How to Love a Princess (18 page)

Nothing existed beyond
this moment.

His fingers clutched the
lapels of her coat to tug her closer.

Catherine went willingly.
The protective gesture of tucking in her scarf against the wind had lit a
memory that outshone the present.

She knew this. The love
and passion smouldering in his dark, intense gaze. The tension in his jaw as he
focused the two of them into a world of their own. The hunger on the lips
reaching down for her.

She wanted this. She met
his kiss with parted lips, throwing her arms around his neck, linking her
fingers through his hair.

This is all I’ve ever
wanted.

Why is it too much to ask
for?

His arms came around her,
lifting her into him, folding his heat around her as he deepened the kiss with
slanting, determined strokes. His bristled jaw scraped lightly against her
skin, igniting another memory. There were so many. And here they were, making
yet another one. Even as her body responded to him in pleasure, her heart
sobbed beneath.

She didn’t need or want
another memory.

She felt as if she’d never
truly be alive without the real thing.

He stopped the kiss, but
he didn’t release her. Catherine shivered at the simple joy of being in his
arms.

“You’re cold,” he murmured
against her cheek.

Before she could object,
he tipped her back onto her feet. Still, he didn’t let go. Not completely. He
held onto her hand, pulling her toward the cabin.

Once she realised his
intentions, Catherine dug her toes in, forcing him to stop. “The cabin is
locked.”

His grin matched the
mischievous glint in his eyes. “Did I forget to mention that my high IQ comes
with unnatural lock picking abilities?”

“Idiot,” she giggled, half
high on love and half desperate to cling to this isolated moment.

Deciding they’d
procrastinated enough, Nicolas swung her into his arms and carried her to the
door. When he put her down, he claimed another lingering kiss before turning
his attention on the sturdy door. “I need something to pick this with.”

“Maybe in the Land Rover?”
she suggested.

His gaze returned to her.
“I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere.”

Her heart leapt at the
vulnerability in his eyes, in his voice, as if he was in no way certain that
she wouldn’t disappear the second he turned his back.

“I won’t,” she assured
him, at once aware of just how badly her leaving had effected him. Of course it
had, she just hadn’t given it proper thought. He radiated such power, authority
and confidence, it was impossible to imagine anything existed that he could not
defeat. But he’d slipped down to the corner shop one morning and returned to
find her gone. Not only gone, but dead. That would shake the foundations of a
mountain.

She wanted to give back a
little of what she’d taken. A part of her knew why he’d brought her here and a
part of her had already consented to his will, but she could do better. She
could give him this time without holding anything back at all. Head, heart and
soul. The price she’d pay was no more than he’d already paid.

As he walked to the
vehicle and opened the boot to stick his head inside, Catherine ducked around
the side of the house and sprinted to the shed. She was back before he came out
again, but the short run had cleared her head and made place for doubts.

“What are we doing?” she
asked softly as he reached her, his hands full with a mix of heavy-duty tools
and other scraps, such as a paper clip and an old dog collar that had been
forgotten.

“Breaking in?” he said
with a grin, although that faded as he searched her eyes and found the sombre
note.

“After everything that’s
happened, how can you not be angry?”

“I’m not angry,” Nicolas
corrected. “I’m furious.”

He saw her chin lift, her
eyes cool, her body stiffen, and immediately dropped his booty to the floor and
gathered her into his chest. “I won’t belittle our disagreement. It is serious
and nowhere near over. We’re both angry, frustrated, convinced of our own
righteousness and determined to win.”

As he spoke, he stroked
her hair, caressed her cheek with the edge of his thumb, cupped her chin in his
palm. “We have a problem and it’s going to get worse before we’re through. I
hate that you’d go against me in this, that you cannot see the consequences as
I see them, but I’ll never hate you. I love you. I want you. Put away the fight
for a couple of hours. I want to make love to you and then I want to hold you
in my arms and think of nothing else. Give us this moment.”

He felt her melt against
him.

“In that case,” Catherine
murmured, pushing her way out of his arms, “you’d better get started on that
lock.”

He held her gaze a moment
longer, then dropped to his knees to sort through the mess at his feet.

Her heart pounded at what
was happening, at the fantasy he’d painted, and for just this once, she wasn’t going
to deny it. This wasn’t just for him. This was about both giving and
taking
.
“This isn’t going to change my mind, you know.”

He grinned up at her. “It
isn’t going to change mine either.”

Catherine laughed at his
cheeky arrogance. “Stalemate?”

“Truce,” he countered.

She let the last niggling
doubt float away on the gusty wind.

Give
us this moment.

No regrets. No worries
over tomorrow. And if a little flicker of hope strummed her heart, whispering
that maybe Gascon was right and she was wrong, maybe Nicolas was different, so
be it.

Her lips curled up in
amusement as she watched him attack the door lock with everything ranging from
a paper clip to a screwdriver. “Having a little trouble with your high IQ?”

He threw the screwdriver
down in disgust and pushed up from his knees, eyeing the door with a scowl. “I
could always kick it in.”

Catherine reached into her
coat pocket and brought back the key she’d retrieved from its hiding place in
the shed. “Or we could use this.”

When he saw the key she
dropped into his palm, he turned on her, his eyes glinting dangerously.

“You’ll pay for this,
cucciola
,”
he growled, scooping her up into his arms and following her squeal with a shout
of laughter as his mouth closed down on her lips. The kiss quickly went from
playful to tender to urgent.

Shifting her weight to
free one hand, he unlocked the door and carried her across the threshold.

From his parked position
behind two thick bushes, Gascon chuckled to himself as the cabin door closed
them in and him out. He considered waiting, then started the engine with the
turn of the key as he dismissed the idea.

Catherine was in safe
hands for now.

Besides, Nicolas had asked
him to look into something. Well, not exactly asked. He’d phrased it as a
request, but there’d been nothing short of a command in his tone.

With another chuckle, he
slammed the gears into reverse. He hadn’t seen this day coming. The day he took
orders from anyone other than Catherine or the queen.

8

C
atherine
was in a smiling, kitten-with-creamed-whiskers mood as Nicolas bundled her into
his jacket and lifted her out of the Land Rover and into his arms. The feisty
wind had brought black clouds that had unleashed a storm while they were at the
cabin. Reluctant as they were for their stolen afternoon to end, they’d
nevertheless used a momentary lapse in the lashing rain to return to the castle
and reality.

“I can walk, you know,”
Catherine protested feebly as he carried her across the puddle-ridden
courtyard. Very feebly. She wasn’t ready to let go of the intimacy they’d
rekindled. She’d never be ready.

Nicolas gave her a
decidedly wolfish grin. “I like having you in my arms and I didn’t hear any
complaints earlier.”

She rolled her eyes at
him, but was content to hang onto his neck and snuggle deeper. Just a moment
longer.

Maybe forever, whispered
her heart.

She pressed her cheek into
the soft wool of his jumper, inhaling deeply of his scent, smiling at the
rapturous hours they’d shared; making love in front of the fire he’d built;
sipping hot chocolate and talking, laughing, remembering; holding each other in
a silence filled with tender love words, their eyes exchanging secret promises
made in the moment but with a depth of commitment to hold a lifetime.

Maybe forever, Catherine
agreed dreamily. But even as she thought it, the doubts returned. They were too
real to be dampened by a dream.

She’d seen her father,
once an Illinois state senator, crushed by Ophella’s demands. The few times
he’d returned to visit had been ruled by the bitter rows that had originally
driven him away. His pride hammered with each proposed policy passed over by
his wife, the authority he’d once had shred to pieces by the woman who was
supposed to love, honour and
obey
him—the result had not only destroyed
the love between her parents, it had destroyed the man. The last time she’d
seen him, he’d looked emaciated, his skin blotchy and red, his hair thinned,
lips pinched, his tongue the wasp that stung the last of her hope…and then
she’d never seen him again, didn’t even know where he lived. Now and again a
report filtered through and then he disappeared again.

When they reached the
door, Nicolas slid her down his body with provocative slowness, taking her
mouth in a lingering kiss as her feet touched the ground.

Tingling from the urgency
of his lips, warmed by the length of their bodies pressed up close,
unaccountably delighted at his possessive gaze prolonging the kiss long after
it ended, Catherine clasped her fingers tightly into his when he took her hand.

Not forever, she reassured
herself, but maybe just a little longer.

Before opening the door,
Nicolas pulled her flush against his side, forcing their linked hands behind
them and out of sight.

To keep her close and
closer.

To protect the link that
bound them from the rest of the world.

His reasons were there for
her to see in the brown gaze that burnt into her and branded her soul. A surge
of love overwhelmed her and she had to hold on, lean into him, as she stumbled
through the doorway.

Serge was hovering in the
hallway and Catherine dismissed him with a smile. Clearly, Serge had seen their
vehicle pull up some time ago and had been debating her preference to come and
go without him standing on ceremony at the door.

Unfortunately, there was
more. Instead of leaving, Serge approached in his usual decorous manner. “Mr.
Talacon arrived shortly before the lunch hour, ma’am. He awaits you in the
reception room.”

“Thank you, Serge.”
Catherine glanced up at Nicolas. “Geoffrey’s father is here. I’m afraid I have
to see him. Come with me?”

“I have things to do in
the lab,” he said. “You go ahead.”

“I’ll pop in later,” she
promised, but when she tried to extract her hand, he held on. She laughed
softly. “You have to let go.”

“I will.” He grinned,
doing no such thing as he looked straight ahead.

Catherine turned from him
just in time to see Serge disappear through a doorway. No sooner had the door
closed, than she felt Nicolas’s fingers tilt her chin back up to him. He kissed
her deeply, thoroughly, and left her wanting more.

“Now you may go,” he said
with a chuckle, releasing her hand.

After greeting Harvey
Talacon and enjoying a pleasant half hour with him and Geoffrey, Catherine
excused herself to catch up on the work she’d neglected.

“I’m sorry you had such a
short visit with my mother,” she told Harvey. “She usually feels better in the
mornings. If the weather lets up tomorrow, maybe you could take her for a walk
in the gardens.”

His eyes crinkled in
concern as he patted her hand. “I look forward to that.”

She gave Geoffrey an
encouraging smile, aware from certain remarks sprinkled into the conversation
that he’d not yet broken his news to his father.

“I’ll see both of you at
supper,” Catherine added as she took her leave.

The last thing she felt
capable of was concentrating on the minutes of the meeting and actioning the
outstanding points, plus whatever else had accumulated while she’d played
hooky. She curled her legs up on the wide windowsill in her office and stared
unseeing into the unrelenting rain coming down in sheets against the window,
taking a few long moments to savour the warm feeling in her tummy that lingered
on from the cabin. She could have stayed like that till supper, reliving every
touch, smile and word. She could have.

“But I have work to do,”
she insisted firmly, removing herself to her desk and the stack of papers
Erling had left out for her. The top page was a printed email message, sent
from Nicolas to Erling and left for her approval. As she read, she felt her
heart grow physically heavier, every word another rock piled on to weigh her
down. She pinched her eyes closed, struggling for composure and instead saw the
tower of dreams she’d promised not to build collapse.