‘You don’t think that maybe you’re getting carried away here,’ he asked dryly. ‘It wouldn’t be that bad.’
‘Christina got out of the marriage pretty fast. How many women did you have on the side while you were married to her?’
‘These things are understood-’
‘In royal marriages,’ she snapped. ‘Not the marriages I know.’
‘What marriages? The one-sided affair your parents had? And you…How much experience have you had? And you’re hardly likely to marry for love now.’
Uh oh.
She’d moved behind her chair and was holding onto it as if she needed its support. Her knuckles were so stretched he could see the white of the bone under her taut skin. Maybe he’d gone too far…
‘So I’m an old maid as well as everything else,’ she hissed. ‘A fallen woman; a spinster past my use-by date. Expected to fall on my knees in gratitude at your very generous offer.’
‘Look,’ he said, trying hard to figure how to placate her. She was breathing too fast. Her breasts were heaving with indignation and her face was flushed with fury. How to really mess up a proposal…He had to get this back on track. ‘Holly, we really need it.’
‘You know, I can’t figure out even that,’ she said. ‘You took me to bed when I was seventeen and that can’t be changed by anything we do now.’
‘No, but I can be seen as honourable,’ he told her. ‘If it’s only a matter of time before reporters talk to your mother then it has to be a fait accompli. When the first accusation comes I need to be able to say yes, it’s a shock that I fathered a son. I can’t understand why Holly didn’t tell me. We were romantic kids. However now I’ve found out, of course I’ll do the honourable thing. Luckily I’m single again, so I can give her my hand in marriage.’
‘She doesn’t want it,’ she snapped.
‘Why not?’ It was a harsh, loaded question and it brought the silence back. She stared across the table at him as if he were an alien-as if she’d never seen him before in her life.
‘Because I’m free,’ she managed at last and it was such an unexpected response that it was his turn to stare.
‘Pardon?’
She closed her eyes. ‘Okay, Andreas. I’m trying to get my head round this. You need to do the honourable thing. Marry me. But that means I’d be in the royal fishbowl.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You know, when you used to tell me about your life back here, the money you had at your disposal, every indulgence, parties, women, luxury beyond belief, I wasn’t even jealous. You know what I thought? I thought poor little rich boy. Maybe that was even why I fell into bed with you. I felt sorry for you.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, astounded.
‘I’ve seen what can happen to royalty,’ she said. ‘It gives me the horrors. I want to walk down the street and buy a can of baked beans and a packet of Tim Tams for dinner, any time I want.’
‘Baked beans?’ The conversation had suddenly headed at a tangent he couldn’t follow. Candlelight. Fireflies. A soft warm wind. A wedding proposal. And the talk had turned to baked beans.
‘What would happen if you want baked beans for dinner?’ she demanded.
‘I wouldn’t,’ he said, revolted.
‘We’re playing make-believe here. Indulge me.’
‘I’d ask Sophia…’
‘Right. You’d order baked beans from your domestic staff. And Sophia would raise her eyebrows and say “What does Prince Andreas want with baked beans?” But of course your wish is her command so she’d write the royal shopping list and servants would go to one of those shops with the fancy insignia saying Suppliers to Royalty. And the shop assistants would have a chat about why you want baked beans and what are Tim Tams anyway, and when they find out then they’d say why doesn’t Prince Andreas buy local food. Maybe Aristo produces excellent chocolate cookies, so why aren’t you supporting local industry? Maybe it’d even make the papers.’
‘You’ve thought this all through,’ he said, puzzled. ‘You’ve thought about your life as a royal bride. Does that mean you’ve thought of marrying me before?’
She stared across the table at him and her expression changed. The anger was replaced with confusion.
‘How dare you?’ she whispered at last.
‘You have thought of marrying me?’
‘I carried your child for nine months. Of course I thought of marrying you. What woman wouldn’t? It was a fantasy solution to my problems. But it was only ever a fantasy and I got over it.’
‘So how long did you carry me in your heart?’
Her jaw dropped. ‘What?’
‘My investigators tell me there’s been no man for years.’
Her breath sucked in with fury. ‘Your investigators can go to hell.’
‘The locals say Adam’s death shattered you. Was part of that me? That I wasn’t there?’
‘Leave it,’ she whispered, but she might as well have yelled. She stood, holding onto the table with fingers that were clenched so hard her knuckles still showed white. ‘Of all the arrogant, conceited-’
‘We were in love.’ He rose, watching her steadily across the table. ‘We were in love, Holly.’
‘You don’t know what love is. You who never wrote…’ Her voice broke. ‘I hated you. I just hated…’ She gasped and pulled back from the table.
It was too much. He moved involuntarily, striding the few steps to her side before he realized he’d intended it, grasping her hands, holding her against him. She fought, wrenching away, but he held her regardless, holding her tight until he felt the fight go out of her. He felt her slump against him, defeated by the strength of her emotions.
The present disappeared. Suddenly nothing else mattered but that this was Holly. And he’d distressed her.
What was he doing, proposing marriage when the past was still between them? When he’d caused her so much pain.
He touched her hair with his lips, smelling the clean, citrussy fragrance of her. Feeling her palpable anguish.
‘Holly, I wish I’d known,’ he said softly into her hair. ‘I’m so sorry you were alone. And I so wish I’d known about Adam.’