Falling for the Secret Millionaire (16 page)

Still he said nothing.

‘I love you, Gabriel,' she said quietly. ‘And I don't know what to do about it. I can't turn it into a balance sheet or a schedule or a timetable. It's just there. All the time. I want to be with you. I know you've dated women who just saw you in terms of your bank account, but that's not how I see you. I don't need a huge rock on my finger or a mansion or a flashy car. I just want you. Gabriel Hunter, the man who loves the sea and the stars and very bad puns, who makes my heart beat faster every time he smiles, and who makes even a rough day better because he's
there
.'

‘That's what you
really
want?' he asked.

She nodded. ‘You told me to think about it, to talk it over with Mum and Jessie, and I have. You're what I want, Gabriel. You and only you. I trust you. And I see you for who you are—the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. If you'll have me. And you're right—it would be pretty cool if the first wedding at the Electric Palace and the Spice House was ours.'

He removed his sunglasses so she could actually see his eyes properly. ‘Are you suggesting marriage?'

‘Strictly speaking, you suggested it first,' she said. ‘But a merger sounds good.'

‘Hunter Hotels is my dad's business, not mine. We won't be going into this as equal partners,' he warned.

‘Yes, we will. Because this isn't about money or property or business. It's about you and me. That's all that matters. I want to be with you, Gabriel. You make my world a better place and I'm miserable without you.'

‘Same here,' he said, and finally he put his arms round her. ‘I love you, Nicole. I think I fell for you when I read that first message on the Surrey Quays forum. I was horrified when I met you and realised that my private friend was my business rival.'

‘Except we're not rivals. We're on the same side.'

‘Definitely.' He kissed her. ‘So will you marry me?'

There was only one thing she could say. ‘Yes.'

EPILOGUE

Three months later

G
ABRIEL
,
DRESSED
IN
top hat and tails, walked out of the honeymoon suite at the Spice House Hotel. The suite he'd be sharing with his bride, later tonight.

Everything was ready in the Coriander Suite—the tables were beautifully laid out and decorated for the wedding breakfast.

The Electric Palace was all decked out for a wedding, too. The old cinema was bright and gleaming, the bar in the downstairs foyer perfectly polished with trays of glasses waiting to be filled with champagne, and the Art Deco windows restored to their full splendour. On the walls were the plaque Nicole had unveiled on the opening night—thanking every single member of the Surrey Quays forum who'd helped to restore the cinema—along with framed enlargements of the Kursaal in its heyday and framed posters for
It's a Wonderful Life
and
Mary Poppins
.

There was a garland of ivory roses wound round the bars of the sweeping staircase to the upper floor, and when Gabriel glanced inside the upper room he could see that all the chairs were filled apart from the front row, which was reserved for his parents, Nicole's mother, and the bridesmaid.

The ceiling looked amazing. Just as Nicole had imagined it, the tin was painted dark blue and the stars were picked out in gold. There was an arch in front of the cinema screen, decorated with ivory roses and fairy lights.

All he needed now was to wait for his bride to arrive.

He glanced at his watch. He knew she wouldn't be late—that particular tradition was one that annoyed her hugely. But he was pretty sure she'd arrive exactly one minute early. Just because that was who she was.

The very first wedding in the Electric Palace and the Spice House.

Not because they were using their wedding as a trial run for their businesses, but because the buildings had brought them both together and there wasn't anywhere else in the world that would've been more perfect as their wedding venue.

And at precisely one minute to two the wedding march from Mendelssohn's
A Midsummer Night's Dream
began playing, and Gabriel turned round to watch his bride walking down the aisle towards him, on her mother's arm.

Her hair was up in the Audrey Hepburnesque style she'd worn the night he'd first taken her out to dinner, and the dress had a simple sweetheart neckline with a mermaid train that would look spectacular spread over the staircase. She looked stunning.

But most of all he noticed the expression in her eyes—the sheer, deep love for him. The same love he had for her.

‘I love you,' he whispered as she came to stand beside him.

‘I love you, too,' she whispered, and they joined hands, ready to join their lives together.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
THE FORBIDDEN PRINCE
by Alison Roberts.

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The Forbidden Prince

by Alison Roberts

CHAPTER ONE

S
O
THIS
WAS
what freedom felt like.

Raoul de Poitier sucked in a deep breath as he paused to get his first proper glimpse of the view he'd climbed about two thousand steps to find.

He had the whole world at his feet.

Well...he had what looked like a large part of the Amalfi coast of the Mediterranean down there, anyway. Far, far below he could pick out the tiny blue patch that was the swimming pool on the roof of the hotel Tramonto d'Oro where he'd stayed last night. Beside that was the tiled dome and spire of the ancient church against the terracotta tiles and white houses of the small coastal town of Praiano.

Beyond the village, the waters of the Mediterranean stretched as far as the horizon, a breathtakingly sapphire blue as the sunlight gentled its way to dusk. Somewhere out there was his homeland—the European principality of
Les Iles Dauphins
.

Another deep breath was released in what felt like a sigh, and with it came a pang of...what... homesickness? Guilt, perhaps?

His grandfather was ill. His heart was failing and it was time for him to step down from ruling his land. To hand the responsibility to the next-in-line to the throne.

His grandmother would be anxious. Not only about her beloved husband but about the grandson she'd raised as her own child after the tragic death of his parents.

‘I don't understand, Raoul. A holiday...yes. Time to prepare yourself for what is to come. For your marriage... But alone? Incognito? That's not who you are.'

‘Maybe that's what I need to find out, Mamé. And this is the last chance I will ever get.'

No. The pang wasn't guilt. He needed this time to centre himself for what was to come. To be sure that he had what it took to put aside his own desires if that was what was required to protect and nurture a whole nation, albeit a tiny one. He was thirty-two years old but he hadn't been really tested yet. Oh, there'd been formal duties that had got in the way of private pleasures, and he had always had to curb any desire to push the boundaries of behaviour that might be frowned on by others. But, within that reasonably relaxed circumference, he'd been able to achieve the career that had been top of his chosen list—as a helicopter pilot in his country's first-rate rescue service. And he'd had his share of a seemingly infinite supply of beautiful women.

All that was about to change, however. The boundaries would shrink to contain him in a very tight space. Almost every minute of every day would be accounted for.

He had always known it would happen. He just wasn't sure how ready he was to accept it. Somehow, he needed to find that out. To test himself, by himself, which was why this had to be in a place where he knew no one and no one knew who he was.

Was it homesickness, perhaps? Because he was feeling a new and rather extraordinary sensation of being alone? No. He'd dealt with homesickness many years ago when he'd been sent to the best schools that Europe had to offer and, while the love of his family and homeland would always draw him back and enfold him, he loved to travel.

It was relief, that was what it was. He had won this time. A reprieve from thinking about the overwhelming responsibility of being in charge of a nation, along with the daunting prospect of a marriage that had been arranged when he'd been no more than a child. A union that would bond two similar principalities together and strengthen them both.

Raoul turned away from the view of the sea. Les Iles Dauphins was out of sight and he was going to try and put it out of mind for just a little while.

He was free. All he had was in his backpack and he could choose any direction at all, the time he would take to get there and how long he would stay when he did. As of yesterday, nobody knew where he was and he was confident that nobody would recognise him. His hair grew fast and he'd deliberately missed his last cut. His beard was coming along well, too. With his dark sunglasses, he could pass for any European tourist. Italian, French... Spanish, even.

He could feel the corners of his mouth curve. If he'd had a guitar case on his back instead of his backpack, he would probably have looked like a flashback to the sixties. He was completely alone for what felt like the first time in his entire life. No family, no friends and, most importantly, no bodyguards or lurking paparazzi. He had won the freedom simply to be himself.

He just needed to find out who that was, exactly, because he had a feeling there were layers to his personality that had been buried for ever. Even his earliest memories involved a performance of some kind. Of behaving in a way that would never have been expected of others.

How many five-year-olds could take part in a national ceremony to mourn both parents and not cry until they were finally alone in their own beds and presumed to be sound asleep? Who had childhood friends chosen for them and, even then, had to be careful of what was said? What young adult knew how much had been sacrificed by a generation that had already raised a child and shouldn't have had to start all over again? The burden of a debt that could never properly be repaid had never been intended but it was there all the same.

He had never been drunk enough to do anything inappropriate or create a scandal by dating indiscreet women. He had excelled in his university studies and military training and, until he'd taken this leave, had shone in his role as a helicopter pilot for a service that provided both military transport and emergency rescue services.

Sometimes, it felt like his life had been recorded by photographs that had been staged for public consumption and approval. A picture-perfect life of a happy prince. And the next album would have all the pomp and ceremony of his coronation, then his wedding and then the births of the next generation of the de Poitier royal family.

The happiness was not an illusion. Raoul loved his life and knew how incredibly fortunate he was but his curiosity of the unknown had teased him with increasing frequency of late. Was there something solid that formed the essence of who he was as a person? Something that would have been there if he hadn't been born a prince?

He had four weeks to try and find some kind of answer to what seemed an impossible question and the only plan he had come up with was to see if he could find a challenge that would be testing enough to make him dig deep. He had set out with no more than the bare essentials of survival in a backpack—a phone, a fake ID, limited funds and a change of clothes. This demanding climb up a mountain to the track that led from Praiano to Positano was just the first step on a very private journey.

Or maybe it wasn't quite that private.

Frowning, Raoul stared at the narrow, winding track ahead of him. He could hear voices. One voice, anyway.

Faint.

Female.

‘Aiuti... Per favore aiutatemi...'

* * *

The vertigo had come from nowhere.

Utterly unexpected and totally debilitating.

Tamika Gordon was clinging to the side of a cliff and she didn't dare open her eyes. If she did, the nausea would come back, the world would start spinning again and there would be nothing to stop her falling into that terrifyingly sheer drop onto rocks hundreds of feet below. But keeping her eyes shut didn't wipe out the knowledge that the unprotected edge to this track was no more than the length of her arm away.

The panic that led her to cry for help was almost as terrifying as the yawning chasm below.

Mika didn't do panic. She'd been told more than once that she was ‘as hard as nails' and she was proud of it. It was a badge of honour, won by surviving. Of course she was tough. Who wouldn't be when they'd been dragged up through a succession of disastrous foster homes and then had ended up on the streets as a teenager? She'd fought for everything she had achieved in her twenty-nine years on earth so far and she'd been confident she could cope with whatever life chose to throw at her.

But this...this was totally out of her control. She'd fought it for as long as possible with sheer willpower but the symptoms were physical rather than mental and they had increased in ferocity until she'd reached a point of complete helplessness—reduced to a shivering blob of humanity clinging to a couple of tufts of coarse mountain grass. It was beyond humiliating. She'd be angry about it as soon as she got out of this and the terror had a chance to wear off.
If
she ever got out of this...

She hadn't seen anyone else on this supposedly popular walking route so far. Maybe that was her own fault. She'd chosen to set off from Praiano much later in the day than most people because she knew the light would be so much better for taking photographs. And maybe she'd spent too much time down at the monastery halfway up the steps, taking photographs with her precious new camera and scribbling notes in her pristine journal.

How long would it be before it got dark?

‘
Help
...' She tried English this time instead of Italian. ‘Can anyone hear me?'

Her voice wavered and tears stung as they gathered behind her eyelids. This recognition of a despair she hadn't felt since she'd been too young to protect herself had to be the worst moment of her adult life.

‘I'm coming... Hold on...'

She wasn't alone. There was hope to be found now. A glowing light in the darkness of that despair. It was a male voice she'd heard, the words short, as if he was out of breath, and in the space after those words Mika could hear the sound of shoes crunching on the sparse gravel of the track.

He was
running
?

When there were only a few feet between the steep wall of the cliff above and that appalling drop into nothingness below?

The speed of the footsteps slowed and then stopped.

‘What is it?' A deep voice with a faint accent that she couldn't place. ‘Are you hurt?'

Mika shook her head, her eyes still tightly closed. The overwhelming relief at not being alone any more made speech impossible for several breaths.

‘Vertigo,' she managed finally, hating how pathetic her voice sounded. ‘I... I can't move...'

‘You're safe,' the man said. ‘I'll keep you safe.'

Dear Lord...had anybody
ever
said that to her? Being so helpless had made her feel like a small child again, so it was too easy to imagine how it would feel to have somebody say those words to that frightened little girl. To feel fear and desolation start to drain away as if a plug had been pulled. To have an insight into how different her life might have been if somebody had said that to her, back then, and meant it. If somebody had been there to protect her. To love her...

How humiliating was it to have her outward breath sound like a child's sob? She'd learned long ago that weakness was something to be hidden very deeply.

‘It's okay,' the man said. ‘You're going to be fine. How long have you been stuck?'

‘I...don't know.' It felt like for ever.

‘Are you thirsty? I have water.'

She heard a shuffling sound and then a zip opening. She was thirsty but to accept a water bottle would mean opening her eyes, and what if the spinning started again? Sobbing in front of a stranger was bad enough. Imagine if she threw up?

‘It's okay. I don't need a drink.'

There was a moment's silence. ‘What's your name?'

‘Mika.'

‘It's a pleasure to meet you, Mika.'

This time her breath came out as a huff of something closer to laughter than tears. Her rescuer had very nice manners. He sounded as though they'd just been introduced at a cocktail party.

‘I'm Ra...um... Rafe.'

She had only been speaking to him for a minute or two, and she didn't even have any idea what he looked like, but the hesitation seemed out of character. Did he not want her to know his real name? Was it possible that she was about to step from the frying pan into the fire and put her faith in an axe murderer? Or a...a rapist?

It might have been five years ago but the fear was always too close to the surface. If he hadn't chosen that precise moment to touch her, she could have dealt with it. It wasn't like the vertigo; she could persuade herself to think rationally and conquer it.

But he touched her arm and moving away from that touch was too instinctive to avoid. Mika let go of her tufts of grass with every intention of trying to run but her legs were still shaking and she lost her footing. Desperately trying to stop the skid, she reached for the grass again, but it slid through her fingers. Her foot made contact with something solid and she pushed against it but that, too, slid out of touch. She landed on her hands and knees, aware of a sound like rocks falling that provided a background to the soft but vehement curse that came from her rescuer.

And then silence.

Cautiously, Mika sat back on her heels as she tried to process what had just happened.

‘Are you all right?'

‘Yes. I'm sorry. I... I slipped.'

‘Hmm...'

She could feel him watching her. ‘Did I...um...kick you?'

‘No. You kicked my backpack. It went over the cliff.'

Mika's eyes opened smartly. ‘
What?
Oh, no... I'm
so
sorry...'

‘Better the pack than you.'

It seemed extraordinary but he was smiling at her. A smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. Dark eyes. Dark, shaggy hair and a dark jaw that had gone well past designer stubble but wasn't quite a beard. And he was big. Even crouching he seemed to tower over her.

Weird that the fear that had prompted this unfortunate development was ebbing away instead of increasing. Maybe it was those eyes. This man might be in a position of power over her right now but he wasn't any kind of predator. He looked...nice. Kind?

You're safe. I'll keep you safe.