Modern Romance Collection: July Books 5 - 8. Natalie Anderson

back into the sitting room and sat down, loosening the top button of the blouse she wore beneath her cream silk suit. It didn’t help the restricted feeling in her chest. There was still that cold, heavy weight behind her breastbone that she had spent the day pretending wasn’t there.

      Sitting upright again, she kicked off the heels she wore and flexed her fingers, staring as she did at the rings that felt cold, the wide gold band above the square-cut emerald engagement ring, and fought a sudden compulsion to tear them off.

      The act would have been both pointless and childish and now was the moment to behave like an adult, so instead, to distract herself from the feelings that were building inside her, she reached for the TV remote, pressed the on button and began to scroll through the channels.

      She closed her eyes and let her head fall back. She allowed the husky diction of a well-known female newsreader to wash over her.

      The woman actually had quite a pleasant voice, soothing, until that one phrase made her jolt into a tense upright position—Princess Sabrina!

      On the screen the newsreader’s face was replaced by a scene of the wedding guests, the camera zooming in close-up on a few famous faces.

      ‘It is believed that after being left quite literally at the altar last June by the then Crown Prince Luis, his jilted bride, Lady Sabrina Summerville, has married his brother, Prince Sebastian, at a private ceremony. The couple and the bride’s sister were both involved in the tragic accident on Vela Main on the day of the wedding.’

      The images of the wedding guests vanished and in their place was footage of helicopters circling and ambulances with wailing sirens, their flashing lights illuminating wreckage strewn across a road.

      Sabrina stared transfixed at the nightmare scene of twisted metal and bodies, unaware as the remote slipped from her nerveless fingers.

      She hoped that Chloe was not watching this.

      She gave a sigh of relief as the crash scene vanished, though the tension climbed straight back into her shoulders as Sebastian appeared on the screen, tall and tanned, looking like the hero of an action movie. Over one broad shoulder he carried skis while the other shoulder was occupied by the fashionably tousled blonde head of a leggy soap actress who had both her arms around his middle as she smiled for the cameras that surrounded them. Sebastian looked down at her with an expression of amused indulgence before turning to the camera crews as he made a gesture that ensured the photo being plastered over front pages the next day.

      ‘Sabrina...’

      She leapt at the touch of his hand on her shoulder and fumbled for the remote.

      ‘What rubbish are you watching?’ he asked, sounding impatient.

      ‘I’m not watching,’ she denied, annoyed with herself for feeling inexplicably guilty, then almost immediately embarrassed as a picture of herself looking solemn with pigtails and no front teeth, one from the family album, filled the screen.

      Her fingers had closed over the remote but just as she was about to press the off button Count Hugo appeared, looking sincere as he stared into the camera.

      ‘What the...?’

      Behind her Sebastian drawled, ‘I think it might be a good idea to watch this.’

      ‘You realise, Count,’ said the man holding the microphone, ‘that many will believe this marriage is one of political expedience? Prince Luis was a popular figure both sides of the border. Many question his brother’s ability to fill his shoes, and this marriage today—this rather low-key marriage—is it not true to say that it is nothing more than a cynical stunt to shore up crumbling support for the reunification project?’

      The Count, who had continued to smile benignly into the camera through the comments, remained unflustered as he posed his own question.

      ‘Donald, I ask you, if it was a “stunt”, as you call it, would it be low-key? One can never silence the cynics, but the facts are, whether you choose to believe them or not, that the Prince and his bride have known one another for years, and have been...close in the past. After the events of last June the respect they have always felt for one another has turned into love.’

      The newsreader’s face appeared as the Count vanished.

      ‘You can see the full report tomorrow night at nine, when the reunification is discussed by a panel of experts—but here is a—’

      Sabrina pressed the ‘off’ button and turned, her expression accusing as she faced her husband.

      ‘Did you know about this?’

      ‘No...’

      She arched a sceptical brow. She could not believe that the Count would have gone ahead with something like that without running it past Sebastian first.

      ‘But I’m not exactly surprised, and I’m not really sure why you are.’

      ‘You’re not surprised to hear that you’re one half of one of the greatest love stories of the decade?’ She folded her arms across her chest and glared up at him. ‘Well, it came as news to me.’

      Sebastian reacted to the spiky sarcasm in her voice with a negligent shrug. ‘The question is, did he have you convinced? I thought he came across as surprisingly sincere,’ he mused, tugging off the tie that was looped around his neck.

      ‘Does it not bother you that he was lying his head off?’ she squeaked incredulously.

      Sebastian gave a cynical smile. ‘Yes, he was lying. He is a diplomat. It is what he does.’

      ‘And he just goes ahead and does it? He doesn’t run it past anyone?’

      ‘He has a level of autonomy.’

      She could tell that was only half the story. ‘You’re just as bad as he is!’ she accused. But Sebastian was much better to look at. ‘Is there some special class where they teach you how to dodge a question?’

      ‘Actually, yes.’ He removed his eyes from the pouting outline of her lips. ‘I asked him to handle the press. I don’t micromanage but I think the brief I gave him was too...broad.’

      She rolled her eyes. ‘Finally! And you’re all right with what he did?’ Her voice shook with the sense of outrage she felt.

      He gave her a very direct look and a surprisingly straight answer. ‘I am not happy.’

      Something in the clipped delivery made her look at him. Sabrina became aware for the first time that he was actually pretty angry. She felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for the Count.

      Sebastian glanced at the blank screen of the television. ‘It was...tasteless. He overstepped the mark, but that’s politics for you.’

      She subsided with a sigh into a chair. ‘I don’t like politics.’

      He flashed a bleak grin. ‘It’s not going to go away any time soon.’ He walked across to the table and picked up the bottle from the ice bucket. ‘You look like you need a drink.’

      She shook her head automatically and wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing tight until her fingers dug into her ribcage, hard enough to bruise. Her chin rested against her chest as she closed her eyes.

      ‘Well, I do.’ He put both the champagne flutes he had filled down on the polished surface.

      ‘Do you ever have flashbacks...?’ she asked. He looked at her as she shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

      His frown deepened. ‘How do you mean flashbacks?’

      ‘The accident.’

      ‘Do you?’

      ‘It’s got better. The therapist said—’

      ‘You have seen a therapist?’

      ‘My parents insisted.’

      ‘Does anyone else know this?’

      ‘Anyone?’