‘That’s what I figured,’ she said, sipping at her tea innocently. ‘Anyone else I know in the wedding party?’
‘Probably only Yannis. I’ve asked him to be my best man, of course.’
The cup stilled at her lips, and something briefly clouded her eyes, something he didn’t quite understand, before she looked up at him and threw him one of those dazzling smiles that lit up the room. ‘Of course. Who else? Anyway, what’s she like, this bride of yours. Tell me about her. This is so amazing, big brother, I’ve never know you to stick with a woman for more than a month in your life. She must be something to have got you to commit.’
‘She is,’ he said with surprise, his voice choking, his ears straining for any sound. ‘You’ll meet her soon.’
‘Is she pretty?’
He jerked his head around, his fingers tangling together, his feet itchy, unable to keep still. Was she pretty? In his mind’s eye he saw her hair, coiling around her face, refusing to be restrained, and shining copper against the most perfect translucent skin. Dio, she wasn’t just pretty, she was breathtaking, a breath of fresh air on a stifling summer’s day, a slice of paradise in every smile. ‘She’ll make a great first lady for Montvelatte,’ he said, realising how lame the words sounded the minute they’d left his mouth.
Marietta considered him carefully, her long-lashed eyes as calculating as any computer. ‘But you love her, right?’
Sienna had made a hash of the afternoon. Blown any sense of camaraderie she and Rafe had been building up because she’d had an epiphany. An epiphany she wanted to run kicking and screaming from. A thunderclap that, at first, had seen continuing her endeavours to make him love her all but pointless.
She’d wanted to wallow in the depths then. She deserved to wallow. To consider herself lost, like some storm-tossed traveller at sea, miles from home, without a sign of land, and bereft of loved ones. Iseo’s Pyramid had never looked so appealing.
But there was no escape, and nothing would change the truth. She loved Rafe Lombardi. Prince Raphael Lombardi. She wasn’t supposed to love him, but she did.
And she could deny it all she wanted. She could rail against the injustice of it. She could drive herself and everyone around her crazy by fighting it and fighting them, but then what good would that do?
Or she could keep going with her plan. Just because her father had never loved her mother, didn’t mean that Rafe could never love her. She was sure he felt something for her. There was a spark—something—that was worth pursuing, no matter how much he tried to compartmentalize her usefulness in his life between recreation and procreation.
It was no consolation that her mother had probably felt just as sure that she would be able to make Sienna’s father love her. It was no help at all.
But if she was to win through this, then she had to look to the positives. Rafe could love her, she was sure.
She had to be sure.
Sebastiano seemed to respect her need for quiet and drove at a gentle pace up the mountain to the Castello, the shadow thrown by the building casting the road into a half-light that seemed strangely to fit her mood.
Half-light. Where she felt now, knowing she loved Rafe. Knowing he didn’t love her.
Half-light. A possible future of unreciprocated one-way affection if she didn’t try.
Did she want to live life that way? Hell, no.
Rafe’s car was still in the driveway when they pulled up, but something else captured her attention. The JetRanger sitting pretty in the centre of the helipad below, the familiar navy-and-white colours of her former employer proudly displayed. Just the sight of it was enough to rip open the scar of losing her recent life.
Sebastiano opened the door for her, caught the direction of her lingering gaze, and sought to explain. ‘Princess Marietta arrived in it two hours ago. I believe the pilot is waiting to collect a delivery before taking off.’
She turned to him. ‘Who’s the pilot? Do you know?’ She hadn’t been with the company that long, but just the thought of connecting with someone from her former life—anyone—lifted her spirits immeasurably.
Sebastiano gave a nod. ‘I will find out for you. But if you would like to step inside, I dare say Princess Marietta would like to meet you.’
Sienna hesitated a fraction longer, her gaze on the chopper, her fingers itching to hold a joystick again. She’d missed flying, missed being part of the endless sky. A gust of wind came from nowhere, and her eyes scanned further afield, to where the sky was deepening and even the water below was chopping up, looking more threatening. Maybe they were right. A summer storm. That would be something to see.
Then, with one last look at the helicopter, Sienna followed Sebastiano inside.
She heard voices coming from the library, Rafe’s rumbling deep tones and a woman’s voice, her laughter light and infectious, and, without having even met the woman, Sienna liked her already. It would be nice to have another woman around, nice to have someone to talk to, and she was about to enter the room when she heard it.
‘But you love her, right?’
Sienna stopped short of the doorway, holding her breath, her senses on red alert. There was only one person they could be talking about.
The silence stretched on for ever as Sienna waited, her ears straining to hear his response over the pounding of her heart.
‘Did you know she was pregnant?’
She looked to the ceiling, her fingers clenching and un-clenching as Rafe deftly sidestepped the issue. From inside the room, she heard the sounds of Marietta’s delight, her squeal when she heard the news about the twins, while outside the room Sienna closed her eyes and breathed deep. She knew she couldn’t keep standing here eavesdropping forever. She would have to enter the room, meet Rafe’s sister, and pretend everything was all right. When nothing was right and everything was all wrong.
Desperately wrong, when a perfect day could turn upside down. Where a fragile peace was going to be the best they could ever hope for.
She couldn’t meet Marietta now, couldn’t pretend that everything was all right and that she was the blushing bride. Brides were supposed to look radiant, and right now she didn’t have a sailor’s chance against Iseo’s Pyramid of pulling that off. As quietly as she had come, she turned and headed for the stairs.
‘So, big brother,’ his sister said, ‘anyone would think you were avoiding the question. You do love her, then?’
His sister hadn’t changed a bit. He’d thought he’d thrown her off topic with the news of the twins, but she could always be like a dog with a bone when it suited her. He got up and walked to the windows, noticed the darkening sky and the brooding light, but it was on noticing the car parked next to his that he frowned. Where was she? He turned back to his sister. ‘You always were a hopeless romantic, Marietta.’
‘And you were always a hard-nosed cynic.’
‘With good reason!’
She got up and joined him at the window, her hand on his arm. ‘Raphael, what happened to Mama, it doesn’t have to be like that.’
‘It won’t be. I’ve made sure of it. Sienna will make the perfect wife.’ Once she could get her hormones under control.
‘Without love?’
‘We get on fine.’ Although, given today’s events, it could be better.
‘So,’ she continued, and he sighed, knowing the interrogation was far from over, wishing Sienna would arrive so that he might be spared, and his sister would turn her powers of inquisition in her direction. ‘You’re marrying this woman, who’s carrying your twin babies and who is expected to become part of some royal fishbowl, but you don’t love her?’
‘It’s easier that way,’ he said, turning his attention once more out the window, Iseo’s Pyramid growing more evil-looking in the darkening sky, the usual cloud of seabirds absent, as if they’d all already hunkered down for the storm.
‘So what’s in it for her?’
‘She gets to be a princess. Isn’t that every little girl’s dream? It used to be yours.’
Marietta conceded his point with a nod. ‘Although my father was a prince, so it’s slightly different. But is Sienna happy with that?’
‘She will be.’
‘And she doesn’t love you?’
‘Of course not!’ And after the things he’d said to her today, he’d be surprised if she was even talking to him. He flinched when he remembered. He shouldn’t have likened her to a high-class whore. She hadn’t deserved that.
‘Just as well.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Only this, big brother. Our mother adored our father and all for nothing because he was incapable of returning that love. She died lonely and bitter because of it. So if you care at all for this woman, don’t let that happen to her.’
He had to prise his teeth apart in order to speak. ‘It won’t.’
Rafe found her in her room, collecting up her damp towels, freshly showered and smelling like a new morning after a night of rain showers. And even in the jeans and singlet top she’d changed into, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail behind her head, she looked so beautiful that the desire to possess her swelled up large in his chest.