by Ella Brooke
Was there a pause before he opened the door? She had just enough time to wonder about it before Marco opened it. There was a happy greeting on Briony's lips, but then she saw Marco's face and gasped.
"Marco! What's the matter?"
"You're here. Good.” His voice was as deadly as a saber. "Do not come to my quarters again."
"Marco, what is it?"
"You know very well what it is," he snapped. "Don't lie about your affairs, there's nothing worse than a woman caught in her lies and trying to escape it."
The words struck her like a blow, making Briony gasp aloud. Her sound woke up Eva, who uttered a thin and fretful cry.
Marco's eyes widened at their daughter's distress, and she saw him start forward before he forced himself back. Somehow, that was scarier than anything else.
"Marco," she murmured, reaching for him, but he stepped back as if he was afraid her touch would somehow contaminate him.
"Don't touch me," he spat. "You've lost the right."
With no more words, he stormed out, leaving Briony alone and afraid with a crying baby.
***
Briony slept poorly that night, but she was hopeful that the next day could bring about some kind of solution. Instead, she woke up to find Paz swabbing the inside of Eva's mouth with a cotton swab.
"What are you doing?" she asked, though she had an idea.
"Something His Highness asked me to do," Paz said, turning crimson. "He wanted this delivered to him as soon as possible.” She dropped the swab inside a sterile Zip-lock bag, and even if Paz had no idea what was going on, Briony did.
He was investigating whether Eva was really his daughter.
"Stay with Eva, I will be right back," Briony said, gathering her robe a little more tightly around her.
She dashed down the hall to Marco's quarters, her chest a fearful turmoil of anger and fear. How dare he? How dare he come and make terrible accusations, how dare he imply that their beloved daughter wasn't his?
She was so full of fire that she thought she might explode upon seeing him. His door was locked, but he had given her a key long ago. Briony entered his quarters full of fury, but quickly, she realized he wasn't there. She walked through the entire place, but it was echoingly empty.
She started to leave, but then she saw a stack of papers piled haphazardly on the table. It was unlike Marco to leave papers out like that. He was usually meticulous about things like that.
She drifted closer, a sense of dread in the pit of her stomach, and then she realized what she was looking at. They were in both Italian and English, and her blood froze as she read.
The words swam in front of her eyes.
Custody arrangements.
Full custody.
Unfit.
Paid an annuity to keep her distance from Eva Bianchi...
Briony felt as if she was nailed to the floor, and then the savage anger that had been building up in her exploded. She swept the papers off the table, and she stormed back to her apartment, where she dismissed Paz.
The girl went with wide eyes, but Briony had no time to waste. If Marco wasn't in his quarters, he wasn't in the palace. That would work to her advantage. He wasn't going to suspect her of moving so fast. He might not think she was able to do so.
He was a fool.
If Marco thought he could take her daughter away from her, he was wrong, and now she would prove exactly how wrong he was.
She had money, and after packing a few things into a diaper bag, she put on a simple, clean dress and lifted Eva onto her hip. She found her way down to the stables where she had gone often after it was discovered that Eva loved horses, and she smiled her sweetest at the oldest groom.
"I was just thinking how nice it would be to go to town today, and Eva would love a ride on the truck, don't you think?"
Chapter Fourteen
Marco blinked when he realized there was someone pounding on the door. For a moment, he was content to simply let the pounding go until it stopped, but after a few moments, he realized it was going to do no such thing.
The pounding continued, echoing the pounding in his head until his choices were either to suffer or stop it. He staggered out of bed wearing only a pair of jeans. He was faintly surprised at how clearheaded he had been, given how much he had drunk the night before.
He made his way to the door, kicking aside the custody papers that he had left there. It had been four days since Eva and Briony had disappeared.
Marco knew it was his duty to go after them, to at least retrieve the girl who was meant to be his successor to the throne of Florence, but there was nothing in him except a boiling rage at Briony. He didn't want to know what he would do if he saw her again.
Other men might have been afraid of violence, but for Marco, he was more afraid of his heart. He was afraid of falling down onto his knees in front of her and begging, demanding to know why she had done such a thing. If she would come back.
His pride refused, and so now he was staggering towards whatever damn fool was behind the door and who would not stop knocking.
He opened the door with a snarl and was confronted by a head of bright chestnut hair and a flash of sweet blue eyes.
She came back...
His instincts had been right, because without a pause, he seized her in his arms, dragging her close to his chest. She shoved him away, which was unexpected, and she swore at him, which was even more unexpected.
"What the hell are you doing? Where's my sister?" Seanan demanded.
He had to shake his head and look again. Seanan, not Briony, and he growled.
"You should know better than I do where your damned sister is," he snapped, and her eyes narrowed. She was a small woman, but now something protective and enraged came over her features.
"Start talking and start talking now," she said. "I didn't come here just to see you, and the staff says she and Eva are gone? What the hell?"
Marco glared, something that had set grown men to fear, but Seanan brushed right past him, coming in and looking around with distaste.
He shrugged, because he wasn't in any mood to sugarcoat things for this woman.
"She met up with a damn movie star behind my back," he snarled. "She cleared out before I could confront her about it, like a coward."
Seanan stared at him, and there was nothing but a white heat in her eyes. "This movie star? Was it Paolo Olivetti? In the gem district, at his flat there? Last Thursday?"
Marco fell silent, stunned, and Seanan nodded her head with disgust. She pulled a handful of paper scraps out of her purse. He could see the ticket stubs there as she separated them out and thrust them at him.
"You did this before, you know," she said witheringly. "I'm not my sister, and I was visiting my lover that day. I suppose I got a little caught up with him, but I came here to surprise Bri with a visit, and maybe to spend some time getting your measure too. I can say right now, I'm not impressed."
He flinched as hot shame poured through him. The realization of what had truly happened broke his mind, and Briony's face when he had come in to speak to her that night broke his heart. She had every right to refuse to see him again, but the desperation grew in his throat, making him turn to Seanan.
"Do you know where she's going to go?"
She looked at him scornfully. "So you can go hurt her some more? Beg her to take you back?"
He shook his head. "Never. To apologize. To tell her what a fool I have been. To offer her all the money she needs to care for Eva if she wishes, to see what she wants to do next."
He stopped, hands open.
"To give her a choice. To tell her I was wrong."
For a moment, he thought Seanan would spin on her heel and leave. He wondered dazedly how much angrier Briony might be if he grabbed Seanan and forced her to tell him where her sister was, but thankfully Seanan thawed.
"All right. Best thing you could have said there, I think. I believe I know where she ran to."
***
; Chicago, Briony thought, was the opposite of both LA and Florence, and that was appropriate for her mood.
The loft apartment was slightly chilly, but other than that, it was perfect for her at the moment. She would have welcomed the chatter of Oliver, the apartment’s owner and a good friend of Seanan’s and hers. But as Oliver had told her over email, he was touring with the rest of the ballet company he danced with and would be gone for another two months.
But of course you can stay! Get the key from the lady next door, I'll phone her and let her know to give it up. Best cure for a broken heart is some quiet!
Quiet was right. She wondered if it was her imagination that Eva was so quiet since they had come to Chicago. The Midwest fall was setting in with a vengeance, and the tall windows looked out over a sky that was mostly gray. It was only two in the afternoon, but there were already speckles of rain on the glass, with a distant rumbling promising more to come.
She knew she should try to do something, get her life back on track, but Briony felt numb. All she did was care for Eva; she couldn't even muster up the energy to call her sister.
Almost as if her thoughts had summoned her sister, she got a text from Seanan.
This is your warning.
She wondered what it meant, and then the doorbell chimed. A tide of gratitude poured through her. Seanan would make her feel better, help her decide what to do, but when she opened the door, she realized it wasn't Seanan at all.
It was Marco.
She started to close the door in his face, but he stuck his hand in, forcing it open.
"You can't be here, I don't want to see you," she babbled, backing away.
There was no rage on his face, only a hurt and pain that was almost worse. She couldn't let him in, though. If she did and he hurt her again like that, she wasn't sure if she would be able to take it. If she would survive.
"Don't...please don't," he said softly. "I'm here to tell you a few things. You don't have to speak to me again if you don't wish to, just listen."
She subsided, holding herself tight. She shook as if she had a fever. She watched as he took a sealed envelope out of his jacket pocket.
"These are the results of the paternity test for Eva and I."
She blinked as he tore it into a dozen pieces and dropped it to the ground.
"I don't care what they say. You told me Eva is mine. I believe you, and I love her. She will be the princess of Florence when she is grown.
"I made a terrible mistake, Briony. I...thought you had betrayed me. I thought you had gone to meet a lover in Florence."
"Why would you..?"
"Because I am a fool," he said hoarsely. "Your sister set me straight, not that she had to. I am grateful, however. Please, will you listen to me a little longer?"
She nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.
"I love you," he said, the confession coming from deep in his chest. "God, I love you, and if you will allow me, I will make you my wife. I will apologize to you for this every day of our lives if you wish, and I will spend the rest of my life living for your pleasure if you will allow it.
"I love you, and please, marry me, Briony."
She gasped and stared in wide eyed shock, but Marco wasn't done.
"And if you can't because I am a fool, just let me tell you this. Regardless of your answer, I have been proved wrong. You have acted with far more character than I have. So has your sister. All I can do now is hope to learn my lessons on how to behave with integrity from you."
To Briony's shock, he knelt in front of her, offering up a velvet ring box.
She couldn't stop herself any longer. She pushed his hand aside and threw herself into his arms, kneeling with him.
"Oh god, you hurt me so," she sobbed. "You hurt me, and you thought that horrible thing about me..."
"Can you ever forgive me?" he rumbled. "Please, if you do, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you."
"Just love me," she whispered, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. "Love me as much as I love you, for the rest of our lives, please..."
"I love you," Marco whispered, and deep in her heart, Briony knew he would never stop saying it.
He said it again later that night when they were on the jet back to Florence. He said it in the morning when they woke up together. He said it months later when they announced their engagement to the frantic Italian press, and he whispered it to her when she told him she was pregnant again, just two weeks before their wedding.
"I love you," Marco said as he leaned in to kiss her.
The wedding alter was laden with pure white roses, and dressed in pink, held in both their arms, Eva cooed with delight.
"I love you," Briony replied, and as they kissed in front of the jubilant audience, their daughter between them, Briony knew they would never be apart again.
THE END
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By Sophia Lynn
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Chapter One
"Sir, we're going to be approaching the drop zone in just fifteen minutes."
Tucker Keene waved at the jump instructor, scowling slightly as the sobbing continued on the other end of the line.
"Julia... Julia, I can't talk right now, and as I made perfectly clear two nights ago, we don't have anything else to say to each other."
He could hear her sobbing go up in volume if not in sense, and he gritted his teeth. He had tried to be nice, but apparently, Julia Genovese wasn't a woman who responded to nice. He was never a man who had a great deal of patience or finesse, so that meant that it was likely time to cut right to the chase.
"Julia. That's enough." There was enough sharpness in his tone to cut her off, and that was a mercy at least.
"All right, Julia. Let me be perfectly blunt about this. You're not interesting enough to hold my attention, and sweetheart, if you can't hold it for at least three weeks, what makes you think that I might ever want to marry you?"
His curt words caused some angry squawking, but at least that was far better than the overly dramatic tears that she had been indulging in before.
"Call me again, and believe me, you'll see what kind of asshole I can be. Count on it."
He grinned when Julia got to cursing and hung up, blocking her number with a flick of his finger.
The jump instructor watched him with a raised eyebrow, and Tucker shrugged.
"Some women don't know when to quit," he said with a grin, and the man shrugged.
"I'm sure I wouldn't know, Mr. Keene."
He probably didn't. As one of Fortune 500's richest men in the United States, Tucker's issues with most women could fill a book. They were all overly impressed with his money, and at least all of the ones he had met were overly concerned with getting their hands on it. He wouldn't go so far as to say that all women were gold diggers, but he had met enough to make at least an educated guess that most were. Tucker shrugged inwardly. He liked women just fine when they stayed in the space he set aside for them. The rest of his life was his own, and he had every interest in keeping it that way.
"All right, sir, are you all right for your first solo jump?"
"Absolutely," Tucker said with confidence.
Things in the boardroom had been so stressful lately that it felt as if the only thing that kept him going at all was the idea of being in free fall. He had first gone skydiving a year ago, and between one thing and another, hadn't been able to get his first solo jump, at least until now.
> He went through the pre-jump check with the instructor, and in what felt like moments, he was set to fly. Tucker knew what it was going to be like. There was the gut-wrenching adrenaline rush of launching himself into the air, and it would all be over sooner rather than could be believed. In a half hour, he would be back in a limousine, heading for the club that evening, but in between...
In between, he would fly.
Sometimes he thought that that was worth everything.
They had reached the drop zone, and with a deep breath, he launched himself from the plane on the instructor's mark. He exited the plane, hitting an easy 120 miles an hour as he plummeted towards the earth. His entire body lit up with adrenaline and sheer ferocious joy at experiencing what so few human beings ever had.
As he had been trained to do, he reached for the rip cord that would unfurl his parachute, giving it a solid yank. The pull would deploy the black chute, letting him coast down the final 5000 feet to the ground... or at least that was the way it should have happened.
Instead, the cord stopped short, he continued to plummet, and his brain nearly went red with surprise and panic.
Tucker Keene was one of the richest men in the world. He had more luxuries and more wealth than nearly all of the humans on the planet, he was handsome, had slept with stars and models, had had the satisfaction of being born into a family of comfort and then growing that comfort into something truly exceptional...
... and unless he did something very right in the next minute or so, Tucker Keene was going to die.
He fought against the panic in his head. If he gave in, it would freeze him, and then he would die, and they would write him off as one more spoiled billionaire who had died thinking that the rules didn't apply to him. Tucker had never thought that the rules applied to him, but the idea that others would get to be smug about it galled him into action.
In his head, there was a cold countdown going on. The closer he got to the ground, the less good a chute could do. He kept that countdown going as he took a hard grip on the ripcord. His body was in position for the chute to deploy, he sent a prayer up to a god that he wasn't sure that he believed in, and he yanked with all of his strength.