time?’
‘A time.’
She wanted to press the subject but could tell by the set of his jaw it would be futile.
She wished she’d known. She should have known.
No wonder he was such a lone wolf, always flitting from one woman to the next, one country to the next, always moving. He’d lost his love and stability at seven and what he’d lost had never been replaced.
If she’d known... She couldn’t honestly say she wouldn’t have taken off as she’d done but she would have called him from the start. She wouldn’t have kept him in limbo while she carried his only real family inside her.
‘How did they react to you being expelled?’ she asked quietly. ‘Were they cruel about it?’
‘My uncle was never cruel to me. He did the best he could under difficult circumstances. He was in Germany at the time on business. Angelique was there to take me in.’
‘Angelique the child hater.’
He paused for long moments, slowing the car again as they approached a small village. ‘I was no longer a child then.’
‘You were seventeen. In Monte Cleure you don’t come of age until you’re twenty-one.’
‘I thought we’d already established that your country is an archaic antiquity.’ Something dark glittered in his expression. ‘I was a teenage mass of hormones and rebellion. But I’m guessing you wouldn’t understand that.’
‘Probably not.’ She couldn’t take her eyes off him. ‘Hormones and rebellion came late to me. Just over two months ago, to be precise, when I committed the only rebellious act of my life.’
He turned his head to meet her gaze for the briefest moment, and in that moment the intensity of his stare was so real and piercing that heat crawled through her, uncurling from her navel and spreading out into her limbs and up her neck.
It was the look he’d given her right before he’d peeled her robe off her shoulders...
The beautiful memories of that rebellious night were as fresh in her mind as they had been when he’d slipped from her room.
If she could take a silver lining from having to return to her home country, it was that Nathaniel was no longer treating her like an opaque ghost. She knew he was furious with her and fully accepted she deserved it, but his anger was a hundred times better than the indifference she’d been living with. He was finally treating her like a real person again, not as the perfect Princess who was judged incapable of lifting a kettle for herself.
The Nathaniel she’d desired from afar for all those years had returned.
The fire that had swirled through her at his stare reignited as she imagined him treating her like a woman again...
THE SNOW WAS coming down thick and fast and Nathaniel had to use all his concentration to navigate roads that were fast becoming treacherous.
All he needed was to get to the airport. His jet was waiting there and the airport staff were used to keeping the runway perfectly gritted and usable.
Catalina must have sensed his need to concentrate for she fell silent again.
If only he weren’t so aware of her...
This was why he’d avoided spending time alone with her. Every time it was just the two of them he had to fight with his own fingers not to reach out and touch the creamy skin, to gather the long, thick raven hair in his hands and inhale the sultry scent that had driven his senses wild from the very start. He knew he shouldn’t desire someone he no longer trusted, even if a part of him parroted her excuses, trying to justify her actions and pass the blame onto him.
Yet their conversation earlier had changed the whole complexion of their relationship. As much as he loathed what she had done, an understanding had grown between them. For want of a better term, they were now partners in crime, both prepared to put on a face to get what they wanted.
What he couldn’t trust was that she wouldn’t take her desired freedom if another opportunity presented itself.
‘We’re going to have to find somewhere to stop for the night,’ he muttered as they approached another small town. The snow was now so thick he couldn’t clear it quick enough to see through the windscreen before it was covered again.
‘I told you we should have stayed in the cabin,’ she said, smothering a yawn with the back of her hand.
‘You’re tired?’
‘A little.’
Wiping away the thought of rousing her in more senses than one, he crawled the car through the town’s entrance.
Unable to see more than a couple of feet in front of him, he brought the car to a halt. ‘Wait here a moment.’
The moment he stepped out of the car, the chill, along with what felt like a foot of snow, enveloped him.
Shielding his eyes with a rapidly freezing hand, he saw he’d parked safely enough. A neon sign with ‘Hotel’ on it glowed in the distance like some commercialised North Star guiding them.
He opened the car. ‘There’s a hotel up there. I’m going to see if they’ve got any rooms available.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘There’s no point in us both making a wasted journey.’
She rolled her eyes and unbuckled her seat belt. ‘Can you get my bag for me, please?’
‘Catalina...’
‘I don’t want to wait in here on my own. They’ll have room for us. Have faith.’
Faith was something he’d lost too many years ago to count, on the morning after a snowstorm much like this one.
Of all his memories of his family, that one, of the night before he’d lost them, was the clearest. They’d been in their log cabin, his and Melanie’s noses pressed against the window, watching the snow fall in delight and amazement. It had been evening and they should have been in bed but their parents had taken them outside to build a moonlit snowman.
Was the memory so clear because it was his last with them? Or was it just because it had been such a happy moment? If he closed his eyes he could still see his mother’s mischievous smile, his father’s twinkling eyes and his sister’s cute dimples. If he closed his eyes hard enough he could still hear the laughter that had carried through the windless cold air.
This was why he avoided the snow. There was no escaping the memories of all he missed.
He slammed the door shut and treaded carefully to the boot, grabbing Catalina’s small case and the rucksack filled with what was left of the stolen money.
Why had he felt like a tyrant taking the cash-crammed rucksack
