Luciana pulled back the napkin on the tray to see the same breakfast of rolls and fruit that she and Gio had lingered over the day before.
She thought of her grandmother and mother. They hadn’t fared as well as her great-grandmother in their marriages to domineering men who did not allow their wives any independence or private pursuits. She remembered her mother’s blank stare, that of a woman who was only going through the motions of her day. Although she knew her mother had loved her for the eleven years they’d shared together, even as a young girl Luciana could sense that something was wrong. Her mother fulfilled her obligations, but the deep corrosive peeling in her gut was too high a price to pay.
Harsh King Agustin had already informed Luciana that he expected her to begin producing heirs immediately and, in as many words, told her that a condition of his agreement with her father was the promise of her complete obedience. The thought of reporting to him as a servant was repulsive. Hopefully, in time, he’d come to see her more as a partner.
He would never set her heart on fire. Agustin would never on a whim present his wife with a single pink rose. Still, they’d find a coexistence she would come to terms with.
Luciana lifted the rose out of the vase and brought it to her nose to fully immerse herself in its lovely scent, the sweetness of the gesture and, most important, the man who had presented it to her. How they had sat here last night drinking herbal tea until the wee hours. She’d shared the story of her journey after assuming that she’d never tell it, that it would be a secret she’d take to her grave. Gio was so easy to talk to and listened attentively to everything she said rather than simply waiting for her to go silent so that he could resume talking like all of the other men she knew. They talked and talked and talked until they could barely keep their heads up.
After revealing her true identity to him, she assumed he would want her to leave his villa. Instead, after the shock, he seemed to understand her predicament. The backward ways of Izerote infuriated him. He was willing in his own small way to aid her on her voyage of discovery by offering her a safe haven.
Frankly overwhelmed by the incidents with the jewelry and the boys chasing after her and the lack of available hotel rooms, his kindly invitation was a relief she gratefully agreed to.
There was one other matter, too. The idea of spending time in Florence with a handsome, intelligent and freethinking man was simply too exciting to pass up. What a thrilling ride this had already become!
As she sat down to eat her breakfast, she wondered what time Gio had left this morning, as it was still early. He’d left a note.
Viggo will pick you up at five o’clock to meet me for more of your sightseeing tour. Casual dress.
Until then, Gio.
Now as Luciana was being driven through the streets of Florence to meet him, she kept replaying that until then salutation on the note. There was something incredibly alluring about those words.
She spent the entire ride trying to talk herself out of those thoughts. Certainly there would never be anything amorous between her and Gio. It was just an isolated girl’s fantasies starting to spin out of control. She was about to be married, she was in Florence for three weeks and Gio was going through a transition, as well. He’d already declared that he was single and planned on staying that way. She felt guilty and wrong even having those thoughts about him.
But Gio had no idea what he’d done. Last night, she had satisfied a years-old yearning to visit the Piazza della Signoria, to sit in that storied square in the evening air. A scene she never could have imagined she’d be sharing with a man. One like him, no less. With his imposing six-foot-three-inch height and slim muscular build. The most bewitching eyes, blue as the midday sky. And that fascinating tousle of blond curls that she could convince herself wanted to have her fingers thread through them. Something she knew wasn’t the case and wouldn’t be in a million years.
Although it was nothing she could have planned, the evening was infinitesimally better in his company. Unfortunately, it was an evening so perfect it made her wish. And there was no place for wishes in the life of Her Royal Highness Princess Luciana de la Isla de Izerote.
Viggo pulled the car over to the curb and Gio appeared to open her door and hold out an arm for her to take hold of. “Buonasera.”
“Where are we going?” Luciana eagerly inquired, not used to surprises. That was another part of life as a princess. There was no spontaneity. Ever. A royal’s life was plotted and protected from any intrusion that might throw off the organization. Plans were very important. People had to be notified, schedules had to be coordinated, itineraries had to be created. This rigidity was, of course, necessary to keep the palace running smoothly. “Your driver wouldn’t tell me.”
“Tonight, I’ll show you one of my favorite pleasures from my adolescence. After dinner, we’ll walk along the Arno River.”
Luciana looked down at her dress shoes. They were made for appearances at children’s charities, not for treading the streets of an ancient city.
Observing her hesitation, he said, “In my note, I suggested that you dress casual.”
“This is as casual as I get.” In fact, when the princess assessed the few outfits she had brought in search of the least formal, the best she’d come up with was a skirt that hit her midcalf paired with a lightweight jacket.
After nicking a suitcase for the trip from the palace storage room, she’d filled it with the only clothes she had. Dresses that were suitable for diplomatic luncheons and others for garden brunches. A few cocktail dresses for dinner. Luciana did not even own one pair of slacks. A princess worth her salt would never be caught wearing them.
“I see,” Gio said as his mind shuffled through a thought.
“I’m curious about you.” She gestured at his outfit. “This is the second time I’ve seen you in a jacket and tie with jeans. That’s acceptable in your business?”
“I own fine bespoke suits. But yes, I work in jeans.”
Obviously, she couldn’t mention just how good he looked in said ensemble. This was a man who had a personal style and didn’t care what anyone thought of it. He was unlike anyone she’d ever met before.
“I think we ought to buy you some jeans right now.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.”
“So you’d stow away on a boat in the middle of the night, sell your family’s jewels, sleep on trains to get to Italy, but you won’t wear a pair of jeans?”
They both laughed. For Luciana, it was laugh or cry, and she’d done her fair share of the latter.
“You’re an interesting study in contradictions,” Gio pressed on. “Come on, I know of a shop near here.”
He was going to take her shopping for casual clothes? Appearances were a big deal to royalty. They weren’t supposed to look like commoners. The strict manner of dress garnered respect. She was again wearing the blond wig disguise, half assuming that operatives of her father were searching for her. The hair was enough of a change.
Yet she wasn’t representing Izerote here in Florence. No one knew who she was other than Gio. Her heart began to beat double time. Walking the streets of Florence, both of them in jeans like a typical couple on a holiday? Simple denim was taking on a larger meaning. Maybe she really was pulling off the one thing she thought she’d never be entitled to. To know, just for a short moment in time.
Freedom.
Gio crooked his arm like he had last night, encouraging her to follow where he led. Silvery flashes almost dizzied her as she slipped her arm into his, opening her palm flat against the taut muscles of his biceps.
“Let’s go, Princess.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’VE NEVER BEEN in a shop like this,” Luciana gushed when she and Gio stepped in off the street. Pinching herself, because she was surely living out a fantasy, in a busy boutique that sold everyday clothes to Florentine women, not touris
ts. It was as if she had inhabited someone else’s body.
“You’ve never been to a clothing shop?”
“Not like this. Clothes are generally sent to the palace. Occasionally, we go to Paris or Milan to visit a designer’s atelier. The building is cleared out and, of course, I’m accompanied by style associates, palace dressers and at least three bodyguards. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life trolled through a rack of clothes on a sales floor.”
“Have at it, Princess.”
“Can I ask you a favor?” she whispered.
“Certainly.”
“Will you call me Luci, like you did when I first introduced myself to you? I’m sure it’s not anything anyone else would understand, but I love the idea of just having a regular first name without all of the pomp.”
Gio’s eyes smiled into hers, producing a hot whoosh that flowed right through her. It wasn’t a sensation she was familiar with and, frankly, it was terrifying. Of all things, what she most wanted to do was kiss him. Right on that gorgeous mouth of his. She’d never kissed a man on the lips. Nor was she going to now, but apparently when in Florence in the company of the most unexpected of tour guides, a girl could imagine almost anything.
“Shop, Luci.” Had he somehow read her thoughts, because he redirected her to their purpose in the store? He knew as well as she did that they could never kiss. Ever since she’d met him a mere two days ago, she’d already had to mentally repeat to herself a hundred times that this extraordinary man had landed in her life, but that it would be for only three weeks and then never again. She was about to be married and that was that.
Now, to the matter at hand.
Luci surveyed the shop in action. The customers were mostly women, a few with bored men obediently accompanying them. A couple of the women combed the racks with great seriousness, methodically considering every item as they moved down the aisle. Perhaps they were on the hunt for something in a particular size or color. That was another thing Luciana had never practiced, as the size and color of her clothes were always preselected for her.
Some of the shoppers had items draped over one arm as they worked through the offerings with their other. Another behavior Luciana had never known. Servants and handmaidens were always at the ready in the princess’s life, lest she ever have the need to lift a finger.
The store carried a range from what she assumed would be office attire, to resort wear, to casual clothes.
“There are the jeans.” Gio looked up from his phone and pointed her to a display case that held dozens of pairs folded onto shelves. He tugged her by the hand and led her to the assortment. One stack held the darkest of blues, azure as the midnight ocean. Others were a lighter wash. Others still had tears at the knees, a lived-in look that Luciana had never really understood when she saw it on fashion websites. The jeans styles were listed, as well. There was boot cut, straight leg, skinny and something called boyfriend.
With Gio holding her hand, seeing the word boyfriend spelled out in front of her made her lungs drain of air.
“Everything okay?” Gio perceived the change in her face.
“Actually, I don’t think I should do this. I’m only here temporarily. I can make do with what I brought.”
“Don’t you want some comfortable clothes to explore the city in? If you’re concerned about the cost, I accept diamonds.”
This time his humor was not well received, as Princess Luciana was beginning to feel very uneasy. “I’m not comfortable doing this.”
“Your subjects aren’t here. No one knows you in Florence. Didn’t you say you’d always wanted to wear a pair of jeans?”
As she’d told Gio on the walk to the shop, she’d had one meeting with a pair of jeans. A princess from a neighboring island, one with less old-fashioned ways, had come to Izerote to attend a diplomatic function. Luciana explained her predicament and begged the other princess to leave the pair of jeans she had brought along. Within twenty-four hours, a palace housekeeper had found the jeans in Luciana’s closet, assumed that a laborer had accidentally left them behind and promptly discarded them. Luciana never even had a chance to put them on.
“I suppose I could try a pair on.”
“That’s right.”
“What do you think boyfriend jeans are?”
Gio summoned over a saleswoman who explained the relaxed fit of the boyfriend cut. While he tended to business, she assisted Luciana in finding a couple of sizes that were likely to fit, and showed her into the changing room. It was yet another first for her to take off her clothes alongside other shoppers, each woman separated only by a privacy curtain.
She knew perfectly well that both girls and women the world over would have their own fantasies fulfilled if they got to try on Princess Luciana’s ball gowns and tiaras. Yet the sound of metal against metal that the zipper made as Luciana pulled up the jeans gave her a special joy. Biting her lip, she allowed her eyes to slowly move up toward the mirror until she could get a good view of herself.
Wow. For the first time she could ever recall, she saw herself as just a young woman. Who might have borrowed her boyfriend’s jeans, which fit loose around the hips and seat as they were intended to. She loved the heaviness of the denim, understanding why jeans were popularized by cowboys and miners.
But she couldn’t traipse all over Florence in jeans! They were too unceremonious. Even if no one else knew she was a princess, she’d know. About to take them off and at least treasure the memory of being in this shop on this day, she decided to show them to Gio.
“Luci!” Gio nodded his approval as she exited the dressing room to model for him. She knew there wasn’t anything particularly flattering about the jeans, but she wanted him to see her like a normal girl, wanted to keep them on for just a little bit longer. “Bravissima.”
“Do they look good?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Turn around.”
Turn around? Gio Grassi, tech wizard and almost complete stranger, had just ordered Her Royal Highness Princess Luciana de la Isla de Izerote to circle around in a pair of jeans so he could examine her behind in them?
But that didn’t stop her from obeying his command. And deriving a wicked satisfaction from doing so.
“Well?” she challenged.
“You look like a city girl on the go. What do you think?”
“They’re so comfortable. And the fabric is so weighty. It makes me feel like...like my own person.”
“We’ll buy two pairs. You’ll need tops and shoes, as well.”
“No. I can’t. It’s not right. Trying them on was enough.”
The princess glanced outside through the store window and noticed that there were two men in black suits standing near the entrance. Both wore earpieces that they spoke into. For a moment, she panicked that they were palace security from Izerote. That her father had already located her whereabouts and she was moments from being whisked back home.
If that was to happen, she steeled herself, darned if she wasn’t going to first do some of what she came to Florence for.
“Thank you, Gio. I would love to buy these clothes.”
“And don’t worry. You’re not getting anything for free. When we go to dinner, I’m going to need you to earn your keep.”
* * *
Gio was happy to see that the rooftop restaurant he remembered atop a five-story building along the Arno River was still in business. With a view of the river and its many bridges, including the famous Ponte Vecchio, the trattoria was one of those secret-treasure restaurants that Florentines hoped no tourist would ever discover. Thankfully, it remained a low-key family establishment with an easygoing dress code.
Because now Her Royal Highness Princess Luciana, who had looked so dignified in the silken dinner dresses she’d worn the last two nights, was unfussy and relaxed in her new jeans, flat shoes and a T-shirt. She fit in fine with the you
ng mothers out with girlfriends, and city workers, who unwound from their busy days with a glass of prosecco at the restaurant. Surely, no one would mistake her for nobility.
“Oh, my. This view is splendid.”
As Gio took it in, he agreed. The red-roofed buildings, one after the next, lined the banks of the river and its stone bridges. Firenze was truly like nowhere else. Although it did occur to him that the sight of Luciana’s face, with the sweet mouth and enthusiastic eyes as she took in the vista, was as stunning as the view itself.
At the office, he’d spent the day swamped with work. And could have put in several more hours. So he’d almost regretted having promised to take Luciana out tonight. Even though he had offered, he didn’t really have time to play tour guide and rearrange his schedule. This was why he shouldn’t spend time alone with women. The pheromones, or whatever it was they gave off, clouded his judgment. And he had a feeling that Luciana’s pheromones had particular powers.
It had been entertaining helping her shop for those jeans. He shared her agony in buying them, though, knowing they represented more than a bit of cloth to her. In fact, his jaw tensed at the fact that something as simple as selecting her own clothes was an exception to her, not the norm.
The river glistened below as twilight was beginning to sweep the sky above, the open air taking on darkness. This was Gio’s third dinner with Luciana. Considering he hadn’t had dinner alone with a woman even once in the past few months, that was quite a record.
Lately, he’d been spending time immersed in development of some new biometric products. Generally when mealtimes rolled around he would ask for something to be brought in, as he was far too engrossed in his work to be bothered with leaving his desk. Or the whole team would go out for a late-night meal where beers and spicy food were eagerly consumed amid plenty of noise and clamor. He had no objection to either, although Luciana’s lips, which appeared so pink in the softness of dusk, made him doubt that more pleasing company had ever existed.
The Italian's Runaway Princess Page 6
