Forced Wife, Royal Love-Child(5)

And she was still sweating. It didn’t help that it was so hot today, especially out here on this rocky headland, where the effect of the hot Mediterranean sun was compounded by the way it bounced off the white painted walls that coiled along the narrow road up to the castle like a ribbon. And the castle up the top—the fairy-tale castle that rose out of the rock, ancient and weather-worn and beautiful, the fairy-tale castle now presided over by Prince Raphael, last of the long and illustrious line of Lombardi.

Prince Raphael. Oh, my God, she’d slept with a prince. Royalty. And she’d had no idea. But nobody had back then. It had only been in the days after he’d practically tossed her out of his room that the news of the discovery of a new-found prince for Montvelatte had broken. Sensational news that had rivalled the earlier news of the downfall of the then incumbent and his brother.

And it had seemed as if every newspaper, every magazine and every television programme had been full of the news, digging into the once buried past, and uncovering the story of the young nanny who’d become the Prince’s lover, only to be exiled with a young son and another baby on the way. The coronation that had followed had kept the story alive for weeks.

And his face had been everywhere she’d looked, so there was no hope of forgetting him during the day, no chance of escaping the face that haunted her in her dreams.

He was a prince!

No wonder he’d changed his mind about seeing her again. He would have known what that news report had meant—that he’d have even less reason to slum it with the likes of her.

Why would he, when he clearly had his pick of society’s brightest and prettiest? There’d been a constant stream of women being brought to the island in the past few days. Nothing had been said at the base—they knew that discretion was the better part of business success—but she knew from personal experience. Prince Raphael was a man of big appetites…

Her stomach churned, the taste of bile bitter in her mouth as she completed the preflight checklist. The sooner she was away from this island and the sooner there was no risk she would run into the man who’d so unceremoniously thrown her out of his life, then the sooner this damned queasiness would settle down. Ever since she’d been told she’d been rostered on for this assignment she’d felt physically ill. Montvelatte was the last place on earth she wanted to be. Knowing she’d just delivered his latest love interest made it doubly so.

Sienna yanked herself back from that thought with a mental slap to the head.

What was she thinking? Genevieve, or whatever her name was, was welcome to him. She was out of here.

There was the roar of another engine, the blast of horns and she turned to see a jeep screeching to a halt alongside the helipad in a spray of gravel and dust, and the churning in her gut took a turn for the worst. It didn’t get any better when four uniformed officers jumped out, gesturing to her to cut the rotors. This was supposed to be a simple drop-and-run. Surely there was no obscure paperwork she’d forgotten to complete?

She was making a move to open the door when it was pulled open for her from the other side. The officer saluted so properly that even over her own thumping heartbeat, Sienna imagined she could hear the snap of his heels clicking together. She’d seen that uniform before—in the footage of the former Prince and his brother being carted away—and she wasn’t at all sure that was a comforting thought.

‘Signorina Wainwright?’



Breath caught in Sienna’s lungs and gave birth to a new strain of fear. They knew her name?

She shook her head, removing her headset once again. ‘Y-yes,’ she stammered. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘There is no problem, I assure you,’ the officer told her in his richly accented English. ‘Please, if you would just step outside the aircraft,’ he added, offering her his hand to alight the helicopter. His words and actions were accompanied with a smile so seemingly genuine that for a moment she thought everything must be fine after all, that her most recent panic attack was unwarranted and that this was merely some kind of quaint formality nobody had thought to warn her about.

But once outside he made it clear that he expected her to keep moving. Towards the jeep.

Sienna stopped, the men either side of her coming to a halt also. ‘What’s going on?’

‘It is but a short trip to the Castello,’ he said, neatly sidestepping her question and throwing her thoughts into turmoil.

Her eyes swung up to the palace that sat atop the massive rock that made up this part of the island. It stared down at her with its thousand window eyes, and for the first time she didn’t notice the beauty of the ancient stone architecture with its arched windows and flag-topped turrets, but the thick walls and the fortifications all around that had protected it from invaders for centuries. This time the fairy-tale palace had disappeared, and it was the fortress that she noticed, the fortress she knew instinctively would be just as hard to escape from as to break into.

The fortress that contained the man she least wanted to see in the world.

Oh, no. No way was she going there.

She swallowed back on the sick feeling in a stomach that was once again threatening to unload its pitiful contents at any time, while the hot sun wrung even more perspiration from her nervous body. Her overalls stuck to her in all the wrong places, and sweat beads slid lazily along the loose curling tendrils at her fringe and neck.

‘Look, I don’t really have time for this. I have to get the chopper back to base. They’re expecting me.’ She cast a desperate look back over her shoulder towards the helicopter, frowning when she noticed that the remaining two officers had taken up guard duty in front of the chopper, strategically placing themselves between her and the door and effectively cutting off that means of escape. Even if she could have outrun these two beside her.

‘Please,’ the officer urged, gesturing towards the jeep.

Finding what little shred of courage she still had left, she kicked up her chin. ‘And if I insist on being allowed to leave? If I refuse to accompany you to the palace?’

He smiled again, but this time it was a little lighter on the charm, a little heavier on the menace. ‘In that unfortunate case,’ he said, adding a little bow, ‘you would leave me with no choice. I would be forced to arrest you.’





CHAPTER THREE



SIENNA had had enough. For almost three hours she’d been stuck inside this drawing room, prowling the walls holding her prisoner like a caged lion at the zoo.

It didn’t matter that the drawing room was the size of a small country and that the accoutrements, the Renaissance tapestries gracing the walls, the crystal chandeliers and fine furniture, made it much more pleasant than any zoo enclosure she’d ever seen. Nor did the constant visitors make a shred of difference, bustling in and out and offering her refreshments and any number of pastries or other tasty delights that she desired.

She wasn’t about to be taken in by window dressing. The now familiar maroon-clad guards she’d spied perched at their posts outside the door every time they’d opened had made it more than clear that she was not some welcome guest, but a prisoner in a cage, albeit a very gilded one.

And while at first she’d been nervous, anxious about having to confront Rafe again and certain that he must be the one behind her detention, after waiting this long with no information she was beyond nervousness and frustration. She was furious.

Not one person she’d met here—was able to tell her exactly why she was being kept against her will or when she would be allowed to leave.



The bearer of the pastries had waved her questions aside with a sweep of a hand and had seemed insulted she hadn’t been more interested in tasting the proffered wares. The tea bearer had pretended he was ignorant of both English and French and had looked benignly down his crooked nose at her when she’d attempted her rudimentary Italian.

She had a helicopter that had been due back at base hours ago and nobody had allowed her anywhere near a phone to let them know she’d been detained. A missing helicopter. A missing pilot with it. And while the fragrant sweet tea had settled her stomach, it would take something a lot stronger, if not a minor miracle, to settle her nerves. Her earlier nausea was nothing to how she felt now. She would lose her job over this for sure.

Then she heard it, the familiar whine of helicopter engines leading up to that whump whump of the rotors. And not just any helicopter. In fact, if she didn’t know better…

She ran, her heart sinking with every step, to the large arched windows overlooking the helipad in time to see the helicopter rise up and turn to point out to sea.

Her helicopter!

‘No!’ she cried, slapping her open palm on the window fruitlessly, knowing there was no chance that whoever was flying the craft could see her, but continuing to slam her hand against the glass anyway as the helicopter accelerated away, already shrinking into the distance.

And mere anger turned incendiary.

There were two doors into the room—one she figured led to the kitchens from where the coffee and cakes had issued. She ran instead to the other, the large double doors she’d entered through and that she knew led to the entrance lobby, the same doors that had remained firmly closed against her until now. She pulled with all her weight against their handles, banging on the wood with her closed fists when she found them locked. ‘That’s my helicopter. Let me out!’ When the doors stayed closed, she rattled the handles some more, her fury rising further as they refused to budge. She cursed out loud. Why the hell wouldn’t they let her out?