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But it was like finding a tiny tear in an old dress and poking your finger inside it—only to discover that you were ht had opened the floodgates on all the inadequacies in their relationship—or had Xaviero’s oords of dissatisfaction about his life helped to crystallise her own?

We’ve never even talked about children, she realised Quickly, she gulped down a mouthful of water and felt it refresh her parched lips, but underneath the table her knees were tre Xaviero had continued to use protection after their e and she hadn’t even questioned it—just tacitly accepted it as she had done so much else Oh, she was certainly co children into this kind of peculiar e in the royal world?

I’ll ask hih a wave of dark ht

Dessert appeared—an extravagant confection of le it unenthusiastically when one of Xaviero’s aides entered the room and went immediately over to his side to speak softly in the Prince’s ear

Even without her crash-course in protocol, Cathy would have known that it was rare indeed for the Prince Regent to be interrupted when he was in the middle of an official dinner And rarer still for Xaviero to suddenly rise to his feet, his face growing ashen

Soers clutched at her napkin She wanted to ask hi but, of course, she couldn’t do that for he wouldn’t drea her before an audience

And then another aide entered and Xaviero quickly joined hi his dark head as the uests had abandoned any pretence at continuing with their dinner—as everyone see

What the hell was going on?

Xaviero’s face grew suddenly taut as he spoke in a low voice to the asseent matters of state mean that my wife and I olden eyes seared into her ‘Catherine, you will please join me?’

It felt like a summons, it most definitely was a su as Cathy found her feet and sloalked down the long dining roo his face for some sort of clue for the reasons behind this extraordinary break with protocol, she found none Just a bleak and unfathomable countenance, but then, wasn’t that Xaviero all over—because since when had she ever been able to read anything in his shuttered face?

In silence, they left the roo at a discreet distance—and once they were out of earshot of the assenitaries she turned to him in perplexity

‘Xaviero, what on earth is going on?’

He seeht words ‘The hospital has just rung—’