by Teri Wilson
“Naturally. Because a tree is just what I need to drag around on the rest of this pleasure cruise.” Niccolo rolled his eyes.
Piero regarded Niccolo with concern. He wasn’t normally like this. He’d never made it a practice to comment on the schedule. On a typical morning, he simply listened and nodded while he ate something healthy like an egg-white omelet.
But this morning wasn’t exactly typical, was it?
He knew what was coming. The Hotel de Russie was a safe haven, a Garden of Eden of sorts. The piazza was carved into a hillside, completely walled in on one side by lush greenery. The scent of lemons swirled in the air, and especially now, in the morning solitude, he could almost believe he was in paradise.
But Niccolo had been down this road before. He knew that the moment he stepped out the front door and onto the cobblestone streets, he’d be mobbed by a crowd of paparazzi. The odd reporter or two might sneak their way into the bar during the aperitivo hour, but generally the Hotel de Russie kept the press at arm’s distance. Once he left this five-star shelter, they’d shadow his every move, waiting for him to say something—anything—about Cassian and his water nymphs. And whatever he said, it wouldn’t be enough. It never was. They’d want more. They always did. And whatever he didn’t give them, they would take. And take. And take.
Just as they’d taken from his mother.
The familiar black fury of yesterday swirled in his veins, and he took another drink. Thank God this tour was nearly over. He’d been to eight European capitals in twelve days. London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Budapest, Monaco, Paris, Athens . . . and now Rome. Or was this Moscow?
A waiter drifted toward him and placed yet another Bloody Mary on the table. “Buongiorno, Vostra Altezza Reale.”
Good morning, Your Royal Highness. Italian. So yes, he was definitely in Italy. Whose idea was it to put a Russian hotel in the middle of Rome? It was downright confusing, given his travel schedule. At least the end was in sight. This time tomorrow, he’d be back at the palace. Lazaretto, nestled right between Monaco and Cannes. Cool breezes blowing off the Mediterranean Sea, sunsets that contained more colors than a crayon box. His own bed.
“Grazie.” He reached for the more probable source of his disorientation and took another gulp. Things were beginning to get a bit fuzzy. Perhaps it was a good thing he wouldn’t be driving away from the Auto Works in that experimental convertible after all.
“Shall we continue, sir?” Piero asked.
Niccolo frowned into his drink. “What kind of tree?”
“Pardon, sir?”
He looked up. “What kind of tree are they giving me? A fruit tree, like lemon? Or something more exotic? An umbrella pine maybe? A quintessentially Roman tree.”
Piero consulted his tablet. Beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”
Niccolo shrugged. “Go on, then. Where am I toting the tree? What comes next?”
“At ten fifty-five you’re expected at an orphanage in Prati, a neighborhood across the river, just north of the Vatican City. At eleven forty-five you’re scheduled to meet with members of the press.”
His hand tightened around his cocktail glass. The press. Miserable excuses for human beings.
“One to two is set aside for lunch with the foreign ministry, followed by the presentation of a plaque. That will be a quick stop because your flight for Helsinki leaves at four.”
Niccolo’s hand paused mid-reach for his drink. “What did you just say?”
“Your flight leaves at four, sir.” Piero’s smile looked forced. With good reason.
“You mean my flight back to Lazaretto,” Niccolo said with exaggerated slowness.
Maybe he’d heard wrong. Maybe Piero had misspoken. Helsinki?
No.
God, no.
“I’m afraid not, sir. Your trip has been extended. An email arrived an hour ago.” Piero jabbed his pointer finger at his iPad, no doubt searching for the documentation of this abrupt change in plans.
There was really no need.
“An email,” Niccolo said flatly, pushing what was left of his Bloody trio away. He’d suddenly lost his appetite. “From whom?”
He didn’t know why he was asking. There was only one person who could make this kind of last minute adjustment to his schedule, one person who would dare give orders to the future king.
The current king.
“From the office of the king, sir.” Piero thrust the iPad under Niccolo’s nose.
He gave it a cursory glance. There it was. The king’s email address. The king’s name. The king’s insignia. The fact that the king also happened to be his grandfather was irrelevant. He was a king first, a grandfather second. Maybe even third or fourth. The bottom line was that Cassian had caused a major public-relations disaster, and it was now Niccolo’s job to turn things around. Lest the events of the past repeat themselves and the Lazaretto parliament consider abolishing the monarchy entirely.
He scanned the details of the email. His trip was to be extended by forty-one days. He closed his eyes and let that sink in for a moment. Forty-one more days. That was more than a month of moving from country to country, hotel room to hotel room, empty bed to empty bed.
Get a handle on yourself. It’s not so bad.
He would have the best of accommodations. That was a given. Private jets, chauffeured luxury cars, five-star hotels with Egyptian cotton sheets and down pillows. The crème de la crème. The best of everything. Always.
He had no right to complain. This was his job. A job he’d been born into. From day one, he’d known this was his destiny. But for some reason—the alcohol perhaps—this life felt hollow all of a sudden. And those longings he sometimes felt, the longings for something perfectly ordinary, something that he could sink his teeth into like a ripe Italian tomato, something real, no longer simmered deep inside. They’d begun to boil over. He felt edgy. Irritable. Wholly out of sorts.
He pushed the iPad away. “Very well, then. The tour’s been extended. What, pray tell, will I be doing for the next forty-one days? Cutting ribbons and such? More of the same, I suppose?”
Piero offered him a consolatory smile. “Actually, it’s something a bit different this time, sir.”
Somewhere beneath the custom cut of his suit jacket, his made-to-measure oxford shirt, and tasteful silk tie, dread stirred in Niccolo’s soul. “Oh, really? Tell me more.”
“You’ll be attending, ah, some athletic events.” Piero’s smile grew wider, more forced.
Niccolo’s gaze narrowed. “Athletic events?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me guess—we’re not talking about football games, are we?”
“Not exactly. No.” Piero shook his head and released a shaky breath. He looked frightened. As frightened as a bearer of not just bad news, but the worst possible news one could fathom.
Niccolo would have pitied him, had he been prone to pitying people. Which he wasn’t. He had neither the time nor inclination for such useless emotion. “Give it to me straight, Piero.”
“You’ll be attending the European Synchronized Swimming Championships as a special ambassador to the sport.”
Niccolo reached for the dregs of his Bloody Mary and promptly drained the glass. His head spun slightly. A pleasant warmth coursed through his veins, yet Piero’s voice still reached him through his fog of alcohol-soaked fury.
“You’re to attend twenty competitions over the course of twenty days. At each stop, you’ll attend practices, be photographed with the athletes before the competition, and present the trophy to the winning team.”
So he was to be the sacrificial lamb, then? While Cassian was exiled back at the palace in Lazaretto, Niccolo would be the one to smile for the cameras, act like a responsible adult, and kiss and make up with the sport on behalf of the royal family. The press would eat
it up. He’d be hounded by photographers for the duration of the trip. The newspapers would print his picture on the front page, right alongside the more risqué images of Cassian. It would be, in essence, an exercise in royal humiliation.
He stared into his drink. “I suppose it could be worse. I’m not to act as towel boy, too, am I?”
Piero grew still. Too still.
“Piero.” Niccolo’s head throbbed. He was beginning to regret pre-nine-in-the-morning vodka. Where was that pleasant woozy feeling he’d had just moments before?
Somewhere at the bottom of a swimming pool, no doubt.
“Tell me the rest,” he said.
“At the final game, you’re to perform a simple exhibition number with some of the athletes.”
Surely he’d heard that wrong. “What?”
Piero’s knuckles whitened. If he hadn’t had such a death grip on that damned iPad of his, Niccolo would have snatched it out of his hands and broken it in half over his knee.
“It’s to be a short, simple routine, sir. No more than two minutes.” Piero held up two fingers.
It took superhuman effort for Niccolo not to snap them right off his hand. “I don’t care how short. Or how simple. This is absurd. I’ll do no such thing.”
What was this? Swimming with the Stars?
“They’re expecting you. All the arrangements have already been made.”
Of course they had. “By whom?”
Piero cleared his throat. “The office of the king, sir.”
Niccolo stared quietly at his own hands resting casually, interlocked on the table. Since birth those hands had been destined to hold power and responsibility. Those hands had joined with those of presidents and prime ministers, kings and queens. Yet sometimes, times like now—perhaps never as much as now—he longed to open those fists and let it all slip right through his fingers.
He would never actually do it, of course. A La Torre had sat on the throne of Lazaretto for over two hundred years. The monarchy was his legacy, and he would do whatever necessary to protect it. He wouldn’t let anything threaten the crown—neither parliament nor Cassian’s antics.
“Are you all right, sir?” Piero asked quietly.
No. Absolutely not.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, a bit too harshly perhaps. But what did Piero expect? For him to bare his soul? Not bloody likely.
“Can I get you anything before the car arrives?”
Food would probably be a good idea. He couldn’t remember hearing anything about lunch in between the car and the tree and the orphanage and the leeches, also known as the press. Wait, he was having lunch with the foreign minister, wasn’t he? Or was it the ambassador?
His jaw involuntarily clenched. He needed to get it together. He had a jam-packed day ahead of him, followed by a flight to Helsinki to endure, not to mention his burgeoning career as a synchronized swimmer to contemplate. As outlandish as they were, he simply didn’t have time to bemoan his circumstances.
“Breakfast.” He frowned at his near-empty drink. His third. Or was it the fourth? “Of the solid variety, Piero.”
“Right away.” His secretary scurried off.
No sooner had he left than the bartender reappeared with yet another Bloody Mary. He didn’t particularly need it, nor had he ordered it. Niccolo was rarely required to voice his wants. They typically appeared before him, just like the Bloody Mary.
“Thank you,” he said. Then when the bartender lingered, “You’re dismissed.”
The bartender bowed quickly and made his way back to the bar, which was discreetly situated in the corner beneath the shade of a trio of massive peach-colored umbrellas. Niccolo watched him return to his post, and just as his gaze began to drift away, a young woman stepped onto the smooth tile floor of the piazza.
Even if she hadn’t been the only other soul up and about at the Stravinskij Bar at this early hour, she would have captured his attention at once simply by the fact that she was so clearly out of her element. The socialites who frequented the Hotel de Russie wouldn’t be caught dead in her ensemble. Not that there was anything necessarily wrong with her bright red skinny jeans, black-and-white polka-dot blouse, and massive gauzy scarf wrapped round her slender neck.
It was the shoes that had snagged his attention—boyish loafers, the likes of which he’d never seen on a woman’s feet outside a classic black-and-white movie. They definitely made a statement. And that statement was that she wasn’t about to teeter around on Italian cobblestones in stilettos for fashion’s sake. And the faded denim backpack hanging from her shoulders was a far cry from the designer handbags hanging in every shop window that lined Via del Corso.
Waves of chocolate-colored hair were piled haphazardly on her head and big brown doe eyes peered from beneath the fringe. Her mouth was painted bright red. As bright as a ruby red apple.
Temptation.
Something in Niccolo stirred. Something dark and primal. She was pretty. Very pretty. Different, in a way that he didn’t often encounter. Had never encountered, if he was being honest.
Then his gaze drifted lower, to the small notebook in her hands. A reporter. Marvelous.
The throbbing in Niccolo’s temples kicked up a notch. His hands balled into fists as he watched her glance around, searching for something, someone. Then she spotted him and her cherry red lips curved into a smile.
That mouth.
She made a beeline in his direction. He had to give her credit for her boldness. She walked right up to his table. For once, Piero wasn’t there to serve as a buffer. It was just the two of them, as if they were ordinary people. As if he weren’t sitting there wearing an invisible crown.
Her lips pursed slightly, and Niccolo was almost grateful for the intrusion. Because there was nothing ordinary about that mouth. Nothing whatsoever.
“Buongiorno.” Despite the Italian greeting, she sounded very American. Which was the likely explanation for her boldness. She extended her hand.
Niccolo stared at it. He couldn’t recall a reporter ever attempting to shake his hand. It was a move as against royal protocol as it could be. As if she’d plopped right down on his lap. Something tightened inside him at the idea of the latter prospect and for that he blamed the liquor. And possibly those full red lips of hers.
He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze from her mouth to her hand, hanging in the air in its black-nail-polished glory, waiting for him to take hold of it.
Against his better judgment, he did. “Good morning.”
She smiled a full-wattage grin. He’d somehow gotten caught in the cross hairs of the bubbliest reporter this side of the Mediterranean. “I’m surprised you’re already here. I’m a bit early.”
Try four hours early. Hadn’t Piero said the press briefing was scheduled for eleven forty-five? “This is most out of the ordinary. I’m not talking to anyone right now. I’m sure you understand.”
She blinked impassively at him. Unfazed. Who was this woman? “Funny. I could have sworn you just said good morning.”
Niccolo frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“That was a joke.” She shrugged, and his gaze was once again drawn to her backpack, straining at the seams. What in the world was she carrying around in there? “If you don’t feel like talking, fine. Although it might prove a little awkward if we’re spending the entire day together.”
Niccolo’s gaze narrowed. “The entire day?”
Had Piero left something out of his recitation of the schedule? Was he to be accompanied by a reporter from sunup to sundown? Surely not. Although he could think of less tantalizing forms of torture than traversing the Eternal City with the woman standing before him.
But what was he thinking? She was a commoner. Worse, a reporter. “I think there’s been some mistake, Miss, ahhh . . .”
“Costa. Julia Costa.” She reached beneath lay
er upon layer of the wispy scarf around her neck, fished out an identification tag, and waved it in his direction.
Niccolo took a glance. JULIA COSTA, PRIVATE GUIDE was printed in bold black letters right above the words WHEN IN ROME TOURING COMPANY. So she wasn’t a reporter after all. She was a tour guide. And for some reason she seemed to think he was her client.
Did she really not know who he was?
She flipped open her notebook and consulted something scribbled on one of its pages. “I have you down for the entire day. It says so right here. You might want to rethink your vow of silence. Otherwise, I’ll end up talking you to death.”
Niccolo supposed there were worse ways to go than anything involving that crimson mouth of hers. “Refresh my memory. Where are you taking me today?”
The question had flown right out of him before he could stop it.
“I usually suggest starting with the Colosseum. But this is on your dime, so we can go wherever your heart desires.” She shrugged again.
Wherever my heart desires.
Didn’t that sound far better than the Roman Auto Works, an organic garden, and an orphanage? Not that Niccolo had anything against pesticide-free vegetables. Or orphans, for that matter.
He took another look at her. A good, long one. She looked right back at him, directly in his eyes. As if the two of them were equals. As if, with the utterance of just the right words, he might fall to his knees rather than the other way around.
“Will there be more in your party?” She glanced around the vacant piazza, and Niccolo tried mightily to fend off that image of her on her knees.
Everything about the way she carried herself and the way she’d teased him about the no-talking thing suggested that she was indeed oblivious to his identity. And it was this lack of awareness, coupled with the outlandish thought of sinking his teeth into her lush lower lip, that kept Niccolo rooted to the spot.
He simply couldn’t bring himself to walk away. He couldn’t remember a time—ever—that he’d met someone who hadn’t come to him with preconceived notions of who and what he was. He knew he should tell her the truth, or a sliver of the truth at the very least. He wasn’t the man she was looking for.
