by Jennie Lucas
“Prince Stefano,” she said coolly. “I’m so glad you brought your new wife. Such a fascinating creature.” She glanced toward Tess. “A true original.”
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.” She jutted her sharp chin toward a young, dark-haired man flirting with models by the marble fireplace. “That’s my date. Bruno.”
“Ah,” he replied, unsure of her point. Why would he care about her date?
Fenella gave a laugh. “He’s a musician. But a good lover.” She paused. “I can’t imagine being stupid enough to marry him.”
Stefano’s shoulders tightened as he understood. She was insulting not just Tess, but also him, for marrying her.
What he didn’t understand was why. He barely knew Fenella Montfort. They were business acquaintances only. What could be the point of an attack that was so personal and so pointless?
He tried to keep his voice conciliatory. “As fascinating as it is to discuss our love lives, we need to talk about your shares.”
“Yes, we do.” She tilted her head. “Please tell your lawyers to stop bothering us. It’s tiresome.”
“We can raise the offer.”
“I don’t intend to sell. At any price.”
“You haven’t heard the new offer,” he said.
She shrugged. “I don’t need to.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Then why did you invite me tonight?”
“I wanted to tell you in person.”
“No. There’s something else.”
Fenella’s eyes gleamed. “You’re right, of course.” She tilted her head. “I’m throwing the fashion journalists a bone. Having you at the party gives them drama to write about. The handsome billionaire prince attending a party for the company his family lost. Your presence makes the Zacco brand seem even more valuable. That’s what really matters, isn’t it?” Watching him, she smiled. “The success of my brand.”
Her brand.
She’d lured him here as an insult, he realized. A taunt.
A rush of anger went through Stefano’s heart. He controlled it, giving her a ruthless smile. “In that case, I wish you good evening, Ms. Montfort.”
She sipped her champagne. “And you, Your Highness.”
Turning away stiffly, he set down his own half-empty glass and strode through the crowd of people until he found his wife. He took Tess by the elbow. “Let’s go.”
“Go?” She’d been having a good time talking to all the people around her. She looked disappointed. “Right now?”
“Right now,” he said grimly.
As the limo returned them to Mayfair, Stefano stared out at the sparkling London night.
The handsome billionaire prince attending a party for the company his family lost. Your presence makes the Zacco brand seem even more valuable. That’s what really matters, isn’t it? The success of my brand.
The memory of Fenella’s taunting voice echoed through him as they drove through the city. Tess, after a few attempts to talk to him, finally gave up. The evening, which had begun in such hopeful pleasure, ended in silence.
Once they arrived back at their hotel suite, Tess rushed to check on their sleeping baby. Ann Carter rose to her feet from the chair where she’d been knitting some baby-sized slippers. Esme had obviously been well cared for.
Stefano spoke to her quietly, then the woman left for her own hotel suite on another floor. It would cost an exorbitant amount to have her on retainer for the next month, but, to Stefano, no price was too high for his child’s or his wife’s comfort. He’d always believed the cliché: You get what you pay for.
But he’d never imagined Fenella Montfort would refuse to sell at any price. How could she?
Pulling off his black tie, he walked heavily to the bedroom. He tossed down his jacket. His jaw was hard as he looked at himself in the shadowy mirror.
He had to find a way. He would. By right, Zacco belonged to him. It was his family’s company, their legacy.
He had expected Tess to join him in the bedroom. When she did not, he went looking for her. The nursery was dark, the only sound Esme’s gentle snores. The main room was empty.
He finally found Tess on the moonlit terrace overlooking Hyde Park. She was hugging the faux fur stole around her shoulders, looking out into the night.
“What are you doing out here?”
Squaring her shoulders, she faced him quietly. “What happened tonight?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did we leave so suddenly?”
Stefano was tempted to deny, to bluster, to evade. To stonewall.
Instead, he heard himself say, “Fenella Montfort won’t sell Zacco.”
Tess’s eyes widened. He waited for her to say something flippant. Instead, coming forward, wordlessly she wrapped her arms around him.
For a moment, he closed his eyes, accepting the offered comfort. Then he drew back, tightening his jaw. “I’ll find a way to convince her.”
“And if you don’t?”
“I will.”
“You already have so much,” Tess said slowly. “Mercurio, Fontana. Real estate, companies that sell sports cars, jewelry. Do you really need Zacco back that badly?” Searching his gaze, she said, “Couldn’t you just let it go?”
“No,” he said.
“Why?”
He looked out briefly toward the darkness of Hyde Park.
“My father ignored everything except his pleasures—mistresses, love affairs. He left me to be raised by servants and sold off the family business to finance his sybaritic lifestyle.” His hands clenched. “I want it back.”
“I get it,” Tess said suddenly. “You want to make it right. To get back what you lost.”
Stefano looked at her sharply. She gave him a sympathetic smile.
“I never knew my father,” she said. “My mother raised me alone. When I was twelve, she died.” She looked down, her arms crossed over her chest, gripping the ends of the stole around her shoulders. “After her funeral, I thought my father would finally come for me. But he...he didn’t. I found out later he was already married, with another family.”
Stefano hated the pain in her eyes. “He was wrong. Both to you, and to his wife. He acted without honor.”
“He was still my father.” She gave a wistful, bitter smile. “After my mother’s funeral, I tried to barricade myself in our apartment with books, so that my uncle wouldn’t take me to Brooklyn. Because I was so sure my father would come. But he didn’t want me to exist, so he pretended I didn’t.”
Moonlight illuminated her beautiful face, showing a single tear streaking down her cheek as they stood together on the dark, quiet terrace.
“He was a fool,” he said quietly.
Tess took a deep breath. “The point is, sometimes you can’t get back the things you’ve lost. No matter how hard you try. All you can do is try to move on, move forward.” She looked out toward the moonlit park. “If my aunt and uncle hadn’t taken me in, I don’t know what would have happened to me. Although...”
“Although?”
She gave him a wistful smile. “Sometimes it was hard to always feel so indebted to them. To be afraid that if I made one false step they might send me away.”
A silent curse went through him. No wonder she’d fallen in love so easily the night he’d seduced her. She’d been hungry for a place—a person—to call her own. Someone with her by choice, not duty. Taking her into his arms, he said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She lifted her gaze to his. “It’s all worked out, hasn’t it? We’re married now. Raising Esme together.” She interlaced his hands with her own. “We’ll give her a better childhood than we had. She’ll always know she’s loved—by both of us.”
“Yes,” Stefano said. The word love made him uncomfortable. He cared for Esme, yes, and he felt his responsibility acutely to provide for her and protect her as a father. Was that the same as love?
“We’re each other’s family now,” Tess sai
d, her eyes shining, and his heart tightened even more. “All the pain is in the past. The future is filled with love—”
“Look, Tess,” he interrupted. “You know I’m not good with...” He couldn’t say the word love. “With feelings, right? Emotions?”
She looked at him, uncomprehending.
“I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” he said. “Like you did our first night, when you suddenly claimed you loved me. I wanted to see you again. But after that, I couldn’t.”
All the color drained from Tess’s face.
“That’s why you never called me again?” she whispered. “Because I said I was falling in love with you?”
He shrugged. “Look, I know that’s all in the past. We’re married now. We have a life together, a child. So I want to make sure we understand each other. I like you a lot, Tess.” He gave her a wicked grin. “Especially in bed. But that’s all I’m capable of. Passion. Partnership. Parenthood.”
Her pale cheeks flushed red. She gave a strange laugh, pulling away. “I know that. Do you seriously think I don’t know that? I’d never be tempted to love you again. Not now I know you!”
“Good,” he agreed, relieved. “I just wanted to be sure. I’d never want to make you unhappy or break your heart.”
“You, break my heart? Not likely!” Turning away, Tess changed the subject. “So what will you do about Zacco?”
“Convince her to sell,” Stefano said.
“How?”
“The same way I do everything.” He spoke lightly, but his smile was grim. “At any price.”
*
Tess had gambled, marrying him. She’d gambled and lost.
Her husband would never love her. He couldn’t love her. When she’d naively blurted out that she was falling in love with him, after their first night together, he’d ruthlessly cut her out of his life.
Just that had made him disappear.
I like you a lot, Tess. Especially in bed. But that’s all I’m capable of. Passion. Partnership. Parenthood.
For Tess’s whole life, she’d dreamed of loving someone and being loved in return. But, now, she would never know what either felt like.
Because if her husband couldn’t love her, then she couldn’t love him.
They would be friends. Partners. Spouses. Lovers. That was all.
But it was hard.
During their week in London, Tess spent every moment at Stefano’s side, both by day, as he took her to runway shows, and by night, as they attended parties, then afterward, in bed, when he set her world on fire.
She saw his kindness when he thought no one was looking. To the outside world, Stefano tried to always look ruthless and tough. And he was, she knew. But there was also another side to him. He secretly helped people, without any benefit to himself.
His executive assistant, Agathe, had told Tess privately that when her young grandson had fallen desperately ill the previous year, Stefano had flown the boy to Switzerland and paid for him to get experimental treatment. Tears rose to the Frenchwoman’s eyes. “My grandson might not be alive now if not for Prince Stefano’s kindness. But he won’t let me thank him, or even mention it.”
It was a story Tess would hear again and again. The very next day, the head of a children’s charity had come up to Tess at a party. “Prince Stefano has given our charity millions, but he insists on complete anonymity. He won’t let us thank him, so I’m thanking you. He’s made such a difference.” Wiping his eyes, the elderly man had smiled. “But you’re his wife. You know how he is.”
She hadn’t, though she was quickly learning.
Returning to the Leighton from a party, Stefano and Tess had overheard the night manager talking anxiously on the phone. He had a relative trapped in another country, and war had broken out. Stefano had interrupted. “Call this number,” he’d said, handing the distraught manager a card. “Your relative will be evacuated within the day.”
When the older man tried to tearfully thank him, Stefano brushed him off. “It’s nothing. Anyone would do the same.”
Tess doubted that. After all, the manager wasn’t Stefano’s friend or even his employee. He was simply someone who happened to work at Stefano’s favorite London hotel. But Stefano chose to get involved.
At his own company, Gioreale S.p.A., she learned Stefano was revered for the way he promoted his employees, based not on who they knew or where they’d gone to school, but purely on their hard work and talent. The company’s social marketing manager, a former addict who’d gone to prison for two years before getting clean, had made a point of finding Tess at a runway show to tell her, “No one else wanted to hire me, but Prince Stefano gave me a chance. He changed my life.”
Over and over, she heard these whispered stories of secret kindness, of changed lives. But whenever she tried to ask Stefano about it, he was brusque.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I hired Thomas Martin because he’s the best damn social media director in Europe.” He gave a swift smile. “You know me. I just want the best.”
For some reason, he seemed embarrassed by his kindness, as if it was a weakness. But his employees worked hard to please him, and he returned their loyalty in full, paying them double what other firms paid. It was almost shocking, Tess thought, in this modern age, to see a boss who cared more about his employees than about maximizing every penny of profit.
Who wouldn’t love a man like that?
Not her, Tess told herself stonily. She felt nothing for him at all, except—except friendship. And pride, perhaps, but who could blame her?
Their last morning in London, Tess woke up before dawn in their hotel suite, thinking she’d heard a noise from Esme’s room. She yawned, glancing at the clock. It was just past four.
Stefano’s side of the bed was empty. He’d made love to Tess before midnight, then she’d fallen asleep in his arms. He must have gotten up to make an overseas phone call, she thought, perhaps to the Tokyo office. His appetite for work was superhuman. It was what had made him so successful, but sometimes she wondered how anyone could work so hard, and sleep so little.
Blearily she stuck her feet into slippers and pulled on a robe, then headed to Esme’s room to feed and change her. She stopped when she heard a noise inside.
Peeking through the open door, she saw to her surprise that Stefano was sitting in the rocking chair, tenderly crooning an Italian lullaby to Esme. The baby, cradled against his powerful chest, was holding a bottle and staring up at her father with big, adoring eyes.
At the tender image, Tess’s knees went weak. She closed her eyes, leaning against the hallway wall for support. Seeing the way he was caring for their child in the middle of the night, deliberately leaving Tess to sleep, made her eyes fill with tears.
Perhaps he didn’t know how to love Tess. But he cared for her, and he loved their child.
Holding her breath, she watched as he rocked the baby to sleep, then took the empty bottle from her lips and lifted her carefully into the crib. For a moment, he watched their baby sleep, and Tess’s heart swelled in her chest. Then, with a sigh, he started to turn.
Hurriedly Tess ducked back down the hall. Rushing back to their bedroom, she leaped into bed, pretending to be asleep in the dark. A moment later, she felt him climb into bed beside her.
“Stefano?” she whispered.
He paused. “I was just checking on the baby. She’s fine.” He kissed her forehead. “Go back to sleep.”
Who wouldn’t love a man like that?
Not her, Tess repeated to herself desperately. She’d been burned. She’d been warned outright. She wasn’t stupid enough to go back for second helpings of pain!
She liked him, that was all. They shared a child. Shared a life. She liked how he listened when she talked, as if every word she said was fascinating. She liked how he looked at her, as if she was the most beautiful creature in the world. She liked how he cared for their baby so carefully, learning how to be a father when he’d barely had one himself.
> She wouldn’t love him. Of course she would not.
Fiercely determined, she held back her heart. She felt like she was clinging to the edge of an abyss, with white knuckles. It almost seemed like he was taunting her, the way he’d suddenly become the man she’d always dreamed of. Desperately she looked for his flaws.
After London, they spent an idyllic week in Milan, attending the most important runway shows and parties, staying in the best suite in the best hotel in the city. See? Flaw!
“You always want the best of everything,” Tess grumbled, rolling her eyes.
“Yes, I do,” he said huskily, pulling her into his arms. “Why do you think I married you?”
He kissed her, his lips hot and smooth as silk. Another flaw, she thought. His kisses. They tempted her to believe lies and to want things she could not have. Specifically: his heart.
It was like he wanted to destroy her.
She hid her growing misery over the next week in Milan as she wore new couture dresses every night, made by famous Italian designers that she’d previously only seen in magazines. Stylists did her makeup and hair. With their wonderful nanny watching their contented baby, Tess and Stefano went out every night. She met fascinating people, made lots of new friends, ate delicious food and, best of all, wore designer clothes to every event. Clothes that felt like art.
Clothes that, in her growing panic, suddenly felt like her only escape.
Growing up, Tess had often played dress-up, trying on her mother’s old costumes from an ancient trunk that had always come with them wherever they traveled.
After her mother died, her uncle had refused to allow Tess to bring the trunk into the already crowded apartment above the bakery. But Tess had never forgotten the difference clothes could make.
On the nights her mother performed on stage, Tess had seen the transformation. Clothes could change who you were and who people took you to be. Clothes could make you appear—even make you feel—old or young, hopeful or sad, rich or poor. Clothes could make you stand out or they could make you disappear. During her lonely years in high school in Brooklyn, when she couldn’t afford to buy new clothes, Tess had learned to sew.
Getting into fashion design school had been the happiest day of her life. She’d won a scholarship with her good grades, but she’d still had to scrimp and save for two years, which made her older than most of the other students. It had broken her heart when she’d had to give it up.