Page 30 of Revelations of A Secret Princess

Caro blinked, watching that tanned, capable hand stop on her belly. Jake’s touch seemed more intimate than if he’d caressed her between the legs where she was wet for him. Sex was a finite thing, its pleasure fleeting. But carrying her child—that had changed her at the most fundamental level. It was the most precious thing yet also the source of an anguish that had haunted her for years.

She swallowed, her throat raspy and tight.

‘You had a child?’

‘Yes.’ She didn’t think of lying. She couldn’t deny her daughter. Despite the masquerade she’d been forced to adopt to get close to Ariane, Caro would never do that.

It was madness to be upset now. The past was over. The future promised more than she’d dared hope for. Yet his question brought all today’s emotions to the surface and pierced the armour she’d tried to build around her memories. Suddenly the past with all its terrible pain was upon her. Her guilt that she hadn’t been able to keep her baby with her. She should haveknown, should have done something...

‘Where is it now, Caro?’

‘She.’ The single word was automatic.

When the nuns had told her that her baby was dead they’d spoken ofit, nother. There’d been no chance to see the child, no grave to visit, because her father had deemed it better.

Her father.He had so much to answer for. It had taken such effort even to prise out the information that she’d had a daughter.

Thinking of her lost baby as she, not it, had been a reminder that her child had been real, despite the determination of those around her to pretend she’d never existed.

Caro tried to swallow but her throat was completely clogged.

Maybe it was the gentle way Jake spoke, the concern in his eyes, now the colour of burnished pewter, dark with shadows. Maybe it was because she’d never had to answer that question before. Suddenly she felt as lost as she had years ago, both her body and her arms empty, her child taken from her.

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the moment to pass. Trying to suppress the cold shivers.

‘Where is she, Caro? Your daughter?’

It was his tenderness that undid her. She told herself it no longer mattered. She was over the grief, moving on to happier times. Yet it seemed that buried deep within was a residue of anguish that even recent events hadn’t erased.

Frantically she gulped air and heard the terrible sawing sound of a woman on the edge. Past and present coalesced. Instead of seeing the little girl on the mountain who’d almost died today, it was the tiny, silent baby she’d barely glimpsed as they whipped it away. Adrenaline pulsed in Caro’s bloodstream and her mouth crumpled.

‘I lost her,’ she whispered. ‘I lost her.’

She gave up the battle and let the burning tears fall.

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