‘I…who?’

‘Who do you think?’ Honey said and beamed and collected a pile of plates and walked up the veranda steps. ‘Who do you think, indeed?’ she repeated as she walked past Holly and through the door into the kitchen. ‘Some wife you make.’

For it was him. Of course it was him. The chopper settled in the same dusty paddock it had landed that first day, carrying Sebastian’s thugs. Georgiou stepped out first and for one awful moment Holly expected the other three men to follow.

But she needn’t have worried. Georgiou hauled open the door to the rear, and it was Andreas who stepped lightly out onto the dust and looked up to the house.

Andreas. And in his arms…

Deefer.

‘Deefer,’ Holly whispered as if it were the little dog who mattered most and not the man holding him.

‘Call him,’ Andreas yelled as the sound of the motor died to nothing. Holly was already moving numbly down the veranda steps, her legs operating without any conscious thought.

‘Deefer,’ she called as if in a dream, and Andreas set the little dog down and he barrelled across the paddock so fast he was a black and white blur. He didn’t check until he reached her. She stooped a little but not much-she didn’t need to-for he was leaping high, with one bound flying straight into her arms. His rough little tongue was licking her from chin to forehead and his whole body was wriggling in ecstasy.

‘Deefer. Oh, Deef,’ Holly said and would have burst into tears. But there was no room for tears for Andreas was striding across the gap between them, almost as fast as Deefer. Before she knew it she was gathered into his arms, held in a grip of iron with Deef somehow sandwiched in between.

‘What…? What…?’

‘You said you couldn’t collect Deefer yourself,’ he said, and smiled down at her with a look of such tenderness that something melted deep inside. That he look at her like this…

It’d only be a flying visit. She had to get hold of herself. She couldn’t afford to melt.

She couldn’t.

‘You planned this.’

‘I hoped it’d work out. I couldn’t promise, because I’ve just come back from France.’

So it was a flying visit. A reassurance to his people that there was a marriage. She could barely make herself speak. How could she bear it? That he come and go again at will?

‘How…how long are you staying?’ she whispered and she could barely get the words out. Her face was muffled against his chest and a fair bit of Deefer was interfering with her ability to speak as well.

He laughed and set her back from him. His black eyes gleamed, with laughter and with something else. Something she’d never seen before.

Assurance? Strength? He truly was a royal prince, she thought. Until this moment she’d never thought of him as truly royal-he’d just been her Andreas who she loved with all her heart. But there was that about him now that spoke of absolute assurance. As if his entire lineage of royal ancestry was right behind him, making him who he was.

‘I’m staying for as long as you want me,’ he told her and her heart stilled within her chest.

‘As long…’

‘As long as you’ll have me, my heart,’ he told her and he bent and kissed her with such tenderness that she could scarcely bear it.

She must have misheard. There must be some sort of catch. But she wasn’t releasing him. He was kissing her and she was kissing him back with such fierce possessiveness that surely he couldn’t let her go.

But finally he did, setting her back, holding her shoulders in his hands and smiling down into her eyes.

‘I suspect Deefer needs air.’

In Holly’s arms Deefer wriggled with grateful comprehension. Andreas smiled and set the little dog down.

Rocket was out near the overseer’s quarters, wandering over to investigate these newcomers. Deefer saw him from the distance, wriggled in ecstasy and launched himself forward into his new life.

‘Will he be okay?’ Andreas asked.

‘Rocket’s a great dog,’ Holly managed, turning slightly within the crook of Andreas’s arm. As if to confirm it, the big, old dog crouched low, then rolled over before the puppy reached him, in an attitude of complete subjection.

‘Is that healthy?’ Andreas demanded.

‘Probably not.’

‘Training tomorrow, then,’ Andreas said. ‘Deference to your elders, lesson one.’

‘You will be here tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’ He kissed her.

She allowed him to kiss her. When she’d been kissed to her satisfaction-for now-she pushed back a little. Deefer was jumping over and over Rocket in the dust. Bluey had come out his back door and was watching…the dogs. Honey had the curtains of the front room twitched aside and was watching…the dogs.

‘We have an audience,’ Holly murmured, and giggled.

‘Then we should put on a show,’ Andreas said and tugged her to him.

She took a deep breath, forcing her knees to steady and her voice to sound a little resolute. As resolute as she could manage. ‘Explain.’

‘Explain what?’

‘How you can just calmly walk back into my life.’

‘I’m saving my country,’ he said, sounding virtuous. ‘As a noble prince who knows his duty to his people, I can do nothing else.’

‘You’ve a kangaroo loose in the top paddock.’

He looked wounded. He set her back again and held her at arm’s length. ‘You’re saying I’m crazy? Me, who brought you your dog.’

‘Virtue all round. Bringing me my dog. Saving your country. Would you mind telling me how?’

‘Easy,’ he said, and he smiled and it was the smile that Holly loved and it was almost enough for her to say forget the explanations, just head straight to the bedroom, because it had been a really long month and that smile made her toes curl. But somehow she forced herself to be patient. Somehow she let him keep smiling at her while he had his say.

‘You were a hit,’ he said. ‘The people of Aristo love you. Or they love what they saw of you. There was a public outcry when you left.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

His smile faded. ‘You need to believe me,’ he said softly, ‘because it’s true. I’ve had to be away so much we put out rumours that I’d come home with you. Only then your local press investigated and found I wasn’t here.’

‘They phoned,’ Holly said, dismayed. ‘What was I supposed to do? Lie?’

‘I didn’t ask you to lie,’ he said. ‘I’d never expect it of you. So then Sebastian said you need to come back to Aristo.’

She sighed. ‘For a spot of wing clipping?’

‘That’s what I said,’ he told her, starting to smile again. ‘And I can’t see you with clipped wings.’

‘So…’

‘So there’s general unrest that our marriage was just for show. The people like you. The royal PR department has been putting it about that we have a Cinderella marriage. Sebastian’s been talking at me about putting my family first. And it suddenly occurred to me…’

‘What?’ she said, sounding suddenly breathless. Feeling suddenly that there was a chink in a very heavy door and light was filtering through. Just maybe…maybe…

‘That you are my family,’ he said and the smile was back for real now, tender, warm and loving. ‘I hadn’t seen it until then, but suddenly there it was. You, Holly, are my wife. You live here, a place I love and where I want to work. My son is buried here. My dog was waiting for someone to collect him to bring him home. And if our people want the Cinderella story, then what better than you choosing your prince and rescuing him, carrying him to his happy ever after? Here.’

She could scarcely breathe. She was staring at him as if he’d grown two heads. ‘You…you’d leave Aristo for me?’

‘I have,’ he said softly. Then, at the look on her face, he shook his head. ‘No. I haven’t run from my duty. The corruption commission has come to an end. I’ve done all the searching I can for the diamond, and, no, don’t ask me whether it’s been found because I can’t and won’t tell you. It’s irrelevant to us now.’

‘But…your mother. Sebastian…’

‘They were my family,’ he said gently. ‘After my father’s harsh rule they need to reassess what’s important to them as well, and maybe they are. My mother is taking the first few tentative steps right now. But for me…For me the path is clear. I have a new family. I have a wife and a dog and a vast cattle property in Australia. I have a fabulous island getaway off Aristo that we can still use for holidays. I have you.’

‘But you can’t,’ she said, dazed. ‘You’re third in line to the throne.’

‘No more,’ he said and he tugged her to him and held her tight. ‘I made that very clear when I addressed the people of Aristo on national television two nights ago. My brother’s perfectly capable of running the country. He has Alex at his side. Plus-and this is the big plus, Holly-he also has my sisters. Sebastian hasn’t seen it until now. Like me, he was brought up to believe women were to be relegated to the background, but I know he’s wrong. I told him so. I’ve told my mother and my sisters and I’ve told my country. I’ve done all I’m capable of to make my country safe, and now it’s me time. Us time,’ he corrected himself. ‘If that’s okay with you, my love. You have a pretty big place here. Do you think we could share?’

She gasped on a sob. She was holding him tight, her hands on his hips, not letting him move from her grasp, but she was watching his face as if it might disappear at any minute. As if truth could turn to falsehood. But what she saw there was only truth.

Her husband. Her love.

Did he think they could share? She turned to stare around her, at the endless plains where the cattle were just starting their first tentative exploration. As she was about to start tentatively exploring the realities of a marriage.