He laughed at that. “No. Believe it or not, she was San Riminian. But my father traveled to the Middle East. She told the tales to pass the time while he was away, I think.” He turned to her. “What was your favorite fairy tale?”
“Hmm. Maybe The Lion and the Mouse. Or The Elves and the Shoemaker. I don’t know. I liked so many—The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Cursed Knight, The Frog Prince—”
Nick stopped walking. “The Cursed Knight? I—I haven’t heard of that one. What’s it about?”
“I thought all San Riminian kids heard that one. You probably just forgot it.”
He pulled her toward a bus stop bench, and she realized that while they’d been talking, she’d lost track of their location. The wrought-iron fence surrounding the palace rose from the sidewalk behind the bench, and the Alessandro family’s bakery stood just across the street.
Nick took off his backpack and slung it over the back of the bench, then took a seat and patted the space next to him. “Tell me. Jog my memory.”
Isabella paused, then took the seat. “It was about a knight who lived long ago. His ambition ruled his life. He would do anything to gain land for his family and to become important in the eyes of the king.”
Nick’s gaze darkened. “Go on.”
She frowned, feeling silly telling a grown man a fairy tale. “Well, one day the king sent the knight on an important mission, to deliver a message to another king. As the knight rode his horse through the forest, he came upon a boy in trouble. The boy was trapped underneath a collapsed bridge, and the water beneath the bridge was rising fast—”
“A collapsed bridge? Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. Besides, I thought you said you didn’t know this tale.”
“I don’t.” He waved for her to continue. “My apologies, Princess.”
“Well, the boy cried out to the knight to save him. But the knight was afraid that if he didn’t hurry, the message would get to the other king too late, and he would fall out of favor with the king. So he rode on, promising to send back help. As he continued his ride, he came across the boy’s mother, who was wandering through the forest looking for him. The knight told the mother where the boy was, and she ran to help him.”
“Did she save the boy?” Isabella swallowed at the seriousness of Nick’s tone. It was as if he thought the story was real, and the boy’s life actually hung in the balance.
“She did, but barely. She was a witch, and used a magic spell to keep him alive. When the knight came through that same area of the forest on his way back to his own lands, she cursed him. She told him that his ambition blinded him to the value of life. Until he could sacrifice his ambition for the needs of another person, he would be cursed to immortality. Since he never aged, he was treated like a pariah from that day forward.”
Nick stared ahead into the night. “You were right, Princess. I have heard that tale. But I can’t remember what happened to the knight. Did he ever break the curse?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“That’s unfortunate. I’d be interested to know if the knight ever learned his lesson.”
“Well, my nanny told a different version than what I heard in school. According to her, after the knight was cursed, he decided to give up his position at court to his younger brother. He’d always treated his younger brother badly, and so he thought by sacrificing everything he’d worked for, he’d break the curse. As it turned out, the younger brother saved the country from a terrible invader, and the king was so grateful he offered the younger knight his daughter’s hand in marriage. The older knight lived a long and happy life in the country, thankful that his brother had become so successful. The curse never came true.”
Isabella couldn’t help but laugh as a thought occurred to her. “I never realized it before, but I bet my nanny made that up just to get Antony to be nicer to Federico and Stefano. He used to pick on them, especially Federico. He thought he was superior to them since he was the crown prince. Leave it to my old nanny to knock Antony down a peg.”
She glanced sideways at Nick, who still seemed lost in thought. Placing a hand on his arm, she asked, “You seem troubled. Are you all right?”
He turned and winked at her, all traces of his gloomy mood vanishing. “Of course. Just reminiscing about childhood and fairy tales, I suppose.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then regretted being so forward. She kissed her brothers, father and family friends in a similar manner all the time without a second thought, whenever they needed comfort or reassurance.
But kissing Nick, even innocently, was another matter entirely. Because as he turned on the bench, his handsome face moving within an inch of hers, she realized kissing Nick could never be innocent.
Chapter Seven
A wave of panic swept through Isabella’s stomach. Her hand still rested on Nick’s arm, but before she could remove it he covered it with his own.
“Maybe we should head back to the palace,” she whispered. But her rear failed to lift off the bench; her feet failed to move.
“Maybe we should.”
But Nick didn’t move, either. Their gazes locked, and Isabella realized they were alone on the street. Even the city noise, which had echoed up to them from below, faded into the back of her consciousness.
Nick’s strong hands moved up to cradle her face, and he tilted his head past her baseball cap to bring his mouth down on hers. Gently at first, then more deeply. The restraint he’d shown during their storeroom encounter disappeared, replaced by open passion and hunger, as if her kiss provided him the sustenance needed to endure a long and desperate battle against an unseen enemy.
She shuddered and closed her eyes, allowing the sensation of his lips against hers—and his strong hands moving down to caress her neck, her shoulders, her back—to overwhelm her. Despite their very public location and the taboos facing her as a modern-day princess, she felt no urge to pull away. Instead, impulse overrode her common sense, and she clutched at his black T-shirt, pulling him down with her until they were nearly prone on the bus stop bench.
It’s the Chianti, her mind warned, though she’d only had two glasses, about what she allowed herself at most royal functions. You would never do this if you were thinking straight—you know absolutely nothing about him. What dirt might the tabloids find?
But she was doing it, and she wanted to do it, despite the risks.
As Nick’s powerful arms surrounded her, protected her, and as he kissed her ear, her cheek, her chin, she knew in the very core of her soul that Nick Black was her knight in shining armor. Only he could save her from a life that, in the two weeks since she’d met him, she’d come to view as empty. Isolating.
And so very, very lonely.
Tonight, in just a few hours, Nick had given her a magical glimpse of the life normal women lived. Women who could date whomever they chose. Who could eat at any restaurant and who could come and go as they pleased. Women whose fathers didn’t worry about tabloids or public relations advisers or cameras with telephoto lenses.
Cameras…
“Oh, no, Nick, Nick, this is bad—” She could barely get the words out as a rush of adrenaline coursed through her body. He raised his head to meet her gaze, and the naked desire filling his eyes made her want him all the more. But not here, not now.
His voice sounded harsh, as if the sheer effort of speaking taxed him. “I—I’m sorry, Your Highness, I—”
She put a finger to his lips. “Don’t call me that. Follow me.”
She pushed against his chest and maneuvered out from under him, flying off the bench and running toward the bakery with her head down. She glanced back, waving for him to follow her across the street. His forehead wrinkled in confusion, but he fished his backpack off the bench and did as she asked. Her hands shook as she knelt and inserted the key into the bottom of the heavy metal gate, then lifted it over her head so she could open the store’s glass door. He remained silent, but once they were in
the shop, with the gate safely closed behind them, he put a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him.
“Please, Princess, I apologize. I should never have taken such a liberty—”
She cut him off with a shake of her head. “It’s all right, really,” she whispered, hoping he was reassured, though she could barely see his expression in the darkened shop. “We just had to get away from the palace fence. My father has dozens of security cameras mounted up there. The cameras on this side of the rose garden aren’t turned on all the time, and I don’t think they’d recognize me, especially when I’m wearing this cap and these horrible glasses, but—”
His fingers flexed on her shoulder, and the muscles of his face relaxed as he let out an audible breath. “So—so you’re saying you’re fine with—”
“Oh, yes. Absolutely.” She reached up and forked her fingers into his dark hair, just behind his ears, as she’d dreamed of doing the day he’d knelt in front of her to study the medieval sword in the keep.
At his confused look, she stretched onto her tiptoes, pulled his face down to hers, and kissed him as she’d never kissed a man in her life.
At once Nick’s arms came around her back, crushing her body against his larger one, and she tilted her head so he could kiss her more deeply, taking from him until her lower lip shook with need and her heart threatened to spasm in her chest.
Oh, yes. This was what she’d denied herself for so many years. And this one night, at least, she’d do her best to make up for lost time.
Still locked lip-to-lip, Nick eased her toward the back room of the bakery, where the smells of bagged flour and spices of every description mingled in her nostrils with the delicious, masculine scent she’d come to associate with Nick. She heard a thud as his backpack dropped to the floor, then he lowered her down, gently, until she felt cool tile beneath her and the soft give of an oversized flour sack where it leaned upright against the wall behind her. Still, Nick’s insistent mouth never left hers, as if he feared she’d disappear if he allowed himself to break their intimate contact for even a second. She coaxed him down with her, easing his jean-clad hips against hers, untucking the back of his shirt and slipping her fingers underneath to caress his warm skin, then enjoying the rhythm of his body as it moved above her own.
“You have no idea how much I’ve wanted you,” he moaned against her mouth.
She tried not to grin as he pushed against her, clearly needing to be unfettered from his jeans. “Oh, I think I know.”
What would it be like to feel him inside her? Would it be every bit as rapturous as she dreamed? Every bit as freeing?
Or would it overwhelm her completely?
He pulled back, removed her glasses, and in one smooth move, he slid her baseball cap off her head and unwrapped the elastic holding her ponytail, allowing her hair to fall down her shoulders. “No need for these anymore. I need to see you, Princess.”
Before he could move his mouth back to hers, she reached for his waistband and yanked the front of his black T-shirt free of his jeans. With bravado she hoped she wouldn’t regret in the morning, she said, “Then I need to see you, too.”
Within seconds, she had it over his head and tossed it behind him. When she looked up at him to gauge his reaction, she tried not to gasp in surprise. His bare shoulders seemed broader, his upper body more thickly muscled than she’d anticipated. A dusting of fine, dark hair covered his chest, and she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to run her fingers along his rib cage, up through the soft hair, then across to his shoulders. Every inch felt warm and silky and solid and wonderful. She began to move her fingers toward his back when she hit a small ridge, then another.
Scar after scar extended across the front and top of his left shoulder, marring his beautifully smooth skin. The edges were rough, jagged, as if his skin had been torn and stitched hastily—or not at all. She squinted, trying to see more detail than the darkened room would allow. “This must have hurt terribly,” she murmured, thinking of his scarred hand on that same side. Like those on his shoulder, the marks on his hand were raised and uneven. “Were you in a car accident?”
“No.” He kissed her forehead and covered her hand with one of his, gently removing her fingers from his shoulder.
“Then what happened to you?” she whispered, her questioning eyes meeting his unfathomable ones. The mere thought he’d experienced such pain tore at her heart. “These were never treated by a doctor.”
“It’s a long story.”
“A long story, or a secret?” She’d known even before they met that he had his secrets, but she hadn’t imagined they’d be physical. Could the scars have something to do with why he shunned the public? Kept himself locked in his modern Boston office, protected by a dutiful secretary trained to turn away the world?
He squeezed her hand, then interlaced his fingers with hers. “A long story. And believe me, I want with all my heart to tell you. But now is not the time.” He reached down to the bottom of her sweater, then pulled it over her head with the same passion she’d exhibited a moment before. His dark gaze bored into her, breaking down her last defenses even as one lean finger traced the lace along the top of her pink bra. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Without hesitating, she leaned forward and kissed his shoulder, willing the angry scars to heal. Willing him to heal. But despite spending most of her waking hours fighting to save the world’s homeless, diseased and poor, she sensed saving Nick Black would be her most difficult challenge yet.
Nick jerked, and for a split second, she wondered if she’d done the wrong thing.
“Quick!” Nick grabbed Isabella’s sweater and stuffed it into her hands. “Did you hear that?”
She didn’t hear a thing, but the look on Nick’s face scared her enough to yank the lilac sweater over her head anyway. “Hear what?”
Nick spun on his knees, retrieving his T-shirt from where it had landed on the side of a giant mixer. “C’mon.” He popped his head and arms through the shirt then grabbed her hands, pulling her up and shoving her behind a large butcher-block-topped island. Then she heard it.
Laughter. Stefano’s laughter. Horror froze her in place as she crouched behind the island. Nick pulled her hard against him, his thickly muscled arm squeezing her body to his so she couldn’t be seen.
Within seconds, she heard the creak of the passageway door. Light from the tunnel illuminated a thin strip along the floor of the shop, then clicked off. She strained to see, but could only glimpse the hard tile and a few of the low cabinets without giving herself away.
Isabella’s soon-to-be sister-in-law’s voice reverberated through the tiny room. “Stefano, your father trusts my judgment. If he knew I not only allowed you to take off from the reception without telling him, but that I actually accompanied you—”
“Enough already, Amanda. The reception was nearly over when I left, and Antony had it covered. No one will notice.”
“Isabella will. As she should.”
“Isabella wasn’t there.”
Amanda stopped walking, her high-heeled shoes visible beside the island, only inches from Nick and Isabella’s hiding place.
“Are you certain? She didn’t come on the hospital visit with me tonight. I assumed it was because she attended the reception with you.”
Stefano’s feet came into view, just next to Amanda’s, and Isabella swallowed hard. “Nerina said she was scheduled elsewhere. Doing what, I don’t know, but I don’t care.”
They stopped talking, but their feet didn’t move. Then something thunked against the island.
“Stef—” Amanda’s protest stopped, and Isabella realized Stef had stopped her argument with a kiss. Right on the other side of the island.
No, no, no! Isabella’s mind screamed. What if things didn’t stop at a kiss? She couldn’t possibly allow it to continue without making her presence known, and then what?
Isabella glanced sideways at Nick, who didn’t seem to share her concern. In fact, he could ba
rely contain his laughter. He shook with the effort of keeping silent, and she shot him a venom-filled look.
He only shook harder.
Fortunately, just as Isabella decided she should stand up and announce herself, she heard a creak on the other side of the island, followed by footfalls as Stefano and Amanda continued walking toward the front door of the shop. Nick elbowed her, and Isabella turned to frown at him.
“The key,” he hissed, then directed his gaze toward the front room. “They can’t get out.”
Isabella’s mouth dropped open. She’d been so distracted when she and Nick entered the shop, she hadn’t returned it to the top of the door frame. She upturned her empty palms to Nick, then felt the tiny pockets on the front of her capris while he patted his own pockets. No luck.
“It’s supposed to be up here,” Isabella heard Stefano telling Amanda in the front room. “The Alessandros wouldn’t have moved it.”
“Well, when did you last use it? And don’t tell me you haven’t used it since we met. I saw your hiking boots in the back of your Range Rover last week, and they were caked with mud.”
Stef’s laughter followed Amanda’s teasing comment. “Okay, you caught me. But I distinctly remember returning the key. I’m always careful in case I want to take you out, you know.”
Beside her, Isabella felt Nick shift. He darted out from behind the island, moving quickly but quietly. Panic rising in her throat as Stef and Amanda continued to tease each other, Isabella leaned out far enough to watch as he crossed to the flour sacks and grabbed his backpack and her ball cap and glasses, which they’d carelessly left behind when they’d rushed to hide. On the floor where the backpack had been she spied the shiny key, and gestured wildly until Nick saw her. He followed her pointing finger, grabbed the key, then tiptoed back to the island and placed it in her palm.
“Now what?” she mouthed.
He shrugged, his eyes wide.
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