Rafe looked up at the older man, his eyes narrowing. Nobody else could get away with such impertinence. Nobody else would even try. But Sebastiano had been in charge of palace administration for something like forty years, and, while he’d been shunted to one side in his half-brothers’ desire to rule unopposed, Rafe credited him with almost certainly being the one thing that had held the principality together during those years of recklessness and financial ineptitude. Not that that meant he had to like what his aide said. ‘I haven’t wanted one of them yet.’
Sebastiano gave an exasperated sigh, his attention on the recently arrived aircraft. ‘We’ve been through this. Montvelatte needs an heir. How are you to achieve this without a wife? We are simply trying to expedite the process.’
‘By turning this island into some kind of ghastly reality game show?’
Sebastiano gave up the fight with a small bow. ‘I’ll inform the Contessa and her daughter you’ll meet them in the library after they’ve freshened up.’ Without waiting for a reply he withdrew as briskly as he’d arrived. Scant seconds later Rafe noticed the golf buggy used to transport travellers between the helipad and the palace heading out along the narrow path.
Rafe sighed. He knew Sebastiano was right, that Montvelatte’s future was insecure without another generation of Lombardis, and that nobody would invest the necessary funds in Montvelatte’s financial reconstruction without a guarantee of the longevity of the island’s status as a principality. But he still didn’t like the implications.
The buggy came to a halt alongside the helicopter where his aide emerged crisp and dapper, stooping under the still-circling blades as he approached before opening the door.
Rafe turned back to his papers and the problem at hand. He had no interest in its passengers: the hopeful mother, the ‘eminently qualified’ daughter. He’d seen the stills, he’d seen the tapes and the two-minute interview, all of which had been provided to give him the opportunity to assess how this particular marriage prospect looked, walked and talked and how she might satisfy at least half the requirements of a future Princess of Montvelatte—that of looking the part. The other half—doing her part—had been apparently already assured by a barrage of eminent medical specialists.
Rafe had no sympathy for these women, these carefully selected marriage prospects, who seemed so keen for the opportunity to parade in front of him like some choice cut of meat. All so they might secure marriage to a near perfect stranger and, through it, the title of princess.
It made no sense to him. What they had subjected themselves to to prove that their families and their past were beyond reproach and that there were no health impediments to both conceiving a child and carrying it to full term, beggared belief.
On the other hand, nobody had dared question his prowess to conceive a child, for despite the scandalous circumstances of his own bastard birth thirty-three years ago, he had the right bloodlines and that, it was deemed, was sufficient.
He would have laughed, if it weren’t the truth. A hitherto unknown prince had appeared on the scene in a blaze of publicity and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the fairy tale.
Rafe glanced up, noticing Sebastiano’s lips move as he handed the second of the women into the buggy, the silky outfit she was wearing shifting on the breeze, rippling like the sea.
Even from here he could see she was beautiful. Tall, willow slim and every bit as elegant as the photographs and film footage suggested.
But then they were all beautiful.
And he was completely unmoved.
He sighed. Maybe that was one good thing about this search for a princess. At least nobody would labour under the misapprehension that this was a love match. At least he would be spared that.
The woman hesitated a fraction before entering the vehicle and turned her silver-blonde head up towards the palace, scanning from behind her designer sunglasses. Was she looking for him, wondering where he was and whether the snub of not being there to greet her was deliberate? Or was she merely sizing up the real estate?
Rafe drained the last of the thick, rich coffee and collected his papers together. He would have to meet her, he supposed. He might as well get it over with. But he would talk to Sebastiano and make him see sense. This system of princess hunting that Sebastiano and his team of courtiers had devised was no basis for a marriage. Especially not his.
Over at the helipad the buggy’s cargo was safely loaded, and the buggy was pulling away when the door of the helicopter was thrown open and the pilot jumped out, running out after the vehicle with a small case in his hands.
And it hit Rafe with all the force of a body blow.
Not his hands.
Her hands!
He was on his feet and at the terrace balustrade in an instant, peering harder, squinting against the glare of the sun. It couldn’t be …
But the pilot was definitely a woman, a tight waist and the curve of her hip accentuated by the slim-fitting overalls, and, while sunglasses hid her eyes, her pale skin and the copper-red hair framing her face were both achingly familiar. Then she turned after delivering the bag and a long braid slapped back and forth across her back as though it were a living thing.
Christo!
He pounced on the nearest phone, barking out his first ever order to the Palace Guard, ‘Don’t let that helicopter go!’
Sienna had to get out of here. Her knees were jelly with relief that Rafe hadn’t been there to meet the helicopter, her stomach churned and if she didn’t get off this island in the next thirty seconds she was going to explode. Although, the way her insides felt after that panicked dash to deliver her passenger’s forgotten bag, she might just explode anyway.
Sienna sucked in a deep, and what she hoped was a calming, breath and with clammy hands pulled the door of the chopper shut, clipping on her headset. Thinking he might be there when she landed—dreading it—had put her in a cold sweat the entire flight.
And she was still sweating. It didn’t help that it was so hot today, especially out here on this rocky headland, where the effect of the hot Mediterranean sun was compounded by the way it bounced off the white painted walls that coiled along the narrow road up to the castle like a ribbon. And the castle up the top—the fairy-tale castle that rose out of the rock, ancient and weather-worn and beautiful, the fairy-tale castle now presided over by Prince Raphael, last of the long and illustrious line of Lombardi.
Prince Raphael. Oh, my God, she’d slept with a prince. Royalty. And she’d had no idea. But nobody had back then. It had only been in the days after he’d practically tossed her out of his room that the news of the discovery of a new-found prince for Montvelatte had broken. Sensational news that had rivalled the earlier news of the downfall of the then incumbent and his brother.
And it had seemed as if every newspaper, every magazine and every television programme had been full of the news, digging into the once buried past, and uncovering the story of the young nanny who’d become the Prince’s lover, only to be exiled with a young son and another baby on the way. The coronation that had followed had kept the story alive for weeks.
And his face had been everywhere she’d looked, so there was no hope of forgetting him during the day, no chance of escaping the face that haunted her in her dreams.
He was a prince!
No wonder he’d changed his mind about seeing her again. He would have known what that news report had meant—that he’d have even less reason to slum it with the likes of her.
Why would he, when he clearly had his pick of society’s brightest and prettiest? There’d been a constant stream of women being brought to the island in the past few days. Nothing had been said at the base—they knew that discretion was the better part of business success—but she knew from personal experience. Prince Raphael was a man of big appetites …
Her stomach churned, the taste of bile bitter in her mouth as she completed the preflight checklist. The sooner she was away from this island and the sooner there was no risk she would run into the
man who’d so unceremoniously thrown her out of his life, then the sooner this damned queasiness would settle down. Ever since she’d been told she’d been rostered on for this assignment she’d felt physically ill. Montvelatte was the last place on earth she wanted to be. Knowing she’d just delivered his latest love interest made it doubly so.
Sienna yanked herself back from that thought with a mental slap to the head.
What was she thinking? Genevieve, or whatever her name was, was welcome to him. She was out of here.
There was the roar of another engine, the blast of horns and she turned to see a jeep screeching to a halt alongside the helipad in a spray of gravel and dust, and the churning in her gut took a turn for the worst. It didn’t get any better when four uniformed officers jumped out, gesturing to her to cut the rotors. This was supposed to be a simple drop-and-run. Surely there was no obscure paperwork she’d forgotten to complete?
She was making a move to open the door when it was pulled open for her from the other side. The officer saluted so properly that even over her own thumping heartbeat, Sienna imagined she could hear the snap of his heels clicking together. She’d seen that uniform before—in the footage of the former Prince and his brother being carted away—and she wasn’t at all sure that was a comforting thought.
‘Signorina Wainwright?’
Breath caught in Sienna’s lungs and gave birth to a new strain of fear. They knew her name?
She shook her head, removing her headset once again. ‘Y-yes,’ she stammered. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘There is no problem, I assure you,’ the officer told her in his richly accented English. ‘Please, if you would just step outside the aircraft,’ he added, offering her his hand to alight the helicopter. His words and actions were accompanied with a smile so seemingly genuine that for a moment she thought everything must be fine after all, that her most recent panic attack was unwarranted and that this was merely some kind of quaint formality nobody had thought to warn her about.
But once outside he made it clear that he expected her to keep moving. Towards the jeep.
Sienna stopped, the men either side of her coming to a halt also. ‘What’s going on?’
‘It is but a short trip to the Castello,’ he said, neatly sidestepping her question and throwing her thoughts into turmoil.
Her eyes swung up to the palace that sat atop the massive rock that made up this part of the island. It stared down at her with its thousand window eyes, and for the first time she didn’t notice the beauty of the ancient stone architecture with its arched windows and flag-topped turrets, but the thick walls and the fortifications all around that had protected it from invaders for centuries. This time the fairy-tale palace had disappeared, and it was the fortress that she noticed, the fortress she knew instinctively would be just as hard to escape from as to break into.
The fortress that contained the man she least wanted to see in the world.
Oh, no. No way was she going there.
She swallowed back on the sick feeling in a stomach that was once again threatening to unload its pitiful contents at any time, while the hot sun wrung even more perspiration from her nervous body. Her overalls stuck to her in all the wrong places, and sweat beads slid lazily along the loose curling tendrils at her fringe and neck.
‘Look, I don’t really have time for this. I have to get the chopper back to base. They’re expecting me.’ She cast a desperate look back over her shoulder towards the helicopter, frowning when she noticed that the remaining two officers had taken up guard duty in front of the chopper, strategically placing themselves between her and the door and effectively cutting off that means of escape. Even if she could have outrun these two beside her.
‘Please,’ the officer urged, gesturing towards the jeep.
Finding what little shred of courage she still had left, she kicked up her chin. ‘And if I insist on being allowed to leave? If I refuse to accompany you to the palace?’
He smiled again, but this time it was a little lighter on the charm, a little heavier on the menace. ‘In that unfortunate case,’ he said, adding a little bow, ‘you would leave me with no choice. I would be forced to arrest you.’
CHAPTER THREE
SIENNA had had enough. For almost three hours she’d been stuck inside this drawing room, prowling the walls holding her prisoner like a caged lion at the zoo.
It didn’t matter that the drawing room was the size of a small country and that the accoutrements, the Renaissance tapestries gracing the walls, the crystal chandeliers and fine furniture, made it much more pleasant than any zoo enclosure she’d ever seen. Nor did the constant visitors make a shred of difference, bustling in and out and offering her refreshments and any number of pastries or other tasty delights that she desired.
She wasn’t about to be taken in by window dressing. The now familiar maroon-clad guards she’d spied perched at their posts outside the door every time they’d opened had made it more than clear that she was not some welcome guest, but a prisoner in a cage, albeit a very gilded one.
And while at first she’d been nervous, anxious about having to confront Rafe again and certain that he must be the one behind her detention, after waiting this long with no information she was beyond nervousness and frustration. She was furious.
Not one person she’d met here—was able to tell her exactly why she was being kept against her will or when she would be allowed to leave.
The bearer of the pastries had waved her questions aside with a sweep of a hand and had seemed insulted she hadn’t been more interested in tasting the proffered wares. The tea bearer had pretended he was ignorant of both English and French and had looked benignly down his crooked nose at her when she’d attempted her rudimentary Italian.
She had a helicopter that had been due back at base hours ago and nobody had allowed her anywhere near a phone to let them know she’d been detained. A missing helicopter. A missing pilot with it. And while the fragrant sweet tea had settled her stomach, it would take something a lot stronger, if not a minor miracle, to settle her nerves. Her earlier nausea was nothing to how she felt now. She would lose her job over this for sure.
Then she heard it, the familiar whine of helicopter engines leading up to that whump whump of the rotors. And not just any helicopter. In fact, if she didn’t know better …
She ran, her heart sinking with every step, to the large arched windows overlooking the helipad in time to see the helicopter rise up and turn to point out to sea.
Her helicopter!
‘No!’ she cried, slapping her open palm on the window fruitlessly, knowing there was no chance that whoever was flying the craft could see her, but continuing to slam her hand against the glass anyway as the helicopter accelerated away, already shrinking into the distance.
And mere anger turned incendiary.
There were two doors into the room—one she figured led to the kitchens from where the coffee and cakes had issued. She ran instead to the other, the large double doors she’d entered through and that she knew led to the entrance lobby, the same doors that had remained firmly closed against her until now. She pulled with all her weight against their handles, banging on the wood with her closed fists when she found them locked. ‘That’s my helicopter. Let me out!’ When the doors stayed closed, she rattled the handles some more, her fury rising further as they refused to budge. She cursed out loud. Why the hell wouldn’t they let her out?
‘I know you’re out there,’ she yelled at the wall of solid wood, punching it some more for good measure. ‘I know you can hear me. I demand to see Rafe. Right now. Where is the cowardly bastard?’
‘Here in Montvelatte,’ came a familiar voice behind her, a voice that sent panic sizzling down her spine like an electric shock, ‘the usual form of address is Prince Raphael, or Your Highness, rather than “the cowardly bastard”.’
Sienna swung around, vaguely aware of her braid slapping heavily against the timber door, all too aware of the impact of him slamm
ing into her psyche. She’d demanded to see him and yet still she was totally unprepared for the sheer onslaught of this man on her senses.
And standing there, not two metres away from her, it was some onslaught. It was the same Rafe she remembered, but smoother, his thick wavy hair a little shorter and more tamed, his designer stubble smoothed to a mere shadow. But the sheer intensity contained in his eyes packed as much punch as they ever had. More. Because those eyes pinned her now, scanning her lazily from the top of her head to the toes of her boots and all points in between, until the skin under her uniform tingled, her nipples tightening to peaks under his continued scrutiny.
She swallowed, her breathing still ragged, her colour still high from her exertions on the door, if the heat she was feeling in her face was any indication, and it occurred to her in that moment the gulf between them had never been wider or more extreme. Because Rafe was now a prince and looked every part of it, so cool and urbane in his fine wool jacket, so groomed and superior, whereas she was still a nobody, and right now a dishevelled and flustered one.
But so what? She didn’t give a damn about his title, not after the way she’d been treated. She was little more than a prisoner here. The last thing she would do was grovel.
‘I call it like I see it,’ she shot back, refusing to apologise for the outburst or the terminology she’d resorted to.
His eyes narrowed, his expression hardening. ‘So I noticed. I can see your mood was not improved by the delay. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long. I was unavoidably detained.’
‘You were detained?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Who are you trying to kid. It was me who was detained, prevented by your goons from taking off, and threatened with arrest if I didn’t go along with their plans. I’m the one who’s been detained for hours, held here against my will, and now my helicopter’s been stolen—’
‘It hasn’t been stolen.’
‘It’s gone! Someone’s taken it without my permission. I call that stolen.’
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