Or, as it turned out, listen.
Nico was more than ready to leave. He glanced at his watch. Another minute and he was making his excuses, retrieving his wife, and flying home. He’d already been here two hours and Paolo had yet to commit to any of his proposals for getting the treaty back on track.
Maybe Nico’s heart wasn’t in it. He’d been out of sorts since his argument with Lily last night. He’d wanted to go to her, wanted to bust down the door and make love to her until she screamed his name, but he hadn’t been able to make himself act. She’d said he’d made her life worse by forcing her into marriage. And he’d wanted to rail at her that in contrast he’d made his life worse. He was the one justifying his actions to his father, to this irritating man pontificating about alliances and the future, and to himself as he began to wonder whether he’d done the right thing or not.
He’d never wanted a child of his to endure a life like he’d had, but had marriage been the necessary vehicle to take care of Danny? Could he not have found another way to provide for them? One that would have spared them the scrutiny and duty that came with being royal?
Basta, no. He’d done the right thing, the only thing, he could do. Lily would learn how to be a princess, and Danny would grow up as a prince and the heir to the throne. What was done was done.
A man came in and handed Paolo a paper, leaning over to whisper something in his ear as he did so. Paolo’s ruddy face split into a grin.
“Prince Nico,” Paolo said when the man had gone again. “It seems as if we have caught a thief.”
“A thief? How extraordinary.”
Paolo’s mouth twitched. “Indeed, she is quite extraordinary.”
Nico’s skin prickled in warning.
“I am so sorry to inform you, Your Highness, but it seems as if the woman who accompanied you tonight is part of an international gang of antiquities thieves.”
Nico shot out of the chair just as the door burst open to admit several armed men. He stood there in impotent rage, fists clenched at his side, heart racing, and glared at the man who watched him with an amused look on his face.
“If you’ve hurt her—”
Nico’s gut churned and his mind raced. How could he have brought Lily here tonight? How could he have put her in danger? He should have refused, no matter what his father or Paolo had demanded.
Slowly, ice dripped into his veins, steadying him. Nico could not afford the distraction of emotion right now. He would do whatever it took to free his wife, but he had to be coldly detached in order to deal with Paolo.
“This is what you will do,” Paolo said, all pretense of normalcy gone. “You will divorce this woman and marry my daughter, as you should have done in the first place.”
“You dare to imprison my wife? To threaten me? You’re risking war, Paolo.”
“You would take your country to war over a woman? Like Menelaus in the Iliad, yes? You know what happened to Menelaus. The beautiful Helen ran off with Paris willingly, and the Greeks spent ten years trying to get her back. Was it worth it?”
“It’s not about the woman,” Nico bit out. “It’s about sovereignty. You insult my nation with this act of aggression against her Crown Prince.”
Paolo’s face turned an alarming shade of purple as he banged a fist on his desk. His crystal tumbler rattled violently, brandy sloshing over the side to splash the wood.
“You will marry my daughter. I insist on it. I have worked too hard to be thwarted by one such as you.” Spittle formed at the corners of his mouth. “If you don’t do as I say, I will have you both killed.”
Nico was tempted to laugh disdainfully until he realized Paolo meant the threat. The man’s eyes gleamed with barely contained madness. He’d thought Paolo was simply stubborn before, but it was much more than that. The King of Monteverde was unbalanced. There’d been rumors to that effect for a few years, but there were always rumors coming out of royal palaces. Nico knew that firsthand, which was why he’d given them little credence.
He sized up the man before him. He could resist, but what was the point? If he agreed to do what Paolo wanted, then he had a chance to save Lily. Because he would not allow her to remain here as Paolo’s prisoner—even if he had to die to free her. He’d put her in danger. He would get her out again.
“Very well, Your Majesty. But I want to see Lily first. And I want your assurance she will be well-treated.”
The cell Lily occupied was far more luxurious than the one in which she’d been imprisoned in Montebianco, and yet that was not a comfort. Bars were bars, and guards were guards.
Lily wrapped her arms around herself and stood in the middle of the sumptuously appointed room, an actual palace room with a cell door welded to the frame. Very odd, but then she’d learned that nothing was as she’d expected it to be since she’d left Port Pierre, Louisiana. Part of her could hardly believe she was here. Another part of her wanted to howl.
The lean man with the blade-thin nose had told her she was under arrest for her ties to an international ring of thieves who dealt in artifacts. The idea was preposterous, and yet here she was.
She rubbed her gloved hands over her bare shoulders. The chill ricocheting over her skin was the result of bone-deep fear, not from a lack of warmth in her prison. No, the room was everything a guest could want, were she a guest.
Lily sniffed back angry tears. This was all a mistake. She had faith that Nico would fix it. He would not allow his wife to be imprisoned by a neighboring monarch.
Antonella, bless her, had resisted mightily. But orders were orders and the guards were determined to carry them out. Lily finally agreed to go, certain it was a mistake and that it would all be sorted out.
When Nico finally appeared, relief threatened to buckle her knees. Lily flung herself at the bars, reaching for him. “Nico, what’s going on? Please get me out of here!”
She had only a glimpse of the fury on his face before he turned away as King Paolo came into view. It was enough of a glimpse to know that Nico was coldly, brutally angry. If she were Paolo, she’d shrink in terror.
Yet the king merely looked smug. “You have seen her,” he said in English, no doubt for her benefit. “Now you will return home and divorce her.”
“Your word she will not be harmed, Paolo, or the deal is off.”
The deal?
“Nico? What’s going on?”
He ignored her. A chill snaked down her spine, even colder than the chill she’d felt when she’d been brought to this room. Why was he so calm, so dispassionate? Didn’t he care that she was in a cell? Or was he truly making deals with this awful man?
The possibility of it staggered her. And the truth. Montebianco came first. Nico had told her that more than once. If he had to sacrifice her for his country, he would do so.
Oh God—
“She will not be harmed,” Paolo said. Then he chortled gleefully. “This is fun! I may have forgotten to mention, by the way, that I will soon have your son in my custody. Just in case you have any ideas of reneging on our agreement.”
Lily’s heart stopped.
It. Just. Stopped.
How could she worry about herself when her baby was in danger? She wanted to choke the life from this man. From both of them. Fury, dark and cold, ate her from the inside out.
“If you hurt my child,” she swore savagely, “I’ll kill you myself.”
Paolo spun toward her, laughing. “Oh ho, a threat to the monarch’s life. This as well as her involvement with that despicable gang of thieves.”
“You lying bastard,” Lily hissed.
“Lily,” Nico said sharply. “Enough.”
“No,” she shouted, gripping the bars in her fists. “How can you stand there so passively when this—this man threatens our baby?” Her gaze swung to Paolo. “Tell me right now what you’ve done with my child!”
Paolo’s glee was unholy. “Your nanny is a sweet creature, is she not? And yet she has a price. Everyone does. Is that not right, Your H
ighness?” he asked Nico.
A muscle in Nico’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t reply. How could he stand there so mutely? She wanted to shake him, scream at him, make him act! He wouldn’t correct the media, and now he wouldn’t stop this evil king? What kind of man was he?
“Yes,” Paolo said again. “Everyone has a price. Mine is that you marry my daughter and make her your queen.”
Lily felt as if someone had yanked the floor out from under her. She gripped the bars in an effort to hold herself up. Nico would not agree to this. He would not, would not—
“I have said I will do so,” Nico replied. “But I want my son back immediately. Without him, there is no deal.”
Chapter Seventeen
Lily paced her gilded prison, her mind racing with chaotic thoughts. She kept thinking of the moment when Nico had agreed to marry Antonella. Lily’s heart had shattered into a million pieces in that moment, and it shattered again each time she thought of those words coming from his mouth. At least he’d had the presence of mind to demand their son’s safety.
But he’d consigned her to—what?
Lily blinked. What would happen to her now? Would King Paolo keep her here? Or would he send her to a real prison?
Her stomach dropped. Would it be a dank dungeon like the one she’d been in when Nico found her? Would she die there forgotten by everyone, including her young son?
Because once Nico married Antonella, no one needed her at all. She was disposable. As Nico had proven when he’d stood on the other side of her cell door tonight and said that Paolo had a deal.
Lily’s heart pounded and her eyes stung. She was helpless and yet she desperately wanted to act. She went over to the cell door and screamed for help, but no one came. Eventually, she sank onto the lush bed and cried herself to sleep.
When she woke again, it was pitch black. She lay in the darkness, straining to hear past the hammering of her heart. Was someone in the room with her? Was someone coming to kill her in the black of night?
Before she could process what she’d heard, the passage outside her prison cell exploded with voices. Lily jumped up and went over to the door, clasping the bars in both hands. She had a vision of black-clad men with balaclavas, night vision goggles, headsets, and weapons as they burst through the outer doors and incapacitated the two guards attempting to barricade the passage. A voice roughly ordered her to stand back, and then a flash of light split the gloom. Before she could process the popping sound, her cell door swung open and one of the men rushed in and swept her into his arms.
“Who are you? Where are you taking me?” she demanded, but the men were rushing from the room. They hurried up a set of stairs and burst out onto the roof. The cool night air caressed her cheeks, but she realized it wasn’t a natural breeze as a black helicopter descended onto the tarmac of the rooftop landing pad, blades whipping. The helicopter had a side door that slid wide open. The man holding her tossed her inside, then jumped in and pulled her into his grip again. The rest of the team piled in around them as shouts went up from below. Moments later, the craft levitated to the metallic burst of gunfire.
Lily couldn’t help the small scream that escaped her or the way her heart hammered in fright. But the helicopter didn’t lose altitude and they quickly left the palace behind. Still, Lily wasn’t sure if she’d been rescued or if this was something worse. She shouted her questions at the man holding her, but this helicopter was a stripped-down military monster that made conversation impossible. It was nothing like the executive version she’d flown with Nico in what seemed a lifetime ago.
When the man didn’t respond to her questions, Lily tried to push away from him. His grip didn’t loosen, and panic took over. She struggled harder, pushing at him with all her might. Suddenly, he reached up with one hand, stripped off his mask and headset and let them fall.
Nico.
Lily’s shock lasted only a second. Then she slapped him.
Nico sat at his desk, staring into nothingness. He couldn’t concentrate on the papers his assistant had given him earlier. The city looked the same as it had yesterday, and yet nothing was the same.
Lily refused to speak to him. Not that Nico blamed her. The events of the night before had been outrageous, brutal, and shocking. He’d wanted to strangle Paolo with his bare hands when the man had stood in front of Lily and made him agree to marry Antonella, yet to do so would have been a death sentence for them both.
Instead, he’d wasted no time once he’d left Monteverde in ordering and leading Lily’s rescue.
He shoved away from the desk, giving up all pretense of work, and made his way to the nursery. He knew his wife would be there. She hadn’t left their son’s side since he’d brought her home. He hadn’t wanted to leave either, but his presence seemed to upset her. From the moment she’d slapped him on the helicopter until now, he’d respected that.
But no more. Nothing would ever be right again if he avoided the situation.
Sunlight speared into the nursery. Danny was in his crib, napping. The sight of his son curled up with his little blue dinosaur sent a wave of emotion through Nico. If not for the nanny’s decision to do the right thing when faced with Paolo’s blackmail, he might have lost his wife and child both. A wave of despair tumbled through him at the thought.
A movement caught his eye, and he turned his attention to the window. Lily lay on the window seat, head turned to look outside, a book dangling from one hand.
“Lily,” he said, surprised at how rough his voice sounded. At the mix of feelings tumbling through him. He shut them down without mercy, as he’d learned to do long ago. Emotions never got him anywhere except lost and sad. He already felt so out of sorts that he couldn’t process them right now anyway.
She turned bloodshot eyes on him. “Go away.”
“No.”
She didn’t respond, simply stared out the window. He went to her side, took the book away and sat facing her, trapping her between him and the window casing.
“Please don’t touch me,” she said, her voice cracking with the effort to control it.
The lump in his throat was as unexpected as it was raw. “I apologize for what happened. I should have refused to take you to Monteverde. I did not trust Paolo, but I didn’t know he was crazy enough to carry out such a scheme. He didn’t harm you, did he?”
She shook her head.
“Lily. Dio, I’m sorry you had to think I would go along with his plan, but it was the only way—”
“How did he get to Gisela?”
Nico shoved his fingers through his hair. “She has a brother, tesoro mio. He has been in much trouble in the past, and he’d once more fallen in with a gang. He disappeared a few days ago, no doubt on Paolo’s orders. Gisela was offered money and the return of her brother should she hand Danny over when ordered. Instead, she chose to go to the authorities when the command came.”
Wisely, since Paolo would have killed Gisela and her brother both once he had Danny. Fortunately, Nico’s men had located her brother. He was now free and would receive the rehabilitation he needed.
Her lip quivered. “I am grateful for that, but—oh God—Danny is just a baby. I wanted him to have a normal life, and now this. Will he always be at such risk?” Her head dropped to her knees as she brought them up in front of her, shielding her face from his view. “Of course he will, and it terrifies me. How do you live like this? Wait, don’t tell me—duty.”
“Nothing like this has ever happened before—”
She speared him with a glare. “But that doesn’t mean it won’t again! I thought the media was bad, but what if something happened to you or me? Or both of us at the same time? What would Danny do then? And if you tell me the king and queen would take care of him, I’ll scream. Those two shouldn’t be allowed to take care of a goldfish, much less a child—”
“Nothing will happen, Lily,” he said firmly, though he couldn’t disagree with her assessment of the royal couple’s child-rearing skills. “We have taken t
he men who were behind the thefts into custody, and many of the artifacts have been recovered. It was a Monteverdian gang that Paolo sanctioned in order to finance his greed. Some of the art had been lost along the way, which is how those statues ended up amongst the ones the vendor had when you bought your souvenirs. We finally found him, by the way, and he was not involved in the theft.”
“How could King Paolo know I would buy them? How? He didn’t even know who I was until you married me.”
Nico sighed. “He didn’t, Lily. But he knew you’d been arrested for it, so he used that fact in his scheme. Still, he would have imprisoned you anyway. He didn’t need the statues for that. It was merely a convenient excuse. Anyway, it’s over now.”
She looked troubled. “Maybe this time. But what about the next?”
“There will be no next. Paolo was a desperate man, cara. He steered Monteverde into bankruptcy over the years. The union with Montebianco was necessary for him to infuse his failing government with cash, but it was his last resort. One of his sons has challenged his rule and it looks like he will be removed from power. Then the healing will begin.”
“Things like this don’t happen where I come from. Life is normal.” She gave a half-hysterical laugh, sucked it in sharply. “My God, until last night, I had no idea you were actually in the military, that you would risk yourself in a rescue operation—”
“Did you think the uniform was simply for show?” he interrupted gently. He wasn’t an active member of the Montebiancan Navy any longer, but he’d been trained extensively during his time in the service. He’d been advised against participating in the mission because he was the Crown Prince, not because he wasn’t prepared. Nothing, however, could have kept him from going after his wife and bringing her to safety.
“I don’t know what I thought. But I do know I hate it here,” she said softly, her eyes filling with tears again. “I’ve been nothing but miserable since the moment I set foot in this country. No, that’s not true. It happened soon after I met you two years ago.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “God, what an idiot I was to get involved with you.”
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