The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ that’s all it was. Just something we apparently needed to get out of our systems.”

      “And did you? Get me out of your system?”

      “Yes.” She might be a liar, but she wasn’t a fool. And if she admitted that sleeping with Rafe had done nothing to get him out of her system, rather had only shown her a deep pleasure and ecstasy she hadn’t known existed, that even now the needy physical part of her wanted him, wanted him just to hold her even, then he’d feel obliged to gently point out that they could never have a future.

      She’d save them both that excruciating exchange.

      This was the only way to play it. The only way to emerge unscathed.

      As dawn began to win out over darkness, Lexie got up. It was no hardship when, after the nightmare yesterday had turned into, she hadn’t been sleeping anyway. She made her way through the maze of palace corridors, passing only a handful of quietly observant staff members whose expressions revealed nothing of what they thought, what they knew.

      Outside, she took the path through the dew-covered rose gardens, too preoccupied to stop and smell them. The path led her, eventually, to the labyrinth.

      A place of meditation and thought. A place to seek answers. She’d walked it once already a few days earlier. That time had been out of curiosity. This time she felt the need for its reputed calming and problem-solving benefits—the labyrinth’s famed metaphorical journey within.

      She watched the path as she entered the circling waist-high hedges of the labyrinth and listened to the quiet crunch of her own footsteps on the gravel. After the first quarter circle the path turned back on itself and then took her deceptively toward the center. It was only then that she looked up at the spreading oak tree there.

      Still and watching her from the bench that encircled the tree sat Rafe. Lexie didn’t so much as break her stride and she certainly didn’t turn and leave, much as she suddenly wanted to. Instead, she kept putting one foot in front of the other, following the path. She had to keep passing and re-passing in front of his line of sight, near to him and then far. She didn’t look to see whether he was watching her, but he was. She didn’t need to look to know it. She could feel it.

      With all the turning back and circling, it took her a strangely long time to reach him, and then there was nothing else to do but sit beside him. Duke lay at his feet and lifted his head as she sat. “I didn’t realize you were here when I started.”

      “That much was obvious from the doe-in-the-headlights look in your eyes when you first saw me.” She heard the smile in his voice.

      “I don’t want to interrupt this time for you.”

      “You’re no interruption, Lex.” Did he know he was the only one who called her that? He reached for one of the hands curled into fists on her lap, straightened her fingers and then enfolded her hand in his.

      The sight and sensation of their joined hands pierced something within her. As she made to extricate her hand, his grip tightened. “I thought we weren’t going to…”

      “What? Hold hands? I thought we weren’t going to sleep together again.”

      “We’re not sleeping together again.”

      “Then I’m holding your hand. There’s no one here to see us. And it would be pleasanter if you didn’t make a big deal about it. It fits so well in mine.”

      Lexie didn’t answer, didn’t argue. It did fit well, like the most natural thing in the world.

      She closed her eyes and leaned back and thought of everything that had happened since this man first took her hand on the croquet lawn back home and kissed it. So much, too much, and yet not enough.

      She’d thought yesterday’s papers were something to worry about. Today’s were far worse.

      “How did the meeting with your father go?” Yesterday Prince Henri had seen advance copies of today’s papers. News of the end of her engagement to Adam had broken like a dam bursting. No one knew where the leak had come from. It didn’t really matter now. Speculation was beginning on the Internet that somehow Rafe was involved. He’d told her of his summons to see his father and let her know that he’d be telling his father as much of the truth as he thought he needed to know. She hadn’t asked precisely how much that involved.

      “He demanded that I marry you. He always does whenever I’m involved in a scandal. He thinks a big royal wedding will go a long way to fixing things.”

      “Oh.” It hurt that he could be so blasé. That suddenly she was just one of his many scandals. “What did you say to him?”

      “That I’d live my life according to my own dictates, not his.”

      “Oh.” It was exactly what she’d known he would say. She’d never have married him just to please his father anyway, so there was no reason for the feeling of loss.

      “Adam joined in the lecture, too. He’s very protective of you.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      “Don’t be. You were worth it.”

      Were? Past tense.

      His thumb rubbed gently over the back of her hand.

      “Did you hear from your mother?” he asked a short while later.

      “Yes. I let her know that the rumors were starting and that they weren’t totally unfounded.” Suddenly pictures were appearing of every public exchange she’d had with Rafe, and somehow they all managed to look charged and intense. Probably because they had been.

      “How did she take it?”

      “Let’s just say that, whatever happens, one of our parents is going to be bitterly disappointed.”

      “Let me guess. She demanded that you never see me again.”

      “That’s pretty much it.”

      “And what did you tell her?”

      “I thought of you, and of how you’d react if someone told you what to do, and I told her that I was old enough to decide for myself who I saw and who I didn’t.”

      “Good for you.”

      “And then I kind of spoiled it by telling her that I’m coming home the day after the christening, anyway. I could go sooner, but it would feel like running away. And Adam and your father have both asked me to stay. I’m not sure why. Something to do with Marconis and Wyndhams never backing down from a challenge, and a strong offence being the best form of defense. And they mentioned dignity, too. They kind of lost me, but I said I would stay.” Rafe was the only one who hadn’t asked her to stay.

      Even now he said nothing. Not that she expected a pleading, heartfelt don’t go, stay with me forever from this man, but a girl was allowed her daydreams. Lexie shook her head. She of all people should have learned her lesson about daydreams and fantasies and fairy tales.

      “You’ve had a miserable time here, haven’t you?”

      “No, it’s—”

      “Have СКАЧАТЬ