Crown Prince's Chosen Bride (10 page)

Tristan placed a gentle finger under her chin so she had to look up at him. ‘I am sorry, Gemma. That is the way it has always been in Montovia. Much as I would wish it otherwise.' His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘Until I met you I was prepared to accept my fate with grace. Now it will be that much harder.'

‘Aren't princess brides a bit short on the ground these days?'

‘To be from an aristocratic family is all that is required—she does not need to be actual royalty. In the past it was about political alliances and dowries...'

Nausea brewed deep in the pit of her stomach. Why hadn't he told her this before he'd kissed her? Before she'd let herself start to spin dreams? Dreams as fragile as her finest meringue and as easily smashed.

Sincere as he appeared now, Tristan had deceived her. She would never have allowed herself to let down her guard if she'd known all this.

Like Alistair, he had presented himself as a person different from what he really was. And she, despite all best intentions, had let down her guard and exposed her heart. Tristan had started something he knew he could not continue with. That had been dishonest and unfair.

She could not let him know how much he had hurt her. Had to carry away from this some remaining shreds of dignity. For all his apologies, for all his blue blood, he was no better than any other man who had lied to her.

‘I'm sorry, too, Tristan,' she said. ‘I...I also felt the
coupe de foudre
. But it was just...physical.' She shrugged in a show of nonchalance. ‘We've done nothing to regret. Just...just a few kisses.'

What were a few kisses to a prince? He probably had gorgeous women by the hundred, lining up in the hope of a kiss from him.

‘Those kisses meant something to me, Gemma,' he said, his mouth a tight line.

She could not deny his mouth possessing hers had felt both tender and exciting. But... ‘The fact is, we've spent not even a day in each other's company. I'm sure we'll both get over it and just remember a...a lovely time on the harbour.'

The breeze that had teased the drying tendrils of her hair had dropped, and the sun beat down hot on her bare shoulders. Yet she started to shiver.

‘We should be getting back to the boat,' she said.

She turned and splashed into the water before he could see the tears of disappointment and loss that threatened. She swam her hardest to get to the boat first, not knowing or caring if Tristan was behind her.

* * *

Tristan stood on the shore and watched Gemma swim away from him in a froth of white water, her pale arms slicing through the water, her vigorous kicks making very clear her intention to get as far away from him as quickly as possible.

He picked up a piece of driftwood and threw it into the bush with such force that a flock of parrots soared out of a tree, their raucous cries admonishing him for his lack of control. He cursed loud and long.
He had lost Gemma.

She was halfway to the boat already. He wished he could cast a wide net into the sea and bring her back to him, but he doubted she wanted more of his deceitful company.

In Montovian mythology, when a cunning hunter tried to capture a water nymph and keep her for himself, he'd drag back his net to find it contained not the beautiful woman he coveted but a huge, angry catfish, with rows of razor-sharp teeth, that would set upon him.

The water nymphs held all the cards.

* * *

An hour later Gemma had showered and dressed and was sitting opposite Tristan at the stylishly laid table on the sheltered deck of the
Argus
. She pushed the poached lobster salad around her plate with her fork. Usually she felt ravenous after a swim, but her appetite had completely deserted her.

Tristan was just going through the motions of eating, too. His eyes had dulled to a flat shade of blue, and there were lines of strain around his mouth she hadn't noticed before. All the easy camaraderie between them had disintegrated into stilted politeness.

Yet she couldn't bring herself to be angry with him. He seemed as miserable as she was. Even through the depths of her shock and disappointment she knew he had only deceived her because he'd liked her and wanted her to like him for himself. Neither of them had expected the intensity of feeling that had resulted.

She still found it difficult to get her head around his real identity. For heaven's sake, she was having lunch with a
prince
. A prince from a kingdom still run on medieval rules. He was royalty—she was a commoner.
Deemed not worthy of him.
Gemma had grown up in an egalitarian society. The inequality of it grated. She did not believe herself to be
less.

She made another attempt to eat, but felt self-conscious as she raised her fork to her mouth. Did Tristan's bodyguards have a long-distance lens trained on her?

She slid her plate away from her, pushed her chair back and got up from the table.

‘I'm sorry, Tristan, I can't do this.'

With his impeccable manners, he immediately got up, too. ‘You don't like the food?' he said. But his eyes told her he knew exactly what she meant.

‘You. Me. What could have been. What can never be. Remember what I said about the sticking plaster?'

‘You don't want to prolong the pain,' he said slowly.

Of course he understood. In spite of their differences in status and language and upbringing, he already
got
her.

This was heartbreaking. He was a real-life Prince Charming who wanted her but couldn't have her—not in any honourable way. And she, as Cinderella, had to return to her place in the kitchen.

‘I'm going to ask the skipper to take me to the wharf at Manly and drop me off.'

‘How will you get home?'

‘Bus. Ferry. Taxi. Please don't worry about me. I'm very good at looking after myself.'

She turned away from him and carried with her the stricken expression on his face to haunt her dreams.

CHAPTER TEN

G
EMMA
STRUGGLED
TO
hear what Andie was saying to her over the rise and fall of chatter, the clink of glasses, the odd burst of laughter—the soundtrack to another successful Party Queens function. The Friday night cocktail party at the swish Parkview Hotel was in full swing—the reception being held to mark the official visit of Tristan, crown prince of Montovia, to Sydney.

Gemma had explained to her business partners what had happened on the
Argus
and had excluded herself from any further dealings with him. Tristan had finalised the guest list with Eliza on Thursday.

Tristan's guests included business leaders with connections to the Montovian finance industry, the importers and top retailers of the principality's fine chocolate and cheese, senior politicians—both state and federal—even the governor of the state.

If she didn't have to be here to ensure that the food service went as it should for such an important function, she wouldn't have attended.

Her antennae twitched. Okay, so she was lying to herself. How could she resist the chance to see him again? On a strictly ‘look, don't touch' basis. Because no matter how often she told herself that she'd had a lucky escape to get out after only a day, before she got emotionally attached, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about him.

Not that it had been an issue. Tristan was being the ideal host and was much in demand from his guests. He hadn't come anywhere near her, either, since the initial formal briefing between Party Queens and its client. She shouldn't have felt hurt, but she did—a deep, private ache to see that after all that angst on the
Argus
it seemed he'd been able to put her behind him so easily.

The secret of his identity was now well and truly out. There was nothing the media loved more than the idea of a handsome young European prince visiting Australia. Especially when he was reported to be ‘one of the world's most eligible bachelors.' She knew there were photographers swarming outside the hotel to catch the money shot of Prince Charming.

‘What did you say, Andie?' she asked her friend again.

Tall, blonde Andie leaned closer. ‘I said you're being very brave. Eliza and I are both proud of you. It must be difficult for you, seeing him like this.'

‘Yeah. It is. I'm determined to stay away from him. After all it was only one day—it meant nothing.' One day that had quite possibly been one of the happiest days of her life—until that conversation on Store Beach. ‘No big deal, really—unless I make it a big deal.'

‘He lied to you. Just remember that,' said Andie.

‘But he—' It was on the tip of her tongue to defend Tristan by saying he hadn't out-and-out lied, just skirted around the truth. But it was the same thing. Lying by omission. And she wasn't going to fall back into bad old ways by making excuses for a man who had misled her.

But she couldn't help being aware of Tristan. Just knowing he was here had her on edge. He was on the other side of the room, talking to two older men. He looked every inch the prince in an immaculately tailored tuxedo worn with a blue, gold-edged sash across his chest. Heaven knew what the rows of medals pinned to his shoulder signified—but there were a lot of them. He was the handsome prince from all the fairytales she had loved when she was a kid.

Never had that sense of
other
been stronger.

‘Don't worry,' said Andie. ‘Eliza and I are going to make darn sure you're never alone with him.'

‘Good,' said Gemma, though her craven heart
longed
to be alone with him.

‘You didn't do all that work on yourself over six months to throw it away on an impossible crush. What would Dr B think?'

The good thing about having worked on a women's magazine was that the staff had had access to the magazine's agony aunt. Still did. ‘Dr B' was a practising clinical psychologist and—pushed along by her friends—Gemma had trooped along to her rooms for a series of consultations. In return for a staff discount, she hadn't minded seeing her heavily disguised questions appearing on the agony aunt's advice page in her new magazine.

Dear Dr B,

I keep falling for love rats who turn out to be not what they said they were—yet I put up with their bad behaviour. How can I break this pattern?

It was Dr B who had helped Gemma identify how her unbalanced relationship with her stepfather had given her an excessive need for approval from men. It was Dr B who had showed her how to develop her own instincts, trust her antennae. And given her coping strategies for when it all got too hard.

‘I can deal with this,' she said to Andie. ‘You just watch me.'

‘While you watch Tristan?'

Gemma started guiltily. ‘Is it that obvious? He's just so
gorgeous
, Andie.'

‘That he is,' said Andie. ‘But he's not for you. If you start to weaken, just think of all that stuff you dug up on the internet about Montovia's Playboy Prince.'

‘How could I forget it?'

Gemma sighed. She'd been shocked to the core at discovering his reputation. Yet couldn't reconcile it with the Tristan she knew.

Was she just kidding herself?

She must not slide back into bad old habits. People had warned her about Alistair, but she'd wanted to believe his denials about drugs and other women. Until she'd been proved wrong in the most shockingly painful way.

Andie glanced at her watch. ‘I need to call Dominic and check on Hugo,' she said. ‘He had a sniffle today and I want to make sure he's okay.'

‘As if he
wouldn't
be okay in the care of the world's most doting dad,' Gemma said.

Andie and Dominic's son, Hugo, was fifteen months old now, and the cutest, most endearing little boy. Andie often brought him into the Party Queens office, and Gemma doted on him. One day she wanted a child of her own. She was twenty-eight. That was yet another reason not to waste time on men who were Mr Impossible—or Crown Prince Impossible.

‘Where's Eliza?' Andie asked. ‘I don't want to leave you by yourself in case that predatory prince swoops on you.'

‘No need for name-calling,' said Gemma, though Andie's choice of words made her smile. ‘Eliza is over there, talking with the best man at your wedding, Jake Marlowe. He's a good friend of Tristan's.'

‘So I believe... Dominic is pleased Jake's in town.'

‘From the look of it, I don't know that Eliza would welcome the interruption. She seems to be getting on
very
well with Jake. You go and make your phone call. I'm quite okay here without a minder, I assure you. I'm a big girl.'

Gemma shooed Andie off. She needed to check with the hotel liaison representative about the service at the bar. She thought they could do with another barman on board. For this kind of exclusive party no guest should be left waiting for a drink.

But before she could do so a bodyguard of a different kind materialised by her shoulder. She recognised him immediately as one of the men who had been discreetly shadowing Tristan. She shuddered at the thought that he'd been spying on her and Tristan as they'd kissed on the beach.

‘Miss Harper, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Tristan would like a word with you in the meeting room annexe through that door.' He spoke English, with a coarser version of Tristan's accent.

She looked around. Tristan was nowhere to be seen. From the tone of this burly guy's voice, she didn't dare refuse the request.

Neither did she want to.

* * *

Tristan paced the length of the small breakout room and paced back again. Where was Gemma? Would she refuse to see him?

He had noticed her as soon as he'd got to the hotel. Among a crowd of glittering guests she had stood out in the elegant simplicity of a deep blue fitted dress that emphasised her curves and her creamy skin. Her hair was pulled up and away from her face to tumble to her shoulders at the back. She was lovelier than ever.

He had to see her.

He was taking a risk, stepping away from the party like this. His idyllic period of anonymity was over. He was the crown prince once more, with all the unwanted attention that warranted.

The local press seemed particularly voracious. And who knew if one of his invited guests might be feeding some website or other with gossipy Prince Charming titbits? That was one of the nicknames the media had given him. They would particularly be looking out for any shot of him with a woman. They would then speculate about her and make her life hell. That girl could not be Gemma. She did not deserve that.

And then she was there, just footsteps away from him. Her high heels brought her closer to his level. The guard left discreetly, closing the door behind him and leaving Tristan alone with her. Could lightning strike twice in the same place? For he felt again that
coup de foudre
—that instant sensation that this was
his woman.

His heart gave a physical leap at the expression on her face—pure, unmitigated joy at seeing him. For a moment he thought—hoped—she might fling herself into his arms. Where he would gladly welcome her.

Then the shutters came down, and her expression became one of polite, professional interest.

‘You wanted to see me? Is it about the canapés? Or the—?'

‘I wanted to see you. Alone. Without all the circus around us. I miss you, Gemma. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you.'

Her face softened. ‘There isn't a moment since I left the
Argus
that I haven't thought about
you
.'

Those words, uttered in her sweet, melodious voice, were music to his ears.

He took a step towards her, but she put up her hand in a halt sign.

‘But nothing has changed, has it? I'm a commoner and you're a prince. Worse, the Playboy Prince, so it appears.'

Her face crumpled, and he saw what an effort it was for her to maintain her composure.

‘I...I didn't think you were like that...the way the press portrayed you.'

The Playboy Prince—how he hated that label. Would he ever escape the reputation earned in those few years of rebellion?

‘So you've dug up the dirt on me from the internet?' he said gruffly.

She would only have had to type
Playboy Prince
into a search engine and his name would come up with multiple entries.

‘Is it true? All the girlfriends? The parties? The racing cars and speedboats?'

There was a catch in her voice that tore at him.

He gritted his teeth. ‘Some of it, yes. But don't believe all you read. My prowess with women is greatly exaggerated.'

‘You're never photographed twice with the same woman on your arm—princesses, heiresses, movie stars. All beautiful. All glamorous.'

‘And none special.'

No one like Gemma.

‘Is that true? I...I don't know what to believe.' Her dress was tied with a bow at the waistline, and she was pleating the fabric of its tail without seeming to realise she was doing so.

‘I got a lot of attention as a prince. Opportunities for fun were offered, and I took them. There were not the restraints on me that there were on my brother.'

‘If I'd been willing, would I have been just another conquest to you? A Sydney fling?'

‘No. Never. You are special to me, Gemma.'

‘That sounds like something the Playboy Prince might say. As another ploy.'

There was a cynical twist to her mouth he didn't like.

‘Not to you, Gemma. Do not underestimate me.'

She was not convinced.

He cursed under his breath. He wanted her to think well of him. Not as some spoiled, privileged young royal. Which he had shown all the signs of being for some time.

‘There was a reason for the way I behaved then,' he said. ‘I was mad about an English girl I'd met at university. She was my first serious girlfriend. But my parents made it clear they did not approve.'

‘Because she was a commoner?'

‘Yes. If she'd been from a noble family they would have welcomed her. She was attractive, intelligent, talented. My parents—and the crown advisers—were worried that it might get serious. They couldn't allow that to happen. They spoke to her family. No doubt money changed hands. She transferred to a different university. I was angry and upset. She refused to talk to me. I realised then what it meant to have my choice of life partner restricted by ancient decrees.'

‘So you rebelled?'

‘Not straight away. I still believed in the greater good of the throne. Then I discovered the truth behind my parents' marriage. The hypocrisy. It was an arranged marriage—my father is older than my mother. He has a long-time mistress. My mother discreetly takes lovers.' He remembered how gutted he'd felt at the discovery.

‘What a shock that must have been.'

‘These days they live separate lives except for state occasions. And yet they were determined to force me along the same unhappy path—for no reason I could see. I was young and hot-headed. I vowed if I couldn't marry the girl I wanted then I wouldn't marry at all.'

She sagged with obvious relief. ‘That's understandable.'

‘So you believe me?'

Slowly, she nodded. ‘In my heart I didn't want to believe the person I was reading about was the person I had found so different, so...
wonderful
.'

‘I was unhappy then. I was totally disillusioned. I looked at the marriages in my family. All were shams. Even my brother's marriage was as cynical an arrangement as any other Montovian royal marriage.'

‘And now?'

She looked up at him with those warm brown eyes. Up close he saw they had golden flecks in them.

‘It is all about duty. Duty before personal desire. All the heroes in our culture put duty first. They sacrifice love to go to war or to make a strategic marriage. That now is my role. Happiness does not come into the equation for me.'