‘Are you saying you don’t love Matty?’

‘Of…of course…’

‘Of course you do,’ he agreed softly. ‘Love isn’t something you can turn on and off again at will.’

‘And you know this how?’

He winced. A shadow of pain crossed his face and she thought, I know nothing about him. Nothing. A toy-maker from Manhattan. The Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel.

Rafael.

‘You need to come,’ he said softly but she was replaying the conversation over in her head, trying to sort it out. There was something not right.

You won’t be alone. My mother will be there.

‘Will you be there?’ she asked. She’d hit a nerve. A muscle moved at the side of his mouth. Infinitesimal-but there was something.

‘I’ll be there when I need to be.’

‘You’ll be there when you need to be.’ She almost gasped. ‘Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel…a country that’s desperate for reorganization…There when you need to be?’

‘Yes.’

‘So…once a week? A week a year?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Then I’m not going,’ she said flatly, suddenly sure that she was right. ‘The minute I step into the goldfish bowl there’ll be no going back. I know how hard it was to shake the press off last time. I had to change my name, change my country, change my whole way of life. I can’t do it twice. And you…You’ll be there when you can. What sort of commitment is that?’

‘Do you want me to be there?’

‘No. No!’ She should pull away from his hands but she didn’t. What she was trying to say was too important. She almost needed personal contact to get it through.

‘You’re asking me to trust,’ she said softly, thinking it as she spoke. ‘You’re asking me to take my place in a role I hate. Yet you want to be a part-time prince. There’s no such thing.’

‘Kelly…’

‘Your toy workshops could be relocated to Alp de Ciel, couldn’t they?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘And that way the pressure’s off Matty,’ she said, suddenly more certain of her ground. ‘You’re Prince Regent. You’ll be swanning round the country doing Prince Regent things. Going to movie premières with gorgeous women in tow.’