Prince's Virgin In Venice

by Trish Morey

  A group of children were waiting with their teachers outside the Lace-Makers’ Guild, pre-schoolers from the nearby kindergarten, huddled under a shady tree, out of the hot July sun. All she wanted to do was be out of the hot sun too, and inside the air-conditioned comfort of her waiting car, being whisked back to the cool confines of the castello high above the town, where the summer heat didn’t seem to penetrate.

  But the children were waiting for her, and she wasn’t about to disappoint them. She knelt down to their level just as a delivery van trundled slowly past, pulling to a stop a few houses up the street. Rosa took no notice of the man who jumped out with a parcel under his arm—she was already talking to the children.

  A little boy presented her with a posy of flowers.

  A little girl in a wheelchair was wheeled forward to ask a question.

  ‘Can I be a princess when I grow up?’ she asked shyly.

  Rosa took her small hand in hers, and said, ‘You can be anything you want.’

  The little girl threw her arms around Rosa’s neck and hugged her tight. And Rosa thought that it wasn’t so bad, being a princess, even if your husband didn’t think he could love you.

  Someone shouted something up the road. There was a murmur of concerned voices, and then more shouting, but she was still disentangling herself from the girl’s arms when she heard her driver call, ‘Your Highness! Watch out!’

  Children started shrieking. ‘Run this way!’ she heard one teacher call.

  She turned her head to see her driver lunging for her. But there was something that would beat him. The delivery truck, bearing down on them, with a man futilely chasing after it.

  Fight or flight? There was no question.

  She pushed the wheelchair as hard as she could and flung herself after it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  VITTORIO WAS FURIOUS by the time he got to the hospital. Furious with himself. He should never have agreed to let Rosa go by herself today. And he was furious with everyone who might have had a part in this.

  But most of all he was furious because of all the things he could have said to her and never had. All the things he should have said to her. And all the cruel things he’d said to her because he had been so desperate to protect himself.

  ‘What happened?’ he demanded of her driver as he marched along the disinfectant-smelling corridor in the hospital. ‘I want to know everything that happened and in detail. And then I want to know how it happened.’

  It was all the chauffeur could do to keep up with him, let alone give him a detailed account of all that had transpired.

  ‘The delivery vehicle is being checked over now,’ the man said. ‘But it looks like brake failure.’

  ‘On a damned hill, of all places,’ Vittorio said, seething, ‘and right above where Rosa was standing.’

  ‘The Princess was kneeling down,’ said the driver, ‘talking to a child in a wheelchair. The child was hugging her. The Princess didn’t know what was happening until too late.’

  A doctor strode towards them. ‘Prince Vittorio, I’m Dr Belosci. I’m looking after the Princess. I’ll take you to her. We’re prepping her for Theatre now.’

  Fear slid down Vittorio’s spine.

  He dismissed the driver, waiting for him to be out of earshot. ‘Is it the baby?’ Nobody had told him there was a problem with the baby—but then nobody had mentioned Theatre either.

  ‘No. Didn’t they tell you? The baby’s fine. It’s Her Highness’s ankle. A tree took the brunt of the crash, but a tyre snapped free with the force of the collision and caught her on the ankle.’

  Breath whooshed out of Vittorio’s lungs. ‘She’s going to be all right, then?’

  ‘They’re both going to be fine. Just as soon as we can get that ankle set. Come and see her, and then I’ll show you the X-rays.’

  * * *

  The baby was all right, his heartbeat sound and strong. Someone had come and told her that the little girl in the wheelchair had got a bump on the head but was fine. It couldn’t be better.

  Rosa hugged her baby bump while she drifted in and out of dreamland. She’d told them she didn’t want a fuss, that she would be just as happy back in her own bed in the castello, but they’d insisted, telling her she was to be attached to a drip and that she needed an operation on her ankle.

  And then she’d remembered the pain as she’d waited for the ambulance and thought maybe it was better to be here in hospital after all. At least it was quiet here.

  She heard voices coming down the corridor. Loud voices. No—one loud voice and one quieter. No guessing which one was Vittorio’s.

  She put one hand to her head. Dio, why had they had to tell him? Couldn’t they have waited until after the operation? The baby was fine. It wasn’t as if he wanted to see her.

  The door to her room creaked open. ‘Rosa?’ he said.

  She turned her head away. ‘The baby’s fine, Vittorio. Didn’t they tell you?’

  ‘Yes, they told me.’

  ‘So, thanks for coming, but don’t feel you need to stay. I’m in good hands here.’

  ‘Rosa, I came to see you.’

  She laughed. Maybe it was the drugs in her drip, or maybe she was just fed up with being silent, but she wasn’t going to stay silent any more. ‘Nice one, Vittorio, but I don’t think so.’

  ‘Rosa—’

  She snapped her head around. ‘What are you still doing here? Staying long enough to convince the staff we’re madly in love, like you pretended to be at our wedding? Well, I don’t read the tabloids—and even if I did that fantasy died a death on our wedding night, thanks to you. So I don’t need you to stay, Vittorio. I don’t want you to stay.’

  But he didn’t leave. Infuriatingly, he sat down in the visitor’s chair beside the bed.

  ‘For once and for all, the baby is fine. I’m sure someone here will let you know the moment that changes. Can you please go?’

  She heard him sigh, and was about to snap at him again when he said, ‘I didn’t come here because of the baby.’

  ‘Liar,’ she said, but she was curious enough to hear what else he had to say.

  ‘All right. I was worried about the baby. But I came because you’d been hurt and I was worried about you. Because today I realised something that has been staring me in the face for almost as long as we’ve been together.’

  Her heart slammed into her chest wall. She barely dared to breathe waiting for him to continue. ‘What did you realise?’ she said when he wouldn’t tell her.

  ‘That I care for you, Rosa. I just didn’t want to admit it because I was afraid you might leave me. When I heard about the accident today I thought I might lose you without ever telling you...’

  ‘But why were you afraid I’d leave you?’

  ‘Because my first wife did. Because she told me she loved me and she lied. Because she betrayed me, and I was scared it might happen again.’

  ‘You thought I might betray you?’

  He laughed. ‘I know. It seems ridiculous. But I had to protect myself somehow. Not loving you—not admitting it—seemed the best way.’

  She blinked up at him, wondering if he was really there, wondering if the drugs were giving her hallucinations and spinning stories that she wanted to hear. ‘So what are you admitting?’

  He took her free hand. ‘I love you, Rosa. I’m sorry I made you sad. I’m sorry I ruined our wedding night. If I could make it up to you I would, a thousand times over.’

  Tears pricked Rosa’s eyes. ‘Only one thousand?’

  He smiled down at her and pressed his lips to hers before he said. ‘Every night of our marriage. How does that sound instead?’

  She smiled tremulously up at him. ‘Much better. I love you so much, Vittorio.’

  He gave a smile of wonderment then, as if he was exploring the new territory of these w
ords and finding it to be everything he wanted and more. ‘I love you, Rosa.’

  They kissed just as the doctor bustled in.

  ‘I’m so sorry to interrupt,’ he said. ‘Theatre is ready.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Vittorio said, smiling down at Rosa. ‘We’ve got the rest of our lives to finish this.’

  EPILOGUE

  PRINCE GUGLIELMO ROBERTO D’MARBURG of Andachstein was born late one November morning, with a shock of black hair, a healthy set of lungs and weighing in at a very healthy four kilograms.

  Measurements had been taken, paperwork completed, and the nursing staff had left now that the formalities were complete. Finally it was time for the new family to be left alone to bond.

  Rosa relaxed into the pillows on the bed, her baby cradled in her arms, and leaned down to drink in his new baby breaths. ‘He’s so beautiful,’ she said, her heart already swollen in size to accommodate this new love.

  The baby yawned then, cracking open his eyes. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Blue eyes like sapphires. He’s like a mini you.’

  Vittorio sat by her side, one hand stroking his wife’s still damp hair, the other under the arm holding their child, totally entranced.

  ‘You were amazing,’ he said to her. ‘So strong.’

  She shrugged, the pain of childbirth gone now that she was holding her reward. ‘That’s what women do. All around the world every day. It’s not that special.’

  ‘It’s a miracle,’ he said. ‘Today I witnessed a miracle, performed by the woman I love.’

  She smiled over at him. Things had been so different since her accident. Something had shifted in her warrior’s hard and cynical heart, and the word he’d been most afraid to use and to hear was now a word she heard several times a day. And it would never grow old.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I love you, Vittorio.’

  He lifted the closest of her hands and kissed it gently. ‘And I love you. For this child you have given me. For just being you. But most of all I love you for loving me.’

  Tears sprang from her eyes. Tears of joy.

  ‘I made you cry,’ he said, touching the pads of his forefingers to her eyes to wipe away the dampness.’

  ‘Only because I’m so happy.’

  ‘Then never stop crying,’ he said, smiling. ‘Thank you for rescuing me, Rosa. That day I found you lost by the bridge in Venice... I look back at that moment and I see...’

  ‘Serendipity?’ she offered.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was magic. Pure magic.’

  And he leaned over and kissed the woman he loved.

  * * * * *

  Coming next month

  HIS CINDERELLA’S ONE-NIGHT HEIR

  Lynna Graham

  ‘So…er…the job?’ Belle prompted tautly.

  ‘The job would be a little unusual but completely above board,’ he assured her and then, as though suddenly recollecting his manners, he moved closer to extend a lean hand. ‘My name is Dante Lucarelli.’

  ‘Yes.’ Belle barely touched the tips of his fingers. ‘The bartender identified you before you’d been seated for five minutes. He’s a business student.’

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ he urged.

  ‘There’s not a lot relevant to tell,’ Belle retorted uncomfortably, wishing he would just get to the point instead of keeping her in ignorance. ‘I’m twenty-two. I left school at sixteen with a bundle of GCSEs and I haven’t had any educational input since then. I’d like to change that when I get back to London. These days you need training and qualifications to make a decent life.’

  ‘If you know that why did you skip that opportunity until now?’

  ‘I never had the opportunity,’ Belle countered wryly, settling down on the concrete bench beneath the trees. ‘My grandmother died and then my grandfather fell ill and needed looking after. After they were both gone, I took a job here, which was basically housekeeping but which turned into full-time caring as well.’

  Dante lounged back against a tree trunk, all lithe, lean power and thrumming masculinity. He was as relaxed as she was tense. ‘Is caring for older people what you want to do going forward?’

  Belle stiffened. ‘No, definitely not. I think professional caring’s a job you need a vocation for and I don’t have that.’dpg!

  ‘Fair enough,’ Dante murmured, increasingly surprised by her cool, unapologetic self-containment because at the very least he had expected bubbly encouragement and flirtation from her. In his experience women came onto him whether they thought they had a chance with him or not, but Belle wasn’t making the smallest effort in that direction. ‘You may not have a vocation for the job I’m about to offer you either, but it would eventually get you back to the UK and I would pay you handsomely to do it.’

  Belle twisted round to get a better view of him, wishing he would step out of the shadows so that she could see him better. ‘Tell me about it…’

  ‘I need a woman prepared to pretend that she’s my live-in girlfriend. Faking the part would be all that was required from you,’ Dante assured her with calm emphasis. ‘The job would only last for a couple of weeks and then you would be free to pursue your own plans with the cash I give you. It would be a win-win proposition for both of us.’

  Belle was rarely deprived of speech, but the shock of the nature of his job offer was sufficient to glue her tongue to the roof of her mouth because such an exotic possibility wouldn’t have crossed her mind in her wildest dreams. ‘But…er…you don’t even know me,’ she protested weakly when she could find her voice again.

  ‘Why would I need to know you? Steve vouches for your trustworthiness. It’s a job, a role if you want to call it that. It’s casual and temporary but also financially rewarding,’ he completed smoothly.

  ‘But pretending to be someone’s girlfriend would mean knowing stuff about each other, that sort of thing,’ Belle protested in a rush. ‘And we’re complete strangers.’

  Continue reading

  HIS CINDERELLA’S ONE-NIGHT HEIR

  Lynna Graham

  Available next month

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  Copyright ©2019 by Lynne Graham

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