Honeymoon With a Prince (Royal Scandals)

by Burnham, Nicole

  Her gaze swept the walls behind the officer. The room looked like it could belong to a police station in any part of the world. Drywall painted a grayish blue—much nicer than the walls inside the cells—held bulletin boards displaying duty rosters, descriptions of wanted criminals, and the occasional poster warning against the dangers of drug use.

  Then her eye caught the framed photos near the main doors, the ones that led to the lobby. Rather than showing the current President and Vice President, as government offices did back in Dallas, they featured King Carlo and Queen Fabrizia.

  Massimo’s parents.

  She’d seen their photos before, of course, but now she studied them in a new light. They made a striking pair, Fabrizia with her golden hair and clear, bright skin worthy of Hollywood, and Carlo, who was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. Though his hair was now more salt than pepper and his face had grown slightly wider with age, even his police station photo radiated charm. Massimo looked more like his father, she decided—at least in his coloring and general build—but had his mother’s nose and cheekbones. Yet Massimo’s eyes and mouth seemed entirely his own. She couldn’t imagine either of his parents displaying the sultry smile that had played at Massimo’s lips as he’d watched her lick her ice cream spoon.

  She hadn’t intended the action to be so flirtatious. When she’d offered him a bite of her ravioli, sure. But later, as she’d sucked the ice cream off her spoon…in that moment, she’d been swept away by the sunset, the decadent dessert, and the company. The mere fact she was half a continent and an ocean away from her routine, experiencing life in a country about which she’d only dreamed, left her in a blissful daze. But when she’d glanced at Massimo and caught him staring at her withdrawing the spoon from her mouth, she’d known exactly what he was thinking.

  She clamped her teeth into the inside of her lower lip and looked away from the photos.

  “Yes, Ms. Chase?” the officer said without looking up or slowing his typing. The man was as gruff as Officer Scarpa’s partner, but older. Deep wrinkles radiated from the corners of his eyes and his brawny shoulders drooped slightly, as if years manning the holding area had taken their toll on what she suspected had once been an impressive physique. No doubt he had a lack of sympathy for those who occupied the spot where she now stood. She couldn’t imagine sitting at his desk day in and day out and maintaining a cheery disposition.

  “I can’t see the clock from here. What time is it, please?”

  “Almost noon.” His tone was akin to that of a parent answering a toddler’s twentieth request for a snack. “We’ll tell you when it’s two o’clock and you may call your bank.”

  She thanked him in as pleasant a tone as she could muster, hoping he’d realize she was a decent, law-abiding tourist who had no business spending a sunny vacation day in a holding cell. On the inside, she wanted to let loose with every four-letter oath she’d ever heard. The cops should’ve realized she was no criminal after spending nearly an hour questioning her while they checked her passport, travel documents, and reservation confirmations against information in their computers. But apparently not.

  Settling her rear on the bench once more, she leaned back against the wall and lifted her face to the ceiling. A long, gray piece of lint—or was it a thick spiderweb?—hung in one corner near a vent, flitting back and forth with the movement of the air. She suspected it had been there for weeks, if not months. Exhaustion washed through her, making her limbs heavy, and she fought back a sudden urge to explode with laughter at her predicament. The only people who ended up in jail on their honeymoon were those who partied too hard or starred on reality television shows. Not professional women who planned their vacations well in advance, read guidebooks cover to cover before traveling so they’d appreciate a country’s history and traditions, and kept their confirmations where they could be accessed online, just in case. Not that confirmations mattered when the bills weren’t paid.

  It could be worse, she told herself. Most of the police spoke English. The guy manning the holding area spoke it as well as she did. They’d also promised to let her call the bank to see why her payment to the property management company wasn’t put through. From what the officers at the station explained, it was refused due to a lack of funds, which she’d insisted was impossible, but time alone in the holding cell gave her the opportunity to think long and hard about what must have happened. The only conclusion she could draw was that Ted had emptied their joint account, the one into which she’d deposited the money from the sale of her business. The account that was meant to be used for honeymoon expenses, then a down payment on a condo. She’d intended to pay for the honeymoon herself as a wedding gift to him.

  And that was after she’d paid the deposit on the villa, which in itself was no small chunk of change, especially since she’d done it prior to the sale of the business.

  The officer stopped typing long enough to clear his throat, then spit noisily into a tattered paper coffee cup. Two teenage boys—if she had to guess at their age—in the cell adjacent to hers imitated the sound, then fell into choked guffaws. From what she could translate of their conversation throughout the morning, they’d been out drinking the previous night and were waiting for their parents to come fetch them. She imagined the boys’ laughter would end at that point.

  Then one of them retched. The officer barked at him to use their cell’s toilet.

  Kelly crossed her arms over her chest, willing herself to temper her fury at Ted and at being stuck in a six-by-eight cell for the last few hours. She hadn’t touched the joint bank account before she’d left because she’d already set automatic payments for the honeymoon. The villa, the groceries—groceries that hadn’t been delivered, which should have given her a clue—even the tours she’d booked were tied to that account. It’d been the easiest way to pay for everything and avoid having to carry a lot of cash, since several of the mom-and-pop businesses on Sarcaccia didn’t take credit cards. Then, once she returned home, she planned to close the account and transfer the portion originally earmarked for a condo down payment to a business account and use it as the seed money for her next business venture.

  Never in a million years did she think Ted would close the account before she returned.

  Of course, she wouldn’t know for certain until the banks opened back home in Dallas and she could speak to an actual human being. Until then, she desperately wanted to believe it was a snag. An easily-fixed error. Not that all her hard-earned money—years and years worth of savings—was gone, sitting in the pockets of a man she’d dumped. To contemplate that scenario made her nauseous. She’d been wrong about Ted—wrong enough to know she could never marry him—but she didn’t think she’d been that wrong. The last thing Ted needed was her money.

  She propped her elbows on her knees and forked her hands through her hair, wishing the action would wipe all desire for the male species from her brain. She’d been sorely mistaken about what she meant to Ted. And apparently she hadn’t learned a darned thing from it, because she’d gone right out and expected she meant something to Massimo, too. Not that one night with a man—a man whom she’d told herself would be her vacation indulgence—was the same as being engaged, but after the intensity of the night they spent together, she didn’t think she’d mean nothing to him.

  Well, at least she wouldn’t be seeing Massimo again. Too bad, because right up until he walked out on her this morning, she’d been having the time of her life. A smile lifted one corner of her mouth as her mind filled with a vision of their shared shower, his large hands sliding over her back under the hot spray, the pressure from his thumbs easing the tension from her muscles with as much skill as any masseuse and with infinitely more passion. Then his lips landed on the back of her neck, doing wondrous things to her nerve endings as he lathered the area between her shoulder blades. When the soap went flying, they’d had a rather detailed, stimulating debate about who should retrieve it and what else they’d do while down there.
r />   Crazy.

  She released her hands from her hair, letting them fall into her lap. She’d only known Massimo a few hours, yet never before had she felt so at ease with a man and at the same time, so sexually charged. Every fiber of her being thrummed at his touch, leaving her at the very edge of her control. When he’d interlaced his fingers with hers as they lay in the moonlight, the look in his eyes sent her pulse into the stratosphere. No man had ever looked at her that way. He made her feel beautiful. Wanted. And oddly enough, though they were in the midst of having sex on a mattress on the floor of all places, respected.

  Stupidly, she’d believed it was real. Part of her still wanted to believe it, which was why not seeing him again was the best possible thing to happen to her today.

  Voices came from the front of the police station. In the cell beside her, the boys quieted, then began urgent back-and-forth whispers, making her suspect one or both sets of their parents had arrived. The officer’s fingers paused over his keyboard and he turned his head, his ears tuned to what was happening in the front hall. After a few seconds, he rolled his chair away from the computer and lumbered to the door separating the cell area from the station’s lobby and reception desk.

  When his shoulders straightened and his hands flew to his waistband to adjust his uniform, the tiny hairs at the back of Kelly’s neck flared to life. Whoever stood in the reception area commanded the man’s respect. In the cell beside her, the boys’ whispers abruptly ceased. She wondered who their parents might be and how severe a punishment they faced at home for their night of carousing. The officer listened for a minute, nodded a few times to the people standing outside, then spun on his heel and walked directly to the cells, removing the keys from his hip as he covered the short distance. Rather than approach the boys’ cell, he came to hers.

  “You’re being freed, Ms. Chase,” he said, unlocking the door. The extra keys clanged against the bright yellow bars like in a scene from a movie. He waved for her to accompany him, suddenly in a great hurry to get her out of the small space after hours of telling her to be patient. “Your debts have been paid.”

  He said it in a manner that insinuated she’d shirked multiple bills for months on end. She bit back her annoyance and asked, “So the payment went through?”

  “No. A payment was made on your behalf for the night you spent in the villa.”

  She froze in place. “A payment was made? By whom?”

  The officer seemed surprised by the question, as if Kelly should know who bailed her out. “There’s a gentleman waiting in the lobby who claimed that the bill was his responsibility. He has offered to give you a ride to wherever you need to go.”

  She felt her jaw hang open in surprise and quickly pressed her lips together. It had to be Ted.

  She shouldn’t be surprised to discover he’d come to Sarcaccia. After all, he’d been invited to the charity ball that’d prompted her to look into honeymooning here in the first place. Instead of staying in the villa, he’d likely made a reservation at one of the five-star hotels on the island, which was where he’d wanted to stay in the first place. It would explain why he canceled the villa reservation and why the call she’d placed to him after arriving at the police station—once she’d discovered there was a problem with the joint account—went straight to his voice mail.

  Great. Now she’d have to deal with Ted on the honeymoon they weren’t enjoying together.

  The officer pulled open the door to the reception area and waved for her to go through. “Your belongings are at the front desk. Officer Scarpa will have a few forms for you to sign, then you’re free to go.”

  She took a deep breath, girding herself for whatever might be on the other side of the door. As the scent of old coffee, dust, and ink filled her lungs, the rest of the officer’s words sunk in. She glanced sideways at him. “Wait…you said the night was paid for. What about the rest of the week?”

  “I believe the landlord planned to rent the villa to another couple.” He appeared nonplussed, as if Kelly should’ve expected this. “You’ll need to contact him. We don’t have anything to do with that. Maybe your, ah, friend knows.”

  Of course. She wondered what story Ted had fed the police, given the way the officer used the word friend. Squaring her shoulders, she passed the officer and sailed through the door to the reception area, ready to face Ted in all his blonde-haired, blue-eyed, polished glory, undoubtedly wearing his usual immaculately pressed clothes and a self-satisfied expression at bailing her out of jail.

  Instead of Ted, she found herself face-to-face with a scruffy-faced, broad-shouldered man wearing the same white shirt he’d worn to dinner last night. A man whose intelligent olive eyes seemed to see right through her bravado. A man whom, frankly, she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to strangle or take to bed.

  That is, assuming she even had a bed.

  She managed to contain her astonishment at the sight of her apparent liberator. She couldn’t call the bank yet to access her account, meaning that, for the time being, she would have to endure the presence of His Royal Highness, Prince Massimo Barrali.

  Chapter Eleven

  Aware that they stood before a rapt audience, Kelly managed to conjure the same courteous smile for Massimo she often used for ticket takers or waiters, despite the fact that looking at the man made her mouth go dry. She should have realized he was more than a random, good-looking beachgoer when he’d approached her lounger yesterday. She definitely should have figured it out by morning. He radiated charisma and sex appeal even when standing in a nondescript police station lobby. When he tipped his head in polite acknowledgement as she entered the lobby, her stomach did a slow, needful flip.

  How was it that she could instantly want him again? He appeared as disheveled as she did. Perhaps worse given that, though she could hide her morning breath, he couldn’t hide his need to shave. Yet he drew her attention as surely as a flower turned toward the rays of the morning sun.

  For crying out loud, she should know better. She did know better. He let her go to jail.

  Yet he appeared to have the same mesmerizing effect on everyone else in the room…and they were all male.

  “Hello again, Ms. Chase. I felt terrible about your situation this morning, given that you located my dog for me. I asked the police if I could pay your debt, as I am in yours. And I vouched for your identity, so they now know that you are, indeed, the person who reserved the villa, even if the names are different.”

  His voice sounded so formal, so…regal…that she could swear the officers sucked in their stomachs and puffed their chests as Massimo spoke. No wonder the laughing, barfing boys in the cell beside hers had quieted when they’d heard the commotion in the lobby. They likely recognized the voice as belonging to one of their country’s most well-known inhabitants.

  In her mind, however, she heard the more casual version of that voice, the voice that had whispered in her ear during the night. The voice that offered her wine, teased her in the shower, groaned as he’d found release. It was the most intimate sound she’d ever heard a man make, and it’d come from this man.

  This man who said he’d paid her debt.

  The dichotomy of it rankled.

  “Thank you,” she managed. She stood immobilized for fear of putting her foot in her mouth. It wasn’t her debt. Well, it was, but it should never have been a problem. She hadn’t been irresponsible, though everyone in the station treated her that way. And now Massimo wanted to fix things with money and influence.

  The creak of a door caught her attention. Officer Scarpa materialized from a room behind the counter, carrying a clipboard with several papers. He extended the clipboard to her and asked that she complete the documentation. Once she finished and handed the papers back to him, he set her purse on the counter and had her check its contents. When she confirmed that everything was in order, he told her she was free to go and that if the police had any further questions for her, they’d be in touch.

  He hardly look
ed at her as he spoke. He—and the rest of the officers—appeared transfixed by Massimo.

  Massimo gifted her with a patronizing smile as she turned to look for her bag. “I’m happy to give you a ride, Ms. Chase. It’s the least I can do.” He pushed open the set of glass doors leading to the street, his behavior reminding her of a five-star hotel’s doorman. That’s when she noticed that her suitcase was already in his hand. Rather than yanking it from his grasp and creating even more gossip for the police, she kept her head high and exited into the bright sunshine. Massimo’s Jeep was at the curb directly in front of the station, in a spot marked for government personnel only.

  Well, she supposed he was the epitome of government personnel.

  Massimo lifted her suitcase into the back seat as if it weighed nothing, then opened the passenger door for her. She glanced back at the station to ensure they couldn’t be heard, then said, “Don’t you find this a little bit awkward?”

  “Perhaps.” His eyes met hers in challenge.

  “And you didn’t bring Gaspare as a buffer?”

  “He’s napping at home. The boy had a late night.”

  She blinked at the casual, almost flirty tone, so different from what he’d used in the station. The change flustered her. “You do own a dog named Gaspare, don’t you?”

  “I do. And you’re asking me…why?”

  “To make certain you told me at least one truth last night before I trust you to drive me anywhere.” Not that she had a clue where to go whether he gave her a ride or not.

  He glanced up and down the street, then returned his attention to her. “Why, do you have other transportation?”

  “I might.” If her feet counted.

  “Glad to know we’re being honest with each other.” He gestured toward the front seat with a flourish and issued a commanding, “Get in.”