Falling For The Secret Princess. Kandy Shepherd
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it?’ he said with a smile.
‘True,’ she said, returning his smile and gazing into his green eyes for rather longer than was polite on a shared table.
Their heads had been bowed closely together, their voices low for the duration of the conversation. Reluctantly she broke her gaze away and returned her attention to the other people at the table, as good manners dictated.
A pleasant middle-aged couple sat opposite them—Eliza’s neighbours. Natalia and Finn chatted with them about how much they were enjoying the meal.
Once the plates for the main course had been cleared, the woman—Kerry—sat back in her chair. Her narrow-eyed gaze went from Natalia to Finn and back again. ‘So, is all the romance of this lovely wedding giving you two ideas?’ she said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Natalia, completely taken aback.
‘You and Finn. Any plans for a wedding of your own?’
Natalia wasn’t often lost for a diplomatic reply to an unexpected question. But the Australian woman’s blunt questioning had her floundering. She looked up to Finn for help, only to see him struggling too.
‘No plans yet,’ he finally choked out.
‘You haven’t popped the question?’
‘No!’ he said.
‘How long have you been together?’
‘We...er...we only just met,’ Natalia said, flushing hot with embarrassment.
The woman frowned. ‘Really? Forgive me. It’s just that...’
‘Just that what?’ Natalia prompted, suddenly curious.
‘I’ve been around a while, and I can usually tell a perfectly matched couple. You two look so right together.’
Natalia gasped. She didn’t dare look at Finn, and was at a complete loss as to what to say. But Finn diplomatically came to the rescue.
‘I think we’re right together too,’ he said smoothly. ‘But it’s very early days.’
Natalia wished she could sink through the floor.
The woman smiled. ‘I see a wedding and I’m never wrong,’ she said, before turning her attention to her husband, who’d been trying to shush her.
Mortified, Natalia kept her eyes on her plate.
‘Don’t worry about her,’ Finn murmured in her ear. ‘She seems harmless. Unfortunately I seem to attract matchmakers. Weddings bring out the worst in them.’
If he only knew the level of matchmaking that had gone on—and continued to go on—when it came to Princess Natalia of Montovia. Finn O’Neill from Sydney, Australia—a merchant—would seem, in the eyes of her parents and the royal court, like a very unsuitable match indeed.
She was glad when the speeches started and she was able to turn away from the odd woman and any talk of matchmaking and marriage to face the top table.
THE SPEECHES WERE over and the bride and groom were dancing their first dance together. All the guests had been invited on to the dance floor to share the bridal waltz. At last Finn had Natalie in his arms—if only as a dance partner.
There was something intimate about an old-fashioned waltz. With her hand on his shoulder, his arms around her waist, she was kissing-distance close, her flowery perfume already familiar but no less alluring. Her body so near to his was warm, soft, sensual, and her innate rhythm kept them perfectly in step.
‘You dance very well,’ she said.
‘I tried to get out of lessons at school but there was no escape.’
‘You learned to waltz at school?’
‘Private boys’ school. Ballroom dancing was seen as a social skill. But I only waltz at weddings.’ He twirled her around the room until she was breathless and laughing. ‘You’re a good dancer yourself.’
‘I also had lessons,’ she said.
Finn noticed she didn’t elaborate in any of her answers. Perhaps her life really had been ordinary, even dull, although he wondered how someone as poised and vivacious as Natalie could come from dullness. Maybe she hadn’t had the same opportunities in life he had been fortunate enough to have. Or the truth might be that her life hadn’t been very happy and she was reticent about reliving an unhappy past even in social conversation.
Sometimes he was guilty of taking for granted the happy and supportive family life he enjoyed. This wedding—the happiness Eliza had found with Jake—had got him thinking. He wasn’t as immune to wedding fever as he’d thought. Now, at the age of thirty-two, perhaps he did need to shake himself up, settle down and start a family of his own.
His nonna certainly thought that was the case. His broken engagement was ten years behind him—he could not in all reason continue to blame it for his aversion to marriage. He had to name it for what it was: an excuse—one he used to convince himself as well as others. The truth was that he hadn’t met the right woman. Not one he could contemplate sharing his life with. When he did, he would willingly make that walk down the aisle. But he wouldn’t compromise. And it wouldn’t be any time soon—not when the business took up all his energy and time.
Perhaps...
He couldn’t let himself think there was any chance of Natalie being that woman. No matter what that crazy Kerry had said. No matter how he’d found himself agreeing with her that he and Natalie did feel right together. Not when Natalie was English. A tourist. Her home a twenty-two-hour plane ride away.
Long-distance dating had been a disaster with his former fiancée Chiara, the girl he’d met in Italy ten years back. Her level of treachery had left him bitter and broken.
The frequency of their phone calls had decreased. He’d been preoccupied with exams. But the day exams finished, on impulse he’d decided to make a surprise visit to Italy and booked a flight for the next day.
Chiara had been surprised, all right. Not only had she found herself another guy, she was pregnant. But she’d still hung on to Finn’s engagement ring. He had vowed never, ever to try long-distance again. This—Natalie—was purely for the short term. He had to keep telling himself that.
‘Those lessons paid off,’ he said to Natalie now. ‘You’re very graceful.’
It felt as if they were dancing together in their own bubble of awareness. But the reality was that they were dancing alongside other guests. When would he be able to get her alone?
She looked up at him. ‘That woman... Kerry. It was kind of weird, what she said.’
‘Yes. But I wasn’t lying when I agreed with her that something seems right about us being together.’ He could hardly believe he was saying this to a woman he had only known for a matter of hours.
Her blue eyes widened. ‘You meant that?’
‘About the rightness? I feel it. Do you?’
Her forehead pleated in a frown. ‘Yes. I... I think I do. But I don’t understand—’
Finn felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find a beaming Eliza and Jake cutting in on him and Natalie for their obligatory dances. He had no choice but to relinquish his intimate hold on the most gorgeous of women. He cursed under his breath that he hadn’t got a chance to hear what Natalie had been about to say.
Reluctantly he let her go and watched Natalie waltz away with Jake, smiling up at him. A spasm of jealousy shuddered through him at the sight of his beautiful dance partner in the arms of another man—even though Jake was a newlywed husband who adored his new wife.