His Royal Bride Replacement

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

The ghastliest silence fell Into it, Jorge surged to pour Alessio an aperitif and offer her a second, which Rosy refused.

Stiff as a concrete post, Rosy tilted her chin. She hadn’t seen Alessio angry before, so it was a new experience, and he was angry with her, angry, tense and uncomfortable and that bothered her and, she discovered, wounded her. All of a sudden, she felt like the replacement bride again, guilty of crossing boundaries that she had had no right to cross. Jorge, evidently a good reader of the room, was already striving to usher them across the hall into the dining room and their first formal meal in the rambling house.

Rosy almost winced when she saw the polished table scattered with rose petals and crystals. It was the ultimate honeymoon dining experience with tiny heart-shaped savoury tarts on the plates awaiting them and she was quick to compliment Jorge on the beautiful and elegant setting.

Listening to her gracious comments, Alessio breathed in deep and slow to calm his volatile temper. He was annoyed with himself and with Lucia, not with Rosy.

‘It’s not a matter of petty jealousy,’ Rosy murmured with quiet pride as soon as they were alone. ‘It’s a question of what’s appropriate and Lucia was touching you.’

‘No, she was not,’ Alessio contradicted curtly.

‘She was fiddling with your cufflink, her hands on your arms and your shoulders, her hair tossing round you,’ Rosy specified with pink cheeks. ‘Put yourself in my place. If a man was touching me in the same familiar way, would you ignore it? Would you be quite content to watch that happening in front of you?’

Alessio gritted his even white teeth hard enough to chip them because he knew that he would not be accepting in any way of such a display. He would not stand still for a second to watch another man touching his wife. His possessive streak ran deep and strong and her logical reaction infuriated him. ‘I’m not accustomed to discussing my private life with anyone,’ he admitted in a driven undertone. ‘I have been an independent operator for too long. But now, I have to appreciate that I can no longer have that autonomy when I have a wife.’

‘I understand that,’ Rosy murmured, the tension in her shoulders easing as she recognised that he had mastered his anger. ‘Your past, however—misspent or otherwise—is none of my business.’

‘Up to a point that is true, but not when it intrudes so blatantly into our marriage,’ Alessio retorted without hesitation. ‘I was embarrassed by Lucia’s visit and that made me angry. I had to tell her that what we had would not be continuing.’

‘She knew you were now married and I gather it was a longstanding relationship,’ Rosy guessed.

‘She was trying to save face when she pretended that she was unaware of your existence. I’ve not visited Spain since my engagement to Graziana. I didn’t have a relationship with Lucia, merely a casual friends-with-benefits arrangement when I was here. She didn’t want any publicity either because her family would have disapproved. In recent years I have been much more discreet about such matters than I once was,’ Alessio explained tautly. ‘Lucia suited me because she had no ambition to be splashed over the tabloids with me beside her.’

Embarrassed? She respected him for admitting that to her but could not help wishing that she had not seen the lovely Spaniard at all. It had only created dissension and left her feeling insecure because Lucia had proved to be one of those supermodel perfect beauties like all the predecessors Rosy had viewed in Alessio’s company online. And those comparisons simply made Rosy feel so very ordinary with her red curls and diminutive height.

‘So, if she knew you were now married, she was—’

‘Fishing? Testing the water to see if I wished to continue…and naturally, I don’t,’ Alessio asserted. ‘There will be no other women in my life while you are with me.’ His brilliant crystalline green eyes assailed hers with a ruthless gleam and he toasted her with his wine glass. ‘Where do you think I would get the energy from?’

And Rosy almost choked on her wine as she thought of the number of times they had had sex over the past thirty-six hours. ‘I suppose we’ve been busy,’ she framed. ‘Like rabbits or whatever.’

Alessio flung back his head and laughed with rich amusement. ‘I think they are more famous for producing little rabbits and we’re trying not to do that!’ he contradicted. ‘I can talk to you about anything, and I’ve never had that before with a woman. It’s a valuable advantage for both of us.’

And just like that, Rosy reflected in silent wonder, all the tension and the messy emotions drained away and she found herself smiling back at him, entranced by his breathtakingly handsome lean, dark face. Her heartbeat had kicked up pace, her tummy awash with butterflies, and she knew right then in that moment that it was too late to worry about falling in love with a husband who could still decide to eventually dispense with her as a wife. After all, her surge of pleasure and excitement was warning her that she had already fallen victim to his appeal.

* * *

‘I’m hardly going to see you after tomorrow.’ Rosy sighed, her expression wry because there was no point regretting the reality of Alessio’s busy life.

It was the last night of their honeymoon and in the morning, they would be returning to the palace in Severino, the capital of Sedovia. Their little idyll in Spain of total privacy and togetherness would be at an end. They would be plunged straight into the fuss and complexity of the royal coronation, due to be staged in another two weeks’ time. There would be multiple meetings with all the many people involved, garment fittings and rehearsals. They would have to fight an often-rigid schedule to find time to be together and she felt guilty because she was already dreading those changes in spite of the fact that she now felt much more secure in her role as Alessio’s wife and princess. Two weeks together had changed so much for them as a couple. She was now calmer and more confident in the awareness that Alessio liked her, respected her, understood her and, also…lusted madly after her.

‘Why would you think that?’ Alessio demanded, breaking off from a lingering and leisurely exploration of her slender, curvy body to sit up and look at her in apparent disbelief.

‘Because that’s what it was like before the wedding. You didn’t have any time for me.’

‘Everything’s different between us now. Back then, I was still in shock from Graziana’s betrayal and I was also afraid that you might panic and retreat from all the demands and responsibility coming your way as a royal,’ Alessio admitted, thoroughly disconcerting her, for it had not once occurred to her that he might have feared such a development, although admittedly she had found the days running up to their royal wedding hugely stressful. ‘I couldn’t afford to take anything for granted until you actually married me. I worried about making the wrong move, about saying or doing anything that might upset you.’

Rosy nodded, secretly amused by that explanation. ‘So, I should’ve said, “Alessio I want to spend time with you”?’

‘And if I could’ve seduced you into bed, I would have been even keener, piccola volpe . But I know there would have been no chance of that now.’ A wicked glitter made Alessio’s eyes gleam like jewels in the lamplight as he stroked an expert fingertip across a tight, straining nipple with sensual intent. ‘I know for a fact that you’re not the kind of woman who’ll sleep with a stranger on her wedding night!’

‘But it didn’t take you long to change my mind, did it?’ she teased back, covering his wide mouth with her own, tipping him back against the pillows with a sensual assurance she could not have utilised just two short weeks before.

Right from the outset, she had realised that Alessio had set a newly discovered part of her nature free and it had empowered rather than diminished her. She revelled in the fact that Alessio couldn’t keep his hands off her because it was the same for her. On that level, she conceded, they were equals. It was only when she put in the emotional attachment that she had developed for the man she had married that she felt a little foolish and lacking.

Once the passion had subsided, Alessio rested back with Rosy’s limp length still in his arms. He was also in no hurry to return to the palace. He knew that he had allowed too many staff to organise his schedule for too long without question. He had seen it as his duty to the throne and had avoided demanding personal time of his own. There would have to be modifications, he acknowledged grimly, so that he had hours to spend with his very beautiful, very sexy wife.

Rosy made him ridiculously happy in some weird way. Somehow, and he had no idea how, she stopped him worrying, stressing and overworking. He was becoming conscious that he had been too agreeable a royal heir, far too focused on not following in his father’s self-indulgent footsteps. Unfortunately, that guiding ambition had merely sent him to the other extreme in which he had allowed too many people to demand his time and his appearances. The result was that in the few years since his father’s demise, he no longer had anything that could be described as off-duty time. And how could that truth possibly help to build the family life he had long hoped to achieve?

It certainly would not impress Rosy, who set high standards, refused to be rushed into anything and moved steadily at her own pace. Rosy was strong, but ? There was no way that he would allow the royal staff to take over Rosy’s schedule and try to guilt her into working endless hours and late nights for the myriad causes that sought palace support. Firmly resolved to immediately begin the changes that he saw were necessary to protect his wife, Alessio was already making plans.

* * *

‘Now, this is a question I keep meaning to ask you and forget to,’ Alessio admitted during their flight back to Sedovia. ‘Is there any chance in the future that you might want to decide to search for your missing mother?’

Dumbfounded by that enquiry coming at her out of the blue, Rosy frowned in bewilderment. ‘Definitely not. I spent twenty years living in the same house with the same family she left behind when I was a baby. At any time, she could’ve visited, phoned or written if she had ever been curious about me…and she never did and that tells me all I need to know,’ she confided calmly. ‘Wherever she went, she didn’t look back on abandoning me with regret. I’m just not interested now. Vittoria gave me photos of my mother taken during the eighteen months that she lived with my father and was able to satisfy my curiosity. I look a little like her.’

‘But what if she chooses to get in touch with you?’

‘Why on earth would she do that?’

‘Our marriage has been widely covered in the newspapers and an abandoned child who has become a queen may be a more alluring prospect,’ Alessio remarked with unhidden cynicism.

‘I would still not want any interaction…or the complications that could come with it. Is it awful to admit that I’m more excited by our coming reunion with Clover?’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘Am I heartless?’

Alessio closed a hand round her clenched fingers. ‘Not at all. I admire your practicality and backbone. You can’t feel an attachment to a stranger who made it obvious that she was not attached to you.’

‘Even though I’m aware that there may have been extenuating circumstances?’ Rosy winced as she made that intervention. ‘I mean, maybe she was suffering postnatal depression and was simply too ashamed when she recovered to check up on me. Possibly my father was abusive towards her as well. There could be a lot of stuff I don’t know about her situation back then, so I’ve always tried not to be judgemental about it,’ she confessed ruefully.

‘I feel that in our circumstances,’ he stressed, ‘it may be wise to look into her disappearance in advance and discover, if we can, what did happen. Did she remarry and have more children? Are there other family members involved? She may not even still be alive…unhappily, that possibility has to be checked out. But it’s up to you what you choose you do. May we seek further info…or not?’

Rosy swallowed hard at that fair enquiry. She saw his point, she more than saw his point because, as the Queen of Sedovia, she would be very visible, and it was his job to protect the monarchy. ‘You can make enquiries if you think it’s necessary, but I would prefer not to know the results…unless she has passed away. That , I would prefer to know,’ she specified.

Although that was a partial lie she was giving him, she acknowledged inwardly. Her mind was already roaming through other various possibilities that had not occurred to her before. That she might have half-siblings? A living mother out there? Things she had never allowed herself to wonder about before because they had seemed pointless. Unsettled, she lay back in her leather recliner and closed her eyes, striving not to wonder.

Alessio’s gaze rested on her delicate, taut profile and he suppressed a sigh. He had suspected that his question would upset her, and it had. But hopefully, he reasoned, it would be worth it in the end because he was less concerned about some silly scandal that might shadow the throne in the future and rather more concerned with protecting Rosy from the unexpected and the risk of distress. She had dealt bravely and compassionately with her mother’s desertion, and he refused to let that issue come back to haunt her.

They had barely arrived at the palace and, indeed, were waiting in the echoing hall for the lift when a small, rather pompous man in a suit marched up to Rosy and planted a file in her hand. ‘Your schedule this week, Your Highness. I thought we should take the first possible opportunity to go over it.’

‘And this isn’t the right opportunity, Antonio,’ Alessio sliced in levelly. ‘My wife has been travelling and she is now about to move into her new home. She must have time to settle in and choose her own interests from the large number available.’

Disconcerted by that interference, the man went into retreat while Alessio guided Rosy into the waiting lift. ‘I could’ve done it,’ she told him anxiously.

‘I know you could but there’s no necessity for you to leap straight in with both feet into an unfamiliar environment. I want you to take your time and decide which ventures you wish to support. I thought possibly…’ he grinned at her as Clover surged out of the sitting room and the puppy hurled herself at Rosy’s knees and she knelt down to deal with loads of puppy kisses and licks ‘…animal rescue. There are several associations to choose from, any of which would be delighted by your support. And possibly…er, children.’

‘If that’s viable when I’ve none of my own,’ Rosy quibbled. ‘Although I’m hopefully going to be an aunt again in a few months.’

Clover bundled in her arms like a wriggling parcel, Alessio proceeded to show her around his wing of the palace. It had everything, absolutely everything, she registered in pleasurable surprise. It was far larger than she had appreciated on her brief visit to change out of her wedding gown in that bedroom two weeks earlier. There was a gym, an entire room to be devoted solely to her wardrobe, their separate offices and Alessio confided that he had had a small kitchen installed while they were in Spain in case she took the notion to cook for him. The smile in his eyes told her that he was very much hoping she succumbed to that temptation.

‘You are a fabulous cook,’ he pointed out as they traipsed on through innumerable bedrooms and reception rooms.

‘So is the palace chef,’ she traded. ‘But I do enjoy cooking sometimes.’

‘And these will be our rooms.’ Alessio thrust wide a door into the vast crown prince’s suite. ‘Not just mine but yours as well. We will rewrite historical precedent and share .’

Rosy nodded, a singing in her heart that he had thought that out for himself. She had only the haziest concept of his usual schedule, only a vague recollection that he was always coming back and going somewhere else for the fuss made of his returns was memorable for anyone on the palace staff. He was incredibly popular with employees working for him, which was why she had been startled when he had brushed off Antonio’s request because Antonio was one of his senior advisers and probably quite unaccustomed to such treatment. If Alessio wasn’t careful, he would make her unpopular because without a doubt any changes made would be laid at her door.

Over breakfast the next morning, Rosy listened at length to Alessio’s elaborate plans to divest them of long day schedules crammed with meetings and appearances and on her second cup of tea finally mustered the gumption to venture her own opinion. ‘Yes, but none of that is really practical just at the moment with the coronation so close,’ she remarked apologetically. ‘We’ll have to buckle down and just get on with it for the next couple of weeks and then you can begin making changes.’

Comprehension gripped Alessio like a vice. Possibly two heads being better than one was a more useful cliché than he had previously foreseen, he conceded grimly. He nodded. ‘Obviously. Possibly you could be free for Antonio’s meeting at some time today?’

Rosy read his air of frustration, quite understanding that Alessio had a new broom mentality, full of fire and vigour, but she was a little more realistic than he was because very little could be achieved overnight. ‘Of course. We’ll get through this stage bit by bit. It’s just unlucky that there’s only one of you,’ she commented. ‘When your father was at this stage, he had an adult son to stand in for him.’

Alessio laughed at that ‘only one of you’ and cracked a joke about the unlikelihood of his parents having ever produced a second child. His less than sunny mood had dissipated as he rose from the table and they parted to go separate ways. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’

But the heavy list of dinner parties leading up to the coronation meant that they didn’t really see each other except in parting or across a room over the following ten days and Rosy was so exhausted when she fell into bed every evening, she didn’t even stay awake long enough to notice Alessio’s arrival. Most mornings she wakened to a mere dent in the pillow beside hers. She was much too busy to fret about his absence and quite saw why he had hoped to change things, even if he had picked the wrong time to try and do it. He was much more aware of such stuff than she was, she censured herself. This royal life had always been his and she hadn’t really known what she had been talking about.

And then in the space of a moment, the day before the coronation, everything changed for Rosy when a member of the PR team brought her a printout from a website, titled Gold-Digger Scams Sedovian Royal Family!

Rosy was horrified as she scanned a disturbingly accurate financial estimate of her family’s hotel misfortunes and her family’s obvious prosperity since the wedding. White as milk, she read the entire lengthy report, which invited the Sedovian public to make up their own minds about how a ‘commoner’ like Rosalia had ‘forced’ herself on Alessio. Had she or her family used some secret blackmail to entrap the Crown Prince over some youthful indiscretion of his? Blatant lies followed in named quotes of people that Rosy had never heard of, vilifying her reputation with men and money. It was all nasty, sordid stuff.

‘This website has already been taken down, Your Highness. The lawyers were able to enforce that under threat of a libel suit.’

‘But how many people must have seen it?’ Rosy gasped, upset beyond belief as she thought of her family hearing about such accusations, most especially when there was a tiny kernel of truth in the story.

And that truth was that Alessio had bought his royal bride, like an apple off a supermarket tray. How had she ever contrived to forget that horrendous fact? How on earth had she managed to fall in love with her buyer? Those harsh facts suddenly made her feel cheap and unclean. An hour later, necessity having suffocated any chance of giving way to angry, wounded tears, Rosy emerged from a final fitting of her coronation robes and went straight to Alessio’s official office on the ground floor to tell him about the website.

Having neglected to knock, she stopped dead on the threshold when she registered that her husband was in the middle of a meeting and every head turned to see her. ‘Oh, I’ll see you when you’re finished,’ she said lightly, forcing an apologetic smile onto her tense face and turning on her heel again.

Being forced to wait even longer to vent her feelings did nothing to cool down Rosy’s mood. The more she reread that article, the angrier she became, even though a calming voice at the back of her head warned that it was a very bad idea to keep on heavy-duty dwelling on such a negative item. That was why it was unfortunate that it took Alessio quite a long time to finish his meeting and Rosy had showered and clambered into the casual clothing she always wore after what she deemed to be ‘work hours’ were over. In fact, clad in her shorts and tee, she was pacing the floor in their bedroom when Alessio finally put in an appearance.

‘I need a shave,’ he complained, striding through the door, looking darkly handsome but stressed out and rubbing a hand irritably over his shadowed, stubbled jaw line.

‘You always need a shave,’ Rosy pointed out quite truthfully for he had to shave twice a day.

In silence she watched him strip. There were times when watching that lean, muscular, hair-roughened physique of his emerge from clothing was the highlight of her day, quickening her heartbeat, turning her tummy over with craving. But this wasn’t one of those times. Rosy desperately wanted his full attention and it didn’t seem the right moment, but frustration was engulfing her at having had to wait so long to speak to him and just as he was about to stride into the en suite for a shower and shave, she crossed the room.

‘I have to talk to you,’ she told him in a rush as she set down Clover on the rug. ‘It’s about this website…’

Alessio flipped round and actually smiled at her, she registered in disbelief. ‘Oh, that?’ he murmured with unbelievable calm and cool. ‘That’s already been dealt with.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ she cried with incredulity. ‘You already knew about that article?’

Twin ebony brows drew together above his gleaming, assessing gaze. ‘Of course. Our IT team are very good. They check out stuff like that every day,’ he told her conversationally. ‘The government informed the palace about that site as well.’

‘So…?’ Rosy breathed in deep and fast. ‘In other words, just about everybody in Sedovia knew that I and my family had been targeted and maligned…everybody but me!’

‘I saw no reason to upset you with such nonsense,’ Alessio admitted levelly, not turning a hair in spite of the fact that Rosy had got very flushed and was standing there rigid with clenched fists by her sides. Clover, though, had shot below the bed when she had raised her voice.

‘You saw no reason?’ she gasped furiously.

Alessio released his breath in a huff. ‘Clearly, you believe I should’ve told you sooner.’

‘Yes!’ she bawled at him angrily. ‘At least I could’ve warned my family.’

Blind to her temper, it seemed, Alessio skimmed his flashing smile at her. ‘You don’t need to worry about that either. I took care of that for you and Vittoria and Patrick aren’t bothered. In their words, “Sticks and stones don’t break bones”,’ he completed cheerfully and the dog dared to peer out from under the bed.

And that was the last straw for Rosy, the absolute last straw that Alessio could have dared to go over her head to her family and warn them of that article while continuing to keep her in the dark!

‘All royally handled, I take it?’ Rosy breathed between gritted teeth in a tone of dulcet sweetness.

‘Yes. The website was taken down following the threat of legal action. It was only in existence for a couple of hours and the leak at the bank was traced to a junior employee. He has been dismissed for breaking his employment contract and selling confidential information for cash,’ Alessio explained with distinct satisfaction. ‘Our staff are excellent at dealing with such incidents.’

Rosy wrinkled her nose. ‘So, it was just me you left out of all this handling, even though it was me who was most libelled!’

‘How did you find out about it anyway?’ Alessio enquired, poised there so deadly serious now and clad only in a pair of boxers, acres of bronzed male flesh on show.

‘Samantha on the PR team.’

‘She’s new and she wouldn’t have been made aware yet that you are not to be informed of any such personal attacks.’

‘Who said I wasn’t to be informed?’ Rosy very nearly shouted at him and Clover retreated further below the bed.

Alessio elevated an ebony brow. ‘I did, of course. I don’t want you to be upset by something so trivial.’

‘Trivial?’ she screeched back at him, making him frown in apparent surprise. ‘You think it’s trivial when I’m called a scheming, gold-digging shrew? Or when the financial background to our marriage is leaked to the public?’

‘Of course, I don’t think it’s trivial in your estimation,’ Alessio countered more thinly, a faint flush rising along his high cheekbones. ‘But, at present, we have won what redress we can for this distasteful incident. We are still pursuing proof of who put up the site, although we have a suspect. Beyond that, there is nothing more we can do.’

‘I had a right to be told about that article the minute it appeared!’ Rosy launched back at him stridently.

His green eyes glinted like diamonds in sunlight, hard and unyielding. ‘ Not if this is how you will react. Being trolled is what happens to public figures, and we are public figures, however, we—as a couple—do not take it personally. That is the bottom line here and I will not move it a centimetre. Now you may understand why I ordered that you be protected from such scurrilous drivel.’

As Alessio went on into the en suite without another word, Rosy couldn’t bear to let him have the last word and she yelled, ‘I don’t feel like part of a couple!’

The bathroom door closed and Rosy just covered her tear-wet face with her hands and swallowed back an angry, wounded sob while striving to maintain control.

Clover emerged from under the giant bed and gambolled round her feet, relieved the noisy drama was over, and Rosy got a grip on herself and went out through the balcony doors in the sitting room, down the handsome stone steps and took the dog out to play in the courtyard below. Well, now she knew where she stood with the guy she loved!