Sophie Weston - The Prince's Proposal

He kissed her forehead. It was clearly meant to be a gallant renunciation.

Peter Heller snorted. Francesca felt sick.

Without her glasses Francesca could only see a blur. ‘We’re both young. Healthy. Why do we need my father’s money? We can work,’ she said in a level voice. ‘I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. I’ll stand by you. We can make it together—’

And that was the point when Barry turned on her, all charm wiped. She couldn’t see him properly. But she could feel it in the jagged movement; hear it.

‘No, we can’t.’

Peter was delighted. He snapped his fingers. ‘Aha!’

Francesca ignored him. She said to the Barry-shaped shadow lowering over her, ‘I don’t need money—’

‘But I do.’ It was a cry almost of anguish. ‘Don’t you understand? I’ve done my time wondering where the next meal is coming from. I’m never going back to that.’

Francesca said nothing.

‘Goodbye, Mr Trott,’ said Peter. That was Barry’s real name. Not de la Touche, after all.

Francesca ignored him. ‘You mean you don’t think I can afford you,’ she said to Barry. Even to herself her voice sounded odd.

‘That old bastard has just made sure of that.’

That was when she gave up. That was when she realised this was the end. And this was the worst day of her life.

She gave a little laugh that broke in the middle. ‘Yes, I suppose he has.’ She held out her hand politely, in the general direction of his voice. ‘Goodbye, Barry.’

She was less polite to her father.

And then she went off to the stock room and sought out her absolutely last pair of emergency glasses.

They were in the first-aid box. Their loose arm had been taped up with whatever had come to hand. It looked as if it had been a plaster originally, though it was difficult to tell. It had turned grey in the first-aid box and was fraying elastic bobbles by now. It kept catching on her hair, making her eyes water. That had to be what it was. Francesca, after all, never cried. As her mother always said, she was too like her father to cry.

So now Francesca blinked hard and said to the witch on the ladder, ‘What do you mean—the demolition was down to me?’

Jazz looked down at her affectionately. ‘Because you didn’t tell Barry that you are rich in your own right.’

Francesca jumped. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Have you forgotten? You told me. When we were first talking about you coming into business I told you I was worried about asking anyone to invest in The Buzz who couldn’t afford to lose money. I believe in it—but I could be wrong. And anyway it will take a long time to make a reasonable return on the investment. Let alone get its money back. And you said, “My father settled a lot of money on me when I was a teenager. It’s mine. I can do what I like with it.” So I said, OK, then, let’s go for it. Don’t you remember?’

Francesca swallowed. ‘Yes. Yes, I do now. I see.’

‘So when you said Peter couldn’t disinherit you, that was the literal truth, wasn’t it? He’s already handed over your inheritance. Why didn’t you explain that to Barry?’

‘I—tried.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ said Jazz shrewdly. ‘You wanted to know too. Didn’t you, Franny?’

‘Know?’

‘Whether the money was important to him or not.’

Francesca flinched. But she was a woman who faced the truth, however unpleasant. Truth was important. ‘I suppose so.’

‘See? You weren’t completely taken in. You had your doubts, like the sensible woman you are.’

‘Sensible, unattractive woman,’ muttered Francesca.

‘You would never have married that idiot—’ Jazz did a double take. ‘What?’

Francesca made a clumsy gesture. ‘Every man who has ever been interested in me was either dazzled by my mother’s title or my father’s millions.’ Truth had taken hold with a vengeance. ‘When they managed to focus on me long enough to see what was really on offer they all backed off.’

Jazz was shocked, as much by the resignation in her voice as what she had actually said.

‘Nonsense,’ she said.

It was just ten seconds too late. Francesca smiled wearily.

‘You don’t know the disasters I’ve had, Jazz.’

‘Haven’t we all? It’s called growing up.’

‘By twenty-three I should have cracked that one,’ Francesca said drily. ‘No, I’ve got a bit missing when it comes to understanding people. Figures, fine. I can do sums standing on my head. Facts, great. I can remember them and I don’t muddle easily. But people! I’m hopeless and I always have been.’

Jazz could not think of anything to say.

Francesca stood up and squared her shoulders. She even managed a lopsided smile.

‘So that means I’d better concentrate on a career, right? So lead me to this damned party.’

Conrad Domitio shook his head at the hundredth canapé and thought wistfully about fresh air.

‘How long will this go on?’ he yelled at the publicity assistant.

She stepped a little closer to the tanned god in front of her. Tall, hazel-eyed, with an athlete’s frame and philosopher’s formidable brow, Conrad Domitio had everything. Even his voice was sexy. It made her shiver in spite of the competition from a heavy drumbeat. Her and every other woman at Gavron and Blake, his publishers. Probably every other woman in the room, now she came to think about it.

‘Another hour,’ she yelled back.

She knew, of course, that it would be longer than that. But Conrad Domitio was impatient with publicity. In her dealings with him she had learned to undersell the full extent of their campaign. So she was not telling him that tonight, after the party, she was under strict instructions to bring him to dinner with the girls. After all, he was not only a hero and handsome as hell, he was a prince. A prince.

The publicity department had hardly believed their luck when they found out. ‘He’s a heck of a good writer, too,’ his editor had reminded them. But they had waved that aside. They knew what was important in selling books. And Ash on the Wind was going to be their spring number-one seller. She could feel it in her bones.

‘An hour?’ Conrad looked at his watch. He could take an hour. Just. ‘OK.’

It would not be so bad if the walls were not plastered with huge photographs of him, looking like a movie star, he thought. He had never wanted to have those photographs taken. To be honest, he had not really wanted to write the book at all. But the expedition’s photographer had taken some amazing footage of the erupting volcano and even more telling photographs of the escaping crater party. Always fair, Conrad acknowledged that they deserved a book. Conrad, an inveterate diarist, had more than half of the story already written.

So he had agreed. He did not regret it. He was even quite proud of the book now that it was done. But he was unprepared for the circus that the publishers seemed to fancy.

So far they had come up with wheezes guaranteed to strike cold horror into the heart of a serious seismologist who wanted to work again. Tonight’s publicity handout, for example. It made him sound like an ego-driven control freak. That or a comic-book super-hero. Conrad shuddered inwardly and told himself that he could get through an hour of anything if he had to. And the profits from the book were going to a really good cause.

Which was why, nine months after he had led six weary men out of the dust-filled darkness of the erupting volcano, they were standing here drinking Gavron and Blake’s cabernet sauvignon surrounded by six-foot-high photographs of steaming mountains and multi-eyed grasshoppers. The lighting was halfway between a disco and a forest thunderstorm, and the music was frankly jungle drums along the river. There were tables piled with copies of glossy books, Ash on the Wind, among them, but it would take infrared binoculars to find them, as Conrad had already pointed out.