LITMIR.BIZ

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feast was being held in the smallest of the palace staterooms. She was surprised her father and brother hadn’t held it in one of the greenhouses.

      She hadn’t had the chance to question her father about the inventory. He’d deliberately waited until the last minute to join her at the chapel entrance and the doors had been opened for them before she’d had a chance to open her mouth.

      When she contrasted it with his behaviour during Isabella’s wedding, when he’d personally collected her sister from her rooms and escorted her in a horse-drawn carriage to the cathedral, his face beaming with pride...

      Even Isabella, as self-absorbed as she generally was—and she’d only made it to the palace with minutes to spare—had been upset by the way Catalina had been treated. Her little sister had held her hand the whole way to the chapel.

      Lucky, lucky Isabella. She’d fallen madly in love with a commoner and been allowed to marry him with both their father and brother’s blessings.

      Isabella and Sebastien were besotted with each other. Catalina’s heart ached to see the tenderness between them; true love in all its glory. Marriages in the House of Fernandez were generally arranged like business deals and her parents’ marriage had been no exception. Catalina’s marriage to Helios would have been the same.

      To witness with her own eyes how a true marriage could be...

      It would never happen for her. She wished she hadn’t seen it because now she had witnessed everything she would never have.

      The affection between Isabella and Sebastien only heightened the contrast between Catalina and her new husband. Throughout the meal, conversation between her and Nathaniel had been pointedly polite.

      She hadn’t expected any overt displays of affection but he’d acted as if they were having an ordinary meal and she were an ordinary person he’d been sitting next to. There wasn’t intimacy in his eyes when he looked at her. There was nothing there, not even the sparkle that had always resonated from them in the past.

      The kiss that had sealed their vows in the chapel had been nothing but a fleeting brush of his lips against hers. It had contained less meaning than a goodnight kiss from a relative.

      The ache in her heart was growing by the second. It was ridiculous. She knew the score.

      ‘Who’s here from your side?’ she asked. She’d searched the faces of their guests a dozen times wondering who Nathaniel’s guests were.

      ‘No one.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because this is a farce.’

      ‘Yes,’ she agreed, taking a sip of orange juice. She wished it were wine. ‘I just thought you might have your family here for support.’ She knew he’d lost his parents at a young age but surely everyone had some family?

      ‘There aren’t many of us.’ He gave a short smile and took a bite of his mille-feuille. Tiny flakes of pastry fell onto his chin and he wiped them away with his thumb.

      His tone suggested this wasn’t a conversation he wanted to take forward.

      ‘Did you invite them?’

      ‘No.’ He stared pointedly at her full plate. ‘You need to eat something.’

      ‘I’m not hungry.’ How could anyone eat with a room full of eyes upon them? Catalina was used to her every move being scrutinised but this felt much more intrusive. Nothing had been confirmed publicly about her pregnancy, and nor would it be for a number of months, but everyone present either knew of it or suspected it.

      It didn’t matter what people believed.

      In a few short hours she would be moving out of the only home she had ever known and into the home of a man who saw her as an encumbrance.

      There would be no happy ending for either of them.

      * * *

      The storm had died down by the time the celebrations were over.

      When Nathaniel suggested they leave shortly before eleven, Catalina smiled and got to her feet without comment.

      She had performed beautifully throughout the reception; a princess in every sense of the word. Her lack of appetite had been the only outward sign of anything being amiss. That, and her eyes containing all the emotion of a porcelain doll. The only real emotion he’d seen had been that flash of fury when he’d lifted her veil.

      It was impossible to know what was going on in her head.

      ‘Are we not going to wait for my cases?’ she asked when his driver turned the engine on.

      ‘They’ve already been sent to my apartment.’

      She gave a nod and looked out of the window.

      After many minutes of silence, he said, ‘Is there something on your mind, Catalina?’

      She took a long, quiet breath before answering. ‘My father sent his assistant and her team into my rooms earlier to do an inventory of my possessions.’

      ‘When you say your possessions, what are we talking about?’

      ‘Everything. My clothes and jewellery, my books...everything. I’m concerned about the timing. It was deliberately timed for when I was preparing for our marriage. And I’m concerned about what he wants it for.’

      ‘What do you think he’s going to do with the inventory?’ he asked carefully, recalling his conversation with Dominic and the Prince’s threats to make Catalina homeless and penniless.

      ‘I don’t know. That’s what’s so frightening. It was definitely a warning of some kind. A power thing. I don’t know.’ She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. ‘Another punishment for the situation I’ve put us all in.’

      Nathaniel balled his hands into fists.

      It infuriated him that the King allowed Dominic’s prejudice to influence him so much. He quite understood why the King didn’t think him good enough for his daughter—with his reputation he could hardly blame him—but to treat her in such a manner was unforgivable.

      Family dynamics were a strange and complex thing but this was her own flesh and blood acting so cruelly towards her.

      And then he remembered what he’d done to his own flesh and blood. It had been unforgivable, and no amount of repentance could ever change that.

      ‘I’m sure you have nothing to worry about,’ he lied smoothly. When it came to her father and brother, he would put nothing past them.

      From the corner of his eye he saw her chest rise, and those gloriously heavy breasts lifting with the motion. The desire he’d spent the whole day suppressing suddenly came to the fore, a stab of lust piercing him, so powerful not even the mightiest of willpower could keep it contained.

      He was thrown back to when she’d lain beneath him, naked, the echo of her heartbeat pulsing through her chest.

      He’d reluctantly—reluctant only because at that point he hadn’t wanted to let go of her—moved to get a condom when she’d gripped his wrist. ‘Do you always use protection?’ she’d whispered.

      ‘Always.’

      She’d swallowed and palmed his cheek. ‘If this is the only chance I get to make love with someone I desire then I want to experience all of it. I want to feel you inside me as you are.’

      He’d stared into those sultry eyes a man could sink into and known she was serious. And known he wanted nothing more than to experience all of it too, as he had never wanted to before.

      ‘Please,’ she’d said, her voice so low he’d had to strain to hear it. ‘Just for this one moment.’

      Nathaniel had had many lovers in his life. Several had been on the pill or used other forms of contraception and had told him he didn’t need the condoms. It had never been something

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