‘Where did you find him?’ she asked.
‘On my twenty-second toy store,’ he told her. ‘Or maybe not that many but it sure felt like it. Did you know there are a whole heap of very unsatisfactory teddies in the world?’
‘There are indeed,’ she said unsteadily, trying to swallow her emotion. She carried the teddy across the room and placed it next to the sleeping Henry. ‘He’s just perfect. Oh, Marc…’
But Marc was distracted. The room he’d entered wasn’t to his liking.
‘Suites have separate bedrooms,’ he said, looking round in disapproval. This room had a bed and a cot, and a tiny table and chairs tucked into an alcove by the window. As a dining room it was hardly satisfactory. ‘The phone call I made…I thought I made it clear to the management that you needed a suite.’
‘I changed the booking,’ she said brusquely. ‘I want this one.’
‘But I’m paying.’
‘No.’ She bit her lip, her pleasure from the teddy fading as the conflict re-emerged. ‘I told you. I’m paying. I’m not being any more beholden to you than I need to be.’
He stared at her as if he’d never met her like in his life. She met his look head on, unflinching, and tilted her chin in an almost unconscious gesture of defiance.
And a glint of laughter flashed behind those deep grey eyes. Prince Marc of Broitenburg was amused. The peasants were clearly revolting, and royalty was pleased to indulge such idiosyncratic ways.
‘Um…maybe we could get a hotel babysitter and go down to the dining room?’
His laughter only had the effect of increasing her tension-making anger surge. ‘I’m not leaving Henry,’ she told him, and watched his smile die. It was all very well for the peasants to revolt, it seemed, as long as it didn’t interfere with this man’s plans.
‘The dining room would be more sensible,’ he told her.
‘No.’
‘Miss Dexter…’
‘You’re not taking him,’ she whispered, and they were no longer talking about where they intended eating dinner. ‘I don’t care who you are, and I don’t care how many teddies you buy him. He’s staying with me.’
‘It’s imperative for the country that he returns.’ Marc’s laughter had disappeared entirely.
Tammy hadn’t been laughing in the first place, and she wasn’t laughing now. ‘It’s imperative for him that he stays with me,’ she told him. ‘He’s ten months old and he hardly knows what human contact is.’
‘I can provide the very best in childcare.’
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she snapped. ‘You can’t buy someone to love a child. I don’t have your resources, but…’
But he wasn’t listening. His needs were urgent, and he wasn’t interested in the issues driving her. He couldn’t allow himself to be. ‘Look, if it’s a matter of money…’
‘It’s not.’
‘I’m extremely wealthy,’ he told her, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘If I’m prepared to guarantee his welfare, to have child psychologists give him continuous assessment, and to give you this…’
He held out a slip of paper. A cheque. Tammy looked down at it-and stared.
How many zeroes? This was more wealth than she believed possible.
What on earth was happening here? This man might be so good-looking he made her gasp, and he might have a smile to melt ice, but all she felt was fury.
She thought back to the letter she’d just read, and a cold, hard knot of anger settled and stayed deep within. Money. This had all been about money from the first. Henry himself was the result of a desire for money and prestige and power, and here was this man offering more.
‘You could retire on what I’m offering,’ he was saying. ‘You could stay in places like this all the time. You’d never have to work again,’
She took a deep breath, and breathed again. Then her eyes flickered from the cheque to his face-and he was smiling. The man actually had the gall to be
He expected her to accept.
And at that the knot of pain and fury stretched and snapped. She lifted the cheque he was holding out, read it carefully as if she needed to memorise the crass insensitivity of his action, and then ripped it into a thousand pieces. She let them fall onto the luxurious carpet. She stomped on them with her bare toes and then she stared up at him, her face a mixture of hostility and defiance.
He still didn’t get it. He was staring back at her as if he didn’t understand, and her fury was still there. The knot was coiling again and there was nothing else for it.
She lifted her hand and she slapped.
She’d never slapped a man in her life. She’d never slapped anyone. And now… In the course of three hours she’d thrown baby formula all over him and she’d hit him.
She didn’t care.
‘Get out,’ she whispered, choking on her fury as she hauled open the door. ‘Get out. If we never see you again it’ll be too soon. You and your damned family and your stupid money…’
‘What…?’ He was holding his face as if he couldn’t believe what she’d done. The peasants were indeed revolting. With violence!
‘You killed my Lara.’ She was stammering with rage. ‘You took her life. You…’ She raised her hand again but he was before her, seizing her hands and dragging them behind her back. A middle-aged couple were walking along the hall to their suite and they paused in concern.
‘Is everything all right?’ the man asked, and Marc swore through gritted teeth, pushed Tammy back into the room and slammed the door.
‘Now see what you’ve done?’
‘Spoilt your reputation? I can’t believe you’ve never been hit by a woman.’ She was verging on hysteria but she couldn’t help herself.
‘Believe it or not, I haven’t. Until now. What the hell are you saying about my family?’
‘I’ve read the letter from my sister. Sent to me four months ago.’
‘So?’
‘She was sending Henry to me.’ He was still holding her hands behind her, she was pulled in hard against him, but whether or not it was to stop her striking him she didn’t know. She was past thinking of his intent. Her attention was fully on the contents of that dreadful letter. ‘Lara was frightened. She was in way over her head. Her husband was taking drugs. They were running with a crowd she couldn’t control. He was always drunk…’
‘I know that.’
His words shocked her. ‘You know it?’
‘Jean-Paul was a mindless, arrogant twit,’ he said grimly. ‘He’d been overindulged since birth. He was an alcoholic by the time he was eighteen. If you’re thinking he changed after your sister married him then think again. She knew exactly what she was getting into.’
Tammy flinched. ‘Then why…?’
‘Why did she marry him?’ Marc’s lips compressed into a smile that held no humour at all. He stared down at the ripped pieces of cheque littering the floor and shook his head. ‘Lara would never have done that.’
‘Ripped your cheque?’
‘Ripped anyone’s cheque. She and your mother… I remember them at the wedding. They thought they’d won the ultimate trophy. And all they’d won was Jean-Paul.’
‘She’d won the chance to be a princess.’
‘It came at a cost.’
She was staring up at him, her breathing coming way too fast. He was still holding her, but absently. He didn’t know his own strength, she thought. He held her as if he could take on three of her.
He probably could.
‘Let me go,’ she breathed, and he stared down her, and his dark eyes glittered with something she didn’t understand.
‘Will you hit me again?’
‘Probably.’
‘Then maybe I shouldn’t let you go.’
