LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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