Princess From the Shadows

“I don’t see anything else that should concern me.”

“You don’t see how having a son concerns you?”

His eyebrows locked together. “He’s not my son.”

Carlotta’s heart twisted tight. It was a fair enough statement. Luca wasn’t Rodriguez’s son. And they’d been at his home for all of fifteen minutes. He wasn’t being cruel. Still, it felt a little cruel. “No, I know. But he is a child, and if you’re going to be my husband he will be your stepson, and that means some of the responsibility …”

“He has a nanny?”

“Yes. She had to stay behind for a couple of days but …”

“In that case, I see my responsibility will be limited.”

Anger burned in her, threatening to swallow her whole. “And will it be the same for your children? Because if not, you and I have no more to say to each other. Luca is my son. He’s my world and if you—”

“Yes. It will be the same for our child. I don’t intend to have any more than is required.”

“If we have a girl?”

“Then we will have to have more, I suppose.”

“I don’t … I don’t even know how to have this discussion with you,” she said, panic clawing at her stomach. How could she stand here talking children with this stranger? Was she really going to marry this man?

Yes. Because the other option was going back to her father, standing in that spot in his office and telling him, yet again, how badly she’d failed the Santina family. She couldn’t do it. The guilt would consume her. She lived with enough guilt. No sense in adding to it.

But one thing she had to be sure of. For Luca. And if Rodriguez couldn’t handle it, she would walk away, no matter how disappointed her father was. No matter how much compound interest in guilt it earned her.

“Will you adopt him?”

Rodriguez stiffened, his posture totally rigid. “What?”

“Will you adopt Luca? Give him your name. The same name I will have. The same name his halfbrother or -sister will have. Will you make him a part of this family? Because if not, I’ll walk away now.”

A muscle in Rodriguez’s jaw twitched. “I cannot name him as my heir.”

“I don’t expect you to. But I cannot have him be alone in that way.” Just the thought of it made her throat ache, made it get unbearably tight. “I need him to know that he has a father. That he isn’t the only one who isn’t a part of a family.”

“Having a father can be vastly overrated,” Rodriguez said, his voice rough.

“Give him your name. Your protection. And I will marry you. Be your wife in every sense. But you have to make my son yours, as much as your other children.”

She watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed, his eyes fixed on Luca. “Then I will adopt him after the marriage. All of this can be simple enough. We marry, we produce an heir. We lead separate lives.”

“Why?”

He looked past her, at Luca, who was now lying on his back looking at the sky. Then he looked back at her. “Because I’m not after a perfect, happy family. I want to do what is right by my country. What is necessary.”

“The way that disrupts your life the least?”

“And yours, Carlotta. You can keep living as you please here. You’ll have very little obligation to me. This marriage will be like a job you can clock in and out of. On for public appearances, off when it’s done.”

“So, I get lovers too, then?”

He shrugged. “What’s good for the goose.”

“Just not while we’re—”

“Mommy!”

She turned sharply and saw Luca, standing right at the edge of the terrace. He had a way of darting from place to place with no warning, her son. It had never really been a problem before.

“Yes, Luca?”

“I’m bored.”

“And tired I’ll bet,” she said.

“No.” He shook his head for emphasis, the serious expression on his face reminding her of her brother Alessandro. She was so thankful that he seemed to have none of his father in him.

“Yeah, I don’t believe that, figlio mio, but nice try,” she said, running her fingers through his dark hair, ruffling it.

“There is a room next to yours,” Rodriguez said, his manner suddenly awkward. Luca did seem to make him nervous and she wasn’t really sure why. “He can stay in there.”

“Good. If we could have his things brought in, that would be great.”

Rodriguez nodded curtly. “After he’s in bed, perhaps you and I can have dinner.”

Carlotta wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She liked having Luca as a buffer. It was much more comfortable.

Ironic that you feel the need for a buffer since you’re planning on having a baby with the man. No buffers then.

That thought had her hot all over. Well, not so much the pregnancy and childbirth aspect of it. She’d hated being pregnant. Every moment of it. It had all been sickness and sadness. A little bit of denial. Only when Luca was placed in her arms had everything truly come together. And from that moment, she’d been lost. Everything that had come before it—the pain, physical and emotional—had paled in comparison to the love that had flooded through her when she’d seen her son for the first time.

She’d already done it once without a man in the picture.

“Great. We can talk more then,” she said, wondering if any amount of talking would ever make the situation seem normal.

After spending a couple of hours getting Luca settled and conked out in his new room, Carlotta went back to her room and selected a nice dress from her collection of, admittedly, out-of-date clothing.

Clothes just didn’t matter when you hardly ever went anywhere and certainly never went on dates. As Queen of Santa Christobel she would need new clothing….

Oh. Madre di dio. She was going to be the Queen of Santa Christobel. She had sort of been stuck on being Rodriguez’s wife. On what it would mean to marry him and share his bed, and have his baby, and uproot her son from his home in Italy. She hadn’t even gotten to the queen bit.

She tugged the dress off the hanger and sat on the bed in nothing but her bra and panties, the plush, silken comforter billowing around her, enveloping her. She clutched the rust-colored dress to her chest and breathed in deeply, trying to stop the room from spinning.

This was not her life.

And what is? Self-imposed exile in Italy? Living it up, aren’t you, Carlotta?