Leah Ashton – His Pregnant Christmas Princess (страница 8)

It was just like those long minutes in her room…magnetic and addictive. And all the more so because he knew nothing would happen. He didn’t have to worry about Jess, or about how he’d feel being with a woman other than his wife. He didn’t need to deal with any of the complicated stuff—he needed only to experience this undeniable snap and tension between him and the Princess.

As he dragged his shirt back down, Ana jerked her gaze towards the window.

‘Amazing,’ she breathed.

Seriously?

He grinned. ‘Well, I’ll take that—’

She whirled to face him, muttering a string of Slavic curses to herself. ‘I meant the view, Mr North,’ she said firmly.

He was starting to really like her insistence on addressing him so formally. It felt like a shared joke, almost intimate—it certainly wasn’t putting space between them, as he knew she intended it to.

She was staring with determination at his face, not allowing her gaze to drift.

‘Christmas must be wonderful here, Mr North,’ she said.

‘Christmas?’ he asked, thrown by the change of subject.

She clasped her hands primly in front of her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Christmas. I believe Castelrotto is famous for how beautiful it is at Christmas time. I couldn’t sleep last night, so did a bit of research about where I’m staying, and Christmas is clearly a big thing here. There’s a Christmas market that starts in a few weeks—during Advent. Is it as enchanting as all the tourist websites say?’

Rhys stepped off the treadmill and headed to the kitchen for a drink of water.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said, quite stiffly.

She followed him. ‘Really? I’d imagine you’d need to go to quite a bit of effort to avoid it, given how small the town is.’

He filled a tall glass with water. ‘I don’t avoid the market,’ Rhys said. ‘I just don’t pay much attention to anything to do with Christmas.’

She was looking at him, curiosity wrinkling her forehead. She’d kept her hair down today, and it hung in heavy waves over her shoulders. It would be much easier to answer with a white lie—Ana would have neither known nor cared if he’d just agreed that the market was, in fact, enchanting.

‘I adore Christmas,’ Ana said. ‘I always have.’ She paused, then said carefully, ‘Do you not have a family to celebrate with?’

He downed the water in a series of long swallows, really hoping that Ana would walk away. But of course she didn’t.

Here was another opportunity to lie—as Ana had pointed out, it wasn’t his role to play counsellor or psychologist. Equally, it wasn’t his role to spill his guts.

‘I have a big family back in Australia,’ he said. ‘A sister, a brother, great parents and a wonderful extended family. Christmas was incredible when I was growing up—my parents have a huge pool in the backyard and we’d host a barbecue for the whole family and anyone who had no one else to celebrate with. It was great. I loved it.’

So he didn’t lie.

What was it about this woman?

He knew the question she was going to ask next.

‘What happened?’ she said.

The sympathy in her eyes almost made him leave the room. He’d never wanted this—never wanted people to feel sorry for him. To pity him. Yet to this woman who’d exposed her own vulnerability to him last night he found he could be nothing but honest.

‘My wife died,’ he said simply. ‘And everything changed.’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘I’LL JUST GO take a shower,’ Rhys said into the stunned silence, as Ana struggled to work out what to say. What could she say?

But she didn’t need to work it out, because only moments later she was alone.

‘My wife died.’

Ana had not expected Rhys to say that. Although, on reflection, it had been stupid to ask him what had changed: he’d clearly had an idyllic childhood, so something had to have gone catastrophically wrong for his view of Christmas to change so dramatically.

‘My wife died.’

Ana walked into the kitchen and searched through the overhead cupboards for a mug and in the large walk-in pantry for some coffee. Then she stared out at the view as the kettle boiled.

‘My wife died.’

She would never have guessed Rhys had ever been married—he had the cocky confidence of a handsome perennial bachelor, in no hurry to settle down. And, besides, he lived alone in a two-bedroom home in the middle of nowhere—albeit a spectacularly picturesque middle of nowhere.

But not the type of place that screamed wife and family, or even kids.

The water had boiled, so Ana poured herself a strong coffee, with only a dash of milk from the fridge, and took a seat at the breakfast bar, angling her stool so she still faced the view.

Immediately outside the house the ground sloped away in a rolling curve of thick grass, liberally sprinkled with tiny yellow flowers. It undulated for a while, before merging with a dense forest, and then beyond the forest sat the angular, brutal shapes of the surrounding mountains—the tallest with a mantle of snow.

From here, Ana couldn’t see another building—certainly not another person. It was the perfect place to hide for a runaway bride.

Or for a grieving husband.

Her throat was tight and prickly, her coffee forgotten in her hand, when Rhys strode back into the room.

She met his gaze, and Rhys’s eyes immediately narrowed in response. ‘Please don’t,’ he said.

‘Don’t what?’ she asked.

‘Feel sorry for me.’

‘I can’t even begin to imagine—’ Ana said.

He shook his head, silencing her. ‘Please,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t.’

Ana nodded.

He caught her gaze again. ‘Her name was Jessica. It was five years ago,’ he said in clipped tones. ‘Sudden. Brain aneurysm.’ A pause, then a shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘People tend to want to know the headlines.’

He was right, she had been curious. She started to open her mouth to say something—but he silenced her again with only a look.

He was right to do so. She had been about to say something empty—albeit heartfelt—and sympathetic.

But what to say instead?

Ana noticed for the first time that he had a small backpack slung over one shoulder, and as she watched he headed for his coat rack and retrieved a pair of boots from its base.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said.

‘Can I come?’ Ana asked.

* * *

Rhys hadn’t expected Ana to want to join him and he very nearly said no.

But instead he shrugged. ‘If you want.’

He’d spent a lot of time hiking through the mountains of Seiser Alm after he left the regiment. He’d hiked alone, and as he’d walked he’d spent time in his own thoughts, in his own grief.

But then one day, a few months after he’d moved to Castelrotto, he’d arrived home from his hike, his brain buzzing with an idea he’d had about starting his own security business—about transferring his military expertise to private security systems and consulting. And he’d realised he hadn’t thought of Jess the entire time.

At the time, his guilt had made him cry. Cry with his head in his hands on the steps of this house he’d bought that was nothing like the home he’d had with Jess back in Melbourne. Cry as he hadn’t since the day Jess had died.

But later he’d realised it had been a turning point. And now it was his new normal—he still loved Jess, he still grieved for Jess and sometimes all he could think of was her. But at other times he thought of other things.

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