each other, on a mission to be somewhere. Until that point all the interaction she’d had with others outside the palace had been carefully stage-managed and choreographed. She’d given as much of herself to them as she could but there had always been security by her side and an invisible line between them, which the public had instinctively known they could not cross.
Now, that invisible line had gone.
In Andorra, a nice gentleman at the airport had given her directions and assistance, and two hours later she’d been bundled up in cold weather clothes and on a bus heading to the town she remembered her mother talking about from her own childhood. If she’d known it would take almost eight hours to get there and that she would suffer from motion sickness, she might have thought twice and hired a taxi, but she had thought travelling by bus would give her greater anonymity. If not for the sickness she might have enjoyed the novelty of it all.
She didn’t expect to hide for ever; indeed she was surprised she’d managed it as long as she had. All she wanted was the peace she’d found to last for as long as it could before she made the call and faced the music. One more day. Then she would tell her father she wasn’t coming home.
She put her groceries away and opened the box containing the mobile phone she’d bought earlier. She might have come to a nasty realisation about her family and the twisted dynamics within which it operated, but she didn’t want to cause them unnecessary worry. She’d called the palace from Andorra’s airport to let them know she was safe and would be in touch soon, then had hung up before Lauren, who’d taken the call, could question her.
She hadn’t called Nathaniel. She figured he’d celebrate the news she’d left. She’d freed him of his responsibility towards her. As for the money...
Her face burned to think of what she’d done. She’d stolen his money. She was a thief. She’d never understood how guilt could stop someone from sleeping but now she did, the knowledge of her thievery an unmovable fire in her brain.
But it was more than that. She couldn’t get him out of her mind.
She couldn’t put it off any longer. Her family could wait a bit longer but she would call Nathaniel tonight.
There was a rap on the front door.
She put the phone down on the counter and headed cautiously to the kitchen window to see who was calling. In her ten days here she’d had only one visitor, and that had been the cabin’s owner.
Her heart practically flew out of her mouth when she saw the tall figure of Nathaniel standing there.
Before she could hide he turned his head and looked straight at her.
Her heart was pumping so hard its beat echoed in her ears. She never had the chance to get to the door because he pushed it open.
There was a long period of silence.
He glowered at her, larger and more powerful than she remembered, the green of his eyes glittering with menace.
NATHANIEL STAMPED THE snow off his brogues. After ten days of increasingly frantic searching, he had found her.
It was a long time before he could trust himself to speak. ‘You have a lot of explaining to do, Princess.’
His relief at having found her was replaced with a burst of fury. If she had any idea what she’d put him through...
When it had become clear that Catalina really had disappeared...
He’d experienced the most powerful sense of déjà vu, hurtling back twenty-eight years to the day he’d heard that powerful rumble and then minutes later seen the thick wave of snow spreading over the location where the wooden ski bar had been.
The fear had been intense. Overwhelming. There had been moments in his search for her when panic burned like acid in his guts and he’d wondered if he would ever see her again or would ever meet their child.
But he’d found her now.
The cabin was cosy and open-plan, a small dining table dividing the kitchen area from the living area. Catalina stood, seemingly rooted to the spot, at the kitchen counter, her eyes not leaving his. There was wariness in them and not a small amount of fear, but intermingled with those emotions was clear defiance.
‘Don’t tell me you thought you could hide for ever?’ he said scathingly. She looked surprisingly well apart from the two fingers on her left hand that had plasters across the knuckles. Her porcelain cheeks had a healthy glow to them the like of which he’d never seen on her skin before. She wore black straight-cut stretchy corduroy trousers and a thick knitted navy jumper that fell to her knees. On her feet were fluffy slipper boots that looked, to his eyes, dreadful, but seemed strangely apt for the setting.
These were clearly clothes his money had bought because she definitely hadn’t taken any of her clothes from his apartment.
‘Not for ever, no.’ She shook her head from side to side, backing away from him like a cornered cat. ‘How did you find me?’
He blew into his hands. The cabin’s warmth went some way to defrosting his chilled bones. He’d forgotten how cold winter in the mountains could be.
‘By employing my best people to find you. I assume you chose this spot deliberately.’ He shook his head, unable to believe the serene Princess he’d desired from afar for years could be so underhand and cruel.
He’d never have believed she was a thief either. Or that she would prove so adept at hiding. By the time he’d landed back in Monte Cleure it had been clear her disappearance was no case of abduction. The call she’d made to the palace had confirmed this. Catalina had run away. She’d taken herself and the little life they’d made together and left him.
To find her here, in the snow-capped peaks of the Pyrenees at the height of the skiing season...
Her chocolate eyes lost their dazed look and snapped into focus, piercing straight through him. He’d forgotten how seductive they could be.
‘I’m here because it’s a place I’ve always wanted to visit.’
How could she be so calm? Whereas he...he was a ball of lava wrapped in a shell that was eroding by the second, the pressure gearing up to an explosion.
Ten days of worry. She’d stolen a heap of his money but he hadn’t been able to stop himself worrying about how she would look after herself without the twenty-four-hour assistance she was used to. He’d expected to find her bedraggled and unkempt.
Yet her hair was shiny, her skin clear and she held herself with the same poise she’d always had.
You could take the woman away from all the trappings of royalty, he thought, but her breeding always shone through. Catalina could be dressed in a pinafore, scrubbing bathrooms, and she would still have a regal bearing.
But that royal body was as womanly and as earthy yet as heavenly as it was possible to get; silk and cream enveloping fire.
He clenched his teeth together. ‘A place you wanted to visit which just happened to be on a snow-capped mountain?
