natural conclusions. Which might not exactly work against Holly’s spirited will. He’d known her as a girl, proud, independent, strong. She’d lost none of it; had gained more.
She was a woman in a million. He wanted her.
So tell her. Make love to her in the literal sense.
She’d believe him why? He’d been married to Christina. He hadn’t been in contact with Holly for years. How could he persuade her how he felt, when he didn’t know how he felt himself?
He did know how he felt. He stopped and stared out over the moonlit sea.
He wanted this woman. He wanted her more than life itself. If he had time he’d woo her as she ought to be wooed. He’d love her as she deserved to be loved.
So compress it. See what you can do in the time you have available. Think, man. He had to talk her into a short-term marriage at least. That’d buy him time.
He’d brought her here as his captive. What would keep her?
He forced himself to keep walking, thinking back to all the things he knew of the Holly he’d once loved. He conjured up her memory. Holly, wild and free. Holly, meeting him that first morning when her father had brought him home, coming out to the veranda, her old dog by her side.
He stopped.
It was a wild thought. Stupid. Sentimental. But this was no ordinary need. What was needed was a gesture.
He was already turning back to the pavilion. He had work to do this night. Thank God for the Internet. Thank God for servants back on the mainland. He’d wake half the palace up to get what he needed.
So little time…
He had to move.
IT WAS ten in the morning before Holly ventured to open her bedroom door. Sophia was sweeping the tiles around the pool—normally something Nikos did. Holly had been listening to her singing as she worked for the last hour and she’d finally figured Sophia was giving her reassurance that it was fine to come out. Not that she felt very reassured, but the moment she opened the door, she was.
‘He’s gone,’ Sophia said and Holly gasped.
‘G… gone.’
‘He says he should be back tonight but he commands you not to worry.’
‘Not to worry… What sort of a command is that?’
‘He says go for a swim. Enjoy the day, hey? You are not to trouble your head. But first, breakfast.’
‘I don’t think I’m hungry.’
‘Of course you’re hungry,’ Sophia said and beamed. ‘Courtship always makes a girl hungry. When such a man looks at you with such eyes… ooh, all the senses come alive. Smell, feel, touch, taste… I’ve been young too, remember.’
‘Courtship doesn’t come into this,’ Holly said, trying not to sound cross. She was wearing one of the most demure outfits from Andreas’s outrageous wardrobe—a silk kimono. It covered her but not enough. Still, if he’d really gone… She peered around the courtyard as if she thought Sophia might be telling lies. As though Andreas might be yet to pounce.
‘He’s really gone,’ Sophia said, smiling.
‘Where?’
‘Who knows? The royal princes… they are here, there, everywhere. The fuss about the old king’s death is such that there are a million things to do. His mother may want him home.’ Her face softened. ‘She’s had a hard time of it, the queen, no matter how brave a face she puts to the world.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘That’s right. You’ve never met her. There’s so much in front of you,’ Sophia said and beamed.
Oh, goody. There was a reassurance.
‘But you need feeding,’ Sophia said, watching her face and deciding, obviously, that Holly needed distracting. ‘You want to talk to me as I cook?’
‘I can cook my own toast.’
‘You’re to be a princess,’ Sophia said seriously. ‘You need to get accustomed. You make your own toast—you offend a whole hierarchy of kitchen staff.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ she said. ‘Me, I don’t mind for you are not yet a princess. But when you are…’ She was still watching Holly’s face, but it was as if this was too important not to be said, just because she was risking upsetting the girl in front of her. ‘When you are, you’ll be taking on a whole role. You represent our country. You are royalty.’
‘I’m not royalty.’
‘What I see in Prince Andreas’s eyes… you will be.’
She wasn’t royalty.
She ate breakfast—as much toast as she could get down without choking—and then she escaped to the beach. Sophia packed her lunch so she could stay as long as she wished. ‘I’ll send word if His Highness returns,’ she told Holly and Holly thought it sounded like a warning.
But there was no escape. She was on Andreas’s island. She was bound to Andreas’s rules. She was bound to wait for Andreas, and think and think and think.
He didn’t come. She’d know if he came for if he’d left by plane he’d return by plane, but as the sun sank low in the sky she’d seen no sign of him.
Was it safe to go back to the house? It had to be. She was weary of lying on the sand trying to sort out her thoughts; floating in the surf trying to block out memories of last night’s kiss; trying to read and seeing only Andreas instead of the print on the page.
Nothing was clear except her fear for the future and her longing for the past.
She walked slowly back to the pavilion. Sophia and Nikos were in the kitchen—she could hear them arguing as they commonly did when they were alone. Loud, voluble arguments, highly passionate over who knew what. They’d been married for forty years, Sophia had told her. Forty years and five children. What did they have to be passionate about?
Why was she feeling like this? So lonely she could weep. She’d been solitary all her life. For the last few years it had just been herself and her father and her job, and her students were dislocated voices on the end of the radio. Now she was with people, yet her sense of alienation was so strong it was threatening to overwhelm her.
Maybe it was seeing Sophia and Nikos and what a long-term marriage could be.
Maybe it was seeing Andreas again and seeing what could have been if they’d been different people, in different worlds.
Maybe she could marry him. Maybe it wouldn’t be worse than living alone for the rest of her life. Maybe…
