A Royal Wedding(81)
Shaking his head with a contented grin, Simon waved at the few hotel staff who were clearing away the debris left by their guests, and in the fading light stepped onto the white sand and strolled down the shore, away from the brightly lit hotel. Here the beach angled more sharply into the Atlantic, and the palms clung tightly to a narrow strip of shallow soil.
With every step he took further from the hotel Simon could feel the tension ease from his shoulders. Strange. He’d used to love the idea of working in high-tech offices surrounded by the buzz of electrical equipment and busy office chatter, the constant cacophony of telephones and fax machines and printers.
No longer. This was his idea of heaven.
The sound of waves from the Atlantic Ocean rolling pebbles onto the sandy beach only a few feet away. Sand beneath his feet. The trill and chirp of birdsong and the wind in the palm trees—all to the background noise of insect wings and frog calls. Somewhere a dog was barking and seagulls called. This was the soundtrack to his life and he loved it.
Simon dropped back his head, eyes closed, and just listened. Savouring the moment and trying to clear his head of the clutter and noise of the day.
That was probably why he felt like screaming out loud when the ring-tone from a cell phone destroyed his precious moment of calm. His eyes snapped open and he stomped across the beach for a few minutes to the shoreline, to where the sound had come from, intent on giving the owner his opinion.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
Because sitting on the shore, with her back pressed against a tree, was his Katie. She was alone and crying. And she seemed to be wearing a long, silky flowery nightdress and a pink pyjama top.
All his bluster and anger vanished in the breeze.
Her eyes were closed, but as he took a step closer his foot crunched down on a piece of driftwood and her eyelashes flicked several times as she reacted in alarm. Then they slowed and blinked away the trace of tears. One escaped and ran on to her cheek. She sniffed and quickly brushed it away with the back of her forefinger.
She tried to smile up at him, but her mouth didn’t make it. Instead the fingers of both hands cupped tightly around the cell phone in her lap and she brought it up to her face in the fading light so that she could key in a few words of text.
He knelt down on the shoreline in front of her, with his back to the sun, and watched her read the message that came in reply to her text. A small smile creased her mouth before a single tear rolled down her cheek—only she had pressed her hand to her mouth so tightly that she could not wipe the tear away.
So Simon stretched out and moved the rough pad of his thumb across her soft cheek to do the job for her. Her delicate pale skin was illuminated against the ridges of his working hands. Her response was a sharp intake of breath and a wider smile—for him.
Neither of them spoke, but her eyes were locked on his now, and even when she dropped her phone onto her lap she did not look away.
What Simon saw in those eyes was something more than the look of a girl who had taken an upsetting phone call. It was a cry for help from someone who was not able or willing to say the words to ask for it.
And that look destroyed him.
He couldn’t handle this as Prince Simon. For Katie he needed to go back to that first day at university, when he had managed to build up enough courage to actually speak to the prettiest girl in his year group instead of just winking at her and playing the idiot.
‘Hi there, pretty girl. You new around here?’
And instantly, without hesitation or delay, she shot back with the same answer she had given him all those years ago—only this time in a croaky rather than jokey voice, ‘Yes, but don’t tell anyone. I’m supposed to be giving the lecture.’
And then the cool, collected, sophisticated businesswoman burst into tears.
CHAPTER SIX
IT SEEMED only right and natural for Simon to shuffle forward and take Kate into his arms, as he had done a hundred times before, and just like a familiar warm glove she slipped into the shape of his body as though she had never left. Her head fell onto his shoulder as she clung to him, her chest pressed against his, soaking in the strength and heat of his love and his support as he held her close.
As her sobs ebbed away Simon’s hand moved in gentle wide circles around her lower back, just the way she’d used to like. He felt her chest heave with emotion, then slow to a more regular movement as her breathing calmed under his caresses.
His head pressed against her silky hair, but there was something sharp and hard under his chin and in the fading light he realised that she put her hair up. With two fingers he slowly pulled out the comb and two hair grips, and dropped them onto the beach towel she was sitting on. With exquisite pleasure the fingers of his right hand smoothed back the hair back from her forehead and gently, gently teased out the strands of her hair until it was falling in a waterfall of silken tresses over the back of his hand.