One Summer at The Villa: The Prince's Royal Concubine / Her Italian Soldier / A Devilishly Dark Deal

“I know the man who owns this island. He keeps a villa nearby. We will go there.”

She stared at him. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“I didn’t think it would be necessary.”

Antonella didn’t say anything while he issued instructions to the driver. Maybe she should argue about the practicality of his plan, but what other choice was there? Far better to stay in a private home than be seen together in a hotel. There was always a chance, no matter how remote, that someone from the media would be there and would recognize them. A photo of her with Cristiano di Savaré could do irreparable harm to her country right now.

He put his arm behind her again and she pressed herself farther away from him. He frowned.

“It’s no use,” he said. “The car is small and there’s nowhere to go.”

“I realize that, but you don’t need to put your arm around me.”

“And I thought you liked it when I touched you.” His voice contained a hint of sarcasm that irritated her.

“Hardly.”

“Then why did you come?”

Antonella blinked. “What choice did I have? You said yourself that all the flights were booked.”

“Yes, but to accept help from me of all people…” He tsked.

Antonella saw red. “It wasn’t my first choice, no, but I’m not stupid.”

His gaze grew sharp, thoughtful. “No, I don’t think you are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

A mocking smile curved his lips. “Whatever you think it means, Principessa.”

“I think you simply like to irritate me. Why did you offer to help me get off the island if you don’t like me so much?”

“I don’t have to like you for what I have in mind.”

Antonella gasped. “How could you possibly dislike someone and still want to sleep with them?”

The look on his face, something between mildly amused and completely arrogant, sent heat flooding into her cheeks. Had she mistaken his meaning?

“There is a fine line between hate and passion, Antonella,” he replied. “One sometimes makes the other more rich.”

“That’s horrible.” She’d always thought, assuming she weren’t obligated to marry a man of her father’s choosing, she would have to like the man she slept with for the first time. She’d never expected to have that choice, however. Now that it seemed she might, she was more than a little appalled at her physical reaction to Cristiano.

He quirked an eyebrow. “Really? You would expect me to believe a woman of your experience has liked every man she’s ever bedded?”

Her jaw clenched. She should have realized where this conversation would go. “I prefer not to discuss this with you.”

“Why not? Ashamed?”

“Of course not!”

“So how many has it been, Antonella? How many men have you lured to your bed?” He looked haughty, cruel. It made her furious.

“Lured? Lured? You make me sound like I’m running a stall at the market! Come get your peaches, come get your plums—hurry before they’re all gone.”

His expression seemed in danger of crumpling for a split second. She thought he might laugh, but he turned and looked out the window at the rain, ignoring her. He also didn’t move his arm. Fury cycled through her in waves until she decided the hell with it and flopped back on the seat, wedging him over where he took too much of her space.

What a hypocrite!

His body was hard, solid, and hot. Antonella folded her arms over her chest and leaned her head back—on his arm since he hadn’t moved it. He infuriated her with his accusations. He knew nothing about her, and yet he smugly thought he knew everything.

Arrogant man!

He took up all the air in the taxi. She wanted to roll down the window and stick her head out, but it was raining too hard. She was just so tired. So damn tired. As her temper deflated, her eyes drifted closed in spite of the effort she made to keep them open.

Cristiano’s scent wrapped around her senses. He smelled like rain and spice, and a pang of sadness pierced her. Why? It took her a moment to realize that it reminded her of something out of her childhood. Was it when her mother had fixed spiced tea for her when she was sick?

Yes, that was it. Spice equaled comfort back then. She could picture her mother as if it were yesterday—her sad, beautiful mother who’d died far earlier than she should have. Was that when her father had grown violent?

She couldn’t remember. She’d always tried to block those memories. Like the time he’d squeezed the life from Dante’s gerbil because Dante had forgotten to feed it. Her brother, who’d been ten at the time—far older than her impressionable five years—had taken the incident stoically.

Antonella had cried and cried. It was the first time she’d ever experienced such cruelty. She’d never forgotten it, used to burst into tears at the oddest times when the memory crashed in on her. Even years later.

Her face was suddenly cool, and she realized it was the air against her wet cheeks.

No, not now. Please, not now.

She opened her eyes, blinked against the blur. Then she swiped her hands over her cheeks, trying to stop the flow before Cristiano noticed and mocked her. She hadn’t cried over that memory in so long she couldn’t even remember the last time.

“Crying won’t work,” Cristiano said coldly—but his voice sounded oddly thick.

Antonella turned away from him. She didn’t want him to be here, didn’t want him to become a part of her struggle to be a normal person. It wasn’t his business! Nothing in her life was his business. “I’m just tired. Leave me alone.”

Would she never be free of this? Would episodes from her past always move her to tears when she least expected it? She felt weak, helpless—and angry. Sometimes, in these moments, she thought she could kill her father if he were in front of her and at her mercy.

And she hated that feeling most of all. The tears came faster now, turned into gulping sobs. She couldn’t stop the memories, couldn’t stop the guilt. She should have done something, should have—

Cristiano swore, then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him.

“No, let me go,” she begged, trying to rip his hands away from her body. “Let me go.”

But he didn’t. He turned her toward him, cupped the back of her head and pressed her to his chest. She bucked against him, trying to get away, but he was too strong. Eventually, her shoulders slumped.

And once she gave up, his grip softened, his hand rubbing rhythmically up and down her neck while he spoke to her softly. She strained to hear the words over the roar of the rain and wind outside, over her own crying, and realized it was a song.

A song.

Shock was the least of what she felt at that moment. It was such an oddly tender gesture, and from the last person in the world she would have expected it. It was as if he understood somehow.

Her fisted hands curled into his shirt, held tight as she worked hard to stop the tears. She had every reason to hate him, but in that moment he was her ally. He held her for what seemed like hours. It was the closest she’d felt to anyone in a very long time.

Chapter Four

THE taxi took them to the villa located on a remote beach. By the time they reached the house, Antonella’s tears had dried and she’d pushed away from Cristiano again. Fresh embarrassment buffeted her in waves. How could she have lost control like that? And with him, of all people? His shirt was wrinkled where she’d crumpled it in her fist, and a hint of mascara smudged the white fabric, but Cristiano said nothing.

Madonna mia. If the owner took them in, she was locking herself in a bedroom and not coming out again until the storm was over. The less time she spent in Cristiano’s company, the better.

Antonella waited in the car while Cristiano went to the door and checked to see if the island tycoon was home. He wasn’t, and yet a few minutes later Cristiano had managed to somehow get a call through to the man in New York.

“The staff is on holiday,” he said when he returned to the taxi, “but we are welcome to stay until the storm has passed. There is a caretaker in the cottage we drove by. He will let us in.”

“Wouldn’t we be better off in town?” Despite her earlier relief at not going to a hotel, she suddenly preferred it to being alone with this man for the foreseeable future. She felt too exposed, too raw. She couldn’t keep up the barrier of strength she needed simply to be in his company. It was like living on a battlefield.

Cristiano seemed oblivious to her torment. “If others were turned away at the airport, then the hotels could be full.”

Antonella reached for her phone, hoping she had a signal. “We can call and check.” At least in a hotel, there’d be other people. And maybe even rooms on different floors. She wouldn’t have to see him at all. When the airport reopened, she could be on a flight out without ever talking to him again.

He frowned. “We have a safe place to stay, cara. And our driver would probably like to return to his home before the worst hits, yes? There is not a lot of time left for error.”

A sinking feeling settled over her like a veil. She hadn’t thought of that. The driver glanced at her in the rear-view mirror, his eyes darting away a second later. He was young, perhaps had a wife and small children waiting in a tidy house somewhere. And he’d driven her and Cristiano through the rain-swept streets for two hours now.

“Of course,” Antonella said. As much as she wanted to get away from Cristiano, she couldn’t endanger anyone to do so. They may be alone here, but she didn’t need to spend more than a few moments in his company. It would be fine.

Fifteen minutes later, they’d located the caretaker, gotten a key, and let themselves into the house. The place was big, but not as sprawling and opulent as one would expect. It was furnished island-style, with low sea-grass couches, bamboo floors, simple woven rugs, and bright tropical prints interspersed with monochromatic tones. Antonella walked through to the huge kitchen at the back of the house and gazed out at the landscape. A wall of French windows overlooked a patio and pool that gave way to a long stretch of manicured lawn. The lawn sloped down to a retaining wall several hundred meters away. Below that was an extensive swath of white beach. The sky was pale with rain, and palm trees lashed over double in the wind. The ocean that had been turquoise and lapis only yesterday was now grey and roiling. White caps foamed across the surface.

She stood very still, watching and listening. Slowly, it occurred to her that the muted roar echoing through the house came from the wind cleaving around the structure. The power of it was staggering, and nothing like she’d ever experienced before.

“I put us in the master bedroom.”

Antonella bit back a scream of surprise and spun to face Cristiano. She hadn’t heard him approach. He looked like a beach bum standing in the shadowy entry to the kitchen. A gorgeous beach bum.

He disconcerted her. Too much.

“Us? Are you hard of hearing? I said last night I’m not sleeping with you.”

He came into the room like a cat—silent, muscles bunching and flowing with oiled grace. She realized he was wet when the meager light hit him. He stripped off the polo shirt in a smooth motion, wiped it across his face, and then dropped it on the marble-topped island that ran the length of the room.

Antonella’s breath caught. She had to force her lungs to work as she blanked her expression. Every inch of him was corded with muscle, as if he were a day laborer instead of a prince. Broad shoulders and defined pecs tapered to a narrow waist and lean hips. His skin was tanned, and yet it grew lighter the lower her eyes went. A dark arrow of hair slipped beneath the loose waistband of his shorts, and she found herself wanting to follow it down, see the rest of him.

Antonella snapped her gaze to his face. He smirked as if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

“You know you want to.”

Antonella blinked. “Want to what?”

The smirk turned into a grin. “Sleep with me. In the master bedroom.”

Oh, dear God—

She shook her head, heat suffusing her face. “No, I don’t and I won’t. I’m taking one of the other bedrooms—there are other bedrooms, yes?”

Cristiano shuffled past her, gazed out the window. She refused to focus on his naked back, the taut muscles of his buttocks beneath the damp material of his shorts—

“There are,” he said, turning to face her again. “But I just checked the generator and the fuel is nearly spent. Someone forgot to fill it, or it’s been drained recently. If we lose power, there’ll be no light.”

“Surely there are candles. Have you looked?”

“Not yet, but yes, there must be. And yet we need to preserve those as well. Not to mention there are trees outside the front of the home. The other bedrooms are up there. If a tree fell onto the house, then what? I prefer not to have to dig you out, assuming you survived.”

Antonella shuddered, but whether it was over the picture of a tree crushing her or being forced to share a room with this man, she didn’t know.

“One of us can stay in the living area. There are couches, the floor—”

“And should we lose power, or should something happen to this house, we would be separated. It is best to stay together, Antonella.”

She folded her arms. “How can you possibly know that? We don’t have hurricanes or cyclones—or whatever you call them—where we come from.”

“Every Monterossan prince since the beginning of time has served in the army, Principessa.” His eyes grew hard, bleak. She swallowed. “I assure you I have endured things you cannot imagine. Trust me when I say I know of what I speak.”

She did believe him, and yet she was still unnerved by the prospect of spending so much time confined with him. “Very convenient, Cristiano. I am forced to share a room with you, it would seem.”

“What is your alternative?”

“I don’t suppose I have one, do I?”

“Not if you care to survive.”

He spoke so casually it chilled her. Antonella went to the window, touched her fingers to the pane of glass as the water chased down it outside. “How much worse will the storm get?”

He came and stood beside her. She glanced up at his profile as he stared out at the churning sea, his expression troubled. Tried resolutely not to look down at all that naked skin.

“I wish I knew. It will worsen as it spins toward land. Possibly a category four when it comes ashore.” His head tilted back as he looked up at the sky. “The wind will reach one hundred and thirty-five knots, perhaps.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

He turned to face her. She kept her gaze straight ahead, though she could see him quite well in her peripheral vision. He was too close, too big. His bare skin gleamed in the pale light, and drops of water fell from his head onto his chest, trickled down, down…

“In excess of two hundred kilometers an hour.”

Antonella’s stomach dropped. She turned without thinking, took an instinctive step backward to put distance between them. “W-what could happen to us? Are we safe here?”

He perused her body in a leisurely way before answering, as if he knew she was as disconcerted by his nakedness as she was by the storm. “The trees could be a problem, and we will probably lose power. Beyond that, I do not know.”

“What about the sea?”

“The drop to the ocean is steep, so a storm surge is not likely.”

Antonella hurried to the center island and opened the handbag she’d set there. Her cell phone had no signal. She dropped it into her purse again. “Do you have a signal?”

He sauntered toward her, pulled his phone from his shorts. “No.”

Antonella leaned against the counter for support and closed her eyes. “I should have kept trying to call Dante. He will worry.”

“Perhaps he will simply think you are too occupied with your lover to inform him of your movements.”

She stiffened. “I call my brother every day.”

Why did she feel the need to justify herself?

“Do you? How extraordinary.”

“You don’t speak with your family daily?”

His laugh was unexpected. Disbelieving. “No. I am thirty-one, cara. My father doesn’t expect a regular report.”

“Dante doesn’t expect a report either. But we are close, and much has happened recently—” She broke off, unwilling to continue. No one knew what she and Dante had suffered over the years at the hands of their father.

No one would, because neither of them was talking about it. Perhaps Dante had shared his story with his wife, but Antonella did not know and would not ask.

“It is good you are close,” Cristiano said after a moment. “Very good.”

She wasn’t certain how he meant that, but a shiver crept along her nerve endings. He turned and started rummaging through drawers. The rattle of silverware grated on her after a few moments and she knew she had to do something or go insane.

“What can I do?” She could’ve started searching for candles, but it was best if they didn’t duplicate effort. Since he seemed to know what to expect from the storm, she would bow to his experience.

If only he’d put on a shirt! Perhaps she could think then. Perhaps this shivery, achy feeling would go away. She’d seen bare-chested men before, but that had usually been poolside. Cristiano, naked to the waist, in a kitchen—

She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, he was looking at her.

“I need you to fill all the sinks and bath tubs with water,” he said after a few moments of silence in which she was utterly convinced he knew the effect he was having and did his utmost to draw it out.

She blinked. “Why?”

“Because if we lose power, we lose water.”

It made sense, but she’d have never thought of it until too late.

He continued, “Next, see if you can find any flashlights, batteries, candles and matches. If you run across a radio, get that too. Take everything to the master bedroom and leave it. I’ll search in here for a few things, and then I’m going outside to close the shutters. If you could get some towels and leave them on the kitchen island, I’ll use this entrance.”

She bit her lip as she studied him. He was all business now, and nothing like she’d expected. Dante was the most practical person she knew, and yet this man made him look like a cosseted child in comparison. At the moment, he was more like a military commando than an heir to a throne.

“Do you really think it could get that bad?”

His expression was grave. “Anything is possible, Principessa.

It’s best to be prepared.”

Cristiano was soaked. He’d spent twenty minutes in the pouring rain, closing the shutters and hooking them. The caretaker should have done the job when the storm had first been reported to have swung off track, but the man seemed to do little besides sit in his house and watch television.

Cristiano took no satisfaction in knowing it was unlikely the man was watching anything now. The rain was coming down so hard that the satellite signal had gone out a while ago. He knew because he’d turned on the flat-panel television in the bedroom before he’d gone outside. Now, he stood in the kitchen and stripped out of his shorts. Antonella was nowhere to be seen, but at least she’d brought the towels.

A vision of her face, her eyes red and swollen, came to him. He resolutely shoved it away.

He could not feel sorry for her.

She was a Monteverdian and a Romanelli. And he had a job to do. A promise to keep.

He’d sworn on Julianne’s memory that he would put an end to this war if it were the last thing he did. His people needed peace. Too long they’d lived in the shadow of this conflict.

He owed it to them. To her. He should have been there. If he had, he could have stopped her from dying. Could have kept her out of that convoy. He mourned the loss of all who’d died, but he didn’t feel responsible for them the way he did for his wife.

Dio, he should have never married her.

He grabbed a towel, scrubbed it over his body. He tried to picture Julianne, to remember the exact curve of her smile, but his mind insisted on seeing another face.

Antonella’s.

He couldn’t deny that he wanted her. He knew she was a thoughtless, manipulative puttana, yet he couldn’t seem to overrule the urges of his body. He should be able to do so, but he couldn’t.

She got to him on more than a physical level. When she’d cried earlier, he’d felt as if someone had stabbed a serrated knife into him and twisted it. He’d held her close and sung the same song his mother sang when he’d been small and unwilling to go to sleep.

Why?

Because something about Antonella defied explanation. She was shrewd and tough, manipulative—and yet there was pain, the kind of pain that only came with depth of experience. He knew because he’d felt that kind of pain too. He recognized something of himself within her.

And he didn’t like it one bit. To feel any sympathy at all for her, any kinship, was a betrayal of his dead wife’s memory. Not because she was a woman—he’d had plenty of lovers over the past few years—but because she was a Monteverdian.

Cristiano tossed the soaked towel aside and prepared to grab a fresh one to wrap around his waist when a squeak from the entry hall drew his attention. Antonella stood there, her dark hair pulled away from her face, her jaw hanging loose as she stared at him. His body started to react to her perusal.

He didn’t care. Let her see the effect she had on him. Surely she was accustomed to it. Hell, she probably expected it.

Maybe, just maybe, if he got this physical attraction for her out of the way, he could think again. Could push her to agree to his plan and get on with the business of taking over her country.

A second later, she pivoted on her heel and disappeared in a rush. She seemed flustered—and yet it was an act. Had to be. She wanted him to feel pity for her, to feel protective. She’d already succeeded once today.

He cinched the towel low over his hips. He’d been insane to consider, even for a moment, that this sultry princess—the woman who’d been draped over Raúl Vega last night—was anything other than what overwhelming evidence indicated she was.

She did not defy explanation. She was a beautiful woman who enjoyed her pleasures. Aside from her two royal engagements, she’d been linked with one fashion designer, a German count, three Formula One drivers, and an aging Italian billionaire among others. Raúl Vega was only her latest conquest.

Cristiano had spent a lot of money and effort to confirm the rumors of Monteverde’s financial crisis. His father believed that if they waited, Monteverde would fall like a domino into their hands.

But Cristiano was taking no chances; he would allow no eleventh hour rescues. Now that he’d dried up the last source of possible investment, what remained of his plan was simple enough: his money for Antonella’s cooperation in gaining the mineral rights to Monteverde’s ore deposits. With the ore under Monterossan control, he could enforce peace in the region.

It was their last bankable resource. If he controlled it, he controlled them.

Yet he knew his plan wasn’t as straightforward as he’d first thought. She was shrewder than he’d imagined, for one thing. Antonella would never allow herself to be bought so cheaply. No, what she would expect was the crown of Monterosso.

And he would offer it to her on a platter if necessary.

But he would never deliver it. To go through with a marriage, to her of all people, was out of the question. She would be humiliated, perhaps, but it wouldn’t last. She’d already survived two royal breakups. A third wouldn’t shatter her.

He glanced up at the roof as a gust of wind howled along the structure. He’d expected trouble, but not this kind. While the storm had worked to his advantage in isolating Antonella, it was bad for every other reason known to man.

Cristiano pulled open a drawer and found a roll of utility tape. The patio doors were the only ones with no exterior shutters. The addition was new, and though there was an overhang, he didn’t trust that would be enough to protect the glass. Once he finished taping the windows in long spokes across the glass—if they shattered, at least the tape would help prevent shards from going everywhere—he padded toward the bedroom to face his adversary.

Antonella sat in a chair in one corner, flipping through a magazine. She did not look up as he entered. “Is it any worse?” she asked.

Cristiano unzipped his bag and pulled out some dry clothes. “Not yet, but I think it soon will be. Did you find a radio?”

“Yes, but no extra batteries.”

They would have to be careful listening to updates once the power failed. “There isn’t much food in the house. Crackers, sausage, a jar of olives, aerosol cheese—”

“What’s aerosol cheese?”

She’d looked up, her brows drawing together. A moment later, she seemed to realize what she’d done. Her eyes darted to the towel cinched low on his hips, back up again. When her tongue swept over her lower lip, Cristiano thought his body would turn to stone. As it was, the towel was about to reveal her effect on him.

Dio santo.

He clamped down on his will, forced his body to behave. “It is an American product,” he said matter-of-factly. He made a motion with his hand. “You spray it on the crackers.”

“Spray?” She looked horrified.

“Si.”

A shudder passed over her. “That sounds perfectly vile.”

“Depends on how hungry you are and how long until your next meal.” Though he’d been born into privilege, he’d done his time with the Monterossan Special Forces. He understood deprivation and hunger quite well. While she flitted around her family palazzo, beautiful and elegant, her countrymen—and women—huddled in bunkers on the border, surrounded by artillery and razor wire, and ate meals out of a package. Just like he and the soldiers he’d served with had done.

“We should have returned to town,” she said, pushing up out of the chair and pacing toward the shuttered windows. She spun around again before she reached them. “Then we wouldn’t be isolated out here with spray cheese and no communications with the outside world.”

“Be thankful we are in a safe place, Principessa. There are those in the world who are not.”

If she noticed the steel in his voice, she didn’t show it. She seemed oblivious, on edge. Did the storm frighten her that much?

Her gaze raked over him, almost wild-eyed, then skittered away again. Once more, she spun toward the windows, following the track she’d paced before.

Cristiano recognized someone on the edge of control when he saw it. But what was causing her to feel so skittish? Did she have a thing about closed in spaces? Not that the room was small, but with the shutters closed and only a lamp for light, it felt rather cave-like.

Or was it the fact he was nearly naked? An interesting thought, to be sure.

“It wouldn’t have mattered where we were. Phone calls can fix nothing right now. And there was no time to make the trek back to town. This is the best we could do.”

She stopped and put her head in her hands. “I cannot believe I am stuck here with you for the foreseeable future. This is a nightmare.”

“I can think of a few ways to make the time pass.” He said it primarily because he knew it would irritate her.

Her head snapped up again. Score. “This isn’t something to make jokes about.”

“What makes you think I’m joking?”

She turned away from him with something that sounded like a growl. She made the circuit to the window again, stopped. Spun around, hands on hips, breasts thrust out enticingly. “Get this in your head, Cristiano—I am not sleeping with you. And I’d appreciate it very much if you’d put something on.”

Her voice rose at the end. Cristiano absently rubbed a hand over his chest, enjoying himself tremendously. So she was rattled by his semi-nakedness. Because she wanted him, no doubt. And because she felt guilty for doing so.

He certainly understood the feeling. “Do I disturb you, mia bella?”

She stood so stiffly, like a nun who’d blundered into a strip club. Now, why was that a turn-on? She wasn’t a virgin, wasn’t naïve, and yet she carried off the act so well. The contrast with her sensual body intrigued him. Made him hard. She couldn’t help but know it, clad as he was in a towel.

Her throat moved. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she rasped. A moment later, she waved a hand airily as she seemed to gather her equilibrium. “You don’t affect me one way or the other. So you might as well put on some clothes.”

The corners of his mouth curled in a smile that was both evil and triumphant. “I think you are right.”

And then he dropped the towel.