Expecting royal twins can only mean one thing...

She must wear the Castiglione crown!

Royal responsibility has been drummed into Prince Vitale since childhood—but his hunger for Jazmine crushes all sense of restraint. Her unexpected pregnancy revelation leaves Vitale no choice—he knows what he must do. A temporary marriage will legitimize their twins, but when the fire between them fails to burn out, he has to wonder...could Jazz be his permanent princess?

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen romance reader since her teens. She is very happily married to an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog who knocks everything over, a very small terrier who barks a lot and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

Also by Lynne Graham

Claimed for the Leonelli LegacyHis Queen by Desert Decree

Brides for the Taking miniseries

The Desert King’s Blackmailed BrideThe Italian’s One-Night BabySold for the Greek’s Heir

Vows for Billionaires miniseries

The Secret Valtinos BabyCastiglione’s Pregnant Princess

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Castiglione’s Pregnant Princess

Lynne Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07191-8

CASTIGLIONE’S PREGNANT PRINCESS

© 2018 Lynne Graham

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

‘COME ON,’ ZAC DA ROCHA chided his brother. ‘There’s got to be some room for manoeuvre here, something that you want more than that car. Sell it to me and I’ll buy you anything you want.’

Fierce hostility roared through Prince Vitale Castiglione because his Brazilian half-brother irritated the hell out of him. The fact that they were both luxury-car collectors had to be the only thing they had in common. But no didn’t ever mean no to Zac; no only made Zac raise the price. He couldn’t seem to grasp the reality that Vitale couldn’t be bribed. But then, Zacarias Da Rocha, heir to the fabled Quintel Da Rocha diamond mines and fabulously wealthy even by his brothers’ standards, was unaccustomed to refusal or disappointment and constitutionally incapable of respecting polite boundaries. His lean, strong face grim, Vitale shot a glance at the younger man, his brilliant dark eyes impassive with years of hard self-discipline.

‘No,’ Vitale repeated quietly, wishing his older brother, Angel Valtinos, would return and shut Zac up because being rude didn’t come naturally to Vitale, who had been raised in the stifling traditions and formality of a European royal family. A lifetime of rigid conditioning invariably stepped in to prevent Vitale from losing his temper and revealing his true feelings.

Of course, it had already been a most unsettling morning. Vitale had been disconcerted when his father, Charles Russell, had asked both him and his two brothers to meet him at his office. It had been an unusual request because Charles usually made the effort to meet his sons separately and Vitale had wondered if some sort of family emergency had occurred until Charles had appeared and swept his eldest son, Angel, off into his office alone, leaving Vitale with only Zac for company. Not a fun development that, Vitale reflected before studiously telling himself off for that negative outlook.

After all, it wasn’t Zac’s fault that he had only met his father the year before and was still very much a stranger to his half-brothers, who, in spite of their respective parents’ divorces, had known each other since early childhood. Unhappily, Zac with his untamed black hair, tattoos and aggressive attitude simply didn’t fit in. He was too unconventional, too competitive, too much in every way. Nor did it help that he was only a couple of months younger than Vitale, which underlined the reality that Zac had been conceived while Charles Russell had still been married to Vitale’s mother. Yet Vitale could understand how that adulterous affair had come about. His mother was cold while his father was emotional and caring. He suspected that while caught up in the divorce that had devastated him Charles had sought comfort from a warmer woman.

‘Then let’s make a bet,’ Zac suggested irrepressibly.

Vitale was tempted to roll his eyes in comic disbelief but he said nothing.

‘I heard you and Angel talking earlier about the big palace ball being held in Lerovia at the end of next month,’ Zac admitted softly. ‘I understand that it’s a very formal, upmarket occasion and that your mother is expecting you to pick a wife from her selection of carefully handpicked female guests...’

Faint colour illuminated Vitale’s rigid high cheekbones and he ground his even white teeth. ‘Queen Sofia enjoys trying to organise my life but I have no current plans to marry.’

‘But it would be a hell of a lot easier to keep all those women at bay if you turned up with a partner of your own,’ Zac pointed out without skipping a beat, as if he knew by some mysterious osmosis how much pressure Vitale’s royal parent invariably put on her only child’s shoulders. ‘So, this is the bet... I bet you that you couldn’t transform an ordinary woman into a convincing socialite for the evening and pass her off as the real thing. If you manage that feat, I’ll give you my rarest vehicle but naturally I’ll expect an invitation to the ball. If your lady fails the test, you hand over your most precious car.’

Vitale almost rolled his eyes at that outrageously juvenile challenge. Obviously he didn’t do bets. He raked his black glossy hair back from his brow in a gesture of impatience. ‘I’m not Pygmalion and I don’t know any ordinary women,’ he admitted truthfully.

‘Who’s Pygmalion?’ Zac asked with a genuine frown. ‘And how can you not know any ordinary women? You live in the same world I do.’

‘Not quite.’ Vitale’s affairs were always very discreet and he avoided the sort of tacky, celebrity-chasing women likely to boast of him as a conquest, while Zac seemed to view any attractive woman as fair game. Vitale, however, didn’t want to run the risk of any tabloid exposés containing the kind of sexual revelations that would dishonour the Lerovian throne.

In addition, he was an investment banker and CEO of the very conservative and respectable Bank of Lerovia, thus expected to live a very staid life: bankers who led rackety lives made investors unprofitably nervous. Lerovia was, after all, a tax shelter of international repute. It was a small country, hemmed in by much larger, more powerful countries, and Vitale’s grandfather had built Lerovia’s wealth and stability on a secure financial base. Vitale had had few career options open to him. His mother had wanted him to simply be the Crown Prince, her heir in waiting, but Vitale had needed a greater purpose, not to mention the freedom to become a man in his own right, something his autocratic mother would never have willingly given him.

He had fought for his right to have a career just as he now fought for his continuing freedom of choice as a single man. At only twenty-eight, he wasn’t ready for the responsibility of a wife or, even more depressingly, the demands of a baby. His stomach sank at the prospect of a crying, clinging child looking to him for support. He also knew better than anyone how difficult it would be for any woman to enter the Lerovian royal family and be forced to deal with his domineering mother, the current Queen. His unfortunate bride would need balls of steel to hold her own.

At that point in Vitale’s brooding reflections, Angel reappeared, looking abnormally subdued, and Vitale sprang upright with a question in his eyes.

‘Your turn,’ his older brother told him very drily without making any attempt to respond to Vitale’s unspoken question for greater clarification.

Angel was visibly on edge, Vitale acknowledged in surprise, wondering what sensitive subject Charles Russell had broached with his eldest son. And then Vitale made a very good guess and he winced for his brother, because possibly their father had discovered that Angel had an illegitimate daughter he had yet to meet. That was Angel’s biggest darkest secret, one he had shared only with Vitale, and it was likely to be an inflammatory topic for a man as family-orientated as their parent. It wasn’t, however, a mistake that Vitale would ever make, Vitale thought with blazing confidence, because he never ever took risks in the birth-control department. He knew too well how narrow his options would be in that scenario if anything went wrong. Either he would have to face up to a colossal scandal or he would have to marry the woman concerned. Since the prospect of either option chilled him to the bone, he always played safe.

A still-handsome middle-aged man with greying hair, Charles Russell strode forward to give his taller son an enthusiastic hug. ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting so long.’

‘Not a problem,’ Vitale said smoothly, refusing to admit that he had enraged his mother with his insistence on travelling to London rather than attending yet another court ceremonial function. Even so, his lean muscular length still stiffened in the circle of the older man’s arms because while he was warmed by that open affection he was challenged to respond to it. Deep down somewhere inside him he was still the shrinking little boy whose mother had pushed him away with distaste at the age of two, telling him firmly that it was babyish and bad to still seek such attention.

‘I need a favour and I thought you could deal with this thorny issue better than I could,’ Charles admitted stiffly. ‘Do you remember the housekeeper I employed at Chimneys?’

Vitale’s eloquent dark eyes widened a little in disconcertion, lush black gold-tipped lashes framing his shrewd questioning gaze. He and Angel had spent countless school vacations at their father’s country house on the Welsh border and Vitale had cherished every one of those holidays liberated from the stuffy traditions and formality of the Lerovian court. At Chimneys, an Elizabethan manor house, Vitale had been free as a bird, free to be a grubby little boy, a moody difficult adolescent, free to be whatever he wanted to be without the stress of constantly striving to meet arbitrary expectations.

‘Not particularly. I don’t really remember the staff.’

His father frowned, seemingly disappointed by that response. ‘Her name was Peggy. She worked for me for years. She was married to the gardener, Robert Dickens.’

A sliver of recollection pierced Vitale’s bemused gaze, a bubble of memory about an old scandal finally rising to the surface. ‘Red-haired woman, ran off with a toy boy,’ he slotted in sardonically.

His tone made his father frown. ‘Yes, that’s the one. He was one of the trainee gardeners, shifty sort with a silver tongue,’ he supplied. ‘I always felt responsible for that mess.’

Vitale, who could not imagine getting involved or even being interested in an employee’s private life, looked at the older man in frank astonishment. ‘Why?’

‘I saw bruises on Peggy on several occasions,’ Charles admitted uncomfortably. ‘I suspected Dickens of domestic abuse but I did nothing. I asked her several times if she was all right and she always assured me that she was. I should’ve done more.’

‘I don’t see what you could have done if she wasn’t willing to make a complaint on her own behalf,’ Vitale said dismissively, wondering where on earth this strange conversation could be leading while marvelling that his father could show visible distress when discussing the past life of a former servant. ‘You weren’t responsible.’

‘Right and wrong isn’t always that black and white,’ Charles Russell replied grimly. ‘If I’d been more supportive, more encouraging, possibly she might have given me her trust and told me the truth and I could have got her the help she and her daughter needed. Instead I was polite and distant and then she ran off with that smarmy little bastard.’

‘I don’t see what else you could have done. One should respect boundaries, particularly with staff,’ Vitale declared, stiffening at the reference to Peggy’s daughter but striving to conceal that reality. He had only the dimmest memory of Peggy Dickens but he remembered her daughter, Jazmine, well but probably only because Jazz figured in one of his own most embarrassing youthful recollections. He had little taste for looking back to the days before he had learned tact and discretion.

‘No, you have to take a more human approach, Vitale. Staff are people too and sometimes they need help and understanding,’ Charles argued.

Vitale didn’t want to help or understand what motivated his staff at the bank or the palace; he simply wanted them to do their jobs to the best of their ability. He didn’t get involved with employees on a personal level but, out of respect for his father, he resisted the urge to put his own point of view and instead tried to put the dialogue back on track. ‘You said you needed a favour,’ he reminded the older man.

Charles studied his son’s lean, forbidding face in frustration, hating the fact that he recognised shades of his ex-wife’s icy reserve and heartless detachment in Vitale. If there was one person Charles could be said to hate it would have to be the Queen of Lerovia, Sofia Castiglione. Yet he had loved her once, loved her to the edge of madness until he’d discovered that he was merely her dupe, her sperm donor for the heir she had needed for the Lerovian throne. Sofia’s true love had been another woman, her closest friend, Cinzia, and from the moment Sofia had successfully conceived, Charles and their marriage as such had been very much surplus to requirements. But that was a secret the older man had promised to take to the grave with him. In the divorce settlement he had agreed to keep quiet in return for liberal access arrangements to his son and he had only ever regretted that silence afterwards when he had been forced to watch his ex-wife trying to suck the life out of Vitale with her constant carping and interference.

‘Yes...the favour,’ Charles recalled, forced back into the present. ‘I’ve received a letter from Peggy’s daughter, Jazmine, asking for my help. I want you to assess the situation and deal with it. I would do it myself but I’m going to be working abroad for the next few months and I don’t have the time. I also thought you would handle it better because you knew each other well as children.’

Vitale’s lean, strong, darkly good-looking face had tensed. In truth he had frozen where he stood at the threat of being forced to meet Jazz again. ‘The situation?’ he queried, playing for time.

The older man lifted a letter off the desk and passed it to him. ‘The toy boy ripped Peggy off, forged her name on a stack of loans, plunged them into debt and ruined their financial standing!’ he emphasised in ringing disgust. ‘Now they’re poor and struggling to survive. They’ve tried legal channels and got nowhere. Peggy’s ill now and no longer able to work.’

Vitale’s brow furrowed and he raised a silencing hand. ‘But how is this trail of misfortune your business?’ he asked without hesitation.

‘Peggy Dickens has been on my conscience for years,’ Charles confided grudgingly. ‘I could have done something to help but I was too wary of causing offence so... I did nothing. All of this mess is on me and I don’t want that poor woman suffering any more because I failed to act.’

‘So, send her a cheque,’ Vitale suggested, reeling from the display of guilt his father was revealing while he himself was struggling to see any connection or indeed any debt owed.

‘Read the letter,’ his father advised. ‘Jazmine is asking for a job, somewhere to live and a loan, not a cheque. She’s proud. She’s not asking for a free handout but she’s willing to do anything she can to help her mother.’

Vitale studied the envelope of what was obviously a begging letter with unconcealed distaste. More than ever he wanted to argue with his father’s attitude. In Vitale’s opinion, Charles owed his former employee and her daughter absolutely nothing. By the sound of it, Peggy Dickens had screwed up her life; however that was scarcely his father’s fault.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Vitale asked finally, recognising that how he felt about the situation meant nothing in the face of his father’s feelings.

Yet it amazed Vitale that his father could still be so incredibly emotional and sentimental and he often marvelled that two people as ridiculously dissimilar in character as his parents could ever have married.

‘I want you to be compassionate and kind, not judgemental, not cynical, not cold,’ Charles framed with anxious warning emphasis. ‘And I know that will be a huge challenge for you but I also know that acknowledging that side of your nature will make you a better and stronger man in the process. Don’t let your mother remake you in her image—never forget that you are my son too.’

Vitale almost flinched from the idea of being compassionate and kind. He didn’t do stuff like that. He supported leading charities and always contributed to good causes but he had never done anything hands-on in that area, nor had he ever felt the need to do so. He was what he was: a bred-in-the-bone royal, cocooned from the real world by incredible privilege, an exclusive education and great wealth.

‘I don’t care what it costs to buy Peggy and her daughter out of trouble either,’ his father added expansively. ‘With you in charge of my investments, I can well afford the gesture. You don’t need to save me money.’

‘I’m a banker. Saving money and making a profit comes naturally,’ Vitale said drily. ‘And by the way, my mother is not remaking me in her image.’

Charles vented a roughened laugh. ‘It may be graveyard humour but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you find yourself engaged by the end of that ball next month! Sofia is a hell of a wheeler dealer. You should’ve refused to attend.’

‘I may still do that. I’m no pushover,’ his son stated coldly. ‘So you want me to stage a rescue mission in your name?’

‘With tact and generosity,’ the older man added.

Exasperation leapt through Vitale, who used tact every day of his life because he could never be less than courteous in the face of the royal demands made of him. But no matter how onerous the demand Charles had made struck him, there was, nevertheless, a certain pride and satisfaction to the awareness that his father was trusting him to deal with a sensitive situation. He realised that he was also surprisingly eager to read Jazz’s letter.

Jazz, a skinny-as-a-rail redhead, who had developed a massive crush on him when she was fourteen and he was eighteen. He had been wildly disconcerted that he rather than the friendlier, flirtier Angel had become the object of her admiration and he had screwed up badly, he acknowledged reluctantly, cracking a wounding joke about her that she had sadly overheard. But then Vitale had never been the sensitive sort and back then he had also essentially known very little about women because he had stayed a virgin for many years longer than Angel. But, not surprisingly, Jazz had hated him after that episode and in many ways it had been a relief to no longer be the centre of her attention and the awful tongue-tied silences that had afflicted her in his presence. In the space of one awkward summer, the three of them had travelled from casual pseudo friendship to stroppy, strained discomfiture and then she and her mother had mercifully disappeared out of their lives.

Compassionate... Kind, Vitale reminded himself as he stood outside his father’s office reading Jazz’s letter, automatically rating it for use of English, spelling and conciseness. Of course it had been written on the computer because Jazz was severely dyslexic. Dyslexic and clumsy, he recalled helplessly, always tripping and bumping into things. The letter told a tale of woe that could have featured as a Greek tragedy and his sculpted mouth tightened, his momentary amusement dying away. She wanted help for her mother but only on her own terms. She wanted a job but only had experience of working as a checkout operator and a cleaner.

Per carita...for pity’s sake, what did she think his father was going to find for her to do on the back of such slender talents? Even so, the letter was pure Jazz, feisty and gauche and crackling with brick-wall obstinacy. An ordinary woman, he thought abstractedly, an ordinary woman with extraordinarily beautiful green eyes. Her eyes wouldn’t have changed, he reasoned. And you couldn’t get more ordinary than Jazz, who thought a soup spoon or a fish fork or a napkin was pure unnecessary aristocratic affectation. And she was, evidently, badly in need of money...

A faint smile tilted Vitale’s often grim mouth. He didn’t need a stunning beauty to act as his partner at the palace ball and he was quite sure that if he hired the right experts Jazz could be transformed into something reasonably presentable. Having a partner for the ball to fend off other women would make sense, he acknowledged reluctantly. But shooting Zac down in flames would undeniably be the most satisfying aspect of the whole affair. Jazz might be ordinary and dyslexic but she was also clever and a quick study.

Vitale strolled back to his younger brother’s side with a rare smile on his wide sensual mouth. ‘You’re up next but before you go...the bet,’ he specified in an undertone. ‘Remember that blonde waitress who wanted nothing to do with you last week and accused you of harassment?’

Zac frowned, disconcerted colour highlighting his high cheekbones at that reminder of his rare failure to impress a woman.

‘Bring her to the ball acting all lovelorn and clingy and suitably polished up and you have a deal on the bet,’ Vitale completed, throwing down the gauntlet of challenge with pleasure while recalling the very real hatred he had seen in that woman’s eyes. For once, Zac, the smooth-talking seducer, would have his work cut out for him...

* * *

Jazz straightened her aching back at the checkout because she had worked a very long day. Her schedule had kicked off at dawn with a cleaning shift at a nearby hotel and then she had got a call to step in for a sick workmate at the till in the supermarket where she earned extra cash on a casual basis. Both her jobs were casual, poorly paid and unreliable. But some work was better than no work, she reminded herself doggedly, better than living on welfare, which would have distressed her mother more even though that choice would have left mother and daughter somewhat better off.

But while Peggy Dickens had raised her daughter to be a worker rather than a whinger or a freeloader, Jazz still occasionally let her thoughts drift into a dream world where she had got to complete the education that would have equipped her with a degree that enabled her to chase better-paid jobs and climb an actual career ladder. Unfortunately, the chaos of her private life had prevented her from, what was that phrase...achieving her full potential? Her full pink mouth curled at the corners with easy amusement for who was to say that she was worth any more than the work she was currently doing? No point getting too big for her boots and imagining she might have been more, not when she came from such humble roots.

Her mother had been a housekeeper, who married a gardener and lived in accommodation provided by their employer. Nobody in Jazz’s family tree had ever owned a house or earned a university degree and Peggy had been bemused when her daughter had chosen to continue her education and aim so much higher than any of her ancestors, but her mother had been proud as well.

And then their lives had gone down the tubes again and Jazz had had to put practicality first yet again. Unfortunately, it was virtually impossible to regain lost ground. Jazz had almost had a nervous breakdown studying to overcome the drawbacks of changing schools three times over during her teen years. She had not wept when her parents’ unhappy marriage had finally broken down because her father had often beaten up her mother and had hurt Jazz as well when she had been foolish enough to try and intervene. She had grieved, though, when her father had died unexpectedly only a couple of years afterwards without having once tried to see her again. Evidently her father had never much cared for his only child and that knowledge had hurt. She had been sincerely aghast, however, when her mother, Peggy fell in love with Jeff Starling, a much younger man.

Love could be the biggest risk out there for a woman, Jazz reflected with an inner shiver of repulsion, most especially the kind of love that could persuade an otherwise sensible woman into jumping straight out of the frying pan into the fire.

But there were other kinds of love as well, she reminded herself comfortingly, life-enriching family connections that soothed and warmed, no matter how bad life got. When Jeff’s bad debts had ensured that Peggy and her daughter couldn’t even get a lease on a rental property, Peggy’s kid sister, Clodagh, had given them a home in her tiny apartment. When Peggy had been diagnosed with breast cancer, Clodagh had stepped back from her little jewellery business to shepherd her sister to her appointments and treatments and nurse her tenderly while Jazz tried to keep on earning what little money she could.

Bolstered by those more positive thoughts, Jazz finished her shift and walked home in the dusk. Her phone pinged and she dug it out, green eyes widening when she read the text with difficulty. It was short and sweet, beginning, re: letter to Charles Russell.

Holy Moses, she thought in shock, Charles Russell was actually willing to meet her to discuss her mother’s plight! Ten o’clock tomorrow morning, not much notice, she conceded ruefully, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, could they be?

In desperation, she had written to her mother’s former employer pleading for help. Charles was a kind man and generous to a fault but almost ten years down the road from Peggy’s employment, Jazz had not even expected to receive a reply. That letter had been a long shot, the product of a particularly sleepless night when she was stressing about how she could best help her mother with the stable, stress-free existence she needed to recover from what had proved to be a gruelling treatment schedule. After all, they couldn’t live with Clodagh for ever. Clodagh had sacrificed a lot to take them in off the street, not least a boyfriend, who had vanished once the realities of Clodagh’s new caring role had sunk in. Ironically, Jazz had not thought that there was the remotest possibility that her letter to Charles Russell would even be acknowledged...

A hot feeling of shame crept up inside her, burning her pale porcelain skin with mortified heat because the instant she had posted that letter, she had squirmed with regret over the sacrifice of her pride. Hadn’t she been raised to stand on her own feet? Yet sometimes, no matter what you did and no matter how hard you worked, you needed a helping hand to climb up out of a ditch. And evidently, Charles Russell had taken pity on their plight and maybe, just maybe, he had recognised that he could offer his assistance in some way. With somewhere to live? With employment? Hope sprang high, dousing the shame of having written and posted a begging letter. Any help, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, would be welcome, she told herself sternly.

Stuffing her phone back in her pocket, Jazz unlocked the door of the apartment, suppressing a sigh when she saw the mess in the living and kitchen area. Clodagh wasn’t tidy and she wasn’t much for cleaning or doing dishes or laundry but Jazz did what she could to pick up the slack, always conscious that she lived in Clodagh’s home while remaining equally aware that her neat freak of a mother found it depressing to live in such messy surroundings. But there wasn’t much that could be done to make a one-bedroom apartment stretch to the occupation of three adults, one of whom was still struggling to regain her strength. The treatments might have concluded but Peggy was still in the recovery phase. Clodagh shared the bedroom with her sister but when Peggy had a restless night, Clodagh took the couch and Jazz slept in a sleeping bag on the floor.

‘I had a good day,’ Peggy announced chirpily from in front of the television, a thin-faced, pale and still-frail-looking woman in her forties. ‘I went for a walk in the park after mass.’

‘That’s brilliant,’ Jazz said, bending down to kiss the older woman’s cheek, the baby fine fuzz of her mother’s regrown hair brushing her brow and bringing tears to her tired eyes. The hair had grown again in white, rather then red, and Peggy had refused to consider dying it as Clodagh had suggested, confessing that as far as she was concerned any hair was better than no hair.

Jazz was intensely relieved that her mother was regaining her energy and had an excellent prognosis. Having initially faced the terrifying prospect that she might lose her mother, she was merely grateful to still have her and was keen to improve the older woman’s life as much as possible.

‘Hungry?’ Jazz prompted.

‘Not really,’ Peggy confessed guiltily.

‘I’ll make a lovely salad and you can do your best with it,’ Jazz declared, knowing it was imperative to encourage her mother to regain some of the weight she had lost.

‘Clodagh’s visiting her friend, Rose,’ Peggy told her. ‘She asked me to join them but I was too tired and I like to see you when you come in from work.’

Suppressing her exhaustion, Jazz began to clean up the kitchen, neatly stowing away her aunt’s jewellery-making supplies in their designated clear boxes and then embarking on the dishes before preparing the salad that was presently the only option that awakened her mother’s appetite. While she worked, she chattered, sharing a little gossip about co-workers, bringing her working day home with her to brighten her mother’s more restricted lifestyle and enjoy the sound of her occasional chuckle.

They sat down at the table to eat. Jazz was mentally running through her tiny wardrobe to select a suitable outfit for her morning appointment with Charles Russell. Giving up the luxury of their own home had entailed selling off almost all their belongings because there had been no money to spare to rent a storage facility and little room for anything extra in Clodagh’s home. Jazz had a worn black pencil skirt and jeans and shorts and a few tops and that was literally all. She had learned to be grateful for the uniform she wore at both her jobs because it meant that she could get by with very few garments. Formality insisted on her wearing the skirt, she conceded ruefully, and her only pair of high heels.

She had not mentioned her letter to either her mother or her aunt because she hadn’t expected anything to come of it and, in the same way, she could not quite accept that she had been given an appointment. Indeed, several times before she finally dropped off to sleep on the couch that evening, she had to dig out her phone and anxiously reread that text to persuade herself that it wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

Early the next morning, fearful of arriving late, Jazz crossed London by public transport and finally arrived outside a tall town house. She had been surprised not to be invited to the older man’s office where she had sent the letter, but perhaps he preferred a less formal and more discreet setting for their meeting. She was even more surprised by the size and exclusive location of the house. Charles Russell had once been married to a reigning queen, she reminded herself wryly. A queen who, on her only fleeting visit to her former husband’s country home, had treated Jazz’s mother like the dirt beneath her expensively shod feet.

But Charles had been infinitely kinder and more gracious with his staff, she recalled fondly, remembering the older man’s warm smiles and easy conversation with her even though she was only his housekeeper’s daughter. Unlike his royal ex-wife and second son, he was not a snob and had never rated people in importance solely according to their social or financial status. A kind man, she repeated doggedly to herself to quell her leaping nervous tension as she rang the doorbell.

A woman who spoke little English, and what she did speak was with an impenetrable accent, ushered her into an imposing hall furnished with gleaming antiques and mirrors. Scanning her intimidating surroundings and feeling very much like an interloper, Jazz began to revise up her estimate of Charles Russell’s wealth.

Another door was cast open into what looked like a home office and a man sprang up from behind the solid wooden desk.

Jazz was so aghast by the recognition that roared through her slender frame that she froze on the threshold of the room and stared in dismay, all her natural buoyance draining away as though someone very cruel had stabbed a pin into her tender flesh and deflated her like a balloon. It was Vitale, not his father, and that had to be... Her. Worst. Nightmare. Ever...

CHAPTER TWO

VITALE STARED, TAKEN aback by the woman in the doorway because she was a knockout, the kind of vibrant beauty who turned male heads in the street with her streaming red-gold curls and slender, supple body. About the only things that hadn’t changed about Jazz were her eyes, green as jade set in a triangular face, skin as translucent as the finest pale porcelain and a surprisingly full pink mouth, little white teeth currently plucking at her lower lip as she gazed at him in almost comical horror.

‘Come in and close the door,’ Vitale urged smoothly, wondering how on earth he was going to teach her to stop wearing her every thought on her face while also wondering why he found that candidness attractive.

Jazz made a valiant attempt to stage a recovery even though every ounce of her hard-won confidence had been blown out of the water. Shock waves were travelling through her slight body. One glimpse of Vitale and her brain was mush at best and at worst sending her back in time to a very vulnerable period she did not want to remember. But there Vitale was, as sleek and drop-dead gorgeous as he had ever been and so compelling in his undeniable masculine beauty that it took terrible effort to even look away from him.

What was it about Vitale, what crazy weakness in her made him seem so appealing? His brother, Angel Valtinos, had been too pretty and vain to draw her and she had never once looked at Angel in that way. But then, Vitale was a much more complex and fascinating creature, all simmering, smouldering intensity and conflicts below the smooth, sophisticated surface he wore for the world. Those perfect manners and that cool reserve of his couldn’t mask the intense emotion he held in restraint behind those stunning dark golden eyes. And he was so sexy. Every sinuous movement of his lean, muscular body, every downward dip of his gold-tipped, outrageously thick black lashes, and every quirk of his beautifully shaped sensual mouth contributed to his ferocious sex appeal. It was little wonder that when she had finally been of an age to crush on a man, her attention had immediately locked onto Vitale, even though Vitale had found it quite impossible to treat her like a friend.

Jazz closed the door in a harried movement and walked towards the chair set in front of the desk. You’re a grown-up now. The embarrassing stuff you did as a kid no longer matters, her defences were instructing her at a frantic pitch, and so intent was she on listening to that face-saving voice that she didn’t notice the edge of the rug in front of her. Her spiky heel caught on the fringe and she pitched forward with a startled cry.

And Vitale was there at supersonic speed, catching her before she could fall and steadying her with a strong arm to her spine. The heat of his hand at her waist startled her almost as much as his sudden proximity. She jerked skittishly away from him to settle down heavily into the chair but her nostrils flared appreciatively. The dark sensual scent of his spicy cologne overlying warm earthy male plunged her senses into overdrive.

Vitale had finally touched her, Vitale, who avoided human contact as much as possible, she recalled abstractedly, striving not to look directly at him until she had got her stupid brain back on line. He would be smiling: she knew that. Her clumsiness had always amused him because he was as lithe and sure-footed as a cat. Now he unnerved her more by not returning to the other side of the desk and instead lounging back against it with unusual casualness, staying far too close for comfort, a long, muscular, powerful thigh within view that did nothing to restore her composure.

Her fingertips dug into her palms as she fought for calm. ‘I was expecting to meet with your father,’ she admitted thinly.

‘Charles asked me to handle this,’ Vitale confided, barely resisting the urge to touch the wild corkscrew mane of flaming ringlets tumbling across her shoulders with gleaming electric vigour. So, he liked the hair and the eyes, he reasoned, wondering why he had abandoned his usual formality to sit so close to her, wondering why the simple smell of soap that she emanated was so surpassingly sexy, wondering why that slender body with its delicate curves, tiny waist and shapely legs should suddenly seem so very tempting a package. Because she wasn’t his type, not even remotely his type, he told himself sternly. He had always gone for tall, curvy blondes, redheads being too bright and brash for his tastes.

On the other hand he had never wanted so badly to touch a woman’s hair and that weird prompting unnerved him into springing upright again and striding across the room. The dulled throb of awakening desire at his groin inspired him with another stab of incredulity because since adulthood he had always been fully in control of that particular bodily affliction.

‘I can’t think why,’ Jazz said, dry-mouthed, unbearably conscious of him looming over her for that split second before he moved away because he stood well over six feet tall and she barely made a couple of inches over five foot.

‘I assure you that the exchange will work out very much to your advantage,’ Vitale husked, deciding that his uncharacteristic interest had simply been stimulated by the challenge that he now saw lay ahead of him: the transformation of Jazz. Number one on the agenda would be persuading her to stop biting her nails. Number two would be ditching the giant fake gold hoop earrings. Number three would be avoiding any shoe that looked as if a stripper might wear it.

Jazz let slip a very rude startled word in response to that unlikely statement.

And number four would be cleaning up her vocabulary, Vitale reflected, glad to so clearly see her flaws so that he could concentrate on the practicalities of his challenge, rather than dwell on any aspect that could be deemed personal.

‘Don’t swear,’ Vitale told her.

Jazz reddened as high as her hairline because she could remember him saying the same thing to her when she was about twelve years old while warning her that once she became accustomed to using such words, using them would become an embarrassing habit. And being Vitale, he had been infuriatingly bang on target with that advice. Using curse words had made her seem a little cooler at school back then...well, as cool as you could be with bright red hair and a flat chest, puberty having passed her by for far longer than she cared to recall, making her an anomaly amongst her peers.

‘You need financial help,’ Vitale pointed out with undiplomatic bluntness, keen to get right to the heart of the matter and remind her of her situation. If he neglected to remind her of her boundaries, Jazz would be a stubborn, defiant baggage and hard to handle.

Living up to that assessment, Jazz flew upright, earrings swinging wildly in the torrent of her burnished hair, colour marking her cheekbones, highlighting eyes bright with angry defensiveness. ‘I did not ask for money from your father!’ she snapped back at him.

‘Employment, a home, the settlement of outstanding loans?’ Vitale reminded her with cruel precision. ‘How could any of those aspirations be achieved without someone laying out a considerable amount of money on your behalf?’

The angry colour drained from her disconcerted face, perspiration breaking out on her short upper lip as he threw her crash-bang up against hard reality, refusing to allow her to deny the obvious. She stared back at him, trapped like a rabbit in headlights and hating him for it. Mortification claimed her along with a healthy dose of shame that she should have put herself in such a position and with Vitale of all people. Vitale, who had never treated her like an equal as Angel had done, Vitale who had never for one moment forgotten that she was essentially a servant’s child, thrown into the brothers’ company only by proximity.

Vitale watched Jazz crash down from fury to bitter, embarrassed acceptance. Sì...yes, he told himself with satisfaction, that had been the right note to sound. She dropped back into the chair, sunset heat warming her cheeks and bowing her head on her slender neck.

‘And the good news is that I’m willing to provide that money if...in return, you are willing to do something for me.’

‘I can’t imagine anything that I could do for you,’ Jazz told him truthfully.

‘Then listen and learn,’ Vitale advised, poised by the window with the light glimmering over his luxuriant blue-black hair, the suave olive planes of his cheekbones taut. ‘At the end of next month my mother is throwing a ball at the palace. Her objective is to match me up with a future bride and the guest list will be awash with young women who have what the Queen deems to be the right pedigree and background.’

Jazz was staring at him now in wide-eyed wonderment. ‘Are you kidding me?’

His sculpted mouth quirked. ‘I wish I was.’

Her smooth brow furrowed as she collided with hot dark golden eyes and suddenly found it fatally difficult to breathe. ‘You’re angry about it.’

‘Oviamente...of course I am. I’m nowhere near the stage in life where I want to get married and settle down. But having considered the situation, it has occurred to me,’ Vitale murmured quietly, ‘that arriving at the ball with what appears to be a partner, whom I’m seriously involved with, would be my best defence. I want you to be that partner.’

‘Me?’ Jazz gaped at him in disbelief, green eyes a pool of verdant jade bemusement as she gazed up at him, soft full pink lips slightly parted. ‘How could I be your partner? I couldn’t go to a royal ball!’

‘Suitably gowned and refined, you could,’ Vitale disagreed, choosing his words with care because the throb below his belt went up tempo when he focused on that soft, oh, so inviting full lower lip of hers. ‘But you would have to be willing to work at the presentation required because you would have to both look like and act like the sort of woman I would bring to a royal ball.’

‘Impossible,’ Jazz told him. ‘It would take more than a fancy dress and not swearing.’

‘It would but, given that we have several weeks at our disposal in which to prepare, I think you could easily do it,’ Vitale declared, shocking her even more with that vote of apparent confidence. ‘And whether you successfully contrive the pretence or fail it, I will still pay you well for trying to make the grade.’

‘But why me?’ Jazz spluttered in a rush. ‘Why someone like me? Surely you have a friend who could pretend to be something more for the evening?’

‘Why you? Because someone bet me that I couldn’t pass off an ordinary woman as a socialite at a royal ball,’ Vitale delivered, opting for the truth. ‘You fit the bill and I prefer to pay for the pretence rather than ask anyone to do me a favour. In addition, as it will be in your best interests to succeed, you will make more effort to meet the standard required.’

Jazz was transfixed by his admission. ‘A bet,’ she echoed weakly. ‘To go to all that effort and put out money simply to win a bet...it would be absurd.’

Vitale shrugged a wide shoulder, sheathed in the finest silk and wool blend, the jacket of his exquisitely well-tailored suit sliding open to reveal his torso, lean, strong muscles flexing below the thin cotton shirt. Her mouth ran dry because he was a work of art on a physical level, every silken, honed line of his lean, powerful physique hard and muscular and fit. ‘Does the absurdity of it have to concern you?’

‘I guess not...’ she said uncertainly, knowing that what was what he wanted her to say, playing it sensibly by ear and reluctant to argue while momentarily lost in the dark, exciting challenge of his hard, assessing gaze.

She had almost forgotten what that excitement felt like, had never felt it since in a man’s radius and had been much too young and naïve to feel its mortifying bite at the age of fourteen. She had experienced what felt like all the sensations of a grown woman while still trapped in the body of an undeveloped child. Unsurprisingly, struggling to deal with that adolescent flood of sexual awakening had made her so silent, so awkward and so wretched around Vitale that she had been filled with self-loathing and shame.

Now that same excitement was curling up hot in the pit of her stomach and spreading dangerous tendrils of awareness to more sensitive places. She felt her nipples pinch tight below her tee shirt and her small breasts swell with the shaken breath she snatched in as she willed the torture to stop. But her body’s reaction to Vitale had never been something she could control and the inexorable pulse of that heat between her thighs made her feel murderously uncomfortable and foolish.

A bet, she was still thinking with even greater incredulity, desperate to stop thinking about her physical reaction to him. Vitale was willing to invest good money in an attempt to win a bet. That was beyond her capacity to imagine and she thought it was very wrong. In her experience money was precious and should be reserved to cover the necessities of life: rent, heat and food. She had never lived in a world where money was easily obtained or where there was ever enough of it. Even when her parents had still been together, having sufficient money simply to live had been a constant source of concern, thanks to her father’s addiction to online betting.

But Vitale lived at a very different level, she reminded herself ruefully. He took money for granted, had never gone without and could probably never understand how bone-deep appalled she was by his light-hearted attitude and how even more hostile she was to any form of gambling.

‘I don’t approve of gambling,’ she admitted tightly, thinking of the families destroyed by the debts accrued and the addicts who could not break free of their dream of a big win.

‘It’s not—’

‘It is gambling,’ Jazz cut in with assurance. ‘You’re betting on the outcome of something that can’t be predicted and you may make a loss.’

‘That’s my problem, not yours,’ Vitale delivered without hesitation. ‘You need to think about how this arrangement would benefit you. I would settle those loans and find a place of your choosing for you and your mother to live. I don’t know what I could offer on the employment front but I’m sure I could provide some help. The decision is yours. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to think it over.’

Her green eyes flared in anger again. ‘You haven’t even told me what would be involved if I accepted!’

‘Obviously you’d have to have a makeover and a certain amount of coaching before you could meet the demands of the role,’ Vitale imparted, marvelling that she hadn’t eagerly snatched at his offer straight away. ‘Right now you’re drowning in debt and you have no options. I can give you options.’

It was the bald truth and she hated him for spelling it out. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride, she chanted inside her head. Being badly in debt meant that she and her mother had virtually no choices and little chance of improving their lot in life. She swallowed hard on that humiliating reality that put Vitale squarely in the driver’s seat. A makeover, coaching? Inwardly she cringed but it was no surprise to her that she would not do as she was. She would never be good enough for Vitale on any level. She didn’t have the right breeding or background and found it hard to credit that even a makeover would raise her to the standard required by a highly sophisticated royal prince, who couldn’t even drink beer out of a bottle without looking uncomfortable.

‘Yes, if I can trust you, you could give us options,’ she conceded flatly. ‘But how do I know that you will keep your promises if this doesn’t work?’

Vitale stiffened as though she had slapped him. ‘I give you my word,’ he bit out witheringly. ‘Surely that should be sufficient?’

‘There are very few people in this world that I trust,’ Jazz admitted apologetically.

‘I will have a legal agreement drawn up, then,’ Vitale breathed with icy cool. ‘Will that satisfy you?’

Jazz lifted her head high, barely able to credit that she was bargaining with Vitale. ‘We don’t need a legal agreement for something this crazy. You get rid of the loans first as a show of faith,’ she dared. ‘I’m fed up trying to protect my mother from debt collectors.’

‘I don’t understand why you’re even trying to repay loans that were fraudulently taken out in your mother’s name.’

‘It’s incredibly difficult to prove that it was fraud. Jeff died in an accident last year and he wasn’t prosecuted. A solicitor tried to sort it out for Mum but we didn’t have enough proof to clear her name and she won’t declare herself bankrupt because she sees that as the ultimate humiliation,’ she explained, wanting him to know that they had explored every possible avenue. ‘She was ill and going through chemo at the time and I didn’t want to put any more pressure on her.’

‘You give me all the paperwork for the loans and I will have them dealt with,’ Vitale asserted. ‘But if I do so, I will own you body and soul until the end of next month.’

‘Nobody will ever own me body and soul.’

‘Apart from me for the next couple of months,’ Vitale contradicted with lethal cool. ‘If I pay upfront, I call the shots and you do as you’re told, whether you like it or not.’

Jazz blinked in bewilderment, wondering how she had got herself into the situation she was in. He thought he had her agreement and why wouldn’t he when she had bargained the terms with him? Even the prospect of those dreadful loans being settled knocked her for six. A visit or a phone call from a debt collector upset her mother for days afterwards, depriving her of the peace of mind she needed to rebuild her life and her health. How could Jazz possibly turn her back on an offer like Vitale’s? Nobody else was going to give them the opportunity to make a fresh start.

‘You haven’t given me a chance to think this through,’ she argued shakily.

‘You were keen enough to set out your conditions,’ Vitale reminded her drily.

And her face flamed because she was in no position to protest that assumption. The offer of money had cut right through her fine principles and her aversion to gambling. The very idea that she could sort out her mother’s problems and give her a happier and more secure future had thoroughly seduced her.

‘You’ll move in here as soon as possible,’ Vitale decreed.

Her head flew up, corkscrew curls tumbling across her shoulders, green eyes huge. ‘Move in here? With you?’

‘How else can we achieve this? You must be readily available. How else can I supervise? And if I take you to the ball it will be assumed we are lovers, and should anyone do a check, it will be clear that you were already living here in my house,’ Vitale pointed out. ‘If we are to succeed, you have to consider little supporting details of that nature.’

Jazz studied him, aghast. ‘I can’t move in with you!’ she gasped. ‘What am I supposed to tell my mother?’

Vitale shrugged with magnificent lack of interest. ‘Whatever suits. That I’ve given you a job? That we’re having an affair? I don’t care.’

Her feathery lashes fluttered rapidly, her animated face troubled as she pondered that problem. ‘Yes, I could admit I sent the letter to your father and say I’ve been offered a live-in job and my aunt would look after Mum, so I wouldn’t need to worry about her,’ she reasoned out loud. ‘Would I still be able to work? I have two part-time jobs.’

‘No. You won’t have the time. I’ll pay you a salary for the duration of your stay here,’ Vitale added, reading her expression to register the dismay etched there at the news that she would not be able to continue in paid employment.

‘This is beginning to sound like a very expensive undertaking for you,’ Jazz remarked uncomfortably, her face more flushed than ever.

‘My choice,’ Vitale parried dismissively while he wondered how far that flush extended beneath her clothing and whether that scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose was repeated anywhere else on her delicate body. He wondered dimly why such an imperfection should seem even marginally appealing and why he should suddenly be picturing her naked with all the eagerness of a sex-starved teenage boy. He tensed, thoroughly unsettled by his complete loss of concentration and detachment.

‘I’ll say you’ve offered me a job,’ Jazz said abruptly, her thoughts leaping ahead of her. ‘Are there many art works in this house?’

Vitale frowned and stared enquiringly at her. ‘Yes, but—’

‘Then I could say that I was cataloguing them or researching them for you,’ Jazz announced with satisfaction. ‘I was only six months off completing a BA in History of Art when Mum’s life fell apart and I had to drop out. I may not have attained my degree but I have done placements in museums and galleries, so I do have good working experience.’

‘If what you’re telling me is true, why are you working in a shop and as a cleaner?’

‘Because without that degree certificate, I can’t work in my field. I’ll finish my studies once life has settled down again,’ she said with wry acceptance.

Vitale struggled to imagine the added stress of studying at degree level in spite of her dyslexia and all its attendant difficulties and a grudging respect flared in him because she had fought her disability and refused to allow it to hold her back. ‘Why did you drop out?’

‘Mum’s second husband, Jeff, died suddenly and she was inconsolable.’ Jazz grimaced. ‘That was long before the debt collectors began calling and we found out about the loans Jeff had taken out and forged her name on. I took time out from university but things went downhill very quickly from that point and I couldn’t leave Mum alone. We were officially homeless and living in a boarding house when she was diagnosed with cancer and that was when my aunt asked us to move in with her. It’s been a rough couple of years.’

Vitale made no comment, backing away from the personal aspects of the information she was giving him, deeming them not his business, not his concern. He needed to concentrate on the end game alone and that was preparing her for the night of the ball.

‘How soon can you move in?’ he prompted impatiently.

Jazz stiffened at that blunt question. ‘This week sometime?’ she suggested.

‘I’ll send a car to collect you tomorrow at nine and pack for a long stay. We don’t have time to waste,’ Vitale pronounced as she slid out of the seat and straightened, the pert swell of her small breasts prominent in a tee shirt that was a little too tight, the skirt clinging to her slim thighs and the curve of her bottom, the fabric shiny with age. Her ankles looked ridiculously narrow and delicate above those clodhopper sandals with their towering heels. The pulse at his groin that nagged at his usually well-disciplined body went crazy.

‘Tomorrow’s a little soon, surely?’ Jazz queried in dismay.

Vitale compressed his lips, exasperated by his physical reaction to her. ‘We have a great deal to accomplish.’

‘Am I really that unpresentable?’ Jazz heard herself ask sharply.

‘Cinderella shall go to the ball,’ Vitale retorted with diplomatic conviction, ducking an answer that was obvious to him even if it was not to her. ‘When I put my mind to anything, I make it work.’

In something of a daze, Jazz refused the offer of a car to take her home and muttered the fiction that she had some shopping to do. In truth she only ever shopped at the supermarket, not having the money to spare for treats. But she knew she needed time to get her head clear and work out what she was going to say before she went home again, and that was how she ended up sitting in a park in the spring sunshine, feeling much as though she had had a run-in with a truck that had squashed her flat.

‘She’s as flat as an ironing board, not to mention the hideous rag-doll hair but, worst of all, she’s a child, Angel...’

Vitale’s well-bred voice filtered down through the years to sound afresh inside her head. Angel spoke Greek and Vitale spoke Italian, so the brothers had always communicated in English. Angel had been teasing Vitale about her crush and of course Jazz had been so innocent at fourteen that it had not even occurred to her that the boys had noticed her infatuation, and that unwelcome discovery as much as Vitale’s withering description of her lack of attractiveness had savaged Jazz. She had known she wasn’t much to look at, but knowing and having it said out loud by the object of her misplaced affections had cut her deep. Furthermore, being deemed to be still a child, even though in hindsight she now agreed with that conviction, had hurt even more at the time and she had hated him for it. She still remembered the dreadful moment when the boys had appeared out of the summerhouse and had seen her standing there, white as a sheet on the path, realising that they had been overheard.

Angel had grimaced but Vitale had looked genuinely appalled. At eighteen, Vitale hadn’t had the ability to hide his feelings that he did as an adult, and at that moment Vitale had recognised how upset she was and had deeply regretted his words, his troubled dark golden eyes telegraphing that truth. Not that he would have admitted it or said anything, though, or even apologised, she conceded wryly, because royalty did not admit fault or indeed do anything that lowered the dignified cool front of polished perfection.

“Cinderella shall go to the ball,” he had said as if he were conferring some enormous honour on her. As if she cared about his stupid fancy ball, or his even more stupid bet! But she did care about her mother, she reminded herself ruefully, and if Vitale was willing to help her family, she was willing to eat dirt, strain every sinew to please and play Cinderella...even if the process did sting her pride and humiliate her and there would be no glass slipper waiting for her!

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