Robyn Donald - Royals - Wed To The Prince

Well, she thought drearily, I now know what happens when you hit the tropics—madness.

Lauren stroked the elderly golden retriever’s insistent head.

‘No, Fancy,’ she said patiently, ‘I don’t want to go for a walk along the beach, and no, I don’t want to row you around to Cabbage Tree Bay, and no, I don’t want to climb the hill either. Nor do I want to throw your ball or feed you treats.’

All I want to do, she finished silently, is lie here in the sun and mourn a man I won’t see again.

Tail wagging, Fancy sighed, gave her a forgiving lick on the fingers, and flopped down in the sun beside the lounger. Lauren’s eyes narrowed against the glare as she gazed out across the bay; although this was a distant reach of the huge Pacific Ocean, it was much cooler and more green than the warm tropical seas surrounding Valanu and Sant’Rosa.

‘But just as beautiful,’ she said sternly.

Fancy’s tail thumped agreement. Now and forever, Lauren knew, she’d measure every island against Valanu, where Guy had taught her the exquisite pleasures of sex.

For long forbidden minutes she lay still and remembered—as she’d been remembering for the past two days. Two days and four hours, actually. At least, she thought drearily, she wasn’t counting the minutes…

Fancy sat up, ears pricked and alert as she stared into the sky.

‘What is it, girl?’ But Lauren too had heard it by now—a helicopter, coming fast and low.

Her half-brother, Marc? No, he and Paige were still enjoying a second honeymoon in the Seychelles, having left their adorable twin daughters with Marc’s doting mother in Paris.

Some secret instinct shortened Lauren’s breath. Telling herself not to be an idiot, she sprinted inside to change her brief shorts and top for linen trousers and a silk shirt.

‘Just in case,’ she murmured, and gave a dreary little laugh. Of course it wouldn’t be Guy.

And if by some miracle it was Guy, she’d send him away. Even if he wanted her to, she couldn’t see herself spending the rest of her life on a tropical island.

‘Oh, you idiot,’ she muttered, hastily masking her face with a discreet film of cosmetics. ‘When did you start thinking in terms of the rest of your life? He certainly wasn’t considering permanence.’

Combing her hair into place, she wondered what on earth had happened to her normally disciplined brain.

‘You let yourself be ambushed by temptation. You blatantly let him know you were available, and you didn’t put up even a minor objection when he carried you off for days of hot sex and wild passion,’ she muttered.

OK, so other people did things like that all the time, but she’d been utterly irresponsible. She should have fled to New Zealand the minute he handed over her passport on Valanu.

Even then, it was too late. That hasty fake marriage conducted under gunfire was just the sort of human-interest story a journalist would love. To save her mother humiliation and her father the stress that worsened his precarious health, she and Marc had always been careful not to attract attention to their relationship.

Frowning, she slid on small gold earrings as the chopper eased down towards the pad behind the house.

She’d been lucky because it didn’t seem that her recklessness had compromised the old, hidden scandal of her conception. Surely, if any journalist had got a sniff of her time with Guy—or of that fake marriage—it would have turned up in the papers by now. They’d been having a great time with the heroic, unknown ‘Englishman’ who’d fought side by side with the Sant’Rosan forces.

A knock on the door announced the housekeeper. ‘Lauren, it’s a Mr Bagaton,’ she said, looking both intrigued and slightly put out. ‘He insists on seeing you.’

Lauren’s stomach clenched, a chaotic surge of joy wiping everything but anticipation from her mind. Trying hard not to beam, she said, ‘Thanks, Mrs Oliver. I know him.’

He was waiting in the morning room, completely relaxed in casual trousers that clung to his long, muscular legs. The rolled sleeves of his shirt revealed tanned forearms. He had shaved.

Yet there was nothing casual in the way he watched her come across the room; narrowed, intent eyes in an impassive face examined her as though she was some rare specimen he’d been searching a lifetime for.

Sensation slammed through her, hot and unashamedly primeval.

This was a different man from the one on Sant’Rosa, the beachcomber, the man of action, the lover. He was harder, his control an icy cloak around him, and there was something about his dark gaze that sent tremors scudding the length of her spine.

Yet her body had sprung to life at the first glimpse of him; that consuming hunger surged through every cell, ran molten along her nerves, fired synapses all through her body until she burned with elemental urgency.

She’d never thought to meet anyone to match her half-brother, Marc, yet now another man stood in his house clothed in the same ruthless authority, exerting the same effortless dominance.

Calling on every shred of restraint, she said, ‘Good morning, Guy. This is an unexpected pleasure.’

Her composed, measured greeting brought a swift, taunting smile. Before she realised what he intended he covered the distance between them in three long strides and dropped a stinging kiss on her startled mouth, before stepping back. ‘I’m glad it’s a pleasure.’

‘Of course,’ she said, hiding the uncertainty in her tone with a quick, abrupt delivery. ‘What brings you here?’

‘You look pale—are you all right?’

‘I’m fine.’ Oh, fine was such an inadequate word! She was terrified at how alive she felt now, reborn by his presence.

Still frowning, he said, ‘Sit down.’

An icy bubble suddenly expanded beneath her ribs. She searched his face, but the hard angles and planes revealed nothing. ‘Why?’

‘I’m not a bearer of good news.’

Shaking her head, she unconsciously stiffened her shoulders. ‘Tell me.’

But it wasn’t until another rapid, unsparing survey apparently reassured him she had the stamina to deal with what he had to say that he told her bluntly, ‘The marriage we contracted in Sant’Rosa might be legal.’

‘IT’S legal?’ Ashen-faced, Lauren stared at him.

‘According to my lawyer we could be on shaky ground if we assume it’s not binding.’ He spoke levelly, no emotions showing in either tone or expression.

Rallying, she exploded, ‘But there was no licence, no identification—nothing but the form that—that—’

‘Josef,’ Guy supplied helpfully.

‘That Josef had with him.’ She unclenched the fists at her sides. ‘It cannot possibly be legal.’

Guy’s broad shoulders lifted in a negligent shrug. ‘On Sant’Rosa, it seems, the ceremony and Josef’s form might be enough.’

Numbly Lauren walked across to the window, staring out at the picture-perfect garden, lushly subtropical, familiar and safe. The dog, Fancy, wandered across the lawn and spread herself out on the terrace in the sun, yawning prodigiously before curling up for another of her interminable naps.

Panic hollowed out her stomach, brought her brain skidding to a halt. Married to Guy Bagaton?

‘No,’ she said starkly. ‘I won’t accept it.’

‘Accepting it or not isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference,’ Guy stated with brutal frankness. ‘And it’s not certain; my solicitors are working on it. I thought you should know so that you can be prepared.’

‘Thank you.’ She took a deep breath and forced her brain into action.

Even if the marriage was valid, it would only be a nuisance. It would take time and money she couldn’t afford to sort out, but that was all. That had to be all; she couldn’t let memories of the time they’d spent together affect her—they certainly weren’t affecting him.