The Mediterranean Prince's Passion (The Royal House 0f Cacciatore Book 1)

by Sharon Kendrick

  “I will fly out at the beginning of next week,” she told him.

  “Tell me when and I will arrange a plane. In fact,” he added on a low note of delight, “I will fly you to Mardivino myself.”

  “‘Oh, no, you won’t, Nico,” she said softly. “Once was enough!”

  “You are criticizing my flying ability?”

  “No, I am resisting your efforts to control me. You want my expertise and you’ll get it, but you will be treated in exactly the same way as any other client. There will be no preferential treatment—not for you, and certainly not for me. I will take a scheduled airline flight, thank you very much, and I will add the cost to my bill.”

  For a moment he was speechless, scarcely able to believe what he was hearing. She was refusing his offer! To be flown to Mardivino by the youngest Prince of that principality!

  Harlequin Presents®

  Introduces a brand-new trilogy by

  SHARON KENDRICK

  Passion, power & privilege—the dynasty continues with these three handsome Princes…

  Welcome to Mardivino—a beautiful and wealthy Mediterranean island principality, with a prestigious and glamorous royal family.

  There are three Cacciatore princes—Nicolo, Guido, and the eldest, the heir, Gianferro.

  This month, meet Nico in

  The Mediterranean Prince’s Passion

  In June, it’s Guido’s story:

  The Prince’s Love-Child #2472

  In July, it’s Gianferro’s turn:

  The Future King’s Bride #2478

  Sharon Kendrick

  THE MEDITERRANEAN PRINCE’S PASSION

  To the world’s greatest historian, the man whose name is synonymous with Gladstone and fine wines, the erudite Professor Richard Shannon!

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS just a dazzle of white set against the endless sapphire, but the sun was blinding her too much to see clearly. Ella’s eyes fluttered to a close in protest. Maybe she had imagined it. Like a person hallucinating an oasis in the desert, perhaps her mind had conjured up an image on the empty sea that surrounded them. Some sign of life other than the birds that circled and cawed in a sky as blue as the waters beneath.

  ‘Mark.’ She croaked the unfamiliar name through lips so parched they felt as if they had never tasted liquid before. ‘Mark, are you there?’ She racked her brains for one of the women’s names. ‘Helen!’

  But there was no answer, and maybe that wasn’t so surprising, for the throb, throb, throb of loud music from the lower deck drowned the sound of her feeble words. She could hear the muffled sound of girlish, drunken giggling drifting upwards. She moaned.

  How long? How long since she had drunk anything? She knew she ought to go and get some water, but her legs felt as though they had been filled with lead. She lifted a heavy hand to try to brush the weight of damp hair that flopped so annoyingly against her cheek, but it fell uselessly to her side.

  She was going to die. She knew she was.

  She could feel the strength slowly ebbing from her body. Her ears were roaring and the weak flutter of her heart beat rapidly against her breast. Her skin was on fire, it was burning…burning…burning…

  Below, the cool, darkened interior of the cabin beckoned to her enticingly, but an instinct even stronger than her need to escape the sun stopped her from giving in to it. Down there lay chaos, and no chance for escape, but at least here on deck someone might see her.

  Her eyes began to close.

  Please, God, let someone see her…

  His dark hair ruffled by the breeze and his strong body relaxed, Nico stared at the horizon, his eyes suddenly narrowing as the flash of something on the horizon caught his attention.

  A boat? Where there should be no boat? Here in the protected waters on this side of Mardivino? His mouth tightened. Modern-day bandits? Seeking access to the tax haven guarded so jealously by the super-rich? The island had a long history of being beseiged by bounty-hunters and their modern-day counterparts—the paparazzi—and his face darkened. Where the hell were the Marine Patrol when you needed them?

  But the devil-may-care facet of his character made his pulse begin to race with excitement. Ignoring—almost relishing—the potential danger to himself, he reached for the throttle and his jet-ski sped forward, roaring in a spray of foam towards the stricken craft, which bobbed like a child’s toy on the waves.

  As his craft approached he could see a figure lying on the deck, and as he drew alongside he could see that it was a woman and that she appeared to be sunbathing. Tawny limbs and tawny hair. Slim and supple, with the tight lushness of youth. It took him precisely two seconds to assess whether or not this was a ploy and she the decoy. It was an age-old method he had encountered before; it came with the territory he inhabited.

  But she was not sunbathing. Something was very wrong—Nico could see that from her slumped and unmoving pose.

  Moving swiftly, he secured his jet-ski and jumped on board, his stance alert and watchful as he scanned the deck for a brief moment and listened intently. From a distance he could hear the loud beat of dance music, but the woman appeared to be alone on deck.

  In a few strides he had reached her. Bending over, he turned her onto her side, blotting out his instinctive first reaction to the way her magnificent breasts rose and fell beneath the skimpy jade-green bikini top she wore.

  She was sick.

  Assessingly, he ran his eyes over her. Her breathing was shallow, her eyes tight-closed and her skin very pink. He laid a brief exploratory hand on her forehead and felt the heat sizzling from it. Fever. Probably sun-stroke, by the look of her.

  Urgently, he shook her. ‘Svegli!’ he ordered, but there was no response. He tried in French. ‘Reveillezvous!’ And then, louder, in Spanish. ‘Despierte!’

  Through the mists of the dream that was sucking her down towards a black numbness Ella heard a deep voice urging her back to the surface, back towards the light. But the light was hurting her eyes and she didn’t want to go there. She shook her head from side to side.

  ‘Wake up!’

  Her eyes flickered open. A face was looming over her—its hard, handsome features set in a look of grim concern. A dark angel. She must be dreaming. Or dying.

  ‘Oh, no!’ he exclaimed, and levered her up into his arms, supporting her head with an unmoving hand as it threatened to flop back. ‘You will not sleep again! Do you hear me? Wake up! Wake up now, this instant. I demand it!’

  The richly accented voice was too commanding to ignore, but Ella was lost in the grip of a fever too powerful to resist.

  ‘Go away,’ she mumbled, and she felt a cold terror when he lowered her back onto the deck and did just that—left her all alone again. She gave a little whimper.

  Nico went below deck and the noise hit him like a wall. He stood for a moment, studying the scene of decadence that lay before him.

  He could count five people—three men and two women—and all of them were in advanced stages of intoxication. One woman was topless and snoring quietly on the floor, while another gyrated in front of one of the men
like a very poor lap-dancer.

  Only one of the men seemed to notice his arrival, and he raised a half-empty bottle of Scotch.

  ‘Hey! Who’re you?’ he slurred.

  Nico gave him a look of simmering fury. ‘Are you aware that you’re trespassing?’ he snapped.

  ‘No, matey—I think you’re the one doing that! This boat I paid through the nose for, and—’ The man pointed exaggeratedly upwards. ‘The sea is free!’ he added, in a sing-song voice.

  ‘Not here, it isn’t. You’re in forbidden waters.’ And, turning on his heel, Nico went back up onto the deck. He slid a mobile phone from his back pocket and punched in a number known to only a very few, which connected him straight to the Chief of Police.

  ‘Pronto? Si. Nicolo.’ He spoke rapidly in Italian.

  There was a pause.

  ‘You want that we should arrest them, Principe?’ asked the Capo quietly.

  Nico gave a hard glimmer of a smile. ‘Si. Why not? A night in jail sobering up might teach them never to put themselves nor others in danger again.’ But he stared down thoughtfully at the girl, for she was not drunk; she was sick.

  He bent down and shook her gently by the shoulder. Her eyes fluttered open, dazed and green as spring grass.

  Through the haze of her fever she saw his strength—a rock, a safe harbour and her only means of escape. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she begged.

  The raw emotion in her voice made him still momentarily but it was an unnecessary appeal for he had already made up his mind. ‘I have no intention of leaving you,’ he said tersely, and scooped her up into his arms before she could protest.

  Her arms clasped tightly around his neck, she slumped against his chest like a rag doll in an unconscious attitude of complete trust. He gripped her tightly as he manoeuvred her onto the jet-ski.

  Most men would have struggled to cope with a woozy female, but Nico had been born to respond to challenge—it was one of the few things in life that invigorated him. A small smile touched the corners of his mouth as he set off for the shore.

  He was always trying new thrills and spills, but this was the first time he’d ever rescued a damsel in distress.

  CHAPTER TWO

  COOL dampness rippled enchanting fingers across her cheeks and Ella let out a small sigh.

  ‘Mmm! S’nice!’

  ‘Drink this!’

  It was the voice that wouldn’t go away. The voice that wouldn’t take no for an answer. The voice that had been popping in and out of her consciousness with annoying frequency. A bossy, foreign voice, but an irresistible one, too.

  Obediently Ella opened her lips and sipped again from the cup she was being offered, only this time she drank more greedily than before, gulping it so that the water ran in riveluts down her face, trickling over her chin and startling her out of the hazy fog that engulfed her.

  ‘That is better,’ said the deep voice, with a touch of approval. ‘Take some more still, and then open your eyes properly.’

  Befuddled, she did as she was told—only to find herself even more confused. For there was a man standing over her—a man she didn’t recognise.

  Or did she?

  She blinked up at his face and something peculiar happened to her already unsteady heart-rate, for he was utterly spectacular.

  His chiselled features gave his face a hard, auto cratic appearance, but a sensual mouth softened it. Narrowed eyes were fringed by blocks of dark lashes and his hair was jet-dark and wavy, and slightly too long. He looked rugged and powerful—familiar and yet a stranger. His skin was golden and olive and glowing—as though it had been gently lit from within. His was the face that had drifted in and out of her fevered sleep, coaxing and cooling her. A dark angel. A guardian angel.

  So she had not been dreaming at all. Nor, it seemed, had she died.

  Still blinking in consternation, she glanced around her. She was in a room—a very plain and simple room, containing little more than a small wooden table and a couple of old chairs. On the floor were worn floorboards, the walls were wooden, too, and she could hear the roar of waves. It was cool and dim and she was lying on a low kind of bed, beneath a tickly-feeling thing that was too thick to be a sheet and too thin to be a blanket. Her hand slithered inside.

  She was wearing nothing but a man’s T-shirt!

  The last of her lethargy fled in an instant and fear galloped in to take its place. Clutching the coverlet, she sat up and stared at the man who stood over her, his dark face shuttered and watchful. Was she certain that she wasn’t dreaming? Who was he, and what was she doing here?

  ‘Would you mind telling me what the hell’s going on?’ she demanded breathlessly.

  ‘I think…’ There was a pause. He watched her very carefully, like a hunter with his prey held firmly in his sights. ‘That I should be asking you that very same question.’

  Her heart was pounding like a piston. His voice was soft and rich and accented. And accusing. When surely, if there was any accusing to be done… Beneath the coverlet she ran an exploratory hand down over her body, as if checking that all her limbs were intact. And not just her limbs…

  Nico watched her. ‘Oh, do not worry,’ he drawled. ‘Your virtue is intact. Or at least as intact as it was when you arrived.’ Though God only knew what she had been up to with the band of drunks on board that boat.

  Ella tried to will her stubborn memory into gear, but it was as if her brain had been wrapped in cotton wool. Something told her that she must be grateful to this man, but something about his dark masculinity was suddenly making her feel very shy. More than shy. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘You have been sick,’ he explained, but his eyes lost nothing of their glittering suspicion.

  She looked around for signs that she might be in a hospital, but there was nothing remotely medical or sterile about the place. In fact, there were grains of sand on the floorboards, and a wetsuit lay coiled in a heap like a seal skin. Some of the cotton wool cleared. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Ah! At last! The traditional question. It took you long enough to ask,’ he observed, arching imperious eyebrows that shot up into the ebony tumble of his hair. His dark eyes fixed her with a lancing stare.

  ‘I’m asking now.’

  The eyes narrowed, for he was unused to such a response. ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Why would I bother asking you if I already knew?’

  Unless, he pondered, she had her own separate agenda, and there was no way of finding out, not until she was properly recovered. Not when she was still…

  Nico turned away from her body, its outline undisguised by the T-shirt, its firm curves spelling out a temptation that would have stretched the resolve of the most holy and celibate of men—two things of which he had never been accused.

  For hours she had lain there, her tawny limbs and hair flailing as she thrashed and cried out, hot with fever and lost in the strange world of delirium. And he had bathed her. Sponged her down. Fed her with water and sat with her during the long, lonely hours till dawn.

  It had been a new sensation for him—having someone reliant and dependent on him. She had been as helpless as a wounded animal, and that very helplessness had brought about a protectiveness he had never before experienced.

  Until…

  He had been smoothing the damp hair away from her sweat-sheened skin, murmuring words of comfort, when she had suddenly called out in alarm. And when he shushed her she had sat up, the sheet falling from her. The T-shirt he had hastily flung on her had managed to both conceal and reveal—and the hazy hint of glorious rose-tipped breast beneath had been enchanting beyond belief. He had tried to move away but she had lifted her arms and clung onto him with the terrified and irresistible strength of someone who was lost in a nightmare. And she had been close. Oh…so…close… Far too close for comfort and sane thought.

  His body had sprung into instant and unwilling response as she’d pressed closer still. Nerves stretching with unbearable tension, he had stared down into her eye
s—the most green and startling eyes he had ever seen—but they had been clouded and vacant. Whomever or whatever she was seeing, it certainly was not him.

  ‘Lie down on the bed!’ he had ordered harshly, in English, and the still-dry lips had puckered into the shape of a parched flower before much-needed rain fell onto it.

  Some men would have thought—why not? Taja ch’e e rosso, as the Romans sometimes said. To have taken advantage of what was so beautifully on offer might have been an option, but Nico was of different blood from other men. Even if his hadn’t been an appetite jaded by what had always been given to him so freely, he could not have countenanced making love to a woman unless she was in total command of her senses.

  He stared down at her now and saw that the wild, febrile light had left her eyes. He felt a small tug of triumph, for she had been in his charge and now she was recovered. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked unexpectedly.

  His words made Ella focus, not on the extraordinary situation in which she found herself, but on the needs of her body, and she suddenly realised that her stomach felt empty and her head light as air. Hungry? She was absolutely starving!

  ‘Why, yes,’ she said, in surprise.

  ‘Then you must eat.’ He began to move away, as if he couldn’t wait to put physical distance between them.

  ‘No—wait!’