courteously to her, and all she wanted to do was rain thumps down all over him.
The fact he addressed her with politeness and courtesy meant nothing when he couldn’t wait to travel halfway around the world to get away from her.
‘Do you have many travelling plans for the foreseeable future?’ she asked, suddenly recalling all the business developments he had scattered around the world.
‘After Shanghai I’ll be back here for a few weeks then off to Greece. After that I’ll be...’
‘Can I come with you to Greece?’
He rubbed the nape of his neck and grimaced. ‘Catalina, it’ll be a business trip, not a holiday.’
‘I won’t get in your way. I’ll amuse myself.’
He shook his head, and as he did so her anger finally pushed to the surface.
‘Are you deliberately going out of your way to humiliate me?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
She stared at him with incredulity. ‘We’re barely married and you’re flying around the world without me. What kind of message does that send? And not just to the public but to me too? Am I such dreadful company you can’t bear to have me by your side even for a limited amount of time?’
‘Not at all...’ He blew out air through his teeth.
‘Then you have no reasonable excuse not to take me with you to Greece.’
‘I don’t need a reasonable excuse. The answer is no. I don’t need the aggravation of keeping watch over a princess when I’m supposed to be working. Here, in this apartment, I know you’re safe and I don’t have to worry.’
‘I might be a princess but I’m not a child.’
‘You are my responsibility.’
‘You’re making excuses to keep me at arm’s length. Have I done something to offend you? Do I have body odour?’
He quelled her with a stare. It occurred to her that he was actually looking at her rather than through her as he had done since the night he’d seen through her nightdress.
Frustration was etched on every line of his face. ‘Catalina, this isn’t a real marriage.’
‘You have made that abundantly clear.’ He still hadn’t answered her question as to why he was keeping her at arm’s length.
‘You knew what you were signing up for when you agreed to it.’ He got to his feet and pushed in his chair.
‘Then tell me what I’m supposed to do. I’m not used to being idle. I’m used to being busy. Am I supposed to spend my time stuck in this apartment watching the clock, the seconds ticking down to the day you can be rid of me?’
From the look he threw at her before leaving the dining room, she gathered that was precisely what she was expected to do.
* * *
He didn’t even have the courtesy to say goodbye. A week after he’d left for Shanghai, he still hadn’t found the good manners to call her.
Unable to sleep, Catalina found herself gazing at the light drizzle of rain bouncing off her bedroom window. Nathaniel’s apartment building was in the heart of Monte Cleure’s financial district, a building with over twenty apartments of which she had met no neighbours. Colourful lights illuminated the darkness below, a sign that her people and her country’s visitors were enjoying the nightlife Monte Cleure had to offer. It was a nightlife she had never been allowed to experience for herself.
She’d never considered her life restrictive before. Not properly. She had accepted everything. But then, she had never had so much time to think before. With nothing to occupy her days, she had so many hours to fill that there was nothing to do but think. And one of the things she kept thinking was how much of life she had missed.
Having imagined she would marry one of the Kalliakis Princes, she had always thought that one day she would receive a modicum of freedom. She had hardly dared acknowledge to herself how much she had wanted this.
Then, upon learning that she was carrying Nathaniel’s child and that she would be marrying him...a real life had beckoned to her for a few tantalising seconds. But nothing had changed. Everything was still controlled for her.
She was expected to obey. That was what she’d been put on this earth for. No one cared for her personal thoughts and feelings. They didn’t matter to anyone.
Nathaniel had at least listened to her unspoken plea for something to do: he’d given Clotilde a credit card and ordered her to take Catalina shopping. He’d given Clotilde, his employee, the credit card, not Catalina. That had hurt almost as much as his dismissal of her attempts to travel with him and the cold shoulder she’d received since they’d exchanged their vows.
She had seen the hunger in his eyes. He did want her. It wasn’t that he’d slept with her and become immediately bored with her; it was much worse than that. He had chosen to snub her.
He clearly thought her so vacuous that she would be happy to fill her days shopping. She had never been shopping in her life.
Thirsty and still wide awake, her heart aching, she padded quietly from her room, making sure to close the door softly behind her. She was thankful for the thick carpets that muffled her tread. Clotilde had been reading up on a companion’s duties and had moved into the bedroom next to hers so ‘she could be available to her any time of day or night’. No amount of protests from Catalina could dissuade her from this.
She made her way stealthily to the kitchen, determined not to wake anyone up. All she wanted to do was make herself a cup of tea without having the kettle snatched away with an admonishment that they couldn’t risk a princess burning her hand with an errant kettle. But Catalina had watched everything carefully, determined that one day she would do these simple tasks the rest of the world took for granted.
As she passed Nathaniel’s home office, the door, slightly ajar, caught her attention. It was normally kept closed.
Curious to see into a room she had intuitively known was off-limits, she pushed the door open and switched the light on.
Why shouldn’t she be in here? she thought defiantly. She was his wife even if only in name.
A large oak desk dominated the office, which had a functional, transitory feel to it. Nathaniel, she knew, had properties scattered across the world that he lived in for days, weeks or months at a time. Nothing was permanent in his life, especially not his wife.
If he could be so cold to her, how would he treat their child? What kind of father would he be? An absent one, if his current form was anything to go by.
So who would be her child’s father? Who would take on the dominant male role? Her father?
Ice ran up her spine as she considered Dominic’s involvement. Once she was back in the palace there was no way he would allow himself to be sidelined. Until she was married off again, her father and brother would take control of her child’s life.
And she would be married
