His Royal Love-Child (7 page)

The fact that his need for her was so great made her feel warm deep down inside. That
had
to mean something.

“I cannot believe we just did that,” he said mirroring her thoughts.

“You started it.”

He laughed against her temple before turning her face up for a tender kiss of soul-stirring proportions. “You provoked me,
amante
,
do not try to deny it. You know I find you irresistible.”

“I didn’t mean to provoke
this
.”
And
she hadn’t. It would never have occurred to her to try to tease him into making love in the office.

She felt shattered by having fallen into it so completely herself. Was
she
a complete wanton, that the thought of her office door’s inability to lock hadn’t even entered her mind until afterward?
Or
depraved even?

“No doubt,” he mused against her face as he pressed another small kiss to her temple. “You are too innocent to take such an encounter in your stride.”

“And you are not?” she asked, the sensation of his body still locked to hers suddenly making her feel incredibly vulnerable.

“I left my rose-colored glasses of innocence behind me long ago, but if you are wondering if sex in the office is a norm for me, let me assure you that it is not.”

For some reason, that made her feel better than it should. His past shouldn’t matter, but knowing he broke his own rules for her did.

He pulled out of her, but did not move so she could close her legs. Instead he used tissues from the dispenser on her desk to clean her up and she found that act every bit as intimate as the one they had just performed and a lot more embarrassing.

“Marcello…”

“This will make it more comfortable for you.”

She didn’t know what else to say, so she choked out an uncomfortable, “Thank you.”

His blue gaze flicked to her face and he shook his head. “How can you blush now, when seconds ago you were receiving me into your body with a passion that could burn the sun?”

The heat of her blush intensified and she bit her lip. When he continued to look at her inquiringly, she admitted, “When you touch me, you make me forget everything else.”

He continued to care for her, his attention thorough. “I am touching you now.”

“It’s not the same.”

“No, it is not, but my body does not seem to know that.”

She looked down and realized that his arousal was growing again.

“You can’t want…not again!”

“I want. Do not mistake it…but I will not take again. Not here. I should not have kissed you that first time. I cannot believe we did this in your office. It was not my brightest moment.”

“You make it sound like you regret making love to me.”
And
while she agreed that their venue had not been as private as she would have liked, that implication still hurt.

After all, nothing bad had happened.

“I could never regret the kind of pleasure I find in your body.”

“Good.
Because I don’t regret it, either.”

He finished what he was doing and finally stepped back so she could bring her legs together.

He buttoned his shirt and tucked it into his slacks with quick, efficient movements. “You said that the first time we made love. Do you remember?”

“How could I forget?” she asked as she redid her bra and blouse, impatient to be put back together now that the passion no longer fogged her brain and she was all too aware of the risk of someone knocking on her office door.

“I was your first lover and you did not regret that, even though I could not make the promises that a virgin should expect her first lover to make.” He spoke while retying his tie and did not look at her.

“Are we going to get into that again?” Once had been plenty for her.

He sighed, the sound odd considering what they’d just been doing. “There is no need.”

“Right.”
Besides, promises or no promises, he’d shown her in many ways that she was special to him. She finished dressing, ruefully tossing her panties in the trash when she saw they could never be worn again. “Will I see you tonight?”

He tugged his tie into place and finger combed his hair, leaving his appearance as pristine and businesslike as before. “I have plans this evening.”

“Business plans?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

She frowned. “After our discussion last night, do you have to ask?”

He shook his head with impatience. “I am not going out with another woman.”

“So, it
is
business.”

He merely shrugged, which was not an answer. She was preparing to press for one when he picked her panties up out of the trash.

“What are you doing? Don’t tell me you want a souvenir.”

“Do not be crude.”

“Um…I’m not the one who just grabbed torn underwear from the circular file.”
But
she was the one blushing about it.
Aargh
! She really wasn’t in his league.

“I do not wish to leave them here for the cleaning crew to find. It could cause speculation.”

“And you don’t think the closed door will do that?”

“There are many reasons besides having wild, urgent sex on a desk to close an office door when I am meeting with an employee, but there are no reasons
but
sex to explain ripped lingerie in the waste bin.”

“I see. And of course it would be an absolute tragedy if someone were to guess that you’d been making love with me.”

It was his turn to frown. “We have been over this.”

“Yes.”

He pulled her to him, but she didn’t melt against him
like
she normally did.

He sighed again. “Believe it, or not, but I am protecting you as much as I am protecting myself. You do not know how vicious the scandal rags can be.”

Remembering the stories her former boyfriend had helped to dish up on her friend Tara and Angelo Gordon, she shook her head. “You’re wrong. I do know. I’m just not as scared of it as you are.”

She also remembered the way that Angelo had responded to the ugly stories. He had stood beside Tara, proud to be her lover.
But then
Angelo had wanted to marry Tara.

Marcello looked supremely offended. “I am not afraid.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Are you trying to pick an argument?” he asked in a tone that implied he couldn’t believe she’d want to after what they had just done.

And
she didn’t. Not really. “No.”

He picked up the report from the corner of her desk. “I must go.”

“Yes.”

“I do not like to see you like this.”

“Like what?”
Like she’d just been made love to and was still reeling from the aftereffects?

“Your sparkle is missing.”

She didn’t know what he was talking
about
. “I’m in work mode. I don’t sparkle at work.”

“This is not true. It was the life blazing from your golden eyes that first caught my interest.”

“Well, we both know it wasn’t my body,” she said in a poor attempt at a joke. Her curves were slight and her face was average…it still shocked her Marcello had chosen her for his lover, secret or not.

“Your body is perfect, or is it not obvious I think this?”

It
was
obvious. The one thing she knew with total certainty was that he found her irresistibly sexually attractive. She didn’t understand it and she wasn’t sure that was enough anymore.

If she couldn’t convince herself that he cared, at least a little, she’d fall into complete despair.

“If you don’t leave, there is going to be speculation about my job performance or lack thereof because of that shut door.”

He nodded, his eyes probing hers as if looking for answers. She had none for him. At least not right now…not here.

He stopped at the door. “I could come by later tonight.”

His offer shouldn’t have made her spirits lift, but even though it was such a small concession, it did.

“If you like.”

“I do like. I enjoy sleeping with you in my arms.”

“Even when we don’t make love?”
But
she knew the answer to that. He spent as many nights during her monthly as he did when she was available sexually.

“Even then, but tonight, there will be no barriers,” he said, showing that once again his mind was traveling the same path as hers.

Didn’t that kind of intimacy of thought mean something?

She could only pray it did because if she really was just a body in his bed, she didn’t think she’d survive the pain of that kind of reality.

L
IZZY
came by
Danette’s
office later that afternoon to ask if she wanted to go out to dinner to celebrate finishing the Cordoba project.

Danette
accepted without hesitation. “That sounds terrific.”

And
much better than spending another evening alone wondering what Marcello was doing that he couldn’t be with her.

“Where do you want to eat?”

“You choose.”

“No way.
This is your celebration.”

She named a restaurant that was one of her favorites. Marcello had introduced it to her. It was a small eatery run by a local family and the food was superb. Its ambience was hardly what a prince was used to and she’d often wondered if he took her more for the relative privacy it offered than even the excellent food. It definitely wasn’t the type of place where the paparazzi hung out to catch glimpses of the newsworthy.

If they tried, she had no doubt that Giuseppe, the owner, would have tossed them out with a few choice words.

When she arrived, she asked Giuseppe if
Lizzy
had already arrived.

“You are not eating with Principe
Tomasso
tonight?” he asked instead of answering.

“No.”

He frowned, his expression an odd one she could not decipher. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the older Sicilian man looked worried about something, but what there was to worry about in her eating dinner with
Lizzy
, she couldn’t imagine.

But
all he said was, “Your friends, they are this way.”

He led her to a table in the back and it was only as they reached it that the import of Giuseppe’s words hit her.
Because
Lizzy
was not the only person at the table.
Her current boyfriend and Ramon from the sales department at
Scorsolini
Shipping were both sitting there, too.

Ramon had worked with her on several aspects of the Cordoba project. Maybe that was why he was there, maybe he wanted to celebrate too, but more likely
Lizzy
was playing matchmaker. If that were the case,
Danette
was going to cheerfully strangle her friend.

However, she pasted a smile on her face when Ramon hopped up to help her into her chair. “Thank you.”

“It is my pleasure. I am glad you finally agreed to see me outside of work.”

Lizzy
flushed guiltily and
Danette
almost said she hadn’t agreed to any such thing, but refused to deal that kind of blow to the man’s ego. It wasn’t his fault
Lizzy
was playing games
Danette
did not want to engage in. Ramon had never been anything but kind to her, even if he was a hopeless flirt and had a reputation for dating more women than most.
And
really, she couldn’t be too angry with
Lizzy
, either. The other woman didn’t know
Danette
was already in a relationship, but she did know
Danette
didn’t want to date Ramon.

She shrugged.
“Blame
Lizzy
.”
She knew she did, and the look she gave the other American woman said so.

Lizzy
just grinned back, all evidence of guilt gone, her expression now full of satisfaction in a plan well executed.

They were eating their salad and bread, Ramon at his charming best, which
Danette
had to admit was likable, when she felt a tingling sensation in the back of her neck. Still smiling from something Ramon had said, she looked around, trying to account for it. Her breath stilled in shock when she saw Marcello with three other people.

Danette
recognized all of them from photos she’d seen in the media. The older woman, with hair the same golden-brown as Marcello’s and a face that was almost painfully beautiful, was his mother. The man next to Marcello was his older brother, Principe
Tomasso
Scorsolini
, and the woman glowing with happiness at his side was
Tomasso’s
new fiancée, Maggie Thomson.

So,
not
business.
Family.
And
he had clearly not wanted to introduce her to them. She understood keeping their relationship hidden from the public eye, she really did. She might not like it, but she could not fault his reasoning for it. However, why did she have to be kept a secret from his family as well? Surely none of them would leak anything to the press.

He must have felt her eyes on him because he turned and their gazes met across the small but crowded restaurant. His eyes widened fractionally and then narrowed before his mother said something to him and he turned away to speak to her, giving no indication of acknowledgment to
Danette
.

It sliced through her heart like a jagged blade and she touched her chest, feeling like there should be an open wound there.

“Isn’t that the big boss?”
Lizzy
demanded in an awed whisper.
“The prince himself?”

Ramon turned and he studied the newcomers. “Yes, it is.”

Giuseppe was now leading the foursome to a table that would take Marcello’s party right by where
Danette
sat.

She felt like she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t know what she would do if he walked right by without even acknowledging her. At least at work, he always extended the courtesy of recognizing her presence…just as he did all the employees he knew by name.