The Princess and the Rebel Billionaire

by Sophie Pembroke

  She raised her hand, a last royal wave. He huffed a laugh he knew she’d never hear and blew her a kiss instead.

  And then, with the closing of a door and the purr of an engine, Princess Isabella of Augusta drove out of his life for good.

  ‘Are you really sure you’re okay?’ Gianna asked as the car door shut behind her, and the driver started the engine again. ‘I thought you were having fun! When you texted, you said it was good, that he was nice.’

  Her head was buzzing with all the things she’d never said to him. With the memory of that awful moment last night. With the fear and the risk that had sent her running from his arms.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Isabella lied. ‘Really.’

  Gianna clearly didn’t believe her. She reached across the seat between them and took the Princess’s hand in her own. ‘If he did something, said something, you need to tell me now, Your Highness. He signed a non-disclosure agreement, so we can sue him to high heaven if he tries to sell his story, but if there’s anything more—’

  Isabella sobbed a laugh. ‘No! No, honestly, Gianna. It’s nothing like that. He was...he was wonderful.’

  And she’d run out on him, too afraid to face the risks she’d been taking.

  No birth control was one hundred per cent effective, she knew that. There was always the risk of pregnancy, from the moment she’d decided to take him to bed.

  She’d told herself that it was Matteo making her take more risks—ditching the security detail, swimming in the lake, pretending to be a normal tourist—but she’d taken the biggest one all by herself. She’d let him into her bed, into her body.

  Even that wasn’t the biggest risk she’d taken this week, even if the magnitude of what she’d done was only now crashing down on her as she drove away.

  She’d let him into her heart.

  And now she wasn’t entirely sure how to get him back out again. If that was even possible.

  Was this how Aunt Josephine felt?

  Gianna’s expression had gone from concerned to horrified. ‘I should never have sent you. Oh, Your Highness, I’m so sorry! It was meant to be fun, a chance for you to relax...’

  ‘It was all those things,’ Isabella sobbed. ‘Honestly, I’m glad you set it up.’ Even if now she couldn’t stop crying.

  ‘Isabella, what happened?’ Gianna asked, desperately, and Isabella knew her friend had to be worried because she’d used her name, not her title.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Isabella replied. There were still tears dripping down her face; she could feel them plopping off her chin and nose and into her lap. God, she was a mess. ‘I don’t know.’

  I’m very afraid I might have started to fall in love. And I might be pregnant. And both of these things are impossible, and no one can ever know.

  Matteo hadn’t wanted a perfect-match love affair any more than she had at the start of the week, and she had no reason to believe his feelings on that had changed. They were from two different worlds, and they both wanted to stay in them. Love was off the table.

  She should ask Gianna to take them by a pharmacy, or to call the royal family doctor, or something. She needed to do something about that burst condom.

  This wasn’t just an ill-advised affair. This wasn’t an immature fling gone wrong. It wasn’t some photos and embarrassing quotes in the paper.

  A princess, pregnant out of wedlock? A single-mother princess?

  Augusta was a conservative country, and its monarchs were the most conservative of all. Her parents might never get over the shock. They’d forgiven her once, for being young and stupid. They’d blamed her naivety, given her the benefit of the doubt and helped her cover it up. Hammered home The Rules to make sure she couldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  But she wasn’t so young now, and she didn’t feel stupid, or as if her time with Matteo was a mistake. Would they forgive her again? Or would this be one transgression too far?

  She should make sure she didn’t put them in the position of having to decide.

  She should.

  But instead, she hugged herself and cried. For the life she’d had a glimpse of, the possibilities she’d walked away from, and the future she knew could never be hers.

  He wasn’t back on the team.

  Matteo had left Lake Geneva for Rome, ready to throw himself back into his normal life, only to discover that his normal life wasn’t ready for him yet.

  ‘That leg needs another few weeks of physio,’ Gabe told him on his return. ‘Doctor’s orders—don’t blame me.’

  He did, of course. He blamed everybody there for messing with his career, his head, his future.

  For showing him something he couldn’t have. Something he’d never even imagined he might want, until now.

  So now he was sitting in Gabe’s office—feet on the desk, of course—figuring out his next move.

  ‘You do realise you don’t have to be here, don’t you?’ Gabe said as he walked in, a sheaf of papers in his hands.

  ‘I’m still part of the team, aren’t I?’ Matteo said obstinately. ‘Even if I’m not allowed to race.’

  Gabe rolled his eyes. ‘You’re on medical leave, Matteo.’ He moved to push Matteo’s feet from the desk before obviously remembering about his still-healing leg and resisting the urge.

  Matteo kept his feet exactly where they were.

  ‘My leg is fine,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Then you can get it off my desk.’

  Rolling his eyes, Matteo stomped his feet onto the ground. ‘Look, if I was well enough to be shipped off to Lake Geneva to show some random woman the sights, I’m well enough to drive, yeah?’

  Taking his own seat on the other side of the desk, Gabe looked at him with interest. ‘I’ve been waiting to hear all about your Swiss exploits. Are you ready to share with Uncle Gabe yet?’

  Matteo shrugged. ‘What’s to share? It was a week in Lake Geneva taking in the tourist attractions and eating too much good food.’

  ‘With a woman that M dating agency swears is your perfect match.’ From the smirk on Gabe’s face, he could tell that his manager wasn’t taking that claim any more seriously than Matteo had, when he’d arrived at the villa.

  Before he’d met Isabella.

  ‘So, are you going to tell me about her?’ Gabe pushed.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Suddenly, he was strangely reluctant to share any details of his week. To give up any of the perfect, private experience that had been his week with Isabella.

  The memories were his, and they were hers, and they didn’t belong to anyone else.

  Even when Madison Morgan herself had called to check in, post-date-week, and ask how it had gone, Matteo had kept his responses to a minimum. He’d confirmed that they’d had a great time, that the villa was perfect and they’d got on well, but left it at that. Madison had sounded faintly disappointed, but she was a professional, and she hadn’t pushed him for gossip or sordid details.

  Gabe, Matteo knew from experience, would definitely push him for both of those things.

  ‘Was she as perfect for you as the agency promised?’ Gabe asked, surprising him.

  ‘Yes.’ The word was out before he could stop it. ‘In lots of ways, she was.’

  Gabe beamed like a proud father. ‘So, you’ll be seeing her again?’

  Matteo shook his head. ‘I don’t imagine so.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Gabe, Matteo knew, had been married to the love of his life since he was twenty-two, and never looked at another woman. He lived vicariously through his drivers, instead. For him, love was simple: you found it, you grabbed it, and you made damn sure never to let go.

  He wouldn’t understand that Isabella wasn’t meant for him to hold onto, even if he wanted to.

  What Isabella needed most in the world was to fly free; but what her position demanded of her wa
s the opposite. That wasn’t a fight Matteo intended to get in the middle of—not when she’d so clearly already made her choice.

  ‘It wouldn’t work between us,’ Matteo said eventually. It had the benefit of being true, at least.

  ‘How can you know if you don’t try?’

  When he didn’t answer, Gabe sighed, and tossed the paperwork he clearly wasn’t reading aside on his desk. Matteo wondered if he had enough time to run before the inevitable lecture Gabe was obviously building up to.

  ‘Matteo...’ Apparently not. ‘You know I love you like a younger brother. A son, even.’

  ‘Right down to the parental lectures and interfering in my love life, apparently.’

  ‘You haven’t had a love life until now,’ Gabe pointed out. ‘A sex life, sure. A dating life, for definite. But love?’

  ‘I’m not looking for love,’ Matteo pointed out.

  ‘Why not?’

  Because if I can’t have Isabella, what’s the point?

  ‘Because love would slow me down.’ That was a more acceptable, Matteo Rossi answer, right? ‘You know how it goes. You fall in love and suddenly you have to change your whole life for them. Be more careful—on the track and off. Stop doing fun stuff.’

  ‘Dangerous stuff,’ Gabe countered.

  ‘The stuff that makes me feel like I’m living.’ Except he’d felt alive with Isabella. Calm, at peace—but alive. And now he’d crossed off everything on Giovanni’s list, what was he going to do next, anyway? What risks were still out there to take? What heart-pulsing, blood-pumping things could he do to make the most of his life?

  Possibly getting a princess pregnant is probably pretty risky, his mind added unhelpfully. Her parents could probably have me assassinated.

  Okay, he wasn’t thinking about that any more. Wasn’t thinking about Isabella, either. Because whatever he thought he might have to give up for a chance of a relationship with her, it was nothing to what she would definitely have to sacrifice. Augustan princesses couldn’t fall in love with Italian racing-car drivers. It was aristocracy or nothing.

  He’d done a little research since he left Lake Geneva—and not just to look at photos of Isabella online, and curse the fact that he hadn’t had the foresight to take any of her while they were together, if she’d have even let him. He’d found, buried in the depths of the Internet, the original coverage of the debacle she’d told him about with the reporter. And, with it, an interesting sidebar about the traditions of royal marriage in Augusta.

  She’d have to give up her title, her place in the line of succession, not to mention probably a lot of money, to marry someone her family didn’t approve of. Apparently her aunt had made the sacrifice before Isabella was even born. Augustan royalty took the rules seriously.

  No wonder she didn’t want to chance getting close to anyone that might make her want to risk it.

  Across the desk, Gabe was watching him silently, as if he could see Matteo’s thoughts ticking across his brain. Matteo sincerely hoped that he couldn’t, for any number of reasons.

  ‘I’m not going to tell you that life without love isn’t worth living,’ he said slowly. ‘But I would like you to think about one thing, Matteo. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘Of course.’ Gabe had been his mentor as much as his manager for most of his adult life. He always thought about the things Gabe told him—even though most often they were to do with how he took a corner, or the right mindset for an upcoming race.

  ‘All the things you’ve done—the places you’ve been, the adventures you’ve had—you’ve done them alone. Ever since Giovanni died, it’s just been you against the world, and every challenge it can throw at you.’ Gabe got to his feet, the papers he’d walked in with long forgotten. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to face those challenges with, again?’

  He left before Matteo could marshal any arguments against his words, or point out that no one would ever be able to take his brother’s place in his heart.

  And as the door swung shut behind him Matteo used the sound of it crashing closed to ignore the voice inside his head that whispered: Not replacing. Something new.

  Was it time for something new? Not Isabella, not love—there were still too many reasons that Gabe didn’t understand why that wasn’t an option.

  But he’d completed Giovanni’s list. He’d done everything his brother had ever dreamed of.

  He was done. And that revelation felt like a weight off his shoulders, as if he were flying again, rather than held down by reality.

  For so many years, ever since he’d made his promise to Giovanni, he’d been living by someone else’s beliefs, following someone else’s dreams. And it had brought him so far, given him so much, he couldn’t regret it—especially not when he knew what it would have meant to his brother.

  But still...

  Now he had fulfilled his promise, that meant it was time for Matteo to live by his own beliefs, follow his own dreams. Set his own challenges and meet them.

  Once he figured out what they should be.

  He needed new adventures. Bigger, riskier ones. He needed to take life to the edge.

  That was what he’d done when Giovanni died: filled the gaping hole where his brother had been with experiences. With reminders of everything the world had to offer.

  With proof that he, at least, was still alive.

  He needed to do the same thing again now. That was all.

  Lost in thought, he reached across the desk to grab a blank piece of printer paper and a pen and started to write.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A WEEK LATER, Isabella stared at the diary on the desk in front of her and sighed.

  ‘What’s with the sighing?’ Gianna peered over her shoulder at the blank boxes. ‘It’s a quiet week. I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘I am. Mostly.’ Her weeks at the palace didn’t tend to be busy anyway, given her aversion to public events. But sometimes things snuck into her calendar when she wasn’t there to stop them, and a few had definitely been added to her future diary while she was away in Switzerland. She’d struggled through the ones in her first week back and was already thinking of ways to get out of most of the others, even though they were weeks away.

  But she’d asked for a quiet week this week, and she’d got it.

  Except now she had no idea what to do with the free time.

  Sitting alone with her thoughts simply wasn’t an option, because her thoughts all revolved around one thing. Well, two, technically, although they both linked back to the same man.

  Number one: she missed Matteo, with the kind of ache she’d never felt for Nate.

  Number two: her period was late. Four days late, to be precise, since she should have had it a week after her return from Switzerland.

  She didn’t need it circled in red in her official engagements diary or anything to know that; she’d been counting the days ever since she left Lake Geneva. Her period was normally like clockwork—the same as her schedule. She’d have assumed Gianna had organised it like the rest of her life, except that Gianna was all about Isabella’s public persona, and nobody in Augusta wanted to think about the royals having bodily functions like that, surely?

  Matteo had urged her to take risks, to get out there and live life while she had the chance, in Switzerland. But she was pretty sure he didn’t mean this kind of risk.

  Gianna was perched on the desk beside her, looking down at Isabella with concern.

  ‘Is it still...him?’ she asked softly. ‘You’re thinking about him again?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was no point lying about it. While she’d tried to keep the details about her time at the villa to a minimum, Gianna had organised the whole thing. She knew why she’d been there, and she’d seen the state she was in upon leaving.

  ‘I should never have sent you there,’ Gianna said now, shaking her
head sadly. ‘I never thought... I know they claim to find a perfect match, but I never imagined you could fall like this in just one week.’

  Isabella looked up sharply. A fallen woman. How did she know? ‘What do you mean? Fall?’

  ‘In love,’ Gianna replied. Her eyes were pitying. ‘Your Highness, you have to believe I’d never have sent you there if I really thought you were going to fall in love. Not with someone you can’t be with.’

  ‘I’m not in love.’ She wasn’t. But I could be. If she let herself fall, let herself spend more time with Matteo...she knew in her heart he was someone she could love, for real this time.

  She just wouldn’t let herself, because what good would that do them?

  ‘Isabella—’

  ‘You said it yourself,’ she said sharply, cutting off her friend. ‘Who falls in love in a week? Besides, whatever M claim, how could they find my perfect match without knowing the truth of who I am? You filled in those forms for me, and I didn’t even know what that video interview was for. And since Matteo was in hospital with a broken leg when his application went in, I don’t even think he did it all himself either. He said his manager set it up for him to keep him out of trouble.’

  Gianna looked sceptical, but she didn’t push it. Well, not too far. ‘But you’re still thinking about him.’

  And the possibility he knocked me up.

  She was going to have to talk to him, and soon. He deserved to know what was going on—and she could do with someone else to freak out about it with. If she told Gianna...her assistant was a friend, but she was also a royal employee. If she knew that the Princess was pregnant out of wedlock...and without even a romantic story to tell beyond a week-long Swiss booty call...she’d be obliged to tell the King and Queen.

  Which was the absolute last thing that Isabella wanted.

  Of course, then she’d have to confess her own part in the whole plan, Isabella supposed, but she liked Gianna too much to let her take the fall for that, anyway. No one had pushed her into Matteo’s arms, or his bed. In fact, she’d stripped off in front of him and run there herself.