Star-Crossed Sweethearts / Secret Prince, Instant Daddy!: Star-Crossed Sweethearts / Secret Prince, Instant Daddy!

Atlanta made a tsking noise. “Obviously you’re not up on your tabloid reports. Zeke proposed dozens of times during the course of our relationship. Actually, begged is how I believe he put it. He wanted to marry me. He wanted to have a family with me. Heartless witch that I am, I repeatedly turned him down. I didn’t want a husband and I didn’t want babies. My figure is my fortune, you know. I’m nothing without a twenty-four-inch waist and flawless abs.”

He’d seen pictures of the abs in question. Still, he said, “You sell yourself short.”

She glanced over sharply, studied him for a moment. It might have been a trick of the light, but her eyes looked bright. “It doesn’t really matter now.”

The captain came on the public address system announcing the local time and temperature and the usual end-of-the-flight banter. Afterward, Angelo asked, “Should I apologize for prying?”

A ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Even without her usual crimson gloss, her lips were full and inviting. “Are you sorry?”

Since she was striving to remain upbeat, he decided to oblige her. “No. I’m too curious to be sorry. You’re quite an enigma.”

“Me?” She laughed. “Everybody knows everything there is to know about me.”

Did they? People thought they knew him, too. Since his injury, Angelo had begun to wonder if he knew himself.

Alex had assured Angelo that a driver would be waiting to take him to Monta Correnti. A rental car would be at his disposal in the village, but his brother figured Angelo would appreciate having someone else navigate the roads after a long flight. Alex had thought of everything, perhaps so that Angelo wouldn’t have any excuses for backing out.

Atlanta had someone meeting her as well. Even so, they stayed together after deplaning.

“Want me to help you with your bags?” she asked.

“That’s supposed to be my line.”

She tilted her head to one side. “I’m not the one with a bum shoulder.”

“It’s fine,” he protested through gritted teeth.

Her brows rose but she said nothing else as they waited to spot their bags on the conveyor belt. One by one, Atlanta’s four pieces of matching designer luggage came around before Angelo’s large suitcase. She snatched them off before he could offer.

“I thought you said you were going to be in Italy for less than a month?” he drawled as a bushy-haired porter hurried over with a cart. “From the amount of luggage, it looks like you’re planning to move here.”

“I like clothes and shoes.”

“That’s obvious. You could outfit the population of a small country.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry. I’m incredibly selfish when it comes to my shoes. I don’t share.”

“How many pairs did you bring?”

“Twelve, not counting the ones I’m wearing.” She looked inordinately pleased when she announced, “Almost all of them have heels less than one inch.”

“No stilettos?”

“Not a one.”

“Damn.” He spied his bag and moved closer to the conveyor to snatch it. She was at his side in an instant, helping him heft the bulky suitcase off.

“I’ve got it,” he grumbled.

“Of course you do, big he-man that you are. You don’t need anybody.”

Angelo laughed, even if in truth he didn’t want to need anybody. He’d learned a long time ago to rely on himself. The only people he trusted to help him out when needed were his twin and, of course, his teammates.

Assuming they were together, the bushy-haired porter added Angelo’s bag to the cart stacked with Atlanta’s.

“We’re going to owe him a really big tip when it’s all said and done,” Angelo muttered as the man started off toward Customs.

“It’s not like we can’t afford it.”

No indeed. She was one of the few women he’d ever met who actually made as much money as he did, perhaps more, since he didn’t know what her cut had been on her past few movies.

Still, he had enough pride that he said, “I’ll get this one since you picked up the tab in the lounge.”

“Grazie mille,” she said, batting her lashes at him for effect.

After they cleared Customs, she dropped the sunglasses back onto the bridge of her nose. Before landing, she’d pulled her hair back into a simple ponytail. Along with the navy dress and flat-heeled shoes, she hardly screamed high-maintenance Hollywood. But such raw beauty rarely went unnoticed. As low-key as she was trying to be, as soon as they passed into the main terminal she attracted a lot of attention and some of it was exactly the kind she wanted to avoid.

A couple of photographers began shouting her name. Even prefaced with the courtesy title of Signorina the intrusion was rude, especially since it was followed by a succession of near-blinding flashes. Atlanta held up her handbag as a shield. Just that quickly, the witty and surprisingly candid woman with whom he’d spent the past several hours was swallowed up by a monster of her own making.

Fame. Sometimes it grew fangs and bit you.

Angelo waited for the photographers to holler out his name, too. It was their lucky day. The parasites had a pair of American celebrities in their viewfinders. He patted his pockets in search of his Oakleys. He was as used to dealing with them as Atlanta was. On any given day, half a dozen of their ilk stood guard outside his Manhattan apartment building, their digital cameras trained on the exits in the hope of snapping a money shot or two for the tabloids.

“I’m going to duck into the ladies’ room for a minute,” Atlanta whispered. “You go on ahead to your car. Tell the porter to wait there with my bags.”

“Divide and conquer?” he asked.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“See you in MC.”

She didn’t answer. They’d reached the ladies’ room and she hustled inside.

Angelo turned. He’d found his sunglasses but needn’t have bothered. With Atlanta gone, the paparazzi lowered their cameras. It came as a huge blow to realize that he hadn’t been recognized. Baseball was a largely American game, he reminded himself. Neither it nor its players resonated much outside the United States, and apparently that was true in Italy.

He should have been relieved. It was a pain to be hounded by the paparazzi. Even so, he felt sucker-punched. Was this what his life would be like post-career? Would no one recognize him? Would no one care that for four consecutive seasons he’d led the league in runs batted in or that he was half a dozen homers from passing the current record? Would he return to the obscurity from which he’d come, a mere postscript in write-ups about the game that had literally saved his life?

The porter nudged him and said something in Italian. It was Angelo’s native tongue, but he remembered none of it even if he found the accent and cadence oddly comforting.

“Sorry. I only speak English,” he replied.

“Taxi?” the man said helpfully and pointed to an overhead sign designating the way to ground transportation.

“Ah, no. Someone is meeting me.”

Several of those waiting to welcome passengers were holding signs with names written on them. One was printed with Angelo’s. “My driver.”

“Signorina?” The porter glanced back to the rest-room door.