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THEGUESTS,ITSEEMED, were not staying at the villa but, as Arthur explained, were being ferried in from Athens via helicopter and then flown back. Armed with the information that there were thirty guests and Camille’s flattering opinion of her outfit, Rose went to join Zac, who, she had been informed, was waiting for her in the library.
She fingered the necklace that out of the selection had matched the dress she had chosen to wear, a bias-cut slip in a misty green with shoestring straps and a cowl neckline that just hinted at the swell of her breasts. If those stones had been real emeralds they would have been worth a small fortune. She wondered if people who walked around with a fortune around their necks felt nervous. But that wasn’t a problem she would ever have, she reflected, smiling at the crazy thought.
She paused for a moment outside the door, telling herself that this was not about proving anything to her father or Zac or anyone else, this was about her. She was doing this for herself.
She walked in without knocking and Zac, who had been standing looking out of the window, turned around. Her breath caught in her throat as she made a rapid toe-to-head survey of his long, lean, lithe body looking utterly spectacular in a formal black-tie dress suit. He looked scarily beautiful and she had no control over her physical reaction to him. Hopefully she retained come control over her facial expression, but she doubted she did.
He had wanted the indulgence of seeing her in the sort of clothes she deserved to wear and now he was. The image of her standing there, the green dress clinging to her supple curves, the jewels around her white throat that needed no adornment, her glorious hair pinned in a loose knot at the nape of her neck, made him want to undo the pins and watch her shake it loose down her slender back.
She deserved the truth, but it would take her from him... He tried to distance himself from the internal battle raging in his head. She would hate him either way.
‘You look very beautiful.’
His own voice sounded distant and stiff in Zac’s ears as he pushed out the words above the flames licking through his body. Only the guilt gnawing through him stopped him from pulling those pins out of her hair and watching it slip like silk down her back.
Her skin prickled with heat, even her scalp took part in the nerve-tingling assault on her senses. She wanted to tell him how she felt. One look or word from him would have given her the courage, but his air of remoteness made her feel stupid for wanting to declare her feelings and invite rejection.
She pinned on an overbright smile. ‘I’m looking forward to this evening,’ she lied. She was actually wondering what she was trying to prove. This thing, whatever it was, was going to end badly—did it really matter if that end came tonight or another night? she asked herself bleakly.
When they walked into the room where a string quartet were playing and the guests, glasses in hand, chatted in front of French doors that had been flung open, all eyes turned their way.
Rose froze like someone caught in a spotlight, only moving when she felt the light comforting pressure of Zac’s hand in the small of her back.
He watched proudly as she overcame her fears and gradually relaxed as she conversed with the guests, people drawn by her smile and the beauty she was unaware of. By the time they had sat down at the table for the meal she seemed totally at ease.
Except he knew she wasn’t. He could see the tension in her shoulders, the tautness in the lovely line of her neck that showed the emerald choker he had noticed in an online auction and had immediately wanted to see against her glowing skin.
Rose knew it was going well and she only wished she could enjoy her success, but she didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be anywhere alone with Zac... She’d always dreamed of a home of her own but now she knew that it wasn’t about a place, but a person, and the person who was her home just wanted sex. He had a history of keeping everyone, even his closest family, at a distance, and despite her determination to enjoy the moments she had and extract every ounce of pleasure from being with him it was spoilt by thoughts of the future—a future that was never going to include Zac.
The effort of maintaining a front was exhausting, and by the time the only guest remaining was the guest of honour himself, who Zac personally escorted to the waiting helicopter, Rose felt drained.
‘A nightcap in the library,’ Zac suggested as he walked away. Something in his voice planted the conviction in her head that this would be more than a nightcap, and once the notion that this was goodbye took root, she couldn’t shake it.
She walked alone to the library. She would be dignified, she had decided, she would not break down or say something stupid. While she waited, pacing the book-lined room, she caught a glass vase with her elbow. She spun and caught it before it smashed but in the process knocked against a sleeping laptop that surged into life.
Clutching the vase, she turned and her glance landed on the image and headline that appeared on the screen.
The new Princess!
Crown Prince Marco Zanetti of Renzoi married today in the island’s cathedral, watched by guests including European royalty and many A-listers, including his good friend, the Greek billionaire, Zac Adamos.
Rose read the paragraph three times, her eyes moving between the new royal couple and Zac, looking urbane and utterly gorgeous...but the face that she kept going back to was that of the princess, because it was her own face. Someone else was wearing her face, a stranger was wearing her face, and Zac was there.
Zac walked into the room, saw the image on the screen and knew it was too late.
Rose, her face as pale as milk, turned when he entered.
‘Who is she?’
‘Your twin sister. Your father refused to take her back when your mother died, and she was adopted.’
‘A sister...a twin?’
‘She wanted you both, she loved you both,’ Zac said, solemnly.
‘My mother didn’t leave me? I have a family?’ Her eyes zeroed in on his face. ‘And you knew?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand...’ But she did. Not all of it but most of it, and she could feel the anger surging through her at the betrayal he had compounded.
Zac dragged a hand down his jaw. ‘It’s not what it appears.’
