He wore a dinner suit, and he wore it so very well.
The first time she had seen him he had been rumpled and his hair matted with blood. Now it was black and glossy and brushed back from his elegant face.
There was still a deep bruise on his eyelid, but the swelling had gone, and he was so elegant and commanding, so unexpected and exquisite, that he was simply too much.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Antonietta said immediately.
‘I didn’t see any signs warning me not to trespass.’
‘How did you know where I live?’
‘Thankfully there is only one cottage near the helipad.’ Rafe shrugged. ‘Or I might have ended up at Chi-Chi’s—I’d never have got out alive...’
Despite herself, Antonietta found that she was laughing at the vision his words created. The most stunning man stood at her door, and instead of being nervous she was laughing!
But she stopped herself. ‘I can’t invite you in.’
‘I’m not asking to be let in,’ Rafe responded smoothly. ‘I’m inviting you to come out.’
‘Out?’
‘After the day you’ve had, I thought you might like a night of being spoiled.’
‘I can’t be seen in the restaurant with a guest.’ Antonietta shook her head, but as one hand went to close the door her other hand resisted and held it part-way open—a kind of push-pull within her as she offered more reasons to say no. ‘And I don’t want to be seen in the village...’
‘So we go further afield,’ he said easily. ‘My driver is waiting, if a night out appeals...?’
If a night out appeals?
Her mouth gaped at his choice of words. It more than appealed; pure temptation had come knocking at her door in the delectable shape of Rafe. And yet, as irresistible as his offer was, here came the voice of reason.
He’s bored, the voice told her. You are a mere diversion.
And the voice became more insistent, rather unkindly pointing out that she was way too inexperienced to handle such prowess and likely it was not just her company he sought.
‘I’m not allowed to date guests.’
‘Who said anything about a date?’
Those eyes did, Antonietta wanted to respond. They made her feel warm, and important, and deliciously sought after.
He played it down. ‘It is dinner at a restaurant. I could use some company, that is all.’ He looked at her. ‘And so could you. It is my last night in Sicily. It seems a shame to leave without seeing some of it.’
Her heart sank at the news.
She had been told from the very start, even before they had met, when he had been simply Signor Dupont to her, that he undoubtedly would not last until Christmas Eve and would soon leave. Yet he was Rafe now, the man who brightened her day, and soon he would be gone.
Was that why she was considering his offer?
‘Where?’
‘I shall leave that to my driver. We have to try not to be seen, but it shouldn’t be a problem...’
Antonietta frowned. Why would he worry about being seen out? She could think of only one thing.
‘You don’t have a wife?’ she hurriedly checked. ‘I know it’s not a date, but...’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Antonietta, I don’t have a wife, or a girlfriend. It’s my parents who want me to lie low.’
His response gave her some relief, but also confused her. Rafe certainly didn’t look like a man who worried about what his parents thought.
‘Will you join me?’ he asked.
A night of reheated pizza, ruminating over her parents’ actions that morning and regretting her decision not to join this beautifully dizzying man for dinner? Such a night would be spent loathing her decision and her absolute inability to throw caution to the wind.
In fact, it might even become a lifetime of regret.
‘Yes,’ Antonietta said. ‘I would love to join you.’
* * *
What were you supposed to wear when the sexiest man alive had arrived on your doorstep with a driver, and was waiting to whisk you to dinner?
Antonietta had but one possibility.
And, just as she had reluctantly handed the fabric over to Aurora, she now almost reluctantly slid the dress on.
Because it changed her.
Aurora was a brilliant seamstress. The silk had been cut on the bias, so the dress was as fluid as water and skimmed her body, enhancing the subtle curves The only issue she had was that it was so strappy it showed her bra, and Antonietta did not possess a strapless one.
Thankfully she was small-breasted, and Aurora had lined the top of the dress, but it still felt a little sinful to head out without one.
There was no time to fuss with her hair, so she simply brushed it and settled for wearing it down.
The dress needed no heels, but it certainly required lipstick.
Antonietta had no make-up of her own, and so, promising herself she would replenish it, she opened Aurora’s Christmas present and painted her mouth crimson.
No, she would not save the dress for her coffin—and yet she felt like a liar as she stared in the mirror, for truly she was not the woman her reflection portrayed. She was not sexy, nor beautiful, Antonietta told herself, even if the dress said that she was.
Oh, but to Rafe she was.
Antonietta could not know the breath of fresh air that she was to him.
‘I lied to you,’ Rafe said as she approached.
‘You are married...’
She knew it! He was simply too good to be true.
‘No,’ Rafe said, ‘but this is a date, Antonietta.’
Her breath hitched and that flame spread warmth in her chest and down to her stomach.
‘This can go nowhere...’ he was very direct in telling her there could be no future for them ‘...but that doesn’t change the fact that tonight I would love to get to know you some more.’
Before she responded, Antonietta knew she had to make something very clear. She did not know his motives, and she would not spend the whole night worrying about them, and so she would be upfront.
‘I won’t sleep with you, Rafe.’
‘You would be a very boring dinner companion if you did.’
‘I meant—’
‘I know what you meant.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I wouldn’t sleep with me either—there’s far too much paperwork involved.’
‘Paperwork?’
‘Come on,’ he said, without clarifying what he meant, but she was glad she had told him the night would not end in bed, all the same.
He took her hand and led her to the waiting car, and it made her just a little dizzy that part of her didn’t want to know that tomorrow she might wake up and think this had all been just a dream. Perhaps it was.
His driver took them through the village, and Antonietta was grateful for the blacked-out windows because of the number of people who turned and looked at the luxurious vehicle. But as they passed the tiny church—the one she failed to turn up to on her wedding day—Rafe must have felt her ripple of tension.
He turned and looked at her. ‘Are you okay?’ he checked.
‘Of course.’
Except she wasn’t. Because a short while later they passed her parents’ property and she wondered what they would make of her going out on a date with a guest.
‘Don’t worry about your parents now.’
‘How did you know I was thinking of them?’
‘You pointed out where they live,’ he reminded her. ‘Forget about everything,’ he told her. ‘Tonight we escape.’
Only not quite.
They drove up the winding hillside and then down into the valley, and there was a certain exhilaration that swept through her at leaving the village she knew so well. But when she glanced behind them, the same car that had followe
d them out of the Old Monastery was still there.
‘Are they following us?’ Antonietta asked.
‘It’s just my security.’ Rafe shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about them.’
But she did.
Not just because Rafe came with a full security detail, but because there was clearly more power to him than she could properly define. She felt as if she had run into the night with a giant—and not just in stature. There was an authoritative air to him that she had never encountered before, even in the most esteemed guests, a commanding edge that both enthralled and unnerved her.
Who was he?
Less than an hour ago she had been desperate to find out, but now she was scared to know.
‘Do you like to dance?’ Rafe asked.
‘I don’t dance,’ Antonietta said. ‘Well, I can’t dance,’ she admitted, and then frowned as he pressed the intercom and spoke with his driver.
‘The lady likes to dance.’
The restaurant he took her to was stunning. His security team went into the trattoria before them, and she felt a little awkward when they were seated and she saw that the guards had stayed close.
‘Do they have to be here?’ Antonietta checked.
Rafe was so used to them that for a second he was about to ask to whom she referred, but then Antonietta spoke on.
‘We’re in the middle of nowhere.’
Only it wasn’t just for his protection that they were close. It was to stop diners taking photos if he was recognised and also, Rafe knew bitterly, to report back to the King.
Rafe lived his life in the presence of staff—maids and aides, advisors and security—and barely noticed them. Yet he could see her discomfort.
‘I’ll have a word,’ Rafe said.
He had several words, and none of them went down very well, for the Crown Prince’s behaviour tonight was most irregular.
Still, soon enough they were dining alone.
Wine was poured and Antonietta realised just how hard it was to be in the village day after day after day. Being away from it, she could actually feel the tension leaving, and she let out a sigh as she put down her wine.
‘That’s better,’ Rafe said. ‘It’s nice to see you looking...’
He didn’t really know how to say it—it seemed there was a lightness to her that hadn’t been there before. And he felt better being away from the hotel too. It was a relief from the constant weight of planning his next move forward.
‘I don’t know what to have,’ Antonietta admitted, but then her eyes fell on the words ‘pistachio pesto’ and her mind was made up.
‘I’ve never tried it,’ Rafe said.
‘Then you don’t know what you’re missing.’ Antonietta smiled.
They ordered their main courses and then, finally alone, they clinked glasses.
‘Saluti,’ the French-speaking Rafe said.
‘Santé!’ Antonietta said, and looked him in the eye as they clinked glasses.
He was still looking at her as she took a sip of her drink and then rested back into her seat.
‘It is good to be away,’ Antonietta admitted. ‘It’s nice not to be stared at.’
‘People were staring when we walked in,’ Rafe said. ‘Because you look beautiful.’
‘Thank you,’ Antonietta said. ‘It’s the dress.’
‘Believe me, it’s not just the dress,’ Rafe said, and he realised he was more relaxed than he had been in a very long while.
It was a gorgeous restaurant, but the atmosphere was peaceful. And Antonietta was right: it was nice not to have his minders so close. Nice to tear bread and dip it in oil and to just...be.
Here, she was no longer his chambermaid. Which meant he could ask, ‘What happened with your parents?’ And she could choose whether or not she answered.
Antonietta looked at this delectable man and, though she would love his take on things, she did not want to bring the mood down. ‘I don’t want to bore you with it, Rafe.’
‘So, give me the short version, then.’
He made her laugh. Oh, there was no ha-ha-ha, but his brusque humour teased a single note from her closed throat and stretched her lips to a smile.
He relaxed her. Even while she was nervous and out of her depth, still Rafe’s presence somehow eased her soul.
‘I was to be married,’ Antonietta said. ‘I have a very big family, across all the villages, and my father is very well connected...’ She stopped herself. ‘Sorry, you want the short version.’
‘Take as long as you like.’
Her eyes widened, for he sounded as if he meant it. ‘I’ve never really told anyone the whole thing. Then again, I’ve never had to—everyone already knows...’
‘Ah, but do they know your version of events?’
‘No.’ She shook her head and thought for a moment. ‘No,’ she said again, for even Aurora had not heard the news from her first-hand.
‘It will go no further,’ he assured her, ‘and I would love to hear it.’
‘The day I turned twenty-one I was told that I was to marry my second cousin, Sylvester.’
Antonietta had found that there were generally two reactions to this revelation—a slight grimace of discomfort or a nod of acceptance that said of course she should marry into the family, because that was where the money had to stay.
She looked at Rafe to gauge his reaction. There was no grimace and there was no nod. There was just patience.
She looked down. ‘At the last minute I decided I couldn’t go through with it. I jilted him.’
She dared not look up, but then his hand came across the table and closed around hers.
‘Antonietta, can I have the slightly longer version, please?’
She gave a soft laugh, but it was laced with unshed tears—not just because of the subject matter, it was more the bliss of contact, the touch of his skin on hers that somehow cooled her endless scalding shame.
‘I should have told him. I know that. Instead I left him standing at the altar. I ran away.’
‘In your wedding dress?’
Still he held her hand.
‘No. I pulled on some jeans and climbed out of the bedroom window. My father was waiting to take me to the church. By the time he worked out what I had done I was already on the train.’
To Rafe, the waiter coming over with their meals felt like an intrusion, and he wanted to wave him away.
For Antonietta, though, it felt like a reprieve, and her only reluctance at this break in conversation was that their hands had to part.
Then there were flurries of pepper and cheese, and their glasses were topped up, and Rafe could sense her relief not to be talking about herself any more.
He was not used to reticence.
The women he dated—for want of a better word—were only too happy to spend hours talking about themselves. Their upcoming photoshoot, their latest role, their clean and green diet, their blah-blah-blah.
And then they would casually ask if he knew so-and-so, which meant could he possibly have a word with them? Not that they wanted favours or anything, they would hastily add.
And then they would sip their thimble of champagne and pretend it had gone to their head, even as they kept all their wits about them, for this was their chance to get ahead, get seen, get a step up on the A-list ladder.
Oh, yes, Rafe knew their game well, because over and over he had allowed them to play it. And even as he told them that this could go nowhere, they countered with how much they liked him. No, no, they insisted, they really liked him. For himself. It had nothing to do with him being royal—they just liked him incredibly much...
He was bored with their fawning, and he knew that he was arrogant and not that nice—he knew there was nothing in him to like aside from his title.
He looked over to Antonietta, who ga
ve an appreciative eye-roll that said her pasta was truly divine.
It was refreshing to sit in silence. To want to know more about someone else. And so it was Rafe who spoke. ‘What made you change your mind?’
‘I never got to make up my mind,’ Antonietta said. ‘He was the golden boy of the village.’
‘Was?’
‘He has married and moved away now, but at the time he was the star of Silibri—funny, charming, a hard worker. Everybody loves Sylvester. My father thought he was choosing well...’
‘But?’
Antonietta did not know how to answer that. She did not know how to tell Rafe that Sylvester’s kisses had left her cold, and that his hands had felt too rough. And that she’d had a sense of fear that had pitched in her stomach whenever she was alone with the man who had been chosen for her.
It wasn’t loyalty to Sylvester that halted her, and nor was it Antonietta’s propensity never to gossip. Instead it was a new layer of confusion that Rafe had inadvertently added to the mix—for she wanted his hand to close again around hers.
They were mid-meal, of course, but his earlier touch had bemused Antonietta, for not only had she liked it, it had felt like the most natural thing in the world. And touch had never come naturally to her.
‘Have you seen him since?’ Rafe asked when she refused to elaborate on what it was about Sylvester that had caused her to change her mind.
‘No. When I got to Paris I wrote and apologised. He never responded and I don’t blame him for that.’
‘What about your parents?’
‘They have had nothing to do with me since. I understand, though. I didn’t just shame them. I embarrassed the whole family on both sides...’
‘That’s surely to be expected when the bride and groom are related?’
‘Don’t!’ She gave a shocked laugh, but then it faded. ‘I’m coming to realise that they’re never going to forgive me.’
‘The question is, can you forgive them?’
‘Forgive them?’
‘Antonietta, I’m sure you had your reasons for running away.’
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