What was her problem? She’d tried to help, but Nico had refused her advice.
She needed to move around, needed to burn off some of her restless energy. She found Gisela on the couch in the other room and asked her to please keep an eye on Danny while he slept. Then she wandered the big house, poking into rooms and stepping onto myriad terraces that all had fabulous views of the sea. She hoped she might find Nico, might explain to him that he needed to spend time with Danny and that it would all be well if he would do so. But he wasn’t in the house.
She found the clothes he’d bought for her in a closet the size of her apartment back home. Another closet, as masculine as hers was feminine, adjoined it, and she knew she’d probably stumbled into the master suite. Beyond the closets, a bathroom the size of a small city had floor to ceiling windows that looked out at the ocean, and a giant spa tub sunk into the floor in front of them.
Unbelievably, there was a butler’s pantry attached, complete with a refrigerator and wine rack. Perfect, she supposed, for entertaining guests in the tub. Female guests, no doubt.
Princess Antonella?
Lily shoved the thought aside with a mental growl. She hesitated at the bedroom door, but slid it open on silent rollers and stepped inside. It was a large room with a king-sized bed that dominated one wall. Again, floor to ceiling windows looked out on a view as spectacular as any she’d ever seen. She crossed to the terrace doors but stopped when her attention was caught by a trio of framed photos on a table beside a leather club chair.
In the first, two boys, close in age, stood with their arms around each other, smiling. The next was of a young man, caught in a moment of exuberance, laughing at the camera. Nico’s brother, she guessed. The third was a formal portrait of Nico as a child. It must have been shortly after he’d come to the palace. He looked so solemn. Unhappy. He wore a uniform much like the one he’d had on the other night, though without the medals, sword, or sash.
Lily picked the photo up and studied it. The resemblance to Danny, even now, was remarkable. She wondered why the picture was important to Nico, why he displayed it when the boy in the frame looked so unhappy. Didn’t most people surround themselves with photos that evoked pleasant feelings?
“It reminds me of who I am.”
Lily whirled, clutching the frame to her chest. “Oh my god, you scared me.”
Clad in head-to-toe black, he looked as dark and devilish as any demon. It took her a moment to realize he was dressed in motorcycle leathers. For some reason, her heart rate jumped.
He rode a motorcycle? He raced the hairpin curves they’d driven on the way here? Challenged the sheer drops that plunged to the sea? How could he be so irresponsible? What would she and Danny do if something happened to him?
He came to stand beside her, the scents of warm leather, wind and yes, even oil, permeating her senses. Her nipples tingled in response, shocking her. Her boyfriend in Louisiana, before she’d ever met Nico, had worked on a farm. He’d often smelled of grease and outdoors, and she’d never once found that sexy.
But Nico, a gorgeous, wealthy prince…
The contrast aroused her for some reason. Pathetic.
His shoulder bumped against her as he pointed at the picture of the two boys. “Gaetano is on the left.”
“He’s not as tall as you,” she said stupidly, only half paying attention. Threads of fire spread through her at his nearness, currents of sweet need thickening her veins. What was wrong with her? Why could she not control this feeling when he was around?
“Si, and he was older by three years. Very interesting, yes?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “The other is a few years later. Gaetano was laughing at something. I don’t remember what. We went to Australia that summer, and I’d never seen him freer. It was quite extraordinary, but then you would have had to know my brother to understand.”
“Maybe he didn’t like being the Crown Prince,” she ventured. Who would, as unhappy a place as the Palazzo Cavelli seemed to be?
Nico nodded slowly, surprising her. “Yes, I believe it was that. And more.”
Lily thought of her mother and how she’d never understood the choices the older woman made. The way she lived her life for one man in particular, then fell apart during the periods he was gone. Maybe it wasn’t the same thing, but at least Lily understood what it was to love someone and not understand them or be able to penetrate the armor they cloaked themselves with.
“What happened to him?” she asked softly.
Nico took the frame she still held as he gazed at the child in the photo. “It was suicide, cara.”
Shock and sorrow crashed into her. She’d known a girl in high school who took her own life. The blow was too much for her parents to weather. They’d divorced not quite a year later, and the mother had left town. The girl’s brother had withdrawn too, finally quitting school and spending time in jail. All their lives had been irrevocably changed by that one act.
How had Nico’s brother’s death affected him? How had it affected the king and queen? Maybe that explained the chill in the room she’d felt with them.
“I’m very sorry,” she said. “No one should lose a family member like that.”
It seemed such an inadequate thing to say, but it was all she could do. He kept his gaze focused on the photo. “No, no one should,” he said.
She wanted to ask him more about his brother, but she was afraid to do so. She was, in fact, amazed he was even talking to her after the way he’d looked at her earlier. She wanted to reach out and hug him, but instead she changed the subject.
“How old were you in that picture?”
“Six. My mother had died three days before.”
He couldn’t miss her indrawn breath. There’d been so much pain in his life. It broke her heart to think of it, to think she’d contributed even a fraction to his sorrow.
Leather creaked as he shifted toward her. “It was not so bad after a while. I adapted.”
She felt her eyes filling. “But you were a boy. You should have had more time.”
“Life does not always cooperate, si? I lost my mother, but I gained a brother.”
A brother he’d lost as well. “No one should only get one or the other.”
“No, this is true.”
“Was it very bad? Being raised in the palace, I mean?”
“I have nothing else to compare it to.”
She couldn’t imagine the queen being very kind to a motherless boy, especially one whose presence reminded her that her husband had gone outside their marriage vows. “You must have missed her. Your mother.”
“I hardly remember her now, cara. She was always busy—and then one day she was gone.”
Lily swallowed the hard lump in her throat. No child should be that lonely. She stood beside him, unmoving, feeling his presence so strongly that his every breath felt as if it were her own. She could not have moved away if her life depended on it.
But he could. He set the photo down and stepped away. In the next instant, the oily zrrittt of a zipper filled the silence before his jacket landed on a chair. He stood before her in a tight white T-shirt that clung to sweat dampened muscles. His hair was also damp and hugged his head in a mess of runaway tendrils that she ached to touch.
The leather pants were tight, well-worn in patches from gripping his legs around the motorcycle. He also wore heavy black boots with buckles that cinched over the pants, and she found her breath catching in her chest.
It wasn’t fair. He threw her off balance looking like that, like every girl’s bad boy dream. She could see him roaring up to a smoky nightclub, riding off into the night with a woman wrapped around him—a woman who knew a night of sinful pleasure awaited her.
Lily wanted to be that woman. She wanted to peel the shirt from his chest and lick her way down—
Oh God.
“Need something, Lily?” he asked softly.
Her pulse quickened. “No, I—” She pulled in a deep breath. “Of course not. Why do y
ou ask?”
“Perhaps I can give you what you need,” he said softly. “You have only to ask.”
“I’m—” Breathe, Lily. “No, it’s nothing. I was just thinking about something. I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“It’s not important,” he said, watching her. “I’d much rather talk about what you were thinking.”
“I—I better go see if Danny’s awake,” she replied, shivers chasing over her body. How did he do this to her? How could he look at her with such hatred earlier and then flirt with her now?
Because he was an expert, that’s why, a Don Juan who’d seduced hundreds of women. She could not forget who she was dealing with. He didn’t care about her. He was merely reacting to the vibes she was giving off.
Stop it now, before you do something stupid.
Nico closed the distance between them. “What’s the matter, Liliana? Afraid to admit what we both know?”
She tilted her head back, meeting those piercing eyes, the depths that were awash in humor and something more. Desire?
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said.
His smile was instant. Devilish.
Delicious.
“Did I say you were?” He reached out, twirled a lock of her hair around a tanned finger. It was only hair, yet she trembled as if he were stroking her skin. “It’s inevitable, Lily. We will end up in bed together. Quite probably sooner than you think. There is no need to fight it.”
She had to struggle to speak normally. “I’m not fighting anything. You’re delusional.”
“Am I?” His fingers slipped to her collarbone, stroked their way up her neck to her jaw. He grinned when he passed over the thrumming beat of her pulse. “Perhaps we should test this theory…”
Lily marshaled what shreds of willpower she had left and jerked away from him. “There’s nothing to test, Nico.”
He didn’t try to touch her again, but his mouth was still crooked in that knowing grin. His voice was a sensual purr. “Run, Lily. Run far and fast before you find yourself sprawled naked on my bed. Because if we begin this, I will not stop until it’s finished.”
Her entire body shook with fear.
No, not fear. Desire. Need. Want.
In another minute, she’d be the one shoving him backwards onto the bed, the one tearing at his shirt and slipping her hands into his pants—
Lily ran, his mocking laughter following her down the hall.
Nico slid beneath the shower spray, the cool water a welcome relief from the heat of his wild ride along the coast. No, it was more than that. He needed the cold water to calm his raging desire for his wife.
His wife.
Only a day after he’d married her and he still felt a mixture of amazement and bewilderment that he had a wife, much less one that twisted him up inside unlike anything he’d ever experienced. It was simply her proximity, the fact she was desirable and that he hadn’t had a woman recently—not to mention the way she’d looked at him a few minutes ago.
Like she’d spent a week in the desert, and he was the first glass of water she’d seen in all that time.
He’d been more than willing to quench her thirst. He was still hard, damn her. He let his soapy hand slide over his cock, groaning at the sensations. He could jerk off, but it wasn’t the same. He twisted the shower dial to cold and resisted the urge to shout as needles of icy water pierced his skin.
He closed his eyes, leaned his forehead against the tile, and willed his raging libido to subside.
For now, anyway.
How could he want her like this when he’d watched her with his son earlier and had it driven home how much he’d missed in his boy’s life thus far? Danny—for so she always called him—said mama. He walked. He knew who his mother was and ignored the man standing beside her.
Ignored his father.
She’d urged Nico to go play with the boy, but he’d felt like his heart was on the outside of his chest, like if he did she would see how uncertain he was, how much it hurt to be a stranger to his child. He didn’t know anything about children, not really. He’d spent minutes with them, not hours. He, who was in supreme control in every other instance of his life, had no idea what to do with his son—and it bothered him.
Instead of going to Danny, he’d fled. Dio, like the worst kind of coward. But he’d felt too much in that moment and he hadn’t quite known how to handle it. A long ride on his Ducati with the wind slipping past and the purr of the motor beneath him was exactly what he’d needed to clear his mind.
When he thought back to that moment when his son ran to Lily, every feeling he’d ever had of not belonging, of being the outcast, crashed through him once more. Remembering those feelings helped him not want Lily so much.
But he still wanted her. And he knew what he needed to do. He would not creep around his own house, avoiding his wife, and remaining a stranger to his son. No, he would learn how to be a father to his boy—and he would bed his wife.
If there was one thing on this earth he knew how to do—and do well—it was seduce a woman.
Lily didn’t stand a chance…
Chapter Ten
Lily was feeling quite cranky when she woke and dressed the next morning. She’d spent the night in a state of flux. One minute she was cold, the next hot and throwing off the covers. Unfortunately, all the times she woke up in a sweat had coincided with short, intense dreams about a certain prince in motorcycle leathers.
She hadn’t dreamed of sex in a long time, but she’d more than made up for it in the span of one night. She’d had shadowy impressions of skin against skin, of his lips against hers, of his hot velvety cock sliding inside her, filling her so deliciously that she thought she might die from the pleasure of it.
She could almost believe those things had really happened if she hadn’t awakened alone each time, panting and aching with desire. No matter how delectable her dreams, she had to resist the temptation to give herself to him. Because down that path lay ruin and pain. She wasn’t naïve enough to think she could manage a lifetime with him without being intimate—they were married, and he would want more children, as did she—but there had to be a point at which she could isolate that most vulnerable part of herself and keep it locked away.
It would simply take time to find it, but she would do so. For her sake, and for Danny’s. Until then, she would have to be careful.
When she emerged from her dressing room, she first went to Danny’s room. He wasn’t there, so she continued toward the kitchen. This time, she wasn’t panicking that Danny had been spirited away.
Lily heard voices and smelled food as she approached the kitchen, but the sight that greeted her when she stepped inside the large, sunny space was not one she could have ever expected. Nico stood at the stove, a pan in one hand, a spatula in the other. He smiled when he saw her, and her heart tripped.
“Ah, so you have decided to grace us with your presence after all.”
“It’s only eight-thirty.”
“Yes, but we have been up since six.”
She looked beyond him to where Danny played in a corner with a set of building blocks. When he saw her, he launched to his feet and toddled toward her, babbling happily. She caught him in her arms and covered his face in kisses while he laughed.
When she looked at Nico, he’d turned his attention back to the pan. “What are you making?” she asked.
He glanced up. “Eggs. For you.”
Lily’s eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. “For me?” she practically squeaked.
“Si.” He grinned at her. “Do not look so frightened, cara mia. I’m capable of cooking quite a few things, eggs being one of them.”
“Why would a prince need to cook?”
She’d imagined him with a personal chef and a staff of waiters since she’d already seen it in action in the palace. But she’d never imagined him cooking. And never for her. That was certainly not something that happened in any of the fairytales she’d ever read. What an unexpected
man her prince was turning out to be.
“Princes need to know many things,” he said, moving the spatula around the pan. “Besides, the queen considered it edifying to have me learn tasks she thought menial.”
Lily frowned. “Did your brother learn them too?”
“He did, but only because he defied her to be with me.” He shrugged. “Let us not talk of this anymore, hmm?”
Danny started to struggle, and she set him down. He immediately went back to his toys. “You watched Danny all morning?”
She sensed the sudden tension in the set of Nico’s shoulders, and it troubled her. Why was he afraid to spend time with his son? Did he think she would disapprove? It bothered her to realize that only twenty-four hours ago, she would have. And, while a part of her was still jealous at the idea of Danny needing anyone but her, she wanted what was best for her child.
A father—a happy, involved father—was best for them all.
“Gisela fed and dressed him, and we have been playing for the past hour while she uses the gym.”
“Gym?”
Nico grinned again. “You are full of questions this morning, mi principessa. Food will cure that, perhaps. But yes, there is a gym in the house. Very good for keeping one’s figure.”
She imagined him pumping iron and thought her heart would stop, especially when her brain insisted on clothing him in leather pants and a damp T-shirt. He indicated a barstool at the large center island. Then he set a plate in front of her and she dug in her fork while he poured coffee.
“Wow, it’s good,” she said, and he laughed.
“You did not believe I could do it, did you?”
Lily couldn’t hide a smile. “No, I really didn’t. Who would risk telling a prince his eggs taste like burnt cardboard? I thought perhaps no one ever told you the truth before.”
She stabbed her fork in again, took another bite of the perfectly scrambled eggs. They were creamy, silky, and tasted like butter. How much time had he spent in a kitchen anyway? Lily decided she disliked the queen even more. “It really is delicious.”
Filthy Rich Prince: A Filthy Rich Billionaires Book Page 9
