Читать книгу The Scandalous Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Пенни Джордан - Страница 64

NATALIA didn’t talk to Ben for the rest of the day, but his words raced through her mind, churned in her gut. You’re afraid to commit. That’s when you’ve got to be brave. That’s when you’ve got to give this game everything you’ve got.

He’d been talking to her, she knew it. Talking about them. And maybe she should have been braver. Maybe she could have given more. It didn’t matter now. It was too late. In a few days her marriage would be announced. Natalia took a deep breath. She knew it was too little, too late, but at least she could be honest with Ben now. Even if it couldn’t change things.

She waited until the children were trickling away, the stadium empty and silent. Natalia moved around the pitch gathering all the footballs that had rolled too far away for anyone to bother with. She put them all in the net bag and then dragged it over to the folding table where Ben stood, frowning at some papers there.

‘Ben,’ she said quietly, and he tapped what she saw was a newspaper.

‘Read that.’

Funny, how easy it was after all this time, to tell him her secret. Strange how it really didn’t matter any more. Was this what she had been so afraid of? But no, it had been so much more. It had been everything, all of it, the intimacy and the need. ‘I can’t,’ she said flatly. Ben stared at her, completely nonplussed. ‘I’m dyslexic,’ Natalia elaborated, her voice still flat and strangely loud in the yawning emptiness of the stadium. ‘Severely so. I can barely read or write.’

Now Ben looked completely gobsmacked, his jaw slack, his eyes wide. It would have been amusing in any other circumstance. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he finally asked. ‘I would have made concessions—’

‘I didn’t want concessions,’ she told him. ‘I never have. And in any case, only a few people know.’ Her lips twisted in a humourless smile. ‘It’s a bit of a family secret.’

He shook his head, still flummoxed, not understanding. ‘Why?’

She shrugged, not wanting to go into it or invite pity. ‘Bad publicity,’ she finally said, and he frowned, his eyebrows rising in disbelief.

‘Your parents decided that? To keep it secret? Because of publicity? Didn’t you—didn’t you get any proper tutoring? There are a lot of ways to help dyslexia these days… ?.’

Another shrug; her throat felt tight. Not getting the proper help had been the least of it. She wasn’t going to tell him how her governess had locked her in a dark cupboard for being so slow to learn her letters, or how her teacher had mocked her repeatedly in front of her entire year. She wasn’t going to explain how her parents had wanted it kept secret, since princesses didn’t need much learning anyway, or how she always felt so slow and stupid and at least dressing up and going out had made her feel accomplished, even though she knew inside it was nothing. She couldn’t say that even now she didn’t want him to look at her differently, that she knew he’d thought she was strong and now she felt so weak.

She didn’t say any of it, but then she didn’t need to. She saw from Ben’s thoughtful, narrowed gaze that he guessed it all, that he’d put the fragmented pieces of her life together in a way even she had never been able to.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ he finally said quietly. ‘Thank you for being honest. That must have been hard.’

‘It doesn’t really matter now.’

‘Oh?’ His voice cooled, very slightly, but she could still tell. ‘Why not?’

‘I mean …’ She gestured uselessly to the space between them. ‘It doesn’t matter to us. I was afraid to tell you … things … before, because I didn’t want you to look at me differently. And I’m not used to telling anyone much of anything.’

‘I’ve gathered that.’

‘But it doesn’t matter, because there can’t be anything between us now, even if I—we—wanted there to be. I’m getting married.’ The words felt weighted, like lead, falling so heavily into the stillness. ‘It will be announced this week.’

‘Ah, yes. Your marriage.’ Ben nodded, and Natalia felt a sharp twist of unease. His voice sounded so very neutral. He nodded towards the newspaper. ‘That’s what I wanted you to look at actually, although there isn’t really anything to read.’ He gazed at her, his expression hard again, demanding something from her. ‘You’re not in the papers, Princess. Your sisters and brothers are, all over the place. But there’s no mention of you or this groom of yours.’

‘I told you, it hasn’t been announced yet.’

‘It hadn’t even been decided yet,’ Ben returned. ‘Has it? Officially?’

She swallowed, her throat still tight and aching. ‘It’s being arranged—’

‘Being. Yes. Because this is all quite recent, isn’t it, Natalia? Six weeks ago you were engaged to the Prince of Montenavarre.’

‘He called it off—’

‘Funny, how royals can just do that.’

She stared at him. ‘What are you trying to say, Ben?’

‘What’s your intended’s name?’

‘His name?’

‘Yes. His name. His first name.’

For the life of her she couldn’t think of it. ‘He’s the Sheikh of Qadirah—’

‘His name, Princess.’

She felt impotent fury rise up in her. What was he trying to do? Prove? ‘Khaled,’ she finally said, a revealing note of triumph in her voice. ‘His name is Khaled.’

‘And this Khaled,’ Ben asked, prowling close to her with a decisive, long-legged stride, ‘does he know you?’

She took an inadvertent step backwards, her hip bumping the table. ‘Know me?’

‘Have you met?’

She lifted her chin. Fine. She’d answer all his questions. She had nothing left to hide. ‘No, we haven’t met yet, but we will this week.’

‘So this Khaled doesn’t know you,’ Ben clarified. He stepped closer so she could feel the heat of him, smell the musk of his sweat and the tang of his aftershave. His knee nudged her thigh as she bumped against the table again, her back pressed against its hard edge.

‘I just told you, we haven’t met.’

‘He doesn’t, for example,’ Ben continued, his voice dropping to a raw whisper, ‘know that you go blotchy when you blush. Or that you’re afraid of the dark.’ She felt his hand, warm and strong, slide slowly, purposefully, up her bare thigh. She gasped aloud as his fingers slipped under her shorts, beneath her underwear, to her damp feminine heat. ‘He doesn’t know,’ he continued, his voice dropping so low she could barely hear him, ‘that you cry when you come.’

Natalia closed her eyes, tried to fight the intense wave of pleasure that rushed through her at the feeling of Ben’s fingers pressed so intimately against her, knowing so specifically how to touch her.

‘He doesn’t know you like I do, Natalia,’ Ben said, his fingers stroking her so persuasively. ‘He never will.’

From somewhere she found words; they came out in short, staccato bursts, each one an effort. ‘Perhaps he won’t.’

‘He won’t,’ Ben said, ‘because you don’t want him to.’

Her eyes fluttered open as she stared at him, his gaze blazing into hers. Her body hovered on that dazzling precipice and it would only take one more second, one more stroke, for her to find the release she was craving. Instinctively, unable to keep herself from doing so, she writhed under his caress, her body arching and seeking more, but he wouldn’t give it to her.

‘Ben …’

‘You don’t want him to,’ Ben whispered, his fingers stilling, ‘because it’s so much easier that way, isn’t it? So much safer.’

‘I can’t—’

‘You can. You could say no to this marriage. Look at your sister Sophia. Your brother Alessandro. Haven’t they done the same? You could do it if you wanted to, Natalia. If you wanted me.’

The truth of his words hammered into her heart, striking their decisive death blows. The shell she’d tried to rebuild over that fragile organ cracked and shattered again; Ben would never let it be otherwise. She knew he was right. She knew it with every inch of her being, every corner of her wounded heart. She hadn’t fought this marriage because it was easier. It might be breaking her heart, but it was still easier. Even so, even now, she shook her head. ‘No—’

‘Yes.’

He stroked her one last time, slowly, lingeringly, and with a gasping cry her hips lifted of their own accord as she sought the fulfillment that he refused to give her. ‘You see,’ he said softly, withdrawing his hand, ‘nobody likes to be toyed with.’

And he left her there, aching inside and out, as he headed towards the gates of the stadium.

Natalia doubled over, gasping as if she’d just run a sprint, her body protesting at how it had been used. She saw Ben walk away and somehow she found the strength to call after him. ‘Kettle?’ she shouted, her voice ringing through the empty stadium. ‘Pot?’

He slowed, then stilled. After an interminable second he turned around. ‘What,’ he demanded, ‘are you saying?’

‘You’re accusing me of not being honest enough, open enough. Not being willing to commit.’ Her voice came out in ugly, raw gasps, tearing her throat. ‘What about you, Ben? You do a nice dive in the goal box but I’m not really seeing it here, with me.’

‘I told you—’

‘You told me you care. You don’t want to, you don’t like it, but you care. Am I supposed to be doing cartwheels over that, hotshot?’

His gaze narrowed; she felt his fury. ‘Later—’

‘You told me you were willing to see if this thing between us works,’ she reminded him rawly. ‘What is that supposed to mean, Ben? Am I supposed to bare my soul, tear my family apart and risk losing everything I know for that?’ He said nothing, just gave his head a little shake, although whether in denial or confusion or something else entirely Natalia didn’t know. ‘You’re still in control,’ she told him. ‘You’re still calling the shots. And until you let go as much as I have, until you reveal yourself the way I’ve been revealed, until you fight for me like no one else has, it’s not worth it. And it never will be.’ She stood, straightening her rumpled shorts, and with her head held high, her whole body trembling, she walked past him and through the stadium gates.

Ben stood by the gates, listening to them clang shut as Natalia walked through. In the distance he heard the slam of a car door, the roar of a motor. She was gone, and yet still he remained rooted here, her words—her accusations—echoing through him. Until you let go as much as I have, until you reveal yourself the way I’ve been revealed, until you fight for me like no one else has, it’s not worth it. And it never will be.

They were hard words, angry and accusing. And true. He hadn’t given everything. He’d been pushing her to give, demanding it of her, and yet he’d kept something back. The strength of his feelings, the fears in his heart. He hadn’t been completely vulnerable, totally honest. Not like Natalia had.

No, Ben thought grimly, what he’d been was a hypocrite. And Natalia, even in her hurt and humiliation and anger, had seen it. Called him on it. The realisation filled him with a scalding rush of shame, even as he loved her for that. He loved her, full stop. And it was high time—if not too desperately, dangerously late—for him to tell her.

Natalia stared at her pale, waxen reflection in the mirror. She looked terrible. The lavender evening gown she’d chosen for tonight’s dinner matched the livid shadows under her haunted eyes. If Sheikh Khaled were present tonight, he’d most likely cry off at the sight of her.

Sheikh Khaled. She couldn’t summon the energy to feel anything about her imminent engagement. She felt drained and numb, although that blankness of emotion covered, she feared, a deep and terrible sorrow. Her body still ached from where Ben had touched her, and her mind reverberated with the truth he’d spoken.

He won’t because you don’t want him to. Because it’s so much easier that way, isn’t it? So much safer. You could say no to this marriage. You could do it if you wanted to, Natalia. If you wanted me.

With a shuddering sigh Natalia reached for some blush. Ben had been right, but she had been as well. He’d demanded everything from her, but he hadn’t given it. He hadn’t told her he loved her. He hadn’t laid bare his soul.

Yet should she have trusted that he would? Should she have been brave enough to reject this planned marriage and cast her lot—whatever it turned out to be—with Ben?

Her mind spun around and around, and came up with no answers. She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything any more. A knock sounded on the door and her maid, Ana, peeked in.

‘Your Highness? The queen wishes you to know that the guests are arriving.’

‘Thank you, Ana.’ Slowly, her muscles aching, Natalia stood. The dinner tonight was yet another state occasion, a formal dinner with several nameless dignitaries. The queen wanted Natalia visible at these kinds of functions before her intended arrived, doing her royal duty. At last.

The king and queen were receiving guests in one of the royal reception rooms, an elegant salon with frescoed walls and marble pillars. Natalia stood stiffly among the guests, a flute of untouched champagne clenched between her fingers, trying to appear attentive as she listened to two ambassadors discuss the rather depressing state of the economy in Europe. She barely took in a word. Her heart felt like lead within her, making her shoulders slump, her whole body sink. How could she even keep herself upright with such a heavy heart?

Belatedly she realised the two ambassadors had paused in their conversation, and the silence had gone on a little too long. She struggled to think of something to say, only to see that the two men weren’t even paying attention to her. They were looking towards the double doors at the front of the salon, where a figure in an elegant tuxedo stood, his presence innately commanding the attention of everyone in the room. He stood with an assured sense of purpose that drew the focus of the room, and felt like a jolt of electricity to Natalia’s body.

It was Ben.

What was he doing here? He surely hadn’t been invited. Her parents had intended on a small gathering, a dozen dignitaries, no more. Faces froze and shoulders drew up haughtily as Ben came into the room. Clearly she wasn’t the only one who knew he wasn’t on the guest list.

What was he doing here?

His gaze surveyed the room and then arrowed in on her. Natalia felt her heart freeze in her chest, her fingers nerveless around her flute of champagne. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He started walking towards her, stopping about a metre away.

‘What—’ she said faintly, and stopped, heart and mind spinning.

‘I’ve realised I have a few things to say to you,’ Ben said, his voice low and melodious, flowing over her. ‘Things I should have said, and want to say now.’

‘What things?’ Natalia whispered.

Ben glanced around at the small crowd of foreign officials, half whom were studiously ignoring them, the other half watching in riveted interest. ‘Do you want me to say them here?’ he asked. ‘I will.’

Natalia didn’t know whether that was a threat or a promise. She didn’t know what things Ben intended on saying. ‘I … I don’t know.’

‘I could say them somewhere more private,’ Ben suggested, a tiny thread of humour in his voice. ‘If you’ll come with me.’

‘Where?’

He gestured to the doors. ‘Out.’

Natalia stared at him, saw the sincerity and something else blazing in his eyes. Something deeper. Could she walk out of this, walk right out on her parents and the palazzo, and go with Ben she didn’t even know where?

Her heart thumped in her chest and she felt as dizzy as if she’d drunk a dozen glasses of champagne.

‘Natalia?’ Ben asked softly, and she heard the vulnerability in his voice that she’d felt so long in herself.

‘Yes,’ she said, her voice a thread, a wisp of sound. ‘Yes, I’ll come with you.’

She set her champagne on a tray and walked out of the room, felt the gaze of a dozen people, of her parents, hard on her back. At the door her mother stopped her, one hand clutching her wrist.

‘Natalia,’ she warned. ‘Where on earth do you think you’re going?’

Ben stepped between her and her mother. ‘She’s with me,’ he said, his voice as polite as ever, but very, very firm. Her mother drew back, startled, and Ben led her out of the room.

Natalia let out an uncertain, trembling laugh as they stepped out of the palazzo and the night enveloped them, as soft as a lover’s caress. ‘So where are we going?’ she asked.

‘I could tell you, but then it wouldn’t be a surprise.’

‘True.’ She hesitated and Ben turned to her, his hand outstretched.

‘Do you want a surprise?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I’m not sure I can take any surprises right now.’

‘I want to take you up in my plane,’ Ben said, and Natalia did not reply. She was thinking of the last time they’d been in that tiny plane, how Ben had pushed her away from him. The rejection still hurt, still made her doubt. ‘Please,’ he said, and silently she nodded.

They didn’t speak as they drove through the darkness to the airfield. Ben’s plane waited for them in a corner of the tarmac, looking as tiny and intimate as ever. Natalia swallowed nervously as she climbed into the plane, grabbing a handful of her long, swishy evening gown as she picked her way across the cockpit in her high heels. Ben steadied her with one hand before climbing in himself.

‘This all feels so very familiar,’ she said as she stared out the window. She heard a sharp edge to her voice, an edge she could not suppress.

‘Familiar,’ Ben agreed, ‘but different too. I hope.’ He started the plane and Natalia leaned her head back against the seat as they took off into the sky, leaving the lights of Santina twinkling far below.

They didn’t speak for a long moment and Natalia felt a tension—and a tenuous hope—uncoil and tautly stretch inside her. ‘So,’ she finally said, breaking that endless silence. ‘These things.’

‘Yes.’ Ben cleared his throat, and with a jolt Natalia realised he was nervous. ‘I never told you why I’ve been so afraid of commitment.’

‘OK.’

‘My father cheated on my mother. You knew that. I knew that, even when I was small, and it made me so angry. I loved my dad. He was funny and charming and just … fun, really. Always laughing. When I realised he was weak and full of flaws too, I felt like I could almost hate him.’ Natalia said nothing and Ben sighed. ‘That’s all rather expected, I know. Nothing new there. But what I haven’t told you—didn’t want to tell you—is that I also resented my mother, for taking him back. Over and over again, even though she knew. She knew about all his flings and affairs, and she just pretended like she didn’t. It infuriated me. Still does, at least in part, if I’m going to be completely truthful. I wanted her to be strong. And I never wanted to be like her.’

‘So,’ Natalia said slowly, ‘you avoided commitment because you were afraid of being weak, like her?’

‘Yes, although I see now it takes a certain kind of strength to do what she has done. But as for you and me …’ He let out a long, slow breath. ‘From the moment I met you I felt like I was losing control. Wanting you. Wanting to know you, and for you to know me. And yet I avoided telling you anything really important about myself because I didn’t want to feel weak. I tried to keep you the way I’d thought you were because I didn’t want to get close. I didn’t want to want you.’

Natalia gave him the ghost of a smile. ‘Do you know how many times you’ve said that?’

‘But the you I didn’t want isn’t the real you, Natalia.’

‘Don’t think too highly of me,’ Natalia said quietly. Even now she couldn’t keep from warning him off, just a bit. ‘I’ve done a lot of things. Made a lot of mistakes.’

‘Haven’t we all? I certainly have. But I’ve seen you over the past few weeks. I’ve seen how you reach out to the kids on the pitch, how you’re willing to be on their level. You haven’t stood on being a princess.’

‘Sometimes I don’t want to be a princess.’

‘And when I think how you worked in the office, without telling anyone about your dyslexia—’

‘Don’t,’ she said, her voice catching. ‘Don’t pity me.’

Ben shook his head in vigorous denial. ‘I admire you, Natalia. I always thought you were strong, but I had no idea. I still don’t. You’re amazing.’

The heartfelt sincerity in his tone humbled her; she couldn’t doubt it. ‘You’re pretty amazing yourself,’ she finally managed, her voice a bit choked, and he slid her a sideways smile.

‘I’m not done yet.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ He took a deep breath. ‘What I really want to say is I love you. I love the woman you’ve been and the woman you’ve become. I love your strength and humour and grace, and how you never let me get away with anything. I love you, Natalia.’

She was going to cry. And she was wearing mascara. Laughing a little, Natalia dashed at her wet cheeks. ‘I love you too,’ she said quietly, and with comical exaggeration Ben cupped his ear.

‘Sorry, what was that?’

She laughed and said it loudly. Shouted it. ‘I love you!’

They were both silent, accepting and even reveling in the moment. Everything had been exposed; everything had been brought to the light. And it was good.

‘I’m sorry for what I put you through,’ Ben finally said quietly. ‘I was so blind, in so many ways.’

‘And I was afraid.’

‘And now?’

She let out a shaky laugh. ‘I’m not afraid. But I have no idea what’s going to happen when I return to the palazzo. What my parents will say. Do.’

‘You won’t be alone,’ Ben told her. ‘I’ll be by your side every second.’

She released a shuddering breath. ‘I’m certainly glad for that.’

Natalia saw lights twinkling below them, and as Ben started to descend she wondered what their destination was. What would happen now.

She was not prepared for the sudden glare of lights as Ben maneuvered the Seabird towards the ground. She peered out the window and saw a bridge lit by lamplight and near-swarming with people.

‘Where are we?’ she asked. ‘Why are they so many people?’

‘The Ponte Milvio Bridge in Rome.’

‘You’re landing a plane on the bridge?’ The Ponte Milvio was over two thousand years old, in the centre of Rome, and local legend told that any couple who got engaged on the bridge would be assured lifelong health and happiness.

‘The Seabird lands like a helicopter,’ Ben explained. ‘And I cleared it with the local authorities beforehand.’

Natalia peered out of the window. She could see the Tiber River awash with lights from the city, the ancient bridge looming nearer and crowded with people.

‘Who are all those people?’ she asked.

‘Ah. Well.’ Ben shot her a rather rueful grin. ‘They’re reporters.’

‘Paparazzi?’

‘There are a few legitimate journalists in there as well.’

Natalia shook her head, not understanding. ‘Why would they all be on the bridge? How on earth could they know we’d be here?’ She hadn’t even known herself.

‘They might,’ Ben said, ‘have received a tipoff.’

Natalia stared at him blankly. She didn’t understand why Ben was so insouciant about such a huge thing when a few short weeks ago the possibility of just one reporter had had him pushing her away from him as quickly as he could. Comprehension came like a thunderclap. ‘You rang them? You tipped them off?’

‘I might have done.’

‘Why?’

‘I want the whole world to know how I feel about you, Natalia. That I love you.’

She let out a choked laugh, hardly able to believe this was real. ‘And if I didn’t want any reporters?’ she couldn’t help but ask, and he looked a little abashed.

‘I’m afraid, in this one instance, you have no choice. But in future I’ll guard our privacy with extreme care, I promise.’

In future. The words caused a bubble of happiness to rise inside of her, shiny and translucent. ‘So just what are you going to tell these reporters?’

‘First things first.’ He reached for her and, surprised, Natalia came to him. His arms enfolded her and his lips found hers. Outside, the reporters were shouting in agitation and excitement, desperate to get a decent snap. Natalia pulled away.

‘We are going to be on the front page of every paper from here to New York.’

‘I don’t mind.’

She stared at him. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘In this one instance anyway. I want to show you I mean what I say. I love you and I’m happy for the whole world to know it.’

‘I love you too,’ Natalia said softly.

‘And then there’s this.’ Ben fished in his pocket and produced a small box of black velvet. ‘Natalia Santina, princess of my heart, will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?’

Natalia blinked back tears as she gazed at the antique diamond surrounded by a circle of luminescent pearls. ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’

He slid the gorgeous ring on her finger and then nodded towards the still-shouting paparazzi outside. ‘Then perhaps we should go and make an announcement before I whisk you away again. I can’t wait to tell the world about my wife-to-be.’

Smiling, tears of joy still sparkling in her eyes, Natalia took his hand as she followed him out of the plane.