by Teri Wilson
Relieved. Obviously.
He looked around, his gaze lingering downhill. His brow furrowed, and Julia tried to locate what he’d found so worrisome. But all she could see was a group of preteen girls in private-school uniforms chattering excitedly and gathered at the bottom of the hill.
Mano frowned in their direction, aimed another piercing look at her and climbed on to the back of the Vespa. “Very well, you can drive. Let’s just leave. Immediately, please.”
She took a deep inhale to clear her fuzzy head. Without him invading her space, she could breathe again. And more importantly, think straight. For the most part.
“Safety first.” She unzipped her backpack and pulled out her spare helmet—green, red, and white striped, with ITALIA emblazoned on it in large block letters—and thrust it toward him.
He took the helmet, looked over his shoulder at the mob of approaching schoolgirls, and jammed it on his head. “Nice helmet. Very tasteful.”
The sarcastic edge to his tone was impossible to miss.
“Thank you. Would you like to take a selfie on the scooter before we head out?” She was baiting him, and she knew it. She just didn’t know why.
Other than the fact that there was something about him that so clearly got under her skin. Him and his blasted butterflies.
“No selfies.” He shook his head. “No pictures of any kind. I’m afraid I must insist.”
“No pictures? Really?” At least a third of her time on most tours was spent taking photographs for her clients. If her future master’s degree had been in photography, she would have been finished with her fieldwork by now.
But she wasn’t a photographer. She was an archaeologist, which explained her soft spot for men who knew their dinosaurs. Archaeology and paleontology weren’t exactly the same field of study, but they were heavily intertwined. Of course she doubted either school of thought had anything to do with Mano’s reluctance to be photographed.
“No photos.” He shook his head and fastened the chin strap of his borrowed helmet. Even with a Teflon Italian flag strapped to his head, he somehow managed to look handsome. It was remarkable.
And annoying.
She willed herself not to swoon.
“No pictures. Understood,” she said, climbing in front of him and cranking the Vespa to life just as the schoolgirls arrived on the scene. They were shouting something. È lui! It’s him! She must have heard wrong, as that made no sense at all. But she couldn’t bother thinking about that now.
Because she didn’t understand. Not really.
A tourist who’d booked an entire day’s tour and didn’t want a single photograph? A man dressed in a custom-cut suit and perfectly polished shoes to walk around ancient ruins in the rain? A complete stranger who said her name as if it were a caress, with a voice that felt like an aching, torturous touch.
And that name of his.
Mano Romano.
Things were getting weirder by the minute.
CHAPTER
* * *
FOUR
Niccolo had never ridden on the back of a Vespa before. He’d never ridden on a scooter, period. Nor on anything this close to being classified as a fossil. But he might as well have been riding astride an elephant for all the attention he was paying to Julia’s dubious choice of transportation.
Allowing her to drive had been an insanely bad idea. She sat in front of him, perfectly positioned in the narrow space between his thighs, with her pert bottom pressed against him. The wool-cashmere blend of his trousers and the bright shock of red denim covering her backside were the only things separating them. Two thin layers of fabric that weren’t nearly enough to keep him from being keenly aware of the soft swell of her body, her warmth. He glanced down, mesmerized by the sight of their bodies touching. It was too much. A full-on assault on his senses. He grew hard in a millisecond.
He looked back up and focused on the shiny surface of her helmet. But of course his gaze strayed to the loose chocolate tendrils that had escaped her ballerina bun and danced along her shoulders, inexplicably begging to be wound around his fingers.
This is madness.
She glanced over her shoulder, swiveling to face him ever so slightly. Just enough to allow the smallest possible brush of movement against his groin. A shock of arousal passed through him with enough ferocity to render him temporarily blind.
“I suggest you hold on, Mano Romano.” She smiled sweetly at him. Too sweetly, in Niccolo’s opinion. He suddenly wasn’t in the mood for sweet.
“Right,” he said tightly and slid his hands around her dainty waist.
He tried mightily not to imagine photos of himself with his arms around this woman he hardly knew on the cover of a pile of tabloids. Such a disaster would be unacceptable.
At least she was clothed. And there was only one of her, as opposed to thirteen.
You could still change your mind, you know.
But he couldn’t. Not really. Not unless he was willing to succumb to the mob of schoolgirls.
The Vespa lurched away from the curb like it had been shot out of a cannon. At first Niccolo attributed the explosive quality of the sudden shift into drive on the scooter’s temperamental engine. Within seconds, the kneesocked schoolgirls were a distant memory, and for the moment, that was all that mattered.
But as soon as the Vespa crested the hill and rounded the sweeping curve at the end of the street, they merged with the chaotic traffic of the Via del Babuino, and he realized the jump start of the engine had been no accident. Julia leaned forward. Niccolo—his arms wrapped firmly round her waist lest he fly off the back end of the scooter—leaned right along with her. They seemed to be moving at warp speed, the high-end shops that lined either side of the Via becoming little more than a posh, sophisticated blur.
Niccolo found himself thanking his lucky stars for the gaudy helmet she’d forced upon him. As much as he’d bemoaned his birthright over the course of the past eight hours, he still preferred his fate as future king over having his princely head splattered all over the Roman cobblestones.
Did she always drive like this? Or was it purely for his benefit since he’d balked at being driven around by a woman?
He wasn’t sure. In either case, it made the stress of dealing with Cassian’s misdeeds seem like a walk in the park. And for some reason he didn’t care to examine, he also found it oddly erotic.
God, what was wrong with him? In the entirety of his adult life, he’d never had this much trouble keeping his libido in check. He’d spent a lifetime controlling his emotions, and with a single bat of Julia Costa’s lovely eyelashes, he’d taken leave of his senses. What the hell had he done? He hadn’t thought things through. He hadn’t been thinking at all. He’d simply acted on impulse and walked right out of the hotel. Clearly he’d lost his faculties.
Because the reason for his unprecedented escape couldn’t be her.
It was the messy business with Cassian that had led him to do what he did. He was suffering a momentary surge of rebellion against his carefully controlled existence. Such a momentary lapse of judgment was to be expected after a lifetime of royal duty, was it not?
He blamed Cassian. He blamed his grandfather. He blamed his father, and the untimely death of his mother. He blamed the godforsaken press. He blamed the Bloody Marys. He blamed anyone and everyone except the intoxicating woman whose dainty waist he held in his hands.
It couldn’t be her. It simply could not.
He would allow her to lead him around for a few hours. He’d play tourist for the afternoon, and once he’d rid himself of whatever this restlessness was, his common sense would return.
Faster than if they’d teleported, the Colosseum came into view. She glanced over her shoulder at him, her red-ribbon lips curving into a beatific smile. “Magnificent, isn’t it?”
It was a testament to the captivating
quality of that smile that Niccolo could take his eyes off the concrete blur of the road and focus on her face. “The Colosseum?”
It stood behind her, the iconic symbol of imperial Rome. And somehow it seemed the perfect backdrop to her timeless beauty.
“The Colosseum. Yes.” Her smile grew wider. More radiant. “Don’t you just love Rome? It’s like an open-air museum. A treasure at every turn.”
Before he could answer, she turned around and faced the proper direction.
“Magnificent indeed,” he murmured to the back of her head.
They pulled alongside the curb between a smart car and a red double-decker tourist bus overflowing with people. Women holding babies. Men in fanny packs. Children with plastic gladiator helmets perched on their heads.
It was then and only then that Niccolo realized the schoolgirls had only been the tip of the troublesome iceberg. There were people everywhere—spilling off the bus, posing for photos and pressed together in the queue that snaked its way around the perimeter of the Colosseum. The only way to avoid being seen would be to get lost in the crowd. And as strategies went, that one didn’t seem altogether foolproof. At best, he would show up in the background of a handful of tourists’ photographs. At worst, someone would recognize him. Here. Now.
Julia lifted her helmet from her head. More wayward locks of her mocha hair fell from her ballerina bun and danced along the graceful slope of her willowy neck. Niccolo stared, spellbound, and for a moment forgot he was a marked man.
She switched the motor off and the sudden quiet almost hurt his ears. There was no way that Vespa was street legal. Not even in Italy.
Julia climbed off the scooter and peered overhead, her gaze focused on the dove gray sky. “Uh-oh.”
Behind her, the crowd swelled.
Uh-oh.
An understatement of the first order.
Niccolo cleared his throat. “Is there a problem?”
Other than the obvious?
Julia lifted the Vespa’s seat and reached into the storage compartment for her backpack. She unzipped it, pulled out what looked like a large green trash bag, and offered it to him. “Nothing that this won’t solve.”
Niccolo stared at the wad of plastic in her hand. “A bin bag? Am I to empty the rubbish bins at the Colosseum? Is this part of the tour?” He wanted something real, something normal, but that was a bit too commonplace for his liking.
She stared blankly at him. Her eyes were really quite lovely, even though they were looking at him now as though he’d lost his faculties. Which he supposed he had, right around the time he’d run off with her. “First of all, it’s not a garbage bag. It’s a poncho.”
A plastic poncho. What else might she have in that backpack of hers? A pair of Groucho Marx glasses? Because those would come in handy right about now.
“And second of all, it’s for you to wear. It’s a rain poncho.” She pointed at the sky. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s raining.”
He looked up. By God, she was right. “It escaped my notice, perhaps because you dodged between the raindrops with your unique driving skills.”
“Are you criticizing my driving?” She gave him another perfect, red-lipped grin. “Mano Romano.”
There was something almost hypnotizing about that crimson mouth of hers. Niccolo found his gaze drawn to it altogether too often, different as it was from the tasteful, conservative lipstick that the women in his crowd favored. He felt as though he were seeing a rare, exotic bird up close for the first time.
Exactly how much alcohol was in all those Bloody Marys he’d consumed? “You don’t have to call me by my full name, you know.”
“It just has such a nice ring to it. But as you wish, Mr. Romano.” She was mocking him. Again.
Niccolo couldn’t remember ever being mocked before. He shouldn’t have enjoyed it quite like he did. Then again, enjoyment was only one of a long list of indulgences that rarely made an appearance on his carefully crafted daily agenda.
And good God, that name. Mano Romano. Before the reality of being a prince had set in, back when Niccolo and Cassian had been young boys, they’d fantasized about what they would do when they grew up. Race-car driver, astronaut, footballer, fighter pilot were all right up there. But the top pick was always the same. International super spy. Because what little boy didn’t dream of becoming James Bond?
Apparently a gilded crown wasn’t the only thing standing between Niccolo and a future as a spy. When Julia had asked him his name, he’d seized upon the first thing he saw—Mano’s Pizzeria spelled out in bold red letters on the stack of pizza boxes the kid with the headphones had been juggling as he walked past them. How was he to know that Julia expected his last name to be Romano?
Still, James Bond would be mortified. As he should. What kind of alias was Mano Romano?
“No titles. Call me Mano. Please,” he said.
No titles.
For once in his life.
“All right, then.” She regarded him intently, as if she could somehow see his royal pedigree emblazoned across his forehead. “Mano.”
He tried—and failed—to remember the last time a woman he’d known for less than an hour had called him anything other than Your Royal Highness. Even the handful of women he’d dated regularly only called him by his first name after months of courtship. Hell, he still slept with women who addressed him as HRH.
But Mano wasn’t exactly his first name, was it?
Niccolo felt an irrational stab of envy for the fictitious Mano Romano, ridiculous moniker notwithstanding. “Very well, Julia.”
He unsnapped his chin strap, removed his helmet, and handed it to her in exchange for the rain poncho. He climbed off the scooter and slipped the plastic garment over his head, hood and all, before anyone could get a good look at him. It was a shapeless, nauseating pea green that smelled vaguely like a child’s balloon animal. He was certain he looked patently ridiculous. But in that way, he blended in.
All around him, left and right, tourists were reaching into their belt bags and pulling out similar ponchos. Street vendors marched around the Colosseum waving them about, yelling cinque euro! Frankly, charging five euros for a trash bag with a hood sounded criminal to Niccolo, but as the rain began to fall in earnest, the vendors were doing a brisk business. What did he know, anyway? He’d never once carried money in the silk-lined pockets of his trousers. Not a single euro. Not even a credit card. Members of the royal family never carried money. It was a matter of security. He’d never thought it remotely odd.
Until now.
Suppose Julia hadn’t been so well prepared and he’d needed to purchase one of those ponchos? Or, luxury of luxuries, one of the flimsy umbrellas that appeared to be going for twenty euros each?
“You can fidget as long as you wish, but that poncho is never going to look quite as stylish as that suit of yours,” Julia said, distracting him from his sudden penniless state.
Surely he was creating problems where there were none. His cuff links alone could pay the national debt of a small country.
And he hadn’t been fidgeting. He’d merely been rolling up his plastic sleeves, as his poncho seemed to have been tailored for a gladiator. Weirdly appropriate, he supposed. “You find my suit stylish, do you?” She should. It had been custom tailored by Gieves & Hawkes on Savile Row, as were all of his suits.
Julia’s porcelain cheeks grew a shade or two closer to the cherry red of her lips. Rattled. At last.
But not for long.
She recovered quickly with a roll of her eyes, her lush eyelashes skimming the dark fringe that famed her pretty face. And with that most insolent of gestures, the realization hit Niccolo that he’d never before encountered a woman so naturally self-possessed. Who knew it would be so alluring?
Of course she had no idea she was rolling her eyes at a prince. A punishable offense, to be
sure.
The thought of turning Julia Costa, naked and trembling, over his knee and administering her much-deserved punishment flitted briefly through his mind. Or not so briefly. In truth, it lingered on the periphery of his awareness. She stood less than arm’s length away, holding a folded pop-up map of ancient Rome, and all he could think about was what the soft warmth of her impertinent bottom would feel like beneath his palm.
“Very stylish,” she said, her gaze sweeping him up and down. “Abnormally so, considering we’re about to go traipsing through the mud. I’m afraid you’re not going to recognize the hem of those elegant slacks by the time we’re through. Don’t forget I tried to warn you.”
Niccolo’s hand twitched. If she kept this up, he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions. What was she doing to him? He was balanced on the knife-edge of arousal purely by virtue of her sharp tongue. He scarcely recognized himself.
“I consider myself duly warned,” he said drolly. “Twice.”
He looked down at his gaudy plastic ensemble. There was nothing the least bit regal about his appearance. He looked perfectly ordinary, from the shins up at least, and he realized he was enjoying himself. Quite a bit.
Julia pulled the hood of her own green rain poncho over her upswept hair. The silly ensemble suited her a fair bit better than it did him. She looked rather cute, actually. Misty-eyed, rain-kissed, and infinitely kissable. Or maybe Niccolo was still drunk. It was the only explanation for the vexation that had crept upon him since she’d first come into view on the hotel’s piazza.
She blinked up at him, seemingly oblivious to the effect she was having. “Okay, then. Shall we get started on our adventure?”
Above them the umbrella pines swayed. The bruised sky wept misty Roman tears. And Niccolo got the distinct feeling that he was only beginning to know what it meant to truly lose himself.
“Absolutely.”