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“I’ll choose a ring. But you are already giving me something. You’re giving Luca your name. It … it means a lot to me. The Santina name has been nothing more than a curse to him in so many ways. Because him bearing my last name marks him. No matter how much I wish it didn’t,” she whispered the last words, the pain strangling her. Whenever she thought of what she’d done to her son, to his life, with her bad decisions, it made her feel like she was bathing in the shame of it all over again. In the agony.
He deserved a mother who made better choices. Her mother and father deserved a daughter who made better choices. At least in this marriage to Rodriguez, she had a small shot at redemption.
Not just for herself. For Luca. For him, bearing the Anguiano name would erase so much stigma from his life. In time, people might forget. He might stop being punished for her sins.
That alone made the marriage worth it.
“I don’t know if my family name will serve him any better,” Rodriguez said.
“It will.”
Their eyes met and Carlotta felt the impact like a punch to her stomach, making her breath shallow, her entire body tense. There was something about him, something beyond the masculine beauty of his face, the perfectly square jaw, the dark, compelling eyes. He possessed a kind of sexual magnetism. The sort of charm that could make a woman lose her mind, and her clothes, in less time than it would take for him to properly execute a pickup line.
She could feel her body changing. Her breasts getting heavy, her limbs trembling, her stomach tightening, an ache building in her core. All it took was a look. He didn’t have to speak, didn’t have to move, and her body was ready for him. For his touch.
How did he do it? How did he peel her control away, strip by strip, like a flimsy silk covering? Not even Gabriel had been able to do that. She’d made the decision to cast off propriety and have an affair with him. With Rodriguez … she was trying to ignore it. Trying to hang on, and yet she couldn’t.
She backed away, gripping the knob on the playroom door, counting on the reminder that her son was right there to be her lifeline, to be her link to sanity.
“I’d better go check on Luca.”
He nodded sharply, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’ll send one of my staff up to sit with him in a couple of hours when the jeweler arrives. Is that all right with you?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice. It might come out all breathy and shivery. She certainly felt shivery. She backed into the playroom and closed the door behind her, trying to ignore the steady pounding of her heart.
She knew about men like him. Men with charm. Men who made promises with their eyes. Promises of pleasure that young, naive women might mistake for a promise of love.
But the only real promise in men like him was the promise of heartbreak. She knew that. She had the battle scars on her heart, on her life, to serve as reminders.
Rodriguez was a danger, not simply to her heart, but to her control. She had to keep her control. She couldn’t afford to let it go. She would give him an heir, and after the wedding, she would give him her body. But it would only be for that purpose.
It could never be anything more.
“Good night, figlio mio.” Carlotta leaned forward, the cinched waist of her dress digging into her less than toned stomach, and kissed Luca on the forehead.
“Are you going to sleep too?” he asked, his eyes trained on hers. Luca was always so tuned in to her. She imagined it was because it was just the two of them. She poured everything into him. All of her love, all of her energy. It was the most exhausting, rewarding thing she’d ever done with her life.
And now it was changing. Her sweet, peaceful, somewhat boring life. She didn’t want it to change. For a moment she just wanted to freeze time. Keep it here, with Luca. With him so small and trusting that his mother had everything under control. His trust in her helped her believe in herself.
But she couldn’t stop time. And her control was slipping fast.
“No,” she said, trying to force a smile. “I’m meeting with the prince.”
“He has a funny name,” Luca said.
“Luca! No, he doesn’t.” Hard for a five-year-old to say though.
“Is he your boyfriend? Elia from school said her mama has a boyfriend.”
“Do you even know what a boyfriend is?” she asked, hoping to put off answering the question, since she wasn’t really sure what to say about all of this. Rodriguez was … he was nothing to her and her fiancé at the same time, and there was really no clean way to explain that to a child. She didn’t really understand it.
“No.”
“I told you we were going to be living here. And it’s because Rodriguez and I are getting married.” She sucked in a sharp breath and cursed the tiny zipper of her dress as it dug into her rib cage. “That means he’ll be my husband.”
“Will he be my dad?”
The thousand-euro question. And she had no clue how to answer it. It also betrayed that Luca did realize it was just them. And that there should be more. That he should have a father. But his father already had a family, and didn’t leave any room for them.
Her heart tightened. “Yes, Luca. If I’m married to him, he’ll be your dad.”
He was adopting Luca, and no matter how involved he was, legally, he would be Luca’s father. And she would not let him hurt her son. There was no amount of atonement worth that.
“Good. Where’s Sherbet?”
“Here.” She reached up to the shelf above his bed and retrieved one of his ratty stuffed owls, much loved and often washed so that his synthetic fuzz was clumped together. “Now, good night, Luca.”
“Night,” he mumbled, already drifting off to sleep.
She crept from the room and flicked the light off, and nearly ran into the solid figure of Rodriguez when she stepped out into the corridor.
“Madre di dio!” she hissed, her hand on her chest over her raging heart. She would pretend, for now, that her physical reaction was due to him startling her and that it had nothing to do with the fact that he was dressed in a perfectly tailored dark suit that clung to every hard muscle on his lean body. Nothing at all to do with those dark, glittering eyes, the chiseled jaw, the wicked mouth, always curved up as though he was laughing at her expense.
Nope. It was because he’d snuck up on her.
“I have a funny name?” he asked, one dark brow raised.
“You were eavesdropping?”
He shrugged, not even a hint of conscience showing. “Funny kid. He’s smart.”
She felt a smile tug at the corners of her lips. “He is.”
“Lorenzo is here with the rings. Come with me.” He looped his arm through hers, a polite gesture. One a visiting dignitary might bestow upon her, back at the palace in Santina. But this was different.
Because every time Rodriguez touched her, it was like throwing a match into a can of petrol. It made her want to escape her own body. To climb out of her skin so she could get away from the heat, and the fire. The desire that made her want to turn to him and put her hands on his chest, to feel if it was just as hard and muscular as it looked.
How did he do this? How did he demolish all of her hard-earned control with just a look?
She hadn’t been alone with a man who wasn’t a relative since before Luca was born. It was making her hormones a touch unpredictable. And a lot overenthusiastic.
That was why. That was her story and she was sticking to it.
She clenched her jaw tight and followed him down the long, marble-tiled corridor and through double, oak wood doors into a large study. This had a bit of Rodriguez in it. At least, as she imagined him. Large windows that overlooked the turquoise sea and white sand beaches of Santa Christobel. A pale wood desk that had no papers on it, a bright red rug that added punch to the pale color palette.
The desk had a tray on it, lined in black velvet, with at least fifty brilliant rings on display.
“Lorenzo thought we might like some privacy,” Rodriguez said, not moving from his position by the doorway. “Go. Look.”
Carlotta swallowed and made her way over to the desk. There was a mix of old and new designs, antique mixed with modern. Diamonds in every color, sapphires, rubies.
Carlotta was familiar with fine jewelry. She’d been given her first pair of diamond earrings when she was three. But this … this was different. There was a time when she’d dreamed of a wedding proposal. First from an imaginary suitor, handsome and dashing. And then she’d met the man.
Gabriel. A fitting name. Pale golden hair, beautiful blue eyes. He’d looked like an angel to her. So perfect. He’d made her heart race and her pulse pound, had made her tremble with the desire for things she’d never really wanted before.
When she’d met Gabriel she’d rushed to throw off the restraints she’d let hold her all of her life. Because he had become the one she’d fantasized about getting a ring from.
Until she’d found out another woman already wore his ring. That thought always brought a kind of sharp, rolling nausea that made her shake, made her body prickle with cold sweat. With disgust. Disgust aimed at herself, for all of the sins her passions had encouraged her to commit.
She closed her eyes, curling her hand into a fist for a moment, fighting old memories. She swallowed hard and forced herself to look back down at the rings. This was different, this, at least, was honest. It wasn’t love, but she’d never really had love. She’d been used. She’d been discarded. She’d been tricked.
Even still, she wasn’t innocent of every wrong that had taken place in that relationship.
At least now she was going in with her eyes wide-open. At least now her heart wasn’t at risk.
“I don’t even know where to start,” she said. The gems blurred together as unexpected tears filled her eyes. Why was she being emotional? Because she was thinking about Gabriel? Thinking of him rarely made her cry anymore. It just made her feel sick.
“Start with what you like best.” Rodriguez’s voice came from right behind her, close enough that she could feel the heat from his body at her back.
She licked her suddenly dry lips and tried to ignore her racing heart. “Help me choose.”
“It’s not for me, it’s for you.”
“I know but …” She extended her hand and touched a ring with a white, square-cut diamond at the center. “I don’t know.”
“Then we’ll have to see which one feels right.” He reached from behind her, his arm brushing her waist as he picked up the ring she’d just touched. He took her left hand in his and turned her gently, like a dancer might twirl his partner.
She was face-to-face with him, so close now. He held the ring up and handed it to her. She was grateful he wasn’t going to put it on for her. She didn’t know what she would do if he kept touching her hand. Melt, probably.
Rodriguez watched Carlotta slide the ring onto her finger, her motions smooth and graceful. She was like that. Always. Smooth and dignified. It was hard to imagine her ruffled, even though he’d seen it. Carlotta had a sanguine surface, but when she was cornered, her inner wildcat came out.
He liked it. Even if he couldn’t explain why. He tended to like simple women. Not stupid women, but women who had no baggage. Women who just wanted sex and fun. Parties, a night in his bed. And then he always had a gift sent to them later. Something to remember a good time by. It was uncomplicated.
It was enough, because it had to be.
But nothing about marriage was uncomplicated. Even less so when a child was involved. And much less so still when the woman was Carlotta. She had secrets. She had hidden depths. Passion that simmered just beneath the smooth, controlled surface. A passion she seemed to want to deny.
Normally, he wouldn’t care about anything hidden. Give him surface. He could enjoy surface forever. But he would be living with Carlotta. Having children with her. Already there was Luca.
It made him want to know.
Her throat convulsed as she looked down at her hand, at the glittering diamond there. “Not this one.”
He shook his head. “No, not that one. It’s too … expected.”
She laughed. “Well, maybe it is perfect. Because generally speaking, I’m expected.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked, scanning the tray, his eyes fixing on a gold, ornate band with a pear-cut emerald set in the center.
“I’m here, aren’t I? Marrying you, because my father asked me to. Because it was the right thing to do.”
“I find that very unexpected,” he said, taking the ring between his thumb and forefinger and pulling it from its satin nest.
“Do you?” she asked, green eyes, so close to the color of the gem, locked with his.
“Yes. I don’t know very many people who would drop everything in their life to do what was asked of them. Granted, I know several people who would drop everything to marry a prince, but I don’t get the feeling my title colored your motives.”
“I’m already a princess.”
“And you don’t live at the palace.”
She bit her lip. “No.”
“See? Unexpected.” He offered her the ring and she took it gingerly, sliding it onto her ring finger.
She held her hand out, her focus on the ring now. “Very unexpected.”
When she moved, he caught the scent of her. She smelled like clean skin and soap, a smell he wasn’t sure he’d ever noticed on a woman before. Either because it was covered by perfume, or because he’d just never taken the time to notice, he wasn’t sure.
He captured her hand, her skin soft and smooth. It was impossible for him not to wonder how it would feel for those delicate, feminine fingers to trail over his bare skin. Impossible not to wonder if her lips would be just as soft. On his lips, his body.
Six months. It had been six months, and his libido was really starting to rebel.
But she wasn’t just a woman at a club. Someone to have a night of fun with. She was supposed to be his wife. The Queen of Santa Christobel. Clearing his desk so he could press her back onto the hard surface and have his way with her wasn’t the kind of treatment she would be expecting. And anyway, it would scatter the jewelry.
Who cares? You’ll be a terrible husband and father, but you could give her this.
Sex. He was good at sex. At making women feel good about themselves. And in the process, it made him feel good.
“I like this one,” he said, shutting the images out of his mind.
Her eyes clashed with his. “You do?”
“Do you?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Then you should have it,” he said. “And it only seems fitting that I ask you again. Will you marry me?”
“I …”
He moved his thumb over the back of her hand, relishing the silken quality of her skin. He bent his head and pressed his lips to her knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers. He saw her pupils expand, a strange mix of curiosity and desire mingling in there.
“Say yes,” he said, his lips brushing against her skin.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He lifted his head, his eyes meeting hers. He saw a sheen of tears there. It made his chest feel tight. Had he made her cry? Was he already a source of unhappiness for her?
“Good.” He managed to force the word out.
“Rodriguez …” She took a step toward him, her hand outstretched. And he wanted to draw her to him. To offer her some kind of comfort. To tell her things would be okay.
He took a step back, denying the impulse. This was why he was so intent on them leading separate lives. He couldn’t fulfill her needs, not the emotional ones. And why he cared, he didn’t know.
He didn’t understand this, the tightness in his chest mixed with a strange attraction that had been growing in him from the moment he’d seen her. Slow and steady, not hot and instant. But it was there. Smoldering. Constant. And what he was feeling now, it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t casual. Maybe that was what happened when you asked a woman to marry you.
“See you in the morning.”
He turned and walked from the room, ignoring the hurt he’d seen on her face. He’d done the wrong thing. But it wouldn’t be the last time. It was better they both get used to it.
CHAPTER FOUR
“THERE will be a formal announcement of our engagement today.” Rodriguez walked into the dining area, where she and Luca were having breakfast, looking respectable in his tailored suit, yet somehow managing to look disreputable at the same time.
Or maybe that was just Carlotta’s mind, objectifying him. She’d certainly been doing a fair amount of it lately. She’d been absent any sort of sexual thrills for quite a while, and one thing Rodriguez provided, just by walking into a room, was sexual thrill. So, it wasn’t entirely her fault.
Anyway, there were scores of tabloid tales, provided by exes, talking about all his prowess. Prowess she would be experiencing soon.
Her face got hot and prickly.
“How formal? Are you sending an aide or …”
“We’re having a press conference.”
Carlotta set her coffee cup down on its saucer. “A press-conference press conference? With a room full of reporters and flashbulbs and hideously invasive personal questions? That kind of press conference?”
“If there’s any other kind I haven’t yet been to it.”
Luca took another bite of churro and Carlotta winced as he set it down on the white tablecloth, then planted his sticky, sugar-coated hands on the formerly pristine surface. Rodriguez didn’t seem to notice. “What’s that mean?”
She waited to see if Rodriguez might answer, but he seemed as oblivious to the question as he’d been to the sugary handprints. Or at least he was pretending to be.
“There will be reporters, people who work for the television news and the paper, and they’re going to come and ask Rodriguez and me questions. Take our picture.”
“Me too?” Luca asked.
Carlotta shook her head. “No. You would be bored. You’d have to sit still.”
Luca frowned. “I’ll stay and play with Angelina. She said she had movies.” His nanny had arrived late the night before and Luca was thrilled to see her.
Angelina hadn’t been full-time when they’d lived in Italy, but she’d agreed to drop her other charges and come to Santa Christobel to live in the palace. Because now life was different. Carlotta had responsibilities outside of her son. It was sort of jarring and depressing.
“Good,” she said, her response halfhearted now.
“We only have a couple of hours to prepare,” Rodriguez said.
“And why didn’t you tell me this last night?” she asked.
“It didn’t seem … important.” The way he said that, the way his tongue caressed the words, his deep voice almost like a physical embrace, it reminded her of everything that had happened last night. And everything that hadn’t. Everything she’d wanted to feel, and then been ashamed for later.
She’d wanted him to do more than kiss her hand. Had wanted to feel the slow glide of his tongue sliding over her skin as he made the contact more intimate. Had wanted to feel the hot press of his mouth on her neck, her lips, down again to her breasts …
It was as though part of her, a part she’d ignored and forced down deep inside herself, had reawakened. She really, really didn’t want that part to wake up. She’d given in to that wild, reckless bit of herself before. The one that had always wondered what it would be like the slide down banisters and run barefoot on the palace lawn when she was a child. The one who wanted to find out what it was like to have a wild, passionate affair as an adult. Oh, yes, she’d given in to that part of herself once. Only once.
And she’d paid for it. Endlessly.
She loved Luca more than her own life, which made it hard to regret everything. But shaming her family like she had, bringing the paparazzi down on her head. The fact that, whether the other woman knew it or not, Carlotta had taken someone’s husband into her bed. And her final moments with the man … the ones she could never erase … she regretted all of that bitterly.
It galled still. Made her feel dirty every time she thought of it, as though there was a permanent film covering her skin. One that never washed clean, no matter how many times she showered. No matter how many times she chose the sensible option instead of the risky one. It was always there. Waiting to betray her.
And now that she was experiencing this uncontrollable … thing around Rodriguez, it was coming back stronger than it had been in years. Along with the reminder of what happened when you chose impulse over propriety.
“Well, it is important. I have to get ready.”
His lips twitched. “You look fine.”
She put her hand to the back of her head to see if the high, spiky ponytail she’d managed early that morning was still there. “No. I don’t,” she said, after confirming that she was still, in fact, a disaster.
“All right, maybe you should get ready.”
She stood, trying to remember all of the grace and poise she’d learned living in the palace in Santina. It was sort of laughable when one had the crazy ponytail and gray sweatpants. Even if they were cute gray sweatpants.
She was going to have to get into the mindset of being on show again. All the time. All day, every day. That was royal life, and even though she’d let herself forget it these past five years, it was still there in her.
Along with a few other things she thought she’d left behind.
She looked down at Luca, who had a ring of sugar around his mouth and half a churro and cup of hot chocolate left to eat. “Can you stay with him while I get myself sorted?” she asked.
Rodriguez looked down at Luca, trying to keep his face blank of emotion. A tough thing to do since his chest was tightening with a strange feeling he was reluctant to identify. Fear. He was afraid of a five-year-old boy. Wasn’t that a joke.
“Fine,” he said, taking a seat a few chairs away from Luca.
“I’ll be back in a bit. I’m good at getting ready fast.”
Carlotta walked out of the room, and he felt compelled to watch. The way the loose, gray pants hugged her pert butt when she walked was the biggest tease he’d come across in a while. Because she should have looked plain. Boring. And yet, something about her face scrubbed free of makeup, and her hair so obviously unstyled was … eye-catching. He had to look twice. A third time.
And he’d had to watch her walk—sashay, really—from the room like she was in her finest dress and heels, when she was wearing slippers and sweats. Shockingly, he’d found a lot to look at.
“I like these.”
Rodriguez turned his head, Luca’s little voice as effective as a bucket of cold water in his lap. The arousal that had tightened his gut eased and the tightness in his throat returned.
“Do you?” he asked, assuming Luca meant the churro he was holding up in his little hand.
He nodded. “I like this table too. It’s big. I bet you could fit a really big cake on it.”
Rodriguez looked at Luca, not sure of what he was supposed to say to that. The boy just kind of … chattered. About cakes and crowns and whatever came to his mind. It didn’t make him angry. That kind of thing would have made his father angry. As a result, he hadn’t chattered much, and he’d never been around children who did.
He’d never really been around children at all, not even when he was one.
Dios. He was actually sweating. Small beads of cold moisture forming on his brow, his back. Being near Luca made it so easy to remember …
“I like chocolate cake. With sprinkles. It’s what I had for my last birthday. And I got Sherbie and Sherbet.”
Rodriguez sucked in a breath. “And they are?”
“My owls. They aren’t real. They’re toys.”
“And he thinks I have a funny name,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Are you going to school this year?” he asked. That seemed safe. And normal. Not something random about stuffed animals.