‘Married you.’

It was said with such certainty that she blinked. But then she smiled drearily and shook her head.

‘No. That’s air-dreaming. We talked about it-don’t you remember? How we loved each other and wanted to be together for always. How you’d take me to Aristo and I’d be a princess. How my parents would cope without me and your father would forgive you eventually. Only there was already a princess, Andreas. Christina was waiting in the wings, and your marriage was meant to help to strengthen international ties. You talked about defying your father but you never once said you could break your engagement to Christina.’

‘We were promised as children,’ he said and he knew it sounded weak. It had sounded weak then, too. Holly hadn’t understood how such marriages worked. How Christina, five years older than he, had been raised from childhood to see herself as his wife. Christina would never have looked at another man. To tell Christina-aged twenty-five-that he no longer intended to marry her, would have been personally devastating to her, as well as politically disastrous.

He had a duty and he’d known it. Holly had known it, too.

She shivered and her towel dropped. She bent to retrieve it but he was before her, wrapping it round her shoulders, ignoring her involuntary protest.

‘I’m getting sunburned,’ she said, flinching at the feel of his hands on his shoulders, stepping away from him, her voice flat and dull. ‘I need to go back to the house. If that’s all you want to say to me…well, you’ve said it. Can you arrange transport back to Australia immediately?’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’ She hauled away from him, turning toward the path. She was turning her back on him? She shouldn’t do that, he thought. To turn your back on royalty…