“I hope you don’t mind, sir,” she began, “but we all thought…” She fell silent, her eyebrows reaching for the sky as she took in the seating arrangements.
“Thank you,” Nicolo said quickly, “but my wife is exhausted and I didn’t want to disturb her. Perhaps we’ll have the champagne later.”
“Of course, sir.”
He smiled. Or hoped the way he curved his lips at least resembled a smile. Had he actually just explained himself to an employee? He didn’t explain himself to anyone, ever.
“If we change our minds,” he said, still straining to sound polite, “I’ll ring.”
The attendant knew a dismissal when she heard one. “Yes, sir,” she said, and started back toward the cockpit.
Aimee stopped her.
“Wait,” he heard her say.
The attendant leaned over the seat, listened, then smiled.
“That’s very kind of you, Principessa. Grazie.”
Nicolo waited a few minutes after the attendant left. Then he walked up the aisle and took the seat next to Aimee’s. Her face was turned to the window.
“Are you awake?”
The truth was he didn’t give a damn one way or the other. He was tired of her silence, her coldness, of the way she’d made him look foolish during the ceremony and again now.
It was time he made things clear.
She was his wife. She would treat him with respect at all times.
“Did you really think I could sleep?”
“Your behavior continues to be unacceptable.”
She looked at him then and the despair he saw in her eyes was like a knife to the heart.
That pain, knowing that she held him solely responsible for it, made him even more angry.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” she said, as politely as she might speak to a servant. “I apologized.”
“Perhaps you whispered your apology,” he said coldly, “because I didn’t hear it.”
“I meant that I apologized to Barbara. The cabin attendant. It was sweet of her to bring champagne and I wanted her to know I hadn’t meant to be rude. You were right. There’s no reason for me to be discourteous to those who work for you.”
He could almost hear the part she left unsaid, that there was every reason to be discourteous to him.
In the name of all the saints!
All right. He had to calm himself. Not take every word, every intonation, as a personal affront. She was his wife; they had to find a way to make the best of things.
He would offer a conciliatory gesture.
“Well, that was generous of you.” He hesitated. “Would you like to join me for dinner?”
She turned her face to the window. “I’m not hungry.”
“It’s another three hours until—”
“I said, I’m not hungry.”
So much for conciliatory gestures. And that tone of voice! When had she begun using it? Did she know what an insult it was, to be spoken to that way?
She had surely grown up with servants and after watching how she’d just dealt with Barbara, he’d damned well bet she’d never treated an employee or a servant as she was treating him.
If he’d whisked her away from a life of deprivation, she might behave differently….
What an ugly thing to think!
Still, she might at least show some interest in him. In her new life. In where he was taking her.
He didn’t know why that should matter, but it did.
“I live in Rome,” he said, after the silence became too much. “In the oldest part of the city. The palazzo’s been in my family for centuries, but it wasn’t in very good repair until I—”
“I don’t care.”
Nicolo didn’t think. He reacted. Grabbed her, hauled her out of her seat and onto his lap. She started to scream and he captured her mouth with his, thrust his tongue between her lips, slipped his hands under her skirt.
She bit him. Beat at his shoulders with her fists. It didn’t stop him. Nothing would. He had taken enough.
Her panties tore in half and she cried out, the sound muffled by his kiss.
“Such a lady you are now, cara,” he said against her mouth. “Such an elegant, bloodless gentlewoman with everyone except me.”
“Nicolo. If you do this—”
“You’ll what? Scream? Go ahead. You’ll only embarrass yourself. I am Nicolo Barbieri. The sooner you learn what that means, the better.”
He kissed her again and again, his hand moving against her flesh under her yellow skirt, cupping her, touching her, hating himself for what he was doing, hating her for what she had reduced him to, wanting what had happened between them that first night, that magical night, to happen again….
But not like this.
His kiss softened.
The stroke of his fingers became tender. He whispered Aimee’s name between gentle kisses and all at once, she sighed against his mouth.
Her arms went around his neck.
Her lips parted beneath his.
And the petals of the sweetly feminine bud between her thighs began to bloom, the dew of it sweet and welcome against his palm.
Nicolo groaned. Shifted Aimee so that she was straddling him. Reached for his zipper…
And realized that even as she kissed him, his wife was weeping. Weeping as if her heart might break.
Nicolo went still. Then he groaned, though not with desire, and folded her into his arms.
“Don’t cry,” he murmured. “Please, il mio amante, don’t cry.”
He whispered to her, soft English words giving way to softer ones in Italian as he rocked her gently against his heart and stroked her honey-colored curls back from her face.
Gradually Aimee’s sobs faded. She sighed deeply; he felt her breathing slow.
And knew she was asleep. Asleep, in his arms.
Nicolo sat without moving, his heart filled with a sweet, soaring emotion. Tenderness, he thought in surprise.
Tenderness.
Time slipped by. Finally, carefully, he depressed the button that reclined the leather seat. He lay back, drew Aimee even closer until she was lying in his arms, her body softly pressed against his, this woman fate had brought into his life.
This wife he hadn’t wanted. This wife he didn’t want…
She sighed, curved her arm around his neck. He felt the warmth of her breath, the warmth of her.
Something shifted inside him.
Nicolo closed his eyes and buried his face in Aimee’s hair. He held her that way until he knew they were on their approach to Rome.
Then, carefully, he eased his arms from around his sleeping wife, rose and went back to his seat in the rear of the cabin.
It was a lot safer than staying where he was.
CHAPTER TEN
SOMEONE was gently shaking Aimee’s shoulder. She came awake slowly, lips curved in a hesitant smile.
“Nicolo?” she whispered.
“No, Principessa. Scusi.” The attendant smiled in apology. “The prince is in the rear of the cabin. Shall I get him for you?”
“No!” Flustered, Aimee sat up and ran her hands through her sleep-tangled curls. “That won’t be necessary.”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, but we’ll be on the ground in a few minutes. Safety regulations require you to fasten your seat belt and return your seat to an upright position.”
“Of course. Thank you.”
The flight attendant nodded and made her way to the cockpit. Alone again, Aimee checked her watch. Had she really slept for most of the flight? It was too long a time; it had left her feeling groggy.
She always reacted that way to transatlantic flights. Groggy. Disoriented…
Had she dreamed of being in Nicolo’s arms? Dreamed he’d begun to make love to her?
She had responded. God, yes, she’d responded….
And started to weep, knowing it was wrong. Wrong to want him, to need him, to yearn for his possession.
“Shh,” he’d murm
ured, going from passion to tenderness in a heartbeat, holding her close, rocking her in his arms, promising that she had nothing to fear, that he would always take care of her…
It had to have been a dream.
If Nicolo had tried to make love to her, she wouldn’t have let him. And he’d never have been satisfied with simply holding her in his arms. He hadn’t married her for that.
He’d married her for the bank. For the child in her womb.
For sex.
The plane gave a gentle lurch as the wheels touched the runway. Aimee undid her seat belt. By the time she rose to her feet, Nicolo was at her side. His hand closed around her elbow.
“Thank you,” she said politely, “but I’m perfectly capable of managing on my own.”
“Are you always this gracious, cara, or is it something you reserve for me?”
Aimee jerked away from him and walked to the door. The pilot and copilot smiled and touched their hats.
“Buona notte, Principessa.”
Principessa. That was who she was now. Was the title supposed to make up for the loss of her independence?
She forced a smile, wished them a good evening, too, and went down the steps to the tarmac.
It was night. She’d known it would be; still, the sense of disorientation swept over her again. She must have swayed. Stumbled. Something, because Nicolo gave an impatient snort and put his arm around her waist.
“I said—”
“I know what you said.” He drew her close and led her toward a black Mercedes that waited a few yards away, a uniformed driver standing rigidly beside it. At their approach, he snapped his heels together, saluted and opened the rear door.
Apparently the sight of his employer half carrying a woman through the night was not unusual.
“Sede benvenuta, Principe.”
“Grazie, Giorgio. Aimee, this is my driver. Giorgio, this is mia moglie. My wife.”
Giorgio touched his cap again. “Principessa,” he said, but he didn’t so much as blink.
Why would he? Nicolo wasn’t just his boss, he was of royal blood. In America, especially in Manhattan, royals were just another species of celebrity. The gossip columns gushed over their doings but real people, New York people, hardly took notice.
This was not New York.
This was Rome. Nicolo’s turf. It meant something here, to be known as a prince.
Aimee shuddered. In that single moment, she finally understood what had happened to her.
She’d left more than her old life behind. She’d left who she was—and who she might have been.
Her husband was everything she’d fought against all her life, and she was all but helpless to fight his demands…though he’d learn soon enough that she’d damned well die trying.
And for all of that, she still melted when he touched her.
Aimee’s heart began to race. She wasn’t ready for this! No one could be. So many changes, so many pages torn out and discarded from the life she’d planned for herself…
She began to tremble and despised herself for it but the more she tried to stop, the more she shook. She tried covering it with a flippant remark about the great Prince Barbieri being too important to have bothered with Customs.
Nicolo wasn’t buying it.
“Are you ill?”
“I’m fine.”
Her teeth, clicking like castanets, spoiled the lie. Nicolo muttered something, put his arms around her and drew her into his lap.
“Don’t,” she said, but he ignored her, drew her closer until she was encased in his warmth.
She tried to sit up straight, even now that she was in his lap, but it was impossible. For one thing, she felt silly, perched like that.
For another, he wouldn’t permit it. His arms tightened around her and he gathered her closer to him.
“Stop being foolish,” he said sternly. “I am not about to sit here and listen to your teeth chatter.”
Finally she gave up fighting and lay back in his arms. As soon as she did, she knew it was what she wanted to do, despite her protests.
Though it made no sense, being in Nicolo’s arms made her feel safe.
They rode in a silence broken only by the soft purr of the car’s engine through the dark, winding streets of a sleeping Rome.
After a while, Aimee realized the Mercedes was climbing a hill.
“The Pallatine,” Nicolo said, as if he’d read her mind. “My home—our home—is on its crest.”
Ahead, a high gate swung slowly open. The car moved through it, then along a straight, narrow road that lay like a ribbon of black velvet. Tall Roman pines on either side blocked out the sky.
Suddenly a building loomed up before them.
“The Palazzo Barbieri,” Nicolo said softly. “It has been in our family since the time of Caesar.”
The night was too dark, the palazzo still too far away to see clearly, but Aimee didn’t have to see the details to know the palace would be a hulking, joyless paean to antiquity.
It would swallow her whole.
She shuddered, and Nicolo cupped her face and turned it to his.
“Cara,” he said softly, “don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not,” Aimee answered quickly, as if the lie might make it true. “I’ve never been afraid of anything in my life.”
Nicolo looked at her defiant expression and thought it might be true. Or, at least, that she had learned, early, that showing fear could be dangerous.
It was a lesson he understood.
Courage, a show of it, anyway, was the conqueror of demons. It was how he had overcome poverty and, he suspected, how his wife had survived James Black’s attempts to control her life and undermine her spirit.
His wife.
This beautiful, brave woman was his wife. Had he taken a moment to tell her he was proud to have made her his principessa? To tell her that he knew theirs was a rocky start but he would do his best to make her happy? To tell her—to tell her that he was not sorry he’d made her pregnant, because he wasn’t. He wasn’t. He—
“Principe Nicolo. Siamo arrivato.”
Nicolo blinked. The car had stopped; Giorgio stood beside the open rear door, eyes straight ahead, back rigid, chauffeur’s cap square on his head.
How many times had he told the man he didn’t want him to show subservience or, even worse, to wear that ridiculous cap?
All right. Time to take a deep breath. This was becoming a habit, letting his anger at himself turn into anger at others.
He stepped from the car, Aimee still in his arms. She struggled; he tightened his grasp.
“Really, Nicolo, I’m all right now.”
“Really, Aimee,” he said in near-perfect imitation of her tone, “you are not all right. It is late, you are tired and you are with child.”
She shot a look at the driver.
“Nicolo!”
“My wife is pregnant, Giorgio,” Nicolo said, and started up the wide steps to the door of the palazzo.
A quick smile tugged at the driver’s lips. Aimee felt her face flame.
“Shh,” she hissed.
“Tomorrow, first thing, we shall see an OB-GIN.”
“OB-GYN, and must you announce it to the world?”
“I should have thought of it sooner. Dio, for all I know, you should not have taken such a long flight.”
“For goodness’ sakes,” she said, glaring at him, “I’m pregnant, not—”
Aimee heard a loud gasp. She looked around. The palazzo doors had swung open on an enormous entrance hall….
And she had made her announcement to six, God, to seven people, all of them staring at her and beaming.
“Buona notte,” Nicolo said pleasantly. “Aimee. This is my staff.”
He rattled off names and duties. A housekeeper. Two cooks. Three maids. A gardener. They curtsied, bowed, smiled. Aimee, trapped in Nicolo’s arms, wishing the floor would open so she could drop through it, did her best to smile back.
“And this,”
he told the little assemblage, “is mia moglie. My wife.”
A gasp. A giggle. A hand quickly clapped over a mouth.
“As she has already told you, she is pregnant with my child.”
Aimee started to bury her face in his throat but the sound of his voice stopped her.
Since she’d told him she was pregnant, Nicolo had gone from disbelief to shock to a stern acceptance of responsibility.
Now—now, his words resonated with pride. He sounded like a man who was happy his woman was having his baby.
She tilted her face up to his. For a heartbeat, they looked deep into each other’s eyes.
Then the staff of the Barbieri palazzo broke into wild applause.
Aimee blushed. Nicolo laughed and dropped a light kiss on her lips. Then he carried her up the stairs.
A sweet moment, she thought in surprise, after a day of darkness…
But it didn’t last.
He carried her down the hall, through another pair of massive doors, put her on her feet…
And everything changed
They were in a bedroom. His bedroom. You didn’t need a sign on the wall to tell you that.
The room was huge and handsome, assuming your idea of “handsome” involved a marble fireplace big enough for an ox roast flanked by a pair of burnished-by-time leather sofas, a—a thing on the wall that was surely a crossbow…
And a bed the size of Aimee’s entire apartment back in Manhattan.
Nicolo had already shut the door and tossed his jacket on a chair. Say something, she thought, searched frantically for something clever and instead blurted, “This is your room.”
He looked at her as if she were a not-terribly-bright five-year-old.
“How clever of you, cara.”
She needed to be calm. After all, he’d been very civilized just a few minutes ago.
“And where—” She cleared her throat. “And where is mine? I told you—”
“My memory is excellent,” he said coolly. His hands were at his belt buckle. “I know what you told me. That we would have—what is it called? A marriage of convenience.”
“Yes. And you—” The belt fell open. “Must you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You’re—you’re undressing….”
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