The Prince She Never Forgot

And he was desperate.

In his head this had all been so easy. Find someone you would trust with your daughter. Find Annabelle the expert help she needs.

It had even seemed sensible to the palace advisors. If they’d questioned his choice of therapist at first, once they’d researched Ruby’s qualifications and seen her recent publications all queries had vanished.

But now he was here in the flesh it was so much harder. Now he could see her. Now he could hear her. Now he could smell her. Her light floral scent was drifting around him.

He’d had no idea of the effect seeing Ruby again would have on him. Ten years... Ten years lost. Ten years of what might have been.

‘Alex?’

The word jolted him and he smiled. No one called him Alex any more. No one had ever really called him just Alex.

He straightened up and handed her the final cards.

‘I’m here because I need your help, Ruby.’

* * *

Any minute now a bunch of unicorns would come cantering along the hospital corridor, with exploding rainbows all around them.

She’d dreamt about Alex before. But never like this. Never in her workplace. All those dreams had been set back in Paris. Or in the Euronian palace that she’d looked at online.

But Alex standing in front of her at work, asking for her help...? She was obviously losing her mind.

He reached out and touched her bare arm. Short sleeves were essential in a hospital environment, to stop the spread of infection. This time she didn’t pull away. This time she let the feel of the pads of his fingers spread warmth through her chilled arm.

He was really here.

This wasn’t a strange hallucination due to overwork or lack of chocolate.

Ten years she’d waited to talk to this man again. Ten years waiting to ask him what the hell had happened back in Paris and why he’d never contacted her.

Alex—her Alex. Her prince was finally standing right in front of her.

He was every bit as handsome as she remembered. Better, even.

Tanned skin, dark hair and bright blue eyes. She’d sometimes wondered if she’d imagined how blue they were. But she hadn’t. If anything she’d underestimated their effects. But, then again, she’d never seen Alex in daylight.

She wasn’t imagining any of this. All six foot four of him was standing right in front of her.

Her eyes lowered to where his hand was touching her. Tiny electric pulses were shooting up her arm. She didn’t know whether to cry or be sick.

Every part of her imagination had just turned into reality.

In a way, it was a relief. She had met Alex. He did remember her. So why was that making her so darn angry right now?

He pulled his hand back from her arm and she lifted her head, pulling her shoulders back. He’d taken his hand away. And it had left her feeling bereft. Now she was feeling angry with herself. She didn’t have a sensible thought in her head right now.

She swallowed and looked him in the eye. ‘How can I help you, Alex?’ The words were automatic. It was all she could manage right now.

He looked around. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

She nodded and gestured with her arm for him to walk down the corridor, stopped at a door, pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the door.

Her office. It even had her name on the door: ‘Ruby Wetherspoon, Head of Speech and Language’. She’d done well. Most days she was proud. Today she had no idea how she felt.

The office was small, but neat and tidy. She pointed to a chair and invited him to sit. It was almost a relief to sit at the other side of the desk and have the heavy wooden structure between them.

‘How exactly do you think I can be of assistance to you, Alex?’

Her words were formal, her professional façade slipping back into place. The juggling of the cards on the table-top was the only sign of her nerves. She hoped he wouldn’t notice.

‘It’s not me. It’s my daughter Annabelle. She’s three years old now and she isn’t speaking.’

Ruby nodded automatically. His daughter. Of course. Why else would be come to her?

She had this sort of conversation every day. This one wouldn’t be much different.

‘Three years old is still an acceptable age for speech development. All children develop at a different rate. Some children have a delay in their speech and language development. Have you had her hearing checked?’

He sighed. She was going back to basics—which was the correct thing for a health professional. But she could tell from his expression he’d heard it all before.

‘I’ve had ten different professional opinions on Annabelle. The latest of which is selective mutism. Her hearing is fine. Her comprehension is fine. She doesn’t seem to want to speak.’

She could feel herself bristle. Ten assessments on a child? Talk about overkill. Why not just let her develop at her own pace? She tried to be pragmatic.

‘How does she communicate with those around her?’

‘She signs.’

Ruby was surprised. ‘Proper signing?’

He nodded. ‘We have a member of staff who’s deaf. She’s been able to sign since she was young.’

It wasn’t particularly unusual in children who were deaf, or in children who had deaf siblings. But it was unusual in a child who could apparently hear and speak.

She lifted her hands. ‘Then maybe she thinks that’s normal?’

He shook his head.

It was time to ask some more questions.

‘Has Annabelle ever spoken? Ever said a few words?’

‘Only on a few select occasions.’

Strange... Ruby couldn’t help but be a little curious. Selective mutism was certainly unusual but she’d dealt with a few cases before. She’d even published some professional papers on it.

Ruby lowered her voice. ‘Does she speak to you, Alex?’

The question was straight to the heart of the matter. It was a natural question for any health professional, but she saw him recoil. She’d seen this before. He felt this was his fault. She’d dealt with lots of parents who felt guilty about whatever issue their child had. Most of the time it was just hard luck. Genetics. A developmental delay. A head injury or similar accident.

She asked the most practical question. ‘Does Annabelle have anything significant in her medical history?’

‘No. Nothing.’

They sat in silence for a few seconds. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take it a second longer. Her professional façade was slipping. After all this time—just to turn up like this and expect her to help him—just because he asked? Did she have mug stamped across her forehead?

She couldn’t even acknowledge the flutters in her stomach. She couldn’t even explain her feeling when she’d heard his voice and turned to see him again after all this time. It had been like a sucker punch.

It was time to stop being so polite.

Ruby leaned back in her chair. ‘I don’t get it, Alex. After all this time, why come to me? Why come here? You must have plenty of people in Euronia willing to help with your daughter.’

His brow was lined with deep furrows that marred his handsome face. It made her feel self-conscious. She only had the lightest dusting of make-up on, to emphasise her brown eyes and pink lips. How much had she changed in the last ten years? Would he be disappointed by what he saw?

Why was he here? Why, after all this time, had he been convinced that this was the right thing to do?

‘I want to feel as if I’ve tried everything possible for Annabelle. I haven’t had faith in any of the people who have seen her and assessed her. And, whilst the latest diagnosis seems reasonable, I’m not happy at the treatment plan for Annabelle.’

Maybe that’s because you should have left her alone to be a normal toddler. Ruby was still imagining what ten assessments had done to that poor child. But she couldn’t say those words out loud.

It was difficult. This was Alex, her mysterious Frenchman—who wasn’t a Frenchman after all. She’d never thought she’d come into contact with him for work. She never thought she’d come into contact with him again.

‘What is the treatment plan for Annabelle?’

He pushed a folder he’d been carrying across the desk towards her. She opened it and scanned it quickly. Whilst the assessment might have been thorough, she didn’t agree at all with what was in the plan, or with the conclusions it had already surmised.

Ever the professional, she raised her head and selected her words carefully. ‘Every professional will have a different idea of the correct plan for your daughter. It’s not really my place to disagree.’

He pointed to the file. ‘What would you do?’

She opened her mouth automatically to speak, then closed it again. ‘What does it matter?’

‘Because I’d like you to come to Euronia and assess Annabelle for yourself. I’d like you to be the one to plan her care and treat her.’

He might as well have dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over her head. She was stunned. ‘That’s impossible.’

‘No. It’s not. I know you have a job here, and patients, but I’ve offered your Director of Services a generous annual bequest if you’ll agree to come and work for me—for Annabelle,’ he added quickly.

‘What?’ She stood up, the chair behind her flying backwards. ‘You’ve done what?’

She couldn’t believe her ears. The tiny glimmer of hope that he’d searched her out for any reason other than his daughter died in an instant. He might be a prince in another country, but he didn’t seem much like a prince to her now.

‘And you did that without speaking to me first?’ She walked around the desk, reached down, and grabbed hold of his jacket, pulling him to his feet. ‘How dare you, Alex? How dare you? Ten years later you think you can just walk into my life and buy me?’

Anger and the untold resentment that had festered for ten years came spilling out. This wasn’t her. She never acted like this. But she just couldn’t help it.

She shook her head fiercely, blazing with fury. ‘You can’t buy me, Alex. I’m not for sale.’ She held out one hand. ‘I have a job. Responsibilities. I have staff to take care of—patients to take care of.’

She stared at her other hand, still gripping tightly to the lapel of his jacket. What on earth was she doing? Her knuckles were white and she quickly loosened her grip and took a step backwards. Her heart was thudding in her chest. Her head was thumping.

‘And you could do it better if you had two more permanent members of staff.’ He cut her off before she had more time to think about it.

Her mouth fell open. ‘What?’

‘That’s what I promised your director. Permanent funding for two more members of staff if they’ll release you to work with Annabelle. Plus filling your post while you’re gone.’

Her brain was whizzing. Two more members of staff could make a world of difference to this place. Time. It would give her staff time. The one thing she couldn’t conjure up for them.

She hated rushing assessments. She hated not having enough time to allocate to the children who needed her. She hated having to turn children away because there just wasn’t enough space for any more patients. Two more members of staff was a luxury she couldn’t afford to ignore.

‘Why on earth would you do this?’

He sat back down in his seat and put his head in his hands.

She’d read about everything that had happened to him in the last ten years. Now here he was, right in front of her, and she actually felt sorry for him.

She started shaking her head. ‘It feels like blackmail, Alex. I haven’t seen you in ten years. Ten years! Not a word from you—nothing. And now this.’ She started pacing around the small office. ‘I know what happened to your father. The whole world knows. But you never contacted me. You never said anything. I was left sitting in that hotel for two days, wondering if I’d imagined everything. Thank goodness Polly dragged me out and about.’

His head shot up. ‘I did contact you. I sent a message.’

‘I never got any message!’ She was still angry.

‘But I sent one. My head of security—he took it to the hotel. Gave it to the reception clerk. You must have got it.’

She shook her head and lowered her voice. ‘There was no message, Alex. None. I waited and waited.’

She hated the way the words made her feel. She hated the way she wanted to reach out and grab them. Grab the fact that Alex had tried to reach her—no matter what else had happened in his life. But it was the expression on his face that was worse. He looked hurt. He looked injured.

But, most importantly, he looked tired.

She knelt down in front of him. His father had been sick for ten years. He had a country to run. His wife had died from cancer—she was assuming he’d nursed her through that—and he had a daughter whom he clearly loved but needed help with.

She reached up and touched his hand. Her skin coming into contact with his almost made her smile. Her pale skin against his tanned skin. A world of difference.

The sensation she felt touching his skin was still there. Still electrifying. But she had to put a reality check on things.

She spoke quietly. ‘Why now, Alex? Why me?’

It was only a few words but they meant so much more than she was actually saying. He knew that. He must.

He reached up and touched her cheek. Zing.

‘Because there is no one else. No one else I could trust with the thing that is most precious to me.’

She blinked, trying to stop the tears forming in her eyes.

Nothing about wanting to see her again. Nothing about wanting to know how she was.

But he had just told her he trusted her with the thing most precious in the world to him. His daughter.

She didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.

He pulled a picture from his wallet. A sad-looking blonde-haired toddler. She was beautiful. Just like her mother had been. But she wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t playing. She didn’t look happy.

‘Oh, Alex...’ she breathed.

‘Will you come?’ His voice sounded as if it was breaking.

She stood up, her mind whirling. ‘I’ll need to think about it. You’ll need to give me some time.’

How ironic. Ten years later she was asking him for time.

How on earth could she not do this? The picture of the little girl had broken her heart. She had no idea if she could help or not—but she could try.

Outside her office she could see figures rushing past. The hospital was always busy—never enough time to do everything. It was wearing her down. She loved her job, but the truth was she’d spent the last few months searching the vacancy bulletins.

One thing. If she did this one thing she could help this department and these kids for ever. Was it really such a hard task?

A chair scraped along the floor behind her. Alex had stood up, a resigned look on his face. He nodded at the desk, ‘I’ll leave those things for you to look at. My contact details are there. Let me know when you make up your mind.’

He thought she was going to say no. And right now that was the way she was leaning. What would she do with her flat—her cat—if she left to go abroad?

The file and the photo of Annabelle sat on her desk. He had his hand on the door handle.

‘Alex? How did you know where I was?’

It had bothered her since he’d first arrived.

His bright blue eyes fixed on hers. It was the first time she’d seen anything resembling the eyes she’d looked into ten years ago.

‘I’ve always known where you were, Ruby,’ he said quietly as he opened the door and walked down the corridor.

CHAPTER TWO

THE PLANE JOURNEY was smooth. The private jet immaculate. Any other person might have taken the opportunity to relax, but Ruby’s stomach had been jittery ever since they’d left London.

She stared out of the window as the plane came into land. Her first sight of Euronia. A stunning, winding coastline overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. A population of two hundred thousand people over an area of only seventy kilometres. The rich and famous flocked here because of the tax benefits. The press loved Euronia because it seemed to host every celebrity wedding that had ever existed.

The plane landed quickly and glided to a halt on the Tarmac. She hadn’t spoken to Alex since she’d seen him at the hospital. The number he’d given her had been for his secretary—a chirpy little man who’d been delighted when she’d said she would come to Euronia and had spoken with great fondness about Annabelle. He’d arranged everything. Even advising on what kind of clothing to bring and asking her for her dress and shoe size so he could provide some extra items if required.

The pilot and the stewardess had both been polite but formal. She wondered if they were used to fading into the background.

A black limousine was waiting for her.

‘Welcome to Euronia, Ms Wetherspoon. It will only take ten minutes to reach the palace. Please make yourself comfortable and help yourself to refreshments.’

Another man in black. She hid her smile. Any minute now she would hear the theme tune to that movie in her head. It was the same garb that the men in Paris had been wearing all those years ago. Those men had made her uncomfortable. This man was a little different. His eyes were scanning the horizon constantly. Was he a chauffeur or security?

She settled into the comfortable leather seats. The ‘refreshments’ in front of her were wine, champagne and beer. It was ten-thirty in the morning. What she’d actually like was a cup of tea.

She watched the scenery speed past.

Polly’s words echoed in her ears. ‘This isn’t a movie. He’s using you, Ruby. Don’t get any ideas about this at all.’

Her disdain had been apparent as soon as she’d heard what had happened. Polly had long since abandoned any romantic notions of her prince. She’d been the one to see exactly how devastated Ruby had been. But it was all right for Polly. She’d got her happy-ever-after—a doting husband and a baby in her arms.

‘How long will you be gone?’ she’d asked Ruby moodily.

‘I have no idea.’ And she really didn’t. She couldn’t plan anything until she’d assessed Annabelle.

The car swept through some regal gates, past armed guards and down a long pale yellow sweeping drive. The view over the Mediterranean was breathtaking.

No turning back. She was here now. She tugged at her pale green dress. It was a little more formal than what she normally wore, but at least it didn’t crumple.

The palace came into view. Nicknamed the Pink Palace, the Palace Principale was built from pink and red sandstone. She’d seen pictures on the internet, but seeing it in reality was entirely different.

Ruby took a deep breath. There must be a million little girls’ birthday cakes all over the world based on this palace. Four square turrets and it seemed like hundreds of slim windows looked down on her. The palace doors were enormous, with wide sweeping steps leading up to them.

Intimidating. Definitely intimidating.

She would be lying if she claimed she’d never thought about this. Of course she had. Every girl had.

But every girl hadn’t kissed a prince.

Oh, boy. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. This was harder than she’d thought.

Actually being here in Euronia was much harder than she’d imagined it to be.

In her head this was a job. This was professional. So why was her heart fluttering so much? And why did she want to run back along that yellow driveway?

A man was standing at the top of the steps to greet her. It wasn’t Alex. Of course it wasn’t Alex. He hadn’t even spoken to her on the phone.

She climbed the steps and looked out over the Mediterranean Sea. Lots of little white boats bobbed up and down on the beautiful blue water. Little boats? They probably cost more than she would earn in her lifetime. This was a whole other world.

But she was here to do a job, not to admire the scenery—no matter how beautiful it was.

The sooner she got started the better.

* * *

He watched her step from the car. She was picture-perfect. Her elegant legs were the first hint of what was to come as her slim figure emerged in a pale green dress that fluttered around her in the strong sea winds. It was an occupational hazard of having a palace on the sea.

His mother had always joked that one day a press photographer would get a picture of something they shouldn’t. She’d been born before her time, and had been taken much too soon. She would have known exactly what to do with Annabelle.

He watched as Rufus, his private secretary, bustled around about Ruby. He would probably give her a headache in the first five minutes, but his heart was in the right place.

Rufus had organised everything once he’d known Ruby would be coming. From her favourite foods and TV shows to her clothes—everything would be taken care of. The only thing he’d asked for some input with was where to put her in the palace.

Alex hadn’t been quite sure, but had finally decided she should be in the West Wing, overlooking the sea. The rooms there had always been his mother’s favourites.

It only took a few moments before his phone rang.

‘Your Majesty? I’m afraid there’s a problem with our guest. Her accommodation is unsuitable. She’s requesting rooms next to Princess Annabelle.’ Rufus was so overwrought he was practically squeaking.

‘Take her to the library. I’ll be along directly.’

Five minutes. That was all it had taken for Ruby to cause turmoil in his life. He just hoped this wasn’t a decision he’d live to regret.

He strode down the stairs and along the corridor towards the library. Rufus was flapping around the doorway. He wasn’t used to people not going along with his plans.

‘Where is she?’ Alex looked around the empty room.

‘She went upstairs to Princess Annabelle’s quarters. She knows Annabelle isn’t there but she said she wanted to make herself familiar with the place.’

Rufus cringed. The whole thing was probably giving him palpitations. It didn’t take much these days.

Alex waved his hand. ‘Leave this to me.’

He didn’t need Rufus getting over-excited. What on earth was Ruby doing? She’d barely put her feet across the front door.

He bit his lip as he climbed the stairs at a rapid pace. She wasn’t used to things like this. Maybe he should try and exercise a little patience. Ruby wasn’t used to royal palaces and protocols. She was here because he’d asked her to be. She might have a job to do, but she was also his guest.

He reached Annabelle’s rooms quickly. The door was open wide, giving a clear view of the palace gardens and the sea. Ruby was sitting on one of the window seats, but she wasn’t admiring the view. One of Annabelle’s stuffed toys was in her hands. It was a koala left by the Australian ambassador after his last visit. Ruby was looking around the room carefully.

He stood behind her, looking at her outline, seeing every curve of her body. It sent a rush of blood around his own body.

He hadn’t quite imagined how this would feel. Ruby, sitting in his palace, with the backdrop he’d looked at every day for years behind her. It almost seemed unreal.

‘Ruby, what are you doing in here?’

She sighed and turned to face him. The first thing that struck him was her big brown eyes. So dark, so deep, so inviting... He really needed to get hold of himself.

‘There are rooms right next door to Annabelle’s. It would be best if I stayed there.’

‘Why?’ The rooms he’d chosen for her in the West Wing were brighter, more spacious. The ones next to Annabelle were smaller, usually reserved for staff. ‘The other rooms are nicer. They have more space.’

She waved her hand. She didn’t look happy. Was she already regretting coming here?