Secret Prince's Christmas Seduction

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Rafe!’ he snapped, and then softened his tone. It was not her fault there were so many restrictions on publicising his identity. ‘You are to call me Rafe. And, no, I do not want my room serviced. If you could make up the bed while I have my coffee, that will suffice.’

  He moved to climb out of bed, but then perhaps he got dizzy, because instead of heading to the bedside chair he remained sitting on the edge with his head in his hands, his skin turning from pale to grey.

  He should be in hospital, Antonietta thought. ‘Would you like me to—?’

  ‘I can manage,’ he snapped.

  They’d both spoken at the same time, and Antonietta had not finished her sentence. Now she did. ‘Would you like me to fetch the nurse to help you get out of bed?’

  For some reason what she said caused him to lift his head from his hands and look at her. Antonietta was sure he almost smiled, but then his expression changed to austere.

  ‘I don’t need a nurse and I don’t need the bed linen changed. Please, just leave.’

  His tone was still brusque, but Antonietta took no offence. It was clear to her that Louis—or rather Rafe—loathed being seen in a weakened state. He was holding tightly on to the bedside table with one hand, while the other gripped the mattress, and she was certain he would prefer to be alone than have anyone witness him like this.

  ‘Would you like me to come back later?’

  ‘No.’ He gave a shake of his head, which must have hurt, because he halted midway. ‘I really don’t want to be disturbed today—if you could let everybody know?’

  ‘I shall.’

  ‘And could you block out the sun before you leave?’

  It was a slightly oddly worded request, and only then did she realise that Italian wasn’t his first language. It took a second to place, but she soon realised that his Italian was tinged with an accent she loved—French.

  She wanted to delve. For the first time ever Antonietta wanted to know more about a guest. He had asked that she use his real name—Rafe—and now she wanted to know it in full. She wanted to know where he was from and what had led him to this Silibri retreat to heal in secret.

  Antonietta wanted to know more about this man.

  But instead she wheeled out the trolley while the room was still light, and then returned. ‘I’ll close the drapes and then get out of your way. But, please, if you need anything then don’t hesitate to page me.’

  Rafe nodded and glanced at her, and was slightly bemused when he noticed her eyes. It wasn’t so much that they were as black as treacle, and thickly lashed, it was more that he had never seen such sadness. Oh, it was not anything tangible—she was not downcast or grim—but there was an abject melancholy in them that tugged him out of deep introspection. And that was no mean feat, for Rafe had a lot on his mind.

  An awful lot.

  The black-eyed maid took out the trolley, and by the time she returned Rafe was back in bed. Before closing the drapes, she topped up the water by his bed.

  ‘Thank you,’ Rafe said, once the room was mercifully back to darkness. He actually meant it, for she had worked unobtrusively and had not, unlike so many others, pushed for conversation, nor dashed to help unasked. He almost smiled again when he remembered her offer to fetch the nurse rather than assist herself.

  ‘What is your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Antonietta.’

  And that was that.

  Well, almost.

  She wheeled the trolley back to the elevator and then went down to the kitchen and picked up the tablet to make a note of his requests. The internal computer system for the domestic staff was easy to navigate—she checked the box to say that he had declined having his suite serviced and added a note that he was not to be disturbed.

  Yet she lingered a second.

  His photo was up now, and she flushed as she looked at his elegant features. He wore black dress trousers and a white fitted shirt and there was a scowl on his lips and his eyes were narrowed, as if warning the photographer off.

  She accidentally clicked on his profile, but there was only his pseudonym there.

  Signor Louis Dupont.

  VVIP

  So, he was very, very important.

  And in the box where normally a guest’s requests were noted there was instead a direction.

  All queries and requests to be directed to Francesca.

  All hours.

  ‘Is everything okay, Antonietta?’

  She turned to the sound of Francesca’s voice and saw she was chatting with Tony.

  ‘Of course. I was just about to make a note regarding a guest but I’m not able to fill it in.’

  ‘Because all Signor Dupont’s requests are to be relayed first to me,’ said Francesca.

  ‘He didn’t even try one of my pastries?’ Tony was aghast when he saw that the trolley had been returned untouched.

  Francesca, of course, thought she should have done better. ‘You should have left a selection for him to nibble on.’

  ‘He made himself very clear,’ Antonietta said, blushing a bit as she did so, knowing that Rafe’s lack of compliments to the chef would not go down well. ‘I was just about to make a note—he has asked that the chef...’ she hesitated and slightly rephrased Rafe’s message ‘...should please not add anything to his order.’

  Even that did not go down well.

  Tony flounced off and she later found out from Vincenzo, the head of PR, that he had been discovered in tears.

  ‘You know how temperamental Tony is,’ he scolded her. ‘And he’s especially upset today because the Christmas rosters are out. Could you not at least have diluted such a prominent guest’s criticism?’

  ‘But I did dilute it,’ Antonietta said. ‘Anyway, I thought Tony was happy to be working on Christmas Day.’

  Vincenzo just huffed off, leaving Antonietta wondering what on earth she’d said wrong this time. Still, there wasn’t time to dwell, and for the rest of the day she worked with Chi-Chi. Or rather Antonietta worked while Chi-Chi did the slowly-slowly.

  The slowly-slowly was a way to look busy while getting precisely nothing done, and Chi-Chi had perfected it. She had even tried to share her method with Antonietta.

  ‘You can doze in the cleaning room, but keep some dusters on your lap, so that if Francesca pops her head in you can look as if you’re in the middle of folding them,’ Chi-Chi had explained when Antonietta had first started working there. ‘But never cross your legs while you sleep or it will leave a red mark on your calf, and Francesca will be able to tell you’ve been in there for ages.’

  ‘I don’t want a bar of it,’ Antonietta had told her.

  She had known Chi-Chi her whole life, but she wasn’t a friend, exactly, just someone she knew and, unfortunately, with whom she now worked. Chi-Chi’s aim in life was to find a husband and do as little as she could get away with in the meantime. Once, Antonietta had actually seen her dozing on her arm as she supposedly cleaned a mirror, only to suddenly spring into action when Antonietta made her presence known!

  ‘I saw your papà yesterday,’ Chi-Chi said as she ate one of the turn-down chocolates while Antonietta dusted. ‘He couldn’t stop and speak for long, though, but he said he was busy getting things ready for the Christmas Eve bonfire. Will you be going?’ she enquired, oh, so innocently.

  ‘Of course,’ Antonietta said. ‘The fire in the village square is a tradition. Why wouldn’t I go?’

  Chi-Chi shrugged and helped herself to another chocolate. ‘What is he like?’ she asked.

  ‘My papà?’ Antonietta said, pretending she had no idea to whom Chi-Chi was referring.

  ‘No, silly! The new man who is staying in the August Suite. I wonder what his real name is? He must be important. I have never seen so much security.’

  ‘All our guests are important,’ Antonietta said, refusing to
be drawn.

  Still, at the mention of the August Suite, and not for the first time, Antonietta glanced at her pager. But, no, Rafe had not paged her. Nor, when she checked, had he made any requests for in-suite dining. In fact later that afternoon she found out that his nurse had been given her marching orders for daring to make an unscheduled check on her patient.

  Rafe had clearly meant what he’d said about not wanting to be disturbed.

  At the end of her shift, as she walked back to her little cottage, Antonietta found she was glancing up in the direction of the August Suite. It was too far away for her to tell if he was on the balcony, but she wondered about him, wondered how he had spent his day and how he was.

  For the first time ever Antonietta truly wondered about a man...

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE CHRISTMAS ROSTER was definitely the main topic of conversation over the next couple of days.

  Antonietta was training in the Oratory, which was unusually quiet, but whenever she entered the staffroom it was all that was being discussed.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ Chi-Chi huffed. ‘Even Greta has got Christmas off and she only started three months ago.’

  ‘She has children, though,’ Antonietta pointed out.

  ‘How come you are off, Vincenzo?’

  ‘Because I live in Florence, and if I am to spend any time with my family then I need adequate time to get there.’

  ‘But it is the Old Monastery’s first Christmas,’ Chi-Chi said. ‘Surely the head of PR should be here and tweeting...or whatever it is you do.’

  ‘I do rather more than play on my phone,’ Vincenzo said, and then looked to Antonietta. ‘How are things in the Oratory?’

  ‘Quiet...’ Antonietta sighed as she peeled the lid off a yoghurt. ‘It’s fully booked for next week, but the place was dead yesterday and it’s almost empty today. I think people must be saving up their treatments for Christmas.’

  She looked up as Francesca came to the door.

  ‘Ah, there you are Antonietta. Could I ask you to service Signor Dupont’s suite? I know you are meant to be doing your training in the Oratory today—’

  ‘Of course,’ Antonietta said, and went to get up.

  ‘Finish your lunch first,’ Francesca said. ‘He has asked that it be serviced at one o’clock.’

  ‘I’m glad she asked you and not me,’ Chi-Chi said, the very second Francesca had gone. ‘I’ve been working there the past couple of days, and he might be important, but he’s also mean.’

  ‘Mean?’ Antonietta frowned.

  ‘He told me to refrain from speaking while I do my work.’

  ‘Well, I expect he has a headache,’ Antonietta said, without adding that she certainly did when Chi-Chi was around.

  Vincenzo looked at the time and then stood and brushed off his suit, smoothing his already immaculate red hair in the mirror before heading back.

  ‘For someone so vain, you’d think he would have noticed that he’s putting on weight,’ Chi-Chi said the moment he was gone. ‘His jacket doesn’t even do up any more.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Antonietta snapped.

  But Chi-Chi would not, and carried on with her grumbling. ‘He’s only got Christmas off because he’s a manager.’

  ‘No.’ Antonietta shook her head. ‘Francesca is working. I’d better go.’

  ‘But you’ve barely sat down.’

  She was happy to get up. Antonietta was more than a little bit fed up with Chi-Chi’s rather grating nature.

  ‘I need to get the linen ready to take up to the August Suite.’

  Fetching the linen was one of Antonietta’s favourite tasks. Here at the Old Monastery the linen was tailor-made for each bed and was washed and line dried without a hint of bleach.

  Antonietta breathed in the scent of fresh laundry as she walked in. Vera, who worked there, must be on her lunch, so Antonietta selected crisp linen and then walked across the stunning grounds.

  A guest who had just arrived that morning had told her that it had been raining and grey in Rome when they’d left. Here, though, the sky was blue, and it was a little brisk and chilly, with cold nights.

  The guard checked her ID and actually addressed her. ‘He will be back by two, so please make sure you are done and out by then.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Given that it took well over an hour to service the August Suite to standard, guests often went for a stroll, or down to the Oratory for a treatment, or to the restaurant while the maids worked. Usually she was relieved when the guests were out, but today she felt a stab of disappointment that she chose not to dwell on.

  Of course she knocked before entering anyway, and when there was no answer she let herself in and stood for a moment, looking around. The place was a little chaotic, and she was wondering where to start when someone came in from the balcony.

  Certainly she had not been expecting to see him.

  ‘Buongiorno,’ she said, and then immediately lost her tongue, for Rafe was dressed in black running shorts and nothing else.

  ‘Buongiorno.’ He returned the greeting, barely looking over. ‘I’ll be out of your way soon,’ he added.

  Indeed, Rafe had fully intended to go for a run—his first since the accident. But now he glanced over and recognised the maid from the fog of his first morning here. ‘You’ve had some days off?’

  ‘No,’ Antonietta said. ‘I haven’t had any days off.’

  ‘So why did they send me Chi-Chi?’ he drawled, and rolled his eyes.

  Antonietta almost smiled, but quickly recovered, because even if Chi-Chi drove her insane she would not discuss her colleague with a guest. Instead she answered as she headed into the bedroom. ‘I’ve been working in the Oratory.’

  She paused for a second to let him speak, as she should any guest, but truly she wanted to flee, for her cheeks were on fire and she hoped that he had not noticed. He did not reply.

  ‘I hope you have a pleasant day,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Antonietta put down the list that she always worked from and immediately started stripping the vast walnut bed. She worked quickly, but the exertion was less out of necessity and more to match her heartbeat, which had tripped into a rapid rhythm at the sight of him semi-naked. And when he came into the bedroom to collect his trainers she had to force herself not to look—or rather not to stand there and simply gape.

  ‘You work in the Oratory?’ he checked. ‘So you are a therapist?’

  His voice caught her unawares; for she had not expected the terse gentleman she had met a few days ago to initiate a conversation.

  ‘I’m training to be one,’ Antonietta said, and glanced up from the bed.

  And then it ceased being a glance, for she met his eyes and the world and its problems seemed for a moment to disappear.

  ‘You look better,’ she commented, when usually she would not, but the words had just tumbled out.

  ‘I’m feeling a lot better,’ he agreed. ‘Although I still look as if I’ve been paint-bombed.’

  She couldn’t help but smile, for indeed he did. Those bruises were a riot of colour now, from blue to brown right through to a vivid pink, and they were spread across the left side of his torso and down to his shoulder and arm, and there were savage lines across his shoulder. Rafe’s left eye looked as if he was wearing violet eyeshadow.

  Yet he wore it well.

  In fact, paint-bombed or not, Rafe looked stunning.

  And as her eyes briefly travelled over his body, to take in his comment, she found that they wanted to linger on the long, yet muscular arms, and on his broad chest with just a smattering of black hair. More, she found that they lingered on his flat stomach. It was not bruised, so there was no real reason to look there. But Antonietta just found that she did, and a glimpse of that line of black hair had her already hot
cheeks reddening as if scalded.

  She wanted to ask, What happened to you?

  Were those bruises from a fight? Or had he been in an accident? For once she wanted to know more, and yet it was not her place to ask.

  ‘I shan’t be long,’ Rafe said, though usually he did not explain himself to maids, or even particularly notice that they were near.

  Crossing the room, he took a seat by the bed she was making and bent over to lace his trainers.

  Antonietta did her best to ignore him and not to look at his powerful back and the stretch of his trapezius muscles as he leant forward. Never had her fingers ached to touch so. To reach out with her newly trained therapist’s fingers and relax the taut flesh beneath. Only she was self-aware enough to know that that kind of desire had precisely nothing to do with her line of work. He was so very male, and she was so very aware of that fact in a way she had never been until now.

  Confused by this new feeling he aroused, Antonietta hurriedly looked away and resumed making the bed. But as she was fitting a sheet he must have caught the scent, and he made a comment.

  ‘The sheets smell of summer.’

  Antonietta nodded as she tucked it in. ‘They smell of the Silibri sun. All the linen here is line-dried.’

  ‘What about when it rains?’

  ‘The stocks are plentiful—you have to make hay when the sun shines,’ Antonietta said. ‘Nico, the owner—’

  ‘I know Nico.’

  Rafe’s interruption said a lot. Nico was prominent, and Rafe had not said I know of Nico, or I have heard of him. And then he elaborated more. ‘It was he who suggested that I come to Silibri to recover.’

  That admission made her a little more open to revealing something of herself. ‘Aurora, his wife, is my best friend.’

  ‘You are chalk and cheese.’

  ‘Yes...’ Antonietta smiled. ‘I am drab in comparison.’

  ‘Drab?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, assuming he didn’t know that word. ‘I meant...’