to accede to her request to change the topic, or just happy to think about his sister. ‘She’s fun. Where I was the serious one in the family, Marietta was always the hopeless romantic, the dreamer. She’s a jewellery designer, and a seriously good one, now working in New Zealand. You’ll like her, I know.’
She smiled. ‘I think I will.’
A waiter came and topped up his wine, poured Sienna more lemon-flavoured mineral water and hovered just a moment too long to go unnoticed. Rafe looked up at him. ‘Was there something else?’
‘Scusarmi, per favore,’ the red-faced waiter said with a nod, before rattling off a burst of language so fast and furious that Sienna had no hope of keeping up. Rafe answered, his smile genuine as he rose from his seat to shake the man’s hand, only to be wrapped in an embrace that had the waiter looking mortified with embarrassment before he bowed again and again as he made his exit. ‘Grazie. Grazie.’
‘What was that all about?’
Rafe gave a shrug as he sat down, as if it had been nothing. ‘The waiter’s father works as a teller at one of the casinos; his mother is a cleaner there. He had been frightened that they would all lose their jobs when they saw Carlo and Roberto being arrested.’
‘That’s not all, though,’ she said, sensing more in the exchange from the odd word she’d picked up than he was letting on. ‘He was thanking you for coming back, wasn’t he?’
He gazed out over the harbour, rather than at her, as if he was uncomfortable with how much she had interpreted of the exchange. ‘Apparently so.’
She thought about the people who’d greeted and served them tonight with smiles and warmth. She’d taken them for granted—wouldn’t they meet their Prince in such a way anyway? But, looking back, there’d been a genuine warmth in their welcome, as if the people of Montvelatte had embraced their new Prince with joy. And Rafe’s reaction to the waiter’s comments seemed to echo those sentiments.
‘You really care about these people, don’t you?’
He flicked his serviette back onto his lap. ‘Does that surprise you?’
She shrugged, embarrassed that she’d made so obvious her prejudgment. ‘But you never had anything to do with Montvelatte before. You grew up in Paris, in exile with your mother and sister.’
‘You are right, of course. All I really knew was from my mother’s stories, or from the books she always encouraged us to read. But being back here in Montvelatte, living here, getting to know the people, it surprised me too how comfortable it felt. I am glad I decided to come back.’ He reached across the table and wrapped one of her hands in his own, and she felt the sincerity of his words in his touch.
‘Was there ever any doubt?’ she asked, liking the way her hand felt in his, the way his fingers stroked the skin of her hand into sensual awareness. ‘I thought you had decided that night, as soon as the reports came in, that this was your destiny.’
He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t planning to come at all—not at first. Not until Yannis called.’ He broke off suddenly to explain. ‘Yannis Markides, my business partner but more than that, my lifelong friend. It was Yannis who made me see sense. But when I did decide to come, it wasn’t because I felt some inexplicable link with the island or its people.’
‘Then why?’
His thumbs made lazy circles on her hand, lazy circles that sent busy signals vibrating through her veins. ‘Two things. One part of me wanted to prove that a bastard son, the son his father had rejected, could make something of himself, could prove himself to be a worthy ruler.’ He fixed her with eyes full of meaning. ‘It seems that I, too, was blessed with a father who didn’t want me.’
Sienna bristled under his gaze, not at all sure she was comfortable having something in common with him, let alone a reason to empathise with him. ‘And the other?’
‘Because of my mother. She loved her Mediterranean island home and hated being exiled like some criminal simply because she’d borne the Prince a bastard son and daughter. Do you understand? By coming back, I could try to make things right for her. That was my motivation. But I had no idea when I made that decision just how right it would come to feel.’
Sienna shivered, picking up on his use of past tense. His mother was dead. She recalled reading that in a magazine article after Rafe’s coronation. But it hadn’t occurred to her then that it was something else they shared.
She picked up her glass of water in her free hand, desperate for something to do to hide her confusion. She hated being wrong about things, hated knowing she’d made judgements based on assumptions that were misplaced. She’d assumed Rafe had embraced his new role because he’d imagined himself born to rule. Had believed it, considering the way he’d treated her. But given his story and the way the people here seemed to react to him, maybe she’d been wrong about that. Maybe he wasn’t the beast she imagined him to be …
‘I have something for you,’ he said, interrupting her thoughts while he reached into his pocket.
She sat up straight, suddenly defensive, interlocking both hands under the table in case he was about to make some kind of engagement ring gesture. Despite their more civilized conversation tonight, and despite her shifting thoughts, she wasn’t ready for anything like that yet, hoped that tonight wasn’t about that. ‘What is it?’
The ruby-red box looked worn, the velvet scuffed at the corners. ‘It’s my mother’s favourite piece of jewellery. I thought you should have it.’
Sienna shook her head, while he pressed the box towards her until it would have been churlish not to raise her hands and accept it. ‘But it was your mother’s. Shouldn’t it go to your sister?’
‘Open it,’ he urged. She gasped as the case snapped open, revealing the stunning jewels within, gemstones of every hue and shade, suspended at intervals from a diamond-set necklace.
‘It’s beautiful,’ was her first reaction. ‘I can’t accept this,’ was her second. But he was already on his feet, taking the necklace from its setting and fixing it at her throat. She put a hand to the precious piece, the jewels feeling heavy and cool against her skin, whereas the brush of his fingers felt warm at her throat, but all too light and all too brief.
He sat down again, the fire in the gems reflected in the flames in his eyes. ‘They suit you.’ And then, ‘did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?’
She dropped her eyes. ‘Carmelina chose it.’
‘It’s not the dress,’ he said. ‘It’s you. You look radiant.’ He lifted his glass to her. ‘Here’s to you, my future bride, the mother of Montvelatte’s future.’
She trembled, the responsibility of the title he’d just bestowed upon her feeling like a leaded weight. ‘Look, Rafe, I haven’t actually agreed to marry you yet.’
He frowned, her words clearly taking him off guard, before reaching over the table to take her hand. ‘What choice do we have? Soon you will start to show. Do you want this marriage to look like some shotgun wedding?’
Like her parents’ perchance? His words cut through the goodwill they’d built tonight like a scythe, sharp and deep, reopening old wounds and laying them bare. ‘If I did agree to marry you, why shouldn’t it look that way, when that’s
