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Poor Casiht painfully as she read on

The dashing royal, 34, who recently acceded to the throne of the tiny island kingdom, has been airlifted to the capital’s hospital, where he re to coer brother, Xaviero, 33 (pictured, right), is tonight on his way from South America to be at his stricken brother’s bedside This is not the first tiedy has struck the fabulously wealthy di Cesere fa’s e a quarter of a century ago

Instinctively, Cathy began to exaotá airport Xaviero looked gried—his hand raised as if to strike the caraph He looked haunted, she thought—and her heart went out to him

Staring blandly at her now-cold coffee, she wondered if there was any way she could help But Xaviero would be houided by protocol, no doubt—what on earth could she possibly do?

Until she reh possibly it was the only time a number had been handed out with the instruction not to use it

‘Only if it is absolutely necessary,’ he had told her, his stern face leaving her in no doubt that he meant every word ‘If, for exanant’ He had acknowledged her shocked little intake of breath, and had nodded, his face grim ‘And yes, I knoe have taken every precaution, but accidents can and do happen—though, obviously, we both sincerely hope that this is not the case’

Cathy bit her lip What would she do if it were anyone else? If it were a friend or a colleague, someone she cared about or even someone she had cared about? Why, even if it were Peter—her errant fiancé—she would send hi on in there and that she was thinking of hiine the aet in touch with a man as i

As the days dragged by she couldn’t settle She kept thinking about Xaviero and wondering how his brother was faring—but even though she scoured the newspapers and the Internet for news there was no new update on his condition

But one evening her conscience got the better of her and she knew she had to contact hi to do, or if it was soht her a fool for doing so? This wasn’t about her—it was about him

Sitting down on the rather scruffy sofa, she carefully composed words of comfort in her head before she dared translate theht think she riting to him simply because she had an ulterior motive In the end, she simply wrote: ‘DESPERATELY SORRY TO HEAR YOUR BROTHER SO SICK MY THOUGHTS WITH YOU CATHY’ She hesitated before adding a single ‘X’, and then she pressed the ‘send’ button before she could change her mind

She didn’t expect to hear anything and when the phone began to ring a bit later on she thought it was probably Sandy, who’d been trying to persuade her to go to a colance at the screen of her cell phone set her heart racing in disbelief It said…it said…

Xaviero?

Heart pounding, Cathy snatched up the receiver ‘H-hello?’