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It was the second courtyard, which Marcos bedrooiant terracotta pots filled with shrubs, palms and flowers

and a loggia that ran along one wall, it was the perfect spot to sit and enjoy the peaceful sound of its central marble fountain

Standing in it now E what a wonderful holiday home the villa would enerations; with no effort at all she could see therandparents, retired but still very active, enjoying the corandchildren, the kids thehter irls olive-skinned, pretty and dainty, the boys strongly built with their fathers dark hair and shrewd gaze, the baby laughing and gurgling as Marco held him whilst the woman as theirthem

Don't do this to yourself, an inner voice warned Eine what it would be like to be that woman In reality, the ho was not that of a king and a queen It was the home of a couple who loved one another and their children, a home for the kind of fae years when she had lived with her grandfather The kind of home that represented the life

The future, she wished desperately she would be sharing with Marco, right down to the five children The war into the courtyard filled it with the scent of the lavender that grew there, and Emily knew that, for the rest of her life, she would equate its scent with the pain seeping slowly through her as she acknowledged the impossibility of her dreaic away all those things that stood between her and Marco, and i, a scenario in which he discovered that she loved him and immediately declared his own love for her But this was real life and there was no way that was going to happen

One day—maybe—there would be a man hoive her children they could love together and cherish But that irls and boys she had seen so clearly with her eous baby, were the children that another woman would bear for him

And poor things, their lives would be burdened by the weight of their royal inheritance, just as Marco’s was and that was so Emily knew she could not endure to inflict on her own babies For therow into individuals, instead of being forced into the mould of royal heirs

It was just as well that Marco had no intentions of wanting to make her his wife, on two counts Emily told herself deter nature of her recent thoughts had shown her what her true feelings were about Marcos royal blood Plus, of course, as he had already told her it was not permissible for him to marry a divorced woman

The sound of crockery rattling on a tray and the sht her back to the present as Maria ca a tray of coffee for her which she put on a table shaded froant parchment-coloured sun umbrella

Thanking her with a sht as well start work Within half an hour, she was deeply engrossed in the notes she was h she hadn't felt nauseous this , the smell of the coffee had reminded her that her stomach was still queasy and not truly back to normal

An hour later, when Marco drove into the outer courtyard E the palace he had been to the airport where the generators had already been unloaded He had already es up in the mountains most in need of their own source of power and whilst in London he had spoken with the islands police chief and the biggest road haulier to arrange for the transport of the generators However, whilst he had been at the airport, he had received a e from the police chief to say he had received instructions froenerators were not to be moved

It had taken all of Marcos considerable negotiating skills, and the cool re, to persuade the police chief to change his ainst what he described to Marco almost fearfully as orders from the palace

Because of this Marco had decided to drive into the enerators were delivered safely If his grandfather thought he could out to have to learn the hard way that it was just not going to happen