Czytaj książkę: «The Forbidden Prince»

CHAPTER ONE

SO THIS WAS what freedom felt like.

Raoul de Poitier sucked in a deep breath as he paused to get his first proper glimpse of the view he’d climbed about two thousand steps to find.

He had the whole world at his feet.

Well...he had what looked like a large part of the Amalfi coast of the Mediterranean down there, anyway. Far, far below he could pick out the tiny blue patch that was the swimming pool on the roof of the hotel Tramonto d’Oro where he’d stayed last night. Beside that was the tiled dome and spire of the ancient church against the terracotta tiles and white houses of the small coastal town of Praiano.

Beyond the village, the waters of the Mediterranean stretched as far as the horizon, a breathtakingly sapphire blue as the sunlight gentled its way to dusk. Somewhere out there was his homeland—the European principality of Les Iles Dauphins.

Another deep breath was released in what felt like a sigh, and with it came a pang of...what... homesickness? Guilt, perhaps?

His grandfather was ill. His heart was failing and it was time for him to step down from ruling his land. To hand the responsibility to the next-in-line to the throne.

His grandmother would be anxious. Not only about her beloved husband but about the grandson she’d raised as her own child after the tragic death of his parents.

‘I don’t understand, Raoul. A holiday...yes. Time to prepare yourself for what is to come. For your marriage... But alone? Incognito? That’s not who you are.’

‘Maybe that’s what I need to find out, Mamé. And this is the last chance I will ever get.’

No. The pang wasn’t guilt. He needed this time to centre himself for what was to come. To be sure that he had what it took to put aside his own desires if that was what was required to protect and nurture a whole nation, albeit a tiny one. He was thirty-two years old but he hadn’t been really tested yet. Oh, there’d been formal duties that had got in the way of private pleasures, and he had always had to curb any desire to push the boundaries of behaviour that might be frowned on by others. But, within that reasonably relaxed circumference, he’d been able to achieve the career that had been top of his chosen list—as a helicopter pilot in his country’s first-rate rescue service. And he’d had his share of a seemingly infinite supply of beautiful women.

All that was about to change, however. The boundaries would shrink to contain him in a very tight space. Almost every minute of every day would be accounted for.

He had always known it would happen. He just wasn’t sure how ready he was to accept it. Somehow, he needed to find that out. To test himself, by himself, which was why this had to be in a place where he knew no one and no one knew who he was.

Was it homesickness, perhaps? Because he was feeling a new and rather extraordinary sensation of being alone? No. He’d dealt with homesickness many years ago when he’d been sent to the best schools that Europe had to offer and, while the love of his family and homeland would always draw him back and enfold him, he loved to travel.

It was relief, that was what it was. He had won this time. A reprieve from thinking about the overwhelming responsibility of being in charge of a nation, along with the daunting prospect of a marriage that had been arranged when he’d been no more than a child. A union that would bond two similar principalities together and strengthen them both.

Raoul turned away from the view of the sea. Les Iles Dauphins was out of sight and he was going to try and put it out of mind for just a little while.

He was free. All he had was in his backpack and he could choose any direction at all, the time he would take to get there and how long he would stay when he did. As of yesterday, nobody knew where he was and he was confident that nobody would recognise him. His hair grew fast and he’d deliberately missed his last cut. His beard was coming along well, too. With his dark sunglasses, he could pass for any European tourist. Italian, French... Spanish, even.

He could feel the corners of his mouth curve. If he’d had a guitar case on his back instead of his backpack, he would probably have looked like a flashback to the sixties. He was completely alone for what felt like the first time in his entire life. No family, no friends and, most importantly, no bodyguards or lurking paparazzi. He had won the freedom simply to be himself.

He just needed to find out who that was, exactly, because he had a feeling there were layers to his personality that had been buried for ever. Even his earliest memories involved a performance of some kind. Of behaving in a way that would never have been expected of others.

How many five-year-olds could take part in a national ceremony to mourn both parents and not cry until they were finally alone in their own beds and presumed to be sound asleep? Who had childhood friends chosen for them and, even then, had to be careful of what was said? What young adult knew how much had been sacrificed by a generation that had already raised a child and shouldn’t have had to start all over again? The burden of a debt that could never properly be repaid had never been intended but it was there all the same.

He had never been drunk enough to do anything inappropriate or create a scandal by dating indiscreet women. He had excelled in his university studies and military training and, until he’d taken this leave, had shone in his role as a helicopter pilot for a service that provided both military transport and emergency rescue services.

Sometimes, it felt like his life had been recorded by photographs that had been staged for public consumption and approval. A picture-perfect life of a happy prince. And the next album would have all the pomp and ceremony of his coronation, then his wedding and then the births of the next generation of the de Poitier royal family.

The happiness was not an illusion. Raoul loved his life and knew how incredibly fortunate he was but his curiosity of the unknown had teased him with increasing frequency of late. Was there something solid that formed the essence of who he was as a person? Something that would have been there if he hadn’t been born a prince?

He had four weeks to try and find some kind of answer to what seemed an impossible question and the only plan he had come up with was to see if he could find a challenge that would be testing enough to make him dig deep. He had set out with no more than the bare essentials of survival in a backpack—a phone, a fake ID, limited funds and a change of clothes. This demanding climb up a mountain to the track that led from Praiano to Positano was just the first step on a very private journey.

Or maybe it wasn’t quite that private.

Frowning, Raoul stared at the narrow, winding track ahead of him. He could hear voices. One voice, anyway.

Faint.

Female.

‘Aiuti... Per favore aiutatemi...’

* * *

The vertigo had come from nowhere.

Utterly unexpected and totally debilitating.

Tamika Gordon was clinging to the side of a cliff and she didn’t dare open her eyes. If she did, the nausea would come back, the world would start spinning again and there would be nothing to stop her falling into that terrifyingly sheer drop onto rocks hundreds of feet below. But keeping her eyes shut didn’t wipe out the knowledge that the unprotected edge to this track was no more than the length of her arm away.

The panic that led her to cry for help was almost as terrifying as the yawning chasm below.

Mika didn’t do panic. She’d been told more than once that she was ‘as hard as nails’ and she was proud of it. It was a badge of honour, won by surviving. Of course she was tough. Who wouldn’t be when they’d been dragged up through a succession of disastrous foster homes and then had ended up on the streets as a teenager? She’d fought for everything she had achieved in her twenty-nine years on earth so far and she’d been confident she could cope with whatever life chose to throw at her.

But this...this was totally out of her control. She’d fought it for as long as possible with sheer willpower but the symptoms were physical rather than mental and they had increased in ferocity until she’d reached a point of complete helplessness—reduced to a shivering blob of humanity clinging to a couple of tufts of coarse mountain grass. It was beyond humiliating. She’d be angry about it as soon as she got out of this and the terror had a chance to wear off. If she ever got out of this...

She hadn’t seen anyone else on this supposedly popular walking route so far. Maybe that was her own fault. She’d chosen to set off from Praiano much later in the day than most people because she knew the light would be so much better for taking photographs. And maybe she’d spent too much time down at the monastery halfway up the steps, taking photographs with her precious new camera and scribbling notes in her pristine journal.

How long would it be before it got dark?

‘Help...’ She tried English this time instead of Italian. ‘Can anyone hear me?’

Her voice wavered and tears stung as they gathered behind her eyelids. This recognition of a despair she hadn’t felt since she’d been too young to protect herself had to be the worst moment of her adult life.

‘I’m coming... Hold on...’

She wasn’t alone. There was hope to be found now. A glowing light in the darkness of that despair. It was a male voice she’d heard, the words short, as if he was out of breath, and in the space after those words Mika could hear the sound of shoes crunching on the sparse gravel of the track.

He was running?

When there were only a few feet between the steep wall of the cliff above and that appalling drop into nothingness below?

The speed of the footsteps slowed and then stopped.

‘What is it?’ A deep voice with a faint accent that she couldn’t place. ‘Are you hurt?’

Mika shook her head, her eyes still tightly closed. The overwhelming relief at not being alone any more made speech impossible for several breaths.

‘Vertigo,’ she managed finally, hating how pathetic her voice sounded. ‘I... I can’t move...’

‘You’re safe,’ the man said. ‘I’ll keep you safe.’

Dear Lord...had anybody ever said that to her? Being so helpless had made her feel like a small child again, so it was too easy to imagine how it would feel to have somebody say those words to that frightened little girl. To feel fear and desolation start to drain away as if a plug had been pulled. To have an insight into how different her life might have been if somebody had said that to her, back then, and meant it. If somebody had been there to protect her. To love her...

How humiliating was it to have her outward breath sound like a child’s sob? She’d learned long ago that weakness was something to be hidden very deeply.

‘It’s okay,’ the man said. ‘You’re going to be fine. How long have you been stuck?’

‘I...don’t know.’ It felt like for ever.

‘Are you thirsty? I have water.’

She heard a shuffling sound and then a zip opening. She was thirsty but to accept a water bottle would mean opening her eyes, and what if the spinning started again? Sobbing in front of a stranger was bad enough. Imagine if she threw up?

‘It’s okay. I don’t need a drink.’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Mika.’

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mika.’

This time her breath came out as a huff of something closer to laughter than tears. Her rescuer had very nice manners. He sounded as though they’d just been introduced at a cocktail party.

‘I’m Ra...um... Rafe.’

She had only been speaking to him for a minute or two, and she didn’t even have any idea what he looked like, but the hesitation seemed out of character. Did he not want her to know his real name? Was it possible that she was about to step from the frying pan into the fire and put her faith in an axe murderer? Or a...a rapist?

It might have been five years ago but the fear was always too close to the surface. If he hadn’t chosen that precise moment to touch her, she could have dealt with it. It wasn’t like the vertigo; she could persuade herself to think rationally and conquer it.

But he touched her arm and moving away from that touch was too instinctive to avoid. Mika let go of her tufts of grass with every intention of trying to run but her legs were still shaking and she lost her footing. Desperately trying to stop the skid, she reached for the grass again, but it slid through her fingers. Her foot made contact with something solid and she pushed against it but that, too, slid out of touch. She landed on her hands and knees, aware of a sound like rocks falling that provided a background to the soft but vehement curse that came from her rescuer.

And then silence.

Cautiously, Mika sat back on her heels as she tried to process what had just happened.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. I... I slipped.’

‘Hmm...’

She could feel him watching her. ‘Did I...um...kick you?’

‘No. You kicked my backpack. It went over the cliff.’

Mika’s eyes opened smartly. ‘What? Oh, no... I’m so sorry...’

‘Better the pack than you.’

It seemed extraordinary but he was smiling at her. A smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. Dark eyes. Dark, shaggy hair and a dark jaw that had gone well past designer stubble but wasn’t quite a beard. And he was big. Even crouching he seemed to tower over her.

Weird that the fear that had prompted this unfortunate development was ebbing away instead of increasing. Maybe it was those eyes. This man might be in a position of power over her right now but he wasn’t any kind of predator. He looked...nice. Kind?

You’re safe. I’ll keep you safe.

‘Did it have anything important in it? Like your wallet?’ A churning in her stomach reminded her not to try looking over the edge of the cliff.

‘There’s no point worrying about that right now. The light’s going to fade before long, Mika. I need to get you off this track.’

Mika nodded. She scrambled to her feet, her own light pack still secure on her back. If she didn’t look into the chasm, maybe she would be okay. She looked towards the solid side of the cliff, reaching out her hand to touch it as well.

‘I’m trying to decide which way would be best. You’ve come a long way onto the open part of the track already. It’s probably better to keep going towards Positano rather than go down all those steps when it’s getting darker.’

Mika swallowed hard and then nodded again. ‘That’s where I’m living at the moment. In Positano.’

‘The track is quite narrow. Do you want me to walk ahead of you or behind?’

‘Ahead, I think... I can watch your feet. If I don’t look at the drop, maybe the dizziness won’t come back.’

It worked...for a little while...but, try as she might, Mika became more and more aware of the emptiness on the left side in her peripheral vision. Using her free hand to provide a kind of blinker also helped for a while but it wasn’t enough. Her stomach began to fold itself into spasms of distress and her brain began a slow, sickening spin. She tried to focus on the boots in front of her: smart, expensive-looking leather hiking boots. Thick socks were rolled down above them and then there were bare legs, muscles under olive skin outlined with every step.

‘How’s it going?’

Mika dropped the hand she was using as a shield to look up as Raoul turned his head when she didn’t respond immediately. She tried to smile but changing the focus of her vision seemed to have made the spinning sensation worse.

‘Here... It might help to hold my hand.’

It was there, right in front of her, palm downwards and fingers outstretched in invitation.

And it was huge.

Not the hand, although it had long, artistic-looking fingers. No. It was the idea of voluntarily putting her own into it that was so huge. Five years was a very long time not to have allowed the touch of a man’s skin against her own.

But the need to survive was an overwhelmingly strong motivation. Strong enough to break a protective barrier that was inappropriate in this moment. She put her hand in his and felt his fingers curl around hers. She could feel the strength of the arm attached to that hand. The solidness of the body attached to the arm. The confidence of each step that was being taken.

He was half a pace ahead of her, because there was no room to walk side by side, but the hand was all that mattered.

He was holding her.

And he would keep her safe.

* * *

She was a fighter, this Mika.

And there was something wild about her.

She was certainly unlike any woman he’d ever met before. For a start, she was out here all by herself, which advertised independence and courage, but she was tiny. Her head barely reached his shoulder, which probably made her look younger than she really was—an intriguing contrast to those big, dark eyes that made you think she’d seen far more than her age should have allowed for. She had spiky dark hair, which should have seemed unattractive to someone who’d always favoured long, blonde tresses, but he had to admit that it suited Mika. So did the clothes that looked more suitable for a walk on a beach than a mountain hike—denim shorts that were frayed at the bottom and a loose white singlet, the hem of which didn’t quite meet the waistband of the shorts.

The shoes weren’t exactly suitable either, being well-worn-looking trainers, and it looked as though her feet were bare inside them, but the surprise of that choice had been well and truly surpassed when Raoul had noticed her tattoo. The inked design looked tribal—like a series of peaked waves encircling her upper arm just below armpit level. No. Maybe even that observation had been trumped by spotting the tiny charm on the simple silver chain around her neck.

A dolphin...

The symbol of his homeland. What would she think if she knew that she was wearing something that gave her an instant connection to everything he held most dear in his life?

But it had been that instinctive flinch from a touch that had been intended as no more than reassurance that had really given him the sense of wildness about her. It wasn’t just the physical appearance that said she made her own choices or the fact that she was alone in a potentially dangerous place. It was that wariness of the touch, the hesitation in accepting contact from another human, that had been revealed by her body language when he’d offered to take her hand.

The trembling he’d felt when she’d finally accepted the offer.

Or perhaps it was the way she’d been doggedly following him even though it was clearly an enormous struggle. She’d been as white as a sheet when he’d turned to check on how she was doing. He could see that she was pushing herself beyond her limits but he could also see the determination that she wasn’t going to let it defeat her. Anger, almost, that she’d been beaten into submission. Like a wild creature that had been trapped?

Another hundred metres along this goat track of a path—past a rustic wooden sign with Praiano written on one side and Nocelle on the other—and Raoul could feel that the trembling in her hand had ebbed. The holding had all been on his part to begin with but now he could feel a return pressure from that small hand he was holding and it made him feel...good.

Protective. She hadn’t wanted him to touch her but she’d allowed it when she’d reached the end of her endurance.

She was trusting him and he wasn’t going to break that trust. He would look after this wild creature of a woman until he was absolutely sure she was okay.

‘Don’t worry,’ he told her. ‘It’ll wear off as soon as you don’t have that drop beside you.’

‘I know.’ It sounded like she was speaking through gritted teeth.

‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ he added. ‘Vertigo is like altitude sickness. It makes no difference how fit or strong you are. These things just happen.’

A tiny huff of sound suggested that Mika didn’t let things just happen to her and Raoul felt a flash of empathy. Imagine if it had happened to him. If he’d set out to discover the qualities in himself that would allow him to face his future with confidence and he’d been left helpless and totally dependent on the kindness of a stranger...

Oddly, he felt almost envious of Mika. Maybe it took something that dramatic to strip away every layer that life had cloaked you with. To face that kind of fear would certainly reveal any strengths or weaknesses. Maybe the kind of challenge he needed was something like Mika had just faced—something that you would never choose voluntarily.

But you couldn’t create one. Like the vertigo he’d told her about, it either happened or it didn’t.

He was facing an unexpected development, however—a small thing, compared to Mika’s challenge, but how on earth was he going to cope with losing that backpack? The clothing and toiletries didn’t matter but he’d lost his wallet, passport and phone. It would be easy enough to place a call from a public telephone to request help but, even if his grandmother said nothing, he would hear the subtext of ‘I told you so’. Going incognito to be a nobody in the real world was not something a prince should do. It wasn’t who he was.

Failure wasn’t an option. He just needed to come up with a new plan. Maybe he’d find inspiration by the time this walk was over.

The sigh he blocked after a few minutes of nothing remotely inspirational occurring seemed to transfer itself to Mika, as she pulled her hand from his.

‘I’m okay now.’

He’d been so lost in his thoughts that Raoul hadn’t noticed how the track had changed. They weren’t on a cliff edge any more. The path had widened and there were trees on either side.

A glance at Mika and the change he saw in her appearance was startling. She was still pale but the tension in her face and the panic in her eyes had gone. And, if that hadn’t made her look different enough, her mouthed curved into a grin that he could only describe as cheeky.

‘Stupid, huh?’

It was impossible not to grin back.

‘Not at all. Like I said, it can happen to anybody.’

‘It’s like a switch has been flicked off. Now that I can’t see the cliff, I’m fine.’ She ducked her head and when she looked up again there was something soft in her eyes. Something that made Raoul feel a flush of warmth like the tingle you got when you held cold hands out to a fire.

‘Thank you so much. I... I think you might have saved my life.’

‘It was my pleasure.’ The words were quiet but he meant every one of them. Oddly, he needed to clear his throat after he’d uttered them. ‘Let’s hope there are no more open parts to the track.’

‘I don’t think there are. We should get to the village of Nocelle soon and then it’s just a whole lot more steps down into Positano.’ Mika raised her eyebrows. ‘I wonder if the police station will still be open.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘So you can report the loss of your backpack. In case someone finds it.’

‘I think that’s highly unlikely. It didn’t look like the kind of cliff anyone would be climbing for fun.’

‘I can’t believe I did that. I feel awful.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Really...’

For a few moments they walked in silence. Dusk was really gathering now, and it was darker amongst the trees, so coming across a small herd of goats startled them both. The goats were even more startled and leapt off the track to scramble up through the forest, the sound of their bleating and bells astonishingly loud in the evening stillness.

‘Sorry, goats,’ Mika called, but she was laughing. She even had some colour in her cheeks when she turned towards Raoul. ‘I love Italy,’ she told him. ‘I might live here for ever.’

‘Oh? You’re not Italian, then?’

‘Huh? We’ve been talking English since we met. What makes you think I’m Italian?’

‘When I first heard you call for help, you spoke in Italian. And you’ve got a funny accent when you speak English.’

‘I do not.’ Mika sounded offended. ‘I can get by in Italian pretty well but English is my first language.’

‘So you are from England?’

‘No. I’m half-Maori, half-Scottish.’

‘You don’t sound Scottish.’

‘I’m not. I’m a Kiwi.’

Raoul shook his head. She was talking in riddles. Her smile suggested she was taking pity on him.

‘I come from New Zealand. Little country? At the bottom of the world?’

‘Oh...of course. I know it. I’ve seen the Lord of the Rings movies. It’s very beautiful.’

‘It is. What about you, Rafe?’

‘What about me?’ He was suddenly wary.

‘Rafe isn’t your real name, is it?’

The wariness kicked up a notch. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘You sounded like you were going to say something else when you introduced yourself, that’s all. Do you have a weird name or something?’ That cheeky grin flashed again. ‘Is Rafe short for Raphael?’

Relief that he hadn’t been unexpectedly recognised made him chuckle. ‘Um...something like that.’

‘Rafe it is, then. Are you Italian?’

‘No.’

‘How come you speak English with a funny accent, then?’

He had to laugh again. ‘I’m European. I speak several languages. My accent is never perfect.’

‘It’s actually pretty good.’ The concession felt like high praise. ‘Are you here on holiday?’

‘Yes. You?’

‘No, I’m working. I’m doing my OE.’

‘Oh-ee?’ The word was unfamiliar.

‘Overseas Experience. It’s a rite of passage for young New Zealanders.’

‘Oh...and is it something you have to do alone?’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘But you are doing it alone?’

‘Yep.’ Her tone suggested she wouldn’t welcome any further questions about her personal life. ‘Oh, look—civilisation.’

Sure enough, they had reached the outskirts of the mountain village. There was no real reason to stay with Mika any longer. She had completely recovered and she was safe. But Raoul was enjoying her company now and he had to admit he was curious. Mika was a world away from her homeland and she was alone.

Why?

They walked in silence for a while as they entered the village of Nocelle. Raoul’s eye was caught by big terracotta pots with red geraniums beneath a wooden sign hanging from a wrought-iron bar advertising this to be the Santa Croce ristorante and bar. Extending an invitation was automatic.

‘Can I buy you a coffee or something to eat? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving after that hike. We could get a bus down to Positano if it’s too dark to use the steps later.’

The invitation had been impulsive—a polite thing for a gentleman to do. It was only after he’d voiced it that Raoul realised how much he actually wanted Mika to agree.

He wanted to offer her food, not just because he was reluctant to give up her company—he wanted to look after her for a little while longer. To recapture that heart-warming sensation of winning the trust of somebody who needed his help although they would have preferred not to accept it.

It was just to make absolutely sure she was okay, of course. Nothing more. Hooking up with any young woman on this trip was an absolute no-no and, besides, he’d never be physically attracted to somebody like Mika. She was a tomboy, possibly the complete opposite to any woman he’d ever invited into his life or his bed—those picture-perfect blondes that knew how to pose for an unexpected photograph. Maybe that explained the fascination.

She was looking almost as wary as she had when he’d offered his hand to help her along the track and suddenly—to his horror—Raoul realised it might be better if she declined the invitation. He could feel the smile on his face freeze as he discreetly tried to pat the pocket on his shorts. He might have enough loose change to cover a bus fare for them both but it was highly unlikely that he could pay for a meal.