He looked at her and shook his head. “Okay, Julienne. Here goes. I was crazy about her that summer. She was gorgeous, with thick red hair and a wide red mouth that just begged to be kissed.”
Julienne turned away, biting her lip and hating this. Too much information. But she had to know.
“We pledged to meet in the fall in Cairns,” he said. “I was going to university there. She was going to dental assistant school. I got to town early and raced over to find her apartment, hoping to surprise her. And there she was, in bed with some skinny grad student.” He shrugged. “The end. She betrayed me and I never saw her again.”
“She betrayed you?” She had a flash of intuition. Was this one of the seeds of his cynicism about love, about marriage? Could be.
He grimaced. “Well, it was hardly fair to even call it that. Looking back, I saw that she realized sooner than I did that it was never going to work. Only pain and unhappiness could result. It was time to move on, and she did just that.”
Suddenly he realized that she’d come up next to him and was lacing her fingers with his.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes huge and dark with sadness. “I’m so sorry your heart was broken.”
He meant to laugh at her, to tell her how naive she was being, but something in those big brown eyes wouldn’t let him. Instead, he just smiled and let her comfort him.
Looking at her, he was reminded of the feeling he sometimes had as his work-weary gaze settled on a rolling green lawn. A calm serenity seemed to gather around her like a haze, and then her face would turn his way, her eyes sparkling with mischief, and he would think of her as a spray of colorful wild flowers dancing in a spring breeze instead. It just made him happy to look at her.
What a contrast she was to the life he’d been living, with all its boredom, cynicism, and backbiting treachery—the sort of thing he had to deal with every day. It had been exciting at first. He’d reached an important level of power early in his life and he’d used it. Now he didn’t feel so powerful anymore. The excitement was gone. All that was left was the endless responsibility.
And she thought she was caught in a trap.
A half an hour later, they were out on the lake in the rowboat, drifting happily in the noonday sun.
“So, were you ever engaged?” she asked him out of the blue.
He thought about it for a moment.
“I guess I was. At one point, a long time ago, I was supposed to marry an Italian princess from an old royal family.”
She looked at him earnestly. “But you didn’t?”
“No. She died.”
She nodded. “Giselle told me about it.” She looked up at him. “She also said that they would have made the betrothal between you and me instead of Alphonso if it hadn’t been for your engagement to the Italian princess.”
He frowned. “She shouldn’t have said that. I’m not sure it’s true.”
She stared at him. He was so darn obstinate. “So what exactly happened to the Italian princess?”
“I only met her once, fleetingly.” He frowned again, remembering things best forgotten, things he hadn’t thought of for years. “She seemed very frightened,” he said softly. “I always wondered …”
There was a shiver in the air between them.
“How did she die?” Julienne asked, tensing for the answer.
He looked at her, hollow-eyed. “She drowned. In the estate swimming pool. She went swimming alone late at night.”
He stared into Julienne’s eyes and knew they were both thinking the same thing. Did she drown on purpose? Did she love someone else? Did she hate the idea of marrying Andre so much that she would rather die than submit?
“We’ll never know,” he said, so softly she blinked, wondering if he’d really said it aloud or if they had both thought it. It made her catch her breath, the way they seemed to be able to invade each other’s thoughts at times. Like some kind of magic. Could he really read her mind? Could he see how she really felt about him? And could he stand it?
“Will you ever marry?” she asked him.
He shook his head emphatically. “No.”
His easy acceptance of that outraged her. “Why not?”
He looked at her, his eyes haunted. “The only thing that would make me marry would be if I needed to do it for the good of