Page 45 of Awakened On Her Royal Wedding Night
“Shall we leave?” he asked.
“Only if you want to. I’m fine,” she said with another wan smile.
Duty had him scanning the room for people he had yet to greet. It was the last thing he wanted to do or put her through. He was already wondering how Francois would choose to retaliate for this, but Felipe’s desire to take her home only underscored how much she was impacting his ability to put his duty to the crown ahead of personal interests.
“Let me introduce you to the prime minister.” He nodded at a hovering assistant who hurried to make it happen.
After a whirlwind of appearances, they finally returned to Nazarine and the blissful serenity of Sentinella.
Home, Claudine thought, as Felipe rolled his naked body away from hers.
They had enjoyed a lazy morning of lengthy lovemaking, but now he said, “I have meetings with my father all afternoon. You’re welcome to come to the palace with me, but you don’t have to.”
“Honestly, if I could browse the shops on Stella Vista without creating a scene, I would.” She mourned the simple freedoms of her old life sometimes. “Your parents don’t expect me, do they?”
“No, this is purely business with my father.”
“I’ll stay here, then.”
“And keep my bed warm?”
“And call my mother.” Ann-Marie’s most recent messages had been upbeat. The new clinic was trying some advanced therapies that seemed to have halted this latest spiral, and some of her symptoms seemed to be less severe. “Maybe I’ll check in with Astrid, too.”
Claudine had sent her a brief note, telling her she would also like to be friends and had promised to connect properly as soon as she had a moment.
Felipe kissed her, then rose to shower. He was gone within thirty minutes, swearing that the sooner he left the sooner he’d be back.
He was back a lot sooner than Claudine expected. She had only had time to shower and eat a late breakfast. She was sitting by the fountain inside the maze, contemplating whether to make a public statement about Francois, when she heard the helicopter.
Felipe appeared before she had walked more than halfway out.
“What’s wrong?” she asked across the zigzag of boxwood.
“He found your father,” Felipe said grimly.
Francois hadn’t released the story himself, of course. He had used one of his scandal sheet contacts to blast across the headlines that the new Princess of Nazarine had been conceived by a man who had died of an illicit drug overdose years ago.
Felipe didn’t care about such details himself, no matter how sordid the reporters tried to make it sound, but he was livid that Claudine was upset by it—not that she was concerned for herself.
“His poor family. Does he have any? I should call my mother. How is the palace taking this?”
The palace, his own pathetic family, were expressing “concern” and “looking into it.” They did absolutely nothing to punish Francois for violating Claudine’s privacy. Felipe’s meeting with his father had been a short, snarling few words demanding he put his brother in his place.
“You’re turning a blind eye to his sullying the royal family like this? Again?”
“She’s not family, is she? And she fired her own shots across his bow by badmouthing him to Astrid.”
“She told thetruth,” Felipe had roared before climbing straight back into his helicopter to come here and tell Claudine.
She finished up her conversation with her mother. They signed off with their standard, “Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
That always gave him a strange sensation when he heard that. Envy? He shook it off.
“How is she?” he asked grimly.
“Concerned about how I was taking it,” Claudine said, mouth quivering with emotion.
