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‘Well, there isn’t any both, is there? At least, not yet there isn’t’ He traced the treertip but she did not clamp her little white teeth around it and suck on it, as usually she would have done ‘Though I don’t want you to feel you have to leave, just because of me’
She stared at hiotten—because in the circumstances it was irrelevant This was her life, she realised—a life so very different froed and were now about to divide again, propelling her towards a scary and unknown future ‘Oh, of course I have to leave, Xaviero There’s no other alternative’ Or did he iround of his life—sohost of a woman he’d once knohile he made a new life and a family with his suitable bride?
Desperately, she tried to scrabble back a little dignity ‘But please don’t feel bad about it, e both know it’s inevitable—we’ve known that all along It’s probably just the kick-start I needed I’ve been telling e—I just never got around to it before’
His eyes narrowed as they studied her ‘If you want—I could perhaps help’ He saw the confusion in her face ‘You know—set you up in so, somewhere else’
She recoiled ‘You mean…like…pay me off? What’s that for—services rendered?’
‘That isn’t what I meant at all!’ he snapped
‘Well, that’s what it sounded like!’
For a ht then, to storarden A place where he had been able to shrug off privilege and position with his biddable little virgin whom he’d transformed into a near-perfect lover And another ht—with a sudden and unexpected spear of jealousy
‘Cathy, don’t let’s fight—not now,’ he said, in as placating a tone as he had ever used, pulling her face towards his
And to Cathy’s everlasting shas he had said to her, she just let him All those stark statehtful place in the Prince’s life Which was nowhere What woman with a shred of pride could sink back and revel in his expert caresses like this? But she wanted onewith a nised would never be equalled—not in anyone’s life, but certainly not in hers
He lifted his head and looked down into her wide aqualimmer of tears But for once he accepted the unnecessary intrusion of e that his biddable little pupil was about to learn that saying goodbye was the hardest lesson of all
Chapter Seven
WITHOUT Xaviero, life suddenly felt lonely and scary—but Cathy did what all the advice coluet hied her life corab every opportunity which ca with the flow Her Prince had gone, yes—but she had known froone and he wasn’t ever co to live with that and hope that this gnawing pain in her heart would some day lessen
The first step in her recovery was leaving Colbridge—though really she didn’t have much choice Hadn’t Xaviero himself spelt out in cruel and accurate detail just how difficult it would be if she were still there when he returned from South America?
Saying goodbye to friends and colleagues was harder than she’d thought, though it was no hardship leaving an openly curious Rupert, who had spent so to open up another hotel in the south of France
This ti with the Prince, but although Cathy blushed she reht-lipped and told him it was really none of his business
‘I think your response speaks for itself,’ he drawled
‘You can think what you like, Rupert’ Her cool reply clearly startled hiht her about the pain of love, there was no doubt that sleeping with a prince had given her confidence
It was harder to leave her little cottage where she’d lived for arden on which she had fostered so much love and attention But she rented it out to a plant-lover who proot a job in a fa the road fro, noisy capital city a bookshop seemed a warm and friendly place to be, and when they discovered her passion for plants and flowers she was quickly assigned to the Gardening, Cookery and Sport section of the store