Royals: His Hidden Secret: Revealed: A Prince and A Pregnancy / Date with a Surgeon Prince / The Secret King

Chapter Nine

ONE week slipped by and then another as Simone settled into the rhythms of Maracey, its politics and its people. During the day Rafael belonged to Maracey and to Etienne, or that was the way it seemed. He did what Etienne asked of him and attended all manner of meetings, emerging from them preoccupied and remote, with his defences so solidly in place there was no getting round them. Only at night when reckless, insatiable passion ruled them both did Rafael become truly hers, taking everything she offered, and giving everything a woman could ever want in return.

Tenderness.

And surrender.

Passion.

And possession.

Whether love grew in such conditions, Simone could not say. Rafael never spoke of love and he never spoke of their future. She didn’t know how long their stay in Maracey would last or whether Rafael intended to take on the role of Etienne’s heir apparent. He was being groomed for it, that much was certain.

So many questions in need of answers.

Such a fragile thing, Rafael’s trust in her.

Simone was three months pregnant now and her morning queasiness had become more pronounced. Rafe had taken to waking before her in the mornings and padding downstairs to the kitchen to collect whatever Rosa happened to be trialling that day that might, at a pinch, stay in her stomach for more than a minute. Fatty foods would not. Nor eggs, toast, fruit, yoghurt, cereal, croissants or baguettes. Day-old flatbread would. Salted crispbread would too, washed down with unsweetened tea. Once she’d lined her stomach with food the morning sickness would pass. Until she was up and about though, Rafael hovered.

It helped immensely that he chose to do so in a pair of long cotton pyjama bottoms and nothing else. She loved watching him pace around as he lingered over his own breakfast, with one eye on getting ready to go do business and one on her. She loved that she could admire the craftsmanship on his back now without wincing.

Admittedly, that didn’t stop her from suggesting a few minor improvements to the wording.

‘You know, I think,’ she said with a wave of her salted crispbread as he wandered past the bed for the umpteenth time, ‘that with a tiny bit of finessing, a master artist could make that tattoo read “Honey, I’m Back”.’

‘No.’ He continued on his way to wherever it was he was going. But his lips twitched and that was all the encouragement she needed.

‘“Wrong Way Go Back?”’ she suggested next. ‘Just in case you ever need to double as a roadside stop sign?’

He gave her a look that would have turned bacon crispy—had there actually been any bacon on her plate.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’d never work for women drivers. They’d like as not drive off a cliff while looking at you. What about a nice solid square and no words at all. “Back in Black”. Get it?’

His lips twitched. Possibly in humour. Possibly in pain. ‘Eat your cracker,’ he said.

She nibbled the salty bits off it thoughtfully. ‘I’ve got it,’ she said. ‘“The Love Shack.”’

‘The wording stays as is,’ he said firmly. ‘Get used to it.’

She was used to it. It was the pain beneath the words that she objected to, and she still didn’t have the faintest idea how to make it go away. It was always there, in the emotional distance he demanded of others, in the way he kept his feelings to himself. ‘I bet you can’t wait for me to start suggesting names for this baby,’ she said sagely.

‘God help us,’ he muttered.

‘Well, she could. But you do realise she’s going to push for one of those archangel names. Not that it isn’t already a family theme. How about Michael?’

‘Michael is good.’

‘Uriel?’

The look he sent her indicated possibly not.

‘Metatron! Now there’s a goodie.’

‘No,’ he said sternly.

But he went to his meeting that day with a smile on his face.

Rafael lived to get through each day as best he could. He did what Etienne wanted and attended his meetings and sat through endless negotiations that had ramifications far beyond what he was used to thinking about. His respect for Etienne grew with each passing day. His feeling of entrapment grew with each passing day as well. Only the nights gave him solace. Only in Simone’s arms did Rafael find freedom of a sort, and even that was weighted against the guilt of having forced Simone to accompany him to Maracey and into a lifestyle she did not want and made no comment on although he could see for himself the unhappiness in her eyes at times.

She was over three months pregnant now, and Rafael could detect the tiny changes in Simone’s body almost as well as she could. He knew when morning sickness plagued her. He knew those rare days when it didn’t. He loved those mornings when she lounged in bed and watched him dress, every inch the pampered and teasing princess.

This wasn’t one of those mornings.

This morning Simone had shadows in her eyes as well as beneath them and he shifted restlessly beneath her solemn gaze.

‘Rafael?’ she said. ‘May I ask you a question?’

‘Of course.’ He needed a suit for the day, dozens of which had miraculously appeared in the walk-in closet. He chose a grey one.

‘Where are we going with this?’

‘With what?’

‘This relationship. Yours and mine.’

His hand stilled. He forced himself to breathe. ‘I don’t know.’

‘We could discuss it?’ she offered tentatively. ‘Where we might go from here?’

‘What’s to discuss?’ said Rafe as panic speared through him along with bone-jarring fear at the thought of having to watch her walk away from him yet again. Not yet. Not now. His need over hers and even as he thought it, even as he acknowledged his weakness and the depth of his need for this woman, he knew that he could not hold Simone here much longer if she truly wanted to leave. ‘Do you want to leave me?’

‘No.’ She was by his side, taking his arm and turning him towards her. ‘Rafael, no! I just want to know what your feelings are for this place and this lifestyle and for me. You never say,’ she said in a small voice. ‘You never say what you want.’

‘I want to do right by you.’ With all that he was. ‘And the baby. I want you to be happy.’ He gathered up his courage and bared his soul. ‘With me.’

Simone’s eyes filled with tears and she whirled away as quickly as she’d arrived. ‘I hate her,’ she said fiercely.

‘Hate who?’

‘Your mother.’

‘I’m not overly fond of her myself,’ murmured Rafael. He didn’t quite see the connection between his statement of wants and Simone’s statement of hate. ‘So what?’

‘So I need to think that one day you might trust me again. To stand by you. Not to hurt you. And I don’t know if you ever will, because of your mother and the things she’s done.’ Simone crossed her arms around her body and hugged tight. ‘And because of me and the things I’ve done and the situation we’re in. And I need you to trust me, Rafael. This relationship won’t work properly until you do.’

‘Simone…’ He didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m trying.’

She bowed her head. He couldn’t see her tears, but her voice was thick with them. ‘I know.’

Simone didn’t see much of Rafael in the days that followed. For him it was meeting upon meeting, each one more important than the last. Each night saw him weary. Not weary of lovemaking, but weary of spirit and wary of everyone. Including her.

How much longer could he go on without letting anyone in?

She’d suggested they ask Harrison to visit Maracey and stay with them a while. She’d suggested they ask Luc and Gabrielle to visit them as well. Rafael needed people around him who he could trust and if not her then someone else. Negotiations on exactly what Rafael’s role here in Maracey would involve were coming to a close. The stakes were high. The power Rafe wielded was already considerable.

Whether he wanted to wield it was anyone’s guess.

Simone had taken to spending some of each lonely day in the old vineyard with Ruby the inquisitive puppy, a gardener’s wheelbarrow, secateurs and gloves. The gardens immediately surrounding the fortress were fully formed and immaculately maintained, but here amongst the vines there was work still to be done and vision to be applied. Some of that vision, Simone had decided, would be hers.

The row of vines she worked her way along today had come from Caverness some thirty years ago. Her father had sent them and Etienne had planted them. Simone smirked as she straightened from her pruning and glanced down the row. Not that he’d planted them straight.

Still, they were a connection with her home, and one that she would see revived. She missed Caverness, there was no denying it. She missed the duties she’d borne within the Duvalier champagne empire and the people she’d worked with. She missed Lucien and Gabrielle and her favourite café. She missed being able to move freely through the outside world. To go where she pleased, whenever she pleased, and by whatever method of transport she pleased.

If Maracey had an outside world, she hadn’t found it yet.

If there was freedom to be had here, she hadn’t found that either. The high, cloister-like hedging around the terraced vines mirrored her sense of imprisonment but at least there was sky up above and a view down the valley that could make a spirit soar.

Rafael didn’t even get that much, these days.

Simone pruned a wayward offshoot and tossed it towards the wheelbarrow. Much to Ruby’s delight, it missed. Simone was trying to teach Ruby to retrieve the ill-aimed vines and drop them into the wheelbarrow, but Ruby had proven remarkably resistant to the idea. All retrieved vines, sticks and other assorted garden oddments would be dropped at Simone’s feet in the hope that they would be thrown again and that was all there was to it.

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