Modern Romance November 2016 Books 5-8. Rachael Thomas
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can’t get that information from the authorities at the airport.’
‘I’m coming back.’ He disconnected the call and immediately called his pilot, ordering his private jet and crew to prepare for departure within the hour.
Fighting to keep the dread at bay, he made a string of calls, throwing clothes in his suitcase as he spoke, not wanting to waste precious seconds by calling staff to pack for him. By the time he was done and hurrying through the hotel’s lobby to his driver waiting outside, he’d hit enough brick walls to know he had to call in outside help.
He had to call the King of Monte Cleure and tell him his eldest daughter, pregnant and newly married, had disappeared.
* * *
Catalina carried her small bag of groceries back to the cabin house she’d rented in Spain’s Benasque Valley, the cold breeze stinging her face. Arctic snow boots kept her feet dry as she safely crunched through the settled snow, her faux-fur-lined gloves keeping her hands warm.
The stone cabin, one of a cluster of similar-looking dwellings, overlooked the frozen Esera River. Her tourist neighbours spent their days skiing, leaving Catalina to the blissful silence.
Inside, the warmth of the log fire greeted her and she shrugged off her thick coat, removed her hat, scarf, gloves and boots, and filled up the kettle.
It had taken her five days to psych herself up to leave the cabin. Necessity had forced her hand when the cupboards had run bare. Now she awoke each morning looking forward to a walk into the town of Benasque. Until the morning she’d walked out of Nathaniel’s apartment she had never left a building on her own. She had never gone anywhere on her own before.
When she’d left, she hadn’t had a destination in mind, just a stone-cold determination to get out of the country. The compulsion had been so sudden and so strong that she’d obeyed; not thinking, acting solely on instinct. She had changed into a pair of ordinary-looking jeans and an ordinary-looking black sweater, covered her hair in a silk scarf, grabbed her passport—only Monte Cleure’s ruling monarch was allowed to travel without one—and selected her roomiest handbag. She’d then treaded carefully back to Nathaniel’s office and transferred as much of the cash in the briefcase to her handbag that could physically fit.
Escaping the building and getting to the airport had been problem free. On arrival, she’d searched the departing flights and Andorra La Vella had immediately jumped out at her. She’d known even as she’d queued for her ticket that she wouldn’t stay there but seeing the name Andorra had brought to mind the town of Benasque, which she knew was over the border on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees Mountains.
She’d paid for her ticket with the stolen money. It had been the first time she’d physically handed money over for anything. The palace had always paid for everything. Other than the raised brow she’d received from the woman serving her when she’d checked Catalina’s passport, no one had batted an eyelid at her, although she had heard one child saying to her mother as they passed that she looked like Princess Catalina.
There had been a moment of panic when the enormity of what she was doing finally set in but she’d smothered it with thoughts of her growing baby. Those idle weeks in Nathaniel’s apartment had brought her whole life into focus. And it wasn’t a life she wanted for her child. If she didn’t leave Monte Cleure now she knew she might never have the chance again.
It was the moment she hadn’t known she’d been waiting for all her life. It was an opportunity that would never come again. If she couldn’t take the freedom beckoning to her for her own sake, she needed to grab it for her baby.
But what had started almost like a great adventure had quickly turned into something far more stressful than she could have anticipated. There had been so many people at the airport for a start, who had all been jostling each other, on a mission to be somewhere. Until that point all the interaction she’d had with others outside the palace had been carefully stage-managed and choreographed. She’d given as much of herself to them as she could but there had always been security by her side and an invisible line between them, which the public had instinctively known they could not cross.
Now, that invisible line had gone.
In Andorra, a nice gentleman at the airport had given her directions and assistance, and two hours later she’d been bundled up in cold weather clothes and on a bus heading to the town she remembered her mother talking about from her own childhood. If she’d known it would take almost eight hours to get there and that she would suffer from motion sickness, she might have thought twice and hired a taxi, but she had thought travelling by bus would give her greater anonymity. If not for the sickness she might have enjoyed the novelty of it all.
She didn’t expect to hide for ever; indeed she was surprised she’d managed it as long as she had. All she wanted was the peace she’d found to last for as long as it could before she made the call and faced the music. One more day. Then she would tell her father she wasn’t coming home.
She put her groceries away and opened the box containing the mobile phone she’d bought earlier. She might have come to a nasty realisation about her family and the twisted dynamics within which it operated, but she didn’t want to cause them unnecessary worry. She’d called the palace from Andorra’s airport to let them know she was safe and would be in touch soon, then had hung up before Lauren, who’d taken the call, could question her.
She hadn’t called Nathaniel. She figured he’d celebrate the news she’d left. She’d freed him of his responsibility towards her. As for the money...
Her face burned to think of what she’d done. She’d stolen his money. She was a thief. She’d never understood how guilt could stop someone from sleeping but now she did, the knowledge of her thievery an unmovable fire in her brain.
But it was more than that. She couldn’t get him out of her mind.
She couldn’t put it off any longer. Her family could wait a bit longer but she would call Nathaniel tonight.
There was a rap on the front door.
She put the phone down on the counter and headed cautiously to the kitchen window to see who was calling. In her ten days here she’d had only one visitor, and that had been the cabin’s owner.
Her heart practically flew out of her mouth when she saw the tall figure of Nathaniel standing there.
Before she could hide he turned his head and looked straight at her.
Her heart was pumping so hard its beat echoed in her ears. She never had the chance to get to the door because he pushed it open.
There was a long period of silence.
He glowered at her, larger and more powerful than she remembered, the green of his eyes glittering with menace.
NATHANIEL STAMPED THE snow off his brogues. After ten days of increasingly frantic searching, he had found her.
It was a long time before he could trust himself to speak. ‘You have a lot of explaining to do, Princess.’
His relief at having found her was replaced with a burst of fury. If she had any idea what she’d put him through...
When it had become clear that Catalina really had disappeared...
He’d experienced the most powerful sense of déjà vu, hurtling back twenty-eight years to the day he’d heard that powerful rumble and then minutes later seen the thick wave of snow spreading over the location where the wooden ski bar had been.
The fear had been intense. Overwhelming. There had been moments in his search for her when panic burned like acid in his guts and he’d wondered if he would ever see her again or would ever meet their child.
But he’d found her now.
The cabin was cosy and open-plan,