The Prince's Nine-Month Scandal. CAITLIN CREWS
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of an island nestled in the Mediterranean Sea. Natalie’s impressions were scattered as they flew in. Hills stretched high toward the sun, then sloped into the sea, covered in olive groves, tidy red roofs and the soaring arches of bell towers and churches. Blue water gleamed everywhere she looked, and white sand beaches nestled up tight to colorful fishing villages and picturesque marinas. There were cheerful sails in the graceful bay and a great, iconic castle set high on a hill. A perfect postcard of an island.
A dream. Except Natalie was wide-awake, and this was really, truly happening.
“Prince Rodolfo awaits your pleasure, Your Highness,” a man she assumed was some kind of high-level butler had informed her when she’d been escorted into the palace itself, with guards saluting her arrival. She’d been too busy trying to look as if the splendor pressing in on her from all sides was so terribly common that she hardly noticed it to do more than nod, in some approximation of the princess’s elegant inclination of her head. Then she’d had to follow the same butler through the palace, trying to walk with ease and confidence in shoes she was certain were not meant to be walked in at all, much less down endless marble halls.
She’d expected Prince Rodolfo to be seedier in person than in his photos. Softer of jaw, meaner of eye. And up himself in every possible way. She had not expected to find herself so stunned at the sight of him that she’d had to reach out and hold on to the furniture to keep her knees from giving out beneath her, for the love of all that was holy.
And then he’d spoken, and Natalie had understood—with a certain, sinking feeling that only made that breathlessness worse—that she was in more than a little hot water. It had never crossed her mind that she might find this prince—or any prince—attractive. It had never even occurred to her that she might be affected in any way by a man who carried that sort of title or courted the sort of attention Prince Rodolfo did. Natalie had never liked flashy. It was always a deliberate distraction, never anything real. Working for one of the most powerful men in the world had made her more than a little jaded when it came to other male displays of supposed strength. She knew what real might look like, how it was maintained and more, how it was wielded. A petty little princeling who liked to fling himself out of airplanes could only be deeply unappealing in person, she’d imagined.
She’d never imagined...this.
It was possible her mouth had run away with her, as some kind of defense mechanism.
And then, far more surprising, Prince Rodolfo wasn’t the royal dullard she’d been expecting—all party and no substance. The sculpted mouth of his...did things to her as he revealed himself to be something a bit more intriguing than the airhead she’d expected. Especially when that look in his dark eyes took a turn toward the feral.
Stop, she ordered herself sternly. This is another woman’s fiancé, no matter what she might think of him.
Natalie had to order herself to pay attention to what was happening as the Prince’s surprisingly possessive words rang through the large room that teemed with antiques and the sort of dour portraits that usually turned out to have been painted by ancient masters, were always worth unconscionable amounts of money and made everyone in them look shriveled and dour. Or more precisely, she had to focus on their conversation, and not the madness that was going on inside her body.
You are mine didn’t sound like the kind of thing the man Valentina had described would say. Ever. It didn’t sound at all like the man the tabloids drooled over, or all those ex-lovers moaned about in exclusive interviews, mostly to complain about how quickly each and every one of them was replaced with the next.
In fact, unless she was mistaken, His Royal Highness, Prince Rodolfo, he of so many paramours in so many places that there were many internet graphs and user forums dedicated to tracking them all, looked as surprised by that outburst as she was.
“That hardly seems fair, does it?” she asked mildly, hoping he couldn’t tell how thrown she was by him. Hoping it would go away if she ignored it. “I don’t see why I have to confine myself to only you when you don’t feel compelled to limit yourself. In any way at all, according to my research.”
“Is there someone you wish to add to your stable, princess?” Rodolfo asked, in a smooth sort of way that was at complete odds with that hard, near-gold gleam in his dark eyes that set off every alarm in her body. Whether she ignored it or not. “Name the lucky gentleman.”
“A lady never shares such things,” she demurred. Then smiled the way she always had at the officious secretaries of her boss’s rivals, all of whom underestimated her. Once. “Unlike you, Your Highness.”
“I cannot help it if the press follows me everywhere I go.” She sensed more than heard the growl in his voice. He was still standing where he’d been when she arrived, arranged before the immense fireplace like some kind of royal offering, but if he’d thought it made him look idle and at his ease he’d miscalculated. All she could see when she looked at him was how big he was. Big and hard and beautiful from head to toe and, God help her, she couldn’t seem to control her reaction to him. “Just as I cannot keep them from writing any fabrication they desire. They prefer a certain narrative, of course. It sells.”
“How tragic. I had no idea you were a misunderstood monk.”
“I am a man, princess.” He didn’t quite bare his teeth. There was no reason at all Natalie should feel the cut of them against her skin. “Were you in some doubt?”
Natalie reminded herself that she, personally, had no stake in this. No matter how many stories her mother had told her about men like him and the careless way they lived their lives. No matter that Prince Rodolfo proved that her mother was right every time he swam with sharks or leaped from planes or trekked for a month in remotest Patagonia with no access to the outside world or thought to his country should he never return. And no matter the way her heart was kicking at her and her breath seemed to tangle in her throat. This wasn’t about her at all.
I’m going to sort out your fiancé as a little wedding gift to you, she’d texted Valentina when she’d recovered from her shell shock and had emerged from the fateful bathroom in London to watch Achilles Casilieris’s plane launch itself into the air without her. The beauty of the other princess having taken her bag when she’d left—with Natalie’s phone inside it—was that Natalie knew her own number and could reach the woman who was inhabiting her life. You’re welcome.
Good luck with that, Valentina had responded. He’s unsortable. Deliberately, I imagine.
As far as Natalie was concerned, that was permission to come on in, guns blazing. She had nothing to lose by saying the things Valentina wouldn’t. And there was absolutely no reason she should feel that hot, intent look he was giving her low and tight in her belly. No reason at all.
She made a show of looking around the vast room the scrupulously correct butler who had ushered her here had called a parlor in ringing tones. She’d had to work hard not to seem cowed, by the butler or the scale of the private wing he’d led her through, all dizzying chandeliers and astoundingly beautiful rooms clogged with priceless antiques and jaw-dropping art.
“I don’t see any press here,” she said, instead of debating his masculinity. For God’s sake.
“Obviously not.” Was it her imagination or did Rodolfo sound a little less...civilized? “We are on palace grounds. Your father would have them whipped.”
“If you wanted to avoid the press, you could,” Natalie pointed out. With all the authority of a person who had spent five years keeping Achilles Casilieris out of the press’s meaty claws. “You don’t.”
Was it possible this mighty, beautiful prince looked...ill at ease? If only for a moment?
“I never promised you that I would declaw myself, Valentina,” he said, and it took Natalie a moment to remember why he was calling her Valentina. Because that’s who he thought she was, of course. Princess Valentina, who had to marry him in two months. Not mouthy, distressingly common Natalie, who was unlikely to marry anyone since she spent her entire life embroiled in and catering to the needs of a man who