The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

had slid from lust into tenderness and then into a wistful longing for a future which could never be hers. Was it when he’d protected her from the press and continued to protect her, here in his adopted city? Or when he’d made love to her and shown her that sex could be about tenderness as well as hot, hard passion? She swallowed.

      No. She knew exactly when it had been. When he’d opened up his heart and told her about the baby he’d lost and she’d seen the raw pain on his face and heard the bitter heartbreak in his voice. In that moment he had revealed a vulnerability she’d never associated with a man like him, and that had changed everything. And she didn’t want it to change.

      Because she couldn’t afford to fall in love with Rafe Carter.

      * * *

      On Christmas morning, Sophie woke first—slipping from the bed and disappearing into one of the dressing rooms before starting to busy herself in the kitchen. She gave a smile of satisfaction as she cracked the first eggshell against the side of the bowl. Six months ago and she hadn’t known one end of a frying pan from the other and now she made the best omelette in Manhattan. Well, that was what Rafe said. She was humming beneath her breath when he came out of the bedroom in just a pair of boxers, the hand which had been raking back his mussed hair suddenly stilling.

      He ran his gaze over her. ‘Sweet heaven. What’s this?’

      She did a twirl. ‘You don’t like it?’

      Rafe felt a shaft of lust arrowing down to his groin. She was like every male fantasy come to life and standing in front of him, wearing a short baby-doll nightdress in scarlet silk, trimmed with fake white fur. The tiny matching knickers—which showed as she moved—were the same bright red and a Santa hat was crammed down over her dark hair. ‘Santa, baby,’ he murmured. ‘Come here.’

      ‘It’s my Christmas present to you,’ she said, walking over to loop her arms around his neck. ‘Because I couldn’t think what else to get you. The man who has everything.’

      ‘Best gift I’ve ever had,’ he said unevenly. ‘Which I’m now about to unwrap.’

      The eggs were cold by the time they got around to eating them and afterwards they walked through the snow to Central Park, going by Grand Army Plaza and ending up in Bryant Park. Sophie’s cheeks were glowing by the time they got back and Rafe made steak and salad. They ate their meal beside the tiny Christmas tree they’d put together with decorations bought from Bergdorf Goodman And when they’d cleared away the dishes, he handed her a curved package, wrapped in holly-covered paper.

      ‘Happy Christmas, Sophie,’ he said.

      Her fingers were trembling as she opened it and, even though it was probably the most inexpensive gift she’d ever been given, she couldn’t remember receiving anything which had given her quite so much pleasure. It was a snow globe. A miniature version of the Rockefeller Christmas tree, which he’d taken her to see the moment his jet had touched down in the city. She shook it and the rainbow sparkle was momentarily obscured by the thick white swirl of flakes.

      ‘Oh, Rafe,’ she said, trying not to let emotion creep into her voice. ‘It’s...beautiful.’

      ‘To remind you of New York,’ he said. ‘When you’re back in Isolaverde.’

      ‘Yes.’

      The word fell between them like a heavy stone. What was it going to be like? she wondered and now the pain in her heart was very sharp. It wasn’t settling back into life as a princess after all this that she was worried about—it was the thought of not having Rafe which was making her feel so utterly wretched. She tried to imagine waking up in the morning and him not there beside her and she thought how quickly you could get used to something, which had been the very best thing in your life.

      ‘Have you considered what you’re going to do?’ His question cut into her troubled thoughts. ‘Are you going to be content spending your days cutting ribbons and pulling curtains away from little bronze plaques?’

      ‘No. I’ve realised that things are going to have to be different.’ She forced herself to think about her royal life. A life which was a whole world away. ‘I don’t just want to be a royal clothes horse any more. I want to do more behind-the-scenes work with my charities, and I’m going to have to work out some kind of satisfactory role for myself.’

      ‘That’s the professional Sophie talking,’ he said. ‘But what about the personal one?’

      She stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Isn’t it obvious? Has what happened with Luc scarred you? Or do you want to meet someone one day and marry them, and have children of your own?’

      She shifted her position on the sofa, flinching as if he had scraped his fingernails over an open wound. She realised that nobody had ever asked her such a bluntly personal question before because nobody would ever have dared. And somehow his words got to her. They made her want the impossible and the resulting pain was so deep that she spoke straight from the heart.

      ‘Of course I want that. Most women do,’ she admitted quietly, her cheeks colouring a little, because she realised there was only one man she wanted to do that with and he was right in front of her. ‘But there are all kinds of obstacles to that happening so it’s unlikely I’ll ever get it.’

      ‘What kind of obstacles?’

      She chose her words carefully. ‘Well, meeting a man is fraught with difficulties. It would really only work if I married someone suitable and the pool of eligible princes isn’t exactly big.’ She could feel her skin colouring as she stared at the tumbling snowflakes outside the window. ‘Anyway, that’s all in the future, which starts tomorrow. Because tomorrow’s Boxing Day and while I’m heading for the Mediterranean, you’ll be hurtling down the side of some snow-covered mountain in Vermont. Lucky you. You hadn’t forgotten, had you?’

      ‘No, I hadn’t forgotten,’ he said, turning her face towards his so that his silver gaze was on a collision course with hers. ‘But right now, the thought of skiing is less appealing than taking you back to bed for the rest of the day.’

      ‘Making the most of the few hours we have left, you mean?’ she questioned brightly.

      ‘No. Not just that.’

      His voice had hardened and Sophie screwed up her nose in confusion. ‘What, then?’

      Rafe shook his head. He’d tried to blot it out. To make like it didn’t matter, but he was discovering that this new yearning deep inside him did matter. And maybe it would always matter unless he did something about it. So do it. Do it now. He cleared his throat. ‘What if I came up with an alternative solution? Something which meant you wouldn’t have to go back to your old life. A solution which might suit both our...needs?’

      She stared at him. ‘I don’t understand.’

      ‘Then hear me out.’ He paused. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking. In fact, a lot of thinking. About something Ambrose said to me at the christening.’

      He met the question in her blue eyes as the enormity of what he was about to do hit him and his heart clenched with something like pain as he realised he was on the verge of doing what he’d spent his life trying to avoid. But even the fear wasn’t enough to stop him. He remembered holding his little nephew. The warmth and milky smell of him. The curly hair which had brushed against his cheek. Most of all, he remembered the sudden rush of yearning which had flooded through him and the realisation that having a child would be the only way he could heal the scars of his past. ‘My father asked who I was going to leave my fortune to and I told him that I was planning for it to go to charity,’ he said. ‘But in that moment I realised that I wanted what I’d never had.’

      ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered.

      There was another pause before he said it. Words he knew would create a line in the sand which he could never step back from.

      ‘A family,’ he said. ‘A real family.’