The Italian's Runaway Princess

by Andrea Bolter

  The words banged between Luciana’s ears. Of course when someone was planning to leave the place where they were, it was best not to allow any meaningful relationships to develop. That was so obvious Luciana would bet that even these children having spoon duels would understand. Any idiot would.

  Except her, apparently. She did know that her feelings toward Gio had passed serious days ago and now had moved into critical. Which was not good.

  “When are you going?” Luciana tried to distract herself by asking about Chiara’s impending move.

  “I’m half there now and half here on the days I work. I commute by train.” Chiara had told her that her family, her mother and two sisters who were also teachers, were opening up a school in Salerno. A town in the south near Naples, it was a four-hour train ride from Florence. “To open a school is not a way to make a lot of money, but it’s what we love. So I go down as often as I can to paint walls and buy furniture and network with the people who live there.”

  “Do you have commitments from families that are going to send their children to the school?”

  “Oh, yes. We already have forty students enrolled.”

  “That’s amazing!”

  Luciana admired Chiara. Not only had she pursued her goal of becoming a teacher, but now she was opening her own business at it.

  “What about you?”

  To the outside world, they must look like two friends sharing a chat during lunch while the children in their care play. Perhaps that outside world might see Luciana as a teacher, too. Passersby would think them two young gals who were dishing about boyfriends and aspirations. “If Gio isn’t your lover, what are you doing with him?”

  Waltzing through the cloudy haze of a beautiful dream she never wanted to wake up from?

  “I’m only in Florence for a short time,” Luciana uttered softly. “I’m leaving, too.”

  “Ah, Gio was your passionate Italian fling?”

  Princess Luciana winced at that characterization, thinking it cheapened the situation. Although perhaps that’s exactly how she would recollect it decades from now.

  “You’re sad to leave him.”

  Chiara had no idea how right she was. But Her Royal Highness would have so much to distract her when she returned to the palace. There would be dull diplomatic lunches to attend, boring dedications to make appearances at and a man she barely knew to marry. How would she find the time in her schedule to pine for the magical man in Florence?

  “I am.”

  “Have you rubbed the snout of Il Porcellino?”

  “Not yet.” Luciana knew about the legend of the bronze figure near the Mercato Nuovo. Lore had it that if you rubbed the nose of the boar, it meant you would return to Florence.

  Luciana would do that before her trip was over, although her wish would be bittersweet.

  Because even if she was to return, it would be too late for her and Gio.

  “You don’t want to go home, Luci?”

  “I don’t, and yet I can’t stay here.”

  “Do you want to come work for me in Salerno?”

  “Do I what?” Luciana could hardly believe the words she was hearing.

  “Work for me. I can’t hire you as a teacher until you earn a degree in early childhood education. But you can assist us. The children clearly love you.”

  Laugh or cry. Both options were equally viable. Princess Luciana de la Isla de Izerote had been offered her first job. In her chosen profession. In some families, that would be cause for celebration. In hers, it was a disgrace. Laugh or cry.

  Even though she was supposed to have another two weeks in Florence, her departure was imminent.

  The proverbial clock ticked.

  Walls closed in.

  There’d be no escape.

  “A job.”

  With every blink of her eyes, she saw flashes of red.

  Warning lights.

  Danger signals.

  Because Princess Luciana could not ignore that, once again, across the piazza, she noticed two men in black suits staring directly at her as they spoke into earpieces. Her stomach sank to her knees as the reality became impossible to dispute.

  Chiara handed her a business card, which Luciana numbly slid into her jeans pocket alongside the pocket money Gio had insisted she carry.

  “You can think about it. Let me know in the next few days.”

  * * *

  Was she really thinking what she was thinking? The events of this past week made Luciana doubt every stronghold she’d ever embraced. Heady concepts like responsibility and sacrifice, honor and privilege, obligation and liberty were now all under question. Anything and everything was up for grabs.

  Would she really be able to pull off the idea that was fighting for a place in her rational mind? It made sense and it made no sense at the same time. When Viggo dropped her off at her requested location, Luciana had been so lost in her dilemma that she’d hardly noticed the drive. She asked him to wait and stepped out of the car.

  The Piazzale Michelangelo was a public square on a hill that afforded a breathtaking view of the city. From the river and its bridges to the bell tower of the Badia Fiorentina to the Duomo to the Tuscan mountains beyond, its breadth was spectacular. Overwhelming to take in all at once, the panorama had been known to make people weep. No different for the princess. Tears rolled down her face in a steady stream, chilled by the hilltop breeze.

  The first tears were for Gio, whom in any scenario, she’d be torn from like a bandage that rips away the skin underneath it when it is removed. Other tears represented trepidation about what she was planning. If she failed, she’d have made even a bigger mess than what she’d already created. If she succeeded, there would be no turning back.

  There were tears for the mother she barely knew. Who was unable to rise to her own duty. Although she didn’t cause her own death, her spirit was laid to rest before her marriage at age eighteen. Part of Luciana’s decision would be in her mother’s honor.

  Still different tears were for her father, whom in spite of all of this, she loved dearly and risked wounding. A young man himself when her mother died, he was ill-equipped to parent an eleven-year-old girl and turned to fear of loss as his only guidance.

  And, because it had transformed her so drastically that no matter what road she took it could never be one she’d already traveled, she cried for Florence, which she’d miss every day of her life.

  Luciana got back in the car and had Viggo drop her off at her next destination.

  Chiara had been right. Il Porcellino was quite the tourist attraction. The open-air Mercato Nuovo was in full swing near the bronze boar, and the whole area was alive with Florentine bustle. As she’d seen elsewhere in the city, budding artists used colored chalk to draw replicas of famous paintings onto the pavement of city streets, putting out tip cups for passersby to show their appreciation. Many of the chalk renderings were excellent. Luciana took note of the young artists and wondered what their lives must be like, living and practicing their craft in this inspiring place.

  Visitors queued up to touch the famous boar, and the princess took her place behind a tour group, all of whom wore matching plastic nameplates around their necks. English, German and Japanese were just three of the languages she heard around her. The bronze porcellino, or piglet, was covered in a green-brown patina except for its snout, which had been polished to a sheen by all the attention bestowed on it.

  While she waited, she pivoted her head as far as she could to the left and then all the way to the right to take in the scene at the Mercato Nuovo until she found what she knew she would. Past a vendor specializing in wallets and belts, two men in black suits watched her. She couldn’t tell if they were the same men from the piazza with Chiara earlier today, but it didn’t matter.

  She’d seen men in black suits outside the clothing store when she and
Gio were shopping for jeans. There were two at the Mercato Centrale when she and Gio took the pasta-making class. Then today at the piazza. Part of her had been trying to deny the reality of what they represented. Now as her breath tightened and a blush burned her cheeks, she could pretend no longer.

  King Mario de la Isla de Izerote had found her. Maybe he’d had her followed all along. She no longer believed that she was going to get the full three weeks of escape she had planned before returning to Izerote and her wedding. Today was her seventh day. A hunch in her gut told her it was her last.

  This schedule was probably designed by her father. He, no doubt, instructed his security detail to have her located and surveilled but if she seemed safe, to let her have her silly little fun. Rage inched up her throat as she fully comprehended what must have happened. That she hadn’t even had the small measure of freedom she’d hoped to cherish for the rest of her life. All she’d been granted was a longer chain than usual.

  When it was her turn to touch the bronze boar’s nose, she stroked it as lovingly as she would have had it been Gio’s face. She threw her arms around its neck and held herself close. Because she was in love. With Luci, the young teacher who had the most marvelous boyfriend in the world.

  If rubbing Il Porcellino’s snout meant she would return, she’d rub it a hundred times before she let go.

  Thank you, Florence.

  Thank you, Gio.

  Finally, she backed away to let the people who were waiting have their turn.

  As she did, poison blackened her insides when she heard an unfamiliar male voice behind her say, “Princess Luciana, may we speak with you for a moment?”

  Luciana didn’t turn around to acknowledge him.

  “And we’d like to speak with the gentleman you’ve been keeping company with.”

  Those words sliced like a lash across her back. The most unbearable consequence of her actions would be if Gio was brought into the chaos she’d made. He had plenty of his own issues to deal with. He’d been nothing but kind to her and deserved better.

  Blood vessels throbbed through Luciana’s skull. What she was scheming was her only hope. A far-fetched Hail Mary. Worth a try because, at this point, she had nothing to lose.

  She suddenly bulleted forward and dashed into the outdoor marketplace.

  If she could just get away from these security men right now, she’d carry out her plan immediately. Making an abrupt right turn, she tore through an aisle of merchants who were all selling tablecloths and bed linens displayed on hooks so that the fabrics danced in the afternoon wind. As the bedsheets swayed, Luciana was able to maneuver quickly between one and around another until she got to the other end of the market.

  A quick glance backward confirmed that she’d done it. The men weren’t trailing her!

  With no time to wait for Viggo, whom she’d asked to return in an hour, she hailed a taxi to return her to the villa. Which she slipped into, seemingly unnoticed. As she bounded up the stairs of her guest cottage, her heart thundered. The ticking bomb was about to explode. Time to hurry.

  She picked up the phone on the night table beside her bed. It had been seven days since she’d held a phone, the hard plastic harsh and now unfamiliar in her hand as she punched in a number. “Chiara, it’s Luci.”

  After the call, she yanked her suitcase out of the closet and tossed it on the bed, unzipping it to unpack the items she had left buried inside. The ones she had hoped never to need. The ones that were now her last chance.

  “Luciana?” Gio’s voice called up to her bedroom from the courtyard a half hour later. “Luciana?”

  What was he doing home? It was hours before he was to finish work and join her for their usual early-evening sightseeing. They were to finally tour the Duomo, which she had been greatly looking forward to.

  “I’m up here,” she yelled through the open doors to the Juliet balcony, hoping not to have to see him.

  “I was so worried,” he continued shouting up. “Viggo said he went to pick you up but you weren’t there.”

  “I’m fine, Gio. Go back to the office.”

  Luciana had already written him a note to leave on the table in the courtyard. An in-person goodbye was more than she could handle.

  “Come to the balcony, Luciana.”

  “No, Gio. Please go back to work.” It was agony to tell him to go, but if he knew what she was planning, he’d try to stop her.

  “Luciana! Luciana!”

  The low timbre of his bellow was too much for her to fight. She’d allow herself one last time the sight of his exquisite face and the tall muscular body that had educated her in ecstasies she’d never expected to learn.

  With a last check in the mirror before she’d have to tell Gio the truth, Princess Luciana confirmed that her look was complete. When she’d arrived in Barcelona after stowing away on that supply ship leaving Izerote, she’d bought not one but two disguises. Her just in case would be put to the test right now.

  The boy’s brown suit fit her about right, appropriately shapeless to skim over any womanly curves. The white shirt and brown shoes matched it. And the dark wig cut above the ears gave her the appearance of a teenaged boy, perhaps on his way to a school interview or reluctantly forced to get dressed up for an occasion. No, the delicate skin and regal bones of her face were not very masculine, but she knew that some boys had fine features. Walking down the street, no one would give her a second glance.

  She stepped out onto the Juliet balcony to face Gio.

  “The men who have been following you?” Gio asked upon seeing her in the ensemble.

  “How did you know?”

  “I saw them, too. I didn’t say anything because I hoped you hadn’t noticed. I didn’t want to ruin your precious time here with the news.”

  “I can’t go back to Izerote, Gio. Not after everything that happened here. Not after you.”

  She inhaled the full view the balcony afforded. The old buildings, the chirps of birds sharing a song with the horns of taxicabs. The splendid mixture of the ancient and the modern that was this city. And the high-tech billionaire here who’d keep her heart.

  Luciana moved away from the balcony and back into her bedroom. Closing her suitcase, with the bag of jewels that were her only currency inside, she made her way down the stairs and out to the courtyard where Gio stood waiting.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Chiara offered me a job at her new school in the south, near Naples. If I can get away without being caught, maybe I have a chance. I’ll disappear there. I’ll find a way to contact my father and tell him that I’m not coming home.”

  Desperation had driven her to the unconceivable.

  “Don’t leave,” Gio implored. “We’ll figure it out. There has to be a way.”

  “There is none. Not when they’re closing in on me. On us. As it is, I’ve dragged you into this further than I ever meant to.”

  His hands circled her wrists, handcuffing her in his grasp. “No. You’re not leaving.”

  “Maybe someday I’ll be able to return. I rubbed the nose of the boar. Maybe a Florence miracle will be ours.”

  “I’ll help you. I’ll drive you there. At least then I’ll know exactly where you are. When it’s safe we’ll be together again.”

  “No. They’ll follow you. Go back to the office. When they question you, say I disappeared without a trace. Say you don’t know anything.”

  “You’ve never been on your own. I’ll worry about you every day of my life. I can’t let you go.”

  “Let me go, Gio. For both of our sake. You have your company to protect. And I can’t have you take the place of my father. I have to try something of my own or else I’ll never know what freedom is.”

  She lifted up on her tiptoes and craned her neck so that her lips would reach his. For one goodbye kiss that contained the sun, the moo
n and all the stars in the sky.

  Then she broke away from him, grabbed her suitcase and fled out through the entrance tunnel that led to the street.

  Chiara was to meet her at the train station, so Luciana rushed in that direction, disguise in place. But within seconds, a black car screeched to a stop beside her on the street. The two men who had been following her at the bronze boar got out of the car.

  “Princess Luciana, at your father’s request we are here to take you home.”

  Speechless and unsure what to do, she covered her mouth with her hand. In her heart of hearts, she knew she’d never be able to outrun these men, and even if she did they—or others like them—would be back again the next day. It was a foolish attempt. Her father had decided that it was time for her journey to come to an end. Just as she always figured he would.

  She looked back toward the villa. Gio had chased after her and stood a few paces behind. The two men glared at him, and then one of them took hold of Princess Luciana’s arm. The other opened the passenger door of the black car. He stated flatly, “Time to go.”

  Using no small amount of force, the man began to marshal Princess Luciana into the car. In doing so, her wig came off in his hand. The blond lob that had now become her real hairstyle spilled around her face as tears pooled in her eyes. She turned back one last time and called out, “I love you, Gio! I love you.”

  With that, she surrendered into the back seat and the door was closed after her. The two men got into the front seat, and from the clicks and beeps she heard, she knew she had been securely locked into her motorized jail.

  Her Royal Highness Princess Luciana de la Isla de Izerote jerked around to look out the back window as the car pulled away. Gio ran toward her, sprinting after the car, picking up his own speed as the vehicle did, too. But when the car took a big lead over him, the last thing she saw was his mouth saying something to her. She’d spend the rest of her life wondering what it was.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I LOVE YOU, too, Luciana! I love you, too.”