Defying the Prince

‘I was talking about the jets.’ He missed it, he realised, more than he would have anticipated given the years that had passed. ‘And we were talking about your engagement—’

‘No, you were delivering dire warnings. Have you ever trusted a woman?’

Just the once. ‘Do I look like a fool?’

He knew that everyone he met had an agenda. He knew that those who spoke to him, approached him, flirted with him, all of them were interested in what he was and what he could do for them, not who he was. As a result, he trusted no one. And he especially didn’t trust the Jackson swaying seductively on the stage. She looked as if she’d just dragged herself from a wild night in someone’s bed and hadn’t even bothered to brush her hair. Her raw sex appeal jarred in the atmosphere of rigid restraint and Matteo wondered if he was the only person in the room with a sick feeling of foreboding. Yes, the king wanted his eldest son living in Santina and taking up his responsibilities as Crown Prince, but did he want it so badly he was prepared to sanction a liaison with a family like the Jacksons? On the surface the public was in love with the idea of a prince marrying a commoner, but how much would they love it when the whole thing came crashing down?

He wasn’t even aware of the tension in his shoulders until he felt the dull ache spread through his muscles.

This felt so wrong.

Experience told him that the girl on the stage was the worst kind of opportunist. ‘She is loud and attention seeking. She looks like a ripe plum that’s going to burst out of its skin at any minute.’ He switched from strawberries to plums because he disliked plums. It was a more comfortable analogy.

‘But very sexy.’

It seemed like an odd comment from a man at his own engagement party and Matteo would have said more but at that moment he saw a group of Jacksons gathered round a priceless portrait and winced as he heard the oohs and aahs.

‘They’re trying to guess the price of the Holbein.’

As one of them commented in a loud voice that the colours were a bit dull, he closed his eyes briefly, wondering whether there was any way of stopping this before it exploded. ‘They don’t know Michelangelo from Michael Jackson. Is she really going to be your mother-in-law?’ Watching Chantelle Jackson peer at a priceless vase, Matteo shook his head in disbelief. ‘Any moment now she is going to drop it into her bag. And no doubt it will be for sale on the internet on Monday.’ Suddenly he wished he had a closer relationship with Alex. ‘You were supposed to be marrying Anna. What happened?’

‘I fell in love.’

Something about that bland response didn’t ring true and Matteo wondered whether this engagement was an act of rebellion on Alex’s part. ‘Perhaps you should take more time?’

‘I know exactly what I’m doing.’ He paused. ‘And Chantelle won’t be my mother-in-law. She is Allegra’s stepmother.’

It seemed like an odd comment. Matteo was about to ask a few probing questions when he saw that the strawberry girl was now centre stage.

And suddenly those knowing eyes were fixed on him as she started singing a song she dedicated to her sister, a song about getting your guy, which was all too appropriate, Matteo thought.

In the world of social climbing his brother had to be the equivalent of Mount Everest.

No wonder the Jacksons were celebrating.

As she leaned forward and sang cheekily into the microphone he saw movement out of the corner of his eye as Bobby Jackson, an ex-footballer whose colourful and varied love life was catalogued by the tabloids, tried to remove his daughter from the limelight.

Matteo watched with mixed feelings.

It was definitely time someone prised her away from the microphone, but the fact that it was the flamboyant, scandal-ridden Bobby simply magnified the transgression.

‘Come on, love.’ Bobby Jackson made a clumsy grab for his daughter’s arm but she shrugged him off and he almost lost his balance. ‘Give the microphone back, there’s a good girl.’ His face was the colour of a Santina sunset. The deep hue could have been the result of intense embarrassment but Matteo suspected it was more likely to have been caused by an overindulgence of the very best champagne. Bobby Jackson was too thick-skinned to suffer from embarrassment. Matteo knew he’d dragged himself up from nothing and was determined that his family should do the same, although apparently that ambition didn’t stretch to encouraging his daughter to sing.

Matteo glanced at his own father and saw that the king’s features were as rigid and inflexible as one of Michelangelo’s statues.

‘Izzy!’ Bobby made another abortive grab for his daughter. ‘Not now. Best behaviour and all that.’

Izzy.

Of course.

Matteo realised where he’d seen her before. He recognised her now as the five-minute wonder who had exploded onto the manufactured pop scene after appearing on a reality TV singing show. Izzy Jackson. Hadn’t she hit the headlines for wearing a bikini on stage? Basically for doing everything but singing. Presumably she had a voice like a crow with a throat infection, like most of the wannabes that warbled and croaked their way onto people’s TV screens, which was why he remembered nothing about her singing.

Even her own family didn’t want her to sing in public, he thought, watching as her father tried to drag her from the stage.

It was like pulling a mule. She dug her legs in and stood, chin raised, eyes flashing as she carried on belting out the tune.

It was clear that she thought this was her opportunity to shine and she wasn’t going to relinquish it easily, a fact that raised Matteo’s radar for trouble to full alert status.

‘Maybe we should turn this whole farce into a reality TV show,’ he drawled to his brother. ‘Celebrity Love Palace? I’m a Prince, Get Me Out of Here?’

‘Do me a favour? Get her out of here. The focus of attention has to be on my engagement.’ Alex spoke with an urgency that rang alarm bells in Matteo’s brain.

‘Are you going to tell me why?’

‘Just do it, Matt. Please.’

Without further question Matteo handed his champagne to a passing footman.

‘You owe me. And I will be calling in the favour.’

With that he strode across the room to separate trouble from the microphone.

‘He’s the only one for yooooou …’ sang Izzy in her rich alto voice, pleased with herself for hitting a fiendishly difficult note right at the top of her range and furious when her father tried to prise her away from the microphone.

Wasn’t he the one who was always telling her that it was up to her to make the most of opportunities? Well, this was a massive opportunity. She’d planned it carefully. Her Goal of the Day was to sing the song she’d written to the prince. Not the smiling, charming heir to the throne that her sister had snagged, but his brother, Matteo Santina, the Dark Prince, otherwise known to a fascinated public as Moody Matteo because he was so deadly serious. Deadly serious and deadly sexy, Izzy thought dreamily. He was tall, dark, gorgeous and very, very rich. But she wasn’t interested in any of those attributes. She wasn’t interested in his spectacular bone structure or his royal heritage. Nor did she care about his hard athletic body or his reputed skills as a pilot. And although the romantic side of her was mildly jealous of her sister’s whirlwind romance, she wasn’t the least interested in the whole marry-a-prince fantasy. No, there was just one thing she cared about and that was the extent of his influence—in particular, his role as president of the Prince’s Fund. In that role he had overall responsibility for the famous Rock ‘n’ Royal concert, a globally televised live fundraising event that was only weeks away.

Singing at that concert would be all her dreams rolled into one. It would kick-start her dead career.

Which was why today’s goal was to make sure he heard her.

Shaking off her father, she increased the volume, but the prince was now in conversation with his brother, the heir to the throne and her sister’s fiancé.

Izzy felt a frantic moment of desperation followed by a sharp thud of disappointment. She’d been so sure that this would be her big moment. She’d glugged down the champagne to give herself the courage to take over the stage. She’d imagined heads turning and jaws dropping as people heard her voice. She’d imagined her whole life changing in an instant. Hard work and perseverance was going to finally pay off.

Heads were turning. Jaws were dropping. But Izzy hadn’t drunk so much champagne that she didn’t realise her being the centre of attention had nothing to do with her voice.

They were looking at her because she’d made a fool of herself. Again.

They were mocking her.

So, in fact, her life hadn’t changed at all because, as usual, she was on the receiving end of ridicule. Each time she dragged herself back onto her feet she was knocked over again, and each time she emerged just a little more bruised and battered.

The confidence-boosting buzz from the champagne was morphing into a horrid spinning feeling.

Aware of the unsmiling disapproval on the aristocratic faces around her, she decided that Allegra had to be seriously in love if she was prepared to put up with this. As far as Izzy could see, marrying a prince promised about as interesting a future as being stuffed and put in a glass case in a museum for everyone to stare at. What was that called? Taxi-something or other. And she was so hungry, and she could never think properly when she was hungry. Why on earth weren’t they serving proper food? She would have killed for a bacon roll and all they’d given her since she’d arrived was champagne, champagne and more champagne.

The royals certainly knew how to drink. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to eat which probably explained why they were all so thin. And why she’d broken her golden rule and drunk too much.