by Ella Brooke
She blinked. "You went to Seanan's premiere?"
He nodded, a slight smile on his face. "It was entirely by chance. I had just been dumped in a very public fashion, and I was looking for something to do. I assume that someone sneaked that premiere onto my schedule without my noticing it. For once, it paid off, and I went."
It was on the tip of Briony's tongue to ask about that dumping before she remembered that it was absolutely none of her business. Still, she felt a bit of jealous anger flicker across her mind that she absolutely no right to, and she gritted her teeth.
"I thought Seanan was you," he admitted, and Briony stared at him. Why did it suddenly feel as if every part of her was hollow? Why did she feel as if she were spinning off into space?
"Don't worry, that didn't last. I knew at once that Seanan was not the woman I was with a year ago."
"Oh, I suppose that makes sense. Seanan's way too glamorous and beautiful and..."
"Nothing of the sort," Marcus said sharply. "You know, the woman I was with would never put anyone down so cruelly, especially not herself and her daughter's mother."
Briony felt as if she had been slapped, and she glared at him.
"Then maybe you don't know me at all!" she spat, and an answering light danced in his eyes. She reminded herself to be careful, but this situation was already so strange. There was no way to behave appropriately or to really figure out what to do. Every few minutes, she was getting her feet knocked out from underneath her.
"It doesn't matter," he said ruthlessly. "But there's more you need to know. Don't worry about Seanan betraying your confidences. I brought her and the cast along to a private club, and I made sure that they all got very, very drunk. I pried the story out of her by bits and pieces, and as soon as I knew what I needed to know, I made sure she got back to her hotel, and I returned to the palace."
"The...palace?"
He stared at her. "Are you serious?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am," she shot back. "Why are you going back to the palace? You got my sister drunk, you took her home, and then you went to a palace?"
"Yes, where I live," he ground out. "The modern ducal palace."
"But why?" Briony nearly wailed it, stopping herself just in time by thinking of the baby.
"Because I am the prince of Florence," Marco said, watching her with narrowed eyes. "Because there were already fights about the succession when we met, and I thought you knew then, or that at least you knew after that. My uncle died six months ago, and I’m styled Prince Marco Bianchi, Lord of Florence and Duke to the Islands of Carmody."
She stared at him, sure that this had to be a put-on. However, as she scanned his face, she could find absolutely no humor in it at all.
"I wondered if that was why you ran,” he said softly. “I could come up with a dozen reasons why you might have done so, and that was one of them. Perhaps you were one of those sly girls with notches on your bedposts for princes and other nobility. I was just a count then technically, but it has meant as much for other girls."
"Did...did you wonder very often why I ran?" The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could call them back. They sounded vain and taunting; worse, they sounded mean.
Marco only shrugged. "Of course I did. I am glad that you were not simply looking for another notch on your bedpost. I wondered if you were married. I wondered if you were a nun." At her look, he grinned a little. "Baldassare throws wild parties. It's been known to happen."
"And you had no idea who I was at all..."
"Until yesterday, no. But it is a very long flight between Florence and New York, and then from New York to Los Angeles. I had a great deal of time to think."
"And what did you think about?" she asked through dry lips.
His eyes were like obsidian. "I thought about my daughter, and I thought about how you seem to have kidnapped a royal Florentine princess from her home."
Chapter Eight
Briony clutched her hands together so hard that she thought the bones might crack. "No."
The word was soft, but it was perfectly clear, almost bell-like. In the back of her mind, she wondered what it was about Marco that brought out this other person in her, that made her so loud, so clear and so direct.
"No?" he asked with a frown.
"No. No, you are not going to take my daughter away from me. No, I am not going to let you say that I kidnapped her when you didn't even know she was alive."
His eyes were dark, and there was a violence of emotions there that should have taken her aback. Instead, even as her body tingled with remembered pleasure and a kind of need she had almost forgotten, she was filled with strength. She might never have been able to muster up this strength for herself, but finding it for her daughter was easy.
"Why didn't I know about my daughter?" he demanded. "It wasn't as if I simply laid her aside on the street! I never knew about her at all, and that was a choice you made, that was something that you took away from me."
"Keep your voice down, you'll wake her," she snapped, and to her surprise, Marco subsided.
"Why shouldn't I have taken you at your word?" she asked, and he look startled.
"What are you talking about now?"
"The things you said. How women couldn't defend their own honor, and how no matter how hard she tried, a woman would never have the character that a man could. Do you think I want my daughter growing up with that viewpoint echoing in her head, never thinking that she was anything on her own? Always thinking that there needed to be a man in her life?"
"If she took her proper place as a princess of Florence, she would never be left to deal with anything," Marcus said stonily. "She would be given everything she could ever want, and if a man dared crossed her..."
He looked around the apartment, distaste clear on his face. "She would be born to a palace, wanting nothing. Instead, here she lives..."
"Don't say it," Briony spat. "Don't. This place is perfectly fine. She's safe, she's loved, and I care more about her than I have ever cared about anything."
Marco made a move as if he wanted to grab her and shake her, but he stopped himself at the last moment, shaking his head instead.
"Do you truly believe that our daughter is better off here in a tiny apartment than in a palace in Florence being offered the world on a plate?"
"Here she is loved. That's what matters the most, it's what's always mattered the most, isn't it?"
For the first time, Marco dropped his gaze. He was too proud to say that she had won, but she saw a peculiar kind of defeat in his eyes.
"I am leaving now," he said, his voice icy. "But this is not over, Briony."
She said nothing, only waited until he had stormed out of her apartment. She managed to stay standing until he had closed the door behind him. Then after she latched the door, she fell onto the couch, a flood of tears wracking her body.
She tried to tell herself that she was scared for her daughter, but somewhere deep down, Briony knew it was not that. She had seen the awe in Marco's eyes when he’d seen Eva for the first time. The world might be large and terrifying, but it looked like Eva had won a protector for life.
No, her grief was far more selfish. She had thought that she had forgotten Marco. She had done her best to forget the one-night stand that had changed utterly everything in her life. Now she realized that even if memories were buried, they might come up again in the blink of an eye.
She could still remember the night she had danced with a masked man, and how it had felt to be someone else. Now it seemed she would suffer the rest of her life wanting to be that person again.
***
Briony decided that forewarned was forearmed. She needed to know more about the situation than she did, and that meant researching the heck out of everything involved.
She started with American family law, which told her that Marco did have a claim to his daughter, especially if a DNA test was taken. Still, courts would give it more weight that he hadn't been in
volved in the first few months of his daughter's life. It was extremely unlikely that Marco could take Eva away from her entirely. When she realized that, Briony breathed a sigh of relief.
What would it look like for her daughter, she wondered, living between two such separate worlds? Would Eva grow up to hate her humble beginnings in Los Angeles? Would she demand to live entirely in Florence? The thought stabbed Briony right through the heart, but she shook it away as best she could. That was a worry for the far future.
Briony wanted badly to call Seanan, at the very least to talk with her about meeting Marco and spilling the beans, but Seanan had taken off on another shoot, this time one in Nairobi. Her social media was full of shots of exotic stunts performed on racing cars, of face paint and hikes into the desert. She decided against trying to contact her sister, even if she might have sorely wanted the support. Seanan had always looked out for her, but this was a situation that she had to handle on her own.
Finally, Briony gathered all of her courage and started to look up Marco himself. The moment she Googled his name, she realized it was probably sheer chance she had never run into a mention of him before this.
Marco's life read like something out of a dream or perhaps a historical novel. He was a Florentine noble by birth, though of a cadet branch. He had a tidy fortune to begin with, but he had parlayed it into something immense and impressive, returning the Bianchi name to the limelight.
Briony flinched a little at page after page that detailed his assignations with models and starlets, pictures of Marco shirtless on his yacht with a woman on each arm and a wide, white grin on his face. For a while, it seemed as if he was associated with a new woman every week, but then things had changed.
When his uncle had died without an heir, there had been something of a scramble. The title of Prince of Florence held little real power except in the imagination of the people, but it was still a position that needed to be filled. At the end, Marco Bianchi was crowned, and Briony stared at the picture of Marco in the ancient cathedral, a solemn look on his face as his appointment was blessed.
She glanced at Eva, who was sleeping next to her on the couch.
"Dear god, baby, you're royalty."
As she read into the night, Briony saw a thread emerge in the articles she was reading. The death of Marco's uncle had left the city-state of Florence unsettled and uneasy. Nearly every interview with Marco involved a question about when he would be giving the throne an heir.
Marco fended off the answers with an adroit charm that spoke of a lifetime in the limelight, but Briony saw a man with steel nerves and a determination to do what was right.
"Well, princess," Briony said at last. "I wonder what your father's going to do..."
***
Briony was simultaneously relieved and slightly offended when Marco maintained radio silence for two weeks. The newspapers were quiet about him, but that wasn't too uncommon. It was the off season, when almost everyone was resting up after the immense social requirements of the months before. Seanan was a part of that rhythm when she wasn't on shoot, and Briony had learned a little about it.
Then one unusually gray Thursday, Briony got a strange phone call. She blinked, because there was really no reason that Kelly, her supervisor from work, would be calling her.
After the usual pleasantries, Kelly cut to the meat of the matter. "The university is undergoing some unique restructuring. By the time you return, your position is going to be eliminated."
Briony barely stopped herself from letting out a soft cry. Her stomach felt as if it had dropped straight to the floor.
"Don't worry, though, because there's a splendid opportunity for you opening up at one of our sister schools."
"Where at?" Briony asked, too flustered to be polite. "I mean, I'm grateful, but I would need to..."
"The sister school is in Florence," Kelly said. "The pay is far better, there is an apartment prepared for you, and though you'll have to take up residence soon, you'll be able to take the rest of your maternity leave..."
The moment that Kelly said “Florence,” Briony went cold and then hot.
"Tell me, Kelly," she said. "Does this restructuring have something to do with a great deal of money that was just given to the school?"
On the other end of the line, Kelly paused just long enough that Briony knew she was right.
"Was there a certain prince involved?"
"If you are asking about Marco Bianchi, he did offer a very generous endowment to..."
"Thank you. That's what I needed to know. Will you please send me the information on the new position via email?"
"Of course."
Briony sat on the floor where Eva was exploring with the single-minded enthusiasm of the very young.
"Your papa is something else," she said to the little girl, and she wondered if it was an accident when Eva looked up at her.
"Yeah, I'm talking about your Papa. Let's see what he has to say about himself."
***
It took a bit of digging, and she had to sit through three operators and a very distrustful security guard, but finally, Marco picked up the phone.
"What the hell?" Briony demanded. "You can't just...eat up people's jobs and move them where you please."
There was a pause, and then Marco laughed. "You know, when I was talking with your sister, she said that you were meek and shy. I almost thought I had found the wrong woman yet again, but when you say things like that, I remember that I have not."
"You make me act like some crazy, demanding version of myself," Briony said tartly. "If you want shy and sweet, maybe act otherwise. Now about my job..."
"I hardly thought you would object," he said, and she could almost see him shrug negligently. "It is more money, far better benefits, a far better place to live. Also, it will let Eva grow up in the heritage that will be hers. She is a princess, or she will be when I formally acknowledge her. I would not think that you would keep her from that."
Briony bit her lip, because objectively, everything that Marco was saying was correct. She would never want to rob her daughter of her birthright, and Marco held the key to it.
"If I go to Florence..."
"You are going to Florence," he said with such assurance that she gritted her teeth.
"Will you promise me that you have Eva's best interests at heart? That your only reason for doing this is to regain your lost princess?"
Marco paused.
"I can tell you that I am absolutely doing this with Eva's best interests at heart," he said finally. "But I cannot tell you that she is the only reason I am doing this."
The silence stretched between them, and Marco sighed, a sound so soft that Briony could have imagined it.
"Goodbye, Briony. People will be checking in with you to help you coordinate your move. I will see you in Florence."
Chapter Nine
Briony made it off of the private jet with less than four hours of sleep in the last forty-eight, and a screaming baby in her arms. The security detail she had been given escorted her through the airport, taking her along private hallways that were nearly empty.
"Shh, shh, baby, please, I know it's been a long trip. Just a little longer, all right?"
Eva paused for just a moment, long enough for Briony to get her hopes up, and then she resumed her wail. God, at least she didn't have to carry her luggage through. It had been handled for her.
Briony expected to be met by a driver, as she had been at her home in LA, but to her surprise, it was Marco waiting for her in the private garage that she had been taken to. He looked so handsome that it nearly took her breath away. He was dressed casually, but it was clear that probably even his underwear was worth more than the entire outfit she was wearing. After fourteen hours on the plane, she knew she looked like a garbage can.
Marco, for his part, didn't say anything about her appearance. Instead, he only cocked his head with concern at Eva.
"Is she all right? Shall I have a doctor meet us?"
Briony shook her head blearily. "She's just overtired, overstimulated and hungry. She wouldn't take any milk while she was on the plane, but apparently a lot of babies are like that..."
She herself was sorely aware of how overdue they were for a feeding. Her breasts felt overly full and slightly aching. She had slid pads into her bra, and hopefully they hadn't leaked through.
"So, home?" Marco asked, and she was too exhausted to even start to argue.
"Yes. Please."
With a surprisingly tender touch, he guided her into the limo, which incongruously held a car seat.
"Thought of everything," Briony said with a bleary smile, and Marco grinned at her a little. They got Eva buckled in together, and the little girl whimpered with exhaustion, making Briony's heart ache.
"Can't you sleep a little, baby?" she asked, and for a miracle, Eva yawned. As the limo started its silk-smooth journey, Eva fell into a deep sleep, and Briony nearly wanted to cry with relief.
"Tough trip?" Marco asked, and it was such a sweet, normal thing to ask.
"She cried for seven hours," Briony said, shaking her head. "She couldn't pop her ears and just had to suffer."
"Poor darling," he murmured. "Poor you. You should get some rest too."
She started to protest that she was fine, but then he drew her against his side. She was all at once painfully aware of how frumpy and tired she looked, how she was exhausted in every bone, but it felt so, so good to be cuddled up next to him.
"It's almost two hours before we get home, and if you want to see the sights of Florence, I'll take you later. Right now, you need rest."
She thought she was still arguing even when she drifted off to sleep, and in her dreams, she was sailing far away with Eva and Marco, all three of them laughing over a bright blue sea.
***
Marco watched Briony practically fall unconscious, and he shook his head with a slight smile. He should have known it would take something like that to knock out such a fierce girl.
It was fascinating. He had shared limos with some of the most beautiful women in the world, but none of them had ever fascinated him so much as the one curled up next to him now. She was pale without makeup, curvy where other women were only slender, and now and again, she let out a high and whistling snore.
