‘You tell me yours, then,’ she said astringently. ‘And I’ll tell you mine.’
‘Okay,’ he said surprisingly. ‘I’ve had girlfriends.’
She shouldn’t ask. But suddenly she was intrigued. ‘Not serious?’
‘They find out I have money and all of a sudden I’m desirable. It’s a great turn-off.’
‘That’s tough,’ she said, but her voice was loaded with irony. ‘You know, I was actually engaged to be married when Gina and Donald were killed. Tom thought Dolores was bad enough, but when he found I intended to take the kids he couldn’t run fast enough.’
‘As you say-tough.’
‘No,’ she said evenly. ‘These kids are my family, as much as if I’d borne them myself. If Tom didn’t want them, then it was his problem.’ She shrugged and smiled. ‘And maybe I don’t blame him. Three kids and dogs is a huge ask.’
‘It’s a huge ask of you.’
Her smile faded. ‘Not so much. I love them to bits. And you…If you threaten their happiness-their security-you’ll answer to me, Max de Gautier.’
‘I’d never do that.’
They fell silent then, but it was a better silence. She felt strangely more at peace than she’d been in a long time. Which was dumb, she told herself. She was heading somewhere she’d never heard of and she had to stay on her guard.
But she wasn’t totally responsible. She glanced across at the sleeping children and she thought in a few minutes the stewardess would bring them something to eat and she didn’t need to work out how to pay for it.
And she was sitting beside Maxsim de Gautier. Any woman would feel okay sitting beside this man, she thought. There wasn’t any chance he might be interested in her-what man would look twice at a woman loaded with three kids, a king-sized debt and a dog?-but she was woman enough to enjoy it while she had it.
‘Why does saving Alp d’Estella matter so much to you?’ she asked, suddenly curious.
‘It just does.’
‘No, but why?’ she prodded. ‘You’ve been brought up in France. Why do you still care about a little country your father or your grandfather walked away from?’
‘I just…do.’
He wasn’t telling the truth, she thought. Why? She stared at him, baffled.
‘Tell me how you learned to milk cows?’ she demanded, moving sideways, and the tension eased a little.
‘That’s easy. My mother was born on a dairy farm south of Paris. My maternal grandparents still live there. It’s run by my uncle now, but it’s great. I spent the greater part of my childhood there.’
‘Your father’s dead.’
The pleasure faded from his voice. ‘I didn’t have any contact with…either of the men my mother was involved with.’
‘And your mother? Where’s she?’
‘In Paris.’
‘When did-Thierry’s father-die?’
‘When I was fifteen. I’ve always referred to him as my father too.’
‘When did your brother die?’
‘At the same time.’
‘They were killed together?’
‘In a car crash. Yes.’
‘Oh, Max.’
She paused. There were things here she wanted to find out, but she didn’t know the right questions. ‘Do you build in Paris?’ she said at last and he nodded.
‘Yes.’
‘What sort of buildings?’
‘Big ones.’
‘Skyscrapers?’
‘Yes.’
She blinked. She’d never met anyone who built skyscrapers.
‘Do you work for someone?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Do you have a boss?’
‘I…no. I had a fantastic boss. I became his off-sider but he died three years ago. I took over the firm.’
‘So you’re the head of a building firm that builds skyscrapers.’
‘You could say that.’
‘You’re very rich?’
‘You disapprove?’
‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, maybe I do, but I guess it’s handy.’
‘It certainly is,’ he said, and he smiled.
He needed to cut that out, she thought crossly. She’d just started to focus and, wham, he smiled, and her thoughts scattered to the four winds.
She bit her lip and bulldozed on. ‘So this boss…You said you went to a builder and asked him to teach you how to build.’
‘I did.’
‘But you had money from the royal family?’
‘No. My father gambled using the royal name as collateral,’ he said. ‘It’s taken years to get my mother free of debt. Yes, there was an offer to help from the old prince, but my mother would have died rather than accept it.’
‘Tell me about the car crash?’ she asked, tentatively now, unsure whether she was intruding, but needing to know.
He didn’t take offence. It seemed he’d decided to answer as honestly as he could. ‘My father was drunk,’ he said bluntly. ‘The royal curse. But unlike Alice, he didn’t fight his addiction. The Alp d’Estella royal family is not a pedigree to be proud of.’
She thought about that for a moment and didn’t like what she thought.
‘Yet you’re propelling Marc into the middle of it?’
‘I suspect you’ll be strong enough to keep him level-headed.’
‘You didn’t think that before you knew me,’ she reasoned. ‘Yet still you wanted Marc to come.’
‘I did.’ He was silent for a moment, deep in his own thoughts. ‘Maybe I hadn’t thought things through then, either,’ he admitted. ‘I knew Marc stood to inherit. I thought he was a child. It couldn’t change his life so much, and there’s so much at stake. But, yes, I’ve had qualms since and I’ve seen that you have the strength to ignore…what the palace can offer.’
She hesitated. ‘You can’t possibly know that’s true.’
‘And yet I do.’
‘But you?’ she said, pushing it further. ‘How do I know you don’t just want to be Prince Regent for money and power?’
‘For the same reason I know you won’t be seduced by money and power,’ he said evenly, and lifted her fingers in the dark and held them against the side of his face. ‘You know me and I know you.’
She felt…breathless. ‘That’s just plain dumb.’
‘But it’s true.’
‘It’s smooth talking,’ she said crossly. She was out of her league and she knew it. ‘I’m a nobody and you’re Prince Regent.’
‘Nobody’s a nobody. Don’t insult yourself.’ And he didn’t let go of her hand.
He was a restful man, she thought. He didn’t feel the need to fill the silence. He let the silence do the talking for him.
But his hold on her hand was growing more…personal, and she wasn’t quite sure the silent bit was all that wise. He was too close.
