The Mediterranean Prince's Passion (The Royal House 0f Cacciatore Book 1) Read online

  He realised that he had wounded her with his stubborn, arrogant pride. He wished he could take the words back, but he couldn’t, and so instead he moved towards her, his hands outstretched in a gesture of peace. ‘Gabriella—’

  ‘The name I use,’ she said furiously, ‘is Ella—just as yours is Nicolo. That’s the reality. And the two people who made the mistake of getting close were not real. You were playing out some sort of fantasy, so let’s just leave it at that, shall we?’

  Her perception rocked him almost as much as the certain knowledge that this was something his easy charm could not fix. Not if the raging look on her face was anything to go by.

  ‘What if I told you that I didn’t want to leave it?’ he questioned softly.

  Her answering look was contemptuous. ‘Presumably you’ve spent your whole life getting exactly what you want?’

  He had the grace to shrug.

  ‘Well, this time you’re not! I want you to go now, and I don’t want ever to see you again.’ She sucked in a hot, dry breath, afraid that she might do something regrettable—like burst into noisy tears of humiliation. Far worse than the crushing realisation that he had led her on—fooled her with some game of make-believe—was the hurt she felt inside. She had been blown away by him, she had given him something of her heart as well as her body, and now there must be painful surgery to reclaim that little piece of her heart. ‘Because I don’t enjoy being made a fool of.’

  Damn her for her insolence! For daring to talk to him in this way! He should turn on his heel, walk away and forget all about her. ‘That is what you want?’ he asked in a low voice.

  ‘Shall I say it in French?’ she mocked. ‘Or Italian? Or Spanish? Will that help you understand a little better?’

  Her anger had loosened her up enough so that he was able to take her off guard, whispering the tips of his fingers down over the silken surface of her cheek and noting the immediate tremble of her lips, the darkening of her eyes, with a strange and heady triumph.

  For it was second nature to him to fight for what he wanted—to prove to himself that he was capable of getting it on his own merits, and not by relying on the entitlements that accompanied a mere accident of birth.

  ‘Muy bien,’ he murmured, lapsing instinctively into the tongue spoken by his ancestors—Spanish Conquistadors who had fought so long and so hard for Mardivino. ‘I will leave you now, Gabriella, and you can reflect on your folly at leisure. For folly it is.’ His eyes glittered with the light of battle. ‘You are fighting a battle with yourself for no reason, because you still want me as much as I want you.’

  ‘You really are living in fantasy land!’ she declared witheringly.

  The heat of desire beat through him. ‘You will be mine again,’ he promised silkily, crushing her fingers to his lips before turning on his heel and slamming his way out of the house.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ELLA stared at the letter as if it was contaminated.

  ‘You don’t seem very excited,’ observed Rachel, her own eyes shining. ‘I mean, most people would be jumping up and down to get a Royal request!’ She picked up the letter again and read it as reverentially as if it had been a Dead Sea Scroll. ‘I just can’t believe it! A letter from the Mardivinian Bureau of Tourism,’ she repeated wonderingly. ‘Asking us for our professional advice!’

  Ella sighed and she gave her assistant a weak smile. Rachel was young and enthusiastic, but those very qualities—which had led Ella to employ her in the first place—were also those that would make it difficult for her to understand why she had no intention of accepting this job. Though when she stopped to think about it what could she say to anyone that would make the facts believable?

  How about if she just blurted it out? She could just imagine how the conversation would go.

  Actually, it’s just a ruse to get me to go to Mardivino, Rachel.

  And why is that, Ella?

  Well, the Prince rescued me from a stricken boat, only I didn’t know he was a prince at the time. He subsequently came here for dinner and I slept with him, and when I discovered that he had deceived me I told him I never wanted to see him again.

  She chose her words carefully. Perhaps professional concern might be more advisable. ‘To be honest, Rachel, I’m not sure if I can spare the time to go,’ she prevaricated.

  Rachel stared at her as if she had gone stark, raving mad. ‘But I can handle the office here—you know I can!’ A hurt expression came over her face. ‘Unless, of course, you don’t think I’m capable of running the office—though you’ve let me do it before!’

  ‘Of course I don’t think that!’

  Rachel was shaking her head. ‘I mean—this is like something out of a fairy tale!’

  Maybe it was, thought Ella—but not in the way that Rachel meant. It was certainly like the part in the stories where the apple you bit sent you into a century-long sleep, or where your glass carriage became a pumpkin. The dark side of the fairy story…

  ‘It could turn out to be a bigger project than a small firm like ours can handle.’

  Rachel lifted her hands in a gesture that said, So what? ‘If it’s too big, then we just take on more staff!’

  Ella stared at her assistant as an idea slowly began to take shape. A solution that would not just save her skin, but thrill Rachel into the bargain. And one that Prince Nicolo Louis Fantone Cacciatore couldn’t possibly object to…

  ‘Do you want to go down to the village and buy some bread for our lunch?’ she said innocently.

  As soon as Rachel had gone, Ella picked up the thick sheet of cream paper with the heavily embossed crest at the top and dialled a number with a shaking finger, hardly able to believe that it would get her straight through to the palace at Mardivino.

  But it did, and she very nearly dropped the receiver when she heard the rich, silky voice. ‘Si? Nicolo.’

  So how did she address him now? As Nico, or Nicolo, or Prince, or—perhaps most appropriate of all—as rat!

  ‘Nico?’ she said coolly, without any kind of formality.

  Within the quiet, opulent splendour of his palace office, Nico could feel the deep, dark throb of his pulse as he heard her voice. As he had known he would. ‘Ciao, Gabriella,’ he said silkily. ‘Did you get my letter?’

  ‘How else do you think I knew your number?’ she questioned coldly.

  His pulse quickened further. He was a man who constantly sought new adventures, and he had never before realised what a turn-on insolence could be. ‘So when will you be arriving?’ he enquired pleasantly.

  Oh, but her reply was going to give her such great delight! A tiny revenge, it was true—but an empowering one, which would go a little way towards healing some of the hurt and humiliation she felt. ‘I won’t be. I’ll be sending my assistant instead.’

  There was a pause. ‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ he said softly.

  She ignored the silken threat in his voice. ‘She’s very capable—and this will be a wonderful opportunity for her!’

  ‘But it is not your assistant that I want, cara—it is you.’

  Despot! Well, he had better learn that she was not one of his subjects, and he couldn’t just dictate to her as if she was. ‘I think it’s time I enlightened you, Prince Nicolo. Point one—it is pretty pathetic to invent a job just because you want to see someone again, especially when she has no desire to see you—ever! And, point two—either my assistant comes or you can kiss the “job” goodbye.’

  He gave a low laugh, curling his long fingers around the phone in an instinctive movement of delicious anticipation. She was just crying out to be conquered, as he had conquered mountains and oceans ever since he could remember.

  ‘Point one, Gabriella—your ego may be vast enough to regard this as simply a ploy, but my need for your services is genuine.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ she questioned disbelievingly.

  ‘Yes, really.’ He stared reflectively out at the sapphire sweep of the sea. ‘Mardivino is a small island which
needs to overhaul its tourist industry selectively. Its popularity is growing, and we have all seen the dangers of that elsewhere. When too many people come there is a risk that the original charm of a place will be destroyed. It is happening here, and it is happening now.’

  ‘That isn’t really my end of the market at all,’ she said coolly.

  ‘Then perhaps it should be,’ he returned. ‘I have had your company thoroughly investigated and I like what you do. I like it very much.’

  ‘Actually, I’m not looking for your approval, Nico.’ But she might as well not have spoken for all the notice he took.

  ‘Sometimes a relatively untutored eye can see what all the so-called “experts” cannot—you have both vision and imagination, Gabriella, and that is what I am looking for.’

  ‘Oh, hoist the flag! Declare a national holiday! Am I supposed to be pleased? Because I’m not! I never sought your approval and—’

  ‘And point two,’ he said, his words cutting through her protestation like steel lancing through soft flesh. ‘Please understand that I mean what I say. I do not want your assistant. I want you.’

  ‘Well, that’s tough! I’m not coming!’

  The fight and her resistance was tantalising him to an unbearable pitch, but the tone of his voice remained clipped and emphatic. ‘I think that you will. Or rather, that you should. I am not used to having my requests turned down, and if you refuse then I am afraid that your business might…. How shall I putthis?’ There was another pause. ‘You might discover that there has been a sudden downturn in your fortunes.’

  Quiet menace underpinned his words, and with a chilling certainty Ella knew that he spoke the truth. She didn’t know how he could damage her business, she just knew that he could. ‘Are you…are you threatening me?’ she demanded incredulously.

  ‘It is all a matter of perception, surely?’ he answered softly. ‘I am merely offering you a wonderful opportunity, one that it would be exceedingly foolish of you to turn down. It would be professional suicide,’ he finished.

  He was a clever and perceptive man—damn him! For someone whose position must mean that he was largely protected from the world and all its problems, he knew about the value of a job like this. Or had he grown up knowing that he could have everything he wanted—just so long as the price was right?

  Ella injected frost into her voice. At least that way she could stop it from trembling with rage. ‘And if I accept? If I do the job which you say you have for me—do I have your word that you will leave me alone?’

  ‘But I deal with tourism on the island,’ he said innocently. ‘It would make no sense at all for me to make a promise that I cannot keep, cara. You will, of course, have to liaise with me.’

  He managed to make the word sound indecently sexual—which, presumably, had been his intention. And her impotent rage did not protect her from the sudden shimmering of sensation over her skin as she remembered with erotic clarity just how accomplished a lover he was.

  ‘I think we’re talking at cross-purposes here, Nico,’ she said softly. ‘And as for promises—I can make one that I have every intention of keeping, and that is that you will not get what it is you want.’

  ‘But you do not know what that is, do you, Gabriella?’ he mocked.

  No, but she had a pretty good idea. She wasn’t stupid, nor was she completely inexperienced. She hadn’t been a virgin. There had been a couple of lovers in her past, but none of them had come even close to matching Nico. It was about so much more than technique—it had been as though she had never really made love properly before. With him it had been an experience that transcended anything she had ever felt in the arms of another man.

  He had made it seem as if her body was boneless, weightless, melding with his as if it had been born to do only that. She had felt her heart beating beneath him and the hard heat of his body within hers. In his arms she had been helpless and yet powerful—and she had seen his face soften with a pleasure and a joy that had only added to her own. And they had tasted those pleasures for only one fleeting night—of course he would want to experience it all over again. Heaven only knew, just thinking about it now was enough to set her own body aching.

  But things had changed. Even if he hadn’t deceived her—which he had—the relative innocence of what had happened between them could never be recreated. He was not who she had thought he was. He had kept his identity secret—and as secrets went it was a pretty big one.

  Was his persistence due to the fact that she had sent him packing and that had never happened before in his privileged life? What other reason would he have for twisting her arm to fly to his island?

  Well, he was in for a big surprise. Ella’s family had often accused her of stubbornness, and she knew that it could sometimes be a fault, but at a time like now it was going to prove very useful indeed—although she would prefer to define it as resolve.

  ‘So you are agreed, Gabriella?’ the soft, mocking voice prompted her.

  She briefly thought about appealing to his better nature—but she could hear his steely determination. She thought about calling his bluff. Would he really go through with something as hostile as ruining her tiny company simply because she would not accede to his will? Might he not just shrug those broad, hard shoulders and accept what she wanted with something approaching good grace? There must, after all, be literally hundreds of other women who would leap to be his lover.

  No.

  Instinct told her that he was used to getting what he wanted—and he wanted her. Well, he could have her—but only on her terms.

  ‘Very well. I accept.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  She could hear the triumph in his voice and clenched her free hand into a little fist. Oh, why hadn’t she slapped him properly when she had had the opportunity? She breathed in deeply, forcing herself to sound cool. ‘But first I need a little more information about precisely what it is I am expected to do.’

  ‘I think that will be a little easier when you are here. You shall have all the information you need.’

  She ignored that. ‘That’s not good enough, Nico,’ she said sweetly. ‘I’d like you to fax me some statistics about numbers of tourists, their accommodation requirements and so on—can you please arrange that for me as soon as possible?’

  Even at school he hadn’t been spoken to in such a stern and bossy way! He should feel righteous indignation at her insubordination, and yet he had never heard anything quite so tantalising in his life. How great the pleasure would be of subduing her with the skilful touch of his lips! And if statistics were what it took to fly her out to Mardivino, then she could have all the damned statistics she wanted! Staring out of the palace window at the intense blue of the sea, Nico gave a slow and predatory smile. ‘Very well.’

  ‘I will fly out at the beginning of next week.’

  ‘Tell me when and I will arrange a plane. In fact,’ he added, on a low note of delight, ‘I will fly you to Mardivino myself.’

  Now there was triumph in her voice. ‘Oh, no, you won’t, Nico,’ she said softly. ‘Once was enough!’

  ‘You are criticising my flying ability?’

  ‘No, I am resisting your efforts to control me. You want my expertise and you’ll get it, but you will be treated in exactly the same way as any other client. There will be no preferential treatment—not for you, and certainly not for me. I will take a scheduled airline flight, thank you very much, and I will add the cost to my bill.’

  For a moment he was speechless, scarcely able to believe what he was hearing. She was refusing his offer! To be flown openly to Mardivino by the youngest Prince of that principality!

  ‘Oh, and one more thing, Nico?’

  She was making more requests? Through the haze of disbelief and thwarted desire he felt a glimmer of reluctant admiration for her tenacity and guts. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I trust that my accommodation requirements will be totally above board? I will require a room for me, and for me alone, and if you renege
on that I will take the first available flight home and you really will have to find someone else.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said coldly. ‘And now I will give you the number of my mobile.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  He had never felt so frustrated. Did she not realise the honour he was according her—giving her access to him whenever she wanted? He had been about to tell her not to abuse the privilege, but now his lips snapped closed. Clearly she didn’t even see it as a privilege!

  ‘Jusque la`, cherie,’ he murmured.

  Momentarily she was confused by the sudden switch in language. ‘I thought you usually used Italian?’

  He watched a speedboat sweeping across the bay. ‘It depends. Italian is the language of love—although my French and Spanish cousins would disagree—and I am not feeling particularly loving towards you at the moment, Gabriella.’

  She couldn’t let this one pass. Oh, no. ‘I think you’re in danger of confusing love with sex, Nico,’ she said quietly, and put the phone down.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘AND just where are you proposing she stay, Nicolo?’

  ‘At the palace, of course.’

  ‘No.’ Gianferro’s voice was flat and unequivocal. ‘I will not tolerate one of your mistresses staying here in the Palace.’

  Nico didn’t react. Not straight away. Over the years he had learnt that considered argument was better than a hot-headed blaze of outrage—especially with his eldest brother. Biting back his words went against his nature but he had learned to school himself in diplomacy when dealing with Gianferro. For Gianferro was the heir. The glittering eldest son over whom the double-edged sword of leadership hung by only a whisper, since their father, the King, had lain sick in his palace suite for many months now.