than the look of a girl who had taken an upsetting phone call. It was a cry for help from someone who was not able or willing to say the words to ask for it.
And that look destroyed him.
He couldn’t handle this as Prince Simon. For Katie he needed to go back to that first day at university, when he had managed to build up enough courage to actually speak to the prettiest girl in his year group instead of just winking at her and playing the idiot.
‘Hi there, pretty girl. You new around here?’
And instantly, without hesitation or delay, she shot back with the same answer she had given him all those years ago—only this time in a croaky rather than jokey voice, ‘Yes, but don’t tell anyone. I’m supposed to be giving the lecture.’
And then the cool, collected, sophisticated businesswoman burst into tears.
CHAPTER SIX
IT SEEMED only right and natural for Simon to shuffle forward and take Kate into his arms, as he had done a hundred times before, and just like a familiar warm glove she slipped into the shape of his body as though she had never left. Her head fell onto his shoulder as she clung to him, her chest pressed against his, soaking in the strength and heat of his love and his support as he held her close.
As her sobs ebbed away Simon’s hand moved in gentle wide circles around her lower back, just the way she’d used to like. He felt her chest heave with emotion, then slow to a more regular movement as her breathing calmed under his caresses.
His head pressed against her silky hair, but there was something sharp and hard under his chin and in the fading light he realised that she put her hair up. With two fingers he slowly pulled out the comb and two hair grips, and dropped them onto the beach towel she was sitting on. With exquisite pleasure the fingers of his right hand smoothed back the hair back from her forehead and gently, gently teased out the strands of her hair until it was falling in a waterfall of silken tresses over the back of his hand.
Kate shuffled slightly against him and he held his breath, in fear that she was going to break this tenuous, remarkable connection. But to his delight and wonder she was not moving away—she was snuggling closer. And his heart sang. He had never, ever expected to feel so powerfully like this again.
She felt so right. It was as though she was the last piece in the complex jigsaw puzzle that was his life, which he had not even realised was missing until he had found it hidden in the most unlikely of places.
His mouth was pressed into her hair now, kissing the top of her head, breathing in the essence of who she was, and as Kate turned within the circle of his arms she closed her eyes so that he could hold her and brush his lips across her forehead and temples.
‘I am so sorry,’ she choked out, and looked up into his face. ‘You must think that I am totally pathetic, but the call was about Gemma. Oh, no,’ she added quickly, when Simon gasped in alarm. ‘She’s fine. Or at least as fine as she ever will be.’
Kate shook her head and pressed her palm against his chest, sending delicious shivers through him. ‘Tom has been called in to repeat some tests after his yearly check-up. He has a cold that won’t go away, and she is terrified that his cancer has come back.’
‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ he murmured as gently as he could. ‘Are you worried?’
Her answer was a short shrug. ‘Not yet. I know that there is nothing I can do until the test results come back tomorrow, and all his other tests are fine, but I can’t get that through to Gemma.’ Kate gave a long sigh and waved her cell phone at him. ‘A boy she likes at her special needs school made some jokey comment and she didn’t know how to take it. She got upset. Then he got upset. Then the rest of the class got upset and before long the teacher had to call my dad.’
Kate closed her eyes and rested her head against the crook of Simon’s shoulder.
‘He didn’t say anything insulting or unkind. Nothing like that at all! But she just didn’t understand that he meant it as the kind of banter that we used