“You could have flown with us,” Marcello said as he helped
Danette
to her feet and led both women from the big reception room through a door in the back.
“I did not learn of your departure until after the fact.”
Marcello put his arm around
Danette’s
waist, guiding her toward the door behind the throne his mother had come in
through
.
Danette
stopped at the door and turned to look back at the king. “I didn’t know about the articles.”
He grimaced. “So I saw. I am sorry for my earlier accusations.”
“I don’t want to hurt Marcello.”
“And he does not want to hurt you, but as
Flavia
and I learned, good intentions are not always enough.”
Danette
impulsively ran back into the room and put her hand on the king’s arm. She wanted to hug him, but didn’t have the nerve. “It’s going to be all right.”
His gorgeous blue eyes were filled with an old sadness. “I hope you are right.”
“Trust me and trust your son. He’s a good man.”
“Yes, he is.
A better man than his father.”
“I don’t know. I think you must be pretty special to have raised Marcello the way he is.”
“
Flavia
had more to do with that than I did.”
Danette
smiled and gave into the urge to hug the intimidating older man. King or not, he was hurting. She spoke near his ear. “It was a joint effort and you may as well accept it. Ditch the humble bit, it doesn’t suit you.”
He laughed and she stepped back.
“I believe you will make a very good princess,
Danette
Michaels.”
Danette
smiled, warmed by the vote of confidence. “Thank you.”
He pulled her into an embrace, kissing both her cheeks, and tears stung her eyes for no apparent reason. She stepped back and turned to go, but then stopped and leaned toward him to whisper.
“A small piece of advice?
When a woman stands up for you like
Flavia
just did—she doesn’t hate your guts.”
King
Vincente’s
jaw dropped and
Danette
rushed to catch up with Marcello.
“Come,”
Flavia
said and Marcello pulled
Danette
through the door, closing it firmly behind them.
“Come for a walk with me on the grounds,” Marcello
said after they left
Flavia
at her rooms so she could take the nap she said she wanted
.
“I’d like that.”
He took her out into a formal garden that looked like it had come right out of a Renaissance painting. “It’s gorgeous out here.”
“I have always enjoyed it.”
“But you chose to live in
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to be near Mama, and I wanted to make my own mark on the world. Besides, Papa wanted me in
Danette
nodded. She had no problem believing that.
“Why did you want to hide the stories from me?” she asked, cutting to the heart of what they needed to deal with.
“I knew they would upset you and I was right.”
“But they upset you, too.”
“You are my woman. It is my job to protect you.”
“It’s my job to protect you, too.”
“Is it?” He smiled down at her winsomely. “There are other things I would prefer you spent your time doing.”
Remembering the entire set of luggage loaded onto the plane for her benefit she said, “You didn’t plan on going back to
“No. I thought a long visit here would protect you from the brunt of the media frenzy, but my parents thought differently.”
“Please don’t be angry with either of them. They are only doing what they think is right.”
“And what do you think is right?”
“Knowing, no matter how much it hurts, is better than being ignorant.” She bit her lip and then asked, “Would there be as much of a story if we were getting married?”
He shrugged. “The lack of a marriage is gossip fodder, to be sure, but it would be no guarantee against more stories. I learned that to my detriment with Bianca.”
“Even so, I’m surprised you haven’t used the stories to press your advantage in getting me to marry you. You had to know I would feel badly about them. Instead you tried to hide them from me.”
“I did not want you hurt.”
And
maybe part of him didn’t want her to see all the vicious things being written about him, either. She certainly hated knowing he’d read the stuff speculating that she’d been unfaithful to him and that the baby belonged to someone else.
“And to use the articles as leverage with you would be using emotional blackmail and I refuse to do that to you.
Ever.
It is a promise I made to you.”
“I don’t remember that promise,” she said.
“That is because I did not make it out loud.”
Oh, gosh…she was going to cry and really that shouldn’t be happening. “That’s really sweet,” she choked
out
.
He sighed. “
Tomasso
warned me, and so did Papa actually.”
“Warned you?” She swiped surreptitiously at her eyes.
“About what?”
“Pregnant women have a tendency to cry over very small things.”
“It’s not a small
th
-thing t-to me that y-you are s-so honorable,” she said, trying to breathe between words and not make her tears any more obvious than they needed to be.
He stopped and pulled her around to face him with gentle hands.
“
Shh
…
tesoro
.
It is all right. That I am an honorable
man,
this is a good thing, no?”
“Yes,” she said in a wobbly voice.
“And you are an honorable woman.”
“Y-yes…I think so.”
“I know so.”
“But maybe your dad is right. My refusal to marry you is selfish when I
th
-think of
wh
-
what our child could face with the media.”
“You are not selfish. Merely frightened and confused by too many changes coming at once.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were. You were smart enough to date me—that
shows
a better than average IQ, does it not?”
She laughed as she was meant to, but her mind was spinning with the knowledge that she
had
to marry him. It was the right thing to do, and royalty were not the only people in the world who knew something about duty. Besides, marrying the man she loved was not exactly a hardship.
She’d told him she wasn’t stupid.
And
waiting around for a romantic proposal from a guy whose whole reason for wanting to marry her was to secure his child’s future and his role as a full-time papa would indeed be idiotic.
He wasn’t going to all of a sudden realize he loved her, and she finally admitted that was what she’d been waiting for. Not just for him to accept her love,
but
for him to return it, and that wasn’t fair. He gave her everything he could and demanding more wasn’t going to make life for their baby or themselves any better.
She gripped his arms, her mouth going dry as she prepared to say what needed saying. “I’m smart enough to know that marriage between us makes a lot of sense and that the sooner we start making plans for it, the better off we all are. I suppose a small wedding like
Tomasso
and Maggie’s makes the most sense, too.”
Marcello stilled. “You are agreeing to marry me?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her, his mouth devouring hers with a desperate passion that found a response in her own heart.
When she was trembling and plastered against him, he lifted his head. “There will be no small wedding. My mother and you have convinced me that only a traditional Sicilian ceremony will do.”
“But the sooner we get married, the better.”
“The delay of one month or even two will not harm anything.”
Danette’s
mother would be very happy to hear that, and so she thought would
Flavia
. Perhaps the announcement of an upcoming wedding would be enough to
declaw
some of the nastier paparazzi predators.
“If you’re sure.”
He frowned, his arms tightening around her. “You are being much too diffident…I do not recognize this side of you.”
“Those stories in the tabloids were so awful, Marcello.”
“But they mean nothing to us, because we know the truth. I do not care what they say so long as you agree to be mine.”
She felt more emotion welling and buried her face in his chest so he wouldn’t see it. “Your father’s right, you know?”
“My father is lucky. I would have stayed angry with him for a good year over his stunt this morning, but I am too happy at your agreement to be my wife to remain angry. He should thank his lucky stars and his newest daughter-to-be.”
“He was still right. I am arrogant.” She sighed and nuzzled Marcello’s warm, muscular chest. “I was so sure that keeping our relationship a secret wasn’t necessary, but I realize now that it would have been awful if the press had gotten wind of it before.”
“No worse than now.”
“Not a lot could be worse than what they are saying now, but
before
you didn’t know you wanted to marry me, and I think you would have felt obliged once ugly stories started to circulate.”
“This is true. I would have felt the need to protect you, as I do now.”
“I admire that, Marcello, I really do.”
“And I admire your strength, both in refusing me until you were sure and in accepting me for the sake of our child’s future.” He kissed the top of her head, his hands warm on her back. “You are a very special woman,
Danette
.”
“Thank you.”
“I have a deep need to make love to my fiancée. Is that permissible?”
“More than permissible.
It is desired.”
They saw no one on the way to their royal apartments and he closed the door firmly behind them after they got inside. Then he locked it. “No interruptions.”
She smiled, desire coiling tight in her belly. It had been too long.
“Exactly what I had in mind.”
“
Which should tell you something.
”
“What?”
“That we are a good match.”
“Because we both want privacy for making love?
I hate to tell you this, but lots of men and women have the same requirement.”
He smiled. “You can be a real smart mouth, you know that?”
She laughed. “It’s part of my charm.”
“Yes, it is. I meant because we so often think along the same paths. We belong together,
amante
.
Do not doubt it.”
“If I did, do you think I would have agreed to the marriage?”
“Yes.” He went very serious. “For the sake of our child you would, but you have nothing to fear in accepting my proposal. Our marriage will be a good one. I promise you.”
It didn’t bother him that she was marrying him for the sake of the baby. None of the feelings of turmoil she was experiencing showed on his face. He looked supremely happy by her acquiescence. She wished she was so sanguine and she was going to try to be.
He might be marrying her for the sake of the baby, too, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be a good husband. “No more dancing with gorgeous blondes?” she asked just for good measure.
“I have already promised this, but make no mistake—no woman is as beautiful to me as you are.”
“Not even Bianca?” She wanted to cut her tongue out the minute the words left her mouth.
As mood killers went, that had to be a classic. Worse, it made her sound like an insecure weakling, and she wasn’t. She didn’t need to be his first and best love to have a good relationship with him. As long as he stayed away from other live women, she could leave the dead one alone.
Couldn’t she?
Surprisingly Marcello didn’t look in the least annoyed.
His expression was filled with an emotion she didn’t understand when he cupped her face with his big, masculine hands. “Bianca has been gone for four years. You are very much alive. Your beauty to me is incomparable in
every
way.”
“That’s so sweet,” she said, as those stupid pregnancy hormones made her eyes smart again.
He shook his head and then lowered it so their mouths were almost touching. “Not sweet.
Truth.
Accept now that I will never lie to you, or even exaggerate for a good cause. You can trust me completely.”
“I want to. I’m marrying you,” she reminded both of them.
“And you will never regret that choice. I guarantee it.” His mouth sealed the words to her lips in a kiss unlike anything they had shared before.
She could taste his desire, but there was something else there, too. A tenderness she thought was probably because she was pregnant with his baby. She was no longer his illicit lover in a passionate affair, but the mother of his child who had just consented to marry him.
That made her special.
She responded with all the pent-up love in her soul, giving him back tenderness for tenderness and passion for passion. Everything else faded from her consciousness except for the feel of his lips on hers and his hands holding her face with such poignant possessiveness.
He licked along the seam of her lips and she opened her mouth, wanting his entry.
Their tongues teased one another and something that had been tight inside her heart since the break-up began to loosen. This man belonged to her on a fundamental level that denied the importance of declared love and emotions that could not be measured.
He was hers.
She was his.
They belonged to each other in an intimacy that no one else could share. The knowledge had been there in the back of her mind since the beginning. It was why she had not kicked him out the night she’d seen the picture of him with the blonde. Because the picture had shown a
woman enjoying
herself and a man smiling, but that man had been holding himself apart from the other woman.
Danette
had not realized it at first, not consciously.
But
she did now, in this moment of odd clarity.