The Royal Baby Revelation (15 page)

She felt almost shy as she waited each night for her new husband to return from reading Ben a goodnight story, and shyer still when his fingers grazed over her skin. One evening, as he played idly with her breast, her hand began to tremble so much that he plucked the half-drunk glass of champagne from her fingers and put it down.

‘I don’t think you want this, do you?’

‘Not…not really, no.’

‘Then let’s go to bed.’

‘We can’t keep missing dinner.’

‘We can do whatever we want.’

‘No, Casimiro,’ she said firmly. ‘Actually, we can’t. The cook has gone to a lot of trouble to prepare a honeymoon feast. Tonight, let’s eat first and
then
go to bed.’

He raised his eyebrows in a challenge which was only half mocking. ‘Are you ordering me around, Melissa?’

‘Not at all. I’m saying what you know happens to be right.’

Unexpectedly, he laughed at her outrageous remark, unused to the sensation of being overruled by anyone—let alone a woman. Somehow he endured a dinner he could have easily forgone—though he couldn’t miss the smiles of delight bestowed on her by the staff who waited on them during the meal and concluded that Melissa had been right. But knowing that only seemed to increase his desire, so that by the time they reached their suite he could barely wait to undress her before he lost himself in the welcoming warmth of her soft body.

‘You made me wait,’ he declared unsteadily.

‘Aren’t you used to waiting, then, Casimiro?’

‘Never.’ But she was very good at resisting him, he realised—for hadn’t she refused to make love with him in her apartment back in England? And didn’t such proper—and unusual—resistance only make her surrender all the more exquisite? So that tonight she seemed to be composed of honey and silk—sliding through his fingers with slick sweetness.

Never had his exploration of a woman’s body seemed so thorough and complete. Her soft moans only increased his own pleasure—his orgasm shuddering on and on and on so that it felt as if she had stripped him bare…on every level. And later they lay there as moonlight streamed in and turned their bodies silver, his fingers locking lazily in the glossy tendrils of her hair.

By his side, Melissa stirred. ‘Are you awake?’

‘Mmm.’

‘You were…are…absolutely brilliant with Ben,’ she said softly. ‘Am I?’

‘Yes.’ She turned onto her side and stared into his face, touching her fingertips to the dark shadow of new growth at his jaw reflectively. Tonight she was determined that they would talk, maybe get to know each other on a deeper level during that soft, quiet time after making love. ‘Casimiro?’

‘Mmm?’

‘What was your relationship with your own father like?’

There was a pause. Was it the wine he’d drunk with dinner or the proximity of her silken flesh which made him answer without first weighing it up? ‘Businesslike,’ he said.

‘That’s a funny word to use.’

‘Not really. Things were much more formal in those days. We—Xaviero and I—weren’t encouraged to show any outward kind of affection. At least, not towards our father.’

Her eyes widened. ‘No hugs?’

‘Definitely no hugs.’ Hugs were seen as needy. Weak. ‘We learnt lessons from our father—hugs we got from our mother.’

‘But then your mother died?’

Casimiro’s mouth tightened. Why the hell was she interrogating him like this? ‘That’s right.’

‘Oh,
darling.’

The way she said it disturbed him. Just as the way she touched his face disturbed him. Was it because her actions and her words were coated in sympathy and the last thing he wanted or needed was that—especially from someone who was still brand-new to all the constraints of royal life?

He wished that her naked breasts weren’t pushing against his chest because how the hell could a man think when a woman was as unknowingly provocative as this one? And hadn’t he better teach her now that he wasn’t intending to subject himself to amateur analysis sessions every time they had sex? That peeling back the layers offered nothing but pain and then more pain. ‘I’m tired—and you must be, too. Go to sleep,’ he said, almost roughly.

But Melissa’s night was restless and haunted by insubstantial but faintly threatening dreams and when she awoke the following morning Casimiro was standing by the window—already dressed in a pair of faded jeans which hugged the muscular length of his legs and a T-shirt which kissed every taut sinew of his torso.

Some dark and unknown emotion in his face made her wonder if she’d done something wrong and Melissa sat up, brushing her tousled hair back from her face. ‘You’re…you’re up very early.’

Casimiro nodded. Her lips were kiss-crushed and her eyes looked as green as grass in the morning light. Glossy brown hair tumbled down over her naked breasts and each tiny rosy tip seemed to invite him to take it into his mouth…

But Casimiro silenced the clamouring call of his body. He had found her tender—no,
prying
—questions more than a little unsettling. Because somehow it seemed all wrong to break the habit of a lifetime and allow anyone to get that close—and she needed to understand that. She must be under no illusion that he was intending to share such confidences with her night after night—for what good would that do when the past was dead and buried, and best left that way?

‘I have a few things I need to deal with before breakfast.’

‘Things?’

‘King things.’

His lips curved into a mocking smile but beneath the sardonic humour Melissa could sense his unmistakable detachment. As if a faintly forbidding presence had inhabited the body of her husband overnight—so that this morning he seemed like nothing more than a familiar
stranger.
And suddenly she found herself longing for the man who had opened up his heart to her.

She leaned back against the pillows, telling herself that a woman on her honeymoon was surely allowed to be a little bit provocative. ‘Can’t it wait?’

Temptation hit his blood like a warm storm spattering over dry rocks. But somehow Casimiro resisted it—telling himself that he
needed
to resist it in order to shrug off the sudden rawness of his senses. Instead, he touched the tips of his fingers to his lips and mimed blowing her a kiss. ‘Later,’ he promised.

Then he was gone—leaving Melissa lying back against the bank of feather pillows, not only aching with frustration but feeling very slightly foolish, too. A woman having to ask her husband to come back to bed with her and then having her request refused on their honeymoon was pretty shaming. And she found herself wondering if this was how it was going to be from here on in.

Yet he joined her and Ben in time for a late breakfast and afterwards suggested taking them for a walk up the hills behind the house and she looked at him with hope flaring in her eyes.

‘But what about Ben—how will he manage?’

‘I’ll carry him, of course.’

And that was exactly what he did—despite Melissa’s reservations about whether or not Ben would deign to be carried for such a long walk. Or, indeed, whether Casimiro might flag beneath the child’s sturdy and sustained weight. As it happened, neither of these eventualities occurred and the day went perfectly. So did the next—and the one after that. At least, that was what she kept telling herself. Trying to convince herself that it was true when deep down she knew that something was different and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

To the outsider, Melissa knew they would appear to be having as perfect a honeymoon as was possible, given the unusual circumstances. She had seen the quick smiles of approval from the staff when the King lifted his baby son high onto his shoulders or coaxed him to eat a piece of watermelon at breakfast. She also knew that no new bride could possibly complain about what took place in their marital bed every night. Because even Melissa—with her complete lack of experience of any other lover—realised that Casimiro was a textbook lover. Maybe that was the problem. A textbook lover wasn’t a
real
lover, was he? You could go through every permutation of sex possible and you could make a woman shudder in your arms again and again and again, but…

Melissa stared out at the sapphire of the distant sea. Somehow she couldn’t stop herself comparing the man Casimiro had been in the past to the man he was now. She tried telling herself that the person who held her night after night was far more real than the lover who had drifted in and out of her life during that rainy summer.

So why didn’t it feel that way? Why did their snatched affair feel more real than this honeymoon—and more honest? Was it because back then he had been there by choice, rather than necessity, as now? She wondered if she was imagining the distance which seemed to be growing between them—had she done something to offend him? But when she asked him he gave her a cool and faintly surprised look—as if he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. Leaving Melissa to wonder what life was going to be like when they returned to their royal life back at the palace.

Their last dinner at the villa was delicious and they drank champagne the colour of honey which tasted as dry as a bone. And afterwards, Casimiro dismissed the staff and carried her upstairs to the vast bed where they had shared so many intimate moments over the last fortnight.

‘Our last night,’ he murmured as his lips whispered a soft path over one soft cheek. ‘That’s right.’

He kissed away the faint frown at her brow. ‘You are sad at leaving?’

She wanted to tell him that the only thing making her sad was his refusal to let her get close—but wouldn’t that spoil their last night? ‘A little,’ she conceded diplomatically. ‘It’s been…it’s been a wonderful honeymoon, hasn’t it, Casimiro?’

‘Of course.’

She stared at him, her heart beating fast. ‘I’m just a bit nervous about what’s going to happen when we get back. I mean, how the hell do I go about being your Queen?’

His hand found the silken mound of her small breast. ‘You will have plenty of help,
cara.’

‘From…oh, Casimiro!’ She swallowed, trying desperately hard to concentrate, but it wasn’t easy when he was flicking his finger against her nipple like that. ‘From you?’

He gave an impatient little click. ‘Not from me, no. There will be a whole host of people to advise you, Melissa—but let’s not talk of it now, mmm? Not when there are so many more satisfying things we could do in bed.’

She succumbed to his lips and his fingers and the irresistible thrust of his body because it seemed that was what she was programmed to do. And she waited for words of love which never came—and consequently bit back her own.

When they arrived back at the palace, Casimiro went off for a meeting with his staff while Melissa tried to settle Ben into his nursery after a dinner which ended up mostly over him and on the floor. But he grizzled all through bath-time and couldn’t even be placated with a tune from his old plastic mobile which she’d brought with them from England—even though it looked slightly shabby and out of place in his smart new palace bedroom.

She waited for Casimiro to appear, but there was no sign of him and she didn’t want to go looking around the still-unfamiliar palace or asking one of the many staff where she should be. Or where dinner was. But there was no way she was going to sit in a formal dining room eating on her own while her husband was nowhere to be seen.

She supposed she could lift the phone and ring to ask for something to be sent to their rooms—like room service in a posh hotel. But she wasn’t really that hungry and, besides, what could she order? She didn’t even know what the national dish of Zaffirinthos was! Well, tomorrow she would hit the Internet and the library and start learning all about her new home and life. As Casimiro had said—there were plenty of people to teach her.

And tonight?

Tonight she would put away all her stupid and nameless fears and prepare to greet her husband in the most traditional way known to all new brides…

Drenched in perfumed oils, she splashed around in the deep, sunken bath in her huge bathroom and afterwards slid on a green silk nightgown with a matching peignoir which felt as fine as gossamer against her scented skin. And then, picking up a novel whose world seemed infinitely less absorbing than her own did right now, she settled down to wait for Casimiro.

She waited until ten before wandering into the smaller of their three sitting rooms—where she turned on the television in an attempt to feel normal. But the array of films held as little allure as her book and watching the news bulletins from the rest of the world only increased her feelings of isolation.

At ten-thirty she tried his cell phone—but it was switched off.

By eleven she had fallen into a fitful sleep and when eventually she felt his naked body slip into bed beside her, she opened her eyes to see that the luminous dial on the face of the clock read almost midnight.

‘Where have you been?’ she questioned sleepily as his hand moved round to cover her silk-covered breast. ‘Shh.’

‘Casimiro—’

But he was now rucking up her silk nightgown and cupping the globes of her bottom—his skin cool against her bed-warmed flesh as he skated his palms over them with a skill which soon had her trembling with anticipation. Pushing her hair aside to kiss the nape of her neck, he blatantly pressed his hard body into hers so that she was left in no doubt about how much he wanted her.

His silent and sensual onslaught continued to filter through her still-dreamy state and she just let the feelings grow. His fingers found her honeyed slickness and touched her there until she was gasping his name out loud in frustration and need. And only then did he turn her over and pull her towards him and wordlessly thrust deep inside her as his lips found hers.

She came almost immediately—already her body was growing accustomed to the pleasure he could give her—and his fingers tightened around her breasts as she made a soft little cry against his shoulder. She heard the escalation of his breathing—the sudden urgency of his movements and then that distinctive little moan which shuddered on and on.

But once that floaty, dreamy feeling had left her Melissa remembered the long, empty evening she’d spent—without even a phone-call from her new husband.