by Raye Morgan
Tonight he was here in part out of a guilty conscience. His head had been full of the Casali girl for days and he couldn’t seem to shake the thoughts away. He needed to fill his soul with his wife’s image again.
He looked into the swirling water of the river, very near where that water had taken her from him.
“Laura,” he said aloud, passion behind every word. “I miss you so.”
He listened hard. He tried to let himself join the flow of the evening breeze. He tried to feel whatever was in the atmosphere and draw it in. But it was all a failure. She wasn’t there. Heartsick, he turned his horse and headed back home.
Isabella had tried to figure out somehow to handle the declining basil supply problem in other ways, but the harder she tried, the more the answer seemed to elude her. As far as she knew, the prince’s estate was the only site where the herb could be found. If she wasn’t allowed to enter his gates, how was she going to get the supply she needed?
She spent hours poring over the Internet, trying to find where else the herb might grow, and, when that didn’t yield fruit, trying to find a substitution. She tried a few candidates in a couple of dishes. People noticed.
“There’s something different about this Fruta di Mare,” an old friend of the family asked right away, frowning as though she’d found a bug in her meal. “Have you changed your recipe?”
“What are you doing that’s different?” another asked, face twisted with displeasure.
And then she overheard a pair of regular customers whispering to each other. The phrases she caught included, “This place used to be so good, it’s really gone downhill lately,” and she knew she was in big trouble.
There was no choice. She had to go back.
But how?
She was still agonizing over that a day later when a surprise visitor came through the doors of the café. The late afternoon sun made a radiating halo around him and for just a moment she was sure it was the prince himself. Her heart began to pound in her chest. She’d never felt such a lurch to her system before. The room tilted and for a beat or two she was sure she would pass out. But in those same seconds she realized it wasn’t the prince at all, but his cousin, Marcello, and the pounding began to fade.
It took a minute for her to catch her breath. Even as she greeted him warmly she was clutching her heart and wondering what on earth was the matter with her. She really couldn’t imagine. The prince was just a man. Nothing special. Particularly. She’d known men before and even liked a few of them. Not many, but a few. She quickly steadied herself and managed to smile at Marcello.
“Welcome. I’m so glad you decided to come try us. Please sit right here and let me bring you some wine.”
She pulled out a chair at the table best situated with a view of the square in one direction and the distant mountains in the other.
“Order whatever you like,” she said cheerfully. “It will be our pleasure to—”
“Whoa, slow down,” he said with a laugh, raising both hands as though to defend himself from the onslaught. “I didn’t come for free food. I’m on my way home to Milan, but I wanted to come by to see how my patient is doing.”
“Patient?” And then she realized he meant her. “Oh, I’m fine. As you can see, I still have a black eye, but I’ve been told I look better this way, so it’s not a problem.”
He made a face at her lame joke, but went on. “And your stitches?”
“Oh.”
“I’d like to take a look and see how they are healing.”
She glanced around the restaurant. It wasn’t packed by any means but half the tables were filled with people she’d known all her life. Every one of them was watching with rapt attention.
“Too public?” he asked as he followed her train of thought. She threw another quick look at the audience, then turned with a toss of her head.
“Let them talk,” she said blithely. “TV is mostly reruns this week. They need some fresh entertainment.”
He laughed and followed her to the storeroom where he looked her over and quickly pronounced her healing nicely. They chatted in the kitchen for a few minutes. She enjoyed being with him, but wasn’t sure how to deal with that. He was so good-looking, but it was as if there was a special ingredient missing—just like the Rosa sauce without the Monta Rosa Basil. The prince had an element of fire in him that she found lacking in his cousin. There was no doubt about it—something about the Rossi prince appealed to her like no other man she’d ever seen.
“I want to ask you a question about your cousin,” she told him at one point, a little hesitant. She knew it was going to be a touchy subject.
“Shoot,” he said casually, cradling the glass of golden wine she’d poured for him.
“It’s about his scars. I understand he was badly injured in a car accident. Is that true?”
Marcello nodded.
She frowned. “Why doesn’t anyone seem to know anything about it here in the village?”
He shrugged. “People like the Rossi family have ways of keeping things quiet,” he said. “And there were certain elements about that accident they didn’t want the world to know about.”
She drew her breath in. “Like what?” she asked.
He smiled. “Sorry, Isabella. That is not something I’m at liberty to talk about.”
She leaned back, disappointed but intrigued. What could it possibly be?
But she had a more important question. How could she get his cousin to let her back on the royal property?
“If I could just talk to him,” she said, searching Marcello’s eyes for ideas. “If I could just explain how important this is.”
He shrugged, draining the last drop of golden liquid from his glass. “Go on over and confront the lion in his lair,” he suggested with a casual gesture appealing to the fates.
She scrunched up her face, a picture of doubt. “I don’t think I’d better do that. I don’t think that would really work. Besides, how would I get in?”
He shrugged again and straightened from his place at the counter. “Your call.”
She sighed and gave him a significant look. “If only I had the number for his mobile.”
“Ah.” He bit back a grin, his eyes sparkling with laughter. “You’re not the first to hint around for that number.”
She leaned closer, trying to look persuasive but not sure how to do that with a man like this. “I’m sure you know what it is.”
He nodded, looking her over with barely leashed pity. “I do. And I’m sworn to secrecy, just as you’d expect.”
“Oh.” She straightened and frowned, her heart sinking.
“I’m not allowed to tell anyone.”
She nodded, feeling tragic and hopeless. “I was afraid of that.”
He looked as tragic as she felt. “I’m sorry. It would be a betrayal of trust for me to tell you what it is.”
She nodded again, leaning against the tall counter with her chin in her hand. “I understand,” she said sadly.
He reached past her to take a pencil from a cup full of them. “It’s a fairly easy number to remember,” he said as he pulled a piece of paper from a stack of them on the counter. “I think I could probably recreate it right now, just doodling here.” And he began to do just that. “But I would never tell you what it is.”
Her eyes widened. Had he just done what she thought he’d done? “Of course not,” she said faintly, hope rekindled.
They chatted for another few seconds. Isabella was on tenterhooks but she studiously avoided looking at the paper in front of him, which he was filling with doodles. Still, she noticed out of the corner of her eye when he turned to leave and crushed it into a ball. Very deliberately, he tossed it into a nearby trash can.
“Take care, Isabella,” he said. Giving her a big smile, he winked and headed for the door.
She waited until he was out of the room, then whirled and grabbed the paper from the trash can. She pressed it flat against the counter, and there it was—a telephone
number, the figures embellished wildly, but still legible. Just the thought of calling it sent her pulse soaring. Thanks to Marcello, she had what she’d wanted, a connection to the prince. Now, how was she going to work up the courage to use it?
Max jerked upright when he heard his mobile chime. For just a moment, he wondered what the noise was. He’d only heard it a few times before. Almost no one had his number, and those who did usually called on the landline or sent him an e-mail. He frowned as he fumbled through his stack of books and papers, looking for the blasted thing and ready to bark at whoever was calling and interrupting a good idea flow he’d got into on this lazy, sunny afternoon.
His frown deepened as he realized he didn’t recognize the caller’s ID. Probably a wrong number. He dropped the phone back onto his desk and turned away, ready to let it ring itself silly. But it didn’t stop and he swore sharply and reached for it again, prepared to turn it off. But this time something about the caller ID caught his attention. He hesitated. Why not give it a try? After all, what could it hurt? With a grimace, he clicked on and put it to his ear.
“Ciao.”
There was a soft exhalation of breath and a feminine voice said, “Is this Max?”
He blinked. “Yes. Who’s this?” But in a flash, he knew.
“Isabella Casali. I…we met the other night when I…”
Letting his head fall back, he closed his eyes. He really didn’t need this. Life as he’d grown to know it was boring but placid. Not too many highs and lows—if you didn’t count the midnight agonies of a guilty conscience. And then, this woman had inserted herself into his sphere. And it came to this—just the sound of her voice did strange and mystical things to him.
“I remember,” he said gruffly. “How did you get this number?”
“It wasn’t easy.” She hesitated, then went on. “Listen, I don’t mean to be a bother, but I need to talk to you.”
His hand tightened on the small device. “It’s that damned basil, isn’t it?”
She sputtered for a few seconds, then got herself together again in time to be coherent. “Well, yes, it is. You see, this is a matter of such importance—”
He stopped her with a rude word. He was angry with himself, angry with her. The way she’d barged into his life a few nights before had affected him more than he wanted to admit. He told himself it was just her femaleness that had sent him into a tailspin for a couple of days.
It could have been any woman, anyone at all. Despite everything, he did feel a real lack of the feminine presence in his life. He missed having someone around who put flowers in a glass and plunked them in the middle of the table at breakfast. He missed the flow of shiny hair spilling over a smooth, silky shoulder, the soft pout of red, swollen lips, the cheerful voice that sounded like sunshine, the way a pair of breasts filled out a sweater and pulled the fabric in that tightly entrancing way that just knocked him out. All these things shouted femininity to him. Having a woman around made daily existence softer, more colorful, more dramatic. He missed that.
But such things were part of a life that was closed to him now. Finding Isabella on his property had just brought that home to him and made the loss fresh again. He needed to forget all about her.
And he’d managed over the last few days to practically obliterate her from his consciousness. He’d done it deliberately, piece by piece, setting up work schedules and exercise routines that demanded more of his attention and time, until he fell exhausted into bed at night and slept like a drugged beast. He’d done everything he could think of to make his life new and challenging in order to keep his mind from going where he didn’t need it to go.
Now here she was with her provocative voice and her urgent requests, stirring up things he didn’t want stirred. That made him angry, even though a part of him knew that the anger was a direct attempt to stave off temptation.
“Tell me the truth,” he demanded. “How did you get this number?”
She drew her breath in. “I found it.”
The sheer audacity of that answer took him by surprise and he nearly laughed out loud. But he held it back and managed to ask with a straight face, “Where?”
“In the trash.”
He shook his head. Did she really think he was going to buy that one? “Isabella, please. That doesn’t make any sense.”
She sighed. “Life doesn’t make any sense. Hadn’t you noticed?”
“Don’t try to throw sand in my eyes with ridiculous philosophical musings,” he warned her, thoroughly annoyed. “This is a very basic problem. It doesn’t need an esoteric response. You found my number. I want to know how so that it doesn’t happen again.”
“I’ve told you the truth,” she insisted, sounding earnest. “It was in my trash.”
So she wasn’t going to tell him. That only strengthened his convictions. If she couldn’t respond truthfully to a simple question, he didn’t need her complicating his life any longer. Best to cut all ties as quickly as possible. Prolonging this would only make things worse for him and his peace of mind.
“I don’t know how you got this number,” he told her gruffly, “but it hardly matters. I’ll get it changed right away.”
She drew her breath in. “All so you can avoid any calls from me?” she asked, her voice sounding shocked.
“Yes,” he said stoutly.
She didn’t understand. But that was for the best. If she ever tumbled to the truth—that she affected him as no one else had in years—his situation would be that much more precarious.
“Why do you hate me?” she asked, aghast.
“I don’t hate you.” He groaned softly, closing his eyes. “That’s just the problem,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?” she said.
He gritted his teeth and expelled a long line of swear words in an obscure dialect, just because it made him feel better. This woman was driving him around the bend. And that was odd. He didn’t remember trouble like this with women that he’d known before…before Laura. He’d always had friends and casual relationships. It seemed he’d lost the knack for free and easy dealings with the opposite sex.
Of course, Laura’s death and the accident that had scarred him had changed all that. For over a year after it had happened, he hadn’t been able to speak to anyone, even family members. He had waited to die, wishing for it. When that didn’t happen, he began to realize he was going to have to go on without her and without his face. And that was a problem. He didn’t have much appetite for it.
It had taken a long time, but slowly he had let others in—but only his immediate family and a few close friends. Most other friends had probably decided he must be dead himself. He didn’t really want them around and that had become obvious.
And no strangers. Never strangers.
Yet, once he’d opened up to his closest family members, he’d begun to see that there were still things he could do with his life, even if he didn’t go out into the world as before. Today, he had a relatively active professional life, thanks to the computer and the Internet. In the old days, he would probably have been locked away from all human commerce, but with the modern conveniences of semi-anonymous communication he was able to do quite a bit without having to come face-to-face with the people he interacted with. Mostly, he still only saw people he’d known all his life.
“That’s because you’re a coward,” his sister maintained wryly during one of their frequent arguments.
He didn’t take offense. She was probably right. Though he told himself he didn’t want to inflict his savaged visage on others, that was only a part of it. He didn’t want to see the reaction in the eyes of strangers. There was a certain vanity there, he had to admit. But he knew what the world wanted from him, and it wasn’t his scarred face.
He’d been through the fickle reactions of the public at large before and he knew very well how cruel they could be. His mother had been a beautiful film star. During her twenties and early thirties, people had flocked to see her films. She�
�d been in demand everywhere.
But unlucky genetics had been her downfall. She had lost her looks early. Even as a young boy he’d understood how the media had begun to rip apart her image as she had disappointed them. It almost seemed they took it personally that she wasn’t the beauty she once had been. As though she’d wasted their time and now would have to pay the price. He had been ten years old when she had taken her own life.
Yes, he knew what the public was like. And he didn’t see any reason why he should go out of his way to be accepted by them again.
But Isabella Casali was another matter. He couldn’t seem to put her off in a distant box the way he knew he ought to.
He came back to the conversation, knowing he needed to create a plausible alternative to her accusation of him hating her. “I hate talking on the phone,” he supplied quickly. “It’s not just you,” he added.
Despite everything, he didn’t want to hurt her. She was quite adorable and didn’t deserve it. This was his problem, not hers. If only he could explain to her…But that was impossible. “I don’t like talking to anyone.”
“Oh.”
She still sounded downhearted and that made him wince. Silently, he told himself to man up. He had to remain firm. It was the only way.
“Well, I won’t keep you much longer,” she promised, sounding wistful. “I just have one thing to talk to you about.”
He knew what that was. There was no point prolonging things. “The answer is no,” he said evenly.
“But you don’t know—”
“Yes, I do. You want permission to come in and scavenge my river valley hillside for your precious basil herb. And I won’t allow it. Case closed.”
He could almost hear her gulp and he grimaced. He hated doing this. He could see the look she probably had in her huge blue eyes and it killed him. But he couldn’t weaken.
“Please hear me out—”
“No, I won’t allow it. It’s too dangerous.”