One Summer at The Villa: The Prince's Royal Concubine / Her Italian Soldier / A Devilishly Dark Deal

“Am I?” He stood and moved away without waiting for a reply.

Antonella watched numbly as he disappeared through the door that connected the bedroom with the rest of the house. Then she looked down. And realized that he’d turned the magazine the correct way.

She’d been staring at it upside down the entire time.

By the time Cristiano returned a short while later, she’d managed to calm her racing heart and jangled nerves. She’d tried reading a book, but the power had blinked a few times and then snapped out, leaving her in the dark. She’d fumbled for the candle she’d placed on the table nearby, cursing softly when it rolled away and fell.

Before she could get down on her hands and knees to find it, Cristiano was there, shining a flashlight into the darkness. He retrieved one of the candles from the stash at the foot of the bed and lit it, then switched off the light. A second later, he was stretched out on the bed, leaning against the headboard with his hands behind his head. The pose molded the shirt to his chest, bulged the muscles in his arms. Made him seem so delicious and sexy.

Antonella crossed her arms over her body protectively and concentrated on the flickering candle where he’d set it on the bedside table. Anything except look at him.

“It will be a very long night if we ignore each other,” Cristiano finally said.

She forced herself to gaze at him evenly. “It’s already been a long day. Interminable.”

“Yes.”

Her pride pricked at the idea that he found her company tiresome. Why? Wasn’t that what she’d just intimated about him?

“Tell me about Monteverde,” he said, and her jaw threatened to fall to the floor.

“Why?” she asked a moment later, suspicion curling around the edges of her awareness.

“Because we are alone, the night is long, and it’s a good topic.”

“Why not tell me about Monterosso?”

He shrugged. “If you wish.”

For the next twenty minutes, he told her about his country—about the green mountains, the black cliffs, and the azure ocean. She found herself listening intently, nodding from time to time as she realized how much Monterosso sounded like Monterverde. When he talked of cool forests and bubbling mountain streams, she could picture them perfectly. When he spoke of the dryness along the coast, the cacti and aloe plants, she felt as if she’d stood beside him and looked upon the same things.

“It’s amazing,” she said when he finished.

“I think so, yes.”

Antonella shook her head. “No, I mean it sounds exactly like Monteverde.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You are surprised? We were a single country once.”

“And you would wish it so again,” she said, inflecting her words with steel.

“Have I said that?”

“You didn’t have to. It’s what your people have wanted for years.”

“Is this your opinion, or what you’ve been told by your father and brother?” His voice was diamond-edged.

“If it’s not what Monterosso wants, why must we defend our border? Why are your tanks and guns there? Your soldiers?”

“Because yours are.”

My God, men were insane. Was this the sort of circular logic that had caused so many lives to be lost over the years? While the solution seemed obvious, she knew it wasn’t. “Then why don’t we both turn around and go home?”

“Because we don’t trust each other, Antonella.”

She sat up straighter in her chair. “But we could sign treaties, pledge to cooperate—”

His laughter startled her. “Do you not think this has been tried?”

“It hasn’t been tried since Dante became King. We have only the ceasefire—”

“How would this change anything? He is a Romanelli.”

“What is that supposed to mean? That he is untrustworthy? That we are not as good as the di Savarés?”

“It means that your word and your treaties have not been enough thus far. Why should we believe your brother any different from your father?”

She ached to tell him. And yet she couldn’t. Because it was unexplainable. And private. No, what she and Dante had endured wouldn’t convince this man. And there was every danger it would only reinforce his beliefs. Abuse often turned out abusers. For all Cristiano knew, Dante could be just like his predecessor.

“He simply is,” she said firmly.

“Yes,” Cristiano sneered, “this is quite enough to convince me of Monteverdian sincerity.”

“You have yet to prove you are any better. If you would turn your tanks around, pull back your soldiers—”

“And let you bomb innocent civilians?” Rage suddenly seemed to roll from him in a giant wave. It was so palpable she thought it would crush her. His expression was dark, hard.

Intimidating.

Her voice came out in a whisper in spite of her best effort to make it otherwise. “We don’t use bombs against civilians. We only defend ourselves against Monterossan hostility—”

His laughter was so sharp and bitter it sliced her off in mid-sentence. She stared at him, at his jaw that had turned to granite. At the bleakness he failed to hide.

A moment later, he shoved both hands through his hair, blew out a hard breath. “You are quite wrong about that,” he said, his voice so utterly controlled it chilled her. He’d gone from hot rage to cold hatred in the space of a breath.

“I-I don’t believe you.” But her heart pounded in her throat. Could it be true? Her father had been capable of ordering such cruelty. More than capable. She thought of Dante’s pet gerbil, swallowed. No, don’t let me cry again. Not now.

“It is quite true, I assure you,” he said, his demeanor smooth. She had the impression he’d just fought a battle with himself and won. A dark, cold battle that she didn’t understand.

“How do you know this? How can you prove it?”

“I don’t have to prove it. I carry the results in my heart every day of my life.”

“You were…hurt?” She couldn’t imagine it. His body, as much as she’d seen of it, was perfect. If he’d been hurt, surely there would be signs of it. Or had he lost someone?

“My wife, Principessa. She was killed on an aid mission to the border. A roadside bomb blew up under the truck she was riding in.”

Her chest squeezed tight as her lungs refused to work properly. “I’m sorry,” she managed. She’d known his wife died shortly after their marriage, but she’d never known how it happened. She’d only had true freedom of information for a few months now. Before that, her father had tightly controlled the news she’d been exposed to.