Lorenzo & Lily (Royals of Valleria #8)
Marianne Knightly
Contents
Also by Marianne Knightly
Synopsis
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
A Note from the Author
Also by Marianne Knightly
About the Author
Also by Marianne Knightly
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Royals of Valleria Series
Book 1: Alexander & Rebecca
Book 2: Marcello & Grace
Book 3: Arianna & Finn
Book 4: Charlotte & Nate
Book 5: A Royal Holiday (Novella)
Book 6: Catharine & Edward
Book 7: Royally Ever After
Book 8: Lorenzo & Lily
Book 9: Carolina & Rafe (coming Spring 2017)
Book 10: (coming late 2017/early 2018)
Box Set: Books 1-3
Box Set: Books 4-6
Seaside Valleria Series
First 3 books coming in 2017!
The Italian Shipping Millionaires Series
Book 1: Dante
Book 2: Adrian
Book 3: Giovanni
Book 4: Luc
Box Set: Books 1-4
Copyright © 2016 Marianne Knightly
Copyright
Lorenzo & Lily (Royals of Valleria #8)
Copyright © 2016 by Marianne Knightly
Cover Design: Marianne Knightly
Cover photos (Shutterstock.com): © Kiselev Andrey Valerevich |
© Leonid Andronov | © Studio10Artur
ISBN# 978-1942729105
All Rights Reserved.
Thank you for downloading this ebook. This ebook remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places, events, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgements: Special thanks to my editor, Jami Gold.
To those who feel as though they’re never enough. To those who are made to feel as though they’re less. You are loved, you are wonderful, and you are always welcome in Valleria.
Synopsis
A second chance at love.
A child of which he never knew.
A secret that could tear their renewed love apart.
Prince Lorenzo knows duty. He almost died for it on a battlefield. When he returned, battered and broken, he fell in love during his recovery. He never told anyone about her; she was his secret, his salvation, his reward.
She was the love of his life.
Yet, she left him with no warning, and guarding secrets of her own.
Years later, he sees her again. She’s back, and this time she’s not alone.
She has a four-year-old child – his child! – and he’s decided he’s never letting go, of either of them. They’ll make a new life together in Valleria’s seaside town of Masillia, where he runs a recovery centre for returning soldiers and Valleria’s main seaport, along with his royal duties.
Cecilia “Lily” Brionne is a survivor. Forced apart from Lorenzo, then forced to keep their child a secret from him, she was also tossed aside by her Italian high-society family when she refused to reveal the identity of her child’s father.
She’s survived pain, loneliness, and poverty to provide for their child. Now that Lorenzo’s back in her life – and determined to be a family – she’ll have to work harder to hide the truth of their break up.
That secret, if revealed, could tear the royal family apart.
It could also tear her and Lorenzo apart again.
This time, for good.
Chapter One
The sheer volume of bullets whizzing around them was unexpected.
Extremely unexpected.
The latest intelligence reports had stated that the area was safe enough to cross, at least in the dead of night.
The reports were wrong.
Captain Lorenzo Santoro ran through the dense vegetation, his team close behind or running ahead of him. His status as prince of Valleria wouldn’t help him now; in fact, it might be what killed him in the end.
He was suffocating. Oppressive heat, even in the dark of night, surrounded him. The air was a thick and humid stew. His pack weighed over fifteen kilos – or a mere thirty-five pounds – and sweat ran in rivers down his body. He could barely hold on to his rifle, as it kept slipping from slickened hands.
His lieutenant colonel was yelling orders, but Lorenzo’s brain couldn’t make any sense of it. Safety. He had to get to safety, and he had to make sure the team got there, too.
As he wound his way through the dense jungle, he heard a female cry pierce the air.
Remy.
His eyes darted around frantically, searching for the fallen body, but the trees were too high, the moonlight too little, the air too dense.
“Come on, Captain!” Perez yelled as he came by, then grabbed Lorenzo’s arm and began tugging him along. Lorenzo broke free.
“Remy.”
Perez just shook his head. “I saw her. It’s too late.” A weight heavier than fifteen kilos pressed against Lorenzo’s chest. “Lieu called for an evac, and we’ve got to make it to the lift point or we’re screwed.”
“We can’t leave her goddamn body here for them.”
“Captain, it’s too late!” Perez yelled, but Lorenzo was already weaving back through the trees. He’d run barely a hundred yards when he saw her sprawled on the ground.
Her face was still twisted in pain, her body unmoving.
Remy.
He checked her pulse.
There was nothing but silence.
The silence of a pulse was the worst fucking sound in the world.
The next sound he heard wasn’t much better.
A nearby grenade blast pierced the air, shaking him from his thoughts.
No time.
There wasn’t any time.
He heaved her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold, her weight plus the weight of her pack now also weighing him down. He didn’t feel it. Another surge of adrenaline, coursing through his system at breakneck speed, kept him from feeling anything anymore.
He raced to catch up with the rest of the team. It was several long minutes before he caught sight of them again. He heard the helicopters before he saw them. One landed in a clearing and half his team ran toward it, while the others laid down suppressive fire.
Close. So close to freedom. To safety.
Then it happened.
A long, low whistle preceded a blast, and threw the jungle into sharp relief from the orange and red flames of a spreading fire.
The explosion engulfed the helicopter…the one filled with most of his team.
God, was there anyone left? W
as it just him now?
He glanced around and saw unmoving bodies. The rest of his team, either injured or dead from their proximity to the blast.
The heady moisture of the jungle was no match for the fire, and the oppressive heat became choking.
A voice squawked and he blinked.
Remy’s satellite phone.
Lorenzo’s phone had broken down sometime that night, but Remy’s was still working. He shifted Remy’s body and unclipped the phone from her waist.
His voice was hoarse and dry, but clear. “This is the captain. I’m near the evac point. Where’s the second helicopter? I need an extraction. Over.”
“Team status, Captain? Over.”
He caught the movement of a soldier crawling on the ground, another surviving member of his team. From his vantage point, he couldn’t make out who it was. His stomach clenched, the need to vomit overwhelming, but he swallowed it back, the bile piercing his throat. “I see only one man moving, but severely injured. Over.”
“Can you both make it to the backup extraction point? Over.”
He heard the enemy coming closer. Their feet, their cries, their guns. “We’ve got maybe a minute before they make it to the clearing. Over.”
“We can’t land in the fire area. Head a hundred yards east of the fire, and we’ll send down a rope. Get you and your man hitched to it, and we’ll get you out. Over and out.”
Shit!
He knew the men who were coming for them. They were an anomaly here in the dense African jungle. Unlike the kind villagers they’d met during their deployment, these men were not kind. They kidnapped young children, often young girls, for rape and amusement. They also mutilated bodies, even dead ones.
Especially dead female ones.
He did the only thing he could think of: he ran towards the fire.
His friends, his colleagues were all in flames. He put Remy on the ground and – for some reason he couldn’t fathom – he closed her eyes before he tossed her into the flames. Even their enemies would leave a flaming body alone.
To prevent their technology and any sensitive information he carried from falling into enemy hands, he threw his pack on the flames, then grabbed a fallen branch and lit it. He quickly checked the pulses of the bodies littered on the ground, but found none. He set fire around the remaining bodies and tossed the branch aside.
He moved to the writhing figure in the grass. “Perez? Can you run?”
Perez shook his head, his teeth clenched tight. “My legs won’t move. Leave me.”
“We’re the only two fucking people left. I’m not leaving you.”
He didn’t have a choice. He would have to risk injuring Perez more by carrying him to safety.
He ignored Perez’s sharp cry of pain as he cradled him against his chest, and ran like hell.
Then he felt the sharp sting of a bullet in his arm, and he stumbled.
When the next bullet lodged in his thigh, he screamed.
Lorenzo shoved the bedcovers away, his feet pushing them down and kicking them off the bed. He sat up, gasping for air as if he were still in the jungle, the scream still hoarse in his throat, his body drenched in sweat.
He swung his legs off the side of the bed, set his elbows on his knees, and buried his head in his hands. He took a few, long deep breaths and reminded himself it was just a dream.
It wasn’t just a dream, though. It was a memory, a nightmare he’d lived and survived.
He was one of the two who had.
He heaved himself from the bed and strode into his bathroom nude, which was how he slept. He turned the water in his massive shower to ice cold, and stepped in to let the water sluice over his olive-hued skin. The chill washed away the heat of the memory. He rested his palms flat against the tile, and bent his head of black and silver-slivered hair.
His body was still lean and toned; his military training had been too ingrained for him to give it up. Even after recovering from his physical injuries over five-years ago, he’d continued with the brutal pace.
It’s what he would do now.
He flicked off the spray and stepped out, running a towel carelessly over his body before heading for closet. He slipped on a pair of running shorts, then grabbed his running shoes and carried them out to his terrace.
When he stepped onto the cool stone, he let out a deep breath, his shoulders relaxing for the first time since the dream.
Freedom.
He inhaled the cool, salty tang of Mediterranean air, and tossed his shoes on the floor. Then he walked to the stone railing and took in the view. Wide, open sea, and the dark night was inching towards dawn.
The Royal Castle was located in Masillia, the largest of Valleria’s seaside cities, and had been designed to seem as though it was floating on water. For him it was perfect.
No suffocating jungle air here.
He never even bothered closing his doors or windows. A security risk his older brothers pestered him about, but one he wouldn’t bow to. Once they’d realized that, they’d assigned him more Royal Protection agents, and one approached him now.
“Going for a run, Sir?”
Lorenzo nodded. “Who’s free?”
“Bash is lacing up, Sir.”
Lorenzo blinked. Edward ‘Bash’ Bashiera was his sister Catharine’s fiancé and, last he’d heard, had been three hours away with his sister where they resided in the Vallerian village of Chames. Though Eddie had once been a Royal Protection agent, he’d resigned since becoming engaged and now ran his own security firm. His former colleagues called him Bash, while most of their family called him Eddie. “What’s Eddie doing here?”
“He, along with Princes Marcello and Nathaniel, arrived just a few hours ago.”
What the fuck? “Why wasn’t I informed?”
“You were already asleep, Sir. We felt it best not to disturb you, as it wasn’t an emergency.”
The agents knew all too well how little sleep Lorenzo got. Sometimes he woke screaming, other times just a cold sweat. “Did I scream in my sleep?”
“Yes, Sir. It, er, woke the others.”
Damn.
Since he didn’t want Eddie to follow him, he ordered, “Prep an agent; I want them to follow us when we set off.” The agent nodded and left.
Lorenzo checked his phone as he slipped on his shoes and socks. Three messages he’d slept through: his eldest brother and heir to the throne, Alexander’s, as well as Marcello’s, and Lily’s.
His heart clenched at the sight of her name, and he quickly scanned the string of messages they’d sent back and forth, trying to find a time to meet. When they’d met again at Alex’s wedding three months ago, she promised to message him her details so that they could finally have their five-year-overdue discussion as to why she left him. Though she’d sent it right away, his family and royal obligations had made it difficult to find a time to meet. He’d already decided to finalize a time this week to settle it once and for all.
His thumb hovered over her phone number for several seconds before he shook his head and turned to his other messages. As much as he’d been eagerly anticipating seeing her again, he couldn’t think about her, not yet. Not until he knew what his family was up to.
He’d just finished reading his brothers’ messages when the knock came at the door, and Marcello entered wearing a pair of drawstring pajama bottoms, followed by Eddie who was dressed for a run like Lorenzo, with the addition of a shirt. Lorenzo preferred running shirtless, no matter what the weather.
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed. “Why the fuck are you here?”
Marcello quirked a dark blond brow. “Hello to you, too.”
“It’s early. The sun’s not up. Why are you bothering me?”
Marcello shrugged. “You’re up and going for a run. Can’t be that early.”
Eddie shut the door and crossed his arms over his lean chest. “We came to help.”
Irritation scratched at Lorenzo’s skin. “I told you I had things under control when we tal
ked yesterday.”
“Of course you do,” Marcello said easily. “But a dock workers strike impacts the whole country. Not to mention, with all the shit the Royal Council’s pulled recently, we need to be on our guard.” Marcello was Valleria’s Minister of Security and Defense, and knew all too well that certain members of the Council hated the monarchy.
“I can still handle it.”
“Of course you can.” The way Marcello said that, however, sounded as though he didn’t even believe that himself. “Alex is coming down tomorrow, too.”
Irritation was bubbling steadily into anger. “I’ve handled shit like this before. I don’t need your help.”
Marcello shrugged again. “You’re getting it anyway. Deal with it.”
Lorenzo couldn’t deal, not with this. If he’d had more time to recover from the nightmare, if he’d been able to have just a fucking hour to himself, he could have faked his way through the conversation, and been the Lorenzo they approved of, the Lorenzo they trusted. Since the army, he hadn’t been trusted very much.
Without sparing either his elder brother or his almost-brother-in-law a second look, he turned towards his balcony, then ran down his stairs and as far away from them as he could.
He heard the pounding of feet following him soon after, and he knew that Eddie was behind him.
“Go back,” he called, without bothering to look.
“No way in hell you’re running alone,” Eddie called back.
He stopped abruptly, and watched as Eddie ran past him before he, too, stopped. “There’s an agent with me.” He jerked his head toward the man that followed them.
“You’d rather have an agent over a member of your own family?”
“You’re not my family. Not yet, anyway.”
Eddie crossed his arms over his chest. “I am. Just because it’s not legal yet, doesn’t mean it’s not official.”
“We’ll see,” Lorenzo muttered.
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