Claiming His Princess: Duty at What Cost? / A Throne for the Taking / Princess in the Iron Mask. Kate Walker
his brother a little more and then ran through a few work-related issues before ringing off.
‘Well, that was convenient.’
Wolfe lifted his gaze to the woman who was slowly driving him mad and realised that other than his brother she was the only person who had ever teased him about his behaviour.
Feeling overly hot, even though the air temperature had dropped a couple of degrees, he focused on the small cluster of flowers she held in her hands, not unlike a bride waiting to walk down the aisle. Shaking off that disconcerting image, he made his voice curt when he spoke. ‘We should head back inside.’
‘Okay.’ She sniffed the small posy and fell into step beside him. ‘Was that your brother?’
He thought about changing the subject, but knew if he did her interest would only grow, not wane. ‘Yes.’
‘You sound close to him.’
‘I am.’
‘So, no sibling rivalry?’
He shook his head. ‘We’re less than two years apart so we did everything together.’
‘Does he travel around like you?’
‘No. He’s based in New York.’
‘Does he have a wife? Kids?’
Wolf stopped so abruptly she’d taken two more steps before she noticed.
‘This is starting to feel like an inquisition.’
She shrugged one slender shoulder. ‘I’m just trying to know you a little better.’
‘By asking questions about my brother?’
‘You won’t answer questions about anything else.’
That was because he had never seen the point in talking about himself. And, if he was completely honest, because he was starting to like her in a way that transcended the physical and that scared him. It was dangerous to bond with a client. It caused sloppy work and unrealistic attachments to develop.
‘Look, don’t worry about it.’ She gave him a half smile that seemed paper-thin. ‘When you’re like this…’ She gave another one of those Gallic shrugs that drove him bonkers. ‘I forget you work for my father.’
If she had tried to wheedle information from him, or tried to make him feel guilty, he would have held his line. Faced with the stoic indifference he now knew she used to mask her true feelings, he caved. Or perhaps it was just that she looked so beautiful in the light of the crescent moon.
‘What do you want to know?’ he asked, not a little gruffly.
‘What do you want to tell me?’
Wolfe blew out a breath. It was so typical of her to make him work for something he didn’t even want.
‘My father died ten years ago.’
Ava stopped and looked at him. ‘I’m sorry. Were you close?’
Had they been close? Probably not, if he had to think about his answer. ‘At times.’
‘And your mother?’
Wolfe turned to continue walking. ‘I don’t know where she lives. She left when I was younger.’
‘Oh. That must have been hard.’
‘It is what it is.’
He felt her glance and knew she was seeing more than he wanted her to. ‘Is she the reason you avoid long-term relationships?’
There was a lengthy silence in which he realised even the cicadas had stopped singing. As if they too were waiting with bated breath for his answer. Wolfe made a sound in his throat at the uncharacteristically fanciful thought and nearly missed her next word.
‘Love?’
He did not want to talk about this with her. It was time to end the conversation. ‘Love is the most unstable emotion I’ve ever come across,’ he said fiercely. ‘My mother didn’t just leave once. She left over and over. And every time she returned she told us how much she loved us. It was the only time she ever said it.’
As soon as the bleak words were out he regretted them. The look of pity on Ava’s face only made the feeling ten times worse.
‘Where did she go?’
Wolfe thrust his hand through his hair and promised himself next time he’d stick to monosyllabic answers or none at all, as he usually did. ‘We never knew. Sometimes she would meet a man in town and take off, other times she just went on a “holiday”.’
‘But that’s awful. What did your father say? Was he even there?’
‘He was there,’ Wolfe said grimly. Usually out on his tractor, ignoring reality. ‘But he didn’t say anything. When she came back, sometimes months later, we all just pretended she’d never left.’
‘That hurts the most, no?’ Her delicate brows drew together in consternation. ‘I used to hate it when my father would go off on extended business trips, or lock himself away in meetings and then totally ignore how it made us feel.’
‘I wasn’t hurt by her actions,’ Wolfe denied. ‘But Adam was. Whenever she’d go he used to run away and try and find her.’ He hated remembering those hours of searching for his brother, worried about whether he’d find him alive or dead in the hot, arid bushland that surrounded their farm.
‘But not you?’
Wolfe realised with a start that she had somehow sucked him back into the past against his better judgment, and he felt excessively relieved to find they had arrived back at the palace. ‘No. Not me. I was older. I understood.’
She looked up at him with such a penetrating gaze he felt every one of his muscles grow taut.
‘Understood what, Wolfe?’ Her gaze bored into his. ‘That you were a child who couldn’t rely on his mother’s love?’
AVA VACILLATED BETWEEN the two evening gowns laid out on her hotel bed. She could smell the fragrant Parisian air through her open window, and outside she knew the night sky was streaked with pink and orange, the Seine sparkling under the glow of the street lamps that had just gone on.
She tapped her foot in time with her favourite jazz album, blaring from the hotel’s sound system, trying to feel okay about her coming dinner with Prince Lorenzo of Triole and not to torture herself about where Wolfe had got to last night.
For a whole week he’d barely uttered a word to her—ever since he’d opened up about his childhood and she’d made that rash statement about his mother. The words had been out of her mouth before she’d thought it through, but she had felt so outraged on his behalf. And clearly he’d felt outraged by what she’d said, because he had stopped sitting beside her in meetings and had even stopped making her evening cup of tea. It was a silly, inconsequential thing to care about, but it had come to mean a lot to her. His support had come to mean a lot. Somewhere along the way she had forgotten that she was just his client. Forgotten that, although they had been lovers, they had nothing else between them.
The devil on her shoulder told her he’d been out with a woman. That he was a man with a large sexual appetite he had not slaked for weeks. Her hands knotted into fists and she forced herself not to think about the heaviness in her heart. Forced herself to concentrate on the crucial task of choosing a gown for the evening. She smiled wryly at Lucy, who clutched the ornate mahogany bedpost with a dreamy expression on her face.
Ever since Ava had submitted to the changes in her life and accepted Lucy’s help their relationship had blossomed into the beginnings of a genuine friendship.
‘Which do you think,