Royals: His Hidden Secret: Revealed: A Prince and A Pregnancy / Date with a Surgeon Prince / The Secret King

His eyes grew shadowed. ‘No.’

‘Turn around,’ she ordered next, and pushed and prodded until she had Rafael where she wanted him, with his head flung back and his arms raised, hands resting on the tiles as water ran in rivulets down his back, over the words and the picture she’d striven so hard to forget.

‘I hate you for this,’ she murmured, tracing the darkened words that flowed across his back with the tips of her fingers, before finally pressing her mouth to the ink that graced his shoulder blade. ‘I love you for it too.’

Pleasure and pain. More pleasure than pain as he turned and thrust his hand into her hair and kissed her hard. They wouldn’t make it out of the shower before he took her again, she knew that much already.

She wouldn’t make it through the day without sacrificing her heart. She knew that too.

‘Show me your Sydney, then,’ she murmured as the last of her resistance to this man was crushed beneath the feel of his hands on her. ‘I’ll give you this day.’

They made it to Sydney with half an hour to spare before Rafael’s meeting with Etienne. By the time they’d parked the car underground and Rafael had caught her and kissed her as she got out of the car, and they’d made it to the lifts and into the foyer of the hotel, and found the washrooms and freshened their appearances, they only had five minutes to spare.

Being five minutes early to a meeting with a reigning monarch who wanted to offer you a plum commission wasn’t such a bad thing, she assured Rafael laughingly, before asking him yet again if he thought she would be in the way.

‘I’ve never met the man before, Simone. He’s known you since childhood. You won’t be in the way.’

Etienne had chosen to meet Rafael for lunch in the restaurant attached to the hotel. He stood as they approached him. A big, spare-framed man, immaculately attired in a dark suit and shirt. A man with a handsome face and a brilliant blue gaze that fixed on Rafael and never wavered.

Simone stopped abruptly, sucker punched into immobility.

Comprehension dawned.

Etienne’s knowledge of Rafael’s achievements. Gabrielle’s insistence that Etienne stay away. Not from the vineyard, but from Rafael. ‘Oh, no.’ She shook her head. ‘No.’

Rafael had stopped too, his eyes on her, puzzled and questioning. ‘Simone? What is it?’

‘Rafe—’

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t…I can’t…’ She shook her head, trying to clear it. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t…’

‘Shouldn’t what?’ His words echoed her unspoken ones.

‘Let’s just forget this meeting and go,’ she implored him.

‘Go where?’

‘Anywhere!’ Anywhere but towards Etienne de Morsay, who was currently heading towards them. ‘Rafael, please. I’m…I’m feeling unwell. Please, let’s just go.’

Rafe slid his hand beneath her elbow and frowned. ‘How unwell?’

The lies were making her sick to her stomach. Her distress must have shown on her face.

‘Okay,’ he said hurriedly. ‘A room. We’ll get you a room where you can lie down. Let me make our apologies to de Morsay.’

‘No!’

‘No to what?’

Simone was fast making a spectacle of herself. Rafael looked to be fast losing patience. Etienne was fast approaching. Maturity fled as she reverted to childhood and tugged urgently on Rafael’s arm. ‘Run,’ she said pleadingly. ‘Rafael, run.’

And then Etienne was holding out his hand and Rafael was taking it, shaking it, as blue eyes met blue and Simone watched in white-knuckled silence. And then Rafael was making their apologies and saying that she was unwell and two sets of concerned blue eyes were upon her and Simone looked from one to the other and prayed to the gods that this was all just a dream and knew that it was not.

‘Here,’ said Rafael gently and herded her towards a chair. ‘Sit for a little, while I see to a room.’

Rafael run, her mind screamed at him. ‘Yes,’ she said threadily, and then in a stronger voice as her mind began to function. ‘Yes, but I already have a room booked somewhere.’ She fumbled in her handbag for the details. ‘I just need to get there.’ She just needed to get Rafael there. Anywhere but here.

‘I have a suite here,’ Etienne was saying. ‘It’s closer. Please, it’s at your disposal.’

‘You’re very…’ She would choke on the word kind if she uttered it. Where had this man been during Rafael’s childhood? Where the hell had he been when Josien was whipping the light out of her son in punishment for imaginary wrongs? ‘I can’t…’

‘A glass of water, then,’ said Etienne and almost as soon as he said the words one was being pressed into her hand. She grasped it and drank deeply. Rafael’s eyes warmed and his lips tilted upwards. ‘Hoyden,’ he murmured as he brushed her temple with his lips. ‘Feeling a little better?’

She set the glass down on the table. ‘Yes.’ No. But she would recover and shield Rafael as best she could from this man. She had to.

She turned to the reigning king of Maracey. ‘My apologies, Your Highness. And my belated greetings.’

Etienne waved her apology away with a flick of his hand and offered up a charming smile and she winced inside because she knew that smile, she knew it well, and had never once made the connection. Until now.

‘You used to call me Etienne, young Simone,’ he said. ‘Would that you do so again.’

‘Thank you, Your Highness.’ But she would rot in hell before she would claim any kind of friendship with this man. She stood on wobbly legs.

‘My suite, I think,’ said Etienne.

‘No,’ she said. ‘The dizziness has passed. I’m okay.’

‘Are you sure?’ Rafael was in front of her now, blocking out Etienne’s image. Remaking it.

‘Oh, Rafael.’ Her heart wept for the lies that surrounded him. How long had Gabrielle known? Did Luc know? Harrison had to know. Didn’t he?

‘We won’t stay long,’ he murmured. ‘Sit for a few minutes and make sure you’re really feeling okay, and then we’ll go.’

Simone summoned a smile and called on years of social conditioning to get her through these next few minutes. ‘Of course.’

Etienne saw them seated at his table, calling immediately for more water, and some fruits and an array of food to nibble on. ‘To lift your energy levels,’ he said. ‘My late wife often took dizzy spells early in her pregnancies. Food always helped.’

‘I’m not pregnant,’ said Simone, glancing at Rafe from between her lashes to see how he had reacted to Etienne’s statement. ‘And your wife. Mariette. I was sorry to hear that she’d passed away. She was a remarkable woman.’

‘Yes, she was. Alas, she never carried a child to term. It was not to be,’ said Etienne.

‘A pity.’ Simone lifted her chin and stared at the monarch. She thought she knew where Etienne was heading with this conversation. Why he was being so frank about his so-called ‘childless’ state. But he would have to go through her to get there. ‘Rafael mentioned that you’re looking to restore a vineyard,’ she said smoothly.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘A passing interest, is it?’