were men cut from the same cloth: both private, proud, not quick to trust. Neither wanted to jeopardise their friendship, but Benedetto recognised the necessity of honesty with his friend, now that he stood on the brink of—he didn’t know what. But he at least needed to explain to Anton, as a courtesy, that things were more complicated than anyone had realised. That he was coming back to see Amelia, and, finally, that he needed Anton’s help. In a voice that could only be described as moderately shell-shocked, Anton agreed. ‘Of course I’ll help. But if you hurt her, Benedetto, if you hurt her—’
Anton didn’t need to finish the sentence. They both knew what was at stake.
‘I’m not really in the mood.’
‘Would you do it as a favour?’ Vanessa asked, a smile playing about her lips that spoke of some secret or another.
Amelia sighed softly. ‘Does it have to be the marina?’ She hated the thought of going back there, of seeing the boats but not Benedetto’s. She hated the memories that she knew would flood her, hard and fast.
‘I cannot possibly go onto a naval boat at the moment.’ Vanessa leaned forward, confidingly, looking around the dining room to assure herself that they were alone. ‘I already feel as though I am fighting seasickness all day and night—standing on a boat, I would be likely to be sick everywhere. Can you imagine the photographs?’ She winced and concern eclipsed Amelia’s feelings of self-preservation.
‘Are you not well?’
‘Oh, I’m very well,’ Vanessa contradicted, then quite obviously pressed a hand to her still-flat stomach. ‘It’s the hormones.’
‘Oh!’ Amelia stood up, feeling her first flush of joy in a long time, truly delighted for her sister-in-law and brother. ‘What wonderful news!’
Vanessa smiled. ‘We’re thrilled.’
‘I’m sure you are. How absolutely lovely. A baby!’
‘Yes,’ Vanessa whispered, looking around quickly. ‘But we have not yet told anyone.’
‘My parents?’
‘In a week or so,’ Vanessa said with a nod.
Amelia was honoured that her sister-in-law had chosen to share this secret with her. ‘I won’t say a thing.’
‘Thank you. Now, regarding the boat opening?’
‘Of course I’ll do it,’ Amelia agreed immediately, hating the idea of a ribbon-cutting of any sort, because of the necessary publicity that would ensue, but knowing she had to rise to the occasion. She was not the same young woman she’d been when she’d fled Catarno, nor the girl before that who’d been hounded while at university and made to feel as though everything she did was wrong. Amelia had grown up a lot in the last two years, and, vitally, had learned who she was, away from the palace and her role in the royal family.
