Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
Rosy walked out onto the portrait gallery to double-check the state of the wall to which the now restored portrait of the Prince’s great-grandfather would be returned when Lucy returned to work the next day.
Lucy Ragusa, her immediate boss, was a world-renowned art expert and restorer and, six months earlier, Rosy had been hired as her full-time assistant because the older woman had been unwell. Her failing eyesight was a not-so-secret secret within the small conservation department of the royal household. The job had been a golden opportunity for Rosy with the added benefit of receiving skilled training in her chosen field. She had learned so much in the past six months of working at the palace.
As she moved back towards the office she heard Prince Alessio’s distinctive dark, deep drawl carrying up from the museum on the floor below and she came to a sudden halt. Without hesitation, she leant over the gallery balustrade and stole a look. She needed to thank him for having her bike repaired and returned to her, but she didn’t want an audience. In truth her bike had had so much replaced and so much added it was like an entirely new bike.
Alessio stood below, black hair tousled, big wide shoulders encased in a khaki tee, faded fitted jeans sheathing his long strong legs. As he lounged back against a display table, soft fabric stretched across his taut abdominal muscles, her mouth ran suddenly dry. He shifted position, his powerful thighs flexing as someone unseen offered to fetch coffee and Rosy discovered that her eyes were locked to the Prince like superglue. With difficulty she shook her head and frowned at her distraction and headed straight for the stairs. He was within reach and alone and, according to his casual clothing, off duty. She would never get a better chance to thank him.
As she reached the museum doorway, she heard a raised voice and stepped back, staying out of sight.
‘But this can’t happen!’ Alessio was ranting. ‘It’s not possible. The wedding has to go ahead. It can’t be postponed or cancelled. Get her back, she’s your daughter—
‘What do you mean she’s already married?’ Alessio growled in audible disbelief.
Eyes wide with astonishment, Rosy grimaced on his behalf.
‘No, there’s nothing more you can do. But she could have told me herself. I apologise for raising my voice.’ Moments afterwards, he tossed something down on the display case surface, probably, she surmised, his phone, the call clearly finished.
Silence fell and Rosy appeared in the doorway. In the act of raking long brown fingers through his black luxuriant hair, Alessio stilled to stare at her.
‘How long have you been standing there?’ he demanded curtly.
‘I heard you on the phone and stepped back out of view,’ Rosy admitted honestly. ‘It didn’t seem like the right moment to interrupt.’
‘Then I must ask you not to repeat a word of what you may have overheard. In case you haven’t guessed, the wedding of the century has tanked,’ he murmured with sardonic bite.
‘I couldn’t repeat anything even if I wanted to. I had to sign an NDA my first day here,’ Rosy pointed out. ‘And I’m only here now because I wanted to thank you for having my bike picked up and repaired.’
‘Your…bike?’ Alessio repeated blankly.
‘Yes, you had it repaired for me and I am grateful. You were kind to me that day.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m not quite with you,’ Alessio breathed in a raw undertone. ‘I’m in shock.’
‘Understandably, if the wedding’s not going ahead.’
‘It can’t. My bride married her bodyguard last night and took off to New York with him,’ Alessio spelt out flatly, studying her in the workmanlike overalls that only enhanced her tiny, slender frame, her bubbling vibrant curls restrained in a topknot arrangement. Not a scrap of make-up and still exquisite. Rosy, that was her name and it suited her. He still hadn’t checked through that file on her background, had deliberately ignored it after his PA had asked him why he had asked for it in the first place. In fact, he had felt rather guilty and a little embarrassed for requesting that unnecessarily intrusive check.
‘It sounds like you dodged a bullet,’ Rosy whispered awkwardly.
‘No, it’s more like Graziana has exploded a bomb in my life…in this country… and in her own.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Rosy began to back away as she heard the sound of steps approaching and reckoned his coffee was about to arrive.
Trying not to think about the shock news she had overheard, Rosy went back to work. Lucy was a perfectionist and had left a list of tasks to be accomplished during her absence, more than could be easily accomplished in the hours available. Of course, Rosy had had a week at home while her ankle recovered and undoubtedly her boss felt that she had to compensate for that time off. After all, everything and everybody within the Sedovian palace was gearing up towards the royal wedding. The wedding that wasn’t going to happen now, she reflected, and then quickly suppressed the thought. Would the special tours of the palace, the museum and the art gallery even still go ahead? Right now, it felt as though the whole of Sedovia was preparing for the wedding. And now it wasn’t going to happen…
Before she suppressed the feeling, a current of sympathy for the Prince filtered through her. He was being jilted and with minimal warning. He had been very much in shock. Rosy reckoned that the whole populace would go into shock when the news broke, as break it must very soon. Princess Graziana had seemed demure and dignified, not the type to throw her cap over a rainbow and run off with an employee, although Rosy had heard other rumours about Alessio’s bride-to-be following her brief stays in the household. That she was very demanding and spoilt, prone to angry outbursts and definitely not a fan of Alessio’s more casual approach to formality.
By the time Rosy was riding home on her bike, her mood was sombre. She was thinking of how a wedding cancellation would impact the family hotel and her heart sank. A lot of people had booked on a special royal wedding package that had chosen the Cathedral View Hotel as one of a small, exclusive selection for discerning guests. All those guests might well cancel now and Vittoria and Patrick’s finances would sink without trace. There was nothing left in the kitty for rainy days. The rainy days fund had been used up last winter when guests had been few and the final renovation bills had come in even higher than expected. Rosy broke out in perspiration. The truth was that if the wedding failed to happen, her family’s business would probably go bankrupt sooner rather than later.
* * *
Alessio didn’t pause to speak to anyone on his impatient walk back to his private apartments. As he poured himself a whiskey, he told himself that nobody had foreseen the likelihood of Graziana’s defection, he least of all. Graziana had never struck him as the impulsive, passionate type. Indeed, Alessio had found her quite averse to any sort of physical intimacy, which he could now better understand if she had been involved in a secret affair all along. Even so, the wedding arrangements had begun only six months earlier and she had insisted then that a marriage of convenience would be a perfect fit for her. In fact, she had been the one to float the idea of their marrying first.
‘I’m not getting any younger,’ she had said briskly. ‘You need a wife and a child and you’re only a couple of years younger than I am. It could work.’
And at the time, if Alessio was honest with himself, it had felt like the end of the world on his terms, because he hadn’t felt ready for marriage, but he had also known that Graziana would probably be a very popular candidate. Everyone had been ecstatic when they’d announced their engagement. Graziana had also appeared fully involved in every tiny wedding detail. There had been no hint that there was anything amiss, except perhaps when she’d stepped back from him when he’d attempted once to close his arms round her and said, ‘I’d prefer to wait for all that until we’re married.’ Not a problem, he had decided at the time, concluding that his future bride was just not a very physical person, refusing to allow his reflections to linger on what that disappointing discovery meant for him.
With the few facts he knew chasing revolving circles inside his brain, Alessio groaned out loud. Well, if Graziana had found true love, he wished her well. He felt a little foolish now for having practised celibacy on her behalf for so many months. But had she the smallest idea of what a nightmare she had unleashed on her widowed father and the economy? So very many business ventures were invested in the wedding occurring. But what could he do about any of it without a bride? Find another one? Pull some magical woman out of a hat like a white rabbit? Impossible! Stop dwelling on it, he urged himself.
In an effort to distract himself, he lifted Rosy Castelli’s file off his desk. She had impressed him even before she had overheard that ghastly exchange with Graziana’s unfortunate father. She had not made a fuss over her accident either, had been stoic, practical and controlled. And then, after hearing that bombshell phone call, she had not lied and faked ignorance, she had been honest about having overheard and had apologised, even offered a little sympathy. And now that he was single again, he didn’t have to feel guilty for thinking that Rosy looked exquisite even clad in paint-stained workmen’s overalls. But she was still a member of staff, he reminded himself circumspectly before he travelled further down that dangerous road.
He glanced at the file he had opened, and it was the figures that grabbed his attention first because he had worked as an investment banker for several years. Rosy’s family were trying to run a business on a shoestring and sailing very close to the wind in their indebtedness. They would likely be ruined by the collapse of the wedding-based celebrations.
And there his mind was, right back where he didn’t want it to be, hammering away at Graziana’s betrayal and what a disappointment his supposedly perfect bride had turned out to be.
* * *
When Rosy got back to the hotel she had to seek out Vittoria and she found her sister in their spacious rear apartment off the courtyard, sitting at the kitchen table with tears streaming down her quivering face.
‘What on earth?’ She gasped, for her sister had never been a crier.
Vittoria nudged a creased letter across the table to her sister. ‘The roofer, Mr Calabrese, who sorted us out after that flood in the winter. He said he was willing to wait for payment but he can’t wait any more…and why should he?’ she cried, stricken. ‘But now he’s taking legal action to get what he’s owed!’
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Rosy framed in dismay as she studied the letter. ‘You didn’t tell me about this bill. It’s not on the books.’
‘No. I didn’t want to worry you and it was an emergency…you know it was.’
‘Yes, but Mr Calabrese needed it paid and there are other things that could have taken a back seat while we worked to meet his bill,’ Rosy reasoned unhappily, thinking of things like the purchase of truffles and the very best linen available.
‘He did a great job. He deserves his money,’ Vittoria agreed. ‘But this is the worst possible time for this to happen with the wedding coming up…and me.’ Her sister grimaced and looked guilty. ‘I’m pregnant again.’
‘I beg your pardon…’ Rosy was shattered by that announcement when the last she had heard, after Vittoria had spent years trying without success to have a third child, was that her sibling was going through an early menopause.
‘Even the doctor thought it was the menopause.’ Vittoria sighed. ‘But he did a test and then an ultrasound. I’m three months along already…and could you think of a worse time for such a development?’
‘It’s wonderful news, news you and Patrick have wanted for a long time,’ Rosy responded tautly. ‘OK, so the timing is not what you would have chosen but you’re better concentrating on the positive right now.’
‘This giant bill we can’t pay,’ Vittoria exclaimed tearfully. ‘And the twins are going to be so embarrassed that I’m pregnant!’
It took time for Rosy to bolster up her sibling’s flagging spirits, sticking to the few positives she could grasp after that conversation. There was no way on earth that they could cover that bill and it looked as if bankruptcy was on the horizon because, without the wedding, there was no promise of future prosperity to take to the bank and persuade them to extend the bank loan.
Her tummy churned sickly at what now lay ahead of her family. They would lose the hotel and she would have to give up her job as presumably they would have to return to the UK. Or would they? That would be such a shame when her nephews had already settled so well into their schools and made friends. Patrick could get work as a chef somewhere else. That would be two wages coming in, hers and Patrick’s, she reasoned in desperation, knowing she was being foolish in trying to second-guess an unknown future. Would the bank repossess and sell the hotel immediately, throwing them out on the street? How long would that procedure take? Months? Weeks?
It was hardly surprising that Rosy got very little sleep that night. The prospect of losing everything, even the roof over their heads, was terrifying, particularly with Vittoria going through what might yet prove to be a difficult pregnancy. Certainly, her sister looked pretty sickly right now. The situation was horrific and she felt guilty that she hadn’t broken that non-disclosure agreement and warned her sister that the royal wedding had fallen through. In reality, she decided, she hadn’t been able to face telling Vittoria what she had accidentally discovered. Presumably, however, that news would soon be on TV and in every newspaper because the Prince could hardly keep that announcement to himself.
* * *
Alessio didn’t sleep that night either. He tossed and turned. He hated disappointing people and that, first and foremost, all practicalities aside, was what he was about to do when he announced that the big wedding was off. He hated failure and Graziana was a failure of elephantine proportions. Whose fault was that but his ? He should’ve questioned her more about her values and then possibly he might have suspected that she was utterly ruthless, if not cruel, when it came to putting her wishes above everyone else’s. Her country, her father, her own people, not to mention Sedovia and its unlucky prince.
Now if there were a practical solution to his lack of a bride, he could have handled it. It crossed his mind that he handled most problems with the liberal application of business opportunities or cash. And if he took that road with this crisis? Would he choose one of the calculating socialites he had met over the years who would do virtually anything for money or enhanced status? Or a young Sedovian woman who worked for a living and who might just want to save her flesh and blood from the consequences of their financial mistakes? A beauty with sterling qualities he had already noticed. There was nothing spoilt, selfish or snobbish about Rosy and she was a beauty. Not a classic tall, blonde beauty like Graziana. No, much more of a slender, delicately curved and exquisite package of the more unusual and colourful variety. She attracted him.
Madonna mia , he hadn’t thought of hugging a woman since his mother’s rejection!
* * *
‘I thought I was to help you with the rehanging of the portrait this morning,’ Rosy murmured in surprise when Lucy Ragusa showed her into one of the attic workrooms and indicated a small broken ornament that required fixing.
‘The workmen will do the hanging with my supervision,’ her boss announced. ‘I mustn’t get into the habit of expecting you to always work by my side.’
But that was what I was hired to do! Rosy almost countered because the older woman was looking her over in the strangest way, as if she had never quite seen her before, and then nodding thoughtfully as she departed again. With a suppressed sigh of confusion, Rosy gathered the tools to make the repair, deciding that she didn’t have to don her overalls for such a task. It would be painstaking, fiddly work, rather than messy, although she might well have to touch up the paint after she had it put back together. Carefully gathering the pieces, she studied them one by one below a magnifying device.
A knock sounded on the door and she flinched in surprise just as it opened and the very last person she had expected to see appeared in the doorway for a split second and then strode in, carefully shutting the door behind him.
Rosy stepped back from her worktable, her cheeks warming. ‘Your Highness,’ she said in a slightly strangled undertone, wondering what on earth could bring him to a workroom.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you while you’re working but I needed a discreet place in which to meet with you, and Lucy was kind enough to help me,’ he proffered, bewildering her even more with that mystifying speech.
Frozen to the spot, Rosy simply stared back at him, one hand braced against the table as though to keep her upright. Holy moly, he was so hot he sizzled in her mind’s eye, effortlessly elegant and gorgeous in a designer navy pinstripe suit. He was so tall, so sophisticated, so everything, from his thick blue-black hair that she wanted to plunge her hands into to his probably handmade shoes and everything that lay in between. Brilliant green eyes held hers and she paled as though she had been cornered by a lion and was too afraid to make a run for it.
‘You needed a discreet place in which to meet me ?’ she queried unevenly, gazing back at those extraordinarily intense green eyes of his with difficulty. So intense, so powerful; she felt frozen to the spot.
Prince Alessio swung out a chair by one of the tables and set it beside her. ‘Please sit down and please try to relax because I have an offer…a proposal to make and you must feel able to speak freely to me without fear of causing offence.’
Rosy blinked rapidly, her agile brain skipping over that phrase as she tried to imagine in what possible reality he might have an offer of any kind to make to her. She snatched in a jerky breath to keep her lungs working and dropped down into the chair. Not surely an indecent proposition of any kind? He emanated no sleazy vibes and yet why would he wish to see her alone where they would remain unseen?
‘I have to announce Graziana’s marriage to another man today. I cannot keep such news from all those who need to know, but I have an idea and I urge you not to become angry with me until you have heard me out. I have no wish to insult or offend you.’
‘Right…’ Rosy nodded very slowly, none the wiser as to what was coming her way.
‘Your family are deep in debt.’
Rosy gritted her teeth on the wish to ask him how he knew that and then she wondered if the court action the roofer was taking against her sister and brother-in-law was already common knowledge within the higher palace echelons. With care, she compressed her lips and slowly nodded again.
‘So deep in debt that the cancellation of the wedding will likely put them out of business,’ Alessio continued as the cheeks that had flushed paled at that forecast.
‘That is true,’ Rosy conceded heavily.
‘What I need at this moment is another bride, a replacement for Graziana so that the wedding can go ahead. That would, at least, alleviate the serious damage that will be done to the Sedovian economy if the wedding were to be cancelled altogether at short notice. Thousands of business people have made expensive plans and hired employees, pledging their fortunes to invest in the boost to the tourist season that the wedding will deliver.’
‘But where the heck are you to find another bride with only nine days to go?’ Rosy asked helplessly.
‘I’m looking at her and hoping she will give me a shot,’ Prince Alessio murmured with the most extravagant smile. ‘I’m willing to settle your family’s debts and ensure that their hotel is a success in any way that I can if you will marry me and try to pretend that we’re in love…that this is not some last-minute face-saving move to shield me from the fallout of Graziana’s insane flight.’
That smile unleashed butterflies in her tummy. She blinked again.
I’m looking at her and hoping she will give me a shot.
The future King of Sedovia was asking her to become his bride in Graziana’s stead.
‘This is crazy,’ she whispered shakily, plunged deeper still into shock by his words.
‘No, it’s not. The PR team could spin it. We have photographic evidence of our first meeting on the bridge or we pretend I’d already met you here where you work. You’re a Sedovian citizen. There is nothing shady about your past. If I pose as a man in love with another woman rather than a jilted bridegroom it will make the sting of Graziana’s betrayal annoy people less. I’m angry with Graziana but I have no desire to punish her and she’s in my past now. If she has chosen love over a royal marriage of convenience, who am I to criticise when I would have done the same thing?’ he declared, lean brown hands moving in a series of eloquent gestures to express his emotions.
And the fluid hand movements were very expressive of a lot of emotions, many more emotions than she would have believed he possessed. ‘Only I was not fortunate enough to meet a woman I could love,’ he completed grimly.
‘But you can’t want to marry me…a complete stranger.’
‘I believed that I knew Graziana well enough and where did that get me?’ Alessio enquired. ‘I would never have dreamt that she would do what she has just done. I thought she was conventional, loyal and dutiful, as we were both raised to be. I assumed I was the more volatile of the two of us and I was wrong because I would never have done this to her on the brink of our wedding.’
For a dangerous moment, Rosy let herself picture how much happier her family would be if she agreed and how well the hotel would thrive without the burden of that bank loan and without the constant striving to make ends meet and settle bills. Without a doubt it would transform her family’s lives in very positive ways, particularly now that Vittoria was pregnant with a much-desired child and needed to be protected from stress. It was a wonderful idea, but she just could not imagine herself marrying Prince Alessio Marchetti… That was where her imagination went flat and utterly refused to co-operate.
‘I can’t believe you’re serious with this…er…suggestion.’
‘I never expected to marry for love. No doubt, you do. We have different goals and have probably always had different expectations of life. I don’t have the space to give you a decent amount of time in which to consider my proposal either. I need to know right now if you could consider marrying me in nine days’ time.’
Rosy sat there in a daze. She was thinking of all the sacrifices her sister had made on her behalf from when she was a baby, Patrick’s acceptance of a pseudo-daughter into their newly married world when they had both been only in their twenties. She owed them everything she was and had become and it was a debt she could never repay. If she could finally bring them some good fortune in return for their sacrifices, if she could save them from bankruptcy, homelessness and all the attendant horrors that would assail them, they deserved that she put their needs first just once , rather than her own.
‘I can’t imagine marrying you… It’s not like we’re equals,’ she said awkwardly. ‘You inhabit a world very far removed from mine.’
‘It will become your world too,’ Alessio asserted. ‘I will do everything within my power to help you to adapt and be happy. I do not want you to feel as though I’m trying to buy you.’
‘But whichever way you look at it, you are .’
A wheezy little giggle was wrenched from Rosy and he looked at her with a frown of incomprehension. She crammed her hand guiltily to her mouth.
‘I laugh when I’m nervous. Me…a princess? It would be unreal and impossible.’
‘It will be possible, Rosy, should you agree.’
Rosy breathed in slow and deep to evade that questioning tone. ‘Do you know how much in debt my family is?’
‘I do, but I inherited enormous wealth when my parents died and have since made a great deal more on my own behalf. Your family’s debts are a drop in the ocean to me. I know you’re not a mercenary woman but your life will become much more comfortable if you marry me,’ he pointed out.
A tremulous smile formed on Rosy’s tense lips. ‘I can’t picture that either but you’re incredibly persuasive.’
To her shock, Alessio dropped down lithely on one knee in front of her and he was so tall they were almost level. ‘Will you marry me, piccola volpe ?’
Her throat closed over so tightly she couldn’t breathe. She wanted to tell him that he couldn’t railroad her into marrying a stranger and becoming a princess. She wanted to tell him that he was a shockingly beautiful guy and too much altogether for her to withstand when she had never before been exposed to a man of his calibre. And then he called her little fox and even though she had a million questions, she couldn’t concentrate enough to ask them because he was actually taking her hand in his. She swore an electric charge raced right up her arm when skin-to-skin contact was finally made by his light, warm hold.
‘Yes, but it’s for my family and a little…because I have sympathy for your predicament right now,’ she admitted in a rush, determined not to show an ounce of her susceptibility because he was too smooth by half.
‘This was my grandmother’s ring.’ Rosy watched wide-eyed as a glittering oval pink diamond ring was eased onto her ring finger. ‘She had tiny hands like you and here…it fits,’ he pronounced with satisfaction. ‘Do you think that’s a good sign?’
‘I’m not thinking anything right now,’ she lied as she noticed that unexpectedly happy sparkle in his green eyes that suggested that she had just made his day. And she supposed she had because he had found his replacement bride at very short notice and she was conveniently right on his doorstep in the palace. An ordinary young woman, so shocked and impressed by who and what he was that she wasn’t demanding answers to any of the questions she still had teeming on her tongue. But, of course, he couldn’t mean a real marriage with sex and all that and he couldn’t be talking for ever either. Right now Prince Alessio was choosing a temporary bride to take him and Sedovia through the crisis that Graziana had left in her wake. In a year’s time or so, or possibly even sooner, he would be urgently requesting a divorce.
He vaulted upright again. ‘I’ll make my announcement. I will always be grateful for your trust and generosity and you won’t have to worry about anything ever again,’ he intoned fervently. ‘My staff will sweep every obstacle from our path to enable us to marry. You need to give me your phone number. A rather prosaic request, which underlines how little we know each other.’
‘Yes.’ Rosy dug out her phone and they exchanged numbers. It brought her down to earth but she was still in shock. She had agreed to marry a ruling prince. But it still didn’t feel real.