Renata stifled a giggle but Giorgio heard her. He winked at her and grinned.
It was like when one of her brothers elbowed her in the solar plexus and knocked the breath out of her. She actually had to suck in air before she swooned off her wedge sandals at His Sexy Highness.
Giorgio had been drawn back into his princely duties and didn’t realize what he’d done to her. Since when did a casual smile make her give goo-goo eyes to a man who wasn’t paying her a bit of attention?
On the other hand, maybe that was a good thing. She was sure if she looked into a mirror she would be absolutely mortified at her mushy expression.
She mentally slapped herself and escaped with some shred of dignity before she tossed his phone over the balcony and shoved herself into his arms.
She stepped carefully down the narrow stone stairway from their little apartment. The fresh air outside was a welcome relief to her overheated self.
As if summoned by a genie rubbing a lamp, Paolo appeared across from the foot of the steps, trying to look inconspicuous in a village of six hundred people who were probably all related to each other.
“Paolo?” She beckoned to him and he looked around as if she were talking to some other giant security man named Paolo. Who, me?
She huffed in frustration and strode over to him. “Honestly, Paolo, you don’t need to follow me. Nobody’s going to mess with me in a tiny town like this.”
He just stared at her. She tried again in Italian. “I will be fine. No problema. Go check on him.” She waved her hand in the direction of the villa. “Signorina, he is fine. On the phone much time, not go out. But you are here. With me, no problema for you.”
Paolo was dead serious. Good Lord, a few days of nooky with His Royal Highness and she needed a bodyguard? Besides Giorgio, of course, who was jealously guarding her body whenever he could.
But what possible trouble could she find in a quiet morning of shopping in a small Italian town? “Paparazzi?” she asked.
He nodded seriously.
“You know if anyone bothers me I’ll brain them with a bottle of Scciachetrà.” She mimed whacking somebody over the head, and his mouth turned up a millimeter or two. Positively a guffaw from anyone else. “Oh, all right.” She sighed and rolled her eyes like the worst teenage drama queen. “Let’s go.” She silently vowed to take him into the pharmacy and spend twenty minutes in the “feminine protection” aisle.
But off they went, Paolo hanging fairly far behind her so she at least didn’t have to try to converse with the man in her Brooklyn Italian, which consisted mainly of curses and food items.
She bought herself a nice cappuccino at a café where the barista sketched a heart into the foam with chocolate syrup or something. Paolo, apparently not needing to eat and drink like a normal human being, declined. Then it was off to the stores. Renata found a boutique that had items from all over the Riviera. A length of lace from Portofino for Aunt Barbara, a small model of Christopher Columbus’s ship La Santa Maria for her father, who had been in the U.S. Navy. A carved wooden Madonna and Child for her mother, who was still asking the Holy Mother to find Renata a husband, and a bottle of limoncello lemon liquor for her grandmother, who had given up on Renata and turned to drink. Actually her grandmother had always loved anything with lemon.
She considered buying jars of the famous Ligurian anchovies in olive oil for her brothers, but the idea of carrying four glass jars of oily fish home in her luggage was enough to make her quail. So they each got a miniature wooden version of a ship’s figurehead—long-haired and bare-breasted, of course, so all the guys at the police and fire stations could get a yuk out of it.
By then she was famished and collared Paolo. “I’m hungry and these are heavy. You carry the packages, and let’s eat.”
She picked a quiet trattoria on a side street that had great smells coming from it and dragged him in. “Mangia, mangia.” Paolo stood awkwardly next to her tiny table, blocking the waiter who was lugging a big tray of soup and antipasti.
“Come, sit.” She motioned him into a chair. He hesitated but seemed to acknowledge he was drawing more attention standing like a Roman statue in the middle of the restaurant.
“Grazie, signorina,” he muttered.
“You are most welcome. What is good to eat?”
“Here, the fish.”
“Ah, of course.” No concerns here that the fish had sat in the back of a delivery truck for a dangerous amount of time. “You like pulpo?”
His eyes lit up and he nodded. A fellow octopus devotee. She loved it, too, but hadn’t wanted to order it in front of Giorgio since eating the chewy seafood was less than sexy.
“Okay, why don’t you order pulpo and whatever else you think is good.”
The octopus was cut into rounds and deep fried. Renata and Paolo chewed their way through an order. Really, she didn’t understand why people hated octopus. When it was fresh, it was almost tender.
“Good octopus, right, Paolo?”
He nodded.
“Does your boss like octopus?”
He finished chewing and gave her a considering look. Probably he’d been pumped for information before about Giorgio, but decided his master’s preference for invertebrate seafood was not a state secret and nodded. The few days she’d spent with Giorgio were much more juicy than his eating habits but she wouldn’t be one to blab.
The soup was tomato based with seafood and herbs with fresh garlic toast rounds plopped right on top and the main course was a whole fish cooked with white wine, lemon and herbs.
“He like this soup,” Paolo offered. “We make this at home.”
“It’s very good.” She noticed how Paolo never mentioned Giorgio or Vinciguerra by name and figured it was part of security. “What else do you eat at home?”
“Our part is more del nord—north. We like polenta, sausage, much butter and crema. Meat roasts and risotto. Good food.”
It was the longest speech she’d ever heard. Food was close to his heart. “You should write a cookbook for recipes from—” She’d almost slipped and mentioned Vinciguerra. “From your home.”
He made a self-deprecating sound. “Nobody need a cookbook. Everybody know how to cook.”
“Oh, no, we don’t.” Renata had to be the only Italian-American girl in New York who could goof up a pot of pasta. “Think about it. Everybody thinks Italian food is spaghetti and meatballs. You could do something different.”
“Okay, signorina.” He was humoring her.
“Look at me, Paolo. Does New York need another dress designer?”
He shrugged in puzzlement.
“I’ll tell you—it doesn’t. But I didn’t care. And now the, um, other signorina has a nice dress and is very happy.”
“Yes, is true. She tell me so. And tell me, and tell me.”
Renata snorted with laughter. Ol’ Paolo had a sense of humor after all. “I’m glad to hear it. A beautiful girl.”
“Si, si.” They smiled at each other at their mutual fondness for Stefania.
Renata took a sip of coffee but declined dessert, having filled up on the delicious focaccia in addition to the rest of her meal. If she stayed in Italy much longer, she was going to get a shape like her grandmother, who resembled a Magic 8-Ball in her black dresses.
Ah, well, all the walking and romping around with Giorgio would help. He’d shown no signs of slowing his pace, so she was running out of new lingerie to show him. She’d passed a pricey boutique earlier—maybe that was the place to go.
She set down her cup. “One more stop and then we can go back.”
Paolo nodded placidly, as if it were his life’s dream to follow her around Vernazza like some giant shopping cart with arms. There was a brief tussle when she tried to pay for lunch but apparently having a woman pay for his meal was more humiliating than carrying her packages. Renata gave in, figuring Giorgio would reimburse him.
She found the place she was looking for a couple blocks away. Paolo gave the display
of bras and panties in the window a wary look.
“Don’t worry. You don’t have to go in.”
“Grazie, signorina.” He parked himself against a wall across the way where he could see the entrance.
Renata walked into the shop and immediately saw a bunch of possibilities. Racy, demure, corsets, nightgowns, garters, lace, satin…she pulled out her phone. “Hey, Flick, I’m standing here in a lingerie store and don’t know what to buy.”
“Something sexy, of course.”
“Well, duh, but what?”
“What did you bring with you?”
“A bunch of fancy bras, all my garter belts and a corset.”
“Okay, so you’ve got the slutty look covered, let me think.”
Renata made a sound of protest at the “slutty” bit but in the end had to agree.
“How about the total opposite?”
“They don’t sell flannel nighties here, Flick.”
“Not that. You’d sweat to death. How about a nice demure pure white nightgown, as in the ‘please be gentle with me, it’s my first time’ look.”
“Ah, the virginal wedding night, but isn’t that a bit cliché?”
“No more so than running off to Europe with a hot Italian guy. Trust me, ‘Virgin Princess’ is the way to go.”
Renata snorted. “Guys do love that, even if they know better.”
“It lets them pretend they’re breaking new ground, so to speak.”
“Okay.” Renata moved to a billowy rack of white garments. She pulled one off the rack. “Honestly, Flick, this first one here looks like I should be fleeing the manor on the moors in gothic-y terror as the brooding lord chases me.”
“That’s the idea, dummy. If the gothic-y chick has any sense, she’ll pretend to twist her ankle on a rock and let Lord Longmember catch her.”
“Really, Flick. Lord Longmember?” she muttered into the phone.
“Or Laird Lang-member, if you prefer the Scottish fantasy. What’s under his kilt gives new meaning to the phrase auld lang syne.”
Renata groaned and reached for another gown. “Hey, this looks promising.”
“Send me a pic.”
Renata hung it back on the rack and took a quick picture and emailed it to Flick. “What do you think?”
“Positively diaphanous.”
“Yep.” The nightgown was a sheer white silk with blousy three-quarter sleeves and a satin ribbon fastening the neckline. The gown was cut on the full side but that didn’t matter since it was practically see-through. “You have to buy it. ‘Oh, milord, I do not understand all these strange new feelings in my forbidden places. Are you ill? You have the strangest swelling in your trousers. Ooooohh.’” Flick made a noise as if she were about to swoon.
Renata cracked up. Her aunt Barbara loved books like that, and Renata had “borrowed” them when she was younger just to read the racy parts. Hmm, maybe that was where she got her taste for hot, dark and handsome upper-crust men. On the other hand, Giorgio would be to any woman’s taste. Yum. “Okay, I’ll get it. Never hurts to change things up a bit.”
“Wear your hair down with some hanging in your face so you can peep from behind it like that blonde starlet. What was her name?”
“Veronica Lake,” Renata answered promptly. “Cool, Flick.” She’d enjoy this—and of course so would Giorgio.
“Thank you,” her friend said smugly. “And about my gigolo? What flight does he arrive on?”
“Sorry, I can’t in good conscience send a poor innocent like that into your clutches. How about a nice ceramic vase?”
Flick’s response would have shocked a real gigolo but only made Renata laugh. “Okay, no vase. I’ll find you something else.” Renata spotted the saleswoman who had been lurking nearby straightening piles of panties. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“And in excruciating detail,” Flick warned her. They said their goodbyes and Renata carried the nightgown to the counter to pay for it. After mentally calculating the euro-to-dollar rate, she winced but put it on her credit card. She probably had enough cash from Giorgio, but that was her present to him.
The saleslady wrapped it in a white box with matching white satin ribbon. Renata supposed that made sense since it looked like a wedding present. She tucked it under her arm and rejoined Paolo outside. “Ready?”
“Of course, signorina.”
She sighed. “You can call me Renata, Paolo.”
The look of horror on his face made her fight back a smile. It was practically the first real emotion she’d seen from the man since they’d met.
“I cannot do that, signorina. Much disrespect for you and disgrace for me.”
“Really?” She tipped her head to the side as they started down the narrow cobblestone street. “But I am not exactly in a position of respect here—traveling with the, um, boss.” She’d almost forgotten and said “prince” in public.
Paolo shook his head. “He say I will serve you as I serve him. Molto rispetto for him—and you.”
Renata nodded. Feudalism was alive and well in the Italian culture, even in her own watered-down New York version. What the guy in charge said, went. If you showed disrespect for someone the boss approved of, you showed disrespect for the boss. She got it.
“Do you think the boss will be finished with his business now?” She had something in mind for an afternoon siesta.
“Si, signorina.” Paolo turned a corner through narrow houses and led her back up several narrow sets of stairs.
She was pretending not to gasp for breath when she heard an annoying male voice with a thick Italian accent catcalling. “Eh, bella ragazza! Give me a kiss, red-hair girl.”
Renata looked around, pissed off. She had enough hooting and hollering at her living in New York, and the Italian version was just as bad.
“Come up here, pretty lady, and I show you good time, huh?” That was followed by several loud smooching sounds.
She tipped her head back and was about to give the man an international gesture when she saw Giorgio grinning down at her from the terrace. “What do you say, gorgeous?”
“I say, ‘Okay!’” She opened the door and climbed the stairs to the second-floor living room. She gave Giorgio a quick kiss and made a beeline for the bedroom. Renata the Innocent Virginal Maiden was about to make an improbable and unprecedented return.
10
“IS THE SIGNORINA ALL RIGHT, Paolo?” Renata had disappeared into the bedroom with an armful of packages and hadn’t reappeared yet. Maybe she’d gotten a bit of sun or was unpacking her finds.
“She seemed fine, signor. Although she did ask me to call her by her first name.” Paolo looked as if that request were enough to doubt her mental capacity.
“And you complied with her request?”
“Signor!” Paolo appeared torn, as Giorgio knew he would. His natural formality and knowledge of what was proper conflicted with obeying a request from his prince’s current lady friend.
Giorgio let him stew for a second before letting him off the hook. “You of course told her why that was not possible.”
“Si, si, I did.” Paolo would never slump with relief but relaxed slightly.
“Americans are very informal, as you know. It can be quite appalling how much personal information they share with each other on merely a short acquaintance.”
He nodded eagerly. “That is so true, signor. The other drivers I met in New York…” He winced. “I am not a dottore, signor. Why do they think I want to know about their prostate problems?”
Giorgio winced, as well. “Paolo, you’ve had a busy day. Why don’t you have a glass of wine at the trattoria across the street? The signorina and I will be staying in this afternoon.”
Paolo nodded and left. Giorgio headed to the bedroom. He wasn’t sure what awaited him on the other side of the door, but was eager to find out.
He tapped on the door. “It’s me. May I come in?”
“Of course.” Her voice was sweet and soft, and he grinn
ed in anticipation as he twisted the doorknob.
“Mamma mia!” The exclamation escaped him just before his jaw dropped.
Renata stood next to the four-poster bed wearing something that looked like it had floated down on a cloud. She raised her hand to delicately stroke a post and the thin white silk outlined the curve of her breasts, the thrust of her nipples. He could see nothing but was seeing everything. And that up-and-down stroking was enough to drive him mad.
“Do you like it, Giorgio?” She tipped her head and gave him a coy look from behind the curtain of her luxurious auburn hair.
“What do you think?” He stripped off his shirt and yanked his belt loose.
She ducked behind the other side of the bed before he could finish undressing. He moved opposite her once he was naked except for his boxer shorts, ready to dive across if need be. “Why don’t you come here and let me show you how much I love it?”
She gave him a wide-eyed look. “I need you to show me so many things.”
“Ohhhh.” He nodded in understanding. She was taking things in a different direction, aiming for a little role-playing with her in the lead role as Innocent Virgin. Although the droit de seigneur, or right of the lord to de-flower local lasses, never existed in Vinciguerra and was largely mythical elsewhere, the blood of his conquesting ancestors surged in his veins, his cock hardening even further at the bawdy suggestion.
“I am Giorgio Alphonso Franco Martelli di Leone, Hammer of the Lion and Prince of Vinciguerra,” he informed her, using his formal family name and all his royal hauteur. “Your duty is to please your prince—and obey whatever he orders you to do.”
Her eyes flashed at the obedience part but she lowered her head. “Yes, Prince Giorgio.”
“Come here.” He thought about snapping his fingers but figured he was pressing his luck.
She glided to him. The afternoon sun slipping in through the shutters totally illuminated her body. Her breasts swayed over a narrow waist and round hips.
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