to punish me with.’
‘I’ll support you.’ There wasn’t any hesitation.
‘It’s not fair for me to be reliant on you.’
‘You’ve always been reliant on your father.’
‘That was different. With my father it was quid pro quo. The palace paid all my expenses and in return I was a princess who brought honour to the House of Fernandez.’
‘You’ll be the mother of my child. I’ll take care of you financially.’
‘I do appreciate it, really, but I would like to contribute too. I don’t know how to be idle.’
‘What would you like to do?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I can do. I’ll think of something.’
He nodded slowly, before perusing his menu again. ‘You would be good in hospitality.’
His compliment, as off-hand as it had been, brought a flush of pleasure to her cheeks.
Their waiter appeared with their drinks and a notepad.
Nathaniel ordered a fillet steak with fries, salad and Portobello mushrooms. It sounded so good she ordered it for herself.
When they were alone again, she asked the question that had been going through her mind since their conversation in the car. ‘Why did you only live with your uncle for such a short time after your expulsion? You were very young to go out into the world on your own.’
The lines on his face deepened.
‘You were seventeen when you left?’ she probed.
‘Yes.’
‘How did you support yourself?’
‘With the remainder of my parents’ insurance money. It was supposed to pay for another year’s schooling but my uncle transferred it to me. I moved to Marseille and rented an apartment. Tiny thing, it was.’
Marseille had been where he’d started his business. The land opposite his rented apartment had been for sale. For years he’d known he would be master of his own destiny and, gazing out at the blank spot on the canvas, he’d suddenly known what he was going to do. He’d called Helios—who was still at school—and told him his idea. A month later the land had belonged to Nathaniel. Two years after that, his first development, a decent-sized hotel and restaurant with a nightclub attached, was complete. He sold it, paid Helios back his money and used the profit to purchase his next plot of land. By his third development he hadn’t owed a cent to anyone. He stopped selling his developments after his fifth and had kept all the income for himself.
Thirteen years after that phone call to Helios, Nathaniel had made the official world billionaire list.
‘Where did your uncle live?’ Catalina asked.
‘Paris.’
Her face scrunched up in concentration. He could see her calculating the distance.
‘That’s the other side of France, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you go so far away?’ She shook her head in confusion. ‘It seems strange to me that you would move so far from your only support network unless you had to.’
‘I did have to,’ he snapped, lifting his beer and drinking half the glass in one swallow.
Then, taking a deep breath, he put the glass back on the table and forced a smile.
She didn’t look the slightest bit convinced by it, her eyes piercing his with concern.
‘What happened?’
He opened his mouth to tell her that it was none of her concern when instead he found himself saying, ‘I had an affair with Angelique.’
CATALINA WONDERED IF she’d misheard him. ‘Your aunt?’
He shook his head, his lips forming into a sneer. ‘Not my aunt. She was my uncle’s wife but I never thought of her as my aunt. When my parents died I thought of her as the Wicked Witch of the West.’
It was as if Catalina’s tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth. She simply could not think of a response.
He’d had an affair with his uncle’s wife?
‘You remember the fight Dominic and I had that resulted in my expulsion?’
She managed a nod.
‘I told you I was sent to my uncle’s home in disgrace and that he was away on business. I expected to be dumped with a nanny or something of the sort but I guess Angelique didn’t have the chance to get anything organised. She had to deal with me herself rather than fob me off and pretend I didn’t exist.’ The distaste in his voice was clear. ‘I remember how she looked at me when she opened the door. It was the look the wolf gave Little Red Riding Hood. Physically, I’d changed a lot that year; I’d shot up and filled out. For the first time, she didn’t ignore my existence. She plied me with wine, dressed up, cooked me a special meal... I didn’t know it then but it was the beginning of her seduction.’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t need to hear the details but suffice to say when she crept into my bed I was in no position to turn her away. She was a beautiful woman at the height of her powers and she knew exactly what she was doing.’
Finally Catalina was able to speak. ‘She seduced a seventeen-year-old boy?’
‘Yes. She did. She seduced me. And I let her.’
Catalina shuddered, nausea swelling in her stomach. ‘That’s sick.’
His jaw clenched and he breathed heavily. ‘I did warn you.’
She placed a hand on his arm, worried he would think she was speaking about him. ‘No, not you. I mean Angelique. What a bitch.’
It was the first time Nathaniel had ever heard a curse fall from Catalina’s lips.
‘I have to take some of the blame. I let her.’
‘You were seventeen.’
‘Seventeen-year-olds know right from wrong and I knew very well that what we were doing was not just wrong but, as you rightly said, sick. My uncle took me in from the age of seven. He raised me...’
‘He let Angelique send you to boarding school.’
‘He did the best he could under the circumstances. He was there for every significant event and that was how I repaid him. The moral compass everyone else has does not apply to me. We slept together intermittently for six months, until the day my uncle came home from work early and caught her sneaking out of my room in only her underwear.’
He drained the rest of his beer
