Love Islands…The Collection. Jane Porter
‘Special’ but not needed.
‘I didn’t tell him and I should have. I should have made him come and see her.’
Stella frowned. ‘What happened?’
He regretted this already. But he saw the look in Stella’s eyes and the words fell from him anyway. ‘I was dating a girl from my law class. She saw me with Alessia and was jealous. I told her the truth—that Alessia was Antonio’s fiancée and that she was sick, and that was why I was visiting her. But I hadn’t realised just how sick Alessia was. And then Antonio learned that his fiancée was dying through the media.’
‘Because your girlfriend sold the story?’
The look of outrage and disgust on her face made him smile bitterly. ‘Alessia refused to see him, but he got in to see her anyway. She refused to marry him. She couldn’t give him heirs. She was too ill. He said he didn’t want children—he wanted her for as long as they had left. But she still refused. She sent him back to San Felipe and in the end he had to go. He had to rule. She died a few weeks later.’
He reached past Stella to steer the yacht back on course.
‘He won’t marry now, won’t have children. He promised that to Alessia and he’s determined to keep it true. That is his decision. Duty above all else.’ He glanced up at the flapping sail and pulled on a rope. ‘He could have had a chance with her...even just more time. But I let him down by not telling him. And then by talking to someone I thought I could trust.’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said. ‘You should have been able to trust her. Antonio must have understood that.’
‘Antonio was lost in his own grief and I just made things worse for myself. That was my “playboy prince” period.’ He grimaced. He’d given in to a downward spiral of meaningless sex and parties. His university daze.
‘What made you stop?’
‘It wasn’t fun any more.’
He’d got bored, unhappy, lonely. He’d come home and apologised to an unmoved Antonio and he had been trying to redeem himself ever since. But he was still bound by the limitations his meaningless title imposed.
He sighed. ‘Shall we see how fast we can make her go?’
‘Yes.’
Eduardo loved fast. So did Stella.
Those headlines she’d read—Search for San Felipe’s brides—who will heal Antonio? Who will tame Eduardo? She’d thought it was all glossy marketing speak to help sell the romance of the islands to tourists, but it was based in truth. Eduardo was everything she’d imagined—full of vitality and energy and passion. But he was also full of anger and hurt, and she’d never expected to ache because of that.
Her leg pressed close to Eduardo’s as they sat side by side on the very edge of the vintage yacht, half hanging over the water as they raced as fast as they could.
‘I’d missed out on a promotion,’ she confessed. ‘That day I met you on the beach.’
He looked at her.
‘I was so angry and so alone and I...’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘You didn’t know me. I wasn’t the usual challenge to you—the tough one all the guys placed bets on. I wasn’t the General’s forbidden daughter. I wasn’t anyone. I was just a girl and you were—’ She broke off.
‘The pirate Prince?’
‘You were fun and a...a rogue. And—’
‘You thought you knew me?’ He shook his head. ‘There’s more to me than that. Just as there is more to you than being the General’s daughter.’
‘Yes,’ she muttered—she was learning that about him. ‘But back then I just wanted a moment for me.’
‘Only now you’re paying quite the price?’
She didn’t like the sombre expression that had entered his eyes. ‘A boatload of trouble, you think?’ she teased, pleased when she saw his amusement sparkle back. ‘Are we going to land on that island?’
She sat up and put out her hand to shade her eyes, realising they were getting closer and closer to a land mass.
She rested for the next twenty minutes as Eduardo sailed the small yacht right up to an ancient wooden jetty and leapt to secure it.
He grinned at her and held out his hand to help her up. ‘Come on.’
‘Where are we?’ She stretched and started walking.
‘A tiny town on the coast of Sardinia.’
Stella gaped. ‘We sailed that far?’
‘We’ve been going for hours.’ He pulled a phone from his pocket and, yanking it out of the dry bag he’d stored it in, walked along the dock with her.
‘No wonder I’m starving.’ She jogged ahead, on the lookout for the nearest eatery in this very small town.
‘Stella—’
‘Come on—I’m famished!’ she called as he lagged behind her.
She spotted a small, grimy-looking café. The ‘Closed’ sign was up, but she went inside the open doorway anyway, hoping to convince the proprietor to make them a small snack.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said rapidly in Italian to the worn-looking woman behind the counter. ‘Would you mind—?’ She broke off as sheer amazement and then blushing wonder washed over the woman’s face.
As the woman dropped into a deep curtsy Stella turned to look at Eduardo, walking up behind her. Before her eyes he was transformed from her windswept, sexy companion to ‘the Prince’—the suave, charming man on all those magazine covers. But his smile, while still gorgeous, was slightly set, and that tiny dimple had disappeared. Small changes she wouldn’t have noticed before.
And now she read the brief apology in his eyes.
But she felt sorry—because she’d broken their brief private peace. Everyone knew who he was. Everyone changed in his presence. He was ‘different’.
As the General’s daughter, in the army she’d been ‘different’ too. Their birth circumstances stood them apart from others, and they each had to play a part.
But hers had been nothing on his. Now she started to understand the strain and isolation he felt when appearing in public. From this one woman’s overwhelmed reaction she saw what it must be like for him, walking into those galleries or gardens or concert halls filled with people craning their necks to have a look at him?
And he did it alone. His brother was too busy and aloof, doing ‘important’ Crown Princely things.
But now—at least for a little while—Eduardo had her at his side. Suddenly she didn’t want to let him down. She wanted to play her new part as well as she could. Except her clothes were wet, and no doubt her hair was wild.
She should have thought before sprinting into the small town and flinging herself into the first café she’d found. But it was too late. The woman promised absolute discretion and bustled away to fix them some food.
‘I should have realised you would be hungry.’ Eduardo fetched a chair for Stella and waited until she was seated. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘We lost track of time, sailing.’ She smiled. ‘It was fun.’
That beautiful, intimate smile flashed on his face, but it disappeared almost instantly when he caught sight of something over her shoulder.
Stella turned.
It was a young child, peeking from behind the café counter. Stella turned back to see Eduardo waving the girl over with a conspiratorial wink. Two minutes later he was laughing at the manageress when she brought their dishes over and