by Jennie Lucas
“Why what?” he said sharply.
She bit her lip. “Why I think even a selfish, shallow father is better than none at all.”
“Wentworth doesn’t deserve to be her father.” Maximo’s lip curled. “He fled America to avoid taking even the most basic responsibility.”
She swallowed, pressing her fingernails into her palms. “But he’s her father, Maximo. She has no siblings. No cousins. No one. If anything ever happens to me, I need to know she’s safe, that she’ll be loved and protected.”
“Not by Wentworth.” Maximo’s gaze was stony. “He’s lost his chance.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“Alexander Wentworth is going to sign away his parental rights to Chloe and you are going to convince him to do it.”
Lucy stared at him in shock.
“Make Alex sign away his parental rights?” she gasped. “No! Whatever he’s done to me, he’s still her father!”
“You promised to obey, Lucia.”
“Sure—about stupid things, like who gets the remote control! Not something like this!”
Maximo’s face was cold. “Unless Wentworth’s rights are terminated, he could decide to challenge you for custody of your daughter at any time.”
“Custody?” She gave a harsh, bitter laugh. “I’m just praying to convince him to give her an occasional phone call, or a gift for her birthday!”
He looked at her for a long moment. “He will never care about her. He only cares about himself. That makes him dangerous.”
“He wouldn’t try to take Chloe away from me!”
“You never thought he would abandon you, either. Excuse me if I say you’re a poor judge of character.” But before she could get hurt by this rude statement, his gaze softened. “Perhaps because you believe the best of people. An admirable quality. One I’ve never shared.”
“Well, I’ve never believed the best of you,” she muttered.
He ignored her. “Wentworth might try to use Chloe against you for reasons you cannot imagine. To blackmail you out of an inheritance, for example.”
She laughed incredulously. “What inheritance?”
“Remove him from your life. Either you do it the easy way—or I’ll do it the hard way.”
“Why do you care? You don’t give a damn about me—or Chloe!”
“You’re wrong.” His dark blue eyes focused on hers. “You are both under my protection now. Do you not understand what that means? I must keep you safe. And he is a danger to you both.”
“But Chloe needs a father. You said so yourself!”
“If he asks to be her father, it won’t be because he’s looking out for her interests. Just his own.”
“But—”
“You will obey me, Lucia.” His voice held a steely edge. “I know what is best.”
He expected her to submit to his will. Of course he did. Women didn’t say “no” to Prince Maximo d’Aquilla, did they?
But Lucy couldn’t cut Alex out of Chloe’s life. She couldn’t make a choice that her daughter might someday regret. But under Maximo’s commanding gaze, the best she could do was look away. She scowled at the passing landscape.
“What is that?” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“That.” She pointed at a run-down mansion on the edge of the village. It must have once been an elegant villa; but the windows were all boarded up, the stucco walls falling into ruin, the yard overgrown. “Who lives there?”
His whole body sat up straight in his seat, on the alert. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said, wondering why he seemed so tense. “It just looks…out of place.”
His jaw tightened. “An old man lives there. A man nobody cares about.”
She frowned. “But surely, if he’s elderly, someone should…”
“Forget him,” he said sharply.
His fierce anger made her draw back in hurt and confusion. They sat in silence until the limo finally pulled through a wrought-iron gate.
“Bene,” he said shortly. “We’re here.”
The limo stopped, and the chauffeur opened her door.
She saw an enormous multitiered villa, white as a neoclassical wedding cake, surrounded by elaborate gardens overlooking a crystal-blue lake. Put all together, it was white and blue and wide as heaven…
“This is my home,” he said quietly. “The Villa Uccello.”
Then she saw the crowds of people lining the front steps.
“Who are they?” she whispered.
“Servants. Neighbors. Here to meet you.” Maximo un-buckled Chloe from her car seat, smiling down at the baby warmly. “And to celebrate your birthday, little one.”
Chloe chattered and waved her hippo in reply as he lifted her from the car.
Maximo had remembered Chloe’s birthday? Lucy rose from the car. She forgot all about the decrepit villa, the wedding-cake Villa Uccello, even forgot the crowds of people waiting for her.
All she could see was her baby, happy in Maximo’s arms.
Why hadn’t Alex ever held Chloe like that? Why had he never held her at all? He hadn’t cared about her birthday—he hadn’t even cared about her birth. He’d ignored his own child, brushed her off like an embarrassment, sent her pictures back unopened. He had abandoned her to struggle—left her to starve.
Maximo, though unrelated by blood, was already acting more like a father to Chloe than Alex ever had. Unlike Alex with his sweet words and faithless proposal of marriage, Maximo d’Aquilla hadn’t bothered to explain a damn thing. In fact, he’d barely bothered about the niceties of proposing—he’d just married her practically by force.
But he’d taken both Lucy and Chloe under his wing. He’d taken her away from desperate hardship, made her his princess and brought her to Italy. He’d made sure she and Chloe would be secure for the rest of their lives.
Maximo d’Aquilla was a man of deeds, not words. And unlike Alex, he told the truth. He’d even had the decency to warn her never to love him…
No problem, she told herself. She wouldn’t love a playboy. Couldn’t.
But she couldn’t prevent the memory of their kiss last night from replaying in her mind. She could still feel his mouth against hers. Demanding. Insisting. Possessing her against her will…Making her want and demand and insist on possessing him in return…
Maximo held out his free hand to her.
“Come, my bride.”
And she obeyed.
As they walked up the steps to the glamorous, palatial villa, people followed them inside the ten-foot-high doors, chattering happily in Italian. A smiling maid took her coat as three footmen carried bags from the car, and the chauffeur drove the Rolls-Royce to park it in the mews.
I’ve entered a fairy tale, she thought in wonder. Just like Cinderella’s castle.
Past the foyer, they entered a large salon with a high ceiling, covered with frescoes of cherubic angels and embracing Renaissance lovers. Lucy sucked in her breath at the sheer size of it—and the elegance. This palace was to be her home for the next three months?
But there was more. Past the antique furniture in the salon, above the soaring marble fireplace, she saw a big silken banner with handpainted words.
Happy First Birthday. Buon compleanno, Chloe!
The room was decorated with hundreds of pink flowers and balloons. Next to the fireplace, she saw a mountain of gift-wrapped presents. Presiding over the gifts was a stuffed giraffe nearly as tall as Lucy wearing a pink bow. And on the table behind the elegant upholstered sofa, there was a pink birthday cake, six tiers high.
Maximo had done this all—for Chloe. A child he’d only met yesterday.
Lucy stopped as tears rushed to her eyes. Yesterday, she’d had neither gifts nor a cake for her beloved daughter. Today, everything had changed.
“Thank you,” she whispered, clutching his hand. “I can’t believe you did this for Chloe.”
“No.” He looked at her. “I did it for you.”
His blue gaze went through her soul. How had he known the deepest longing of her heart? Prince Maximo d’Aquilla really was too good to be true.
But as happy tears streamed down her face unchecked, and she was trying to think of a way to express the depth of her gratitude and joy, his hand tightened on hers.
Turning to face the crowd of people in the salon, he spoke in English, his voice commanding and clear. “My dear friends, thank you for coming today. Allow me to introduce my bride. After twenty years, she has finally come home. Allow me to present…Lucia Ferrazzi.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LUCIA Ferrazzi?
Lucy nearly gasped aloud.
Ferrazzi—as in Ferrazzi handbags?
As in the company he was trying to gain through hostile takeover?
She looked at him, the man who just a moment ago had seemed too good to be true. And all her gratitude and joy evaporated like smoke.
“Lucia Ferrazzi!” The people in the salon, perhaps fifty or sixty in total, burst into excited rapid-fire speech in both English and Italian. “Lucia Ferrazzi!” A white-haired old woman in the corner suddenly burst into tears, crying above the din, “Bambina mia…”
And Lucy felt sick.
“I want to talk to you,” she ground out to Maximo. “Right now.”
“Later.” He gave a charming, gracious smile. “Greet your guests and friends. Some of them have waited for you for decades.”
“But I’m not—” she gasped as she was dragged from him and Chloe, pulled away by the tide of people rushing forward to embrace her. They had tears in their eyes as they cried out her name. But it wasn’t her name, Lucy Abbott, that they were crying with such wonder and amazement and shock. It was Lucia Ferrazzi. Miracolo, they repeated over and over.
As she was hugged by a crowd of excited strangers, Lucy glared across the salon at Maximo. Watching him smile and joke with the villagers’ children, he looked so handsome and wonderful that it made her heart ache. As if he had no idea of Lucy’s torment, he sat down calmly on the floor with Chloe in his lap and helped her open her first birthday present. He ripped the pink wrapping paper, pulling it down just enough so the baby could reach up and rip the rest.
Discovering a train set in the box, Chloe chortled happily. Maximo looked up at Lucy and smiled.
And she hated him. Fiercely. Savagely.
He’d almost made her believe. Against her will, he’d almost convinced her he was an honest man. When the truth was that he was an even bigger liar than Alex.
The prince was a cheat.
A fraud.
The white-haired old woman who’d sobbed in the crowd threw her arms around Lucy, nearly knocking her over with the impact of the embrace.
“Mia bambina,” the old woman gasped. “Che meravigliosa notizia!” Her eyes were rheumy with weeping. Lucy tried haplessly to separate herself as the woman continued to babble in Italian. Even if Lucy had spoken Italian, she didn’t think she would have understood a word as the woman gasped and sobbed through every syllable. The woman choked out a question. She looked at Lucy, her eyes begging for an answer.
Lucy shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Italian,” she said. “And I’m not who you think—”
“Annunziata was your nurse,” a voice said in English behind her. “Your bambinaia.”
Glancing back, Lucy saw a girl who couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. She was petite, slender and extremely pretty, with masses of dark hair and olive skin. The girl continued, “She is asking to know if you have had a happy life. She says after you disappeared as a baby, she prayed every night that you escaped the fire. And now she has seen a miracle. You are here.”
“What fire?” Lucy asked, wondering if the girl was another of Maximo’s mistresses. Trying not to wonder, because for some reason it made her hurt all over. “What are you talking about?”
The old woman chattered rapidly, embracing her. Then, as if her emotions were too much, she ran away, fleeing with a sob.
“Don’t you know?” The girl’s expressive blue eyes widened. “You’re famous here. When you were one year old, your father skidded his car off a cliff and it exploded in a fire. Your parents died at once, but you were never found. Everyone thought you were dead. Except for your grandfather.”
“Grandfather?” Lucy repeated, troubled.
“Sì.” The girl gave a brief half smile. “Although last month he finally petitioned the courts to have you declared dead. But I think that has more to do with him needing money than really believing you were…where are you going?”
“To kill my husband,” Lucy said, clenching her hands into fists.
“What?” the girl gasped.
First a sweet old lady, now a grandfather? How many people was Maximo willing to hurt to gain control of Ferrazzi?
Lucy ground her teeth. “I’m going to get my daughter away from that liar.”
The girl’s hand grasped her shoulder. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” Lucy’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her husband. “You said exactly the right thing.”
Maximo stood out above the crowd, a handsome, dark giant of a man. Everyone deferred to him. Everyone admired him. He was twice as handsome as blond, slender Alex. And twice the liar.
The more handsome the man, she thought, the more selfish and cold the heart.
She’d wondered why he rescued her from the cold Chicago winter. Now she knew. Due to some chance resemblance, he meant to use her to get control of the Ferrazzi company. He thought he could trick people into believing she was that poor missing baby. People like the gullible, heartbroken old nurse. Like the baby’s grandfather, who must have suffered unimaginable grief. When they discovered the truth, it would be like losing that baby all over again.
But what did her husband care about that, so long as he got what he wanted?
Maximo met her gaze over the crowd and gave her a sensual smile. It made her shiver—and she stiffened her spine. If he thought that he could seduce her into silence with his dangerously sexy charm—if he thought he could buy her integrity with his power and wealth, he was dead wrong…
He was wrong, wasn’t he?
Lucy took a deep breath. Of course he was wrong. She’d consented to sell three months of her time. For her daughter’s sake, she might be willing to do more. She didn’t care about her own life. Just Chloe’s. For her daughter, she would sacrifice anything—even her own life.
But hurting innocent people? To benefit her own child? That was entirely different. That was evil. Lucy wasn’t such a monster.
Some things were more important than financial security. Her own mother had taught her that.
Lucy took a deep breath. “I’m going to go tell everyone that their prince is a big fat liar.”
“No! You can’t!”
Lucy straightened her shoulders. “Look, I’m sure you’re in love with him just like every other woman in the world, but the truth is—”
“I’m not his mistress!” the girl exclaimed, sounding insulted. “I’m Amelia, his cousin. But I do love him. Maximo has always taken care of me and my mother. I don’t know why you’re so angry, but you must at least give him the respect of speaking with him in private! It’s your duty as his wife!”
“My duty as his wife!” Lucy repeated in shock. Had they traveled to Lake Como in a time machine, and gone back to the nineteenth century?
With an expressive sweep of her hand, the Italian girl indicated the party decorations, the cake, the presents, the laughing children. “My cousin must be deeply in love with you. He will therefore forgive you—”
“Forgive me!” Lucy gasped, dumbfounded.
“But he is a proud man, and if you humiliate him in front of the whole village your marriage will never be the same. Don’t destroy your life together before it has even begun!”
Amelia’s blue eyes were pleading. She didn’t know that Lucy’s relationship with Maximo was a marriage of convenience. Sh
e actually thought that Maximo had married her for love.
Exactly what he wanted everyone to think.
Right, Lucy thought, her throat choked with bitterness and hurt. As if he’d ever be vulnerable that way in a million years.
But looking around at all the bright eyes of the villagers, hearing the happy laughter of the children, she took a deep breath. She would restrain herself for their sakes, not his. “Fine,” she ground out. “But you can’t expect me to just stand here while he’s telling these lies—”
“Let me take you on a tour of the villa,” Amelia suggested brightly. “I’ll get your baby.”
But a minute later, when she placed a squirming Chloe in Lucy’s arms, the baby didn’t seem entirely happy about it. She kept peeking over Lucy’s shoulder, reaching her pudgy arms toward Maximo, whimpering and shaking her hippo in his direction.
But Lucy was afraid to even look back at him. Afraid if she saw him, she’d scream out her anger and hurt. Or she’d rush across the salon and stand on her tiptoes (or possibly get a chair) to slap him hard across the face.
But why? Why did she feel so hurt? How could she possibly feel so betrayed, when she’d known from the beginning she couldn’t trust a handsome man who seemed too good to be true?
“Such a sweet baby,” Amelia said softly, stroking Chloe’s downy hair as they left the salon and started down the hall. “Maximo thinks I am wasting my time at university. He tells me to find a nice man and settle down.” She gave an impish grin. “I’ve always told him that he had to get married first! But now he’s finally found you, I no longer have an excuse…”
“For heaven’s sake, stay in school!” Lucy blurted out. “Love ruins everything!”
Amelia stopped above her on the wide staircase, looking down at her in surprise. “But you love my cousin. Surely you wouldn’t allow one moment of anger to make you forget that? Maximo is a great man. Bossy, certamente, but only to protect the people he loves.” She stroked Chloe’s hair again. “Whatever he has done to make you angry, I’m sure it is because he loves you, Lucia.”