Italian Prince, Wedlocked Wife

His blue eyes burned through her. “You are going to come with me to Italy and live in luxury for the rest of your life.”

Prince Maximo d’Aquilla. An exotic name. But he was more than a dream. He was a flesh-and-blood man, a Roman gladiator, hard of sinew and bone, with a powerful, dangerous edge. And he was too good to be true.

She shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I grow weary of this.” His eyes traced over her. “I do not have time. We both know you’re coming with me.”

She almost couldn’t breathe. The man hadn’t been lying—it really was an offer straight out of her wildest dreams. To never have to scrimp again, wake up in a terrified panic in the middle of the night wondering how she’d pay her bills. To know Chloe was safe and warm and secure forever.

Jennie Lucas grew up dreaming about faraway lands. At fifteen, hungry for experience beyond the borders of her small Idaho city, she went to a Connecticut boarding school on scholarship. She took her first solo trip to Europe at sixteen, then put off college and traveled around the US, supporting herself with jobs as diverse as petrol station cashier and newspaper advertising assistant. At twenty-two, she met the man who would be her husband. After their marriage, she graduated from Kent State with a degree in English. Seven years after she started writing, she got the magical call from London that turned her into a published author.

Since then life has been hectic, with a new writing career and a sexy husband and two babies under two, but she’s having a wonderful (albeit sleepless) time. She loves immersing herself in dramatic, glamorous, passionate stories. Maybe she can’t physically travel to Morocco or Spain right now, but for a few hours a day, while her children are sleeping, she can be there in her books.

Jennie loves to hear from her readers. You can visit her website at www.jennielucas.com, or drop her a note at jennie@jennielucas.com

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To Anna Marie Allen,

auntie par excellence— I couldn’t have written this book without you.

CHAPTER ONE

HE’D found her!

Prince Maximo d’Aquilla parked his Mercedes beneath a broken streetlight, staring at the brightly lit gas station. The shining light from the shop’s windows illuminated the snowy night like a flame in the darkness, silhouetting the girl working alone inside.

Lucia Ferrazzi.

The granddaughter of his enemy. The ex-lover of his business rival.

Fate, he thought, gripping the steering wheel. Il destino. After all these years of looking, how else to explain it?

His phone rang. Ermanno, one of the bodyguards waiting in the car parked behind him, said a single word: “Signore?”

“Wait for my signal,” Maximo replied in Italian, and snapped his phone shut.

He watched her for another five minutes. It was ten o’clock on New Year’s Eve, and the store should have been busy selling wine and beer; but the run-down South Chicago neighborhood was eerily dark and deserted beneath the heavily falling snow.

The girl assisted her only customer at the cash register with a shy smile. Her scrubbed, clean face made her seem younger than twenty-one, he thought. Cat’s-eye glasses framed her wide-set brown eyes, giving her plain features a dowdy, bookish look.

She would fall to him easily, he thought.

The solitary customer left, and a gray sedan skidded to a stop near the gas pumps. A thin man stepped out of the car. He stared at the girl, spraying breath freshener into his mouth, then started toward the store.

Maximo saw the alarm in the girl’s eyes, the way she bit her tender pink lip as she watched the slender man come toward the door. She was afraid of him.

Maximo allowed himself a single, grim smile. She didn’t realize how much her world had changed.

As of now, she was under Maximo’s protection.

Before the clock struck midnight, she would be his bride.

His revenge would be complete. And as for that other matter…

He pushed the thought firmly from his mind. It would all be over. He would take her, and in three months, he’d be free. Free—of everything.

“Oh, no,” Lucy Abbott whispered aloud. The sound of her voice echoed in the empty store.

She leaned her head against the glass, watching as her smarmy manager came toward the door. She’d prayed she wouldn’t see him tonight. That he would have a date, a party, anything to keep him from stopping by to “check on the store.”

Just one more week, she reminded herself with a deep breath. One more week to put up with Darryl’s crude jokes, the way he stared at her breasts beneath her cashier’s smock, the way he would “accidentally” brush his groin against her hip amid the narrow aisles of chips and candy.

She’d applied to be an assistant manager at a nearby store, and she needed his good reference until her position was finalized next week. Then Lucy could say goodbye to him forever. And even better, she would get a raise. For the first time since her baby had been born, she would be able to have just one job instead of three—she could work just forty hours a week instead of sixty. She’d be able to spend a few precious hours with her baby every single day.

Baby? Chloe wouldn’t be a baby much longer. Tomorrow was her first birthday. She could hardly believe it. In Lucy’s constant struggle to pay rent and medical bills and child care, she’d missed much of her daughter’s first year. She’d missed the first time her baby had rolled over, the first time she’d sat up by herself, the first time she’d crawled. She’d missed countless smiles and crying and happy jabbering…

Stop it, she ordered herself, angry at how close she was to tears. Stop it right now.

Darryl burst through the door with a hard ring of the bell, bringing a blast of wind and snow behind him.

“Hey, Luce,” Darryl said with a leer on his pink, rubbery lips. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year,” she mumbled, hating that he called her Luce. It reminded her of the last man who’d called her that.

“Busy tonight?”

“Yes, very,” she lied over the lump in her throat.

“Let me see.” She tried to flinch away, but he still managed to brush against her backside as he went behind the counter. He punched a few buttons on the cash register, then seeing the few dollars inside the tray, looked up at her accusingly. “Why, you little tease.”

Pretending to laugh, she backed from him. “It’s been busy, really! See the floors wet with tracked snow? I’d better get a mop…”

“Always such a busy little bee.” He sneered, stopping her with one bony, sinewy hand. “You really think you’re better than me, don’t you?”

“No, of course not, I—”

Darryl grabbed her blue smock, looking down at her, breathing hard. “I’m tired of being nice to you for nothing.”

She heard the bell jingle above the door. But before she could look, he grabbed the back of her head, coming at her with his pink, rubbery lips.

“What are you doing—let me go!”

“You act so prim,” he panted, “but you sleep around. You had that kid, didn’t you? I know you want me—”

“No,” she whimpered, struggling to turn her face away.

Darryl yelped as a large hand grabbed him by the shoulder, spinning him around, yanking him backward like a dog on a leash.

Lucy gave a little cry as she saw a dark, towering figure pick up her manager by the lapels of his jacket. Darryl struggled futilely while the man, far taller and stronger than him, lifted him off the floor.

The stranger’s eyes were hard and black. In a voice as cold and implacable as death, he growled into his face, “Get. Out.”

“Yes,” Darryl gasped.

The giant tossed him to the floor. Her manager scrabbled back like a crab, tripping over his own feet in his eagerness to get away. He paused at the door.

“You’re fired!” he bleated at Lucy, then rushed out into the snowy night, revving the engine of his old gray sedan down the dark street.

Fired? She was fired? Her heart pounding, Lucy looked at her rescuer beneath the fluorescent overhead light.

The dark stranger looked down at her. His expressive eyes seared hers. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t have to. Just the heat of his glance made her tremble from deep within, as if he’d just woken something deep inside her…

“Are you hurt, signorina?” His voice was accented and deep.

She had to lean back to see his face. She was five-six, not terribly petite, but the man still towered over her. His shoulders were impossibly broad, the lines of his long, black coat elegant and sharp, and his face…his face! Roman nose, high cheekbones. His blue eyes stood out against his olive skin. He had black, wavy hair, a darkly shadowed chin and crinkles at the edge of his eyes. Early thirties?

But he took her breath away. The way he’d saved her—the way he looked at her now. She’d never known a man could be at once so beautiful and so strong. He was like a handsome prince out of a long-forgotten dream.

“Signorina?” His eyes were intense, searching as he reached over to touch her cheek. “If he hurt you—”

She felt his brief touch like an explosion up and down her body. Her blood trembled as if she’d just thrown herself naked into a bed of snow. “No. I’m fine…I’m…” She sucked in her breath and repeated numbly, “I’m fired.”

Fired.

No way to pay Mrs. Plotzky.

With no babysitter, she couldn’t go to her two part-time jobs. And since Chloe’s trip to the E.R. last month for croup, Lucy was already a month behind on her rent. Her landlord had threatened to throw her out on the street if she didn’t catch up.

Cold days stretched before her, Chicago’s icy wind wailing like a baby’s cry, and frigid, desperate nights scavenging beds at homeless shelters. She’d be destitute with her baby in the dead of winter, no job, no money, no home…

Her baby. She’d failed her baby.

Lucy’s heart rose up in her throat, nearly choking her. Her lips soundlessly repeated her daughter’s name. Her knees trembled, her body shaking with a whole year of repressed grief and exhaustion. And everything started to go black…

The man caught her before she could hit the floor. Lifting her as if she weighed nothing, he held her against his chest.

“You’re done here,” he growled, and started carrying her toward the door.

Carrying her to the door?

She blinked up at him, feeling dazed and lightheaded—and not just because of nearly fainting. Being close to this stranger, being cradled in his arms, did strange things to her heart rate. He was as darkly handsome as any hero from a novel. As he carried her past the counter, her eyes fell upon her battered paperback copy of Wuthering Heights poking out of her bag on the floor.

But this dark, handsome stranger wasn’t Heathcliff. And she certainly wasn’t pampered, spoiled Cathy. Romantic tales had nothing to do with real life.

She’d learned that the hard way.

Lucy shook herself out of her reverie. “Where—where are you taking me?”

“Out of here.”

“Put me down!” Every insane man in Chicago seemed to be stopping by tonight—all of them intent on ruining her life! She kicked and struggled in his arms. “Let me go!”

Abruptly he released her, and she slid down his impossibly hard, impeccably dressed body. Her own body broke out in a cold sweat as she stood somewhat shakily on her own two feet.

“I think the phrase you’re looking for,” the man said, “is thank you.”

She’d been grateful to the man for saving her from Darryl’s advance, but now… What did Lucy care about some forced kiss, when her baby might soon have no home?

“Thank you?” she demanded furiously. “For what? For getting me fired? I could have handled Darryl just fine if you hadn’t interfered!”

“Sì.” His sensual mouth curved upward. “You obviously had the situation well in hand.”

She ground her jaw. “You’re going to call him right now and tell him you’re sorry!”

“I am sorry only that I didn’t use his face to mop your dirty floor.”

If she didn’t get her job back, she would be forced to take her baby to a homeless shelter. If all the shelters were full, which was likely during Chicago’s cold, hard winter, they’d have to live out of Lucy’s decrepit old hatchback, on the street, freezing…

And it was all her fault for not doing a better job at protecting her daughter.

Terror ripped through her. “I need this job!”

“No. You do not.” He looked down at her, so handsome, with the calm arrogance that only came from wealth. “You cannot pretend you took this job out of anything but desperation.”

Lucy felt sick at his accurate appraisal of her situation.

With no savings and few marketable skills, Lucy had worked at low-paying jobs since Chloe’s father had deserted them a week before her birth. She’d had to work constantly just to survive, since she’d foolishly given up her hard-won college scholarship to be with him. And he’d left Lucy with nothing but his baby in her belly and the memory of his whispered promises.

For the past year, she’d held their heads above water by such a thin margin. One mistake like this could suck them under. She couldn’t let them drown!

“Please,” she whispered, though she knew it was hopeless. “You don’t know what will happen if I lose this job.”

He looked down at her. Reaching out a broad, strong-fingered hand, he gently lifted her chin.

“You have nothing to fear ever again. You are mine now, Lucia. And I protect what is mine.”

She was his? What was he talking about?

Then she realized what he’d called her: Lucia.

“How—how did you know my name?” Lucy stammered.

“I know more about you than you can imagine.” He watched her beneath heavy-lidded eyes. “And I’m here to make your dreams come true.”

Her dreams.

A snug, warm little house surrounded by sunshine and flowers. Her daughter growing up happy and secure. Having someone to love, instead of always being alone, fighting just to survive—

Pulling away from his touch, she angrily shook the images from her mind.

“My only dream is for you to call Darryl and beg for forgiveness.”

His dark eyebrows rose. “That is indeed a fantasy.”

“What did you think I would say? That my dream was to spend a night in your bed, having you make love to me for hours on end?”

She’d meant to be sarcastic, but he gave her a hot glance that made her shiver, and wonder if her words were truer than she’d thought.

“I offer you revenge,” he said. “Against the man who hurt you.”

“I told you. Darryl didn’t do anything. You came before—”

“Alexander Wentworth,” he bit out.

At the name, she felt the blood drain from her face. “What?”

“I will make him regret the day he abandoned you and your child to starve.” His blue eyes burned through her. “You are going to come with me to Italy, and live in luxury for the rest of your life.”

CHAPTER TWO

HE WANTED to take her to Italy?

Italy. The warm, beautiful land Lucy had dreamed of since she was twelve years old, watching A Room with a View on TV during her mother’s last night in the hospital. Even her mom’s final words to her had been, “Go to Italy, Lucy… Go…”

But Lucy had never left Illinois. She’d lived in foster homes until she was eighteen, then worked and scrimped her way into college. Her sophomore year, working at a department store, she’d met a handsome, smooth-talking man who spoke Italian—the vice president of a fashion house based out of New York. He delighted her with stories of Rome, promising to someday take her to visit.

Lucy had never met a man like Alex Wentworth. A man so magical…so glamorous…so exotic. She’d dropped out of college, giving up all her hard work, simply because he’d complained that school took too much of her time. She’d fallen like a brick.

She was still falling. The dream had become a nightmare. He’d fled to Rome, beyond the reach of Chicago’s child support laws. For the last year, he’d returned all her letters and photographs unopened. He’d sent her one curt note, telling her he was in love with someone else. He’d suggested Chloe was not his child and that Lucy was either a delusional stalker or a gold-digging whore.

It had nearly killed her. But she was fine now. Really. She could live with a broken heart.

What she couldn’t understand was how he could deny their child. How he could live in luxury, drinking wine, taking lovers, enjoying a warm, beautiful city—when he’d left his innocent baby behind to suffer?

If Lucy went to Italy, she could ask him.

Looking up at the dark stranger, she licked her dry lips. “Let me get this straight. You…you want to take me to Italy?”

He gave her a sensual smile. “Sì. And you will never worry about money again.”

She almost couldn’t breathe. The man hadn’t been lying—it really was an offer straight out of her wildest dreams. To never have to scrimp again, wake up in a terrified panic in the middle of the night, wondering how she’d pay her bills. To know Chloe was safe and warm and secure forever.

And she could see Alex. He’d been able to ignore her letters, but he couldn’t ignore her if she showed up at his office, could he? Once she showed him a picture of Chloe, he would come to his senses. He would love their beautiful baby. Once he saw their daughter, once she was real to him, how could he do anything but love her?

Lucy accepted that he’d moved on to another woman. But she couldn’t bear for Chloe to grow up without a father, as she herself had. Without a father, Lucy’d had no one to love or protect her when her mother had died…

“So you agree?” the dark stranger said coolly.

Lucy clasped her hands behind her back to hide their trembling. “I don’t understand. Why do you want to take me to Italy? How would that hurt Alex?”

The man gave a cold smile. “He will realize how great a fool he was to let you go.”

A laugh rose in her throat, so bitter it nearly choked her. “How so?”

“He will lose something he wants. Something that rightfully belongs to me.” The man reached forward, touching her shoulder. His latent power and sensuality burned through her blue cashier’s smock, sending a current of heat pouring through her veins like lava. “We will make him pay, Lucia.” His intense eyes mesmerized her. “All you have to do is say yes.”

Yes, she thought, dazed at her own sudden change of fortune. Yes, yes, yes.

But as her lips parted to speak the words, a realization made her freeze.

She’d been through this before.

Attracted to a devastatingly handsome man who made her blood race. Who’d promised her the world. She’d naively given him her heart, her future, her faith.

And it had cost her everything.

She wrenched her shoulder away.

“Sorry,” she forced herself to say. “I’m not interested.”

He blinked.

“You’re—not interested?”

She got the impression that no woman had ever turned him down for anything. It would have been amusing, if the whole situation hadn’t infuriated her—and made her hurt all over.

Fighting back tears, she picked up her ratty handbag from the floor. “You walk in here, a total stranger. You get me fired—then expect me to blindly trust you? Are you out of your mind? Who do you think you are?”

He gave her a brief bow, elegant and fluid and ironic. The sharp cut of his coat, his blue eyes against tanned skin, reminded her of Mediterranean sun and olive groves. He was a romantic fantasy, every dream she’d ever had of exotic lands. And then he spoke.

“I am Prince Maximo d’Aquilla.”

She stared at him for a shocked moment, thinking she’d heard him wrong, that she was having a flashback to all the historical novels she’d read as a teenager. “You’re a prince?”

“Does my title impress you?” He punched numbers on his cell phone, the expression on his face hard as granite as he snapped it shut. “Va bene. Perhaps now you’ll cease your pointless resistance and accept your fate.”

Prince Maximo d’Aquilla. An exotic name. But he was more than a dream. He was a flesh-and-blood man, a Roman gladiator hard of sinew and bone, with a powerful, dangerous edge.

And he was too good to be true.

She shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I grow weary of this.” His eyes traced over her. “I do not have time. We both know you’re coming with me. Either do it gracefully, or—” he came closer “—I will simply take you.”

She could see at once that it was not an idle threat. He could take her—in any way he wished. And on this dark, empty, snowy night, with no cameras or weapons or customers, who would stop him?

She sucked in her breath, gathering her anger like a defensive force. She would stop him.

How dare he try to intimidate her this way! Did he think he could boss her around with his gorgeous face, his wealth, his power, his alleged royalty?

“Do you think I’m stupid?” she demanded.

“I’m starting to wonder.”

“Your story is ridiculous! You’re a prince, and you want me to run away with you to Italy and be rich and happy? What’s your scam? I get on your plane, then what—end up sold into a harem in some desert?”

“You think any sheikh would tolerate such insolence?” he said icily.

“I just know that when a handsome man makes an offer that’s too good to be true, it means he’s lying.”

His laser-blue eyes narrowed.

“First you insult my honor. Now you call me a liar?”

His voice held a quiet, dangerous edge. She trembled with fear, even as she rebelliously clenched her hands.

“If you think I’m idiotic enough to believe some fantasy about becoming wealthy and getting revenge on Alex, you’re not just a liar, you’re a fool.”

He looked down at her, and she felt scorching heat to her toes. His glance made her feel hot all over, dizzy, pummeled by a whirlwind. “If you were a man, I would make you regret those insults.”

She raised her chin defiantly. “And since I’m a woman?”

His fingers gently traced a tendril of dark hair that had escaped her ponytail. “Your punishment will be entirely different.”

There was a sudden ring at the door. It took a moment for Lucy to even realize what that meant, lost as she was in the sensation tingling up her hair, her scalp, down her spine to her toes. How was it possible that with just a single touch, he could make her whole body shake…?

A hulking man, shorter than Maximo but twice as wide, came to him with a deferential bow. “Mio principe.”