by Teri Wilson
“Of course. He’s that prince. The one who’s got all of Rome whipped into a fury because he disappeared and stood up a bunch of important people the past couple of days. He’s supposed to be sick or something, but I’m not buying it. Neither is anyone else. He’s probably just hooking up with some local cupcake.” She brought the phone closer to her face and squinted at its display. “Wow, that looks a lot like Valentina. And your flat, actually.”
Julia sighed as her last remaining shred of hope fell away. What was she going to do? Out of all the messes she’d gotten herself into, this was surely the messiest. “Because that is my flat.”
“Oh my God. You’re the cupcake.” Chiara blinked. “But I don’t get it. Valentina hates men.”
Julia sighed. “Are you serious right now? I tell you there’s a naked prince sleeping in my bed, and the part you find most shocking is that he gets on with my dog?”
Chiara shrugged. “You have to admit it’s shocking. I mean, Elio almost lost a finger. Oh, sorry. I forgot I’m not supposed to mention his name.”
Julia shook her head. “It’s fine.”
She hadn’t even noticed. After months and months of feeling physically ill whenever she’d heard those three devastating syllables, they suddenly had no effect on her whatsoever.
That was odd. Not that it meant anything. She had more important things to worry about at the moment. Royal things. Royal naked things. “You say that Nico . . . I mean, the prince . . . upset people?”
“Not just people. Everyone.” She handed the phone back to Julia. “Now fess up. This is a joke, right? That’s Photoshopped or something. It has to be.”
Oh, how she wished it were a joke. “It’s one hundred percent real.”
“You mean the Crown Prince of Lazaretto is behind that door? Right now?” She stared at Julia’s flat. “How on earth did you pull off such a miracle?”
Julia sighed. “I sort of kidnapped him.”
“You kidnapped a prince?”
“It’s not as bad as it seems. I didn’t know he was a royal when I kidnapped him.” Why had that sounded so much better in her head?
“How could you not know? He’s practically as famous as Prince William.”
“I don’t read tabloids, remember? I hate gossip.”
Chiara nodded. “And you’re not even on Facebook. I forget sometimes that you’re basically a nun. It’s so weird.”
Julia frowned. “No, it’s not.”
“I hate to break it to you, but yeah. It is.” Chiara shrugged.
What difference did it make, anyway? Only one thing mattered at the moment—the prince in her bed.
As quickly as she could, Julia spelled out the events of the past weekend. Most of them. The more personal details weren’t relevant to the big picture. At least not as far as anyone else was concerned.
“I don’t get it. I just don’t understand why he would leave the hotel with you. Unless there’s more you’re not telling me.” Chiara smirked. “He had his way with you, didn’t he? You slept with him! You lucky thing.”
Julia cleared her throat. “I did not sleep with him.”
Not technically.
“You’ve got the man who occupies the top spot of Europe’s most eligible bachelor list in your bed, and you’re telling me you didn’t sleep with him?” Chiara stared pointedly at Julia’s closed door.
“It’s not like that.” Julia waited for lightning to strike her dead for being a liar. At least if it did, she wouldn’t have to worry about how to extricate herself from the mess she’d gotten herself into.
When lightning failed to appear, she was almost disappointed.
“This isn’t how it looks.”
Chiara laughed. Hard.
“Shh. You’re going to wake him!” At the moment, a conscious prince sounded much worse than a sleeping one.
Chiara shot another long, lingering glance at the door. “You didn’t sleep with him. Then you’re either crazy or stupid. I’m not sure which.”
“Crazy or stupid? Those are my only options?”
“I’m willing to throw hopelessly naïve into the mix. Really, Julia. How could you not recognize him?” Chiara grabbed a copy of Novella 2000 off the table just inside the door and shoved it at her.
Nico—correction, Niccolo—stared back at her from the cover, looking as he had when she’d first seen him on the piazza at the hotel. The same moody gray gaze, same perfectly shaped lips, same close-cropped beard. The abrupt disappearance of the beard should have been the clincher. She’d had her doubts about his outlandish fake name, but no one dashes out of the Colosseum for an emergency shave. Not even men named Mano Romano.
God, she was an idiot.
“You seem upset,” Chiara said.
“Of course I’m upset. This is bad. Really bad.” And here she’d thought that losing her job had been the low point of her week.
Chiara rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding me? This is the best thing that could have happened to you.”
“How so?” It wasn’t good. Not at all. She was jobless. She could end up in the papers. Again. And this would be far worse than before.
She felt sick. Absolutely ill. And for some reason, the fact that he’d lied to her—for two straight days—hurt most of all.
“You’re sitting on a gold mine. Do you have any idea how much that picture of Niccolo La Torre is worth? He’s naked . . . in your bed . . . when he’s supposed to be too ill to show up for his appointments. With a single phone call, you could sell that photo and every one of your money problems would be solved. Think about it. You could pay off all those debts Elio racked up in your name. You could finish your master’s degree without worrying about where your next meal is coming from. You could move into a bigger flat.”
“No. It couldn’t be that valuable, could it?” Julia shook her head. “Surely not.”
“Of course it is. Nothing sells more newspapers than a royal scandal. Think about it.”
Julia stared down at the magazine in her hand. Chiara had a point.
“You could sell it on the condition that they leave your name out of it. Everyone wants to know where Niccolo La Torre has been this weekend. Someone is going to find out. Reporters always do. You know that better than anyone.” Chiara gave her a knowing look.
Someone is going to find out. Reporters always do.
All the awful headlines that Julia had run halfway across the world to escape flashed before her eyes. She remembered being chased down the street by paparazzi every time she left the house. She remembered all the dreadful names she’d been called by the press. She remembered all too well the humiliation and the tears.
And now it would happen all over again.
Bile rose to the back of her throat.
“Listen to me, Julia.” Chiara gestured toward the magazine. “If you broke the story, you could be in control. This is your chance. Don’t blow it.”
Everything Chiara said made perfect sense. But could Julia really go through with it?
If she was smart, she would listen to her friend. Chiara knew what she’d been through. Chiara cared about her. She’d certainly never gotten her fired. And she’d never, ever lied to her.
Still, she didn’t think she could go through with it. “It feels wrong.”
“Need I remind you that he lied about who he is, purposely hijacked your actual client’s tour, and got you fired? This is Elio all over again, but with worse consequences.” Chiara narrowed her gaze. “If the two of you had feelings for one another, it would be different. I’m not misunderstanding things, am I? After all, he’s a prince. Even if you fell madly in love with him, the two of you could never be together.”
Julia laughed a little too loudly. “I’m most definitely not in love with him. That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard.”
He was maddening.
She would have to be crazy to have feelings for the man. And even if she did, which she most definitely did not, Chiara was right. Princes didn’t marry the daughters of embezzlers. Not that Mano, Nico, Niccolo, or whatever his name was intended to get down on bended knee anytime soon. Or ever.
“I’ll think about it.” Julia wrapped her arms around herself to keep from coming apart at the seams.
“He’s a prince. He’s not like you and me. He lives in a castle. His picture is in the paper every day. Being in the news goes with the territory. It’s nothing to someone like him.” Chiara rolled her eyes. “It’s always open season on royalty, Julia. Always.”
* * *
NICCOLO HAD SLEPT LIKE the dead.
He’d intended to close his eyes for an hour, two tops, while Julia rested. They had more to say, more to do, before morning.
How had he allowed himself to sleep so long? It made no sense. Compared to his accommodations at the Hotel de Russie and the royal palace, where he lived in Lazaretto, Julia’s flat was a hovel. And the bed was hardly bigger than a postage stamp. But it had a most enticing advantage over his bed in the palace. This was where Julia slept, where her beguiling body lay wrapped in sheets and her beautiful hair fanned out on the pillows.
His first instinct upon waking was to reach for his captor, to seek the warmth of her curves beneath the palms of his hands. On some level, he knew this was a colossally bad idea. The pink morning light was already drifting through Julia’s French doors. Morning was upon them. As soon as the banks opened, Piero would be knocking on her door.
Niccolo had texted him Julia’s address and sworn he’d be ready to leave the moment Piero showed up with the money he owed her. For the first time in the decade that his secretary had been in his employ, Niccolo wished he were less efficient.
Something had happened to him over the past two days. Julia’s love for history, for all the things that had gone before, had cracked something open inside Niccolo. Something that left him raw and aching. Uncharacteristically vulnerable.
He wasn’t exactly sure what, or why, although he was fairly certain when. It had started the moment when Julia had shown him Caesar’s tomb—that modest looking mound of earth. That’s all it had taken—a pile of wilted blooms on an emperor’s grave—and the most painful memory of his life had come rushing back.
How had she known? Why had she taken him there? For two straight days, he’d been telling himself that it meant nothing. It had just been some fortuitous twist of fate. She’d said herself that she’d only shown him Caesar’s grave because she believed he had an unreasonable sympathy for the ruling class. That’s all it had been, simply a cheeky nod to the barbs they’d exchanged in the Colosseum.
But by God if it hadn’t felt more meaningful than that.
All those flowers. Petals fluttering in the cool twilight breeze. The sweet perfume of blossoms. It had been like going back in time. Back to the days following his mother’s death.
She’d been so young, so beautiful. People from all over the world came to Lazaretto to mourn the loss of one of the most photographed women throughout history.
The pictures. The press. They’d been such a very big part of the problem, hadn’t they? If not for the damn papers, she never would have done what she did.
He felt a stirring beside him. He opened his eyes. “Buongiorno, bella.”
Her cheeks went crimson in a nanosecond. God, she was gorgeous. “Good morning,” she said.
So quiet. So bashful. So very different from the siren he’d unleashed when his tongue had made contact with the tender softness of her thighs. He found the disparity between her innocence and her desire utterly intoxicating. He had to remind himself that this woman who could barely look at him had kidnapped him two nights ago.
He lifted his hand to touch her cheek and Julia’s tiny dog wiggled out from beneath his arm. The Yorkie tiptoed across the bed, jumped to the floor, and buried herself under a blanket on her dog bed.
“Valentina isn’t exactly a morning person,” Julia said.
“You can’t imagine my relief. I’d hate to face another terrifying altercation. You know, all those times she tried to kiss me to death.” He winked at her.
She responded with a roll of her eyes. “She normally despises men.”
“So you’ve said.”
“I mean it. I truly don’t understand what’s gotten into her. She must be mesmerized by your regal charms.” Julia wrapped the bedsheet more firmly around her breasts, which Niccolo realized were now covered in diaphanous blush-colored satin.
She’d gotten dressed while he’d been asleep, a realization that displeased him immensely.
“Nice lingerie,” he said, with an edge creeping into his voice. “Very pretty, although I much prefer you naked.”
A tremble passed through her at the boldness of his words. He would miss this—saying things, doing things that caused her to react in such a way. He would miss her gasps and her subtle sighs. He would miss her. He knew he shouldn’t, but he would.
“I’m leaving the country today,” he said abruptly. “I mean it this time.” He couldn’t keep doing this. He couldn’t hide from his duties forever.
“I know.” No argument. No words of regret. Nothing. Just I know.
“I mean it. I’m leaving, and I’ll never be back. Not here in your flat. Not like this.” He felt cruel saying such things. But letting her think she would ever hear from him again would have been far more vicious.
Even so, he wished she would fight. Demand an explanation. Get angry. Instead she lay beside him, looking like Venus herself, all cool, impassive beauty.
“I understand,” she said, wide-eyed.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t appreciate the impossibility of anything like this happening again. There was no room in his life for her. Or anyone. He’d seen what the promise of a future on the throne had done to his mother. He couldn’t . . . wouldn’t . . . thrust such a fate on someone. Somewhere there was a royal bride waiting for him—someone who’d been born with a crown on her head, just as he had. Someone who would know what to expect. And on some future date, as far away as Niccolo could reasonably manage, his parliament would bring her to Lazaretto. They would be matched together, like two caged animals. He would marry a stranger. Someone who knew nothing about him, other than the carefully crafted man he presented to the outside world.
He hadn’t realized how weary he’d grown of that man. Until he’d spent the past forty-eight hours being someone else.
He wished he could explain. God, how he wished that. “The other day—Caesar’s grave, the flowers—brought back many memories for me, Julia.”
Her full lips turned down in a slight frown. “Oh?”
“Of my mother. She died when I was a young man.”
The silence that followed grew thick. Expanded. Wrapped around them like a blanket.
“Nico, there’s something you should know . . .” she started.
He didn’t let her finish. Memories and feelings that he’d managed to hold at bay for years had come rushing to the forefront, and there was no holding them back. “She committed suicide. Pills.”
“Oh, Nico.” She rested a tender hand on his shoulder.
“No one knew. The cause of her death was kept secret. The situation was . . .” He swallowed, remembering the frantic efforts of the palace to hide the truth from the press. “. . . complicated.”
The blame would have been placed squarely on his father’s shoulders. His extramarital activities had already been splashed all over the papers. Through it all, Niccolo’s mother had gone about her royal duties with her head held high. No one had known what a toll it had taken on her—the humiliation, the depression. Until it had been too late.
Then, as now, Lazaretto’s government was a delicately balanced partnership between the parliament and the monarchy, with the parliament h
aving a slight upper hand. The public outpouring of grief over the death of his mother was unprecedented. If they’d known the truth, his father would have been crucified by the press. Parliament would have had no choice but to abolish the monarchy. His family’s legacy would have been ruined.
“You were never able to properly grieve for her, were you?” Julia asked softly.
Grief hadn’t been a priority. The crown had come first, as it always had. As it always would.
He swallowed. “No, I suppose I wasn’t.”
His father had abdicated as heir to the throne, citing overwhelming grief and gaining what little favor he could in the media. Niccolo, the golden child who bore such a resemblance to his famous mother, had taken his father’s place as crown prince, future king. He’d been the one to move the royal family beyond the tragedy. He’d saved the monarchy. Overnight, he’d both lost a mother and gained a lifelong burden—the responsibility of ensuring the future of his family’s sovereignty.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she said, letting her fingertips flutter up the length of his neck until she was cupping his face with both hands.
There was such tenderness in her eyes in the wake of his naked truth. The number of things he hadn’t told her was countless, yet he’d just revealed his deepest, darkest secret—the one truth he’d never told anyone. Even Piero didn’t know. Only his closest family members and the palace doctor had been privy to the intimate details of his mother’s death.
And now the enigmatic Julia Costa, whom he would never see again after this morning.
She leaned forward to brush his lips with the gentlest of kisses, and the delicate strap of her nightie gave way, exposing the sensuous curve of her ivory breast. He grew instantly aroused, mesmerized by the softness of her lips and the breathtaking beauty of her body.
“My darling,” he whispered, as though it were true. As though she were really his. “Let me look at you.”
He ran his fingertips beneath the other strap and lifted it free. Champagne-colored satin fell and pooled at her waist. She sat before him, bare-breasted and breathless. Such grace, such charm. Niccolo cupped her lovely breasts in his hands and bent to kiss their tender rose peaks, worshipping her beauty with a gentle brush of his lips.
