Italian Prince, Wedlocked Wife

by Jennie Lucas

  She’d checked their suitcase, passed security and found a dark, deserted waiting area. It was the middle of the night when she tried to settle Chloe down to sleep on a reclining chair. As they waited for their early morning flight, the airport’s hallways became deserted and most of the shops closed. Other than an occasional announcement over the loudspeaker, it was soon quiet.

  Except for the crying baby.

  Chloe wouldn’t sleep. And she wouldn’t stop crying. Tears shone on her plump cheeks, and her little body was racked with sobs.

  “Shh, Chloe, shh.” Lucy snuggled her close, trying to comfort her. But it was all she could do not to wail along with her baby.

  She’d tried so hard not to love Maximo. So hard. But he’d made it impossible. She’d thought him so strong, so tender, so powerful. So wonderful. But he’d ruined Lucy’s whole life by taking her from her family as a baby.

  Did that really ruin your life? the thought whispered in her mind.

  Of course it did! she replied furiously, then stopped.

  As a heartbroken, angry boy of twelve, Maximo had saved her from a fire. He’d taken her to be raised by Connie Abbott, a warm, wonderful woman who’d loved her. Read her stories. Baked her cookies. Kissed away her fears. Taught her about integrity and hard work and love.

  How different would her life have been if she’d been raised by a cold, vengeful man like Giuseppe Ferrazzi?

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself angrily. Maximo had lied to her. He’d lured her into his bed by playing recklessly with her heart. And worst of all: he’d even tried to claim he loved her!

  The playboy prince would never love anyone. He’d only said that to try to hold on to his victory against Giuseppe, to beat the old man he hated.

  “Monsters,” she whispered aloud. Thank God she’d gotten them away from Maximo before Chloe was too attached. Before they were both too happy. Before…

  She burst into tears.

  “Principessa.”

  Surprised, Chloe abruptly stopped wailing. Lucy looked up and saw Ermanno, her ex-bodyguard, standing next to Maximo’s pilot. Wiping her eyes, she glanced around in fear that their boss might be nearby. “What do you want? How did you find me?”

  “A paparazzo followed you to the airport. The prince asked me to offer my assistance.” The Australian pilot bowed his head respectfully. “I am to give you a ride to anywhere you wish to go.”

  “And this is for you.” Ermanno held out a manila envelope.

  “What is it?”

  He gave an expressive Italian shrug.

  She opened the envelope. It contained the information for a numbered Swiss bank account.

  And then she saw the amount.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “There’s a note,” he said.

  Fearing what she would find, she reached back into the envelope. There was indeed a short note in Maximo’s handwriting.

  I’ve deposited the payment agreed upon per our contract into your account. Thirty million dollars, plus the current full market value for Ferrazzi SpA, equals three hundred million.

  Thank you for being so good to me. I never deserved you. I’ll never forget you. My wife. My love. The only one.

  It was unsigned. Sucking in her breath, Lucy held the paper close. “Where is he?”

  “Gone,” the pilot said. “I flew him to Rome as he wished to transfer Ferrazzi to your grandfather. Then he wanted to get away—”

  “He gave away Ferrazzi?” she gasped. “To my grandfather?”

  The pilot nodded. “I saw Signor Ferrazzi in Rome. Looking hale and hearty, too, I might add. Apparently he himself started the rumor that he was dying.” He shook his head. “Makes me glad I’m a pilot and not part of the fashion business.”

  Ermanno suddenly hit his forehead. “Mi scusi, principessa. The prince, he asked me to give you this at once, the instant I saw you. He said you’d be wanting it far more than money. Here it is—”

  And from the pocket of his voluminous leather coat, he pulled out a ragged purple lump. Chloe saw it and clapped her hands with a delighted gasp.

  A sob rose to Lucy’s lips.

  Hippo.

  Maximo had found Hippo and knew what it meant to Chloe. He’d saved her. Just as he’d saved Lucy in Chicago.

  He hadn’t ruined their lives. He’d taken care of them both. Protected them from Alex. Treated Chloe like his own daughter. Showered affection and gifts. Cooked for them. Read books to Chloe. And seduced Lucy with pleasure she’d never imagined possible. And at the end, even after she’d left him, he’d given up Ferrazzi—the hard-won prize he’d sought for twenty years.

  Why would he do that?

  There was only one explanation. Maximo hadn’t been pretending.

  He really did love her.

  He loved her, and she’d humiliated him. Thrown the ring back in his face. Drawn his blood in front of the whole world.

  Who was really the monster?

  With a harsh intake of breath, Lucy leaped to her feet. Chloe was too rapturous over Hippo to give more than a squawk of protest as Lucy turned fiercely to the pilot.

  “Where is he?”

  The pilot looked startled. “The prince does not wish anyone to know, your highness.”

  “Tell me right now!” She stepped toward him, feeling like she might do something desperate. “Tell me!”

  The pilot shook his head sorrowfully. “I’m sorry. He expressly ordered me to tell no one.”

  Lucy wanted to shake him, but what good would that do? It wasn’t the pilot’s fault. The man was only following orders. Exhausted, choked with grief, she covered her face with her hand.

  She’d been such a fool. She’d had Maximo’s love, and she’d thrown it all away. And now it was too late. She’d lost him.

  Her former bodyguard suddenly turned his three-hundred-pound bulk on the pilot.

  “Tell her,” he growled.

  She looked up with an intake of breath.

  “I can’t,” the skinny pilot told him, looking startled. “The paparazzi are vultures. One whisper and it all gets out. He wants to be left in peace. I gave him my word.”

  “Fine. Don’t tell her a thing,” Ermanno said. He cracked his knuckles. “Just fly her to wherever he is.”

  “Well, I—” The pilot hesitated, looking from Ermanno to Lucy to Chloe. Then slowly he sighed. “All right, Princess. I cannot resist true love.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE World’s Most Eligible Bachelor Rejected! Handsome Prince Spurned Amid Accusations of Long-Ago Crime, the headline read.

  “Serves him right,” said heartbroken former girlfriend Esmé Landon, the countess of Bedingford. “He’s dished it out for long enough—about time he had to take it!”

  The day after he lost the love of his life, it was still sinking in. Maximo stared down at the tabloid in his hands, feeling a lump in his throat.

  So this was what heartache felt like.

  All these years he’d been a playboy, casually breaking hearts right and left, and he’d never known…

  “You shouldn’t read that trash,” his aunt Silvana said sharply behind him in Italian.

  “I’m not.” He crumpled the paper in his hands and tossed it in the fire. “It’s kindling.”

  She nodded with an expressive snort and flare of nostril. “I will make you some lunch.”

  “I’m not hungry. Go home, Silvana. You have your own life.”

  “Of course I do,” she replied, tucking back her white hair, bright as snow against her smooth, youthful skin. “But I’ve canceled my afternoon date. You’re my priority today.”

  He gaped at her. “A date?”

  She gave him a smile that managed to be both impish—and serene. “Don’t worry about that.” She made a tsking sound as she searched the cabinets. “But this kitchen is empty! I’m going back to my house to make you a proper meal. I will send Amelia with some pasta.” She shook her umbrella at him threateningly. “And you’
d better eat it!”

  He was in no mood to eat. “No. I mean it.”

  But his aunt had already left. He sank down onto the rough wooden floor, staring at the fire. Outside, rain was pouring, and the whole cottage seemed to shiver beneath the weight of the storm.

  He should have told Lucy the truth all along.

  Now he’d lost her. Because he hadn’t been honest with her from the very beginning. He’d thought, if he tried hard enough, he could hold it all together without giving her the one thing that she kept demanding—the truth…

  Maximo held his head in his hands. He’d always been so strong, but losing her had taken that. After twenty years, fate had finally found a way to make him pay for his crime of stealing Lucy from her rightful family.

  He whirled around at a noise. “Zia, I told you, I’m not hungry—”

  But it wasn’t his aunt.

  Lucy stood in the doorway, soaking wet from the rain.

  He leaped to his feet. He didn’t speak. He didn’t pause. He just went straight to her and pulled her into his arms. He held her tightly against his heart.

  Then he kissed her.

  “Maximo,” Lucy whispered as he pulled away. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” he said incredulously. “I’m the one who hurt you. I took you from your family. You asked me for the truth and I lied. I thought that if I spent the rest of my life making it up to you, it would be enough. You have to know how desperately I regret—”

  She stopped him with a finger to his lips.

  “Words are cheap. I learned that from Alex.” Tears mingled with the rain on her skin. She reached up to stroke his rough cheek. “You showed your love for us with your actions again and again. Why did you do it, Maximo?” Her expressive brown eyes glistened. “Why did you pay me full market value for my shares, when you’d already given the company back to my grandfather? How could you give that away?”

  “Having the company didn’t bring my family back to me.” He shook his head, suddenly feeling damnably close to crying himself. “I don’t care about hurting Ferrazzi anymore. I just want you, Lucy. You and Chloe are my family now. I would do anything for you. I would give up my quest for revenge, I would give up my fortune. I would die for you.”

  “I know.” She held him tightly. “I know.”

  Long minutes later, he looked up. “Where’s our daughter?”

  “Still sleeping in the car with Amelia. I found your cousin walking outside in the rain. Chloe was so tired. She wouldn’t fall asleep until she had her hippo in her arms.” She swallowed. “Until she knew we were coming home to you.”

  “Can you really forgive what I did?” he whispered. “You deserved a family. And I took that away from you.”

  “No. You gave me a mother.” Placing her small hands beneath his chin, she forced him to meet her gaze. “Connie Abbott loved me. I am the person I am today because of her. And…because of you.”

  “Lucy.” He could barely speak over the lump in his throat.

  Rising on her tiptoes, she kissed him. The patter of rain against the roof slowed, then stopped. Her kiss was gentle, tender, promising a lifetime of trust and a whole heart.

  The kiss of his life, from the only woman he’d ever loved. The only woman he would ever love.

  “Oh, no,” they heard Amelia groan. “Chloe, don’t look!”

  Reluctantly they pulled away from their embrace. Fragile sunshine flooded through the doorway where Amelia stood, covering the baby’s face with her hand. She rolled her eyes like the teenager she was.

  “Your parents.” Amelia sighed sympathetically to the baby as Chloe playfully pushed her hand away. “Won’t they ever stop with the mushy stuff?”

  Lucy leaned back against her husband as she stretched her arms up around his neck. “What do you think, caro? Will we ever stop?”

  He looked down at her, loving her so much that it suffused his whole being, making him feel like he was shining with it—so proud and tall and high that he could fly.

  “I will love you as long as Sicily rises from the sea,” he swore. “You and only you. I will love you until the stars cease to shine. Until—”

  But at this moment, his bride turned around in his arms.

  “Show me?” she suggested shyly.

  So he showed her, with a single kiss, how their love would last forever.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-2634-4

  ITALIAN PRINCE, WEDLOCKED WIFE

  First North American Publication 2009.

  Copyright © 2008 by Jennie Lucas.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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