The Royal Bastard

by Nicole Burnham

  “It was the only way to get you alone.” He tipped his head back as he heard Marit approach with his skis. “Or mostly alone. There’s a crowd forming at the bottom of the run. Word has spread that you’re here and there’s a group hoping for photos of you and your coach. I was hoping to find you and arrange a private place to meet once you finished. I hadn’t intended to wander into the middle of the run.”

  “Marit, meet my husband, Rocco Cornaro.”

  The tall Norwegian set Rocco’s skis where he could step into them before raising her goggles to study the man in the snow. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m as shocked as you are,” Justine said. “An yes, I married a non-skier. Rocco, meet my new coach, Marit Brekken.”

  Rocco pushed to stand, taking care not to tumble downhill, then shook the woman’s hand. “The Marit Brekken? I’m honored. You’re a legend.”

  “I could say the same to you. The Rocco Cornaro? You’ve been all over the news.” Marit smiled, but her look was odd, as if she already knew Rocco. Marit turned toward Justine and was about to say something, but Rocco cut her off.

  “I’m interrupting your training time. Now that you know I’m here, why don’t we find a place to meet at the bottom—”

  “Assuming you can get there,” Justine told Rocco before she looked to Marit. “I hate to ask this—”

  “We’ll pick up tomorrow morning. Truth is, I didn’t think you’d be in good enough shape to do as much as you’ve already done today. I had assumed we’d already be finished.” Marit replaced her goggles and shook the snow from her skis. “Take it easy on the way down with him, then call me when you’re back at the hotel and we can make arrangements for tomorrow. And take proper care of your leg tonight.”

  “I will. Thanks, Marit.” Once the coach was out of earshot, she guided Rocco to a flatter area at the side of the run, then gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “What were you thinking? How’d you even get here?”

  “I was thinking that I had to see my wife. I left two messages on your cell phone and you didn’t call back. All I got was that text saying that you were in Hemsedal. I flew here, asked around, learned what run you were on, then studied the trail map so I could take one of the safer trails to find you. Apparently my map skills aren’t what I imagined.”

  “You’re crazy.” Justine’s hand went to her throat. “I kept it perfectly safe, but I knew that if I talked to you on the phone instead of making you see me in person, you’d just ask me to send it or you’d have Kos—”

  Rocco edged closer to her, his ski boots sending a chunk of snow cascading down the slope. “What are you talking about?”

  “The necklace.”

  Confusion clouded his eyes for a moment, then understanding dawned. “King Carlo’s necklace? The star sapphire?”

  Carefully, she undid the top button on her ski jacket and pulled the zipper to reveal the necklace topping her high tech undershirt. “It’s on tight.”

  “You’re wearing it to ski?”

  “I wasn’t going to leave it in a hotel safe. I knew if I kept it with me, you’d eventually have to come get it.” She zipped her jacket and secured the button. “And here you are.”

  “You wanted me to come find you in Norway.” His words were measured. “To see you in person.”

  “I didn’t expect you’d put on a pair of skis and try to find me on a mountain.” She brushed away a piece of snow that stuck to his close-cropped beard. “Look at you!”

  “Then what did you expect, Justine? That I’d find you at a hotel, reach around your neck and…what?” He removed his gloves and dropped them to the snow, then spanned either side of her neck with his hands so his fingers danced along the area where the necklace was fastened. “Take it?”

  “I don’t know what I expected.” She hated how her voice shook on the last word. It hadn’t been that long, but she missed his touch. The curve of his lips as he spoke, the sound of her name spoken in his rich voice. She physically ached for him.

  “What if I told you I didn’t come for the necklace?”

  She hesitated. “You didn’t?”

  His grin warmed her as thoroughly as his tender touch. “I haven’t given the necklace a second thought since I tried to return it to Carlo. I even forgot I left it in your purse. I came to apologize, you nut. To swallow my pride and beg you to give me another chance.”

  The movement of his thumbs along the column of her neck made it hard to think. “You decided this…without coming for the necklace?” On his own, without seeing her first?

  “I thought I was doing what was best for you by staying away from you. I even went to far as to e-mail coaches you’d mentioned to me over the years and told them you’d been cleared to ski. I know they’d have contacted you soon enough on their own, but I wanted you to be safely away from Croatia when news of my relationship to Carlo broke.”

  She shook her head. That’s why she’d received so many e-mails so quickly. It wasn’t her former coach’s doing; it was Rocco’s. As always, his instinct was to protect her.

  “I felt responsible,” he added. “I didn’t want the stain of my past to hurt you or your career.”

  “I told you, it won’t.”

  “It will. But it doesn’t make me love you or want you any less.” His hands slid up, capturing her face between his warm palms. She yearned to lean into him, to kiss him into silence, but he held her too far away. “What I’ve learned is that I have to let you be hurt and trust that you are strong enough to deal with it. I know that’s selfish…but if you choose to be with me, I will do whatever I can for the rest of my days to make up for the downsides.”

  Her mind swirled. “The…downsides?”

  “There will always be those who’ll judge you based on your marriage. People who’ll gossip. Who may or may not hire you if they know you chose to stay married to me with the scandals of my upbringing.” His perceptive brown eyes searched hers. “All your life, you’ve worked to be at the top of your sport. To build a career that will last beyond your competitive days. If you stay with me, you risk that. That is the downside.”

  She felt the pressure of his palms against her cheeks as she smiled. “And here I thought you were going to make another joke about the horrid sex.”

  “Justine.” Despite the censure in his voice, he smiled. “Be serious.”

  “I can’t live without you, Rocco. You’re the calm in my crazy, high octane, competitive life. I knew it the minute I asked about your schnitzel that night in Garmisch. Everyone else in that pub disappeared when I spoke to you. The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life was move out of the villa when you refused to tell me what was going on with your mother.”

  “And then I refused to talk to you again the night Carlo came to visit.”

  She nodded. It’d devastated her, even if she understood it. “It’s not every day a grown man meets his father, let alone a father who’s a king. You had a lot to digest. But I knew in my heart that if you saw me again, if you had time to breathe and to think, you’d realize that you can’t live without me, either. I had to believe that if you saw me face-to-face, you’d talk to me, really talk to me, no matter the circumstances around us. That you’d trust me with what you believe are your faults.”

  She dropped her poles and reached up to cover his hands with her gloved ones, wanting to pull him closer, to convince him for once and for all that they belonged together. Forever. That it was what she wanted, too. “They’re not faults at all, Rocco. You’re honorable. You wanted to honor your mother, but found she’d put you in an impossible position. Rocco, I respect that. And I respect that you went to Sarcaccia to support King Carlo at his press conference.”

  “Read about that, did you?”

  “I saw it. Watched the whole thing online. Read as much as I could afterward.” Leaning uphill, she pressed a kiss to his lips. With her forehead only a few inches from his, she said, “You are a remarkable, magnificent man. That was a good thing you did for Carlo.” />
  “It was good for me.”

  Rocco kissed her once more, gently, resisting the urge to crush her to his body and pull her down into the snow.

  “You really think so?” Her blue eyes flashed in the late morning sun. “You heard Marit. You’ve been all over television.”

  That much was true. Since the news conference, reporters crowded the street around his villa and thickened the usual foot traffic in the square near his office. They’d stopped everyone going in and out of the building and even grilled the elderly man who ran the kiosk downstairs about Rocco and his habits. Enzo and Lina had suffered a similar barrage of attention, though it was Rocco’s face that was now the most familiar, since media outlets had footage from the press conference to paste all over their reports.

  “I’m not a fan of the coverage.” He ran his hands down her shoulders, grateful to have her close. “I meant that it was good for me to be there. I spent time with King Carlo afterward. He gave me a tour of the palace and grounds, and we talked. Then I stayed for dinner. A family dinner.”

  Astonishment filled her gaze. “With all his children?”

  “Prince Bruno had to return to school, but yes. It was…eye-opening.” He thought back to the boisterous evening. It hadn’t been anything like he’d expected. “There’s an immense aura that clings to every one of them. I suppose it comes with the trappings of the palace and the royal titles. But they’re all very human, too. Massimo is quieter, more contemplative than the others. Alessandro does everything full bore. He reminds me of Enzo. Sophia is the center of their world but also the butt of their jokes. Vittorio has a deep sense of responsibility, and Stefano—I swear—Stefano could be Father of the Year. He’s crazy about his wife and kids. He seems to want nothing more than to spend time watching his daughter show off goodies she’s baked herself while he holds his new son.”

  He’d gotten a good sense of all their personalities that night as, gradually, they relaxed around him.

  “They’re good people,” he continued, wanting Justine to understand the significance of the time he’d spent in Sarcaccia. “They have every luxury, but don’t act entitled. They treat the palace staff like family. To a person, you could tell that everyone who worked in that building was happy to be there. The Barralis were good to me, too, though I know the princes and Princess Sophia weren’t comfortable with my presence. They couldn’t hide that, not completely. But it came from a protectiveness toward each other rather than a distrust of me in particular. For all their differences, they love each other. They love their parents.”

  Wonder and a hint of pride colored her grin. Her hands slipped around his waist. “You genuinely liked them.”

  “I did.” In spite of everything. “Not because of their fame or even what they’ve done for their country, though it’s obvious when you look around that they’ve put their hearts and souls into improving the economy there. I liked them for what they’ve built together.”

  This was the part of what he had to tell her that was most important. What he’d spent the last few days mulling over, wanting to get exactly right when he saw Justine. “To say that Carlo and Fabrizia had a rocky start to their marriage is an understatement. Carlo nearly ended it early on because, even though he’d fallen in love with Fabrizia, he thought it’d be better for her in the long run given all that had happened with my mother. He told me that while he gave me the palace tour.”

  “Thought he had to let Fabrizia go for her own good, did he?”

  Rocco exhaled and nodded. Tears rose in Justine’s eyes, but she seemed too caught up in the moment to care. “He told me that Fabrizia asked him to trust in her strength, that she could get through anything. I know Carlo was trying to tell me not to give up on us, but I was so concerned by what being married to me would mean for you that I told myself he was wrong.”

  “But?”

  “But watching them at dinner, how they behave when they’re behind closed doors…” The happy sounds of that night came back to him in a rush. Alessandro and Sophia’s laughter echoing through the king and queen’s private apartment as they teased each other, Anna’s screeches as her aunts and uncles tickled her, the love he saw between Vittorio and Emily, Massimo and Kelly, Stefano and Megan. All because Carlo trusted Fabrizia when she asked it of him, despite his instinct to protect her.

  “I wanted that, Justine. The way Fabrizia looked at her husband…I want that with you and I want it for the rest of my life. I knew as soon as I walked out of the palace that I’d move heaven and earth for it. If Carlo and Fabrizia can do it, if they can both be that happy, so can we. If only you can forgive me for being such an idiot. Again.”

  The tears in her eyes finally spilled over. Her hands fell away from him as she blew out a breath and looked up at the brilliant Norwegian sky.

  His hands tightened on her arms. “If you’ve taught me anything, Justine, it’s that when you want something badly enough, you find a way to make it work. It’s the reason I tracked you down on a black diamond ski slope in the middle of Scandinavia. It might not be easy. It might involve tough choices. But it is possible. It’s all a matter of how much you want it.”

  Finally, Justine lowered her gaze to his. Her voice choked, she said, “That’s what you came here to tell me? You didn’t come for the necklace. You came to tell me that anything is possible.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t have—”

  “You could’ve gotten yourself lost or hurt before you could tell me all that!” He froze, dumbstruck, as she continued, “You were forgiven the moment you drove off from my apartment the other night.”

  “I shouldn’t have been.”

  “You had to come to terms with the situation yourself.” She leaned forward, fitting her body to his, and smiled. “By the way, I’d say, ‘Next time, wait for me at the lodge.’ But there won’t be a next time.”

  “I’ll make damned sure of it.” As the breeze picked up, causing the tree branches overhead to mist them with snow, he kissed her again. “I love you, Justine. More than life itself.”

  “And I love you, Rocco Cornaro. I want you to know it before I risk both our necks trying to get us down this slope.” She let go of him and bent to adjust his skis so he could step into them without tumbling. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

  “Says the woman wearing the million-dollar necklace to ski.” At the fiery look in her eyes, he held up both hands and laughed. “I trust you. Now get me down to the lodge so I can express everything else I feel.”

  “Slowly and safely, all right?”

  “Slowly and safely?” He couldn’t help the wicked grin that spread across his face. “Mrs. Cornaro, I’m not sure you fully appreciate what I have in mind.”

  Epilogue

  The cool air within the centuries-old stone building was a welcome relief after the heat of Rome’s cobblestoned streets.

  It’d taken four months, but Rocco finally lived up to his promise. He and Justine had spent three spectacular days in the Eternal City. They’d toured the city’s ancient catacombs, people watched on the famous Spanish Steps with gelato in hand, and lingered in front Bernini’s life-sized sculpture of Apollo and Daphne at the Borghese Museum. Justine had sighed over the smooth curve of Daphne’s arm as the nymph reached for the sky and the contrast with her fingers, which had grown into branches and leaves as she was transformed into a laurel tree.

  Rocco could hardly wait to see Justine’s reaction to the gift that had arrived at the villa while they’d been in Rome. Kos had called Rocco to report that an armored car had arrived with a surprise gift for Rocco and Justine from King Carlo and Queen Fabrizia: an original Degas painting of a horse standing in dew-kissed meadow at sunrise. The handwritten note accompanying it had said, Remember the story of kindnesses given and accepted. Make this your legacy.

  Rocco intended to mount it above the mantel in his study, just over the framed photo of his mother. He hadn’t co
mpletely forgiven her, though he hoped he could in the years to come. More and more each day, he appreciated the sacrifices she’d made so he, Enzo, and Lina could lead normal lives.

  He still loved her. And now, by the grace of God, he had Justine to love.

  Better than the days in Rome had been the three blissful nights in the luxury apartment he’d rented near the Piazza Navona. The comfortable bed with its decadent linens, the sprawling marble bathroom, and the elegant, sink-your-toes-in rugs had made Justine sigh with delight the moment she’d crossed the threshold.

  He’d ensured those sighs transformed into more impassioned, gratifying sounds with each night they spent in the apartment, making love under the massive skylight that offered a spectacular view of the stars. It was his every dream come true, and witnessing Justine’s wide-eyed joy as they savored Rome renewed his spirit.

  The press hadn’t caught wind of where they were staying, which gave him peace of mind. Private time with Justine needed to be just that: private. When they were out and about, it was a different story. There was no avoiding the attention that came their way when one or both of them were recognized. They’d been photographed several times, both by passersby and the local press, but Justine didn’t seem to mind. When a group of Austrian teens asked for her autograph during dinner in Trastevere one evening, she’d not only obliged, she’d thanked them for being fans of the sport and posed for pictures with them.

  Rocco was the one who’d had to adjust to the increased attention. Justine had guided him in the art of identifying and dissuading those whose speculation ran toward the salacious while showing kindness to those who were merely curious about him, or who—in a surprising number of instances—were longtime admirers of the royal family. Justine insisted there was a knack to speaking with well-meaning strangers in a way that kept the conversations brief, yet left them happy at having met a celebrity.

  “I’m not a celebrity,” Rocco had insisted.