‘SO, A PRISONER, you say? How so?’
Though he could take a wild guess. Not so wild if he was to think of Sara and her life as the daughter of a head of state. Her father may have been the figurehead, but the rules and expectations very much applied to her. Governing what she could and couldn’t do. Where she could and couldn’t go. Who she could and couldn’t see. Who she could and couldn’t date. Him.
‘Where do I even start?’
He settled back into the sofa, making clear he had all the time in the world to listen. ‘Why not start at the beginning, it’s as good a place as any...’
She sipped at her coffee, her mouth twisting around the mug. ‘You might regret saying that, Hugo.’
He waved a hand through the air. ‘Feel free to remind me later.’
She gave a soft huff, the returning shadows in her green eyes chasing away the amusement and making him want to close the gap between them. But he also sensed the persistent skittishness about her, the wary kitten-like quality he’d spied earlier.
‘If I’m honest, I never had freedom like other kids growing up, so it wasn’t like I could miss it. My parents had my life mapped out from birth. Every step was strategic and they played me to their best advantage.’
He gave a slow nod. ‘That sounds...’
‘Militant?’
‘Exhausting.’
She blew out a breath. ‘That too. But the palace was different. Every day had a schedule. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. You name it. There was a time for it and someone would produce it. And if you were especially lucky, there’d be a different outfit for each.’
‘Where my family comes from in Poland, such abundance would be severely frowned upon.’
‘You’re from Poland—I thought so.’ Her smile made a return. Bright, genuine. ‘And I would agree with them all. And I said as much to the King. Who was of course horrified, as was his mother. I was quickly shushed and escorted from the room by Georges and told never to give my opinion in public, or private, again.’
‘How lovely.’
‘Quite.’
‘What are they like? Really?’
‘His family?’ Her eyes flashed and her nose flared. ‘The King is a brute. His wife is a spendthrift. And while the Queen Mother despairs at their behaviour, his son runs amok. If I was to be kind, I would say the King is angry at the world for daring to mock his virility. His wife spends to make up for the abundance of children she so desperately wanted. His mother despairs at her lack of power, and as for Georges, well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree...after five years of marriage I failed to provide even one heir.’
His gut clenched. ‘So, he divorced you?’
‘God, no. I divorced him. When I realised I was the only one who took our wedding vows seriously.’
His shoulders eased as he released a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding.
‘I’d had enough of the real Georges and everyone laughing at me behind closed doors. I think he shares the worst qualities of both his mother and his father, and now he can share those qualities with whomever he chooses, as I no longer need to care because I’m no longer there to witness it.’
Hugo shook his head, unable to understand how she’d been able to bear it for so long and still hold her head as high as she did. All that poise and elegance, she had it in spades. She hadn’t lost it. Georges hadn’t stolen it. No matter how the palace had tried.
‘And so, they sow seeds of twisted dealings and affairs on your part, suggesting it was your unfaithful behaviour that led to the breakdown of your marriage? Despite all the stories that have been in the media over the years about him?’
She gave a sad smile. ‘I know.’
‘But how do you stand it? All the slander being thrown at you.’
‘I ignore it as best I can. I made my bed. I knew who he was when I agreed to marry him. I knew of his reputation, but I thought I’d done the unthinkable and reformed the playboy prince. Though even I hadn’t known just how much there was to reform when my parents presented our engagement as a fait accompli.’
‘But surely you had a choice, you could have said no?’
She gave a tight laugh. ‘One does not say no to my parents.’
‘Why?’
‘I’d lived a life doing what was expected of me and so I did it.’ She tilted her head at him. Green eyes probing as they scanned him from top to toe. ‘Call it fear, impotence, apathy... I can’t imagine someone like you knowing what it means to live like that.’
He shifted under that gaze because he’d felt it all. Once. Feared for his life. Watched the woman he’d believed in walk away, powerless to stop her. And when his father had stripped him of his role in the company, he hadn’t cared. He’d only vowed never to feel any of those things again.
‘Did you ever rebel, even when you were younger? There must have been times...?’
She caught her lip in her teeth as her eyes drifted to the coffee table. ‘When I was seven, my mother bought me a dress to wear to a summer function. I hated it. It itched like crazy, making my skin red raw, and I refused to wear it. She locked me in the basement and left me there in the dark. Told me I could come out when I had the dress on. The party was two days later...’
He waited for the punch line and when nothing came, he realised that was it.
‘She came and got you...’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Two days later. The staff fed me scraps but she saw to it that my hair was scraped up, my blotchy cheeks were well covered, and I smiled until my face ached.’
He felt the bite of his nails in his palm and flexed his fist. ‘Some parenting technique.’
‘Mind games were always my mother’s way.’
‘Dare I ask about your father’s?’
‘My father was all about the purse strings and the silent treatment. It could have been worse.’
And he’d been thinking worse. Now he felt bad to be relieved!
‘I often wondered if it would have been easier if I had had a sister or a brother to love and to share the load a little, but I think that would have made it worse. I would have worried about them too.’
He could believe it.
‘And the truth is, I was the one who said yes to the marriage. I met the Prince and he—he charmed me. Georges was good at making you believe what he said. He had these dreamy blue eyes and this compelling smile. And I’d been so caught up in his flattery, his attention, his kindness. He gave me everything I’d been starved of as a child. While my friends were all craving sweets, chocolate, the kind of treats Mum would never permit, all I’d wanted was love, a kind word, cuddles...’ She gave a shaky laugh, her cheeks blooming with colour that killed him now. ‘God, I sound pathetic.’
‘No. No, you don’t. They do. Your parents. Georges. His family. The whole lot of them.’
Hell, he wanted to storm the castle and hold them all to account.
‘He made me feel special, and I—I was swept up in it all. I thought we were falling in love and so I married him. I believed our own love story. The English Socialite who had snagged the Playboy Prince.’
Her green eyes misted over, her thoughts travelling back in time as she relived those early days. ‘I didn’t realise I was being played for a fool until it was too late. My father had saved the royal reserves with Fairfax money and I was Princess of Sérignone. There was no going back...until I couldn’t take it any more.’
He studied her quietly, admiring the strength it must have taken to walk away, to stay away. ‘And what about your parents now? Where are they?’
‘At home in England, last I checked.’
‘Have you...’
‘Have I spoken to them? Oh, yes, they were my first port of call when I ran from the palace. I’m not sure why I thought they would shelter me, but what choice did I have? A princess doesn’t really have many friends they can trust, and I figured they wouldn’t want me roaming the streets stirring up ever more trouble...’
‘But?’
‘My mother tried to talk me into returning—like I said, mind games are her speciality—while my father physically escorted me to his private jet back to Sérignone.’
‘Your own father?’
‘Oui. So you see, I am done with them, Hugo. Since then, the few friends I have left have helped me by giving me places to stay while I build up my portfolio, in the hope that soon, I’ll have enough to launch a career in fashion and become financially independent once more. Then I can pay back all those people like Louis who have helped me get here and I can also get back to my charity work that I have missed so much.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe that you’re here, fighting to take your life back and already thinking about giving back to others.’
She gave him a lopsided smile. ‘I’m sickening, I know.’
‘Is that what Georges would tell you?’ Because he wasn’t seeing the funny side.
Her eyes widened. ‘How did you...?’
‘Something tells me that that man and his family tried to stamp out every good thing about you so that it may make him shine that little bit brighter.’
‘Funny you say that.’
‘How so?’
‘Because after our marriage it often occurred to me that it wasn’t just the Fairfax money the Duponts were after, but my ‘clean’ image too. I was a way to mop up the mess that Georges was making with his wild and hedonistic parties. Now, if I’d known about those at the time of our engagement then I might have been more reluctant to trot down that aisle...’
Hugo didn’t think he could take much of the Georges revelation train, or rather, his teeth couldn’t. ‘Seems to me the Duponts got plenty out of the marriage, and I can see how you were duped, but what I don’t understand is what your parents got in return?’
‘Status. Royal connections. Another boost for the family tree? I don’t know and I don’t want to know. Unpacking that only leads to me understanding my true worth to them, and I’m not sure I want to know that. Whereas I do know that I want a fresh start and a clean slate so that I can focus on my future free of them all.’
She gave a smile and, cupping her mug in both hands, she retreated further into the sofa. He knew the mug was giving her the warmth her body lacked. The sofa, the comfort. And he had the deep-rooted urge to provide both.
‘And heaven knows there are people in this world who are starving, who don’t have a roof over their head, live under threat each day with zero hope of change. People who I want to get my life in order for, so that I can get out there and help.’ She shook her head, her knuckles flashing white. ‘People who are truly powerless on their own, and I have no right to say such things about my own experiences.’
‘You have every right.’
Because she’d clearly been punishing herself with those same words for heaven knew how long. Since she’d married into royalty or long before then too.
‘Now you’re just humouring me to be kind.’ She gave him another of her shy smiles. A hundred times genuine. He’d bet his life on it.
‘I’ve been called many things in my life, but kind isn’t one that springs to mind.’
Fierce or fun. Depending on the circumstance. Stubborn or obstinate to use his father’s most recent favourite when his retirement had been forced upon him. But, kind?
‘I don’t believe you.’ She rested her head against the back of the sofa, not so shy now as her gaze narrowed on him. ‘Your eyes are kind.’
‘Regardless of what you think of my eyes...’ Though her words did warm his voice, his smile ‘... I always say what I mean, Cassie. As for what you are going through as a person, not as an ex-princess or as a lady of the English aristocracy, but as a person with real feelings, it’s a lot under any normal circumstances. Divorce is one of the hardest, most stressful challenges anyone can face...’
‘You sound like you’re talking from experience.’
‘No, not me personally. Though there were times as a kid that I thought maybe my parents would have been better off apart. And even then, the arguments were mainly about Dad not being home enough, so maybe not.’ He gave a smile that was so caught up in her present hurt he wasn’t sure if it came across as more of a grimace. ‘But what I’m trying to say is, at least most of us get to go about our business without the whole world breathing down our necks through a camera lens and forming an ill-informed opinion on it. It stands to reason you’re going to have your moments.’
She gave a soft huff. ‘I’ve not been permitted such moments for a long time.’
‘And how do you cope with that?’
‘I’m not sure I am coping all that well.’
‘I don’t know, from where I’m sitting you seem to have done remarkably well.’
‘What?’ She gave a brittle laugh, and he missed the woman of seconds before—the one that thought him kind and looked increasingly relaxed in his presence. ‘By spilling my heart out to a total stranger who I met only yesterday?’
‘You carry yourself with such grace and poise, I never would have known that the woman who stood before me last night and thought to offer out her jacket was the same woman being hounded by the press, vilified by a royal family, and as you’ve now explained, ostracised by her own. You are a wonder, Cassie. And if you don’t know it, allow me to tell you it is so.’
Her mouth twitched, the warmth once again blooming in her cheeks and her chest and, Dieu, was he glad to see it. ‘Ah, well, last night you had me distracted.’
He fought the reciprocal warmth in his chest, the cheeky twitch to his own mouth. ‘And when you’re out in public, I assume you have a team with you to help keep the masses at bay?’
She gave another laugh, this time it sounded more delirious than brittle and it had him worried. Not that he could say why.
‘I don’t go out.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t go out?’
‘Just what I said.’
‘Cassie, everyone goes out at some point.’
‘Not me.’
She couldn’t be serious. Something inside his chest shrivelled.
‘So last night...before you came upon me?’
‘I’d been to the rooftop bar for a drink.’
‘Alone?’
She nodded.
‘Beni is a sweetheart and is kind enough to open it after everyone else has gone to bed.’
‘Because that way you don’t have to see anyone?’
Again, she nodded, and again he felt this weird shrivelling sensation inside his chest. If he wasn’t so traumatised by the whole conversation, he’d be touched that she had taken the time to learn the name of his bar staff.
‘Don’t get me wrong, sometimes there’s the odd person, but in the main, it’s just me.’
She smiled. Actually smiled. And he wanted to cry. Which was as ridiculous as this whole situation. Ridiculously unfair.
‘When you’ve lived enough days and nights being chased down, Hugo, with no regard for your personal space, you begin to crave those quiet hours while the city sleeps. And the witching hour has kind of become my time to dine. Though I don’t really eat as such, more get some fresh air while everyone else is asleep.’
He took up his coffee, needing something to do that wasn’t taking her hand and walking her out of here right now...
‘How long have you been here for, Cassie?’
‘What? Staying at Louis’s?’
‘Oui.’
‘A month.’
‘And for that entire time, you haven’t left this apartment?’
She gave a subtle shake of her head, as though she could sense the storm brewing within him as he stifled a curse with a sip of his coffee. ‘Have you seen the sights, walked the river, been to the Louvre, the parks?’
She was shaking her head at everything, and he was—he was losing his mind at the very idea that she could have been in the city for a whole month and seen nothing. Nothing at all!
‘But I am lucky because your hotel is well positioned. I have a view of the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysées depending on where I stand. The balcony is vast, the private plunge pool a delight, and the room service is all-encompassing.’
‘But, Cassie!’ Her eyes flared and he immediately softened his posture and his words—remembering that for all she was fierce in some ways, she was still that skittish kitten in others, and he couldn’t blame her. Living a life being papped 24-7. A life like Sara had led. ‘Living inside these four walls day in, day out, is not living.’
‘People regularly survive on a whole lot less.’
‘Survive, sure. One’s sanity, however...?’
‘And as we have established, I cannot move for reporters...some days I only have to turn my head in the wrong direction in the presence of the wrong person and someone will make something of it, and that could be as catastrophic as a natural disaster on the world’s stage.’
As he had seen for himself. But to know that she had escaped one form of prison only to land herself in another—his Parisian paradise of all places—when she had the City of Love on her doorstep.
To live in it like a prisoner, when her only crime had been marriage to a prince.
A prince whose own reputation was scandalous at best, who’d managed to make her feel ridiculed and laughed at in her own home. Mon Dieu, if he ever met the man...
‘Do you care what the world thinks that much?’
‘It’s not a question of care as it is being impossible to ignore. They’re like pack animals and I’m their prey. I can’t go about my day without being set upon. Though that’s probably being unfair to pack animals...’
‘But now you’re divorced, surely, things will start to ease?’
‘When the Duponts stop stirring the pot, perhaps they will. Right now, they need me to lose face so that he may save his. It is far safer for me to keep a low profile while our divorce is so fresh. He needs to find a new bride, someone willing to look past his reputation like I once did, and they will paint the picture they need in order to make the future look how they wish.’
‘No matter what damage it does to you?’
‘The picture is not yet tainted enough.’
He cursed. The heartless nature of it all too much to take.
‘Precisely. And I have my own dreams to consider and protect.’ Eyes likes emeralds, glittering and bright, drifted to the drawings she’d set aside. ‘While all those girls dreamt of being a princess, I dreamt of one day having my own fashion label.’
He’d warrant she’d dreamt of a lot more than that...before her prince had shattered those dreams, had she wanted mini princes and mini princesses to fill her fairy-tale castle?
And why on earth had his head gone there? Maybe because he could see her as a mother? With the good heart she wore on her sleeve...it must have driven the Prince crazy that she bore that trait so effortlessly, that people flocked to it, trusted it.
‘I even had a name...’
He lifted his chin, focused on what she was saying and not the wild assumptions he was making about the man he really would like to put in a ring and go ten rounds with.
‘Care to share?’
‘Cassie Couture.’ She laughed softly. ‘I know. I know. It’s probably a little cheesy.’
‘Only as cheesy as Chevalier Clubs, perhaps.’
They shared a laugh. ‘How true.’
‘And if it’s good enough for Coco Chanel...’
‘Ah, life goals!’ Her gaze lifted to his. ‘As for the dream itself, it still feels out of reach, like the foolish dreams of a foolish child. But maybe, one day...’
‘And the drawings?’
‘Louis thinks he could test some out on the catwalk next February.’
‘Louis? Why not you? Surely with your name, you could secure funding, put yourself out there?’
She nibbled on her lip. ‘For now, I’m content hiding out up here, sketching.’
‘And letting someone else take the credit?’
‘All big names have a team behind them, and we all have to start somewhere. I’m lucky I have someone like Louis willing to take a chance on me.’ She was saying the right things, even if they sounded hollow to him. ‘Hopefully, soon enough, the press furore will calm, and I’ll be able to step outside once more, live my life again.’
‘How I wish you were talking metaphorically, but you’re not.’
‘No.’
‘But that’s not healthy, can’t you see? What about fresh air? What about everyday things like taking a walk, fetching some groceries, seeing a film, eating out?’
Mon Dieu, the list was endless. His father’s firm—his now—provided protection for people like her day in, day out for this precise reason. To make sure they lived as normal a life as possible. To make life about saying ‘yes’ again, within reason. So long as situations were assessed, prepared for, managed.
She smiled. ‘You know what I miss most?’
‘No.’ But he knew it was going to kill him, whatever it was.
‘Aside from the charity work, which I truly am desperate to get back to, but I don’t want it tainted by all this noise.’
‘I think you put too much stock in what the Duponts are throwing about. Your charities will still benefit from your presence regardless.’
‘I want the attention to be on the charity work. While it’s on my personal life, it defeats that.’
He nodded. ‘I take your point...so you were saying?’
‘You’ll think I’m odd.’
‘Try me.’
She beamed. ‘Running.’
‘Running?’ He choked over his coffee. Not what he’d expected her to say. Enjoying a drink in a bar uninterrupted. Taking her art to the park. Sketching in a museum or a fashion house where she could feel inspired. Even dress shopping. But running?
‘Yes. See. I told you.’
‘Of all the things...’
She raised her brows, eyes sparking. ‘You thought I was going to say clothes shopping, didn’t you?’
‘In my defence, you’d already said charity work, so...’
He shifted against the fabric of the sofa, willing it to open up and swallow him whole. He’d never considered himself sexist before.
‘I apologise.’ And swiftly, he went back to the reason he’d landed himself in this mess, ‘So, you like to run?’
‘I do. And I used to like to run outdoors, even back in Sérignone. The palace grounds were vast enough that I could fit in a five-k run without ever having to venture outside the gates...that was until the rumours became too much for the palace.’
‘The rumours?’
‘Oh, yes.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘At which point the King put a stop to my exercise outdoors.’
Hugo clenched his jaw to stifle a curse.
‘Apparently a princess in running gear, exerting herself no less, is unacceptable. I was seen as flaunting myself in front of the grounds staff, courting trouble.’
‘Meanwhile his son could carry on how he liked?’
‘He knew I would listen.’
He clenched his jaw once more and there went a tooth, Hugo was sure of it.
She didn’t wait for him to respond, which was lucky, because there were no words Hugo could give that he would deem fit for her ears as her gaze drifted to the French windows. The balcony with its abundance of flowers hanging on to the end of the season, just a sample of what she’d see if she was to hit the vast and varied parks Paris had to offer, not to mention the incredible views along the river Seine.
So much beauty on her doorstep, it was a crime she didn’t get to see it. Had she ever seen the Seine up close? He didn’t dare ask. She’d probably tell him another horror story. And he didn’t think his teeth could take any more grinding.
Whether it was the similarity to Sara, the knowledge of what Cassie had been through, what she was still going through at the hands of the Duponts and the press...
‘But yes, I love to run. I love to feel the wind against my face, in my hair...it didn’t matter what troubles I faced, there was something about the way I could lose myself in the rhythmic rush of it that just worked. Some women choose yoga—’ she shrugged ‘—I choose to run.’
‘Then do it.’
Because in that moment, he was one hundred percent determined to see her do it. And as soon as humanly possible.
Her head snapped around, her eyes flaring wide as she looked at him like he was crazy to suggest it. And maybe he was.
‘Just like that...get into my kit, my trainers and poof, out the door?’
‘It’s what millions do every day.’
‘Have you been listening to me? I’d barely make it into the hotel lobby without a wall of people forming a human assault course. I’d do myself an injury, if not someone else.’
‘What about your witching hour?’
Her eyes flared further, which he wouldn’t have believed possible. But then, she really did have the biggest, greenest, most alluring...
‘Because that’s going to be so safe?’
‘You’d be safe with me.’
She gawped at him, a solitary strand of glossy brown hair sticking to her luscious pink lips. ‘You can’t be serious?’
‘Absolutely. And if you don’t want to use your security detail, I will bring in—’ She pulled a face that gave him pause. ‘What’s that look about?’
She hesitated.
‘Cassie?’
‘I don’t have a detail.’
‘You don’t...’
‘Do you see any guards hovering, Mr Chevalier?’
No, he hadn’t noticed any extra security people hanging about, but then the best always managed to blend into the background. And as she had already said, she didn’t venture outside of her room, so it wasn’t like she went anywhere to require one. But someone of Cassie’s status would have at least one Certified Protection Officer on a permanent basis.
‘Obviously, not right now, while we’re here, but if we were to venture out...’
‘If we were to venture out, I wouldn’t suddenly have the funds to pay for one. And yes, before you say it, I am aware of the risks. My continued love-hate relationship with the world, the would-be stalkers and so on. However, I took nothing from Georges in the divorce. We have no children to provide for and so it didn’t feel right. And yes, I am more than aware of how foolish many consider that to be, my lawyer was very open on the matter, but I just wanted to be free of the Duponts and any hold they had over me. Yes, that has kind of backfired in the aftermath, but in the long term karma will hopefully be my payback.
‘As for my parents, they have to all intents and purposes disowned me, and until I can sell my designs, I am beholden to my friends and your hotel’s excellent hospitality and exceptional security. So, I will make do. Can we consider this conversation done?’
Why did Hugo feel like this conversation had been done many times before him? With her lawyer, like she had already said, and Louis too, perhaps.
‘We absolutely can.’
‘Bon.’ And then she smiled as she considered him with a tilt of her head. ‘You would really take me running?’
‘Are you saying I don’t look like the type to run?’ He feigned insult over his physical ability rather than accept she was questioning the generosity of the offer. Because then he’d have to question it himself. And that would mean examining his own good conscience and whether he was in his right mind to suggest it too. After everything that had happened with Sara—gone wrong with Sara—But this was about getting things right this time... With access to his father’s firm—his firm now, he could make sure they were well protected, and he could give her the freedom she so desperately deserved and needed.
‘Because I can assure you, Cassie, I’m quite capable of a five-k run at a decent pace. And further if you really wanted to push it out, but any longer and you’ll be hitting the early-morning commuters and I believe that defeats the point.’
‘It’s not your ability to go the distance that I’m questioning, it’s the fact you’re offering to run at that ungodly hour.’
He shrugged. ‘If we stick to the Seine, it’s lit and, aside from the odd stretch of cobbles, perfectly safe.’
‘You really are serious...’
‘You’re awake anyway, so why not?’
‘But you’re not! Unless you’re planning another...’
She coloured, clearly thinking of his naked night-time misadventures.
‘I don’t plan them. They happen when they happen.’
‘Of course, I shouldn’t have teased. Forgive me.’
‘There’s nothing to forgive.’ And this time he softened his tone, stripping it of the defensive note she’d clearly picked up on, because it wasn’t directed at her. She wasn’t the reason he’d been wandering the corridors in such a state.
‘They must be quite unsettling for you...to go to sleep in one place and wake up in another.’
‘Thankfully they don’t happen all that often. It’s usually when I’m not sleeping very well to begin with.’
Her brows twitched but she didn’t press. Was it a learned response to life in the royal family, her time before with her parents or was she leaving it up to him? Whichever the case, he found himself starting to explain...
‘I’ve only just returned from LA which means I’m still on their time.’
‘LA? Business or pleasure?’
He gave a tight laugh. ‘Family. Which sort of makes it a hashed attempt at both with a side order of stress.’
‘Ah...’ She placed her mug down on the coffee table, pulled the sleeves of her jumper over her hands and curled back into the sofa. ‘Goes without saying that you have a friendly ear willing to listen if you want to offload some of that?’
He choked on another laugh, because in that moment he realised two things: one, he’d never spoken to anyone about the pressure he was now under, running his hotel empire alongside his father’s global security company. Made worse by his father’s inability to let the latter go.
And two, he was about to spill it all to Cassie. Not the caricature the press liked to flaunt. Poised, shy, scandalous or otherwise. But the very real, very warm, very attractive brunette, curled up on the sofa beside him. Patiently waiting for him to speak as though she had all the time in the world for it. For him.
And it felt like bliss.
A sensation he’d never quite experienced before... The world and his wife could wait...or rather, the global companies on his shoulders could. And as though summoned, his phone began to ring, and he checked the screen.
It was Eduardo. CEO of Dad’s—his—security firm.
Eduardo was capable. He’d been his father’s number two for twenty years. He could cope for a day. A Saturday. He should just ignore it, follow her lead and hide out from the noise.
‘Do you need to get that?’ she asked.
Did he? He was a few months into his reign. Would it do for Eduardo to report back to Dad—which he would do at some point—that he was deflecting calls?
But you’re the boss.
Still, he needed Dad to back off, which he wasn’t going to do if he thought Hugo wasn’t getting the job done. ‘Give me two minutes.’
‘So, LA?’ Cassie said as he returned to her, his phone tucked away, his smile enigmatic.
‘Yes.’
She imagined him, the broad-shouldered man before her with his kind blue eyes and chiselled features, as a son. With a doting mother and a proud father. She could see it so readily. The warm and happy picture painting itself. Could see them all walking down the palm-lined strip of Sunset Boulevard or Rodeo Drive, places she too had been. But she believed her experience to have been so very different.
‘My parents—or rather, my mother has decided they should retire out there.’
‘Sounds lovely.’
‘My mother thinks so.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Oh, I do.’
She frowned. ‘So, it’s your father who doesn’t?’
‘My father thinks any home that’s not on the same continent as the company headquarters he has been forced to leave behind is anything but lovely.’
‘I take it the company headquarters are here?’
‘Oui.’
‘And he likes to keep a toe in?’
‘A toe?’ He chuckled, the sound deep and throaty as it rippled through his burly frame and did something unidentifiable to her own. Something that felt awfully close to excitement. ‘He likes to keep his whole body in.’
‘Was he not ready to retire?’
He eased back into the sofa, one arm along its back, one leg hooked over the other by the ankle, everything about him relaxed, though she sensed that, like a panther, he was never far from pouncing should the need arise. She knew he had the physique for it, beneath the crisp dark shirt, the carefully pressed chinos too.
‘If I’m brutally honest, I think my mother feared we’d be carrying him out of his company in a box. At first it was getting him out of the field, then it was getting him to simply stop.’
She frowned. ‘The field? You make the hospitality industry sound like the military.’
He gave another chuckle. ‘Oh, we’re not in the same business. Well, we weren’t. We are now. Or at least I am.’ He paused. Took a breath. ‘I’m not making much sense, am I?’
She smiled. ‘Perhaps it’s your turn to start at the beginning.’
‘You’re right, I should.’ He returned her smile, though it lacked the warmth that had existed moments ago, and she wondered at its cause. Was it his father? The business? Businesses, if they weren’t one and the same. And the recent stress he’d eluded too? ‘My father’s company, now mine since he retired, is in the business of protection—money, data, people—if there’s a risk, we protect it.’
‘So, you’re in leisure and protection... How come you ventured into one when your father was in the other?’
‘I guess you could say, I carved out my own path.’
There was something about the way he said it. Something that made her want to delve deeper, like a child wanting to ask ‘why?’ on repeat. And perhaps she would have if he hadn’t said, ‘but he always intended for me to take on his firm one day, when he felt I was ready.’
‘And how old is your father?’
‘He celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday while I was in LA.’
‘Seventy-fifth!’
‘Quite. And I say celebrated in the loosest sense of the term. The man does not take kindly to growing old.’
‘But growing old is a privilege.’
‘Of that he would agree, he just doesn’t appreciate the ailments that come with it.’
‘Or the retirement?’ Because to wait until one was seventy-five to hand over the reins...?
‘Or the son who has filled his shoes.’
She stilled, caught off guard by the unexpected bitterness in the man who, up until now, had been the biggest, strongest, cuddliest, and sexiest of teddy bears if such a thing were to exist. ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
He fell silent, his gaze shifting to the outdoors as she lost him to his thoughts. Maybe she’d been too quick to paint Hugo’s family as picture-perfect. But it was a habit she’d formed long ago. Imagining what everyone else’s life was like to avoid having to think about her own.
‘I don’t know, it’s complicated for him.’ He gave an awkward shrug. ‘To see his son grow stronger as he gets weaker. Especially when things were so much harder for him. Hell, at my age he was fleeing Poland with nothing more than the clothes on his back...’ His mouth twisted to the side as he stroked the stubble of his chin, admiration flashing in his eyes. ‘And that’s another secret I probably shouldn’t share, especially when it isn’t mine to give...’
‘I think we’ve already established that secrets are safe here.’
She tucked a hand around her legs as his gaze returned to her. Gave him a smile that she hoped would encourage him because she had shared so much of herself, and she hoped he felt secure enough to share a little of himself too. He returned her smile and for a moment, they shared nothing but that look, though she felt it—the connection, the warmth of it. It caught at the air, at her breath, at her pulse...
‘My father was part of the Służba Bezpieczeństwa—the SB, Poland’s secret police,’ he added at her raised brow. ‘He didn’t agree with Soviet rule, wanted out and he came to Paris. Went into security. It suited his natural talents. He met Mum. Fell in love. They got married. He took her name. And the rest as they say, is history. He built a home and a global security firm that protects everything from data to individuals. He left Poland with nothing. No family, no support. And I guess, I grew up with all of that...’
She frowned. ‘But why would that make it hard for him to hand the business over to you now? Surely he can’t begrudge what he gave you.’
It didn’t make any sense to her. The man should surely be proud that he had provided for his family and their future. Escaped a life that he hadn’t wanted for himself or for his future family. And to see his son take on the mantle of his firm...
‘I think it’s more that his life made him hard, whereas he perceives me as the opposite.’
‘I still don’t follow.’
A shadow chased over his face. A shadow she wanted to catch and probe and soothe away. But before she could press, he shifted forward. Gave an awkward laugh. Changing the mood up so entirely she didn’t feel she could.
‘I’m not sure I do either. I’m rambling.’
‘I don’t think you are. I’m just trying to piece it together.’
‘How did we get to this point again?’
He gave her a lopsided grin that made her stomach flip over. Almost making her forget the sombre mood of seconds before.
‘I think you were telling me how you ended up responsible for two global companies in two very different industries.’
‘Ah, yes. And I went off on a tangent telling you all about how my father doesn’t want to give up what he built, despite building me to give it to...’
‘That’s quite the conundrum.’
‘It is, and so when I went to LA last week, I gifted him a digi-detox for his birthday in the hope that it would gift me some temporary quiet in return.’
She laughed. ‘You did what?’
‘It’s one of my most exclusive resorts—a Caribbean haven, cut off from the outside world. No comms, only paradise. A true digital detox for a month. No expense spared. They should have checked in yesterday.’
‘And your father was happy to receive such a gift?’
‘I’m not sure happy was the word I would use, but desperate times call for desperate measures. He needs to find a new way of living, and I’m hoping a month on the island with a life coach and other specialists in their fields will help retrain his brain. And my mother will get a holiday.’
‘Is he really that bad?’
‘Put it this way, in the three months my father has been retired, he has called me almost daily for an update. Between him and his number two—now my number two, Eduardo, the man who just called—I’m on speed dial. I figured at least this way he’s forced to try a new way of living and Mum gets to relax.’
‘And you get some peace.’
‘One can hope.’
‘And no more sleepwalking.’
‘That’s the dream,’ he teased.
‘What about Eduardo? What does he make of your father’s constant check-ins?’
‘Eduardo could run the company with his eyes closed. He knows what he’s doing, my father just never left him alone enough.’
‘And yet, he is the one ringing you on a Saturday?’
‘More out of habit than necessity.’
‘I see. And is that a habit you intend to break.’
He paused. ‘Perhaps. Right now, my priority is exerting my authority. For forty years my father was the boss. Now I am, and it’s important that they know that. My father included.’
She heard the vehemence in that one statement. The fierce sense of ownership. Whether he was trying to prove it to himself or his non-present father or employees, it spoke volumes.
‘And you will. And you will do him proud too.’
He gave a grunt.
‘But you need to be your own man in the process. Don’t lose yourself in trying to become him. You need to do it your own way.’
She didn’t know where the words came from, or why it felt so important that she said them. Perhaps it was the sense that he was battling a vision of the man his father wanted him to be, rather than simply being the man he was...and she knew how that felt. How it felt to be caged by someone else’s ideal.
His clear blue eyes narrowed on her. ‘You know, for a morning coffee, this got deep pretty quickly.’
‘And there was I, thinking we couldn’t get much closer than last night’s escapade.’
‘You’re not going to let me forget that, are you?’
She gave him a smile full of the warmth she felt inside. ‘It will be nice to get to know you well enough to let you forget, Hugo.’ Because she wanted to get to know him better. She wanted to make a friend. A true friend. Not one that was looking for a way into Princess Cassandra’s inner circle. But one that she could confide in and who could talk to her in return. ‘If you will come for coffee again?’
‘I’d like that, Cassie. Very much.’