CATALINA MADE HER way from her bedroom to the dining room, Clotilde hot on her heels, opening doors for her.
To her surprise, Nathaniel was sitting at the dining table drinking coffee and reading a newspaper, an empty plate to his side.
Usually he only deigned to spend time with her at evening dinner when he would make polite enquiries about her health, exchange idle chat until their plates were clean and then excuse himself. It had been the same for the ten whole days of their marriage.
He stood to greet her. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
She took the seat Clotilde pulled out for her. After a pot of decaffeinated tea was brought to her and her breakfast order taken, she found herself alone with her husband.
‘It’s a surprise to see you here,’ she said. ‘You’re normally in your office by now.’
‘I shall work on the flight.’
This was the first she’d heard of a flight. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m going to Shanghai. There’s land for sale that I’m interested in buying.’
‘Am I not coming with you?’
‘It’s a business trip. You’d be bored.’
Knowing a snub when she heard one and too well trained to argue further, Catalina smiled graciously and took a sip of her tea, but inside she seethed. ‘How long are you going for?’
‘A couple of weeks.’
‘That long?’
‘Purchasing land there isn’t easy, especially for foreigners.’
She couldn’t help herself. ‘You’re leaving me for two weeks?’
‘My staff will take care of you.’
‘I know they will but that isn’t what I meant. Will it not seem strange you leaving your new bride for a business trip?’
Thinking of herself as a bride was a joke in itself.
How was it possible to be a bride when your groom went out of his way to avoid you and ensured zero physical contact? Forget her thoughts that he might come to her; the distance he enforced had only grown.
‘Not for anyone who knows me,’ he answered with a shrug.
‘When do you leave?’
‘In an hour.’
He was so blasé that for the first time in her entire life, Catalina wanted to hit someone.
Not even throughout all the verbal and physical abuse she’d had meted out to her by her brother had she wanted to inflict pain back.
Yet here was Nathaniel, speaking courteously to her, and all she wanted to do was rain thumps down all over him.
The fact he addressed her with politeness and courtesy meant nothing when he couldn’t wait to travel halfway around the world to get away from her.
‘Do you have many travelling plans for the foreseeable future?’ she asked, suddenly recalling all the business developments he had scattered around the world.
‘After Shanghai I’ll be back here for a few weeks then off to Greece. After that I’ll be...’
‘Can I come with you to Greece?’
He rubbed the nape of his neck and grimaced. ‘Catalina, it’ll be a business trip, not a holiday.’
‘I won’t get in your way. I’ll amuse myself.’
He shook his head, and as he did so her anger finally pushed to the surface.
‘Are you deliberately going out of your way to humiliate me?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
She stared at him with incredulity. ‘We’re barely married and you’re flying around the world without me. What kind of message does that send? And not just to the public but to me too? Am I such dreadful company you can’t bear to have me by your side even for a limited amount of time?’
‘Not at all...’ He blew out air through his teeth.
‘Then you have no reasonable excuse not to take me with you to Greece.’
‘I don’t need a reasonable excuse. The answer is no. I don’t need the aggravation of keeping watch over a princess when I’m supposed to be working. Here, in this apartment, I know you’re safe and I don’t have to worry.’
‘I might be a princess but I’m not a child.’
‘You are my responsibility.’
‘You’re making excuses to keep me at arm’s length. Have I done something to offend you? Do I have body odour?’
He quelled her with a stare. It occurred to her that he was actually looking at her rather than through her as he had done since the night he’d seen through her nightdress.
Frustration was etched on every line of his face. ‘Catalina, this isn’t a real marriage.’
‘You have made that abundantly clear.’ He still hadn’t answered her question as to why he was keeping her at arm’s length.
‘You knew what you were signing up for when you agreed to it.’ He got to his feet and pushed in his chair.
‘Then tell me what I’m supposed to do. I’m not used to being idle. I’m used to being busy. Am I supposed to spend my time stuck in this apartment watching the clock, the seconds ticking down to the day you can be rid of me?’
From the look he threw at her before leaving the dining room, she gathered that was precisely what she was expected to do.
* * *
He didn’t even have the courtesy to say goodbye. A week after he’d left for Shanghai, he still hadn’t found the good manners to call her.
Unable to sleep, Catalina found herself gazing at the light drizzle of rain bouncing off her bedroom window. Nathaniel’s apartment building was in the heart of Monte Cleure’s financial district, a building with over twenty apartments of which she had met no neighbours. Colourful lights illuminated the darkness below, a sign that her people and her country’s visitors were enjoying the nightlife Monte Cleure had to offer. It was a nightlife she had never been allowed to experience for herself.
She’d never considered her life restrictive before. Not properly. She had accepted everything. But then, she had never had so much time to think before. With nothing to occupy her days, she had so many hours to fill that there was nothing to do but think. And one of the things she kept thinking was how much of life she had missed.
Having imagined she would marry one of the Kalliakis Princes, she had always thought that one day she would receive a modicum of freedom. She had hardly dared acknowledge to herself how much she had wanted this.
Then, upon learning that she was carrying Nathaniel’s child and that she would be marrying him...a real life had beckoned to her for a few tantalising seconds. But nothing had changed. Everything was still controlled for her.
She was expected to obey. That was what she’d been put on this earth for. No one cared for her personal thoughts and feelings. They didn’t matter to anyone.
Nathaniel had at least listened to her unspoken plea for something to do: he’d given Clotilde a credit card and ordered her to take Catalina shopping. He’d given Clotilde, his employee, the credit card, not Catalina. That had hurt almost as much as his dismissal of her attempts to travel with him and the cold shoulder she’d received since they’d exchanged their vows.
She had seen the hunger in his eyes. He did want her. It wasn’t that he’d slept with her and become immediately bored with her; it was much worse than that. He had chosen to snub her.
He clearly thought her so vacuous that she would be happy to fill her days shopping. She had never been shopping in her life.
Thirsty and still wide awake, her heart aching, she padded quietly from her room, making sure to close the door softly behind her. She was thankful for the thick carpets that muffled her tread. Clotilde had been reading up on a companion’s duties and had moved into the bedroom next to hers so ‘she could be available to her any time of day or night’. No amount of protests from Catalina could dissuade her from this.
She made her way stealthily to the kitchen, determined not to wake anyone up. All she wanted to do was make herself a cup of tea without having the kettle snatched away with an admonishment that they couldn’t risk a princess burning her hand with an errant kettle. But Catalina had watched everything carefully, determined that one day she would do these simple tasks the rest of the world took for granted.
As she passed Nathaniel’s home office, the door, slightly ajar, caught her attention. It was normally kept closed.
Curious to see into a room she had intuitively known was off-limits, she pushed the door open and switched the light on.
Why shouldn’t she be in here? she thought defiantly. She was his wife even if only in name.
A large oak desk dominated the office, which had a functional, transitory feel to it. Nathaniel, she knew, had properties scattered across the world that he lived in for days, weeks or months at a time. Nothing was permanent in his life, especially not his wife.
If he could be so cold to her, how would he treat their child? What kind of father would he be? An absent one, if his current form was anything to go by.
So who would be her child’s father? Who would take on the dominant male role? Her father?
Ice ran up her spine as she considered Dominic’s involvement. Once she was back in the palace there was no way he would allow himself to be sidelined. Until she was married off again, her father and brother would take control of her child’s life.
And she would be married off again. To another man who would dominate her and expect her to do his bidding without argument or question. To a man who would then take control of her child.
She hugged her stomach where the tiny life inside her was at that very moment growing and developing.
That little life was the most precious thing in the world.
A black briefcase on the desk caught Catalina’s attention. The room was so impeccably tidy, with everything filed away, not a stray pen or sheet of paper to be seen, that the case stuck out like a beacon to her eyes.
She put a thumb on each clasp and pressed. Expecting it to be locked, she nearly jumped when the clasps sprang apart.
Feeling guilty for being nosy, she nonetheless carefully prised the briefcase open. The very last thing she expected to see in it were the stacks of twenty-euro notes.
* * *
Nathaniel and his architect sat in his hotel suite poring over the brief notes James had made on their earlier trip to plot of land Nathaniel was in the process of buying. He’d employed James as architect on his last handful of developments and liked the way he never tried to impose his own vision on the projects. Nathaniel would sketch his thoughts onto paper then sit back and wait for James to produce the blueprints.
The past week had been extremely fruitful. His house-hunting team had found a handful of prospective homes for him to check out too. All in all, everything was proceeding exactly as he had...
His phone buzzed, Alma’s name flashing up on the screen.
‘Excuse me,’ he apologised to James. Accepting the call, he put the phone to his ear.
‘Nathaniel?’ There was stark panic in his PA’s voice.
‘What’s the matter?’
He heard her swallow. ‘She’s gone.’
‘Who?’
‘The Princess. She’s gone.’
‘How can she be gone?’
‘Clotilde went to her room at the usual time and she wasn’t there. The concierge says she appeared from the apartment’s elevator at five in the morning and asked him to book a taxi for her.’
‘Did he say where she went?’
‘No, but we’ve traced the driver. She went to the airport.’
Somehow he managed to keep his tone tempered. ‘Alma, tell me how the Princess was able to bypass the security guards.’ He had guards permanently stationed at the three exits of the apartment block.
‘The taxi collected her in the underground car park, which she entered using the staff elevator. She had a headscarf on—the guards had no way of knowing it was her.’ Alma’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘That’s not all. Most of the money from your French club has gone too. The Princess must have taken it.’
Nathaniel’s first reaction was to laugh. Catalina had stolen his money and scarpered? The idea was beyond ridiculous. Catalina was the most dutiful and conscientious person he had ever met.
But then something snaked up his stomach and clenched around his chest, a sudden coldness freezing his blood in an instant. Had she gone willingly? Or had she been coerced? Was she at that moment someone’s hostage?
Had her brother taken her? There was something about their sibling relationship that sent sirens blaring in him. Catalina had warned him that Dominic meant him harm. Did that harm extend to Catalina herself?
‘Where did she fly to?’ he asked harshly.
‘We 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.