Her Return to King's Bed

Her father still considered it a tragic waste of her talents.

While her mind raced, she watched her father settle on the chaise and stare off at the resort spread below.

Rico had built something amazing here, she thought, but that didn’t surprise her. He was a man who never settled for less than the best, no matter the circumstances. She’d learned that when she first met him so long ago in Cancún.

At his hotel, Castello de King—King’s Castle—Teresa had been one of the innumerable chefs in the immense hotel kitchens. In her first real job after culinary school, she was excited simply to be a part of the hustle that took place in that amazing kitchen. Teresa had believed that working in that hotel was the best thing that had ever happened to her—until she met Rico himself.

She’d worked late one night and before heading to her apartment, Teresa had treated herself to a little relaxation. She’d carried a glass of wine out to one of the beach lounge chairs and sat to enjoy the night, the moon on the water and the lovely sensation of being absolutely alone.

Then he had appeared, walking along the water’s edge, moonlight shining on his dark hair and making the white shirt he wore seem to glow. He’d worn tan slacks and his bare feet had kicked through the water with every step. She couldn’t seem to look away from him. He was tall and dark and as he came closer, she realized he was gorgeous. He was also her employer. Rico King, playboy, gazillionaire, hotelier and at the moment, as alone as she.

In an instant, her mind replayed that scene.

He glanced up as if sensing her gaze on him and when he saw her, he smiled and headed for her. “I thought I was alone on the beach.”

“So did I,” she managed to say.

“Shall we be alone together?”

Teresa still remembered that faintest hint of an accent coloring his words. His eyes were a piercing blue, his hair as black as the night and his smile was temptation personified. She couldn’t have said no to him even if she had tried—which she hadn’t. Rico had sat on the sand beside her and they’d shared her glass of wine and spent the next couple of hours talking.

Teresa came out of the memory and mentally warned herself to stop reliving the past. To stop indulging in thoughts of him and what might have been. She was here on Tesoro—in Rico’s hotel—for one reason only: to get her family out of there before Rico discovered them. If only her father had listened to her. But Nick Coretti was a force of nature and when the prize was rich, no risk was too much.

Rico would find them. Teresa knew that man too well to think that he would allow jewel thieves to operate freely in his place. It was only a matter of time. Which meant that she had to get the Coretti family off Tesoro. Fast.

Teresa followed her father to the terrace. The sunlight was bright, the sky a brilliant blue and a soft breeze carried the scent of tropical flowers as it lifted her hair off her neck.

“Papa, you don’t know Rico like I do. He will catch you.”

Her father snorted, then shook his head and chuckled. “Bellissima, no Coretti has ever been caught. We are too good at what we do.”

True, she thought, but the Corettis had never come up against an adversary like Rico before, either. Yes, various police forces from several countries had tried and failed to pin a crime on the Corettis. But their interest in the family of thieves had been purely professional.

For Rico, this would be personal.

“Papa, you have to trust me on this.” She laid one hand on his arm. “Please, let’s get off the island while we still can.”

He clucked his tongue at her. “You have made far too much of this man you once cared for. Always you believe he is searching for you. Searching for us.”

“He did search for me, remember?”

Nick waved that away. “You pricked his pride when you left him, my darling. It is understandable. No man would care for losing such a lovely woman from his life. But it’s now five years. I believe it’s time you stop worrying about this man.”

Five years or five minutes. Rico was the kind of man who never left a woman’s thoughts.

Besides, her father didn’t know everything that had happened between her and Rico. Some things she hadn’t been able to share, not even with her family.

Watching her father now, looking like the lord of the manor as he stared out over the luxurious view spread below him, she thought that under any other circumstances, he and Rico might have been friends. They were two of the most stubborn, willful men she had ever known.

And realizing that meant she had to admit she was fighting a losing battle. Dominick Coretti would never leave a job half-finished. And now that he had begun to infiltrate the guests at the Castle, he wouldn’t leave until he was good and ready.

Which made him a sitting duck for Rico. Every hotelier in the world knew the Corettis. They weren’t invisible. They were simply so good at what they did, there was never any evidence against them. They were high profile, wealthy and they didn’t hide in out-of-the-way spots. Nick Coretti, like all of those who came before him, believed in living his life to the fullest. The fact that he did it with other people’s money didn’t change anything.

Ordinarily Teresa might have worried that coming here herself would give up the game because Rico would notice her. But her family was here. In plain sight. And now diamonds were missing. Rico would put the two together.

Her father stood, poured more champagne and stepped to the wrought-iron lace of the balcony railing. He might have been enjoying the view, but Teresa knew him well enough to know that he was looking not at the resort, but at its guests. He would be scoping them out, looking for his next target—assuming he hadn’t already chosen one.

For all his charm, Dominick wasn’t a man to be crossed. As head of the Coretti family, he might as well have been a general ordering his troops around. When he made a plan, that was it. The rest of the family fell in line.

Except for Teresa. As a kid, she’d been intrigued by the Coretti family legacy. As a teenager, she’d begun wishing that they could stay put in their house outside Naples. That she could belong, instead of traipsing all over Europe. They never stayed in one place more than a month and only came back to their home base occasionally, so it was impossible to make friends. Teresa and her brothers had been homeschooled and along with the usual—history, math and such—had taken classes on lock picking, safecracking and forgery. By the time the Coretti children were adults, they were each prepared to carry on the family dynasty.

That was when Teresa had taken her stand. Her father had raged and argued, her mother had wept and her brothers hadn’t really believed she would do it. But in the end, Teresa had become the one Coretti in generations who hadn’t joined the family business. Which made her a puzzle to her brothers and an irritation to her father.

“You’re making too much of this, Teresa,” he chided now with a sad shake of his head. “This is no different from any other job, and when we have finished, we will be gone. With no one the wiser.”

“You’re wrong, Papa,” she argued again. “You don’t know Rico as I do. He’s a dangerous man.”

Dangerous to her, anyway.

That got Nick’s attention. “Did this man harm you in some way? If he did—”

“No.” She interrupted him quickly. The problem, she thought, was that the Coretti family had a history with Rico that her father knew nothing about. And now wasn’t the time to tell the story. “He didn’t hurt me. But Papa, he won’t allow thieves to operate in his place. He’ll find you and when he does...”

“What can he do?” Nick laughed a little and sipped at his champagne. “He will have no proof of anything. You should know better, Teresa. The Coretti family is not so easy to catch.”

“Obviously it is not as difficult as you might wish.” A deep, familiar voice spoke up from directly behind her.

Teresa went absolutely still.

She would know that voice anywhere.

With a weird mixture of dread and anticipation, she slowly turned and looked into the eyes of Rico King.

Two

“What’s the meaning of this?” the older man in the room demanded, striding in from the terrace to face Rico. “Who are you? What are you doing in my suite?”

“Papa,” Teresa said, rising from her chair, “this is Rico King.”

“Ah,” Nick mused with a half smile. “Our host. Still, this doesn’t give you the right to intrude uninvited.”

Rico steamed silently and hated the fact that he had to force his gaze away from Teresa’s to meet her father’s. The glint in the other man’s eyes told Rico the older Coretti had known exactly who Rico was. This was all part of the game. “The fact that you’re a thief on my property gives me all of the rights I need.”

“Thief?” The older man bristled and puffed up until his chest was so full of air, Rico wouldn’t have been surprised to see him lift off the floor and float about the room.

“Papa, please.” Teresa stepped in between the two men like a referee interrupting a prizefight. Facing Rico, she said, “We’ll leave. Right away.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he told her and felt that bubble of righteous anger fuel him again.