by Jennie Lucas
The last thing she saw was the worried gleam of his dark eyes as the night folded in around her.
*
Tess was swaying, cradled in someone’s arms.
Her eyelids fluttered open, then went wide with shock. Stefano was carrying her in his arms, against his hard chest. They’d already reached the end of the block and were almost at the hotel.
“Esme,” Tess gasped, twisting in his arms.
“She’s safe, behind us.” Stefano’s voice was surprisingly gentle. Peeking over his broad shoulders, she saw a doorman she recognized from the Campania pushing the stroller. She’d met Dalton several times when she’d visited Hallie at the hotel. He gave her an encouraging smile.
“It’s all right, Miss Foster.” He glanced down at the baby. “She’s right here.”
“Thank you, Dalton,” she whispered. Then she glared at the powerful man carrying her. “Put me down.”
“No.” Stefano kept walking. His handsome face was implacable. “You fainted on the street.”
“I’m better now,” she said, struggling in his arms. “Put me down.”
His arms tightened around her. “When is the last time you ate?”
Tess struggled to remember. “This morning?”
“Aren’t you sure?”
She shook her head weakly. “I started work at four. The bakery opens at six, and my uncle doesn’t approve of eating in front of customers. On breaks I’m busy with Esme.” She looked away. “I meant to eat something tonight, but I had to feed Esme. So I just had a glass of champagne.” She put her hand on her forehead, still feeling dizzy. “She’s been teething, so I didn’t sleep much last night...”
Stefano shook his head as they approached the hotel’s gilded revolving door. “I’m taking you upstairs until a doctor looks you over.”
“It’s not necessary,” she said desperately. The last thing she wanted was to be vulnerable—in his arms or his hotel suite.
“A doctor,” he repeated, his glare fierce. “He’ll make sure you’re all right. Then we’ll get a paternity test.”
She stiffened in his arms even as he carried her through the door. How could he ask for a test? Her word should be enough!
The grand lobby of the Campania was huge and luxurious, with midcentury decor and turn-of-the-century architecture. Molded plaster ceilings with crystal chandeliers soared high above the marble floor and paneled walls. Glamorous hotel guests and patrons crowded around the gleaming oak bar at the center.
Tess felt conspicuous as they walked past. They made a strange parade, with Stefano carrying her in his arms and the doorman pushing the stroller behind them. People turned to stare.
A group of gorgeous, very tall, very thin young women gaped at them openly from their table at the lobby bar. Models, Tess thought. They were their own tribe in this city, and you could always tell.
“Good evening, Your Highness,” a man said as he passed, his eyes wide.
“Your Highness,” a woman greeted him, looking as if she were dying to ask all kinds of questions.
Stefano responded only with a nod and kept walking.
“Your Highness?” Tess looked up at him. “That other girl called you that earlier. I thought it was a joke.”
“I’m technically a prince,” he said tersely.
“Technically?”
“Italy is a republic. Aristocratic titles are now merely honorary,” he said flatly. “But my ancestors have been princes of Gioreale for hundreds of years.”
“Gioreale is a place?”
“In Sicily. Once it was an important market village. Now it’s a ghost of its former self. That is what I am.” His lips curved. “Prince of ghosts.”
Prince of ghosts. She thought she saw something haunted in his eyes. What was it? Emptiness? Pain? Despair?
“Miss Foster.” Mr. Loggia, the hotel’s general manager, came forward with an anxious frown. “What has happened? Are you injured?”
“She fainted, sir,” the doorman said from behind them. “Prince Stefano alerted me from down the street, and I rushed to help.”
“I see.” The manager, who’d never been anything but kind to Tess, turned to Stefano with a scowl. “What did you do?”
Stefano replied coldly in Italian, and the manager responded in the same language, lifting his chin.
Mr. Loggia whirled to face her. “Is he taking you against your will?”
Stefano bit out something in Italian that sounded very rude.
“Miss Foster?” the manager demanded.
Tess felt Stefano’s strong arms tighten around her, pressing her body against his powerful chest. As she looked at him, her lips tingled from his savage kiss by Times Square.
“No,” she admitted, her heart in her throat. “He’s right. I fainted.”
Stefano turned icily to the manager. “I’m taking her to my suite, Loggia. Send up the doctor. And room service. What would you like?” he asked Tess.
Food. He was talking about food? She shook her head dimly. “I don’t care.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call Mrs. Moretti?” the manager asked her with a frown.
For a moment, Tess was tempted to take the offered escape. Then she glanced back at her whining, hungry baby in the stroller. She knew what it was like to grow up without a father. If there was even a chance that Stefano wanted to be part of their baby’s life, didn’t she have to find out?
Even if that meant she had to take a paternity test to make him finally believe her.
“It’s all right, Mr. Loggia,” she said, quietly resigned. “I want to go with him.”
She felt Stefano’s arms relax slightly.
“If you’re sure,” the manager said, looking between them in disbelief. “I’ll have room service send up your usual at once. And the hotel doctor, as well.”
“Grazie,” Stefano bit out sardonically, and turned away, carrying her to the elevator. The doorman pushed the stroller behind them.
“Mr. Loggia doesn’t seem to like you much,” Tess said.
“No,” he agreed, not seeming perturbed about it. “In spite of the fact I’m their highest-paying guest. But his bastard boss despises me.”
“Cristiano hates you?” Tess blinked in surprise. “Why would he?”
“You know Moretti?”
“His wife Hallie is one of my best friends.”
“Ah.” He shrugged. “He and I were drivers in a charity car race last year. We were fighting for the win. His car was in my way, so I—very gently—bumped him over.”
“You hit his car?”
“He was blocking me. Cheating. He left me no choice. After I won, he tried to punch me in the face.”
Tess couldn’t imagine Cristiano losing his temper. He seemed so nice, especially tonight, when he’d declared his love for Hallie. “He punched you?”
“I said he tried to.” Stefano hid a smug smile. “His friends held him back. I felt no need to return his attack. He simply couldn’t accept that his attempts to sabotage me in the race had failed and I’d still managed to win.”
“Winning isn’t everything.”
He looked at her in disbelief. “Of course it is.”
The elevator door opened, and he carried her inside, with the doorman and the stroller behind them.
“If you dislike Cristiano Moretti so much, why do you stay at his hotel?”
“Because it amuses me to force him and his manager to serve me.”
“They might spit in your food.”
“They would not dare. Would they, Dalton?”
“Certainly not,” the doorman replied indignantly. He added with a grin, “You tip far too well for that, Your Highness.”
Stefano returned his grin, then looked at Tess. “Besides. I know Moretti, and he has too much pride in his hotel to ever serve any guest badly. Even me. He contents himself by merely marking up my bill to an exorbitant amount.”
Tess glanced at Dalton, feeling awkward to be discussing Cristiano like this, in
front of one of his employees. She asked Stefano helplessly, “Don’t you mind all the conflict?”
“No.”
“You like it!” she accused.
Stefano said with a careless smile, “A man can be measured by the quality of his enemies.”
“My mother used to say that you can be measured by the strength of your love for family and friends.”
He snorted. “That is the most sentimental thing I have ever heard in my life. What was your mother’s profession?”
“Theater actress.” A flash of grief went through her as she thought of her loving but impractical mother, dragging her as a child through summer stock plays and minor roles in small New England towns. She added softly, “Though she was never very successful at it.”
“And your father?”
She felt a different kind of grief. “My mother raised me alone.” She raised her chin. “You can set me down anytime. I’m perfectly able to stand.”
“Not yet,” he said shortly. “Not until we reach my suite.”
With a sigh, Tess watched the elevator numbers go higher. Her baby gave another soft whine from the stroller. Esme was tired and she needed to be fed. At this rate, they wouldn’t be home till midnight. Tess hated the thought of coming home so late and facing her uncle’s wrath.
The elevator door slid open, and Stefano carried her down the hall. As Dalton held open the door, he took her into the suite.
Tess looked around her in amazement.
The royal suite was lavish, spread out across the corner of one of the Campania’s highest floors. Floor-to-ceiling windows provided views of Manhattan from every room. Carrying her into the elegant living room, which had a grand piano in the corner, Stefano finally set her down gently on a white sofa.
“Are you cold? Do you want a blanket?”
“You’re being ridiculous. I’m not an invalid.” She started to get up from the sofa, then felt dizzy and fell back against the pillows. “I just want my baby—”
Without a word, Stefano went back to the foyer. She saw him reach into his pocket.
“Thank you,” he said, handing Dalton a folded fistful of bills.
“You’re so welcome,” the doorman replied fervently, and, with a respectful nod toward Tess, he left.
Kneeling in front of the stroller, Stefano unbuckled the unhappy baby, lifting her up into his arms.
Father and daughter looked at each other with the same dark eyes. Esme’s whimpering stopped. The baby reached out a flailing arm and touched her father’s face.
Stefano laughed, looking down at her. His expression changed. It became almost...tender. Watching them, Tess felt her heart twist in her chest.
Clearing his throat, he returned to the sofa and placed the baby in Tess’s arms. Esme immediately nuzzled toward her.
“Do you want anything else?” he asked.
With a lump in her throat, Tess shook her head. She couldn’t tell him the truth.
There was something she wanted, almost more than she could bear. Watching Stefano hold her baby, she’d wanted him to be the man she’d once believed him to be.
*
Two hours later, as Stefano shut the door behind the departing doctor, he looked back across the shadows of the royal suite. Tess and the baby had fallen asleep on the white sofa with the wide view of sparkling city lights. Beside her, there was an empty tray, with only crumbs left of her sandwich and soup. She’d gulped down three glasses of water, too.
Slowly he came closer, looking down at her. Even now, as Tess slept, he could see the dark smudges beneath her eyes. Her beautiful face looked exhausted. She’d fallen asleep in the few minutes he’d spoken privately with the doctor.
“She needs rest,” the doctor had told him at the door. “She’s been working too hard. She has nothing left in reserve. Take care of her.”
Tess had such power over him. Stefano could still feel their kiss and remember how it had felt to hold her soft body in his arms, to plunder the sweet softness of her lips. He wanted her. And she was here. In his suite.
His gaze shifted to the bedroom door at the end of the hall.
Shaking his head hard, he pushed the thought away. Only one thing mattered now. It had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with honor.
Stefano’s gaze slid to the baby still cuddled in Tess’s arms. Esme had fallen asleep hours ago, as soon as she’d been changed and fed. That seemed appropriate given that it was past midnight. He didn’t know much about children, but even in his own disastrous childhood, Stefano had always been tucked safely in his bed every night by a nanny. For all his parents’ selfishness, they’d managed at least that much for their only child.
Which was more than Stefano himself could say if the paternity test proved Esme was his daughter. Had he unknowingly abandoned Tess, pregnant with his baby, without any money or any means to contact him?
His hands tightened.
He’d never wanted to hurt her. He’d tried his best to protect her, by leaving her. Before her love for him could get any worse.
Stefano still wasn’t sure what love was, exactly. Was love real, and was he deficient in some way since he’d never felt it? Or was it an illusion, and were other people deluding themselves?
He preferred to think the latter.
But he’d never known a woman like Tess. The women he dated were usually exactly like him—selfish and ruthless, looking out only for themselves and determined to win at any cost.
Was Tess truly so innocent that she’d given him her heart and virginity, then raised his baby with faith he would return, loving him with such unimaginable loyalty?
He’d never known anyone that unselfish. Ever. Including—and especially—his own parents.
Stefano’s father, Prince Umberto, had only cared about sordid extravagances, and thrilling affairs with women he swore he loved, then quickly discarded. He hadn’t just cheated on his wife, he’d cheated on his mistresses. He’d ruined the family’s famous company, the luxury Zacco brand, through his neglect, then sold it outright during the divorce.
After that, Stefano’s mother, Antonella, had gone on to marry five more times, to progressively younger men, each living off her money during marriage and demanding a fat payout at the end of it. Stefano’s parents had been too self-involved to bother personally with the care of their son, choosing to leave him at their castle in Sicily to be raised by paid servants. At twelve, they’d sent him off to an American boarding school, and left him there, even during the summers.
The Zacco legacy, the legendary hundred-year-old company—even the corporate rights to their very name—had been lost to his parents’ selfishness. After his father’s death when Stefano was finishing college at twenty-two, he’d inherited almost nothing: a falling-down castle in Sicily, some heavily mortgaged real estate, and the nearly bankrupt leather goods company that eventually became Mercurio.
In life, it was every man—and every woman—for themselves. Stefano had learned the lesson well. And life was a game he intended to win.
Over the last sixteen years, Stefano had laboriously rebuilt everything his parents had lost. His international conglomerate, Gioreale S.p.A., was now worth billions, containing luxury brands that sold everything from sports cars to champagne to jewels. And he was building the exclusive fashion line, Mercurio.
It was true, Mercurio’s launch last year hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped, but he’d just hired a hot new designer, the eccentric, trendy Caspar von Schreck. His first clothing collection would be shown next month at Paris Fashion Week.
And soon, if everything went as planned, Stefano would finally acquire what he wanted most—he’d buy back the Zacco brand. Everything was coming together.
He should have been happy, or at least pleased.
But the truth was, at thirty-eight, Stefano was feeling strangely tired of all of it. It was why he’d left tonight’s party early, even arranging for his driver to give teenage model Kebe Kedane a ride back to her anxiously wait
ing mother on the Upper West Side.
Once, Stefano had loved the thrill of New York Fashion Week, the parties, the clubs, the gorgeous women. Lately, everything he’d given his life to conquer...left him numb. He found himself wanting something else. Something more.
Taking back the Zacco brand would change everything, he told himself firmly. Next week he’d start negotiations with Fenella Montfort to buy back his family’s legacy. Once it was his, he’d finally feel satisfied. He’d finally feel at peace.
He’d finally have won.
“Oh,” Tess murmured, yawning as she stirred on the sofa. She blinked, cradling her baby gently as she sat up, rubbing her eyes. “I must have fallen asleep.”
“You’re tired.” He looked down at her. “I’d like you to stay here tonight.”
Her cheeks went pink. She looked down shyly, her dark eyelashes fluttering against her skin. “That’s very kind of you, but—”
“It’s not kind. I want this settled, one way or the other, before I leave for London tomorrow.”
“London?”
“For Fashion Week.”
She blinked in surprise. “Are you attending all of them?”
“Yes, back to back. New York, London, Milan, Paris.” He gave her a humorless smile. “I do own a fashion brand.”
“But it’s not Zacco?” She said, looking bewildered.
“Mercurio.” His smile dropped. “My father sold Zacco almost twenty years ago. I intend to buy it back. I’ll start the negotiations in London.”
“Good for you.” The deal that meant so much to him obviously meant nothing to her. She stretched her shoulders back, drawing her shoulder blades together, which pushed her breasts forward, stretching the fabric of her modest vintage shirt. Unwillingly, his eyes traced over the shape of her breasts. Catching himself, he forced his attention back to her face.
But her eyes were even more dangerous than her body. They were deep emerald pools, like oceans for an unwary man to drown in.
“When will you be back from Europe?”
“I don’t know.”
Careful not to jostle the sleeping baby in her arms, she rose from the sofa. “Thank you for dinner, and for offering to let me stay, but Esme and I really should be getting home.”