Leaving behind…Adam Andreas Cavanagh. He had no doubt that the reporter’s suspicions were right. Holly had been a virgin when he’d met her. It had to be…

But if it was, it was a disaster.

‘I must have left an impression, then,’ he’d joked to the reporter. ‘For Holly to give her son one of my names. Maybe she hasn’t met many royal princes. You’d think the baby’s father might have been a bit resentful.’

It had been a remark meant to avert suspicion, but he wasn’t sure whether the reporter had swallowed it. With the current scandals rocking the royal family, anything more could cause descent into chaos. The press knew it and was actively looking for trouble.

Holly was trouble. Holly screaming her head off because he’d had her brought here. Did she realize she might have the power to bring down the throne?

He walked round the final sand-hill before the beach Sophia had said she was on, and he stopped dead.

She was lying not ten yards away. She was wearing the bottom of a tiny, crimson bikini. Nothing else. She was lying face down but she was propped up on her elbows, reading, and he could see the generous curve of her lovely breasts. Her fair curls were tangled down her shoulders. She’d been swimming and her hair was still damp. She looked…free, he thought suddenly; free in a way he could never be. And quite extraordinarily beautiful.

The knot of anger and tension that had been clenched inside him for weeks dissolved, just like that. It was replaced by a sensation so strong he had to fight to stand in the one spot. She hadn’t noticed his approach. He could just walk forward and lie down beside her, let his body touch hers, take her in his arms as he’d taken her all those years ago.

Right. He was here to avert calamitous gossip-not make more.