Chapter Two #3
‘The red, you’re too young to carry off black and, anyway, that was Sandrine’s old frock.’
‘So’s the red,’ Zia reminded her. ‘But until I get new clothes, it’s the best I’ve got.’
‘The red’s a little low-necked,’ Alina opined in an uneasy undertone. ‘You wore it for that Christmas staff party at the hotel but—’
‘It’ll do fine,’ Zia cut in with decision. ‘Gosh, I miss Sausage.’
‘Yes, but he’ll be waiting for us in Mandovia when we leave here,’ Alina reminded her cheerfully. ‘Apparently the King has two mastiffs at the castle. The stewardess told me that he rarely brings them here onto the yacht because of the quarantine restrictions.’
Zia set the red dress on the bed. A dog lover, was he?
It was another point in his favour. As Alina returned to her cabin, she undressed for a shower, eager to freshen up after the long day and all the travelling and sitting around.
Yet barely a week ago she had been unemployed and facing a charge of theft, she reminded herself, but the man from the embassy, Massimo Caccia, had made all that go away and had transformed her life.
Even so, it was only temporary, she reminded herself.
She would have six months without any need to worry about bills and then she would be free to continue her life as she chose.
She had never enjoyed such freedom. Alina, she suspected ruefully, would probably reunite with her widowed sister in Mandovia and could well decide to remain there in her home village with her only surviving family.
Could she herself decide to stay on in Mandovia too?
She smoothed the red dress down over her hips.
Alina had altered it to fit her after Sandrine had thrown it away because it had a cigarette burn in the skirt.
The full swell of her bust at the neckline looked slightly racy to her critical gaze, but she couldn’t help that because she was much larger in that department than its original owner had been.
Short and curvy in both breast and hip, that was her shape and she was stuck with what she had been born with, regardless of how she had long envied Sandrine’s tall, slender, elegant figure.
Orazio almost forgot himself and performed a double take when Zia entered the saloon.
When she had worn her shapeless tee shirt and loose jeans he had had little idea of Zia’s build.
And now, here she was unveiled…literally!
A glorious hourglass shape. It was a struggle not to let his gaze linger on the pale plump curves of her luscious breasts.
‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked as a steward hovered by the bar in readiness.
‘May I have a cocktail?’ Zia asked. ‘I’ve never had one but I would love to try one.’
‘A Mojito,’ Orazio ordered on her behalf. ‘So, you drink alcohol?’
‘Yes. It doesn’t have much effect on me though,’ Zia told him truthfully. ‘I’ve had drinks with work and classmates and it’s never affected me. I could probably drink you under the table.’
Orazio laughed at that far-reaching display of confidence. ‘Well, we won’t be having a competition tonight.’
He was touched by her honesty and slightly unnerved by it as well.
There was a dangerous naivety about her and he could see such an attribute making her vulnerable to a certain type of man.
Not that that was any of his business, but it would do her no harm to become a little more worldly-wise before she went out to be a princess in public.
‘Tell me about your childhood with Sandrine Beccari,’ Orazio prompted over the dinner table thirty minutes later, when Zia was embarking on her second Mojito and contemplating the beautiful meal in front of her.
‘I was surprised that she kept you with her because you have an uncle and an aunt on your mother’s side. ’
Zia lost visible colour and she dealt him an uneasy glance before stiffening her facial muscles.
‘Oh, she tried to pass me off onto them once she realised my parents were dead, but my mother’s relatives weren’t interested…
the orphan daughter of a hated dictator?
No, they weren’t prepared to take me on.
Sandrine ensured that I knew that I was just an embarrassment to them.
It might have been different had I come with money, but I was penniless. ’
‘But you were never penniless,’ Orazio reasoned with conviction. ‘That house in London belonged to your mother and it was your inheritance. How else could you have lived there?’
And shock at that bold statement settled over Zia like an enveloping fog.
The idea that that house had actually belonged to her from the moment of her mother’s passing shook her inside out.
‘I always believed that the house belonged to Sandrine. I mean, I knew that she didn’t pay rent or a mortgage, but I always assumed—’
‘No, that house is yours by right of inheritance…unless your mother signed it over to the Beccari woman before she passed,’ he conceded.
Zia’s lashes fluttered in bewilderment. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that there was time for that the night we left Mandovia but that would finally explain to me why she kept Alina and me with her. It would’ve meant that she had the use of free accommodation in London,’ she registered slowly.
‘There was also a trust set up with the purchase of the house that should’ve taken care of most of the bills,’ Orazio volunteered.
‘I believe your mother foresaw the fall of your father’s regime and set up a safe harbour in London for you both…
only you appear not to have managed to benefit from what was rightfully yours. ’
Pale as milk, Zia asked for another Mojito to replace her empty glass and Orazio summoned the server to fulfil her request. She couldn’t believe what she was being told, that she had not been the penniless orphan housed and raised by her guardian who had taken pity on her.
Instead, it seemed as though Sandrine had taken advantage of her to seize possession of the house that legitimately belonged to her charge.
Deep anger rippled through Zia as she looked back on the life she had lived, always made to feel like a charity case and a burden, denied her freedom and her education while being constantly threatened if she protested or failed to toe the line.
She took a deep swig of her refreshed cocktail.
‘It seems I’ve been had and no mistake,’ she pronounced flatly. ‘I’ve never met with a solicitor. I wasn’t aware that I had an inheritance of any kind.’
‘I can put my legal team onto investigating what happened,’ Orazio proffered.
‘I would appreciate that,’ she said quietly.
‘I suspect that you’ve been ripped off too.’
‘Very probably,’ Zia acknowledged. ‘I would be grateful if that was sorted out for me. The real problem when I was a child was that there was nobody around to oversee Sandrine’s guardianship. She kept me because nobody else was willing or available to take care of me.’
‘That was wrong,’ Orazio conceded. ‘I think you fell through the cracks. Upper Mandovia was so grateful to be free of your father’s regime that they took no interest in what happened to his surviving child—’
‘Until now…’ Zia chipped in with a raw emphasis that pulled at something deep in his chest. ‘When suddenly there is a use for me, a reason for me to exist because of my mother’s legacy.
And yet I’m not remotely like her. She was a yes-woman with her family and with my father, doing exactly what she was told, never thinking there might be something better out there.
I’m not like that. My life has toughened me up and made me want more. ’
Involuntarily entrapped by the raw emotions flickering across her expressive face, Orazio prompted, ‘Why was it so tough?’
‘Sandrine was cruel. I’ll be fair. When she got me, I was a spoilt three-year-old and probably difficult but she thumped and kicked me into obedience.
And if I didn’t bow down quickly enough, she took her rage out on Alina instead,’ she confided shakily, recalling past episodes that had deeply upset her.
‘I couldn’t stand to see Alina punched to the ground, so I gave in.
And Sandrine made me into an unpaid servant.
As Alina grew more frail, I had to do her job, and I was put to work in the hotel kitchens at fifteen because Sandrine was friendly with the owners and she said I needed the discipline.
But in reality, she just wanted more money because I never saw any of it—’
‘And your education?’ Orazio probed, very much shocked by what she was telling him. ‘What happened with that?’
‘Sandrine insisted that I was being homeschooled and Alina wasn’t capable of teaching me anything beyond the basics. I knew I couldn’t get us away from Sandrine without a decent job, so my focus was on educating myself, going to college, becoming a teacher—’
‘A modest goal for a princess,’ Orazio commented.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she exclaimed as a delicious creamy dessert was set before her. ‘I’ve never been a princess except on paper. You’ve been a prince since the day you were born and raised with all that stuff. But it’s foreign territory for me.’
‘But it shouldn’t have been.’ Brilliant green eyes assailed and held hers fast across the table. ‘I’m very sorry that that has been your experience and I can only hope that your time in Mandovia will allow you to believe that you are important to our people and that you do have much to offer them.’