let out a shaky laugh. ‘I’m not afraid. But I have no idea what’s going to happen when I return to the palazzo. What my parents will say. Do.’
‘You won’t be alone,’ Ben told her. ‘I’ll be by your side every second.’
She released a shuddering breath. ‘I’m certainly glad for that.’
Natalia saw lights twinkling below them, and as Ben started to descend she wondered what their destination was. What would happen now.
She was not prepared for the sudden glare of lights as Ben maneuvered the Seabird towards the ground. She peered out the window and saw a bridge lit by lamplight and near-swarming with people.
‘Where are we?’ she asked. ‘Why are they so many people?’
‘The Ponte Milvio Bridge in Rome.’
‘You’re landing a plane on the bridge?’ The Ponte Milvio was over two thousand years old, in the centre of Rome, and local legend told that any couple who got engaged on the bridge would be assured lifelong health and happiness.
‘The Seabird lands like a helicopter,’ Ben explained. ‘And I cleared it with the local authorities beforehand.’
Natalia peered out of the window. She could see the Tiber River awash with lights from the city, the ancient bridge looming nearer and crowded with people.
‘Who are all those people?’ she asked.
‘Ah. Well.’ Ben shot her a rather rueful grin. ‘They’re reporters.’
‘Paparazzi?’
‘There are a few legitimate journalists in there as well.’
Natalia shook her head, not understanding. ‘Why would they all be on the bridge? How on earth could they know we’d be here?’ She hadn’t even known herself.
‘They might,’ Ben said, ‘have received a tipoff.’
Natalia stared at him blankly. She didn’t understand why Ben was so insouciant about such a huge thing when a few short weeks ago the possibility of just one reporter had had him pushing her away from him as quickly as he could. Comprehension came like a thunderclap. ‘You rang them? You tipped them off?’
‘I might have done.’
‘Why?’
‘I want the whole world to know how I feel about you, Natalia. That I love you.’
She let out a choked laugh, hardly able to believe this was real. ‘And if I didn’t want any reporters?’ she couldn’t help but ask, and he looked a little abashed.
‘I’m afraid, in this one instance, you have no choice. But in future I’ll guard our privacy with extreme care, I promise.’
In future. The words caused a bubble of happiness to rise inside of her, shiny and translucent. ‘So just what are you going to tell these reporters?’
‘First things first.’ He reached for her and, surprised, Natalia came to him. His arms enfolded her and his lips found hers. Outside, the reporters were shouting in agitation and excitement, desperate to get a decent snap. Natalia pulled away.
‘We are going to be on the front page of every paper from here to New York.’
‘I don’t mind.’
She stared at him. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘In this one instance anyway. I want to show you I mean what I say. I love you and I’m happy for the whole world to know it.’
‘I love you too,’ Natalia said softly.
‘And then there’s this.’ Ben fished in his pocket and produced a small box of black velvet. ‘Natalia Santina, princess of my heart, will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?’
Natalia blinked back tears as she gazed at the antique diamond surrounded by a circle of luminescent pearls. ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’
He slid the gorgeous ring on her finger and then nodded towards the still-shouting paparazzi outside. ‘Then perhaps we should go and make an announcement before I whisk you away again. I can’t wait to tell the world about my wife-to-be.’
Smiling, tears of joy still sparkling in her eyes, Natalia took his hand as she followed him out of the plane.
NATALIA was amazed at how easy everything became, with Ben at her side. Her parents were surprisingly and touchingly accepting of her engagement to Ben; her father King Eduardo said he could see how much Ben loved her. Even the Sheikh of Qadriah took the refusal of his offer with grace, laughingly saying he could hardly compete with a man who proposed with such style—and so publicly.
They were married six weeks later, on a secluded beach on Santina, with no photographers or reporters in attendance. A single photograph of her and Ben was sold to a respectable newspaper for a six-figure sum that was donated to a charity for helping those with learning disabilities. After years of shameful silence, Natalia went public with her own dyslexia and was now on the board of the charity and receiving tutoring herself to help her with reading and writing skills.
Their future felt as bright and newly minted as the sun that rose in the pearly pink dawn sky the morning after their wedding. Natalia stood in front of the sliding glass door in Ben’s beach house, watching the sun rise higher and higher in the sky, growing in heat and radiance, spreading its healing rays across the earth.
Ben came up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist, and kissed her neck before resting his chin on her head.
‘I’m just thinking about that bet of ours,’ she said, and she heard him chuckle.
‘And?’
‘I won.’
‘So you did.’
‘You’re mine to command for the day,’ she reminded him.
‘For the day,’ Ben agreed, ‘and for ever.’
Natalia smiled, happiness buoying her soul. ‘Then let’s begin,’ she said, and turned to kiss him.
Caitlin Crews
To Josh Moon, who explained construction to me in very detailed terms that he will be sure I didn’t use at all in this book. But I did!
IT
