The Brides of Bella Rosa

Beauty and the

Reclusive Prince

Raye Morgan

Executive:

Expecting Tiny Twins

Barbara Hannay

Miracle for

the Girl Next Door

Rebecca Winters

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Beauty and the

Reclusive Prince

Raye Morgan

CHAPTER ONE

“ENOUGH!”

Isabella Casali’s cry was snatched right out of her mouth by the gust of wind that tore at her thick dark hair and slapped it back against her face. What a night she’d picked to go sneaking onto royal property. The moon had been riding a crest of silky clouds when she’d started out from the village. Now the sky had turned black and the moon was playing hide and seek, taking away her light just when she’d stepped on forbidden territory. Where had this sudden storm come from, anyway?

“Bad luck,” she whispered to herself, squinting against another gust of wind. “I’ve got reams of it.”

She knew she ought to turn and head for home, but she couldn’t go back without finding what she’d come for—not after all she’d done to work up the nerve to come in the first place.

The grounds of the local prince’s palazzo were famously said to be the stomping grounds for all sorts of supernatural creatures. She’d discounted it before, thought it was nothing but old wives’ tales. But now that she’d come here and seen for herself, she was beginning to get the shivers just like everyone else. Every gust of wind, every snapping twig, every moan from the trees made her jump and turn to see what was behind her.

“You’d better hope the prince doesn’t catch you.”

Those words had made her smile when Susa, her restaurant’s vintage pastry chef, had uttered them like an aging Cassandra just before Isabella had left for this adventure. Susa often had wise advice, but this time Isabella was sure she was off the beam. What had Susa said again?

“They say he patrols the grounds himself, looking for young women who stray into his woods…”

“Oh, Susa, please,” she’d scoffed. “They’ve said the same thing about every prince who’s lived in that old moldy castle for the last hundred years. The royal Rossi family has never been a very friendly bunch, from what I’ve heard. When you don’t get out and mix with the citizens, you’re bound to get a bad reputation.”

She’d chuckled at the time, completely unconcerned, even though the royal grounds were the last place she wanted to venture onto anyway. Given a choice, she would have stayed home with a good book.

“But it’s mostly because they’re such a mystery,” she continued, thinking it over. “I’ll bet they’re very nice people once you get to know them.”

Susa raised her eyebrows and looked superior. “We’ll see how nice you think he is when he has you locked up in his dungeon.”

“Susa!” Isabella was reluctant enough to go on this mission without the older woman raising more reasons why she should just stay home.

“Besides, Papa has been sneaking in there to collect the Monta Rosa Basil we need for years and, as far as I know, he’s never seen a royal person there yet. I don’t believe a word of it.”

Her father, Luca Casali, had discovered the almost magical properties of this fine herb years before and it had transformed his cuisine from average Italian fare into something so special people came from miles around just to get a bowl of exquisitely cooked pasta topped with the steaming tomato-based sauce Luca had come up with.

The special recipe and the herb were a closely held family secret. Only a few knew that the delicious flavor came from a plant that could be found only on a hillside located on the estate of the royal Rossi family in Monta Correnti.

For years, her father had gone once a month to collect the herb. Now he was ill and could no longer make the trip. It was up to Isabella to take up the mantle as herb-gatherer, reluctant as she might be. She’d decided she might have less risk of being caught at it if she went at night. She was a little nervous, but fairly confident. After all, her father had never had a problem. She told herself calmly that she would do just fine.

But that was before the storm came up, and the moon disappeared, and the wind began to whip at her. Right now, every scary rumor seemed highly plausible and she was definitely looking over her shoulder for marauding royalty.

Earlier, when the sun was still shining, she’d thought it might be interesting to meet the prince.

“What’s he like, really?” she’d asked Susa. “When he’s not enticing young women into his bedroom, at any rate.”

Susa shrugged. “I don’t know much about him. Only that his young wife died years ago and he’s been sort of a recluse ever since.”

“Oh.” Isabella thought she’d heard something about that a long time ago, but she didn’t remember any details. “How sad.”

“They say she died under mysterious circumstances,” the woman added ominously.

“Are there any other kind in your world?” Isabella shot back.

Susa gave her a superior look and turned away, but at the same time Isabella was remembering what Noni Braccini, the restaurant cook who had taught her most of what she knew about Italian cooking when she was a young girl, used to say.

“Nothing good could happen in a place like that.” She would point a wrinkled finger toward where the old, crumbling palazzo stood and mutter, “Bats.”

Isabella would look at her, nonplussed. “Bats?”

She would nod wisely. “Bats. You don’t want bats in your hair.”

Isabella would find herself smoothing down her own wild tresses and agreeing quickly, with a shudder. “No, no, indeed. I don’t want bats in my hair.”

And that was about all she knew about the prince in the castle. Of course, there was the fact that the essential herb grew on a hillside on castle grounds.

Noni had died long since, but Susa was still around to give dire warnings, and she’d said matter-of-factly as Isabella was going out the door, “When I was a girl, it was common knowledge that the Rossi prince was a vampire.”

“What?” Isabella had laughed aloud at that one. “Susa, that’s crazy!”

“He was the grandfather of this one.” The older woman had shrugged. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

Isabella had laughed all the way to her car, but she wasn’t laughing now. It wasn’t just what Susa had said in warning. There were plenty of other old stories swirling in her head. Her childhood had been full of them—tales told in the dark at girlfriend sleepovers, stories of blackbeards who captured women and held them within the castle walls—vampires who roamed the night looking for beautiful victims with virgin throats—seducers with dark, glittering eyes, who lured innocent girls into their sumptuous bedrooms. Suddenly they all seemed too plausible. She was half regretting that she’d come to this frightening place at all, and half angry with herself for being such a wimp.

“Come on,” she muttered to herself encouragingly. “Just a bit further and we’ll get this done.”

After all, how bad could it be? Even if she did run into the prince, he couldn’t possibly be as wicked as Susa had painted him. In fact, she remembered seeing him once, years ago, when she was a teenager. She’d been visiting a hot springs resort area a few hours from the village and someone had pointed him out. She’d thought him incredibly handsome at the time—and incredibly arrogant-looking.

“The old royalty are all like that,” her friend had said. “They think they’re better than the rest of us. It’s best to stay out of their way.”

And she had, all these years. Now she was rambling around on royal grounds. The quicker she got this over with, the better.

Just a little further and she would find the hillside where the special basil grew, pick enough to fill the canvas bag she’d brought along, and head for home. Of course, it would help if she could see more than three feet in front of her with this stupid flashlight that kept blinking off.

“Oh!”

Her foot slipped and she almost tumbled down the hill. At least the problem with the flashlight was solved. It did tumble down the hill, and over a ledge, and into the river. Even above the noise of the wind, she could hear the splash.

Isabella wasn’t one to swear, but she was working up to it tonight. What a disaster. What had she been thinking when she’d decided to come here all alone in the middle of the night? She’d known she was just asking for trouble.

“I just wasn’t made for this cloak-and-dagger stuff,” she muttered to herself as she tried to climb higher on the hill. All she wanted was to find the herbs and get out of here. She hated doing this. She dreaded getting caught by guards…or the prince. Or attacked by vampires—whichever came first.

The wind slashed through the tops of the trees, howling like a banshee. Lightning flashed, and in that same moment she looked up and saw a figure all in black atop a huge horse, racing down on her.

Time stopped. Fear clutched at her heart like a vise. This was too much. The dark, the wind, the sight of danger crashing toward her—had she taken a wrong turn somewhere? Suddenly, everything was upside down and she was terrified. Without a pause, she screamed at the top of her lungs. The sounds echoed through the valley, louder and louder, as lightning cracked and thunder rolled.

That lifetime of scary stories had set her up to think the worst. Every story flashed through her soul in an instant. She was shaking now, panic taking over, and she turned to run.

She heard him shout. Her heart was in her throat. She was dashing off blindly, startled as a cornered deer, and she heard him coming up behind her. The hoofbeats sounded like thunder striking stone, and his shout was angry.

She was in big trouble. He was going to catch her. She couldn’t let that happen! She had to run faster…faster…

She couldn’t run fast enough and she couldn’t get her breath. Her foot slipped, wrenching her balance out from under her. She started to slide down the steep hill. Crying out, she reached to catch herself on a bush, but it pulled right out of the ground. Suddenly, she was tumbling toward the river.

She hit the water with a splash that sent a spray in all directions. She gasped as the icy water took her in. Now she was going to drown!

But she barely had time to reach for the surface before the strong arms of the man in black had caught hold of her and she was pulled instantly from the racing water.

He had her. Stunned by the cold, shocked by what was happening, she couldn’t find her bearings. Disoriented in the moment, she realized dimly that she was being carried toward the horse, but she was a bystander, watching helplessly, as though from afar. For now, it seemed there was nothing she could do to resist.

Later, she was mortified as she remembered this scene. How could she have succumbed so quickly to the overwhelming sense of his strength like that? She’d just suffered a shock, of course, and that had pretty much knocked her silly, but still…As she remembered just how much the feel of his strong, muscular arms seemed to paralyze her reactions, she could do nothing but groan aloud in frustration. How could she have been such a ninny?

But in the moment, she was spellbound. The moon came out from behind the clouds, turning the landscape silver. Trying to look up at his face, all she could see was his strong chin, and the smooth, tight cords of his sculptured neck. And still, she couldn’t seem to make a move.

This was crazy. He was just a man. Nothing supernatural at all. Just a man. A man who had no right to carry her this way. She had to assert herself, had to let him know what he was dealing with. But before she could get a word out, she found herself thrown up onto the horse and the creature who’d captured her was rising to mount behind her.

And finally, with a lot of effort, she found her voice.

“Hey, wait a minute!” she cried. “You can’t do this. Let me go!”

Maybe he didn’t hear her. The wind was making a riot in the tops of the trees. At any rate, he didn’t answer, and in seconds the horse was galloping toward the ancient, forbidding structure looming at the top of the hill, and she was going along for the ride. She hung on for dear life. She could hardly breathe. She heard the hoofs clattering on the cobblestones as they neared the entrance. Huge lanterns lit the entryway. And then they came to a halt and he had dismounted and pulled her down as well.

She swayed. For a moment, she was confused and couldn’t find her footing. His hands gripped her shoulders from behind, holding her steady. She turned, wanting to see his face, but he kept it from her.

“This way,” he said, taking her by the hand and leading her up to the huge wooden door.

“No,” she said, but her voice was weak and she found herself following along where he led, even though her soggy running suit was sticking to her legs, the heavy jacket flapping against her torso, the running shoes sloshing with every step. She was a mess. She hated to think what her hair looked like.

Somewhere on the grounds, a pair of dogs began to howl. Or was it wolves? Her heart was thumping so hard she could hardly tell. The roll of distant thunder added to the menace in the air. The lanterns made eerie shadows and her gaze rose to take in the sinister spikes at the top of the castle wall.

She shuddered. Was she dreaming? Or had she ventured by mistake into one of this area’s old-fashioned legends? Was she on her way to the dungeon, as Susa had warned? And if this was a story, was this man who’d scared her and then saved her the hero or the villain?

“Both,” said a little voice inside her.

She shook her head. It didn’t matter right now. She needed him. She had no one else to turn to.

The front door creaked open as they approached. She caught a glimpse of a man as old and craggy as the walls, his features exaggerated by the lighting. A wizard? She shrank back against her companion, automatically turning to him for protection despite everything. He hesitated for a moment, then put his arm around her shoulders and let her curl herself up against him. After a second or two, his arm actually tightened around her.

Isabella was still too dazed to know what was really going on. She was wet, she was cold, she was in the courtyard of a forbidden palazzo, and a man she had momentarily thought might be a vampire—well, just for a second or two—now had his arm around her. What was more, his arm felt darn good, as did the rest of him. In fact, she didn’t think she’d seen a man in a long time that appealed to her senses quite as much as this scary and yet comforting man did right now.

She’d pretty much decided men and romance and things of that nature weren’t going to be a part of her life. Too much trouble, not worth the effort. And here she was, responding to this scary man like a cat to cream. Maybe she was just an adrenaline junky after all.

“We’re almost there,” he told her helpfully.

That surprised her. Were vampires usually this considerate? She didn’t think so. But maybe he was just calming her fears to make her more amenable to manipulation. Or maybe she’d seen too many horror movies in her time.

She sighed and closed her eyes, wishing she could get orientated. She wasn’t used to feeling so helpless, as though her muscles couldn’t really respond. But maybe that was because her mind didn’t seem to be working at all. She was so tired. Maybe when she opened her eyes, this would all fade away and she would be home in her own bed….

Prince Maximilliano Di Rossi looked down at the woman who was clinging to him and frowned. He was surprised that she’d turned to him for protection the way she had, but he was also surprised at his own reaction to her move. His first impulse was to pull away, to reject all contact. That was his way, the style he’d been living with for the last ten years. The only people he allowed near him were those who had always been closest to him, a few people who had known him since childhood—since before the accident. He never had other visitors. He’d been stepping out of character even to bring her here.

But something in the easy, open way she’d clung to him had stirred old memories. She was shivering and turning toward him as a lover would. Something deep inside him hungered for this. It had been so long since he’d held a woman in his arms, since he’d felt that warmth, that contrast between his own hard body and the soft, rounded responsiveness of a woman. He’d thought he might never feel it again. And yet, here it was, like a gift out of the blue.

But not for long. He knew she’d been trying to see his face and he’d been keeping it averted. Once she really saw him in full light, any instincts for touching him in any way would dry up like summer rain on a hot pavement.

With a cynical twist of his wide mouth, he turned and led her into the palazzo through the tall, heavy wood door. Their footsteps echoed down the long empty hallways. Someone coughed. He looked up. There stood his man, Renzo, in his nightclothes and dressing gown, and wearing what appeared to be a pair of aging woodchucks on his feet. He looked sleepy and ridiculous, but definitely alarmed at the same time.

“Nice slippers,” he commented wryly, cocking an eyebrow.

“Thank you, sir,” Renzo responded, shuffling his feet and looking slightly abashed.

Max paused for a moment. He knew he could very easily hand over this piece of womanly baggage to the individual who had been his combination valet, butler, and personal assistant most of his life. Hand her over and turn his back and walk away and never give her another thought. He knew very well that Renzo would take care of everything discreetly and efficiently. Doing just that would fit the pattern of his life, the way things were done around here. He made a move as though to do it. He could see that Renzo expected it. How easy it would be to follow through.

And then he glanced down at the woman. She was still turning to him for refuge. She’d reached for him, given herself into the comfort of his arm, pressed her beautiful young body against his as though she was trusting that he would keep her safe. Something moved inside him—and that was dangerous. Just looking down into her gorgeous thick, tangled hair, he could feel his emotions stirring in a way he didn’t need.

And still, he didn’t leave.

Later he told himself it was nothing more than a typical impulse of the male role of guardian, the same he might have had for a puppy or a kitten that needed his attention. Despite his background, despite his guilty past, the urge to safeguard those smaller and more vulnerable rose in him and he’d followed his instincts.

But for once, he wasn’t convinced. No, there was something about this woman—something threatening. He knew he should walk away and leave her to Renzo to deal with.

But he didn’t do that.

Looking up, he shook his head at his man. “I’ll handle this,” he said, shedding his long black cloak and dropping it on a chair along the side of the room. He was going to see to her himself.

At the same time he realized what this meant. He was going to be forced to go against habit and his recent tradition. He was going to have to do something he almost never did these days. He was going to have to turn and let her see his face.

Renzo looked alarmed. “But, sir—” he began.

The prince cut him off. “Notify Marcello that I would like him to join us in the Blue Room,” he said.

Renzo blinked. “Excuse me, sir, but I think the doctor is asleep…”

“Then wake him,” Max said crisply. “I want him to take a look at this young lady. She’s had a fall.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Renzo said faintly, but he didn’t leave the room. Instead, he cleared his throat as though to say more, but Max wasn’t listening. He was steeling himself for the moment that was about to come.

He knew his hesitation would seem strange to others. Most would let anyone see their face at any time. After all, it was the side they showed to the world, the representation of just who they were.

But he wasn’t like everyone else. His face was scarred, horribly damaged and ugly to see. It couldn’t represent him, because he wasn’t like that inside. But it was all he had, and therefore it was something he avoided showing to strangers.

To turn and let her see his face would be a serious step for him. Still, he was going to do it. He was impatient with himself for even wavering. It was time he got over this weakness. He would turn and let her see just what she was dealing with. And he would hold his gaze steady so that he would be forced to take in every ounce of the shock and horror in her eyes. It was best to stay real.

“Come this way,” he told her brusquely, turning to stride down the hall. She almost ran to keep up, holding onto his hand as though she would be lost if she let go. The huge portraits that lined their path were a blur, as were the long, aging tapestries that hung from the walls. He swept her into a room lined with heavy blue velvet drapes. The embers of a dying fire were smoldering in the large stone fireplace.

“Sit down,” he said, gesturing toward an antique Grecian couch. “My cousin Marcello is a physician. I want him to take a look at you.”

“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head and looking down at herself. Everything about her seemed to be dripping. “I’m filthy and muddy and wet. I’ll ruin the upholstery.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he said shortly.

She raised her dark gaze and cocked her head to the side, trying to see more than the left half of his face. Was he joking? This was one of the most sumptuously embellished rooms she’d ever been in. Not what she was used to, but most people she knew didn’t do much decorating in velvet and gold leaf.

“Of course it matters,” she responded, beginning to feel some of her usual fire returning. “I may not look like much right now, but I’ve got manners. I know how to act in polite company.”

“Polite company?” He gave a little grunt, not even sure himself if it were partly a laugh or not. “Is that what you’re expecting? We’ll have to see if we can muster some up for you.”

He was pacing about the room in a restless way and she turned to keep him in her line of vision. She was pretty sure she knew who he was by now. After all, she’d seen him all those years ago at the hot springs. If only she could get a full view of his face she would know for sure, but he seemed to have a talent for keeping in the shadows.

“You’re making me dizzy,” she said, reaching out to steady herself with a hand on the back of an overstuffed chair.

He grunted again, but he didn’t stop moving. She watched nervously, wondering what he was planning to do with her. Luckily, he didn’t seem inclined to lock her in a cell, so Susa was wrong there, but she supposed he could call the police and have her arrested if he wanted to. This was his castle and she didn’t belong here.

She watched and waited. She liked the way he moved. There was a controlled, animal strength to him, and every action, every turn, presented with a certain masculine grace. And yet there was the sense of something more to him, something hidden, something leashed and waiting. He was new to her, unpredictable. Once again she realized that she was in a presence she didn’t know how to handle. That made her heart thump.

Stopping to look out into the hall, he muttered something she couldn’t quite make out, but it sounded slightly obscene.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, tensing as though to be ready to run for it.

He started to turn toward her, then stopped. “My cousin is taking his own sweet time about it,” he said evenly. “I’d like to get this over with.”

“So would I,” she said, her tone heartfelt. “Listen, why don’t I just go and—?”

“No,” he ordered firmly, glancing at her sideways. “You stay right where you are.”

That put her back up a bit and sparked a sense of rebellion in her soul.

“Much as I appreciate your warm and welcoming hospitality,” she began with a touch of sarcasm, taking a step toward the door, “I think it’s time—”

“No.”

He took a step closer and his hand shot out and circled her wrist. “You’re staying right here until I permit you to go.”

“Oh, I am, am I?” Her lower lip jutted out and she pulled hard on his hold but he wasn’t letting go. “Your rules are on the medieval side, you know. These days one doesn’t take orders from another person unless they are being paid money.”

He pulled her closer, his face half turned her way. “Is that what you’re after?” he asked harshly. “Is it money you want?”

“What?” She stared up at him, shocked by the very concept. “No, no, of course not.”

“Then what do you want here?” he demanded.

She swallowed hard. Somehow this didn’t seem to be a good segue into asking for monthly access to his hillside. “N…nothing,” she stammered.

“Liar.”

She gasped. He was right but she didn’t like hearing it. “You…you wouldn’t understand,” she stammered senselessly. “But I meant you no harm.”

He gave a sharp tug to her wrist, pulling her up close. “Harm.” He said it as though it were a pointless word. “All the harm’s been done years ago,” he added softly.

She winced at the bitterness in his voice. It was clear something about his life just wasn’t going well. The gloomy, bleak atmosphere was only reinforced by his dark attitude. Negative people usually turned her off but there was a lot more here than a bad mood. She felt it like a vibration in the air, and her heart began to beat just a bit harder.

He felt her pulse quicken under his hold on her wrist and he knew what he had to do. Slowly, very deliberately, he turned and faced her, the light from the lamps and the fire exposing his horrible scars.

Was it pride that kept him from showing this to anyone who didn’t know him intimately? Was it conceit, arrogance, egoism? Was it really that hard to think that his face, which had once been considered quite handsome, was now so repellent, people turned away rather than be forced to look at him?

It was probably all those things. But he’d known from the start there was something deeper and harder to face than that. He knew very well there was a large measure of guilt mixed into his motivations. His scars were retribution for his sins, but, even more painful, they were his own fault. That was the hardest thing to live with.

He’d spent years now, hidden away, traveling in limousines with tinted windows, moving anonymously from one house to another. It was a strange, lonely existence, and he was sick of it. But in order to change things, he would have to get used to people seeing his face, and he wasn’t sure he could do it. Or that he deserved to.

But tonight, he wasn’t going to dodge anything. It was high time he accepted his fate and learned to live with it. He was going to stare directly into her huge blue eyes and read every scrap of emotion that was mirrored there. No more avoidance. His jaw tightened and he steeled himself. And then he presented himself to her, scars and all.

Her eyes widened as she took in the totality of his face. The shock was there. He tensed, waiting for the disgust, the wince, the hand to the mouth, the flood of pity, the eyes darting away, looking anywhere but at him. He’d seen it before.

The only mystery was—why did he still let it bother him? It was time to harden himself to it. And so he stood his ground and met her gaze.

But things weren’t going quite as he’d expected. The quality of her surprise was somehow different from what he was used to. No curtain of instant distance appeared, no revulsion, no reserve tainted her manner.

Instead of dread, instead of a cold drawing away in repugnance, a warm, curious light came into her eyes. Rather than pull away, she was coming closer. He watched in astonishment as she actually cocked her head to the side, then reached out for him.

He didn’t move as she edged closer and touched his face, her fingertips moving lightly over the scar, tracing its path down his cheek and into the corner of his wide mouth.

“Oh,” she said, letting it out in a long sigh.

But there was no pity. Maybe there was a hint of sorrow. But other than that, only a touch of confusion along with much interest and curiosity. It seemed almost as though she’d found a wonderful piece of statuary with a tragic flaw that deserved a little exploring. And she felt no inhibitions in doing exactly that.

CHAPTER TWO

ISABELLA was moving in a haze of unreality, as though she really had stepped into a fairy tale. She saw the jagged, fascinating scars, the tragic flaw that split his face in two and made her heart ache with compassion, but there was so much beside that. There was power and presence in the man, and, even more, there was overwhelming beauty in him. His shirt was open, exposing the tanned skin of a hard, sculptured chest, and his wonderful male heat filled her with a strange sense of longing that scared her more than anything else had—and at the same time it tugged at her with an impossible attraction.

He reached out as though to steady her, his hands gentle yet firm on her shoulders, and she felt herself melt into his touch, wanted to lean closer yet. She had a sudden, wild desire to press her lips to the pulse she could see beating hard at the base of his throat. She stared at it, irresistibly drawn.

But she recoiled in time, shocked at her own impulses. What next—was she going to offer herself to the man outright? She gasped softly, then began to think she ought to pull away. Ought to—but couldn’t quite summon up the will.

Max couldn’t have been more amazed if she had kissed him. The moment crystallized in time, her body arched toward his, her fingertips on his face, his heart pounding, his gaze locked on hers. Something twisted in his chest and he realized he was holding his breath. He was feeling something new and strange and he didn’t like it at all. But she’d touched him. No woman had done that since the accident. No woman had wanted to. That lit a fire inside him he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling. Whatever else this young woman was, she was unique in a way he’d never seen before. She didn’t make him feel like a freak. He savored the moment.

And in the same instant he became aware that Renzo had come into the room at last and was now lurching forward as though he was prepared to push this woman back away from his prince. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion. And it all seemed to be so very beside the point, but it had to be dealt with, and so he did.

Turning to block Renzo’s ridiculous protective lunge with the position of his body, he pulled the young woman up against him and out of Renzo’s reach. Looking down, he sank into the clouds in her dark eyes, searching for the mysteries they might contain. She seemed to hold worlds he’d never visited deep inside her. Those worlds were suddenly the most interesting places he’d ever had a glimpse of. He suddenly found it very hard to pull away from her gaze. Or maybe, the truth was, he didn’t want to.

Who was she? Where had she come from? Should he get away from her as fast as he could—or should he find a way to keep her here? He knew what his instincts were telling him. But he knew from experience that his instincts could lie.

Renzo still hung at his shoulder. “Sir…”

It took Max a moment to respond. He was still looking deep into the young woman’s eyes. “I thought I told you to get Marcello,” he said without turning.

“But, sir…” Renzo was blinking rapidly, obviously upset by this strange behavior.

“Go.”

Renzo averted his gaze, bowed deeply, and gave in. “Very well, sir.” Turning on his heel, he left the room.

And at the same time Max’s sister, Angela, appeared in the opening. She took in the scene and her eyebrows arched even higher than usual.

“Well, Max,” she said, starting into the room at last. “Who’s this?”

The sound of her voice snapped them both to attention as though a spell had been broken. They turned to look at her. She came closer, circling and gazing with wonder at the two of them.

“Where on earth did you find her?”

Max drew in a sharp breath and stepped away from Isabella as though she’d suddenly grown too hot to touch. She reached out to steady herself against the back of the couch, not sure if she was reacting to general dizziness, or to the man himself. She was still in a muddle, but at least her head was clear enough by now to fully understand whom she was dealing with. After all, if you trespassed on a prince’s property, you were likely to run into the prince at some point. And maybe even a princess or two.

“I found her wandering around down by the river,” this particular prince was saying. “The dogs were loose and I was afraid they might attack her.” He made a gesture and looked down at Isabella, still swaying next to the couch, then back at his sister. “I must have startled her. She fell down the hill.”

Angela nodded, looking her over, then glanced sharply at Max. “Right into the water, I see.”

“Yes.”

“And you…you rescued her?”

His hands curled around the back of a chair and gripped so hard his knuckles were white. “Yes, Angela. I rescued her.” He turned to stare at his sister with a measure of hostility.

“I see.” She stared back, but looked away first, looking Isabella over again. “That still doesn’t tell me who she is.”

He turned to look at her, too, his large dark eyes dispassionate. All sense of a special tension between them seemed to have melted away.

“True,” Max agreed. “Nor what she was doing on the property.” He hesitated, then added, almost to himself, “And so close to the river.”

Isabella drew herself up. Now that she was coming back down to earth, she was getting tired of being treated like a rather stupid child and talked about as though it didn’t matter if she understood or not. For one trembling moment, she’d actually thought she and this man had a special connection of sorts, something quick and searing that was going to change her life. But now she could see that she’d been fooling herself—as usual.

First he’d terrified her, then beguiled her with his tenderness and his scarred face. Now he was acting as if she were a wet cat who shouldn’t have been let inside. The disappointment she felt was real. She noticed he was avoiding her gaze again, turning his head so that the scarred side was hidden by shadows. Her chin rose and she looked at them both defiantly, her pride returning.

“My name is Isabella Casali. I help my father Luca run the restaurant in the square. Rosa? Perhaps you’ve eaten there.”

Angela gave a careless shrug. Dressed in a flowing robe, she’d obviously been preparing for bed when the sounds of Isabella’s arrival had drawn her back downstairs. In her mid-thirties, she had a cool, blonde beauty that was slightly marred by just a touch too much arrogance for comfort.

“I know it though we’ve never eaten there.” Her smile was perfunctory. “We will have to try your food someday.”

Isabella was surprised. Everyone ate at Rosa. “You’ve never had anything from our restaurant?” Isabella asked, incredulous.

“No.”

She looked from the handsome woman to the incredible man. Despite her newfound annoyance with him, she had to admit he was a striking figure with the sort of presence that demanded more than simple respect. Tall and muscular in a slender way that bespoke strength along with graceful movement, he was the sort of man you couldn’t take your eyes off once you’d seen him. And that scar…she’d never seen anything like it before.

“Perhaps my aunt’s restaurant, Sorella, is more to your liking,” she commented. “She has things that are very international and trendy. It’s right next door to Rosa.”

He shook his head. “We have our own cooks,” he said simply. “We don’t eat in restaurants.”

Her head went back. That certainly put her in her place.

“Oh,” she said faintly. “Of course.”

“I’m sure we can make an exception,” Angela said with a wave of her hand, giving her brother a look as though to remind him to be polite to the little people. “To complete the introductions, this is Prince Maximilliano Di Rossi, who owns this palazzo, and I am his sister, Angela. If you live in Monta Correnti, I’m sure you know that.”

Isabella didn’t answer. It took a moment to get all this in focus. Of course, she’d known there was a Rossi prince living here in the castle from time to time, but, except for stories and the one sighting at the springs, she’d never actually given him much thought. He wasn’t a regular presence in the village or around the countryside, so if she’d ever known his name, she’d forgotten it long since.

When she’d been young, there had been a Prince Bartholomew who had lived here. If she remembered correctly, he’d had a beautiful film-star wife who had seldom come here with him, and three teenaged children who had come occasionally. She’d seen them every now and then, but they were years older than she was and she hadn’t paid much attention. The family hadn’t mixed with their neighbors then, either, and no one knew much about them. The castle on the top of the steep hill was dark and imposing and pretty scary-looking, which was part of the reason legends about strange goings-on there were rife. People tended to give it a wide berth.

She thought now that Prince Bartholomew must have been this prince’s father.

“And that brings us back to the question of why you were on the grounds,” Max said coolly. “Since you live here in the area, I’m sure you understand that you were trespassing.”

Isabella’s chin rose again and she looked at him defiantly. “Yes, I know that.”

He shrugged extravagantly, a clear response to her bravado. “And so…?” he asked, pinning her down with his direct gaze.

She drew her breath in sharply. She was caught, wasn’t she? What could she do but tell him the truth?

That meant talking about the unique basil that grew on his hillside, and she really didn’t want to do that. Very few people knew the identity of their special ingredient and they had kept it that way to discourage copycat trouble.

“If I could patent the Monta Rosa Basil, I would do so,” her father was always muttering. “Just don’t talk about it to others. We don’t want anyone to know where we get it. If others started to use it, we would be in big trouble.”

“No one else would make sauces as good as yours, even with the basil,” Isabella would respond loyally.

“Bah,” he would say. “It’s our secret. Without it, we’re doomed.”

So she didn’t want to tell the Rossi family what she’d come for. But now, she felt she had to. Besides, there was very little chance that they would care or tell other chefs anything about it. So she tried to explain. “I…I came because I had to. You see, there is a certain herb that only seems to grow on the southern-facing hill above your river.” She shrugged, all innocence. At least, she hoped it was coming off that way. “I need it for our signature recipe at the restaurant.”

“You need it?” Angela sniffed. “That’s stealing, you know.”

Isabella frowned. How could she explain to them that stealing from the prince’s estate was considered a time-honored tradition in the village?

“I wouldn’t call it that exactly,” she hedged, but Max gave a cold laugh, dismissing her excuse out of hand.

“What would you call it, then?” he demanded.

She shrugged again, searching for a proper term. “Sharing?”

She looked at him hopefully. He looked right into her eyes and suddenly a hint of that connection that had sparked between them before was hovering there, just out of reach.

“Sharing?” he repeated softly.

She nodded, searching his eyes for signs that the coldness in his gaze might melt if she said the right things, but there wasn’t much there to give her hope.

“Doesn’t that require the consent of those ‘shared’with?”

“I…well, you could give your consent,” she suggested. “If only you would.” She was still held by those huge dark eyes. Her heart was beating quickly again, as though something were happening here. But nothing was. No, she was sure of it. Nothing at all.

“Never,” he said flatly, his gaze as cool as ever. “Never,” he said more softly. “The river is too dangerous.”

She stared up at him, captivated by the impression of energy she sensed from him. It felt as though he had a certain sort of power trapped and controlled inside him, just waiting for a release. What would it take to free him? Could she do it? Did she dare try?

When Angela’s voice, saying goodnight, snapped her out of her reverie again, she had to shake herself and wonder just how long it had lasted. For some reason, she felt almost as though she knew him now. Almost as though they had always known each other. Not friends, exactly. Maybe lovers? Her breath caught in her throat at that brazen thought.

But Max was hardly thinking along those lines himself. He obviously wanted to get on with it. “If you’ll just take a seat,” he began impatiently, but his sister, halfway out of the room, turned back and let out a rude exclamation.

“She’s soggy,” she stated flatly.

Exactly what Isabella had said herself, but somehow the way this woman said it carried a bit of a sting. She bit her lip. Why was she letting these people play with her emotions like this? She was out of place here, in way above her head. She needed to leave. Quickly, she spun on her heel and started for the door.

“I’ll just get out of your way,” she snapped, glancing at the prince as she tried to pass him. “I should be getting home anyway…”

His hand shot out and curled around her upper arm. “Not until Marcello takes a look,” he said, pulling her a bit too close. She gasped softly, then shook her head, ready to object. But the prince’s sister beat her to the punch.

“As you can see, her condition is unacceptable,” Angela said briskly. “We need to get her cleaned up before she sees Marcello.” She made a face in her brother’s direction. “It will only take a moment. I’ll run her under a quick shower and have her back here in no time.”

She gestured toward Isabella as she might have toward a servant. “Come along with me,” she ordered.

Rebellion rose in Isabella’s throat. She was beginning to feel like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. Shades of the little peasant girl being cleaned up and prepared to meet with her betters. No, thanks. She didn’t really care for that role. It didn’t suit her. She’d considered the options and decided against it.

She was regaining her bearings and beginning to feel a bit foolish. She’d been caught red-handed, so to speak, and deserved to get a little guff for it. But this was getting out of hand. After all, if the man didn’t want her on his property, why didn’t he just let her go? Why had he forced her to come back here to the house? She was certainly in a wet, bedraggled condition, but still…

“Why don’t I just go?” she began, turning toward the door again.

“You have no choice in the matter,” the prince said calmly. “For the good of all, you need to be clean and dry.”

“But—”

“Go with my sister,” the prince said. His voice was low and composed, but something in it made Isabella look up, surprised at how coolly he could give an order that made you want to do exactly what he said. “You fell on our land, into our river. We are responsible for your condition. It’s only right that we make you whole again.”

That didn’t make any sense at all. She’d been trespassing, not visiting. But somehow she found herself followingAngela down the hall. She looked back. The prince was watching her go, half leaning against the couch, his head lowered. For some crazy reason, that made her heart lurch in her chest. She turned away quickly and followed where Angela led, but the shivers his look had given her lingered on.

Max stayed where he was, listening as their footsteps faded down the hall, staring into the darkness where she’d just been. He was drawn to her and he hadn’t been attracted to a woman for a long, long time. A picture of his beautiful wife, Laura, swam into his head and he closed his eyes as though to capture it there. Instead, it melted away and another face drifted into its place.

His eyes snapped open and he swore softly. This girl, this Isabella, was nothing like Laura. Why would he see her in his mind’s eye? It was ridiculous to even begin comparing them. She was just a girl from the village. She meant nothing to him and never could.

Slowly, his hand rose until he touched the scar on his face. He wanted to feel what she had felt with her fingertips. What an odd young woman. Oddly compelling. Her reaction had been different from that of anyone he’d ever met and it still puzzled and intrigued him. Had she seen something no one else had? What had she found that had interested her that way? Had anything changed while he hadn’t been paying attention?

No. Same old face. Same old scars. Cursing softly, he jerked his hand away and turned toward the fire. For a moment, he almost hated her.

And why not? She represented the world he’d given up almost ten years ago, the world he had to deny himself. He’d done a damn good job of keeping that world at bay. Now it seemed to have come looking for him. For his own sanity, he knew he had to resist its temptations. This dark, gloomy palazzo was his reality. There was no other way.

Isabella looked around her as she emerged from the steamy shower. It was an antiquated room with antiquated plumbing, but luxurious in an old-fashioned way, with high ceilings and a huge claw-footed tub in the middle of the room. She dried quickly and then stepped before a full-length mirror to check herself for damage.

What she saw made her gasp, then laugh softly. The area around her right eye was looking as if she’d smudged it with soot. A black eye! How was she going to explain that to her customers? She groaned, then began to check out the rest of her body. There was a large painful bruise on her hip and a rather deep cut on her right leg, just below the knee. Most of the blood had been soaked up by her running pants, but there was still some seeping out. Other than a few places that felt a bit achy, that seemed to be it.

Turning, she looked at the clothes Angela had set out for her—a lacy cream-colored sweater and tan stretch pants. They were very close to things she might have picked for herself, so she put them on without hesitation, covering her still bleeding wound with a wad of tissue.

“Are you decent?” Angela called as she was combing and fluffing her hair. She came in after Isabella invited her, handing her a bag with her wet clothes.

“Here you go. Marcello ought to be with Max by now. They’ll be waiting in the Blue Room.” She yawned. “I’m going back to bed. Goodnight, my dear.”

“Wait.” Isabella turned and hesitated, then went ahead and asked, “What happened to his face?”

Angela stared at her for a long moment before answering.

“There was a terrible car accident. It was almost ten years ago, the same night that…” She stopped herself and shook her head. “It was a very bad accident. For days, we were sure that he would die.”

Isabella frowned, taking that in. She had a feeling there was more to it than that. There was a weird, moody undercurrent to everything that went on here. She wanted to know more, but she could hardly ask many questions now.

“But he survived.”

“Obviously. But his face…” Throwing out her hands, she turned away. “He was quite handsome, you know,” she said softly.

Isabella shrugged. “He still is.”

She turned to stare at Isabella. “You think so, do you?”

“Oh, yes.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Well…” she said significantly. But she made a face and turned away. “Goodnight again, Isabella,” she said, beginning to bustle out again. “I’m sure Max will make sure you get taken home safely once Marcello has given you his stamp of approval.”

That sense of rebellion rose in her again, but Isabella thanked Angela as she left the room, then finished up making herself presentable. And all the while she was wondering how she could get out of this ancient stone building without running the gauntlet of the prince and his cousin. She was fine. She didn’t need the attention of a doctor. And she especially didn’t need to run into the prince again.

What she did need was the delicate and very special herb she’d come for. But she had to be realistic. Tonight was not her night. She would have to come back another time. Still, was that going to be possible? Now that she knew about the dogs…

Never mind. She would think about that later. Right now, she just needed to get out of here without seeing the prince again. She took one last look in the mirror. Her black eye was getting worse by the minute. In fact, half her face was now somewhat red and a bit swollen. She groaned. How was she going to hide this from the world?

And then it came to her—she was getting a small hint of what it must be like to be the prince with his vivid scar. She sighed softly as she thought of it. At least she knew that she would be healing soon.

Staring at her own face, she thought of how she’d touched him, and she gasped at her own reckless audacity. What on earth had possessed her to do a thing like that? And why had he stood for it? She must have still been groggy from the effects of the dunking she’d taken and the wild ride through the night on horseback. It really wasn’t her habit to go poking at people’s faces like that.

What had Susa said about him? That his wife had died, that he’d been something of a recluse ever since. Maybe that explained his cool, brooding manner. She shook her head and turned away. This was certainly a strange night and she was finding herself doing all sorts of strange things she’d never done before. It was time she got out of here.

Grabbing the bag with her clothes, she made her way quietly into the hall. She knew which way to turn for the Blue Room, so she took the other path, moving quickly to get away from where she might be seen.

Another sharp turn down a darker hallway and she found herself in the huge, cavernous kitchen. A night-light glowed at the end of the room, giving her just enough light to find her way. She stopped a moment, turning and admiring all the pans and cooking equipment hanging from hooks along the walls. Just the sheer size of the place was impressive. It was three or four times as big as her kitchen at the restaurant. What she could do with a situation like this!

But she didn’t have time for dallying, so she took it all in with one sweeping glance, then picked a door that looked as if it might head outside. She pulled it open quickly, stepped through and suddenly she was falling again—right into the arms of the prince.

CHAPTER THREE

ISABELLA screamed. Screaming was getting to be a habit, it seemed. She didn’t think she’d screamed this much at any time in her life before. But she couldn’t help it. Running into this strong, scary man in the dark just sent her over the top every time.

He held her for barely a second before she jumped back away from him. Still, at the same time she was recoiling and cursing her own continuing bad luck a traitorous part of her was entertaining the temptation to let herself relax in his arms again, to press her cheek against his chest and listen for his heartbeat. The moon was out again, sending beams in through a window just over their heads. What could be more romantic than to wrap herself in his arms and…?

Fanciful nonsense, of course. None of that could happen or would happen. She hadn’t had such silly daydreams since she’d been a preteen and had been mooning after a boy named Romano Puccini. Bad things usually followed when you let your emotions run away with you. At least, that had been the lesson she had learned that long-ago summer.

“That’s the second time tonight you scared me out of my wits,” she told him accusingly.

“And that’s the second time tonight I found you sneaking around where you shouldn’t be,” he shot back at her.

She tossed her hair, hooking the mop of it behind her ear with one quick swipe of her hand. “That’s only true if you are the one who gets to set the rules of where I may or may not go.”

He moved closer. Even in the dark, she could see the outline of his scar clearly. It was a slash of silver across his moonlit face. Eerie…otherworldly…and somehow alluring.

“And why wouldn’t I set the rules?” he said firmly. “It’s my house, remember?”

She looked up into his eyes. They seemed to glow in the dim light. “But you forget—I’m only passing through.”

“Trespassing through, you mean.”

Well, she had to give him that one. Suddenly she was so very tired.

“You know, I…I just want to go home.” There was a quaver in her voice that she regretted, but, still, it was only the truth.

He took her hand, still looking down into what he could see of her face. “We all want things we can’t have.”

The hint of desolation in his voice hit her hard and stopped her from taking offense. An unexpected wave of sadness swept over her. She wanted to reach for him, to help him somehow. But then she remembered—he was the prince. What in the world could she do to comfort a man like this?

“Come back to the Blue Room and let Marcello take a look at you,” he ordered, beginning to lead her that way. “After all this, we might as well go through with it.” He glanced down at her as she walked beside him. “Then I’ll have someone drive you home.”

She sighed. She hated to admit how tempting it seemed to just follow wherever he led. She was going to have to work on that. A little strength of character—a little more confidence in her own strength—that was what she needed.

“My car is…is down by the south wall.” She flushed as she said the words. Oh, how guilty she sounded.

When he replied, he sounded bemused, but satirical. “So you drove yourself out from the village, parked along the wall, and then what? Did you vault over?”

“Not quite.” She hesitated, but she didn’t want to tell him that she’d sneaked in exactly where her father had been sneaking in for years. Only her father had the good sense to do it in daylight, and he’d never been caught.

“Not going to say, are you?” he said, sounding cynical again, as though he really did consider her an outlaw in his world. “You’re going to keep it a secret. That way you can keep your options open for sneaking in again.” He tugged on her hand, leading her around a sharp corner. “But I would advise against that, Isabella Casali. I think we’ll have to let the dogs patrol twenty-four hours a day from now on.” He glanced back at her. “I don’t want you anywhere near that river.”

That surprised her. She would have expected him to say he didn’t want to risk any more interruptions to his own life and peaceful existence, not to her welfare. But maybe she was taking his words too kindly. Of course, that was exactly what he meant. After all, if she got hurt, he would have to deal with it. Still, there was something in his tone when he mentioned the river that gave her pause.

He stopped just outside the door to the Blue Room and stared down at her. For the first time the light was good enough for him to see what had happened to her face.

“My God! Maledizione!” His hands cupped her face, tilting it up so that he could see it fully. “You seemed a little bruised before, but this…”

“It’s okay,” she said, gazing up at him in wonder. He was so close. The sense of his male presence overwhelmed her. For a few seconds, she felt a wave of emotion sweeping away her common sense, and suddenly she wanted his kiss more than she’d ever wanted anything else in her life.

And that in itself was like a splash of cold water on her face. What was she thinking? She wanted to turn away so that he wouldn’t read her guilty secret in her eyes, but he was staring so hard, from so close.

“I…I’m okay.”

“It’s hard to see something so fresh and lovely marred this way,” he said as though it really did pain him. His voice was cool and it was evident that this was a philosophical problem and nothing to do with him personally. But at the same time his gaze ranged over her face as though he were memorizing every line, every dimple. “You’re just so…so…” His voice faded without saying the word, whatever it was meant to be.

And then he kissed her. Like a moth to the flame, he couldn’t stay away. It was a light kiss, barely a touching of his lips to her forehead, right above her blackened eye. She gasped as she felt him, but at the same time she knew he’d done it in a strange way as though to erase the damage, make it go away. He seemed to have an obsession with avoiding harm. That had to be it. It didn’t feel personal. His gaze still looked as hard and cold, his bearing was still just as arrogant.

But still—he kissed her.

“Is this going to take much longer?” said the deep, masculine voice of a tall man standing in the doorway, cutting into the magic of the moment. “Because I could go back to my room and get a few winks in and you could call me down later.”

Isabella gulped in dismay, but the prince only straightened, giving his cousin a brief look of outraged dignity. It was obvious their relationship was maintained with a closeness that was disguised by a lot of good-natured mockery.

“Isabella, this is Marcello Martelli, my cousin.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Isabella,” Marcello said, shaking her hand briskly. “This shouldn’t take too long, nor be too painful.”

Marcello was young and very handsome. In fact he looked very much like what she assumed Max would look like without the scar. She couldn’t help but give him a big smile in answer to his friendly greeting. Here he was, barefoot and in jeans and a T-shirt—looking for all the world like any of the young men she knew in the village would look if you knocked on their door after midnight. He had the ruffled hair and the sleepy eyes as well.

“You fell into the river, I hear,” he said, leading her in to sit on the antique couch. His gaze flickered back and forth between her and Max as though he didn’t completely buy it.

“Yes,” she told him earnestly.

“But luckily Max came along in time to…to rescue you.”

She turned and looked at where the prince was standing back in the shadows just in time to see him turn away as though angry at what his cousin had just said. She frowned. Why would he do that? Did he realize what a part he’d played in creating her unfortunate incident? Maybe he needed a reminder.

“Is that the way he tells the story?”

Marcello grinned at her. “How do you tell it?”

She gave Max an arch look sideways. “Here’s how I remember it. I was strolling along on the hillside when suddenly something that looked like a dark avenging angel came galloping down on me and I ran for my life. My foot slipped. I tumbled into the river.” She shrugged. “A simple tale, really,” she said.

“And all Max’s fault,” Marcello said with a knowing look.

Her eyes widened in mock innocence. “Of course.” She glanced back at where Max was pacing, but she couldn’t see his face.

“Here’s what I don’t quite get,” Marcello was saying as he looked through his black bag for supplies. “What was it about Max that terrified you enough to start running?” He looked up at her. “Instead of just holding your ground and stating your case, I mean.” He gave his cousin a mocking look. “He doesn’t seem all that scary to me.”

Yes, that was the slightly embarrassing element in all this, she had to admit. Should she tell him the truth? Would he laugh? Or think her a little looney? She glanced at Max again and his haughty reserve gave her the spark she needed to go on.

“I’m sure you know about the legends attached to this castle,” she said. “I’ve heard them all my life.”

Max stopped, though still in shadows. “What sort of legends?” he asked gruffly.

She hesitated, knowing he was going to scoff. “Well, the usual,” she began, starting to wish she hadn’t brought it up.

“I know what she’s talking about,” Marcello offered. “Village people love to think of their local prince as a modern day Casanova, seducing women and humiliating men.” He gave his cousin a quick grin. “And you’ve got to admit we’ve got a few rakes and degenerates in the older branches of our family tree.”

Max shrugged and turned away, and Isabella bit her lip, then added something in a very soft voice.

“Vampires,” she said.

They both turned back to her. “What?”

Her chin came up and her eyes sparked. “Vampires,” she said more forcefully.

They gaped at her and she went on quickly, before they could begin to laugh.

“There are plenty of rumors that your family has included vampires. I know it’s crazy. I’m just saying…”

Max turned away again, shaking his head.

“It was partly the way you came crashing at me in the middle of a storm,” she continued, raising her voice so that he couldn’t ignore her. “Like something dropped from a thundercloud. And on horseback!” She shook her head. “I thought…I thought…” She bit her lip and wondered if she really should tell them this.

“Yes?” Marcello leaned forward, unmistakably interested. “What was it you thought?”

She narrowed her gaze and put steel in her spine. “I…I thought Max was a vampire. Just for a second or two.”

There. She’d said it. She looked up at where Max was standing and wished she could see what his eyes were revealing at this very moment. It was difficult to tell his reactions and that was driving her crazy.

“Are you serious?” Marcello was another matter. His response was no mystery. “A vampire?”

She tossed her hair back and tried to explain, addressing Max directly, even if he wouldn’t do the same to her.

“Well, it was a logical conclusion to draw. After all, you came galloping out of the forest, dressed all in black with that cape and everything. The setting was perfect for it with the moon hidden behind clouds over your shoulder. From where I was standing, it was like something right out of a vampire movie.”

Max didn’t move.

Marcello’s mouth was holding steady but his gaze was rife with amusement.

“Isabella, I think you’ve got it wrong,” he said carefully, as though teaching a lesson. “This is the Italian countryside, you know. As I understand it, vampires live in Transylvania. Am I right?”

Of course he was right, but she wasn’t going to admit it so easily. “Oh, so you think an Italian can’t be a vampire?” she demanded.

He shrugged grandly and almost rolled his eyes. “What do you think, Max? I’d say chances are slim.”

Max didn’t answer, but she wasn’t giving up. She shook her head and threw out her arms. “They say there are vampires everywhere.”

“I see.” Marcello was laughing at her again. “How many have you met yourself?”

She gave him a quick, sideways look. “Well…not many, I will admit.”

He nodded wisely. “Interesting.”

His attitude was really beginning to annoy her, but even worse was the way the prince stayed silent through it all. She wanted some reply, some indication as to how he felt about the things she was saying, and she was getting nothing at all.

“So you actually haven’t had a lot of experience with vampires.”

“Max is the only one so far,” she said tartly.

And that got the reaction she was after. Max swung around and came in front of her very much like the man who had swooped down upon her on horseback, bringing with him all the sense of power he seemed to carry with him, very much like that cape he’d worn.

“Miss Casali,” he said icily, staring down at her, his full scars exposed. “I may be many things, but I am not now, nor have I ever been, a vampire. If I start feeling a sudden craving for human blood, you’ll be the first to know. Until then, drop this nonsense.”

She swallowed hard, looking up at him. “Okay,” she said in a small, soft voice. His gaze held hers for only seconds, but it made its mark. She felt as though she’d just had a wild ride on a roller coaster and her insides were still in flight.

“Marcello?” he said pointedly, then turned back to pace the shadows.

His cousin moved in to start his examination of the patient and, for now, all bantering ceased. He started with a look at her black eye, and what he saw had him shaking his head in dismay. “Ice will help the swelling,” he told her after he’d checked to make sure there were no cuts or outright abrasions involved. “But the bruising will seem to go on forever. And there’s really not much you can do about that.”

There wasn’t much he could do about her bruised hip, either. He tested her reactions and pronounced nothing broken. But the cut on her leg was deep and he decided a few stitches were in order.

She sat back obediently and didn’t talk back. Her mind was swirling with emotions and reactions to the prince and to his fascinating life and home. What was she doing here? It was more than obvious she didn’t belong. But she wouldn’t have given up this chance at a taste of another sort of world for anything.

Max paced, then slumped into a chair and watched, feeling restless. He was torn. He wanted her out of here as quickly as possible. She disturbed everything about his life. And at the same time, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was bad news, but it was a sort of bad news it seemed he hungered for. Having her here made him remember the old days, when Laura was still alive and they traveled and held parties on the terrace and lived the life of international socialites, attending shows and meeting famous people and competing in yacht races and attending fabulous dinners in exotic locations. Their life together had only lasted a year and a half, but it had been an enchanted existence, a life of pleasure and comfort such as most people could only dream of.

It seemed almost too indulgent now, as he looked back on it. Maybe that had been the problem. Maybe they had taken things too much for granted. Maybe they had been too happy. Sometimes it seemed the fates wouldn’t allow too much happiness.

Isabella laughed at something his cousin said and he frowned, holding back the curt comment that came to mind. He seemed to remember a time when he might have been as good at the give and take as Marcello was now. But that time was gone. He didn’t expect he would ever get it back. Still, it was interesting to watch this playing out before him. It was so unusual to have a stranger among them.

She’d dropped into his world out of nowhere and she would soon go back to whence she came. But she was an anomaly and, with her bruised and swollen face, he almost felt as though they had something in common. That was ridiculous and he knew it. He was alone in his own private hell and no one else could understand what this was like. It would be best to get rid of her as quickly as possible.

Isabella knew he was watching her and his interest sparked a warm fire in her chest, a fire that was spreading and beginning to create such heat it scared her. It wasn’t that she was unused to male attention. She’d had that all her life. She was a beautiful woman, her features wide and sensual. She knew some men considered her extremely sexy. She’d never understood that. She didn’t feel very sexy. Most of the time she just felt as though she had too much to do and too little time to do it in. Men just sort of got in the way.

But men liked her. Still, she had a sharp tongue at times and didn’t suffer fools gladly, or any other way. Over the years, there had been very few men she’d thought were worth the effort.

Just recently her friend Gino had railed at her, accusing her of being cold and heartless. That had cut her to the core. He’d asked her to go with him on a weekend trip to Rome and she’d turned him down. In his disappointment, he’d charged her with living for her own immediate family and no one else.

“All you want to do is run this restaurant and make your father happy. You’ll never have children. You’ll be content to be an old maid, clucking like an old hen over your aging chicks, those worthless brothers and your old, sick father.”

She could dismiss Gino with no effort at all, but his words didn’t fade away quite so easily. The things he’d said echoed in her mind all the time lately. Was it true? Was she really so wrapped up in her little family that she’d lost the knack of feeling like a desirable woman? Would she never have room for a man in her life? What if he was right? What if there was something wrong with her?

But the things she’d been through tonight were relieving some of those doubts. She was all right. She could relate to men, on the level of friendship at the very least. Marcello obviously liked her and they got along famously.

And Max…He’d kissed her, hadn’t he? It had been a light, gentle gesture of healing, but still…A kiss was a kiss. Even in her ugly, bruised condition, he’d felt a pull in her direction. And she’d felt it too.

And that was just the problem. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt such a thrill at a man’s touch. It had been years. But was there any promise there? Of course not.

Come on, Isabella, she chided herself a bit sadly. He’s a prince. You work in a restaurant. So what if there seems to be a sensual connection that flares between the two of you every time your eyes meet? He may find you amusing for the moment—though evidence of that is pretty skimpy—but there is no way anything real can happen between the two of you. So you might as well forget it.

Marcello finished up giving her stitches and began to pack his equipment away in his little black doctor bag. He and Max talked back and forth for a moment, and then the prince said something that chilled her.

“We’re going to have to beef up security around here,” he was saying, not even looking her way. “I don’t want anyone near the river.”

She turned to look at him. Whenever the river was brought up, there was some undercurrent of emotion that she couldn’t quite pin down. What was it about the river that had so spooked this family?

“The dogs don’t do the trick?” Marcello said.

Max shrugged. “The dogs can’t be everywhere all the time. And they have to sleep. They’re dogs.”

Marcello grinned. “That they are. Have you thought of hiring guards?”

“No.” He flashed a warning look at his cousin. “You know I can’t do that.”

Marcello shrugged with resignation. “Of course.”

“We’ll put in an alarm service, with cameras. We’ll get state-of-the-art security going around here. No one will be able to slip through the cracks again.” He shrugged. “We should have done it long ago.”

Isabella sighed. That meant she wouldn’t get a second chance. What was she going to do? Hire James Bond? It didn’t seem likely.

Marcello headed back to his room to get some sleep. Isabella felt a flutter of nerves at being alone with Max again, but he treated her with distant politeness, making her sit closer to the fire to dry her hair while he dispatched poor Renzo off to get her car and bring it up for her. And then he began to pace the room again, staying as far away from her as he could manage.

Her conversational gambits seemed to have dried up with Marcello out of the room. She fluffed her hair in the warmth of the fire and racked her brain for a subject as the silence between the two of them got louder.

“I like your cousin,” she said at last, risking a quick look his way. “And I appreciate the medical attention.” She threw him a quick smile and made an attempt at a light joke. “You treat trespassers well around here.”

He gave her a piercing look, then turned back to stare into the fire. She noted he was getting less and less protective of the right side of his face. Did that mean he was getting less self-conscious? Or that he cared less what she thought?

“Yes,” he said at last, speaking slowly. “Marcello is my friend as well as my cousin.” He glanced her way. “He and I once looked very much alike,” he added softly, almost as though musing to himself. “People took us for brothers.”

She nodded. She could tell that, despite the scar. “He’s very handsome,” she said before she thought, then colored slightly as she realized how he might take that.

He glanced at her, eyebrow raised, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t speak again right away. She wanted to. She wanted to tell him his own face was so much more interesting than his cousin’s. It had all the beauty Marcello had, but it had something more—character, history, a hard and cruel story to tell. Just what that story was, she didn’t know, but there was passion there, and mystery, and heartbreak. It was a face for the ages, a map of human tragedy, a work of art.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized she preferred it. In fact, she found it beautiful in a rare and special way. But she couldn’t say those things—could she? He would think she was flattering him, perhaps even trying to get something from him.

“You are both very handsome,” she said at last, feeling a bit brave to say that much.

He shrugged, looking away. “My face is what it is. It is what I made it. My burden to bear.”

She sat back, biting her tongue and wondering if she dared say any of the things she was thinking. He was wonderful to look at. Didn’t he realize that?

Or was it her? Was she strange?

That was a loaded question and she didn’t want to answer it. But she had to say something.

“You know what I think?” she began. “I think you should come to my restaurant. You need to get out and…”

He swore softly but it was enough to stop the words in her throat. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told her roughly. “You don’t have a clue.”

Of course she didn’t. She knew that. But he didn’t have to be so rude. She was only trying to help.

She bit her lip, considering the situation. For some reason, when he ordered her about, she often found herself wanting to do what he said. It was time to nip that in the bud. He was beginning to think of her as a pushover, wasn’t he? Sure, he was a prince and she was a nobody—but that didn’t matter. She’d never been the amenable one in any relationship. Why let it get started now? She had to fight this drift toward subservience. Rising from her seat on the couch, she faced him with her hands on her hips, her head cocked at a challenging angle.

“I thought I should let you know that I don’t really think you’re a vampire,” she said as an opening.

He nodded, looking at her coolly. “I was pretty sure about that all along.”

“But you do have cruel tendencies,” she said, looking at him earnestly. “Listen, about the herbs I need from your hillside—”

“No.” He said it with utter finality.

She pulled her head back, startled by his vehemence. “But…”

He held a hand up to stop her in her tracks. “If keeping you off a dangerous hillside is cruel, I’m a monster. Sorry, but that is the way it is.”

“But—”

“No. You’re to stay away. And that’s final.”

He rose as if to add emphasis to his words. She looked up at him and swallowed hard. He looked tall and stern and unyielding, and his shoulders were wide as the horizon. There was no humor in his face, no softness at all. His scars were vivid and his hard eyes made the breath catch in her throat and her heart beat just a little faster. Just that quickly she was back to being a timid petitioner, and he was once again a prince. His gaze met hers and held. She couldn’t say a thing.

And then, breaking the spell, Renzo appeared.

“The young lady’s car is here, sir.”

The prince turned and nodded.

“Thank you, Renzo.”

It was very late. The grandfather clock in the hallway was chiming the hour. A part of him wanted to accompany her down to her home. Gallantry would suggest it. But practicalities, as well as common sense, forbade it. Not to mention the fact that he just plain couldn’t do it. So he merely nodded to her, staying back away so that he wouldn’t be tempted to repeat anything as silly as a kiss.

“Renzo will show you to your car,” he said shortly. “Goodnight.” She opened her mouth to say something, but there was no time. Turning on his heel, he went back into his dark and lonely palazzo, leaving her behind as though that was the main purpose. She sighed, feeling suddenly cold and lonely. Renzo showed her to her car and she drove off toward her home and restaurant in the village with a sense of frustration. But she knew very well that her life had been changed…changed forever, even if she never saw him again.

CHAPTER FOUR

“WELL,” Susa said the next morning as she began to mix the dough for the large cake pans that sat waiting. “How’s the prince?”

Isabella turned bright red and had to pretend to be looking for something in the huge wall refrigerator in order to hide that fact until things cooled.

“What prince?” she chirped, biding her time.

Susa’s laugh sounded more like a cackle. “The one who punched you in the eye,” she said, elbow-deep in flour. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Isabella whirled and faced the older woman, wondering why she’d never noticed before how annoying she could be. “No one punched me. I…I fell.”

“Ah.” Susa nodded wisely, a mischievous gleam in her gray eyes. “So he pushed you, did he?”

“No!”

Isabella groaned with exasperation and escaped into the pantry to assemble the ingredients for the basic tomato sauce that was the foundation of all the Casali family cuisine. Let Susa cackle if she felt like it. Isabella wasn’t going to tell her anything at all about what had happened. Pressing her lips together firmly, she set about making the sauce and pretended she didn’t know what the older woman was talking about.

She couldn’t discuss it yet. Not with anyone. She wasn’t even sure herself what exactly had happened. Looking back, it seemed like a dream. When she tried to remember what she’d said or what he’d done, it didn’t seem real. So she washed the clothes the prince’s sister had loaned her, sent them back to the palazzo, and heard nothing in return. She had to put it behind her.

Besides, she had other problems, big problems, to deal with. She’d been putting off thinking about them because she’d assumed she would go to collect the Monta Rosa Basil and all would be well—or at least in abeyance. Without the basil, she was finally facing the fact that the restaurant was in big trouble.

Luca, her father and founder of Rosa, had gone into a panic when she had told him a sketchy version of what had happened and then tentatively speculated what life—and the menu—might be like without the herb.

“What are you talking about?” he demanded, looking a bit wild. A tall, rather elegant-looking man, in Isabella’s eyes, he radiated integrity. Despite the demands he tended to put on her, she loved him to pieces.

“The old prince said I could come any time.”

That was news to Isabella. She’d had no idea there was any sort of permission granted, and she had to wonder if it wasn’t just a convenient memory her father had embellished a bit.

“Well, the new prince says ‘no’.”

“The new prince?” He stared at her. “You’ve talked to him?”

“Yes. A little.”

He frowned. “No, Isabella. Stay away from the royalty. It’s no good to mix with them. They think they can walk all over us and they do it every time.”

“But, Papa, if I’m going to try to get permission to—”

“You don’t need permission.”

She sighed. There was no way she was going to make him understand that the circumstances had changed.

“I’ll go myself,” he muttered. He tried to rise from his chair and she hurried to coax him back down.

“Father, you will not go anywhere,” she said fretfully.

“Don’t you understand how important this is? The Basil is our family’s trademark, our sign of distinction. Without it we are just like all the others, not special at all. It’s who we are, the heart and soul of our cuisine and of our identity. We have to have it.”

She was feeling even worse about this than before. “But, Papa, if I can’t get it any longer…”

He shook his head, unable to understand what the difficulty was. “But you can get it. Of course you can.” His tired blue eyes searched hers. “I’ve never had any trouble. I go in right at sunrise. I go quietly, squeezing through the chink in the wall, right where I’ve entered the grounds since I was a young man. A short hike past the river and up the hill, and there it is, green leaves waving in the breeze, reaching up to kiss the morning sun.” He kissed his fingertips in a salute to the wonderful plants that were the making of his reputation.

Then he frowned at her fiercely. “If you can’t manage to do such a simple thing, I’ll do it myself, even if I have to crawl up that hill. I’ve never failed yet.”

That was it. She was a failure. She sighed. “The dogs never came after you?” she asked him, feeling almost wistful about it.

“The dogs are only out at night.”

“Not anymore,” she said sadly.

She left him pounding his walking stick on the tile floor and grumbling about incompetence, knowing she couldn’t let him attempt the task. The climb up the hill would kill him in his current condition. She had to find a way.

Everyone knew there was a problem. The situation was getting desperate. Her father had let things go too long. They were losing customers and had been bleeding money even before this latest problem. To make matters worse, there was some nonsense about a permit her father had never bothered to get. Fredo Cavelli, an old friend of her father’s and now on the local planning commission, had come by a few times, threatening dire consequences if the paperwork for a permit wasn’t cleared up. The trouble was, she wasn’t sure what Fredo was talking about and her father tended to do nothing but foam at the mouth and accuse Fredo of jealousy and double-dealing instead of taking care of the problem as he should.

It seemed to Isabella that control was slipping away. Without the special ingredient that set their sauce apart, there would be very little reason for anyone to choose their restaurant, Rosa, over the others operating nearby. She was desperate to get a handle on all these problems and get things back on an even keel.

Something had to be done.

She knew what it was. She had to go back there.

Just thinking about it made her shiver. She couldn’t go back. The prince had explicitly ordered her to stay away. And for once in her life, she was not really ready to challenge that.

Odd as it seemed, he was so different, so separate from her way of life, that he threw her off balance in a way no other man had ever done. She was used to being the feisty one, the girl who didn’t accept any nonsense from men, the one who could take it, deal with it, and serve it right back. A handsome face didn’t bowl her over. Charm made her suspicious. The tough-guy act completely turned her off.

Isabella was a hard sell on every level. Life had made her that way. Though she looked happy and carefree to most who knew her casually, there was a thread of dread and unease in her soul that she’d come by naturally.

Her mother had died when she was three years old, leaving her the only female in the family. Her father and her two brothers immediately turned to her for everything. At the age of five she was already taking care of everyone else, in the family home, in the play yard, and even in the restaurant. People in the village called her “little Mama” as she scurried past on one errand or another. She was always in such a hurry to make things right for her little brothers, it seemed she never had time to have a childhood of her own.

But her unease and wistfulness were born of more than just too many responsibilities too early. There were uncertainties in her family background, half-remembered scenes from childhood, secrets and lies. Her mother’s death, her father’s sometimes mysterious background, the reason her baby brother Valentino carried his daredevil act too far, the reason her brother Cristiano felt he had to jump off cliffs to save lives—all these things and more created a shaky foundation for a calm, peaceful life.

Isabella had a recurring nightmare where her family restaurant began to sag, first on one side, then the other. Going outside, she would realize the building had been sitting on a sand dune and the sand was beginning to drain away. Frantically, she tried to shore it up with her hands, pushing the sand back, working faster and faster. But it was no use. The building sank into the sand as though it were water. Inside she could see her father and her brothers trying to get out. She tried to call for help, but she couldn’t make a sound. Helpless, she watched them disappear beneath the surface. And that was when she woke.

“You’ve obviously got a savior complex,” Susa told her the one time she’d confided in the older woman. “Get over it. You can’t save these people. We are each our own worst enemy.”

Susa’s words weren’t very comforting. In fact, they weren’t even very helpful. So she never told anyone about her dreams again. But she thought of them now as she tried to analyze what had happened last night.

As much as the dream unnerved her, misty memories of her night at the castle unsettled her even more. Had he really kissed her forehead or had she just wished so hard that she’d dreamed it? Had she really told him she’d thought he was a vampire for a few shattering seconds? Had she really reached out and stroked his scar as though she had a right to touch him? It didn’t seem credible and it made her blush all over again.

She hadn’t been herself last night. And that was one reason she hesitated to try to go back. What would he cause her to act like if she actually got in to see him again?

Meanwhile she had to deal with losing customers, losing money, and Fredo Cavelli coming by to threaten that he would have Rosa’s closed down for good if her father didn’t come up with some obscure piece of paper.

“He thinks he can order me around because he bribed the mayor to put him on the planning commission,” Luca would scoff whenever she tried to talk to him about it. “I’m in compliance in every way. He can’t run me out of town. He’s just jealous because the little ice cream store he tried to run fell apart in a month. I won’t give in to his rubbish.”

She shook her head and walked away, unsure of how threatening this business really was. She had more problems than she had time for, so she let it go. Meanwhile, several times a day, her gaze wandered toward the hills, searching out the mist-shrouded tower of the castle, just barely visible toward evening, and she wondered what Max was doing in his lonely sanctuary. Was he out riding again? Did he ever think of her? Or had he been so glad to be rid of her, he’d erased her from his mind?

Max was on horseback, surveying the river in the twilight magic that hovered over his land, just after sunset. His sister had gone home, his cousin was about to leave for Milan, and his life was about to get back to normal. Boring, monotonous normal. Still, it was a relief.

This was his favorite time of day, and the only time he found he could come to the river without feeling unbearably sick inside. And he had to come to the river, if only as an homage to Laura. For the first few years after her death, he hadn’t been able to come here without tears flowing freely.

“I’m sorry,” he would cry into the wind, brokenhearted and in agony. “I’m so sorry.”

And he was convinced that Laura had been here then. She’d heard him. Later, he would often talk to her for hours, and she responded with a breeze, or a leaf that might sail over his head. He could hear her laughter in the river as the water bubbled over the rocks. She’d felt so close, he could almost touch her.

As the years went by the talking began to fade away, but he still came. And now, he didn’t talk anymore. He didn’t feel her here as he had before. Maybe she’d lost interest. Maybe she’d forgotten him. Or maybe his emotions just weren’t strong enough to break through the barriers any longer. He didn’t know what it was that had silenced their conversation. He only knew it felt stilted and awkward to try to talk to her now. But he came anyway. She deserved that much, at the very least.

Tonight he was here in part out of a guilty conscience. His head had been full of the Casali girl for days and he couldn’t seem to shake the thoughts away. He needed to fill his soul with his wife’s image again.

He looked into the swirling water of the river, very near where that water had taken her from him.

“Laura,” he said aloud, passion behind every word. “I miss you so.”

He listened hard. He tried to let himself join the flow of the evening breeze. He tried to feel whatever was in the atmosphere and draw it in. But it was all a failure. She wasn’t there. Heartsick, he turned his horse and headed back home.

Isabella had tried to figure out somehow to handle the declining basil supply problem in other ways, but the harder she tried, the more the answer seemed to elude her. As far as she knew, the prince’s estate was the only site where the herb could be found. If she wasn’t allowed to enter his gates, how was she going to get the supply she needed?

She spent hours poring over the Internet, trying to find where else the herb might grow, and, when that didn’t yield fruit, trying to find a substitution. She tried a few candidates in a couple of dishes. People noticed.

“There’s something different about this Fruta di Mare,” an old friend of the family asked right away, frowning as though she’d found a bug in her meal. “Have you changed your recipe?”

“What are you doing that’s different?” another asked, face twisted with displeasure.

And then she overheard a pair of regular customers whispering to each other. The phrases she caught included, “This place used to be so good, it’s really gone downhill lately,” and she knew she was in big trouble.

There was no choice. She had to go back.

But how?

She was still agonizing over that a day later when a surprise visitor came through the doors of the café. The late afternoon sun made a radiating halo around him and for just a moment she was sure it was the prince himself. Her heart began to pound in her chest. She’d never felt such a lurch to her system before. The room tilted and for a beat or two she was sure she would pass out. But in those same seconds she realized it wasn’t the prince at all, but his cousin, Marcello, and the pounding began to fade.

It took a minute for her to catch her breath. Even as she greeted him warmly she was clutching her heart and wondering what on earth was the matter with her. She really couldn’t imagine. The prince was just a man. Nothing special. Particularly. She’d known men before and even liked a few of them. Not many, but a few. She quickly steadied herself and managed to smile at Marcello.

“Welcome. I’m so glad you decided to come try us. Please sit right here and let me bring you some wine.”

She pulled out a chair at the table best situated with a view of the square in one direction and the distant mountains in the other.

“Order whatever you like,” she said cheerfully. “It will be our pleasure to—”

“Whoa, slow down,” he said with a laugh, raising both hands as though to defend himself from the onslaught. “I didn’t come for free food. I’m on my way home to Milan, but I wanted to come by to see how my patient is doing.”

“Patient?” And then she realized he meant her. “Oh, I’m fine. As you can see, I still have a black eye, but I’ve been told I look better this way, so it’s not a problem.”

He made a face at her lame joke, but went on. “And your stitches?”

“Oh.”

“I’d like to take a look and see how they are healing.”

She glanced around the restaurant. It wasn’t packed by any means but half the tables were filled with people she’d known all her life. Every one of them was watching with rapt attention.

“Too public?” he asked as he followed her train of thought. She threw another quick look at the audience, then turned with a toss of her head.

“Let them talk,” she said blithely. “TV is mostly reruns this week. They need some fresh entertainment.”

He laughed and followed her to the storeroom where he looked her over and quickly pronounced her healing nicely. They chatted in the kitchen for a few minutes. She enjoyed being with him, but wasn’t sure how to deal with that. He was so good-looking, but it was as if there was a special ingredient missing—just like the Rosa sauce without the Monta Rosa Basil. The prince had an element of fire in him that she found lacking in his cousin. There was no doubt about it—something about the Rossi prince appealed to her like no other man she’d ever seen.

“I want to ask you a question about your cousin,” she told him at one point, a little hesitant. She knew it was going to be a touchy subject.

“Shoot,” he said casually, cradling the glass of golden wine she’d poured for him.

“It’s about his scars. I understand he was badly injured in a car accident. Is that true?”

Marcello nodded.

She frowned. “Why doesn’t anyone seem to know anything about it here in the village?”

He shrugged. “People like the Rossi family have ways of keeping things quiet,” he said. “And there were certain elements about that accident they didn’t want the world to know about.”

She drew her breath in. “Like what?” she asked.

He smiled. “Sorry, Isabella. That is not something I’m at liberty to talk about.”

She leaned back, disappointed but intrigued. What could it possibly be?

But she had a more important question. How could she get his cousin to let her back on the royal property?

“If I could just talk to him,” she said, searching Marcello’s eyes for ideas. “If I could just explain how important this is.”

He shrugged, draining the last drop of golden liquid from his glass. “Go on over and confront the lion in his lair,” he suggested with a casual gesture appealing to the fates.

She scrunched up her face, a picture of doubt. “I don’t think I’d better do that. I don’t think that would really work. Besides, how would I get in?”

He shrugged again and straightened from his place at the counter. “Your call.”

She sighed and gave him a significant look. “If only I had the number for his mobile.”

“Ah.” He bit back a grin, his eyes sparkling with laughter. “You’re not the first to hint around for that number.”

She leaned closer, trying to look persuasive but not sure how to do that with a man like this. “I’m sure you know what it is.”

He nodded, looking her over with barely leashed pity. “I do. And I’m sworn to secrecy, just as you’d expect.”

“Oh.” She straightened and frowned, her heart sinking.

“I’m not allowed to tell anyone.”

She nodded, feeling tragic and hopeless. “I was afraid of that.”

He looked as tragic as she felt. “I’m sorry. It would be a betrayal of trust for me to tell you what it is.”

She nodded again, leaning against the tall counter with her chin in her hand. “I understand,” she said sadly.

He reached past her to take a pencil from a cup full of them. “It’s a fairly easy number to remember,” he said as he pulled a piece of paper from a stack of them on the counter. “I think I could probably recreate it right now, just doodling here.” And he began to do just that. “But I would never tell you what it is.”

Her eyes widened. Had he just done what she thought he’d done? “Of course not,” she said faintly, hope rekindled.

They chatted for another few seconds. Isabella was on tenterhooks but she studiously avoided looking at the paper in front of him, which he was filling with doodles. Still, she noticed out of the corner of her eye when he turned to leave and crushed it into a ball. Very deliberately, he tossed it into a nearby trash can.

“Take care, Isabella,” he said. Giving her a big smile, he winked and headed for the door.

She waited until he was out of the room, then whirled and grabbed the paper from the trash can. She pressed it flat against the counter, and there it was—a telephone number, the figures embellished wildly, but still legible. Just the thought of calling it sent her pulse soaring. Thanks to Marcello, she had what she’d wanted, a connection to the prince. Now, how was she going to work up the courage to use it?

Max jerked upright when he heard his mobile chime. For just a moment, he wondered what the noise was. He’d only heard it a few times before. Almost no one had his number, and those who did usually called on the landline or sent him an e-mail. He frowned as he fumbled through his stack of books and papers, looking for the blasted thing and ready to bark at whoever was calling and interrupting a good idea flow he’d got into on this lazy, sunny afternoon.

His frown deepened as he realized he didn’t recognize the caller’s ID. Probably a wrong number. He dropped the phone back onto his desk and turned away, ready to let it ring itself silly. But it didn’t stop and he swore sharply and reached for it again, prepared to turn it off. But this time something about the caller ID caught his attention. He hesitated. Why not give it a try? After all, what could it hurt? With a grimace, he clicked on and put it to his ear.

“Ciao.”

There was a soft exhalation of breath and a feminine voice said, “Is this Max?”

He blinked. “Yes. Who’s this?” But in a flash, he knew.

“Isabella Casali. I…we met the other night when I…”

Letting his head fall back, he closed his eyes. He really didn’t need this. Life as he’d grown to know it was boring but placid. Not too many highs and lows—if you didn’t count the midnight agonies of a guilty conscience. And then, this woman had inserted herself into his sphere. And it came to this—just the sound of her voice did strange and mystical things to him.

“I remember,” he said gruffly. “How did you get this number?”

“It wasn’t easy.” She hesitated, then went on. “Listen, I don’t mean to be a bother, but I need to talk to you.”

His hand tightened on the small device. “It’s that damned basil, isn’t it?”

She sputtered for a few seconds, then got herself together again in time to be coherent. “Well, yes, it is. You see, this is a matter of such importance—”

He stopped her with a rude word. He was angry with himself, angry with her. The way she’d barged into his life a few nights before had affected him more than he wanted to admit. He told himself it was just her femaleness that had sent him into a tailspin for a couple of days.

It could have been any woman, anyone at all. Despite everything, he did feel a real lack of the feminine presence in his life. He missed having someone around who put flowers in a glass and plunked them in the middle of the table at breakfast. He missed the flow of shiny hair spilling over a smooth, silky shoulder, the soft pout of red, swollen lips, the cheerful voice that sounded like sunshine, the way a pair of breasts filled out a sweater and pulled the fabric in that tightly entrancing way that just knocked him out. All these things shouted femininity to him. Having a woman around made daily existence softer, more colorful, more dramatic. He missed that.

But such things were part of a life that was closed to him now. Finding Isabella on his property had just brought that home to him and made the loss fresh again. He needed to forget all about her.

And he’d managed over the last few days to practically obliterate her from his consciousness. He’d done it deliberately, piece by piece, setting up work schedules and exercise routines that demanded more of his attention and time, until he fell exhausted into bed at night and slept like a drugged beast. He’d done everything he could think of to make his life new and challenging in order to keep his mind from going where he didn’t need it to go.

Now here she was with her provocative voice and her urgent requests, stirring up things he didn’t want stirred. That made him angry, even though a part of him knew that the anger was a direct attempt to stave off temptation.

“Tell me the truth,” he demanded. “How did you get this number?”

She drew her breath in. “I found it.”

The sheer audacity of that answer took him by surprise and he nearly laughed out loud. But he held it back and managed to ask with a straight face, “Where?”

“In the trash.”

He shook his head. Did she really think he was going to buy that one? “Isabella, please. That doesn’t make any sense.”

She sighed. “Life doesn’t make any sense. Hadn’t you noticed?”

“Don’t try to throw sand in my eyes with ridiculous philosophical musings,” he warned her, thoroughly annoyed. “This is a very basic problem. It doesn’t need an esoteric response. You found my number. I want to know how so that it doesn’t happen again.”

“I’ve told you the truth,” she insisted, sounding earnest. “It was in my trash.”

So she wasn’t going to tell him. That only strengthened his convictions. If she couldn’t respond truthfully to a simple question, he didn’t need her complicating his life any longer. Best to cut all ties as quickly as possible. Prolonging this would only make things worse for him and his peace of mind.

“I don’t know how you got this number,” he told her gruffly, “but it hardly matters. I’ll get it changed right away.”

She drew her breath in. “All so you can avoid any calls from me?” she asked, her voice sounding shocked.

“Yes,” he said stoutly.

She didn’t understand. But that was for the best. If she ever tumbled to the truth—that she affected him as no one else had in years—his situation would be that much more precarious.

“Why do you hate me?” she asked, aghast.

“I don’t hate you.” He groaned softly, closing his eyes. “That’s just the problem,” he muttered under his breath.

“What?” she said.

He gritted his teeth and expelled a long line of swear words in an obscure dialect, just because it made him feel better. This woman was driving him around the bend. And that was odd. He didn’t remember trouble like this with women that he’d known before…before Laura. He’d always had friends and casual relationships. It seemed he’d lost the knack for free and easy dealings with the opposite sex.

Of course, Laura’s death and the accident that had scarred him had changed all that. For over a year after it had happened, he hadn’t been able to speak to anyone, even family members. He had waited to die, wishing for it. When that didn’t happen, he began to realize he was going to have to go on without her and without his face. And that was a problem. He didn’t have much appetite for it.

It had taken a long time, but slowly he had let others in—but only his immediate family and a few close friends. Most other friends had probably decided he must be dead himself. He didn’t really want them around and that had become obvious.

And no strangers. Never strangers.

Yet, once he’d opened up to his closest family members, he’d begun to see that there were still things he could do with his life, even if he didn’t go out into the world as before. Today, he had a relatively active professional life, thanks to the computer and the Internet. In the old days, he would probably have been locked away from all human commerce, but with the modern conveniences of semi-anonymous communication he was able to do quite a bit without having to come face-to-face with the people he interacted with. Mostly, he still only saw people he’d known all his life.

“That’s because you’re a coward,” his sister maintained wryly during one of their frequent arguments.

He didn’t take offense. She was probably right. Though he told himself he didn’t want to inflict his savaged visage on others, that was only a part of it. He didn’t want to see the reaction in the eyes of strangers. There was a certain vanity there, he had to admit. But he knew what the world wanted from him, and it wasn’t his scarred face.

He’d been through the fickle reactions of the public at large before and he knew very well how cruel they could be. His mother had been a beautiful film star. During her twenties and early thirties, people had flocked to see her films. She’d been in demand everywhere.

But unlucky genetics had been her downfall. She had lost her looks early. Even as a young boy he’d understood how the media had begun to rip apart her image as she had disappointed them. It almost seemed they took it personally that she wasn’t the beauty she once had been. As though she’d wasted their time and now would have to pay the price. He had been ten years old when she had taken her own life.

Yes, he knew what the public was like. And he didn’t see any reason why he should go out of his way to be accepted by them again.

But Isabella Casali was another matter. He couldn’t seem to put her off in a distant box the way he knew he ought to.

He came back to the conversation, knowing he needed to create a plausible alternative to her accusation of him hating her. “I hate talking on the phone,” he supplied quickly. “It’s not just you,” he added.

Despite everything, he didn’t want to hurt her. She was quite adorable and didn’t deserve it. This was his problem, not hers. If only he could explain to her…But that was impossible. “I don’t like talking to anyone.”

“Oh.”

She still sounded downhearted and that made him wince. Silently, he told himself to man up. He had to remain firm. It was the only way.

“Well, I won’t keep you much longer,” she promised, sounding wistful. “I just have one thing to talk to you about.”

He knew what that was. There was no point prolonging things. “The answer is no,” he said evenly.

“But you don’t know—”

“Yes, I do. You want permission to come in and scavenge my river valley hillside for your precious basil herb. And I won’t allow it. Case closed.”

He could almost hear her gulp and he grimaced. He hated doing this. He could see the look she probably had in her huge blue eyes and it killed him. But he couldn’t weaken.

“Please hear me out—”

“No, I won’t allow it. It’s too dangerous.”

It was her turn to make that sound of exasperation. “Dangerous? What’s dangerous about it?”

“You fell into the river, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but that was because it was the middle of the night and you scared me.”

He nodded. “Exactly. These things are always…accidents.” He should just hang up and he knew it. He tried. But somehow, it just seemed too cruel.

“Why?” Her voice sharpened, as though she’d suddenly found the hint of a chink in his argument. “Why are you so sure I’ll get hurt? Has anyone actually been hurt in that river?”

His throat choked shut for a moment. This was something he couldn’t talk about. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath to steady his resolve. The consequences were too risky to gamble with.

There was a part of him, in a deep, secret place, that halfway believed there was an evil force lurking by the river, waiting to trap another woman—especially one that he had some affection for—and pull her under the water as well. There was another, more rational part of him that contended the evil force was his own sense of guilt. Which side was right? It wasn’t worth putting it to the test.

“Isabella, I forbid you to go anywhere near that hillside. And the river. Stay away.”

“But—”

“Promise me.” His voice was harsh and stern. He had to make sure she didn’t feel she could come on her own.

She swallowed hard. He could hear the effort she was making but that didn’t matter. He steeled himself. It had to be done.

“All right,” she said at last in a very small voice. “I’ll stay away. At least I’ll stay away until I can find a way to convince you—”

“You’re not going to convince me. I’m changing this number, remember?”

“But, Max…”

He winced. Hearing his name in her voice sent a quiver through him, a sense of something edgy that he didn’t like at all. Given a little time, it would chip away at his resolve, bit by bit.

“Goodbye, Isabella,” he said firmly.

She sighed. “Goodbye.”

Her voice had a plaintive quaver that touched his heart, but he hung up anyway. He had to. Another moment or two and he’d have been giving in to her, and that was something that couldn’t happen.

This entire connection had to end. He couldn’t afford the time and emotional effort involved in maintaining a relationship, even on the phone. He had work to do.

But returning to his research was hopeless at this point. Instead, he rose, grabbed his towel and headed for the fully equipped gym he’d had built into half of the whole ground level of the building. It was obvious he was going to have to fight harder to push Isabella Casali out of his system.

CHAPTER FIVE

ISABELLA fought back tears of frustration as she clicked off her phone connection to the palazzo.

“There go any hopes of a career in negotiations,” she muttered to herself. “Turns out I’m not any better at that than I am at breaking and entering.”

Hardly a surprise, but disappointing anyway. What now? Giving up wasn’t an option. One look at her half-empty restaurant told her that. She was going to have to find another way. But how? She’d promised him she wouldn’t go near the hillside or the river and she was going to keep that promise, much as it hurt.

But there had to be a way to breach those high walls in a more effective manner. Someone in the village had to have dealings with the palazzo. It didn’t make sense that they would import everything from Rome. Slowly, carefully, she began to ask around. At first all she got were blank stares.

And then, finally, she hit pay dirt of a sort. Much to her surprise, the man who delivered seafood to her restaurant every morning also made a stop at the Rossi palazzo once or twice a week.

“Only on Tuesdays and Fridays,” he told her chattily, wiping his hands on his big white apron. “Wednesdays are out. It seems to be the day off for the staff, such as it is.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. I made the mistake of showing up on a Wednesday once. I couldn’t even get in the gate. I had two pounds of Chilean sea bass go bad over that little error.”

“Do you ever see the prince?” she asked quickly, afraid he might escape before she got all she needed to know from him.

“The prince?” He shrugged. “I don’t think so. I usually deal with an old fellow who tries to get something for nothing every time.” He chuckled. “The place is like a mausoleum. You’d think it was full of old dead ancestors, but somebody seems to have an appetite for salmon and scallops.”

And so, a plan was born.

The gap in the stone wall that surrounded the Rossi estate was still there. No one had filled it in—and that was lucky. Without this little piece of access, her plan would never have worked at all.

And so the following Wednesday, Isabella squeezed through and then stood very still in the warm noon sun, listening as hard as she could. The wind was quiet. The water was a distant babbling. And once the pounding of her heart quieted down, she could tell—the guard dogs didn’t seem to be loose. There wasn’t a sign of them.

She bit her lip, tempted to race up the hill and gather basil as fast as she could, then race back again. But she knew that was no solution. And such an action certainly held no honor. Much as the prince scared her, she had to confront him about this and do things openly and honestly.

He’d told her not to come here. She had to change his mind—not steal from him. Taking a deep breath, she started up the hill toward the castle.

It was a long climb and she was carrying a heavy backpack with supplies—her special sauce pan, her favorite olive oil, the tomatoes that would form her base—and a small container of all that was left of the basil supply for her restaurant. She was going to go for broke and cook for the prince. It was pretty much the last idea she had left.

All the way, she kept expecting to hear someone shouting for her to go back. That didn’t happen and she found some shade once she’d reached the top of the hill. There were no cars in sight, and not a sign of life anywhere. The castle looked just as old and moldy, but a lot less intimidating in the sunlight.

A few minutes of rest and she began to work up the nerve to go on with her plan. She knew where the cook’s entrance was. She would use that first, hoping to find things unlocked. Once she was inside, she knew exactly what to do next.

She scanned the windows as high as she could look. There was no telling where his rooms were, no way to know where he hung out during the day.

Her fingers trembled a bit as she reached for the latch on the kitchen door, and she paused for a moment. Closing her eyes, she muttered a quick plea. This had to work. He had to understand. He was a prince, but he was also a man and she was counting on that basic humanity to come through for her in the end.

And whatever chance there was, she had to take it. She had no choice.

Max stood with his eyes closed and savored being bombarded by water. He’d just had a grueling workout in his gym and the water pouring over his naked body was creating a special kind of ecstasy. Every aching muscle sang with relief. Every body part relaxed with delight. Every nerve, every fiber, came together in rapt happiness.

He would have to pay for this someday. Maybe at the gates of heaven. This was pure self-indulgence and he was probably wasting water to boot, but he let it go on and on, gushing through his thick hair, making small silver rivers over his tanned shoulders and through the dark thatch on his chest. It felt so damn good. He was pure appetite today, appetite for pleasure.

And what the hell? It was his birthday.

It was his birthday and no one had remembered.

That was okay. In fact, it was exactly as he wanted it to be. He hated people making a fuss. What was a birthday, anyway? Just a day. Nothing special. All the celebrating was just a pretence that something had actually happened, something had actually changed, a milestone had been set down. And actually, it was all much ado about nothing.

A memory floated into his mind, how his birthday had been when Laura was still with him. She’d slipped out of bed early in the morning and taken little gifts and hidden them all over the castle. It had taken him the entire day to find them all. How she’d laughed when he’d looked in all the wrong places. He could almost hear her musical voice now.

But he shook it away. Thinking of Laura was still too painful. Would there ever come a time when he could remember her without that dull, hopeless, agonizing pain of guilt in his gut?

Finally he was ready to put a stop to this and get on with his day. He turned off the water and stood there for a moment, feeling the mist around him turn into clear air, the warmth turn into refreshing coolness, the moisture evaporate on his skin. For some reason his senses seemed especially acute today. He was feeling things he never noticed, hearing birds outside, feeling a breeze, enjoying the rays of the sun that came in through the open window. As usual, he avoided looking in the mirror while he dried himself with a huge fluffy towel, glancing out the window at the beautiful day instead.

“There’s no place like Italy,” he murmured to himself. “And in Italy, there’s no place like Monta Correnti.”

He stretched in the warm sunlight, smelling the clean scent of his soap. And…something else.

He stopped, frowning, and sniffed the air again. There was something else in the wind—or, more likely, wafting up from the kitchen. Someone was cooking. How could someone be cooking? There was no one here. Even Renzo was gone, making his weekly trip to see his daughter an hour’s drive away.

Was it his imagination?

No, it got stronger. Garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, and something else.

It was a wonderful smell. A slow smile began to transform his face. It seemed someone had remembered his birthday after all and had come back to surprise him. It had to be Renzo.

Much as the old sourpuss tended to be a dour figure, he had his moments. Max pulled on a pair of jeans, suddenly in a hurry to find out what was going on. He turned to the stairway, bounding down, barefooted and shirtless, feeling happier than he’d felt in a long time. Funny how the fact that someone had remembered his birthday after all seemed to buoy him. He was smiling as he pushed in through the swinging doors to the kitchen.

“So you did remember my birthday after all,” he said, and then he stopped dead, shocked to the core. It wasn’t Renzo who turned to greet him.

“You!” He stared at her. “How did you get in here?”

Isabella was opening her mouth, and as she did so she thought she had words to say. But somehow they never made it out past her lips. For the moment, she couldn’t speak.

It was all too much. She was startled by the way he’d come barging into the room, but, more than that, she was stunned at the beauty of the man she saw before her. His bare chest, his strong shoulders and muscular arms, the way his worn jeans rode low on his hips, revealing a tanned stomach that was smooth and tight as a trampoline canvas, all combined to present a picture of raw, candid masculinity that took her breath away.

“Oh! I…I…”

His jaw was hard as stone and his eyes blazed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Uh…” She gestured toward the stove. “Cooking?”

His head went back. That part was obvious. He was tensed, every muscle hardening, as though ready to pick her up physically and throw her out onto the front walkway.

“That’s not what I mean,” he said through teeth that were close to clenched.

“I know. I know.”

She shook her head, trying to clear it. She’d never responded to a man like this before. She was swooning like a young girl in the sixties at a Beatles concert. She had to get a grip.

But something about him had hit her hard, right in the emotions. He had come barging into the kitchen and as she’d turned to greet him she’d seen this beautifully sculptured image of a man, backlit by the golden light coming in from the high windows. Michelangelo’s creation in the flesh. She had that feeling she sometimes got when her favorite tenor reached an impossibly high note and held it forever. She even had tears stinging in her eyes—he was just so beautiful.

She turned from him and leaned against the counter, her hand over her mouth. Staring into the red sauce bubbling on the stove, she fought for stability. What was she going to do? She couldn’t seem to stay sane around this man.

And she had to. This was not what she’d come for. She didn’t want to be mesmerized by his male appeal. She had a case to make and she had to stay on her toes to make it. But somehow sanity and the prince didn’t seem to go together well.

Too bad, she told herself sternly. You’ve got to do this right.

Taking a deep breath, she turned back to face him. Resolutely, she lifted her gaze and stared at him hard.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” she said, and somehow she managed to sound strong. “You are denying me access to something I need in order to survive. Something my family traditionally has had access to. We have to find a way to compromise on this.”

He stared back at her. She was looking up at him, her eyes very wide, and he realized he hadn’t even thought to shield his face from her gaze. Here he was in broad daylight with none of the protective shadows of the other night. And there she was, staring straight at him. And yet, once again he felt no overwhelming need to turn away as he felt so often with others. Her gaze was open and natural. She might be scared of something about him, but it wasn’t his face.

But it was her face that drew his attention. He took a step closer and reached out to take her chin in his hand and tilt her head so that he could examine her. And then he swore softly.

“Isabella, you still have a bad bruise,” he said, a touch of outrage in his voice as he studied her black eye.

“Oh,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Yes, I’ve been told it will take a while to fade.”

He swore softly, shaking his head, then pulled away from her and looked at the items she’d spread out all over the kitchen.

“You’re going to have to pack all this up and get out of here,” he said tersely.

She took a step back away from him. She knew he was angry at finding her here. What confused her a bit, though, was why her black eye seemed to make him even angrier. As though it were her fault or something!

“Why?”

He looked back at her. “Because, once again, you’re trespassing. You’re going to have to go.”

She shook her head. She wasn’t going to be bowled over so easily. She lifted her chin. “Not until you try the sauce.”

A look of surprise flashed in his dark eyes. He turned to glance at the brew simmering in the pot. “Is this your special sauce ?”

“Yes.”

He turned back and met her defiant eyes.

“I don’t want to try your sauce, Isabella. I’m sure it’s a fine sauce. But, no matter how good it is, it won’t change anything. The special quality of your sauce is not at issue here. It’s the access to the hillside, and I can’t allow you to go there.”

He was like a stone wall. Her hope began to flag.

“Max, please.” She winced and drew back a bit. “Don’t you understand?” she said, trying hard to be calm and reasonable. “I have to go there.”

He shrugged as though he just didn’t care. “I’m going to go and finish dressing,” he said dryly. “I expect you to have cleared out by the time I get back.”

He began to turn away.

Isabella cried out. “No!”

He hesitated and looked back, and in that same moment a furious Isabella, all tossed hair and flashing eyes, got between him and the doorway before he realized what was happening.

“You listen to me,” she demanded, jabbing a finger against his naked chest. “It wasn’t easy doing this. It wasn’t easy coming all this way and climbing the hill with all these supplies, or finding the right time to come here when I would be able to get in, and preparing myself and putting together a proper case to make to convince you. You can at least pay me the respect of hearing me out.”

He grabbed her hand to stop the jabbing and ended up holding onto it. “Why should I hear you out? Your problems have nothing to do with me.”

“Yes, they do,” she insisted, trying to free her hand from his grip. “You own the hillside where the basil grows. That herb is the linchpin of my family’s existence. Without it, our restaurant is over and my father’s lifework is in ruins.”

She finally yanked her hand away and jabbed him again. “You will listen,” she demanded, her eyes fierce.

Max hadn’t been around many people for a good long time, but he’d always had a knack for understanding a lot about human psychology. One thing he knew was that, faced with someone who was almost overwrought with passionate intensity, the worst thing you could do was to laugh. It drove the person crazy and it made you look like a jerk. He knew it was all wrong. Not to mention, if your goal was to calm the person down, it just plain didn’t work very well.

But he couldn’t help it. She looked so cute. Her curly hair was flopping down over her huge eyes and her cheeks were bright red and her lips looked lusciously swollen. And she was so earnest.

He started to try to answer her, but the words didn’t come out right. What did come out was a choking laugh, and once it got started he had a hard time getting it stopped again.

Laughing. It was something he never did. As he tried to analyze it later, he decided it was a release of sorts. He’d spent so long being so tense, so filled with anguished guilt, and Isabella had reached into his life and pulled aside the curtain, letting in a ray of sunshine that helped open the floodgates to emotions he had kept bottled up for too long. But once those gates had opened, it was hard getting them closed again.

She stood back, stunned, her blue eyes bewildered. Next she was going to look hurt and he knew it. He didn’t want her to be hurt. He had to stop that. He had to tell her, had to explain…

But he was laughing and, for the moment, all he could do was reach for her and fold her into his arms.

“How dare you?” she cried, struggling against him.

“Hush, hush,” he was saying, stroking her hair and leaning down into the crook of her neck to drop a kiss on her tender skin, his lips lingering a moment or two too long. His whole purpose was to calm her down, of course, and to reassure her that he wasn’t laughing at her. Not really. But her neck was so inviting and her skin tasted so sweet and he found himself dropping more kisses than he’d ever meant to, dropping them lightly at first, then with more and more intensity, letting his tongue flicker on her skin.

“I’m sorry, Isabella,” he murmured against her warmth, still racked with humor. “I don’t mean to laugh. It’s not that I’m laughing at you. Honestly, I’m really not…”

“I hate you!” she cried, still trying to break free. “You’re mean and arrogant and—”

“No,” he said, finally getting control of the laughter and pulling up to look at her. “No, listen…”

She shook her head and her hair flew around her face. There were tears in her eyes. His heart melted at the sight.

“Oh, Isabella,” he said gruffly, full of regret. “No, I didn’t mean to laugh.”

Her lower lip was trembling. He cupped her face in his hands. She was beautiful and he moved purely by instinct. She had a spirit that had to be soothed, a mouth that had to be kissed. There was no stopping it. Nature had taken over.

CHAPTER SIX

UNPLANNED passion like this was taboo, unacceptable—and, once ignited, completely irresistible. Max’s lips touched Isabella’s once, twice, and then again, as though he’d suddenly developed a raving hunger for the taste of her, and then the moist warmth of her mouth was there, open and inviting and his kiss grew in sweet, silky intensity. And he was lost in the moment.

It was hard to know how long the kiss lasted. When he finally revived, feeling like a swimmer coming up for air, she was trying to push him away and murmuring, “No, no. I didn’t come here for this.”

He pulled his face back, but his fingers were still tangled in her hair. He looked down at her and shook his head almost sadly.

“Neither did I,” he told her, his gaze ranging over her pretty face. It took all his strength to keep from kissing her again. “But I won’t say I’m sorry it happened,” he added, his voice husky with the lingering sense of how tempting she was.

Their eyes met. He saw wonder there, and questions. She was a woman who deserved more than he was allowing her. He groaned, then shrugged in bittersweet surrender.

“All right, Isabella. I’m ready to sample your sauce and hear your entire presentation.”

Suddenly her face was shining. “That’s all I ask,” she said, blooming like a flower that had just found the sun. “Just give me half an hour.”

He nodded, reluctantly smiling at the picture she made. “You’ve got it. Hit me with your best shot.” He gave her a warning look. “And then I will tell you ‘no’ and send you home again.”

She nodded happily. “I’ll convince you. You just wait.”

He released her slowly, wishing he could pull her back into his arms and hold her again. Somehow he doubted her cooking was going to captivate him more strongly than her kisses had.

He went back to his room to put on a shirt and she got busy cooking the pasta. She’d actually talked him into hearing her out. She could hardly believe it.

The fact that he’d kissed her didn’t mean a thing, she told herself. It had thrilled her and she was still tingling. Her heart was racing, skittering around like a happy bird in her chest. But she knew she shouldn’t have let it happen and now she had to get over it. She had work to do.

But she also knew that she would be remembering how her cheek had felt against his naked chest for the rest of her life. The smoothness of his skin, the strength of his arms, the sound of his heartbeat, had sent her into a tailspin. She had to push those thoughts away, save them for later, or she wouldn’t be able to do what she’d set out to.

He was more beautiful, more manly, more exciting than any man she’d ever known, but, still, she hadn’t let it completely drag her under, and she was proud of that. She’d been the one to pull away. And she had definitely not come here scheming to use any feminine wiles or anything of the sort. The kiss hadn’t been planned by either of them and it didn’t count.

At least, she hoped it didn’t. Because she wasn’t going to let it happen again. She couldn’t.

Taking a deep breath, she nodded. Never again. That was the route to ruin and she was too smart to go that way. She had something to accomplish here, and she got down to it.

Max sat at the head of the long mahogany table that had been in his family for over two hundred years. Before him lay a mat of ivory lace that was set with heavy sterling silver flatware in an exceptionally beautiful baroque pattern. Two crystal goblets of wine had been added, one reflecting a golden hue, the other taking in sunlight and translating it into a deep, rich, royal red. There was a silver fingerbowl as well, deeply engraved with a bucolic scene, and a fine, creamy-white, linen napkin.

He surveyed it all and shook his head, wondering how she’d found everything so quickly. It had been almost thirty years since he’d seen these pieces laid out this way—when his mother was alive.

It came to him that he ought to do this more often. Just seeing these things here, touching them, brought up feelings of attachment, memories of ancestors, connections to his family and his past that he didn’t think about often enough. It all touched a chord deep inside him, a link to eternity.

He swallowed his smile quickly as Isabella entered the room. Sunlight slanted in from the tall windows that lined the space, setting her dark hair aflame with golden highlights. Her cheeks were red from time over a hot stove and she was carrying a steaming pot with hot pads protecting her hands. As she approached, the scent of something extraordinary filled the room.

He shook his head. As he watched her a sense of her beauty overwhelmed him, despite her bruised eye, and he felt an intense need to hold her again that filled him with an aching regret.

How had he gotten here? It was insane. Over the last few years, he’d lived his whole life to keep people away. Isabella had somehow crept right through his barriers and found the center of his being in ways no one else had done. He wasn’t really sure how she’d accomplished that, but he knew she had. And he knew he had to resist it.

She turned an impish smile his way as she placed the pot onto the trivet in the middle of the table.

“There you are,” she told him, ladling the sublime sauce out into a porcelain bowl, which she’d already filled with freshly made pasta. “I hope you’ll deem this fit for a king,” she said with another grin. “Or, at any rate, a prince.”

He looked down into the bowl. The sauce was the color of a late summer sunset and swimming with beautiful vegetables he couldn’t name. “It smells wonderful.”

She nodded and didn’t waste time on false modesty. “It tastes wonderful, too.”

He managed to maintain a skeptical look, just for dignity’s sake. “We’ll see.”

And he began to eat.

She was right. The sauce filled his mouth with a feeling like ecstasy. He’d never had anything quite like it. Amazing how one little herb could make such a difference.

“Well?” she asked, watching him like a hawk.

He looked at her. He could hardly keep his eyes off her. She was so alive, so vibrant, so expressive. There was something real about her, something basic and decent and appealing in a new way. He felt a pull toward her, a definite attraction, something he couldn’t deny.

But how could that be? She was so different from the wife he had loved so much. The woman he still missed so much.

Laura had been blonde, ethereal, slender and light as a bird. She had looked very much in life like the angel she had surely become since. But this woman was very different—full and round and earthy. And, to his eternal regret, he ached for her right now as he’d seldom ached for a woman before.

He looked back down at the bowl, avoiding her bright gaze. It was insane to let her stay. He had to get her out of here before he lost control and did something crazy.

The worst of it was, it was quite evident that she had not come here to seduce him at all. She was dressed modestly in a simple peasant blouse and full skirt. There was no cleavage showing, no revealing exposure of skin. She was honest and straightforward and she wasn’t playing games. He liked her for that. It showed a certain respect for him and for the dilemma between them. The fact that he could detect the beauty of her body beneath all the swishing fabric was beside the point. She wasn’t using it as a trump card—even though she probably sensed it wouldn’t be hard to do.

Resolutely he lifted his gaze and met hers.

“Magnifico, Isabella,” he told her. “This is spectacular. I can fully understand why your cuisine is famous and people come from miles around to enjoy it.”

She brightened with happiness at his words. “You’ve heard of it, then?”

“Oh, yes,” he admitted.

She radiated joy. “I knew once you tried it—”

“And I understand how important it is to you,” he interrupted before she could have a chance to make assumptions his admission didn’t quite warrant. “But that doesn’t change the danger that you would face every time you went across that divide above the river.” His hand swept out in a royal gesture. “If I had a house full of servants, I could have one of them go and harvest the weed for you. But at present, Renzo and I live here alone. There is no one to help out.”

Isabella bit down hard on her lower lip, keeping herself under tight control. His constant emphasis on the danger of going near the river was clearly overstated and there had to be a reason for it. She was pretty sure it had something to do with the death of his wife. What had happened that had made him so sure the place wasn’t safe for her? She wanted to know, but she didn’t want to push him. A horrible vision of tractors mowing down the hillside if he got annoyed enough did the trick.

Back to the plan.

“We can talk about that later,” she said quickly. “Right now I just want you to enjoy this.”

He gave her a faint, reluctant smile, his eyes glowing. “I do, Isabella. More than you know.”

She flushed. It was odd to watch how he still tended to turn his face away from her, as though trying to keep her from seeing the scars. No matter what he did, he looked gorgeous to her. How could it be otherwise when he was blessed with those huge, emotional dark eyes and that wide, sensual mouth?

He looked like a poet, she decided. A poet with a tender, sensitive soul purposefully disguised by his muscular form and his harsh, cynical manner, all protected by a wall of ice to keep the world at bay. She knew about his physical scars. What had hurt him so deeply that he couldn’t be free? That was the mystery he carried with him.

“Tell me about this place,” she said, leaning forward on her elbows as she watched him eat. “Did you grow up here?”

“Pretty much.” He took another bite, savored it, and sighed with pleasure, then went on. “My father tended to drag us all over the continent, staying at one property after another. He was quite a gambler, you see, and he was always looking for another game. But when I was young we spent a lot of time here. I would ride my pony all over these grounds.”

“Mmm. And you didn’t fall into the river?”

His face darkened. “That is not a matter to joke about,” he said curtly. “Our river is a dangerous place. We didn’t realize how dangerous at the time.” He looked at her face and winced. “I should have caught you before you hit the rocks.”

She marveled at him. He seemed to think it was his job to save the world—or at least all females that came within his purview. That was too big a role to take on for any man. She wished she knew how to tell him so. Instead, she shrugged.

“It will heal. It will be gone in no time at all.”

He heard her blithe words but they didn’t placate him. He couldn’t help but feel that the water had almost claimed another victim that night. If he hadn’t been there to grab her…

He shook his head again and swore softly.

“And as you grew older?” she asked. “Did you still stay here often?”

He pushed away thoughts of the river and let himself look back instead. “Not as often. My mother died when I was young and, after that, I went to live with my aunt, Marcello’s mother.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured about his mother. She hesitated to tell him they had something in common. Was she being presumptuous? Never mind, she told him anyway.

“I lost my mother early, too,” she told him. “I can hardly remember what she looked like.”

“Where were you sent to live?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I stayed right where I was. Someone had to take care of my father, and my two little brothers.”

He stared. “Surely you were a little young for that.”

She smiled. “Yes, much too young. But we didn’t have a choice. We didn’t have the money or the other ‘properties’ like you did. We made do.”

His face twisted. “You mean, you made do. But at least you had your family around you.”

She looked up, surprised. “Where was your father?”

He gazed at her coolly. “He was despondent. My mother’s death hit him hard.” His gaze darkened. “We didn’t see much of him after that.”

“But you had your sister.”

He shook his head. “Not really. She went to live with another aunt. I had a pretty lonely childhood when you come right down to it. You were lucky to stay with your family, even if it did mean you ended up being the support for everyone.” He smiled at her. “That was the way it was, wasn’t it?”

She frowned, feeling bad for him. At least she had her father and had benefited from his love and counsel all her life. She didn’t know how she would have made it without that. Hearing about his experiences gave her a new perspective on what family could mean to a child.

“But I soon went away to school in Switzerland,” he continued, “and then to university in England. And then…then I married.”

The young wife he’d lost tragically. Should she say anything? She wasn’t sure, so she murmured condolences again, and he brushed them aside.

“Never mind all that,” he said crisply, looking at her over the rim of his wine glass. “Tell me more about you, Isabella. Tell me about your hopes and dreams and how many young men you’ve been in love with.”

Here was the opening she’d been waiting for.

“Exactly what I planned to do,” she told him cheerfully. “Well, not counting the boyfriends. They shall remain nameless, if you don’t mind.” She made a face at him. “But while you’re finishing your meal, I’m going to give you a small background about my family and our restaurant.” She gave a little bow. “With your permission,” she added pertly.

He waved a hand her way, his attention back on the delicious food before him.

“Carry on,” he said kindly.

“Thank you.” She settled into the chair that faced his. “First about my father. His name is Luca Casali. His mother, Rosa, started a restaurant here in Monta Correnti after her husband died and left her with a young family to support. She used a special recipe she got from a secret source, and her food was well received.”

He looked up with a slight smile, his gaze skimming over her face. He liked the way she talked. She was so animated.

“So you are from a restaurant family from the beginning, aren’t you?”

She scrunched up her face a bit. “More or less. My father and his sister, Lisa, took over my grandmother’s restaurant when she died, but they don’t get along very well, so they split up. My father had a roadside stand for years before he moved to our current location. My aunt still runs Sorella, which is basically my grandmother’s place updated for modern times.”

She pulled a scrapbook out of her bag and put it on the table, close to his mat. She’d put it together, using the computer to blow up pictures that would illustrate her family history and help Max understand what Rosa, and the special herb, meant to them all.

“Here is a picture of my father as a young man when he had the food stand on the Via Roma. And the next picture was taken when he was finally able to open a real restaurant, the place we call Rosa, after my grandmother, the culmination of all his hard work.”

Max turned and leaned forward, taking the book from her and frowning at the first picture she’d turned to.

“This is your father?” he asked.

“Yes. Luca Casali.”

He nodded slowly. “I remember him. He used to come here when I was a child.”

Isabella stared at him. This was the first she’d heard of such a thing. “Here? To the Rossi palazzo?”

“Yes.” He looked at her, noting an element or two of resemblance to the man. “I think he cooked for us occasionally.”

She suddenly felt a bit smaller than before, reminded that she was from a different world than the one this man was from.

“Oh,” she said, looking around the cavernous room and trying unsuccessfully to picture her father here. But she took a deep breath and went back to her story.

“Here is a picture of my aunt Lisa. Do you know her, too?”

He looked at the picture and shook his head. “No. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.”

For some reason, that was a huge relief to her.

“Good,” she muttered, turning pages. “Here are my brothers, Cristiano and Valentino.”

Max nodded, his interest only barely retained. “Nicelooking young men,” he murmured, looking back at what was left of his pasta.

“Very nice-looking young men,” she corrected. She was crazy about her brothers. “They are both away. Cristiano is a firefighter. He’s in Australia right now, helping them with their terrible brush fires. And Valentino is a race-car driver. He’s always somewhere racing around trying to challenge death at every turn.”

He raised his head in surprise at the bitterness of her tone, and she smiled quickly to take the edge off it.

“So neither one is here helping run the restaurant,” he noted.

“That’s what my father has me for,” she maintained stoutly. “But I do wish they would come home more often.”

“Of course.”

“And finally, here is a picture of Rosa as it was two months ago, when we still had a plentiful stock of the basil. See how crowded it is? Doesn’t everyone look well fed and happy?”

He laughed softly at her characterization. “Yes,” he admitted. “I see what you mean.”

“And here is the restaurant now.” She plunked down a picture of the half-empty room and threw out her hands to emphasize how overwhelming the situation was. “Without the basil, no one is happy anymore.”

He groaned, turning his head and refusing to study that last picture. “Isabella, I get the point. You don’t have to rub my nose in it.”

“It seems I do.” She gazed at him fiercely. “I want you to understand how important this is. How it means everything to my father.”

“And to you.”

“To me?” She pressed her lips together and thought about it. Hearing his words surprised her, but what surprised her even more was that he might be right.

For years she’d chafed at being the one everybody depended on, the one who had to stay behind and help with the restaurant while her brothers went off in search of adventurous lives and her cousins went off to explore places like England and Australia. Isabella was the one who stayed home and kept the flames going. Sometimes it didn’t seem fair. She’d had daydreams about leaving a note pinned to her pillow and slipping out into the night, getting on a train to Rome, flying to Singapore or Brazil, or maybe even New York. Meeting a dark, handsome stranger in an elevator. Talking over a drink in a hotel bar. Walking city streets in the rain, sharing an umbrella. All scenes snatched from romantic movies, all scenes folded into her momentary fantasies. What seemed hopeful at first eventually mutated into melancholy as it aged.

And lately, even those dreams had faded. She’d been as wrapped up in finding ways to save the restaurant as her father was. So maybe Max was right. Maybe it did mean everything to her, too.

“Maybe,” she said faintly.

What did it mean when you gave up your dreams? Did they grow mellow and rich, like fine wine, warming you even as they faded? Or did they dry up and turn to powder that blew away with the wind?

“Maybe.”

Snapping back into the moment, she looked at Max, trying to see if he’d come around yet. She grimaced lightly. It certainly didn’t look like it. Those gorgeous dark eyes with their long, sweeping lashes were as cool and skeptical as ever.

She sighed. He’d finished eating and he’d finished looking at her scrapbook and listening to her point of view. She had only one weapon left in her arsenal. Slipping away, she hurried back to the kitchen where she pulled a large portion of a beautiful tiramisu out of the refrigerator. Rummaging in a drawer, she found a candle, which she lit and put atop it. She smiled with satisfaction, then carried it back out into the dining room, singing “Tanti auguri a te,” as she went. She stopped, put the blazing pastry down before him, and added, “Buon compleanno!”

He was laughing again, only this time it was with her, not at her.

“How did you know it was my birthday?” he asked her, letting her see, for just a moment, how pleased he was.

She shrugged grandly. “You told me.”

He frowned. “When?”

“It was the first thing you said when you came into the kitchen, before you realized it was me instead of Renzo.”

“Oh, of course.”

He looked into the flame as though it fascinated him. She watched him. In the afternoon light, his scar looked like a ribbon of silver across his face. She wondered if it gave him any pain. She knew it gave him heartache. And because of that, it gave her heartache, too.

“Make a wish and blow out the candle,” she told him.

He looked at her and almost smiled. “What shall I wish for?”

She shook her head. “It’s your wish. And don’t tell me, or else it won’t come true.”

His face took on a hint of an attitude, teasing her. “Okay. I know what I’m going to wish for.”

She knew he didn’t mean anything by it; still, the implication was there, hovering in the air between them. She felt herself flushing and turned away, biting her lip.

“Go ahead. Blow it out. I won’t watch.”

“Why not?” He blew out the small fire and picked up a fork. “Anyone can watch. It’s not much of an event, you know.”

He broke off a bit of the pastry onto his fork, and, instead of taking the bite himself, he waited until she’d turned back and then popped it between her lips and left it there.

“Hey!” She ate it quickly, half laughing. “That was for you. I ate enough of it myself when I was making the thing.”

He stopped, staring at her. The tiramisu was a thing of beauty, the dark of the coffee flavor and the cocoa topping a striking contrast to the light-as-a-feather, rich, creamy layers. It was a mystery to him how anyone made such a thing, and the thought that she had created it on her own was a revelation. Her talents were legion, it seemed.

“You made it yourself?”

She nodded. Yes, she had, thinking of him the whole time and warding off Susa, who’d wanted to take over.

Max shook his head as he studied her face, searching her eyes, sketching a trail of interest along the line of her chin. “You made me that delicious pasta and you made me my birthday dessert with your own hands.” His eyes seemed to glow with a special light and his voice was so quiet, she could hardly hear him. “What can I do for you in return, Isabella?”

She met his gaze and held it. “You know what I want,” she said, almost as softly as he had spoken.

He stared into her eyes a moment longer, then his face took on an expression she couldn’t translate into anything but regret. Looking down, he began to eat and he didn’t speak again until he had finished.

“Thank you,” he said simply. “I appreciate this.”

She waited. Was he going to relent? Was he going to tell her she could have another try at his hillside? She waited another moment, but he didn’t seem to have anything else to say, so she sighed and rose, beginning to clear the plates away.

“I suppose I’d better get all this cleaned up,” she said, wondering if she’d actually made any impression on him at all. “I’m sure you have people coming over to help you celebrate tonight.”

He looked up at her with a frown. “I don’t see visitors. Not ever. I thought you understood that.”

She stopped, staring at him. “Not anyone?”

“No. Not anyone.”

Her blue eyes betrayed her bewilderment. “Why not?”

He sighed and threw down his napkin, then said in a clipped tone, “I think that’s self-evident.”

She sank back into her chair and gaped at him. She remembered suddenly what Susa had said about his having lost his young wife years ago. She’d implied that the pain of losing her had brought on his lonely existence, but surely there was more to it than that. “You mean, because of your face?”

He merely stared at her, confirming her suspicions.

“But…” She choked, unable to comprehend his motives. “Why would you let something like that ruin your life? You need people around you, you need…”

She stopped before she said something ill-advised. He needed love. That much was obvious. He needed a woman, someone to care for him and make him happy. Every man needed that.

But did she have any business saying such a thing? Of course not. Especially since she needed a man just as badly, and look how she’d been unable to take care of that little problem for years now. She didn’t even have the excuses he had. So who was she to talk?

But she couldn’t leave the subject alone.

“If I were like you,” she said, pointing to her own injured eye, “I would have hidden myself away and we would have had to close down the restaurant for the last week and a half.”

He half smiled at her characterization and he looked at her black eye almost affectionately.

“Did you get any reaction from your customers?”

“Of course.” She stared at him again. He was a prince, rich and probably famous in certain circles, powerful, with resources she could only dream of. So how had he let this happen? How had others around him let it go this far? How had he become such a recluse, and how could he stand it for so long?

“I get plenty of reaction,” she continued slowly, “lots of double takes, people turning back to have another look at me. Then I get the opposite, people who notice, then look away quickly as though thinking I must have been beaten up and would be embarrassed if they acknowledged seeing the evidence of it.”

He nodded, recognizing the experience from his own ventures out into the world.

“I even have little children making fun of me in the street.” She tossed her hair back with a defiant snap of her head. “But who cares? That’s their problem.”

He gazed at her in complete admiration. She was a tough one. She could handle what life threw at her in ways he didn’t seem capable of. But there was so much more to his situation that she didn’t know about. “Our conditions are not comparable,” he said.

She shook her head. “Maybe not to the degree, but the basics are very much the same.”

He frowned, beginning to feel a bit of backlash against her attitude. “You don’t understand.” He glanced at her, then away. “You don’t know why this happened.”

She leaned forward, her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, ready to hear, ready to understand. “So tell me.”

His gaze darkened. For just a moment he saw it all again, the trees rushing past his window, the huge old bridge standing right in his path, the flash as they hit, the flames, the fire, the horrible sound of metal against concrete. They said no one should have lived through that crash. And there were times when he’d cursed his own powers of survival.

Looking up, he spoke dismissively. “No.”

Her eyes widened. “Why not?”

His own eyes were as cold as they’d ever been as he turned to gaze at her again. “It’s none of your business.”

He was right, of course, but she drew back as though he’d slapped her.

“Oh.”

She rose again and turned toward the door. He’d hurt her with those words, with that manner. She’d thought they were becoming friends and he’d shown her just how far from that they really were. She was not allowed into his real life. Of course, what had she expected? This was a cold, cruel world, after all.

“I’ll just get out of your way, then,” she said stiffly. She walked firmly out of the room, waiting at each step for him to call her back. But he didn’t say a word.

It only took her a few minutes to get her things washed up and ready to go, but she banged the pots a bit more than necessary. She was angry. There was no denying it. After all she’d done, all she’d said, and he still didn’t understand!

She was packing her supplies away in her backpack when he came into the kitchen again. She looked up hopefully, but his eyes were still cold as ice.

“Where did you park your car?” he asked.

She went back to putting her full attention on what she was doing, stuffing the last of her utensils into the bag. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

He erased the distance between them and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look up at him. “I’ve told you I won’t have you wandering around the grounds on your own,” he reminded her sternly. “I’ll drive you to your car.”

A captive, she stared back at him without saying anything. She wasn’t fooled. He wanted to see where it was that she was sneaking in. Good thing she’d parked a distance away from the chink in the wall. If he was going to find her secret, he was going to have to survey the wall himself, brick by brick.

“I’ll do fine on my own,” she said again.

“I’m going to drive you. I brought my car around while you were cleaning up.”

Slowly, deliberately, she pushed his hand away from her chin. “If you insist,” she said coldly.

His mouth twitched, but he managed not to smile at the fierce picture she made.

“I do,” he responded. “Shall we go?”

He helped her carry her things outside and there was a slinky little BMW Roadster.

“Nice car,” she allowed, refusing to meet his gaze.

“It’s a beauty, isn’t it?” he agreed, stowing her things behind the seat and holding the door for her. “It seems like something of a waste. I almost never get to drive it.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “The only place I go is to my home on the coast, and I travel in a limousine for that.”

“With darkened windows. I know.” Susa had told her all about it. “All so others won’t see your face?” she asked, troubled by such a denial of life.

“There’s more to it than that,” he said, sliding behind the wheel.

“Of course. And it’s none of my business.” She stared out the side window.

He twitched and gave her a look, then started the car and eased it out onto the driveway.

“I don’t know why you think you should be let in on every little aspect of my interior life,” he said gruffly. “Believe me, the nuances are not all that interesting.”

She whipped her head around. “I didn’t ask just because I was snoopy,” she said indignantly. “I actually care—” she stopped dead, realizing what she was saying “—uh…about you,” she ended softly and lamely, looking away again as quickly as she could.

He didn’t answer.As they cruised down the two-lane road he wondered why her admitting that she cared sent warmth careening through his system. It wasn’t as though women hadn’t cared for him in the past. What made her so special?

“Is that your car?” he asked as they closed in on a silver-blue compact sitting by the side of the road.

“That’s it,” she admitted.

He pulled up behind it and frowned as he studied the wall of his own property. “This isn’t where you go in,” he noted.

She flashed him a triumphant smile.

“You’re right. This isn’t it.”

She began to gather her things for her great escape, slipping out of the Roadster and reaching for her bag before he had a chance to get out and help her.

“Bye,” she said, not meeting his gaze and turning for her car.

“Hey.” He got out on his side and followed her. “Wait a minute.”

Throwing her bags into the backseat of her car, she turned to look at him, though she was poised to jump behind the wheel and race off.

“What is it?” she asked guardedly.

He stood facing her, his legs wide apart, his hands hooked on the belt of his jeans. For a moment, he seemed lost in the depths of her eyes. Then he shrugged and looked almost bored with it all.

“I think I’ve come up with a way for you to get your precious herb,” he said casually.

Her jaw dropped and her eyes opened wide. “What? How?”

“It’s simple really.”

“You mean you’ll trust me to go alone?”

Darkness flashed across his face.

“No, of course not. I’ve told you, I will not allow you to go there unattended.”

“Unattended?” Her frustration was plain on her face. She obviously felt they were just going around in circles. “But who would be available to go with me?”

He shrugged, his head cocked at a rather arrogant angle. “I’ll do it,” he said.

For just a moment, she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. “What?” she said. But she could tell he meant what he’d said by the look on his face. Joy swept through her. “You!” And then spontaneous happiness catapulted her right up against his chest.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek again and again. “Thank you so much!”

He laughed softly, holding her loosely, resisting the impulse to take advantage of her giddiness.

“Can we go right now?” she cried, looking as though she could fly all the way on her own.

“Today it’s too late,” he said sensibly. “Come tomorrow.”

“Yes.” She knew he was right. “Yes, I will.”

He stroked her temple with his forefinger, smoothing back the tiny curls that were forming at her hairline. “And when you come tomorrow, you can drive in the front gate.”

She stared at him, clutching his arm. “How am I going to do that?”

“I’ll give you the code.”

That took her breath away. “Why would you do a thing like that?”

His gaze was cool, yet intimate. “Why not? I trust you.” For now, it suited him that she have the code, and that was that. He gave her a quick, quirky smile.

“Besides, I can change the code any time I decide I don’t want you to have it any longer.”

There were tears in her eyes. She’d been so downhearted and now she was so happy. “Why are you being so good to me?” she asked emotionally.

His smile faded. He gazed deeply into her eyes and winced a bit from what he saw there. And then, he told her the truth.

“Because I care about you, too,” he said.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“YOU’VE been to see the prince again.” Susa’s tone was quietly jubilant, as though she’d just won a bet.

Isabella turned and glanced at her sideways. “How did you know?”

Susa smiled and looked superior, mixing gelatin into the whipping cream as a stiffener, preparing for the fabulous desserts she would be concocting that evening. Very casually, she shrugged.

“I know many things.”

Susa was like a member of the family. After Isabella’s mother died, it was Susa she often turned to for those familiar motherly things that she needed. It was Susa who taught her how to act with the customers, how to say, “Please,” and, “Thank you,” and look as if you meant it. When Luca was putting her into jeans and plaid shirts as though she were a little boy, Susa taught her how to wear frilly dresses. She had a lot to thank the woman for. But Susa could be annoying, all the same.

Just like family.

Her silver hair was set in neat curls around her head, augmented by tortoiseshell combs. She looked ageless and infinitely efficient, which was just exactly what she was. Looking at her, Isabella had a flash of appreciation for the woman. Without her, they couldn’t run this restaurant these days. If nothing else, she was completely loyal. And very good at making pastries.

Isabella stared at her for a long moment, then sighed. “Someone told you, didn’t they? Someone who saw me driving up there.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps I saw it myself.” She threw out a significant look. “I’ve told you before, I have the gift.”

Isabella rolled her eyes, turning back to her garlic press.

“I just want to warn you to be careful,” Susa said after a long pause.”

Isabella nodded. “Everyone is warning me to be careful.”

“You need a warning.” Susa looked up sharply. “You’re reckless. You trust people too much and you get hurt.”

Isabella tried to keep her temper. “I also eat too many sweets and stay up too late watching old movies. We should put up a chart with all my vices on it, so everyone can see.”

It was Susa’s turn to roll her eyes and Isabella bit her lip, regretting that she’d spoken sharply.

But the woman wasn’t chastened. “Just a word to the wise,” she said crisply. “In the first place, stay away from the prince. But if you must go to see him, stay away from water.” She got up from her seat and headed for the washroom.

Isabella stared after her, then jumped up and followed her to the door.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“Oh, nothing.” Susa disappeared into the washroom.

“Susa!”

Isabella began to pace impatiently, waiting for her to return. Whatever she was hinting at, she had to know her reasons. There was no doubt something was still bothering Max about his wife’s death. And there was no doubt he was overly worried about that river. She would see how much Susa knew—or thought she knew—and then try to find out the truth on her own.

Susa came back out, smiling happily, knowing she had rocked Isabella’s world.

“Well?” Isabella demanded. “Tell me what you mean by that water crack.”

Susa shrugged. “That was how his young wife died. She drowned right in front of him.”

“What?” Isabella suddenly felt breathless. “Why don’t I know about this?”

“The family kept it quiet.” Susa touched her arm in something close to sympathy. “There were whispers, but no one knew for sure what had happened.” She shook her head. “But signs were not good.”

Isabella regained her equilibrium and frowned, beginning to get suspicious.

“Why would you know about this if nobody else does?”

“I told you.” She pointed to her own temple. “The gift,” she said, her eyes widening.

“Susa!”

She smiled like a cat with a secret. “And also, I know because my cousin was working there, up at the castle, at the time.”

That put a little more credence behind it, Isabella had to admit. Susa seemed to have relatives working everywhere. Isabella shook her head. She supposed that was all a part of having “the gift.”

“So tell me everything you heard,” she demanded.

Susa shrugged, starting toward the refrigerator. “I know she drowned in the river, right there on the estate. The two of them were there alone. There are those who think…” She raised her eyebrow significantly.

“No!” Isabella cried. She was furious, but she had a deep, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach all the same. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”

Susa shrugged. “You never know.”

But Isabella knew very well that Max could never have hurt anyone. Could he? Of course not. It was inconceivable.

Susa had no more information, but she’d said enough to send Isabella into orbit. This news was all she could think about. Her heart thumped as she went over this possibility and that probability. She wanted to run to Max, to see if he knew about these rumors. But how could she bring something like this up? Impossible. And she knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t want to hear a word about it.

Still, it made her crazy to think of people suspecting him. She ached with it, wanting to defend him even though…

Even though she didn’t even know if anything Susa said was real or just wild imaginings in the woman’s mind. Slowly, she calmed herself. There was really no point in letting herself get so worked up when she didn’t even know if any of this was true.

She looked at the clock. In just eighteen hours, she would see him again. Thinking about it, she felt a strange tingling spread from her chest down her arms to her fingertips, and that was when she knew she was letting herself make too much of this—and it was time to come back to earth.

The whole thing was a mistake and Max knew it. Sitting in his darkened library, he sipped from his third glass of aged port and pondered what he was going to do about it. A wood fire flickered in the stone fireplace. The huge old house creaked with its antiquity and echoed with its emptiness. He was alone—just the way he wanted it to be.

So what had he been thinking when he’d told Isabella she could come back here? He knew very well her presence would begin to eat away at everything he thought he’d settled years ago. He needed to be alone. He didn’t deserve anything else. What he’d done when he’d allowed his wife and the baby she was carrying to die in the river was an unforgivable crime. He would never be able to pay off that debt. It would take the rest of his life just to begin paying.

Closing his eyes, he fought back the doubt that had begun to tease him lately. He’d been sure all along that his scarred face was a judgement of fate, that it was a part of his punishment, that it helped to keep him in the private prison where it was fitting and appropriate that he be. For years he’d been—not content, exactly, but resigned.

Now Isabella had fallen into his life and that was a temptation in itself. He wanted her. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to be happy.

Was it really so wrong to want that? Could he resist all that Isabella had to offer him and his life?

“Laura,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Oh, Laura.”

If only he could feel that she was still there with him, he knew he could be stronger. As it was, he was going to have to count on his own sense of honor.

“Honor,” he muttered darkly, and then an ugly, obscene word came out of his mouth and anger boiled up inside him. Filled with a surge of rage, he threw the glass against the fireplace. It smashed into a hundred pieces with a satisfying crunch. Watching the broken shards of glass fly through the air, he felt his anger dissipate just as quickly.

He could only do what he could do, but he would resist. That was the life he had made for himself. He was stuck with it.

Max was waiting for Isabella as she drove up to the front entry of the old castle. She assumed he’d been warned by a signal from the gate she’d had no trouble opening with the code he’d given her. His shoulders looked incredibly wide in a crisp, open-necked blue shirt. His smooth-fitting chinos accentuated his athletic form, giving her a tiny bubble of appreciative happiness for just a moment. But something about his stance and the way his arms were folded across his chest told her he was bound and determined to get the two of them back on a cool, polite trajectory and away from all the warmth they’d managed to generate between them the day before.

Uh oh, she thought as she slid from behind the wheel, her heart beating a little faster.

Surely he wasn’t going to change his mind about the basil. She gave him a tentative glance, then reached into the backseat to get the basket of sandwiches she’d made for the trip to the hillside. Before she could turn with it, he was there, shaking his head.

“How did I know you would bring a picnic lunch?” he said wryly. “Better leave it here. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

She looked at him blankly, clutching her basket and not sure what the problem was.

“This isn’t an outing, Isabella,” he said coolly, his dark eyes shadowed. “It’s a job to be done. Let’s get on with it.”

“But, the sandwiches won’t keep out here in the sun and—”

“Give your basket to Renzo,” he said.

She turned, surprised to see that the older man was standing there with his hand outstretched. Gingerly, she handed him her basket and tried a small smile. The man gave her a small smile back, and that helped a bit.

Turning, Max began to stride toward a fence that ran along part of the long driveway where two horses were saddled and ready to go. She hurried to follow him.

“You do know how to ride, don’t you?” he asked over his shoulder.

Did she? She swallowed, looking at how big both beasts were.

“I’ve been riding a time or two,” she admitted reluctantly, remembering one successful trip around the lake and another painful excursion in the mountains when she was younger.

But she was pretty sure she could do it. Given a choice, she would rather have walked with him all the way. But he was obviously in a hurry today. That was disappointing. But at least the trip was still on. She ought to be grateful for that.

“Don’t worry, Mimi is gentle as a lamb,” he told her, reaching out to stroke the downy nose of a gray mare with a black, silky mane. “She’ll treat you right.” His face softened as the horse nuzzled into the palm of his hand with clear affection. “Won’t you, girl?”

Isabella watched, surprised to see him show such open emotion so effortlessly. That made her wonder what he’d been like before the accident that had scarred him. Had he been happy? Carefree? Had affection come naturally to him? Somehow she thought so. What a blessing it would be if somehow she could help him get that life back.

She bit her lip, knowing how ridiculous that thought was. She had no business thinking it. His life had nothing to do with her. Hadn’t he even told her so? But as she watched him gently stroke the beautiful horse, she found herself wondering if the touch of his hand was as gentle when he stroked a woman, and she flushed.

And then it came to her in a flash of intuition—this had been his wife’s horse. Of course. And that made her even more nervous about riding.

But the mounting went fine and soon they were trotting slowly out of the yard and onto the fields of the estate, she on Mimi and Max on the stunning black stallion he had been riding the night they’d met. Very quickly, she began to feel at ease, as though she were an experienced rider herself. Mimi was the perfect mount for a greenhorn such as she was.

The day was gorgeous, bright and breezy and full of promise. They were riding over territory she’d never been through before, rolling hills and green meadows. And then they came over a rise and below them spread an ancient vineyard with grape stakes as far as she could see.

She pulled the horse to a stop and made an exclamation of surprise as she looked at the limitless plain of struggling grape plants.

“What is this?” she asked him.

He leaned forward in the saddle and gazed at the expanse of it with one hand shading his eyes.

“This was once the Rossi vineyard,” he said, his voice even and emotionless. “It supplied grapes for our small family winery, an enterprise that lasted for a couple of hundred years.” He paused, then added dispassionately, “It was abandoned almost ten years ago.”

“Abandoned? Why?”

He didn’t turn to meet her gaze, and for a long moment, he didn’t answer. Watching him, she suddenly realized his neck was strained, as though he were holding something back, something painful. Her breath caught in her throat. She wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, but she didn’t dare. So she waited, and finally he spoke.

“I’m sure you know that I was married when I was younger. And that my…my wife died.” His voice almost choked, but he went on firmly. “At the time it happened, everything stopped. Life stopped.”

Turning, he stared into her eyes as though he was forcing himself to do it. “I mean that literally. All the workers were sent away, except a bare skeleton crew to keep the place from completely reverting to the wild.” His eyes seemed to burn. “And I’ve never seen a good reason to bring any of them back.” He stared at her a moment longer, then looked away. “It’s better this way.”

She shook her head. Better for whom? she wanted to say. But who was she to tell him how to live his life?

“It seems so lonely,” was all she dared put out. “And such a waste.”

He shrugged again. “There are plenty of vineyards in Italy,” he said, giving his horse a snicker that started him moving again. “One more or less won’t make a difference.”

She sighed. So he thought she was talking about his grape plants? Well, maybe she was. But she’d meant a lot more than that. A waste, indeed.

They crested another hill and found a small forest barely protecting a group of small stone buildings.

“What’s that?” she called to him, pointing at it.

He turned and looked, then grinned at her. “The family crypt,” he said. “Want to see it?”

“Oh! Yes.”

He helped her dismount and they tied the horses to a gate, then walked slowly into the little glen that held his ancestors’ graves. The garden was overgrown, but not completely shabby. His caretaker had kept it decent, if not pristine. There was a small pond with tiny flashing fishes darting back and forth, a rose garden and a marble chapel. And behind them all was a larger, brooding stone building that had served as a mausoleum to the Rossi family through the Middle Ages and beyond.

Isabella loved it. The place seemed like a secret, enchanted garden, full of history and family stories. But what was most stunning to her as she rounded a corner was a life-size marble statue of a half-naked man with a sword held at the ready guarding the entrance. Carved at the base of the marble was the name Adonis Salviati Di Rossi, 1732-1801.

Isabella gasped, hands to her mouth, then whirled to face Max, who was right behind her.

“It looks just like you!” she cried.

He tried to keep a solemn face and raised one eyebrow cynically, but his pleased sense of humor was hard to hide. It shone from his dark eyes and along the lines that framed his wide mouth. This statue had been a source of teasing and torture for him in his younger days. His friends and cousins had called him “Adonis” and joked about reincarnation and ghostly presences. In fact, Isabella hadn’t been the first to call him a vampire. His childhood playmates had done it as well.

He’d forgotten how much he hated it then. Now, it just seemed amusing.

“How would you know?” he challenged her. “You’re not really sure what I look like at all.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, no doubt in her mind. “I know exactly what you look like.”

She said it with such firm confidence, he looked at her, bemused. He felt so comfortable around her. Whenever he looked into her eyes, all he saw was a candid sort of joy in life. He hadn’t believed her when she’d first told him she didn’t see him as ugly. But ever since, he hadn’t been able to detect one sign of anything negative in her eyes, and he’d definitely been looking for it.

Still, he had to remember that she represented nothing but peril to him. She appealed to him, emotionally, physically, temperamentally—in every way possible. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to hear her laugh. He wanted to feel her in his arms. There was no denying the fact that she made him happy—happier than he’d been in years.

Happier than he had any right to be.

And that was the danger. He had no business dragging her into his private limbo of a life. He would do what he could to help her with her herbal requirements, but that was all. Once he had her supplied, she would be on her way and he wouldn’t see her again. Ever again.

At least that was the way he’d planned it. Now that she was here with him, it seemed almost impossible to think of losing her. She filled a need and a hunger in him he hadn’t even realized he still had.

And so, she was dangerous.

He followed as she explored the mausoleum, chattering happily as she looked into everything, finding all she saw wonderful and interesting. And he wished…

But what the hell was the point of wishing? The more you wanted out of life, the less you got. He was through with wishing. There was a job to be done here and that was all he was prepared to do.

Over and out.

Isabella knew she was talking too much, but she couldn’t help it. The day was so nice and the man she was with was so mesmerizing, she was bubbling with joy just being with him.

And yet, she knew he was troubled. She could sense it in his silence and in the look in his dark eyes. As they got back atop their horses and began the last leg of their trip to the hillside, she ached to help him, if only she knew how.

But that was silly, wasn’t it? He had everything he might want; all he had to do was order it up and it would be there for him. What could she provide that he couldn’t get on his own?

Right behind them in the little courtyard was the evidence of a life that was one of a long line of important people involved in important events. Ordinary people such as she was didn’t find their ancestors memorialized in tombs like this. Here was history, a background to the story of her area. She was a spectator. He was a star of the show.

“What’s it like being an Italian prince?” she asked him at one point.

He shrugged and gave her a look. “You know very well it’s an honorary title these days. The monarchy was abolished in 1946.”

“But you’re still a prince. You still have a special place in history.”

“Bah,” was all he would say.

She smiled. The fact that her own father had been a part, though small, of that background was fascinating to her. She’d wanted to ask her father about his visits to the palazzo in the old days from the moment she’d got home from her visit to Max the day before.

For some reason, she still hadn’t told him that she’d met the prince. She wasn’t sure why she was hesitating, but something told her he wouldn’t necessarily be pleased. So her approach was less direct than usual.

She’d found her father trying to practice using a walker and she’d watched for a while, giving him advice as he’d grown more and more impatient. His ex-friend Fredo had been to see him again and put him in a rotten mood.

“Now he’s threatening me with health violations,” he grumbled. “Me! I’ve always had the cleanest kitchen in the village. And yet he dares to call me a violator!”

She got him calmed down and made him sit in his chair to rest, then brought him a cold lemonade and perched next to him, ready for the inquisition.

“Papa, tell me,” she said, trying to sound casual. “How did you first know about the Monta Rosa Basil? When did you first find it?”

He sat back and slowly he lost the tense look around his eyes as he went into the past with a dreamy look on his face.

“As it happened, I was catering a picnic for the old prince, Prince Bartholomew, and his family, on the top of the hill, just above where the basil grows. I did more catering on my own in those days. I took every side job I could just to keep afloat. Money was very tight. There was hardly enough income to keep my stand going and I had to make some painful sacrifices just to survive.” She nodded encouragement, though at the same time she wondered if he didn’t see that they were close to being in that position again right now.

“There was a young maid who worked for the prince’s family. She showed me the herb. Made me pay a forfeit for some silliness or other by eating a leaf. I put it on my tongue, and I immediately knew it was something I’d never tasted before. At first I thought it strange. But I couldn’t get that taste out of my mind.”

Isabella nodded. Everyone was the same, instantly in love with the magic.

“So the next time I was on the grounds, I went to that hill again and picked some of the herb, took it home and tried it in some recipes.” He snapped his fingers in the air. “Instant success. Everyone loved it.”

How exciting that must have been for him. She smiled, loving him. Growing up without a mother, she’d always felt extra close to her father. His happiness was hers, sometimes too much so.

“Did they have a lot of parties in those days?” she asked, curious to know everything she could about Max’s upbringing.

“Yes. Whole caravans of people would come from Rome or from Naples and stay a week.”

She shook her head with wonder. “Why don’t I remember any of this?”

“These things ended when you were a young child.” Luca sighed. “After Prince Bartholomew’s beautiful wife killed herself, the parties never resumed. In fact, he began to spend all his time in Rome after that.”

“Killed herself!” She sat up straighter and stared at her father. He had to be talking about Max’s mother. An icy hand gripped her heart. “What happened?”

“I don’t know the details. They said she jumped from a balcony.” He shook his head. “Poor thing. She was a film star, you know. She worked with Fellini and Antonioni. She was quite good. It was a tragedy.”

What a series of tragedies in Max’s family if all these stories were true. First his mother commited suicide, then his young wife drowned. And what about his own accident, the one that had done such damage to his face? She still didn’t have the details on that.

It was no wonder he had troubled eyes as they rode across his estate lands. He’d come by them naturally, it seemed. She looked over at him now and found him looking back at her.

“Just a little further,” he called to her from the back of his horse.

She nodded. “Your grounds are so beautiful. You should do something with them.”

He looked out over his hills. “You think so? What do you suggest?”

She wanted to throw out her arms to encompass it all. “I don’t know. You should share this with the world. Maybe put in a hotel, a spa, a destination resort.”

He turned to look at her again, grinning. “Isabella, what a middle-class mind you have. Must everything make you money?”

“No, but…”

She flushed, realizing he was teasing her, and she dropped her defensiveness and returned to a light-hearted mode.

“Hey, it’s the money-making middle class that makes the economy hum for everyone,” she reminded him. “Let’s have none of your upper-class arrogance.”

“The idle rich,” he muttered dismissively.

“Exactly.”

But she was laughing.

“You think I’m lazy, don’t you?” he said, as though it was a revelation to him.

“Not at all. I just think you don’t have an eye out for profit. The spice of life.”

He shook his head. His eyes were warm. For the moment, his troubled look had faded. “Tell me this, Isabella,” he said. “You’ve said your restaurant was in trouble because you couldn’t get the best ingredients. Is this going to make that big a difference? Will all be well now?”

She hesitated, tempted to fudge the truth a little. This was such a subject of frustration for her. But when she looked at his face, she knew she could never be less than frank with him.

“No,” she said simply. “All will not be well. My father is a wonderful man and a good cook, but he can’t run a business to save his life. We are in big trouble financially, and in all sorts of other ways. I’m not sure we’ll last much longer no matter how much good food we cook up.”

He nodded. From what she’d told him and a few things he’d heard from Renzo, he’d had a feeling that was the case.

“Maybe your father should let you take the reins,” he said dryly. “You are the one who seems to have a passion for business.”

That brought her up short, but she realized, very quickly, that he had a point. She had the instincts, though not the training. If only Luca would give her a chance…

“So what could I do to make a profit?” he asked her. “Besides turning my ancestral estate into a…what did you call it? A destination resort.” He gave her a mock glare. “Something, by the way, that I would never do.”

She took his question quite seriously. “Well, to begin with, you could renovate your vineyards. How about that? Wine sells very well these days.”

He was laughing at her. It was obvious he wasn’t taking this as seriously as she was. “Isabella, Isabella, what about the nobility of the grape?”

She made a face. “Nobility is a pose,” she said. “Something that looks nice for special occasions, but is shed in a moment when it’s no longer working for you.”

He threw back his head and laughed aloud. “I can see you have big plans for me. What in particular?”

“I was thinking after seeing your abandoned vineyard…” She hesitated. Did she really want to tell him her thoughts? But why not? If not now, when?

“Well, you could hire my friend Giancarlo. The way some people restore businesses that have been run badly, he restores vineyards. I’m sure he can get you up and running in no time.”

He gazed at her as though he wasn’t sure just how seriously to take what she was saying. “So I can sell my grapes?”

“Why not? Or how about your own winery? With a tasting room? Then you could run tours from the village. People love to tour wineries. A little wine tasting, a small bistro on the premises…”

He was laughing at her but she didn’t care. “You could run my restaurant,” he said with a grin.

“Thank you.” She made a pretend curtsy from the saddle. “I’d love to.”

What a great idea. She fairly shivered with excitement over it. To think of running a restaurant for Max! Of making the special sauce for tourists who would come from far and wide…

But she quickly brought herself back down to earth. It was a pipe dream and she knew it. He refused to come face-to-face with strangers. He wouldn’t even let vineyard workers on his land. How could he stand to have tourists? It wasn’t going to happen.

They crested another hill and there below them was the field where the basil grew. She leaned forward in the saddle and sighed with relief. She’d had a dream during the night that she’d arrived here only to find the earth scorched and not a plant in sight. At least that hadn’t happened.

But that dream had cast a pall on her morning. She’d thought of it with dread as she was preparing the picnic lunch to take with her. Was it a sign? Should she be prepared for the worst?

Susa had raised an eyebrow at the preparations, but didn’t say a thing. Isabella ignored her and packed sandwiches in a basket and stowed them in her little car.

“Where are you going?” her father called from the doorway.

She hesitated. Should she tell him? Dashing back to give him a hug, she whispered in his ear, “I think I will have the basil with me when I return. Say a prayer for me.” And she kissed his leathery cheek, turned and hurried off before he had time to question her further.

And all the time, she’d wondered if the basil would even be there once she made her way to it. Now she knew. It was here all right. And she was going to take as much of it as she could.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ISABELLA slid down off the horse and began to collect the basil, snipping leaves with little scissors she’d brought along with her. Max dismounted as well, but he stood back, watching her, and when she glanced up she noticed that all his good humor had fled. In fact, he looked ill at ease.

This was the place he considered too dangerous to let her visit alone, but she still couldn’t really understand why. The hillside looked quite benign. The river was racing past below, and she knew how he felt about the river, but even if she started to slide there were plenty of places where she would be able to break her fall. No, she didn’t get it. The place seemed fine to her.

The only problem was, the basil was not quite at its peak and there was only a limited amount she could harvest at the moment. She was going to have to discuss this with him and ask to come again in a week or so. Was he going to allow it? She had no idea.

It did seem all his warmth had evaporated and all he wanted to do was hurry up and get her to finish up and head for home again. Looking at his face, she decided to deal with her problem later.

“Okay,” she told him at last, tying her two large bags together. “I think I have enough for now.”

He nodded, handing her Mimi’s reins and helping her aboard, then turning to mount his own horse. Isabella turned to look at him, and as she did the reins slipped from her hand.

“Oh!” She started to lean down to get them again, but the bags full of basil began to fall and she had to grab for them instead, stuffing them under a strap to hold them tightly secure.

And in that moment, something went wrong. She was never able to pinpoint exactly what happened, but something frightened the sweet, gentle horse who had been so pleasant all day, and suddenly she turned into a different animal.

“Max!” Isabella cried, grabbing handfuls of mane in order to keep from falling. “Stop her!”

Mimi wasn’t waiting around to see what Max would do. She neighed in an alarming way and shot off toward the river.

“Max!”

Isabella hung on for dear life. The water was straight ahead.

“No, Mimi!” she cried, seeing another dunking in her future, at the very least. Closer and closer—the river looked inevitable. Then, suddenly Mimi veered away, racing along the bank, into the trees.

In a moment, a small clearing appeared, and a beautiful waterfall, and Mimi came to an abrupt stop. Too abrupt. Isabella sailed right over her head and landed in the brush. Mimi seemed to understand exactly what she’d done and decided not to stick around and find out what her punishment would be. Instead, she took off again, this time with an empty saddle.

Isabella moaned, pulling herself out of the brambles and seeing Max arrive just too late.

“At least I didn’t get wet this time,” she commented shakily, then stopped dead as she saw Max’s ashen face. He leaped from his horse and grabbed her, looking her over as though he expected to find broken limbs and gaping flesh wounds.

“Are you all right?” he demanded harshly. “Isabella, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I think.” After all, she hadn’t had time to take an inventory. “I’m okay, but poor Mimi…”

He swore in a way that would have sent chills down Mimi’s spine if she’d heard him. “Never mind that damn horse. You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“No, but…” He took her by the shoulders, searching her face, then looked over his shoulder at the waterfall with such a look of dread, it took her breath away.

“What is it, Max?”

She put her hands flat against his chest, staring into his face. And suddenly, she knew.

“Is this where…?”

He looked at her as though he’d never seen her before.

“We have to go,” he said curtly. “We have to get out of here.”

“Oh, Max.”

He turned toward the horse and swung up, pulling her up in front of him just as he had that first night. His face was like stone but she could feel the tension in him and see it in the cords of his neck. His dark eyes were filled with pain and a pulse was beating at his temple. She saw all this and didn’t dare say a word. Just before they started off, he looked back toward the waterfall and the anguish in his face sent her reeling. Here, obviously, was the core and crux of his torment. This had to be the place where his young wife had died.

They rode hard back toward the palazzo, but after a few minutes the horse swerved into another direction and she realized he was taking them to the Rossi cemetery instead. They arrived and he lowered her, then dismounted himself. Without a word, he turned and strode off into the courtyard. Biting her lip, she followed, though she wasn’t at all sure she was welcome.

At first she thought he was heading for the little marble chapel, but he turned into the flower garden instead. Turning, he waited while she joined him. Her heart beat like a drum as she looked into the desolation in his eyes.

“Isabella, I’m sorry. I…I think you’ve probably guessed why I was upset near the waterfall. I just need a few minutes to unwind. If you could wait out by the chapel…”

“You want me to go and wait for you?”

“Yes. Please.”

She was already shaking her head. “No,” she said. “No, I won’t go.”

He stared at her as though he wasn’t sure she understood. “Isabella…”

“Max.” She grabbed his arm and looked up into his tortured face. “I think you should talk about it. I think you should tell me…”

“No.” He pulled away from her touch. “I don’t talk about this. Not to anyone.”

“That’s why you must,” she insisted passionately.

He began to back away, but she wouldn’t let him go. “Max, don’t you see? You need to talk about it. You’ve probably been holding it all inside for ten years. You have to talk.” Tears filled her eyes. Taking his arm again, she shook it, not sure what else she could do to convince him. “Tell me about her. What was she like?”

He stared down at her. “Laura?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” she said. “Tell me about Laura.”

He turned woodenly and slumped onto the garden bench. She slipped in beside him, taking his hand in hers.

“What did she look like?” she asked gently.

“An angel.” His voice was gruff as gravel and he cleared his throat. “Blonde hair, light as a feather. And so fragile…” His voice broke.

Isabella squeezed his hand. “You loved her.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I loved her from the moment I saw her.” His voice was getting stronger. “She was good and kind and so very loving. Our life together was like a fairy tale. We were so happy.”

Isabella nodded as he went on and on about his wonderful wife. His pain was clear in his voice and it was agony just to listen to him. But it was also good. She needed it, too. She wanted to understand him.

“When we found out we were going to have a baby,” he said at last, “we thought life couldn’t get any better.”

A baby. Isabella blinked hard and looked away. She hadn’t realized Laura was pregnant. That only made it all so much worse. Her heart already ached for him, now it broke in two.

“Our favorite place to have a picnic was by the waterfall,” he was saying. “But we shouldn’t have gone that day.” His voice was almost a monotone now. “I’d been up most of the night before trying to solve a problem with the accountant. I was dead tired. But Laura had been planning a special celebration and I didn’t want to disappoint her. So we went, and we toasted the baby that was on the way, and we ate Laura’s special croissants that she had just learned how to make.” His voice was suddenly choked. “And then we lay back on the blanket, wrapped in each other’s arms. And the next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes and she was gone.”

His hand was gripping hers tightly now, so tightly she could hardly stand it, but she didn’t complain.

“I looked around. I couldn’t imagine where she could have gone. And then I saw a bit of her dress floating in the water.” A shudder went through him and he pulled his hand away from hers, leaning forward, his face in his hands. “I was in a frenzy. I pulled her from the water. Her foot had been stuck between two stones. I was so sure I could make her breathe again. I tried and tried. But it was too late. She was dead.” His voice was harsh now, harsh and grating.

“Gone forever.”

And then his shoulders began to shake and she knew he was releasing his grief at last.

He blamed himself. She’d seen it in his eyes, in every fiber of his being, as though despair and regret were all he knew. He blamed himself and it was so unfair. How could she get him to see that?

She stayed beside him, very quiet, until she could sense he would accept a bit of comfort, and then she touched his back, rubbing her hand softly up and down.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Oh, Max, I’m so sorry.”

He rose slowly and turned toward her, his face ravaged. “Don’t be sorry for me,” he said coldly. “I don’t deserve it. I let her die. I let them both die.”

She gasped. “Max, how can you say that? You were asleep.”

“Yes. Exactly. I was asleep. I should have…” His voice faded.

“See? You can’t even say what you should have done. You couldn’t help it. Accidents are called accidents because no one means for them to happen.”

He was shaking his head, looking at her with haunted eyes. “I should have saved her.”

She searched her mind for some way to get him to see this from another perspective. “Should your father have saved your mother when she jumped from the balcony?” she said a bit wildly, and then clamped her hand over her mouth, realizing she didn’t know enough about the incident to use it this way.

But to her surprise, he didn’t seem to notice that. He answered directly. “He couldn’t have done anything. She was alone at home when it happened. How could he have stopped that?”

Isabella threw out her hands. “And Laura was alone when she went into the water. You weren’t there. You were asleep.” She shook his arm again. “Max, you couldn’t help it. It’s not your fault.”

He looked doubtful, but she could tell he was beginning to mull that over. She shook her head.

“At least you talked about it,” she said.

He gave her a sardonic look. “Quite the junior psychologist, aren’t you?” he said, but there was no animosity in his voice. To his own surprise, he did feel better. Not much, but a little better. Maybe.

And she could see the truth in him, in his face, in his attitude. She was glad she’d risked everything on pushing him to talk. For now, it seemed to have worked out for him. There was so much guilt, so much self-doubt in his heart. And for her, there was so much new background that she knew about him. No matter what she learned, everything only made her regard for him grow. Her father and Susa were wrong. She was glad she hadn’t stayed away from royalty after all.

There was just one thing that still nagged at her. She didn’t know the details of the crash that had taken his face, the accident no one seemed to know anything about. That was still a mystery.

“You’re going to have to ride with me again,” he told her as he led in the stallion, and she nodded, thinking what a contrast this was to the other night in the dark.

“It’s way past noon,” she fretted. “Now don’t you wish we’d brought the picnic I made?”

He nodded, feeling a touch of chagrin. Looking at her, he realized what a fool he’d been. He’d thought he could keep her at arm’s length if he only tried hard enough. Now he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Though he couldn’t see how anything real and lasting between them could work out in the long run, for now, when she was near, he was going to live in the moment. No more pretending, especially to himself.

“I’m hungry as a wolf,” he admitted.

She grinned up at him. “I have a solution to that. There’s a place very near here we can get the most wonderful food.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked suspiciously.

“Do you know the little stand by the reservoir? Where the Spanish family sells tapas?”

His face cleared. “Yes, I’ve driven past it.”

“And you’ve never been tempted to stop?”

He half smiled down at her. Her lively interest in everything was contagious. “Actually, I have, but…”

She put a hand on his arm. “We’re going there.”

That was going a little far. “What? Who’s going where?” He thought she understood he didn’t do things like that.

“You and me. We’re going to go have some of his delicious tapas. You’ll thank me for this.”

He stood where he was, shaking his head and looking stubborn. “Isabella, I don’t think…”

“Oh, Max, please.” She hung on his arm and looked adorably hungry. “It’s just outside your walls. We’ll go out the gate and we’ll ride up and you can stay outside, under the trees. I’ll go in and order the food. There are tables along the water.” She made her face even more appealing. “At this time of day, we’ll probably be the only ones there. You won’t have to come face-to-face with another soul. I’ll do that part.”

He was still frowning but she could see he was going to bend. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” She gave him her most playful smile. “You know very well you need this. You want it.” She pulled on his arm. “Come on.”

He gave in. He couldn’t help it. To do anything else would seem churlish right now. He helped her up in front of him on his horse and they made their way through the gate, to the outside of the estate. This was territory he hadn’t traveled in years, except to rush past in his limousine. There was something freeing about just venturing this far beyond his own walls.

The tables on the rise above the river were completely empty. He sat at one of them and she went in, bringing out a wonderful collection of small, delicious items, including prawn croquetas and chopped pork empanadas and sautéed artichokes. Señor Ortega trailed behind her carrying two bottles of cold beer, and Max tensed, waiting for the man to react to his scars. Maybe Isabella had warned him, but he showed no sign of noticing a thing, chattering on in his Spanish-accented Italian about how they should come back tomorrow because he was planning to make the best tapas ever seen in these parts and if they didn’t return, they would miss that.

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