Rose sat in the garden, deep among the roses, trying to sort out her feelings. Raoul had taken the children off to some festival event in town for an hour or two, with Marco and his private security in tow. He’d suggested, in that quiet but firm way of his, that she take a few hours off for herself.

She rather suspected he thought she and Diego would take advantage of the privacy. But she wasn’t ready to speak to him yet. Trying to separate logic from her emotions was proving too much of a challenge today.

So it was rather unfortunate when he came down the stone path, whistling lightly through his teeth, looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

Maybe he wouldn’t see her among the bushes.

“I was told I could find you here,” he said easily, coming to sit with her on the iron bench.

“I’m sure you were,” she replied, folding her hands in her lap. “Diego, this morning . . .”

“This morning neither of us were in possession of all the facts,” he interrupted as he reached into his back pocket and took out a folded envelope.

“What’s that?”

“The letter I wrote you the morning I left for Dar es Salaam. I gave it to Camila. She never gave it to you. Instead she betrayed me, you, my family . . .”

Rose gaped at him. “Camila? She’s the one?”

He nodded, and Rose could see he was upset. “I trusted her. But I shouldn’t have, I guess. When you and I . . . well, jealousy is a powerful motivator. And when opportunities can pad a bank balance nicely, apparently it’s easy to be persuaded.”

Rose didn’t know what to say. “But she hardly ever spoke to me.”

“Nor will she. She’s gone. Been gone for a few hours now.” He reached into his pocket and took out a tiny electronic card. “Minus the SIM card for her phone. Security is going to go through it to scrub all the photos or anything else she might have on there. Her computer, too.”

“So much for the confidentiality agreement we all had to sign,” Rose muttered, but in her heart she was glad. Glad that whoever had betrayed the family had been discovered. Glad Camila was gone. “Are you going to take any legal action?”

“As long as she keeps her silence, there’s no issue. We can repair the damage done. At least I hope we can.”

Except Rose had been compromised so unfairly. She wasn’t sure it was fixable.

“Read the letter, Rose.”

“Diego . . .”

“Please. I have things to say, but I want you to read it first.”

She tore open the envelope and took out the single sheaf of paper, then skimmed the words. Halfway down the page her eyes blurred with tears, and she had to blink them away in order to keep reading. For Diego to say he loved her was one thing. But for him to put his feelings into a letter, with ink and paper . . . there was something intimate and special about it.

“Rose, everything’s changed for me these past few months. When I went into the kitchen and saw you sitting at that table, with your china cup of tea and slice of cake, the world shifted. Everything started falling into place. Being with you, and Emilia and Max, and focusing on the family, and my projects . . . it seemed as if I finally knew where I was supposed to be. Who I was supposed to be.”

He turned on the bench and put his hand on her knee. It was warm and reassuring and she wanted so badly to turn into his arms. But this was too big, too important to not sort out everything, so she let him go on.

“When I was away . . .” He frowned, then started over. “In the past, sometimes I’d deflect attention from the palace by acting out. Not that I needed much encouragement, but it’s not an isolated strategy. And I held it over Raoul’s head more than once. This time, though . . . he’s been through too much. He’s still grieving, for God’s sake. And the children . . . it angered me to think of anyone using them as pawns in whatever game they were playing. The headline wasn’t just that about the grieving widower. It was a mother for the children and it was just so . . . low.”

“Children are not pawns. Not . . . leverage.” She nodded at him. They could definitely agree on that.

“No,” he replied soberly, “they are not. And so I came up with the idea of going to Tanzania and pulling my party act one last time. I was going to have to go there anyway, to sort out the school situation, so I bumped up the trip, got Ryan and Brenna to meet me there, and made sure I was seen. Every night.”

“Oh, I know,” she said ruefully.

“Camila didn’t just want to create a scandal, she wanted to be rid of you,” Diego admitted. “She said so when I told her to get her things and she’d be escorted off the grounds. She was jealous. Turns out my brilliant strategy actually made things worse. I’m so sorry for that.”

Rose couldn’t help but smile a little bit. “Of course she was jealous. You are the most eligible bachelor in the country.”

“She didn’t count on me going away. She thought we’d send you away instead, and she’d have her chance.” He smiled and shook his head. “She didn’t count on getting caught, either.”

Rose shook her head. “People will do some crazy things in the name of love.”

He laughed a little. “It’s not the first time. But I’m not going to tell you those stories today. Today I’m trying to convince you to stay. Stay with the children. Stay with me. Marry me. We’ll hire a new nanny for Max and Emilia—I’m sure you can recommend someone lovely.” He squeezed her knee and gazed into her eyes. “I love you, Rose. That’s all that matters. I told you once that I wasn’t about to let the press dictate my life anymore. Two weeks ago we decided to control the story. Today I want to start writing a new one.”

And oh, she wanted to. So badly. But she was still afraid. “But what will they say about me?” she asked, looking down at her lap. “That I’m the gold digger who took advantage of her position in the royal household? I don’t want to be the cause of more gossip.”

“So we give them an exclusive, and the story we want to tell.” He took her hand. “We give them the truth. We give them the love story.”

She looked into his eyes. From the very beginning, the reality of this man defied his persona in the press. He was kind, generous, focused on family, funny, warm, loving. He was willing to sacrifice for those he loved . . . and stand up to them when he needed to.

And right now he was standing up for her.

She’d been wrong. Misled, certainly, by Camila’s manipulations. But wrong not to believe in him when he’d always told her the truth. Wrong to put more weight on her own insecurities than the truth before her eyes.

“You really want to marry me?”

“I do. My world makes sense when you’re in it.”

“And your family? They really don’t disapprove?”

He smiled. “Raoul brought me back because he said I’d earned the right to deal with Camila and also to win back the girl. We all love you, Rose. And our family, for all its old-world traditions, is good at one thing. Following our hearts.”

The dread in the pit of her stomach had disappeared, replaced instead by a delicious swirl of nervous anticipation. He loved her. She loved him. More than that, she trusted him.

“Then my answer is yes,” she replied, letting the smile that was filling her heart be revealed on her lips. “Yes, Diego, el principe, mi amor . . . I will marry you.”

He gathered her into an embrace, holding her close against his chest, and she let out a happy, contented breath as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Did she say yes?” came the call from the corner of the garden.

Rose burst out laughing as Diego called back. “She did! She said yes!”

“Miss Rose! Miss Rose!” Max and Emilia left Raoul’s side and came running, pell-mell, down the path. “Is it true? Are you going to marry Tio Diego and be Tia Rose?”

Rose gathered them into a happy hug. “I am. If that’s all right with you, of course.”

“Of course it is!” Emilia’s dark eyes sparkled. “Miss Rose, if we can’t have our mama, at least we have you. I love you, Miss Rose.”

Rose’s eyes watered as she held the girl close. Raoul followed behind at a more respectable pace, and to Rose’s surprise, Alexander was by his side. Oh my. This was just so . . . unbelievably overwhelming.

“It’s nearly teatime,” Raoul announced. “So we’ve ordered champagne and cake in the garden. It’s about time we had something to celebrate.”

Rose stood and went to stand before Raoul. “Thank you, sir. For all your support. It means the world to me.”

“No more sir,” Raoul decreed, giving her a quick hug. “I’m gaining a sister, aren’t I?”

“And I another daughter,” Alexander said, stepping forward. “Congratulations to you both.”

The champagne arrived and they all had a glass, with sparkling water for the children. Once they’d toasted and sipped briefly, Diego pulled Rose to his side. And as they chatted and laughed, Rose felt a contentment that was so deep and so pure it made her blink a little faster to clear the moisture in the corner of her eye.

It really was the fairy tale. Not because she was marrying the prince and going to live in the castle. But because it was love, real and yet somehow magical, and it was all she’d ever really needed.