Royally Bedded, Regally Wedded

She stared bleakly out over the room. Deliberately, she forced herself to think instead of feel.

It makes no difference. Once all the fuss in the news has died down, we can just go back home. Everything will be the same again. I just have to wait it out, that’s all.

Beneath her hand, she could feel Ben start to stir and wake. A rush of emotion went through her.

Nothing would hurt Ben. Nothing. She would keep him safe always. Nothing on this earth would ever come between her and the son she adored with all her heart. Ever.

CHAPTER THREE

‘GOOD morning.’

Rico walked into the drawing room. Ben was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, occupied with a pile of brightly coloured building blocks. His aunt was beside him. He nodded brief acknowledgement of her, then turned his attention to Ben.

‘What are you making?’ he asked his nephew.

‘The tallest tower in the world.’ Ben announced. ‘Come and see.’

Rico did not need an invitation. As his eyes had lit on his nephew, his heart had squeezed. Memories flooded back in. He could remember Paolo being that age.

A shadow fleetingly crossed his eyes. Paolo had been different from Luca and himself. As his adult self, he knew why. Luca had been born the heir. The firstborn Prince, the Crown Prince, the heir apparent, destined to rule San Lucenzo just as their father, Prince Eduardo, had been destined to inherit the throne from his own father a generation earlier. For eight hundred years the Ceraldis had ruled the tiny principality, which had escaped conquest by any of the other Italian states, or even the invading foreign powers that had plagued the Italian peninsula throughout history. Generation after generation of reigning princes had kept San Lucenzo independent—even in this age of European union the principality was still a sovereign state. Some saw it as a time-warped historical anomaly, others merely as a tax haven and a luxury playground for the very rich. But to his father and his older brother it was their inheritance, their destiny.

And it was an inheritance that would always need protection. Not, these days, against foreign powers, or any territorial interests of the Italian state—relations with Italy were excellent. What made San Lucenzo safe was continuity. The continuity of its ruling family. In many ways the principality was the personal fiefdom of the Ceraldis, and yet it was because of that that it retained its independence. Rico accepted that. Without the Ceraldis it would surely have been merged into Italy, just as all the earlier duchies and city states and papal territories had been during the great Risorgimento of the nineteenth century, that had freed Italy from foreign oppression, and united it as a nation.

The Ceraldis were essential to San Lucenzo, and for that reason, it was essential that every reigning prince had an assured heir apparent.

And—Rico’s mouth tightened—that the heir apparent had a back up in case of emergency.

The traditional ‘heir and a spare’—with himself as the spare.

It was what he had been all his life, growing up knowing that he was simply there in case of disaster. To assure continuity of the Ceraldi line.

But Paolo—ah, Paolo had been different. He had been special to his parents because he’d been an unexpected addition, coming several years after their two older sons. Paolo had had no dynastic function, and so he had been allowed merely to be a boy. A son. A golden boy whose sunny temper had won round even his strait-laced father and his emotionally distant mother.

Which was why his premature death had been all the more tragic, all the more bitter.

Rico hunkered down beside his nephew, taking scant notice of the way his aunt immediately shrank away. Yes, Paolo’s son. No doubt about it. No DNA tests would be required; his paternity was undeniable, blazing from every feature. Perhaps there might be a little of his birth mother about him, but one look at him told the world that he was a Ceraldi.

Benedict. That was what he’d been called. And it was a true name for him.

Blessed.

His heart gave that familiar catch again. Yes, he was blessed, all right. He didn’t know it yet, but he would. And he was more than blessed—he was a blessing himself.

Because, beyond all the publicity and press coverage and gossip that was going to explode at any moment now, the boy was going to be seen as the blessing he was.

The final consolation to his parents for the son they had lost so tragically.

Lizzy moved backwards across the carpet and lifted herself into a nearby armchair. She had hoped, at the fact that she and Ben had had the breakfast room to themselves, that it meant Prince Enrico had gone.

She wished he had.

She felt excruciatingly awkward with him there. She tried not to look at him, but it was hard not to feel intensely aware of his presence in the room. Even without a drop of royal blood in him he would have been impossible to ignore.

By day he seemed even taller, outlined against the light from the window behind him, and his startling good looks automatically drew her eyes. He was wearing designer jeans, immaculately cut, and an open-necked shirt, clearly handmade. Immediately she felt the full force of just how shabbily she was dressed in comparison. Her cheap chainstore skirt and top had probably cost less than his monogrammed handkerchief.

At least, apart from that brief initial nod in her direction, he wasn’t paying any attention to her. It was all on Ben, or helping him build his tower.

Resentment and embarrassment warred within her.

Ben was chattering away confidently, without a trace of shyness, his smiles sunny. He was like Maria in that, Lizzy knew. Hindsight over the years since her terrible death had made things clearer to her. It had been a miracle that Maria’s sunny-tempered nature had not been warped by her upbringing. Despite the way her parents had doted on her, obsessed over her, she really had seemed to escape being spoilt. And yet, for all her sunny nature, she had known what she wanted, and what she’d wanted was to be a model, to live an exciting, glamorous life. And that was what she’d done, smiling happily, ignoring her parents’ dismay, and waltzing off to the life she’d wanted.

And the man she’d wanted.

Disbelief was etched through Lizzy for the thousandth time. That Maria had actually had an affair with Prince Paolo of San Lucenzo and none of them had known. Not even his family, let alone hers.

How had they managed it? He must have been very different from his brother. Even though she hadn’t recognised Enrico, she’d still heard of him—and of his reputation. The Playboy Prince. Her covert gaze rested on him a second. He certainly had the looks for it, all right. Tall, broad-shouldered, sablehaired, with strong, well-cut, aristocratic features.

And those eyes.

Dark, long-lashed, with flecks of gold in them if you looked deeply. Not that she could—or would.

She looked away. It was completely irrelevant what he looked like. It was nothing to do with her. All she had to be concerned about was how long she and Ben would have to hide here before they could go back home.

Ben had paused in his tower-building. He was looking curiously at his helper.

‘Are you really my uncle?’

Immediately Lizzy stiffened.

‘Yes,’ he answered. He spoke in a very matter of fact way. ‘You can call me Tio Rico. That means Uncle Rico. My brother was your father. But he died. It was in the car crash with your mother.’

Ben nodded. ‘I was still growing in her tummy. Then I came out, and she died.’

The Prince’s eyes were carefully watching his nephew. Lizzy could see as she held her breath.

Please, please don’t say anything about the royalty stuff. Please.

There was no point Ben knowing. None at all. It wouldn’t make sense to him, wouldn’t mean anything. One day, when he was much older, she would have to tell him, but till then it was an irrelevance.

Then, to her relief, Ben himself changed the subject.

‘We’ve finished the tower,’ he announced. ‘What shall we make next?’

He seemed to take it for granted his helper would stick around.

But the Prince got to his feet.

‘I’m sorry, Ben. I don’t have time. I have to leave very soon, and first I must talk with your aunt.’