by Annie O'Neil
Beautiful as Beatrice was, theirs would always be a platonic relationship. When she’d taken up with Marco he’d almost been relieved. Si, he had a playboy’s reputation, but he was a grown man now. A prince with an aristocratic duty to fulfill—a legacy to uphold. When Marco had asked him to be best man he’d been honored. Proud, even, to play a role in Beatrice’s wedding.
Cheating just minutes before he was due to marry? What kind of man would do that?
He shot a glance at Marco, who was raising his hands in protest before launching into an impassioned appeal to both Bea and the cardinal.
Marco and a bridesmaid in a premarital clinch? As much as he hated to admit it, he couldn’t imagine it was the type of thing a true friend would conjure up just to add some drama to Italy’s most talked-about wedding.
He glanced down at her hands, each clutching a fistful of the fairy-tale fabric billowing out from her dress in the light wind. No rings.
A Cinderella story, perhaps? The not-so-ugly stepsister throwing a spanner into the works, hoping to catch the eye of the Prince?
Each time she pulled at her dress she revealed the fact that she was actually wearing flip-flops in lieu of any Italian woman’s obligatory heels. No glass slippers, then. Just rainbow-painted toes that would have brought the twitch of a smile to his lips if his mind hadn’t been racing for ways to fend off disaster.
She’d be far less high maintenance than his only-the-best-will-do girlfriend.
He shook off this reminder that he and Marina needed “a talk” and forced himself to meet the blonde’s gaze again. Tearstained but defiant. A surge of compassion shot through him. If what she was saying was true she was a messenger who wouldn’t escape unscathed.
“I saw them!” she insisted, tendrils of blond hair coming loose from the intricate hairdo the half-dozen or so bridesmaids were all wearing. All of the bridesmaids including his girlfriend. “It’s not like you’re the one who’s been cheated on,” she whisper-hissed, her blue eyes flicking toward Beatrice, who, unlike her, was remaining stoically tear-free.
Luca took hold of her elbow and steered her farther away from the small group, doing his best to ignore how soft her skin felt under the work-hardened pads of his fingertips. Quite a change from the soft-as-a-surgeon’s hands he’d been so proud of. Funny what a bit of unexpected tragedy could do to a man.
“Perhaps we should leave the bride and groom to chat with the cardinal.” A shard of discord lodged in his spine as he heard himself speak. It had been in the icy tone he’d only ever heard come out of his mouth once before. The day his father had confessed he’d gambled away the last of the family’s savings.
“I’m Francesca, by the way,” she said, as if adding a personal touch would blunt the edges of this unbelievable scenario. Or perhaps she was grasping at straws, just as he was. “I think I saw you at the cocktail party last night.”
“I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but...”
She waved away his platitudes. They both knew they were beyond social niceties.
“Francesca...” He drew her name out on the premise of buying time. He caught himself tasting it upon his tongue as one might bite into a lemon on a dare, surprised to find it sweet when he had been expecting the bitterness of pith, the sourness of an unripe fruit.
Focus, man.
Luca clenched his jaw so tightly he saw Francesca’s eyes flick to the telltale twitch in his cheek. The one with the scar.
Let her stare.
He swallowed down the hit of bile that came with the thought. He knew better than most that nothing good came from a life built on illusion.
“I don’t think I need to remind you what our roles are here. I promised to be best man at this wedding. To vouch for the man about to marry our mutual friend.”
He moved closer toward her and caught a gentle waft of something. Honeysuckle with a hint of grass? His eyes met hers and for a moment...one solitary moment...they were connected. Magnetically. Sensually.
Luca stepped back and gave his jaw a rough scrub, far too aware that Francesca had felt it, too.
“There is no one in the world I would defend more than Bea.” Francesca’s words shattered the moment, forcing him to confront reality. “And, believe me, of all the people standing here I know how awful this is.”
Something in her eyes told him she wasn’t lying. Something in his heart told him he already knew the truth.
“I’d want to know,” she insisted. “Wouldn’t you?”
Luca looked away from the clear blue appeal in her eyes, redirecting the daggers he was shooting toward her to the elaborately painted ceiling of the marble-and-flagstone passageway. The hundreds of years it had taken to build the basilica evaporated to nothing in comparison to the milliseconds it had taken to grind this wedding to a halt.
A wedding. A marriage. It was meant to last a lifetime.
“Of course I’d want to know,” he bit out. “But your claims are too far-fetched. The place where you’re saying you saw them is not even private.”
“I know! It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
Francesca’s eyes widened and the tears resting on her eyelids cascaded onto her cheeks before zipping down to her chin and plopping unceremoniously into the hollow of her throat. Luca only just stopped himself from lifting both his hands to her collarbone and swiping them away with his thumbs. First one, then the other... Perhaps tracing the path of one of those tears slipping straight between the soft swell and lift of—
Focus!
“Which one was it? Which woman?”
Francesca’s blue eyes, darkened with emotion, flicked up and to the right. “She had dark hair. Black.”
The information began to register in slow motion. Not Suzette...a flame-bright redhead. And the others were barely into their teens.
Elimination left him with only one option.
A fleeting conversation with his girlfriend came back to him. One in which he’d said he was going to be too busy with the clinic to come to the wedding. Marina had been fine with it. Had agreed, in fact. So much work at the clinic, she’d said. And then it all fell into place. The little white lies. The deceptions. The ever-increasing radio silences he hadn’t really noticed in advance of the clinic’s opening day.
A coldness took hold of his entire chest. An internal ice storm wrought its damage as the news fully penetrated.
“My girlfriend was not having sex with Marco.”
* * *
Francesca’s eyes pinged wide, a hit of shock shuddering down her spine before she managed to respond.
“Your girlfriend? That’s... Wow.” She shook her head in disbelief. “For the record, she is an idiot. If you were my boyfriend, lock and key might be more—”
Luca held up a hand. He didn’t want to hear it.
It was difficult to know whether to be self-righteous or furious. In Rome, his relationships had hardly warranted the title. Since moving back to Mont di Mare...
The home truths hit hard and fast. Sure, Marina had been complaining that she wasn’t the center of his universe lately, but any fool—anyone with a heart beating in their chest—could have seen that his priorities were not wooing and winning right now.
He owed every spare ounce of his energy to his niece. The one person who’d suffered the most in that horrific car accident. His beautiful, headstrong niece, confined to a wheelchair evermore.
He looked across at Marco. The sting of betrayal hit hard and fast.
He and Marina had never been written in the stars—but Beatrice? A true princess if ever there was one. She was shaking her head. Holding up a hand so that Marco would stop his heated entreaty. From where Luca was standing it didn’t look as if the wedding would go ahead.
He swore under his breath. He had trusted Marco to treat Bea well—cauti
oned him about his rakish past and then congratulated him with every fiber of his being when at long last he’d announced his engagement to Princess Beatrice Vittoria di Jesolo.
The three of them had shared the same upbringing. Privileged. Exclusive. Full of expectation—no, more than that, full of obligation that they would follow in their ancestors’ footsteps. Marry well. Breed more titled babies.
Luca might have considered the same future for himself before the accident. But that had all changed now. Little wonder Marina had strayed. He’d kept her at arm’s length. Farther away. It was surprising she had stayed any time at all.
“Why don’t you go and get her? Ask her yourself?” Francesca wasn’t even bothering to swipe at the tears streaking her mascara across her cheeks.
“You’re absolutely positive?”
Even as the hollow-sounding words left his mouth he knew they were true. There weren’t that many women wandering around the basilica in swirls of weightless ocean-blue fabric. And there was only one bridesmaid with raven hair. The same immaculate silky hair he’d been forbidden from touching that morning when Marina had popped into the hotel suite to grab the diamante clutch bag she’d left while she was at the hairdresser’s. Not so immaculate when she’d appeared at the altar, looking rosy cheeked and more alive than he’d seen her in months, if he was being honest.
“I—I can go get her for you, if you like,” Francesca offered after hiccuping a few more tears away.
He had to hand it to her. The poor woman was crying her eyes out, but she knew how to stand her ground.
“Why don’t I go find her?” Her fingers started doing a little nervous dance in the direction of the church, where everyone was still waiting.
“No offense, but you are the last person I would ever ask to help me.”
“Isn’t it better to know the truth than to live a lie?”
Luca swore softly and turned away. She was hitting just about every button he didn’t care to admit he had. Truth. Deceit. Honesty. Lies. Weakness.
He had no time in his life for weakness. No capacity for lies.
He forced himself to look Francesca in the eye, knowing there wasn’t an iota of kindness in his gaze. But he still couldn’t give in to the innate need to feel empathy for the position she’d been put in. Or compassion for the tears rising again and again, glossing her eyes and then falling in a steady trickle along her tear-soaked face. How easy it would be to lift a finger and just...
Magari!
Shooting the messenger was a fool’s errand, but he didn’t know how else to react... A knife of rage swept through him. If he never thought about Marina or Marco again it would be too soon.
“It didn’t seem like it was the first time,” Francesca continued, her husky voice starting to break in a vain attempt to salve the ever-deepening wound. “I’m happy to go and get her if you want.”
“Basta! Per favore!”
No need to paint a picture. He almost envied Francesca. Seeing in an instant what he should have known for weeks. He should have ended it before she’d even thought to stray.
“If you want, I’ll do it. Go and get her. I would do it for any friend.”
Francesca shifted from one foot to the other, eyes glued to his, waiting for his response. He’d be grateful for this one day, but right now Francesca was the devil’s messenger and he’d heard enough.
The words came to him—jagged icicles shooting straight from his arctic heart. “I know you mean well, Francesca, but you and I will never be friends.”
* * *
Shell-shocked. That was how Bea had looked for the rest of the day. Not that Fran could blame her. Talk about living a nightmare. She knew better than most that coming to terms with deception on that kind of scale could take years. A lifetime, even, if her father’s damaged heart was anything to go by.
From the look on Luca’s face when they’d finally parted at the basilica he was going to need two lifetimes to get over his girlfriend’s betrayal. Good thing they wouldn’t be crossing paths anytime soon.
“Want me to see if I can find a case of prosecco lying around? A karaoke machine? We could sing it out and down some fizz.”
Fran scanned the hotel suite. The caterers had long been sent away, the decorations had been removed and the staff instructed to keep any and all lurking paparazzi as far away as possible...
“No, thanks, cara. Maybe some water?” Bea asked.
“On it.”
As she poured a glass of her friend’s favorite—sparkling water from the alpine region of Italy—Fran was even more in awe of her friend’s strength. All tucked up in bed, makeup removed, dress unceremoniously wilting like a deflated meringue in the bathroom, Bea looked exhausted, but not defeated.
“Want to tell me anything about this mystery job I’m due to start tomorrow?”
“No.” Bea took a big gulp of water and grinned, obviously grateful for the change of topic. “Although it will make use of both your physio skills and the assistance dogs.”
Fran frowned. “I thought you said she had a doctor looking after her?”
Bea blinked, but said nothing.
“The girl’s in a wheelchair, right? Lower extremities paralyzed?”
“Yeah, but...” Bea tipped her head to the side and gave her friend a hard look. “You’re not going to waste all those years of practicing physio are you?”
“What? Because the person I was stupid enough to go into business with saw me as a limitless supply of cash?”
“You’re clear of that, though, aren’t you?”
Fran grunted.
People? Disappointing. Dogs? They never asked for a thing. Except maybe a good scratch around the ears.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Fran flipped the topic back to Bea. “Don’t you want to stay in the palazzo with your family?”
“And listen to my mother screech on about the disaster of the century? How I’ve ruined the family’s name. The family’s genetic line. Any chance of happiness for the di Jesolos forever and ever. Not a chance. Besides—” she scanned the sumptuous surroundings of the room “—your suite is great and I’d much rather be with you, even if the place does smell all doggy.”
“Does not.” Fran swiped at the air between them with a grin. She’d washed the dogs to within an inch of their lives before they’d checked into Venice’s fanciest hotel. A little trust-fund treat to herself before heading out to this mystery village where Bea had organized her summer job.
“You don’t need to watch over me, you know,” Bea chided gently. “I’m not going to do anything drastic. And you are allowed to take the dress off. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but the wedding’s off!”
“Just wanted to get my money’s worth!” Fran said, knowing the quip was as lame as it sounded.
The truth was, she hadn’t felt so pretty in...years, really. When your workaholic dad bought your clothes from the local menswear shop, there was only so much ironic style a girl could pull off. When she’d graduated to buying her own clothes it had felt like a betrayal even to glance at something pink and frilly. It wasn’t practical.
“Not exactly what a proper engineer would wear, Frannie!”
So much for that pipe dream! It had died along with a thousand others before she’d found her niche in the world of physiotherapy and then, even more perfectly, in assistance-dog training. Dogs. They were who she liked to spend her time with. They were unconditionally loyal and always ridiculously happy to see her. When she had to hand over these two dogs to her mystery charge at the end of the summer...
Fran swallowed down another rush of tears. Bea shouldn’t have to be the one being stoic here. “I’m so sorry, Bea. About doing things the way I did. There just wasn’t time to catch you after I’d seen them, and before I knew it, we were all up there at the altar and�
�”
“I’m not sorry at all.” Bea said. “I’m glad you said something. Grateful you had the courage when no one else did.”
“That’s pretty magnanimous for someone who just found out they were being cheated on!”
“Others knew. All along. Even my mother.” Bea chased up the comment with a little typical eye roll.
Fran’s hands flew to cover her mouth. Wow. That was just... Wow.
“They were all so desperate for me to be one half of the most enviable couple in Europe. Even if it came at a cost.” She shuddered away the thought. “You were the only one today who was a true friend.”
Fran’s tear ducts couldn’t hold back any longer.
“How can you be so nice about everything when I’ve ruined the best day of your life?”
“Amore! Stop. You were not the one who ruined the day. Besides, I’m pretty sure there will be another best day of my life,” Bea added, with a hint of something left unsaid in her voice.
“Since I barely see you once a year, it would’ve been nice to be honest about something else. Like how ridiculously beautiful you looked today.”
Fran’s heart rose into her throat as at long last Bea’s eyes finally clouded with tears.
“Everyone has their secrets,” Bea whispered.
“Including you?”
Bea looked away. Fair enough. There had to be a full-blown tropical storm going on in that head of hers right now, and if she wanted to keep her thoughts to herself, she was most deserving. Thank heavens her family had the financial comfort to sort out the mess The Wolf’s infidelity would leave in its wake.
“You all ready for your new job?” Bea turned back toward her with a soft smile.
“Yes!” She gave an excited clap of her hands. The two dogs she had trained up for this job were amazing. “Not that you’ve told me much about the new boss, apart from the pro bono bit. I can’t believe you offered to pay me.”
Beatrice scrunched her features together. “Best not to mention that.”