His to Command: the Housekeeper: The Prince's Chambermaid / The Billionaire's Housekeeper Mistress / The Tuscan Tycoon's Pregnant Housekeeper

It had made her feel rather odd. A bit like an object. But then his expert lips and seeking fingers would get to work and dissolve any lingering doubts—replacing them with a sense of wonder that he should desire her as much as he did.

As she walked down the flower-banked path to her cottage Cathy reflected that her weeks with the Prince had been everything that any woman could ever have wished for.

Well, maybe some women might have objected to the fact that they didn’t go out very much—though he had certainly offered to take her. The trouble was that going out with a prince was beset with difficulties. A supposedly incognito visit to the cinema had been spoiled when word had got out that a European royal was present. Maybe it had been the attendance of his bodyguards who had given the game away, no matter how discreet they had tried to be. And consequently, the staff had made a fawning kind of fuss of him.

Cathy had noticed how much he hated being recognised; she hated it, too—and not just because she was thrust aside into the shadows. Understandably Xaviero was much more uptight when he was being observed by other people. So she had suggested that they stay at home, in her little cottage. They could eat supper outside if the weather was fine—in the seclusion of the small garden. And if it rained, then they could watch DVDs while cuddled up on the sofa, just like any other couple.

To her surprise, he had agreed—and to her even greater surprise, he hadn’t grown bored with the arrangement. On the contrary, Xaviero seemed to love the simple life, which was all she could offer him. And it gave Cathy almost as much pleasure as his love-making—to see her prince relax in the relative anonymity of her little home.

He’s not your prince, she reminded herself fiercely as she dumped the two carrier bags on the kitchen table and went out into the garden to pull some potatoes from the ground.

She was so busy tugging at the tiny little vegetables that she didn’t hear anyone come into the garden. In fact, the first she knew that Xaviero was present was the touch of his hands at her waist. Such an innocent touch and yet it had the power to make her feel weak with wanting.

‘Xaviero,’ she breathed.

‘You were expecting someone else?’ came his wry reply as he turned her round to face him.

‘I’m all muddy!’

He stared down into her flushed and healthy-looking cheeks—at the bright aquamarine eyes which sparkled like blue stars. She was…enchanting. Completely without guile or affectation. ‘Who cares?’ he murmured as he lowered his head to kiss her.

The kiss became breathless—and the potatoes scattered around their feet. Inside, she quickly washed the mud from her hands and then her lover carried her to bed, where they made love with an urgent kind of fervour which suggested that they might have been apart for weeks, rather than mere hours.

And afterwards he pulled her up to lie against his warm body, kissing the top of her head and breathing in the silky scent of her hair.

‘That was…amazing,’ he murmured, his fingers settling over one soft breast. ‘Who taught you to do that?’

‘You did,’ she whispered. Just as he had taught her everything. Tightening her arms around him, Cathy felt the powerful body relax against hers and wished that the world outside this cottage didn’t exist. That they could stay marooned in here in a world of make-believe, where she could pretend that he was simply Xaviero—the man whose golden-eyed beauty had grown to dominate her world.

He began to drift off to sleep beside her and she could hear nothing but the steadying of his breathing, and the ticking of her bedside clock. Oh, how she hated that little clock which ruthlessly whittled away the minutes they spent with each other. Hands which crept round so agonisingly slowly when Xaviero was absent that they seemed almost stationary. But when he was here…well, that was when time would play cruel tricks—greedily running away with itself until the alarm on his cell phone reminded him that it was time to leave.

Then, in the early hours he would prise himself from her warm embrace, pulling on his clothes to slip out into the balmy summer air where his chauffeur was waiting patiently at the end of the lane, ready to drive him the short distance to the hotel.

‘Why don’t you…stay?’ she had ventured, on that blissful first night in his arms—when she had lain there dazed in the sweet aftermath of his love-making.

‘I can never stay the night with you, Cathy,’ he had stated, his voice suddenly hard and resolute.

Too full of emotion and pleasure to heed the unmistakable caution which smouldered at the depths of his golden eyes, she had looked up into his face with innocent bewilderment. ‘Why not?’

‘Because staying a whole night is a statement. It implies a commitment which is not present—and to do so will compromise both of us.’ He had lifted her chin then. Stared hard into her eyes. ‘And you know that this is nothing but a very temporary affair, don’t you—because I made that clear from the beginning?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course I do,’ she’d said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. Telling herself that at least he wasn’t lying to her—or keeping false hopes alive by pretending that there might be some kind of future in it. Because she had known from the outset that there wasn’t. Far better to simply revel in every glorious and unbelievable moment than try to hang onto a hopeless dream.

Beside her, Xaviero stirred from his brief sleep. ‘Cathy?’

She rolled over to face him, their gazes meeting in the confined space of her bed, and her heart turned over with longing. ‘What?’

‘This.’ He slid her hand between his thighs until her fingers collided with his hotly aroused flesh and Cathy’s lips parted.

‘Again?’ she whispered breathlessly.

‘Sì, again,’ he agreed unsteadily.

She swallowed as the familiar heat of desire began to unfurl in her stomach. ‘So…soon?’she managed huskily.

‘Always. Always! Because you drive me crazy!’he said fiercely. ‘Crazier than any woman I have ever bedded!’

Feeling his hands encircle her waist, Cathy drifted her lips to his neck and trailed her mouth lightly over his silken flesh. ‘Do I?’

‘Oddio, I think I have taught you a little too well,’ he said unsteadily as he lifted her up and then brought her slowly down on top of him and she gasped as she felt him fill her.

She didn’t have the time or the inclination to question him—not then, when he was moving her up and down on his swollen shaft like that. Taking her to that sweet place of release where the rest of the world and all its nagging doubts could be forgotten. When she could cry out his name with uninhibited joy and he would think it was simply the orgasm speaking and not a shout of fervour from her heart.

Much later, they clambered back into their clothes and Cathy concocted a meal, while Xaviero opened some of the wine he’d brought with him. Tipping the ruby liquid into the chunky little tumblers she kept in her kitchen, he smiled.

‘One of the finest wines in the world,’ he murmured. ‘And here we are drinking it from tooth-mugs!’

Cathy put a little bowl of cherry tomatoes on the table and turned to look at him. ‘You want me to get some proper wine glasses?’

He looked at her, and at that moment Xaviero felt a sharp longing for a world he would never really know—where every purchase had to be calculated and assessed. Where things were bought for necessity and governed by cost—without bringing elegance or beauty into the equation. He would no more have drunk from glasses like this in his own home than he would have lapped wine from a saucer—but for now they seemed to symbolise a sense of simplicity he had never known.

‘I don’t want you to change anything,’ he said.

Cathy bit her lip as she went back inside the cottage to get the butter dish—afraid that her sudden fears would show on her face, and scare him. The very real fear of how on earth she was going to cope with life once Xaviero had left it.

But doubts could grow in your mind—even if you didn’t want them to—and Cathy barely touched her meal, though she drank deeply of the rich Italian wine. Xaviero had shared her life these past weeks and yet she realised that she knew very little about him. Or at least about his other life. His royal life.

‘Tell me about Zaffirinthos,’ she said suddenly.

‘Not now, Cathy.’ He yawned.

‘Yes, now,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Why not?’

His lips curved into a reluctant smile as he watched her push a stray strand of thick blonde hair from her flushed cheek, recognising that she was a beguiling mixture of innocence and outspokenness. She was a complete natural, he realised—and it was still enough of a novelty not to irritate him. And yet wasn’t one of her most appealing qualities the fact that she was so biddable—so willing to be taught? Why, if he’d told her that it increased his sexual pleasure to have her dance naked around him beforehand, she would have gone about it in an instant!

His smile was one of rare indulgence. ‘And what—specifically—do you want to know about Zaffirinthos?’

‘Everything,’ she answered, wondering if she had imagined that faintly patronising tone.

‘But surely you must already know something? Some facts you picked up on the Internet. Because I can’t believe you didn’t look me up when you discovered who I was,’ he drawled. ‘People always do.’

Cathy found herself colouring, like a child who had been caught with her fingers in the cookie jar. Or some stupid little royal groupie. ‘Obviously I found out some things—’

‘Of course you did.’ His smile was faintly cynical. ‘What things?’

‘Not the kind of things I’d really like to know.’

‘And what might they be?’