He tried to ignore the pricking of his heart. “Then why did you do so? You should have given yourself to someone more worthy, then married him and bought your house and picket fence, as you Americans say.”
Her comment stung, though he knew she wasn’t wrong. Far better for her if he’d simply prevented the pickpocket from taking her purse and said goodbye. Instead, he’d been intrigued by her sweet innocence. He’d wanted her because she’d been so unspoiled, and because she’d been unaware of who he was. She’d liked him. Chosen him. Not the prince. Not a wealthy and titled man.
She’d chosen Nico. She’d chosen the boy in the photo who’d lost his mother, not the prince with all the trappings. He wished it could be that way between them again.
She shook her head. “I wish I had chosen another man. I wish Danny was someone else’s child.”
If she’d pierced his heart with a hot knife, she couldn’t have caused him more pain. But he knew something else now, something he should have recognized long ago.
“Lily. Look at me. Please.” He waited until she did so. The move was reluctant, but it was enough. “I should have told you who I was that night. I would say that I shouldn’t have made love to you, but the truth is I don’t regret that. If I’d realized you were a virgin in time, then yes, I should have stopped. But when I knew you were innocent, that I was your first, I should have been truthful with you.”
He lifted his hand to touch her and then thought better of it. “The first time is special, for a woman most of all, I think. It is your right to know who you give yourself to.”
Her shoulders slumped. “So many shoulds, Nico. Will we ever get it right?”
“Does anyone?”
“When there’s love, then yes, I think so. But you don’t love me. And I don’t love you.”
She wouldn’t look at him when she said she didn’t love him. Strangely, it hurt more than he’d have thought possible. He’d wanted her love. But was it fair to ask her for it when he didn’t know how he felt?
He knew his life was happier with her in it. He suspected that wasn’t what she wanted to hear, however.
“You have courage and integrity, Lily. You are the mother of my son, the mother of my future sons. We will have a good life together.”
“But you will tire of me eventually. And then you’ll go back to your mistresses and party boy ways.”
“I want no one but you,” he protested, stung at her certainty.
“Now. It will change, Nico. You’re that kind of man.”
He wanted to protest that she was wrong, but he didn’t know what the future held. He would never treat her badly, no matter what she thought.
“Let us not talk about this yet. When the time comes, we will discuss—”
“When the time comes?” she hissed. She shoved herself up. The book fell to the floor with her sudden movement, but she ignored it. She popped her fists onto her hips and glared at him. “I thought you were out of your mind last night when you came bursting in with a group of commandos, but this absolutely takes the cake—”
Danny’s cry interrupted her speech. She hurried to the crib, swung Danny into her arms and turned back to fix Nico with a hard look. “Go away, Nico. I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
Danny began to wail as she rocked him too hard. He saw the worry and self-loathing on her face, but then she seemed to take a deep breath and calm washed over her. Danny’s wailing turned softer as she crooned rhythmically.
Nico watched her soothe their son, something in him growing tight and heavy. She shot him another glare, then turned her back on him, shutting him out. Danny looked over her shoulder, but even he turned away without acknowledging his father.
With a heavy sigh, Nico stood and left the room.
Chapter Eighteen
Long after Nico was gone, Lily still wanted to walk out onto the terrace and scream at the top of her lungs. Maybe she would feel better. Most likely, however, she would make her throat hurt even worse than it already did. She’d yelled herself hoarse when Nico left her in the prison cell last night, then she’d cried when she thought she was doomed to stay there. She’d truly believed Nico had sacrificed her for his country’s sake.
But, damn it, she was finished with crying. She had no one but herself to blame for the way she felt about him. She’d known what he was before she’d fallen in love with him. Why he’d risked himself in the rescue operation was beyond her. She did not fool herself he did it because of her.
It was pride, probably. An unwillingness to let King Paolo win. It wasn’t because of her or his feelings for her.
She watched Danny play with a red fire truck and felt an urge to pick him up and hold him tight. She’d already done that so many times today that he was getting quite fussy whenever she gave in to the urge.
But she’d almost lost him, and it made her feel panicky and on edge. Still, she sat on her hands and watched him play, unable to leave him for more than a few moments at a time. Nico had already sent a new nanny—an older woman with a kindly smile—but Lily was reluctant to retreat for some much-needed rest.
Nothing about her life had been even remotely normal since the moment she’d arrived in Montebianco. She wasn’t kidding Nico about that, though she’d been a bit harsh when she’d said that she wished Danny were someone else’s child. She’d been upset, confused. She just wanted a normal life for her child. Why was that so much to ask?
She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes again. She had to stop this weepiness. It was ridiculous.
Nico wasn’t a bad man. He was a good man, a man with a strong belief in doing what was right. He’d married her so Danny would have a father, no other reason, and she had to admit it was noble even if she didn’t agree with his method or the fact she’d had no say in it once he’d decided. After his own childhood as the unwanted son under Queen Tiziana’s thumb, she could understand why he didn’t scatter illegitimate children in the wake of his liaisons.
When he’d learned of Danny’s existence, he’d been truly shocked. Since then, he’d done the best he knew how to take care of them both. He was not at all the irresponsible womanizer he’d been made out to be in the media.
She was angry with him, angry with herself, but she’d been wrong to lash out at him the way she had.
And yet, in spite of how she felt about him, she knew for an absolute fact that she could not live the kind of uncertain life he wanted to restrict her to. She couldn’t share his bed, couldn’t love him and bear his children, all the while knowing he didn’t feel the same way about her. That’s why she’d said she didn’t love him.
How could she admit the truth and give him that kind of power over her happiness?
And how, if she did, would she be any different than her mother? She’d grown up watching her mother reorder her life—ruin her life—simply to accommodate a man she couldn’t seem to stop loving no matter how badly he treated her.
Lily would not compromise herself that way. Not ever. And she intended to tell Nico just as soon as she apologized for saying she’d been miserable since she’d met him.
“Senora Cosimo, can you watch Danny?” she asked.
“Si, mi principessa,” the woman replied, curtsying deeply.
“Thank you.”
She left her son’s room, determined to search the entire palace if she had to. She would find Nico, and she would tell him she’d made a decision. She only hoped he would honor it.
Basta! Nico threw down his pen and put his head in his hands. He’d made a mess of everything. Why, in trying to do what was right, did he keep getting everything wrong?
He’d made a mistake in trying to make Lily into something she wasn’t and didn’t want to be. She was beautiful and vibrant, and she loved their son to distraction. And he’d nearly lost them both because he had put them in danger. By forcing her to be his wife, by claiming his son, he’d put their lives on the line. They weren’t accustomed to this life. Danny was young and would learn, but
was it fair to force Lily to become a princess and future queen?
He loved his child. And, though his feelings were in a tangle he was having trouble sorting out accurately, he knew he felt something for Lily. It wasn’t quite the same as what he felt for Danny, which was why he couldn’t figure it out. But he cared for her, cared what happened to her—and cared very much about her happiness.
She didn’t love him. She’d told him so only hours ago. It still hurt.
What kind of a selfish bastard was he to ask her to give up her life for him? Weren’t there other solutions? He had money, power, and the ability to travel when and where he liked. If he let her go, could they work it out somehow?
He didn’t want to let her go. An ugly, selfish part of him raged at the thought of not having her in his life. At the thought of some other man making her his wife. But after everything that had happened, he owed it to her to give her the choice. She deserved far better than he’d done by her thus far.
She deserved happiness.
If it was the last thing he did, he would give it to her. No matter how much it hurt.
Reluctantly, and with a sharp pain piercing his chest, Nico picked up the phone.
“Liliana.”
Lily turned her head, stomping down on the current of pain and joy she felt each time he entered the room.
She’d looked for him everywhere earlier, but his assistant informed her he’d gone out. Exhausted, she’d finally given in to the urge to nap. Once she awoke, she’d showered and changed, then she sat on the terrace and watched the white lights of a cruise ship in the distance. It wasn’t dark yet, but the sun had set and ribbons of crimson and purple still stretched across the horizon.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “Anselmo said you were gone on business earlier.”
“Si, there has been much to attend to.” He moved with the shuffling gait of someone who was physically exhausted. He dropped a folder on the table before falling into a chair across from her. Before she could say anything, he pushed the folder toward her.
Her mouth felt suddenly dry. “What’s that?”
“The answer, I hope.”
“Answer to what?”
He rubbed his forehead absently, fixed her with a look. “Sign those papers, cara, and our marriage is no more. I am setting you free.”
Lily had to work very hard to sound normal. “Is this a joke?”
“Not at all.” He flipped the folder open, took a pen from inside and clicked it. Placed it with the top facing her. “Sign, Lily, and you may go.”
Anger, fear, despair. She felt them all. “You aren’t taking my son away from me. I told you before that I wouldn’t leave him.”
“Of course not. He will remain with you.”
Lily gaped at him. Was he in his right mind? After everything they’d been through, everything he’d done to bind her to him and get Danny? “You aren’t making sense, Nico.”
“No? It is simple enough, tesoro mio. We will share our son, as many divorced couples do. He is still my heir, and he will need to spend more time in Montebianco as he grows up. But you will have a house here and will be with him.”
Goosebumps prickled her skin. She was cold all of a sudden. “You’re divorcing me, but you want me to remain in Montebianco?”
“I am settling one hundred million of your American dollars on you, cara, and more in the future should you need it. You may buy a house on every continent should you wish. But I require you to spend time in Montebianco with our son so that he may learn his heritage and his position. Should he choose not to follow me when he is old enough to do so, that is his right.”
Lily stared at the pen in front of her through a blur. He was offering her everything she could have hoped for. Danny would be safe and well. He would only have a part time father, but that was better than no father. Or at least it was when that father was Nico. He would not neglect his son. Not ever. They could work it out, and her baby would never be in danger again.
Signing was the right thing to do. Earlier, she’d wanted to tell him she would not be a passive participant any longer. They could be married—because she truly hadn’t thought he would divorce her—but she would not share his bed and wonder when he would cast her aside. She felt too much when they were together. She wouldn’t torture herself with her feelings—and knowing they weren’t returned.
She deserved a man who loved her the way she did him. She wanted that man to be Nico, but clearly, he never would be.
“If you are pregnant, cara—”
“I’m not,” she said fiercely, not caring when a tear spilled free and dropped onto the paper. She’d gotten that news when she’d woken from her nap. There would be no baby.
“Ah.”
She stared at him for a long minute, waiting for what she did not know. Did she expect him to confess his love? To tell her it was an elaborate ruse for some reason she couldn’t fathom?
She picked up the pen and hesitated. Would he stop her?
But he didn’t move.
Lily had to lean closer to see the line. Another tear spilled, landed with a fat plop on his signature. Quickly, she scratched the pen across the line below his, then dropped it and shoved away from the table.
As easily as they’d been married, they were divorced.
Chapter Nineteen
Nico didn’t truly feel the effects of what he’d done until many hours later, when he wandered into the nursery and found it empty. He’d been operating on autopilot, and now…
Now his son was no longer there, no longer ready to smile and babble at him and ask to be picked up. Nico liked holding his boy. The little guy would put his arms around Nico’s neck and hold on tight while Nico carried him around and talked to him in that silly voice parents often used with children. He’d never quite understood the urge to do so until he had his own child.
And then he hadn’t cared how ridiculous he might sound, or who might overhear him.
He stood at the crib’s edge and gripped the railing tight, staring into the emptiness with an unseeing gaze. Danny was gone, and the knowledge ripped him in two.
How had he managed to let them go? Why had he done it?
Part of him, the part he’d shoved down deep, howled in rage and grief. He was alone again. So alone.
He’d done the right thing. He’d given Lily her freedom because she had a right to find happiness with someone she could love. She deserved to be safe and well, not to live in fear. He could give her that much. If it hurt him to do so, he would get over it. She came first.
He could feel the weight of the blue diamond ring he’d given her in his trouser pocket. She’d left it on his pillow before she’d gone, and he’d carried it around for hours now, the solidity of it searing him like a brand. Reminding him of what he’d lost.
A hot, possessive emotion washed over him. He wanted her.
But it wasn’t just a sexual need.
She came first. The feeling buffeting him was so strong, so overwhelming, that he wondered how he’d not been bowled over by it sooner.
He’d been happy with Lily and Danny. Lily was the only woman who’d ever seemed to care more about the man than the prince. Hadn’t she told him she didn’t like the prince? That the man was the one she preferred?
She’d given herself to him when she had no idea who he was, other than plain Nico Cavelli. She hadn’t known about the money or the privilege, hadn’t known he was from an ancient and royal family. She’d thought he was a foreign student visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
Dio, she’d loved him. Nico couldn’t breathe as he gripped the railing. Anguish ripped through him. She’d never said the words, but he knew she did. How had he been so blind? She’d lied to him and he’d believed her.
Madonna diavola, what a fool he was!
She’d told him she didn’t love him because she hadn’t believed him capable of loving her. Why had he not seen this? Why had he not told her the truth?
Because he did lo
ve her. She meant everything to him. When Paolo took her, he’d thought he would go mad with the urge to kill the man. Her safety had been his paramount concern. Not his own, not his country’s.
Hers. Hers and Danny’s. He would have died for them both if it had been necessary, and to hell with duty.
He was in love with the woman he’d married, the woman who’d borne his child all alone—and he’d let her go. He’d sent her away because he’d believed she wanted her freedom, that she would be happier without him.
Dio, Dio, Dio.
Nico rubbed his chest, but the raw, empty hole did not go away. He’d let her go because he’d wanted to right the wrong he’d done her when he’d forced her to marry him.
But, once again, he’d gotten it wrong.
He spun away from the empty crib and strode through the apartment to his office. It was very early in the morning, and he hadn’t slept at all, but he had much to do.
This time, he would get it right.
In the end, it was extraordinarily easy for Lily to leave her life in Montebianco and return to Port Pierre. She’d kept hoping, through the numbing ordeal of being ferried to the airport, boarding the royal jet, and getting settled for the flight that Nico would suddenly appear and tell her he’d been wrong, that he wanted them both to stay.
But the jet took off and there was no turning back. She’d chosen Port Pierre because it was familiar, but she had no idea where she would truly end up. Perhaps she’d move to Paris, learn French, and find a handsome Frenchman to settle down with. The thought was so strange that it seemed like a film she might view rather than an idea about her life. She was wealthy beyond her dreams, yet she felt poorer than ever and sad.
When they landed in New Orleans, Lily took a suite of rooms in the Ritz-Carlton. She needed to prepare for her return to Port Pierre. She hadn’t quite considered the logistics of it when she’d told Nico that’s where she wanted to go. He’d ordered the jet made ready without question, and she’d felt like she had to carry through with it or look like a fool.
Filthy Rich Prince: A Filthy Rich Billionaires Book Page 17
