The Playboy Prince (Piacere Princes, Book One) (8 page)

By the time she’d gotten home, the places where he’d touched her were only tingly, not on fire. Progress. She tossed her keys and picked up the creamy invitation from the palace, then went to find her father.
 

He was awake and in the shop, sitting in his favorite work chair with a half-made dress on his lap. His hands were trembling and idle as they rested atop the emerald green satin. The sadness coming off him made it hard to breathe, and Maggie dropped to the ground at his feet.

“Hey, Papa. We have trouble.”

“What else is new?” he mumbled, still staring at the dress. Maggie saw that he’d snagged the delicate fabric with a bad stitch but didn’t comment.

Instead, she ripped open the royal seal on the back of the envelope and extracted a thick, expensive card stock printed with the same golden swirl as the address. Her mind went blank as she read it, and the pieces of the puzzle Salvy had failed to give her clicked into place.

His Royal Highness King Alfonso Piacere extends the following invitation to all available ladies in Cielo:
 

The Royal Family is hosting a formal ball, to take place over three days at the end of November at the palace in Arcobaleno. The purpose of which is for Prince Salvadore Andrea Piacere to choose for himself a bride befitting his station.
 

You are cordially invited to join the festivities, to include feasting, dancing, and on the third day, a royal wedding. Please note that the dress is formal and that accommodations will be provided.

“What is it,
bella mia
? You look as though that piece of paper has spit in your eye.”

It took Magdalena another moment to gather herself. Now that she’d read this smarmy invitation, the lust in her blood receded completely to make room for her growing disgust. Not only a ball, but a party to
choose a bride
? Were they
serious
?

Other phrases from the invitation danced in her mind, namely the not-so-subtle reminder that only ladies of certain birth would be eligible to…to what? Degrade themselves for a chance to be a princess? Enter into an arranged marriage with a man who would surely have no intention of turning away from his countless mistresses?

She crumpled the invitation in her hand and tossed it into the fireplace, the second time that week that she’d chucked an offensive piece of correspondence into the flames.
 

“It’s what I wanted to talk to you about—Prince Salvadore summoned you this morning so I went to find out what they’ll require. It turns out the Piaceres are holding a ball at the end of the month, and they, plus their staff, will require new formal wear for the event.” Maggie bit her lip. Three days, plus a wedding. Salvadore himself would require at least six changes of clothing. They would need to hire a staff.

“You’ll have to handle it,” her father said, his tone worn through with fatigue. “I know you’ll do a wonderful job, and that Salvadore and Nico’s fondness for you will prevent them from any comment on my absence.”

She didn’t know about that. Salvy had made it clear this afternoon that he was happy to see her again, but she doubted it was out of brotherly fondness. Knowing the man he’d become, he probably saw her as some kind of conquest that had been meant for a mark on his teen bedpost but had somehow gotten away.

He had another think coming, if he had any notion of that being a thing that would happen.

This ball. Ugh. It smacked of Salvadore’s disrespect for the crown, of his tendency to flout the seriousness of his position and influence, but King Alfonso? Why had he agreed to such a tasteless event?

As one of the last monarchies in the Mediterranean, the Piaceres had taken care to paint themselves as levelheaded benefactors, not this…attempt to recall the storybook royals of old.

“You can do this. You’ll need a staff, at least a dozen, I’d say. The usual seamstresses and tailors will be ready to help, and you can move into the rooms the King set aside for occasions like this at the palace. The workshop there will accommodate you.”

Magdalena knew that this would be her father’s answer, but the reason for the ball stuck in her craw. She didn’t want to help Salvadore, or any of them, waste that sort of time and resources, but she knew it would ruin her father’s legacy if she refused.
 

Not to mention she’d have a hard time getting clients as the former royal tailor.

A truth fluttered at the back of her mind, asking a question about why the ball really upset her so deeply, but Maggie refused to look right at it. She had reason enough.

“Okay, Papa. I’ll get started right away. I told Salvadore that I would begin work first thing tomorrow.”

He reached down and patted her cheek, his hand steady for once, and a great comfort. “You will do fine. The princes were your playmates, once. Do your best to remember the boys they were, but do not assume you know the men they’ve become. Yes?”

“Yes, Papa.”
 

“Make your phone calls and then enjoy a night with your friends. It will be your last one until this business is done.”

Maggie got up and kissed her father’s papery cheek. It sounded nice, but she couldn’t leave him alone, she thought as she wandered back into the main house to start making phone calls.
 

She couldn’t leave him alone for the next three weeks while she worked at the castle, either. A nurse would have to be hired, or at least someone who could move in and look after him while Maggie was off making clothes for a narcissistic prince.

It took a couple of hours to pull together a plan for the next three weeks, but when she hung up the phone for the twentieth time, she thought everything was in order. One of her father’s oldest friends, a woman named Juliet, had agreed to come from the country and stay with him the whole time. A dozen seamstresses and tailors had agreed to drop everything and join her at the palace the following day—most of them had been expecting her call, after receiving invitations of their own.
 

Nothing sounded better than dinner with her father and crashing into bed. The day had been long, starting with the worthless trip to Matrigna’s offices, then the emotional bodyslam of seeing Salvadore again, followed by the invitation and the slew of work that followed.

The phone rang as she chopped vegetables for dinner, and Maggie reached for it with a weary hand. “Hello?”

“Is this Magdalena Rossi?”

“Yes.”

“I received your message from my office. I was calling to follow up on my request to buy your father’s property.” The voice was silky and masculine, somehow familiar, although she couldn’t place it.

“We won’t be selling.”
 

“I think you should reconsider.”

“Why would I do that?” All of the irritation and anger and tamped-down lust that had spiked and ebbed in her blood all day rose to the surface, until Magdalena burned with the need to unleash it. “We’re not selling. I don’t care what you do to us.”

The chuckle on the other end of the line felt menacing, and slid up her spine like a cold hand. “I can ruin your father’s reputation. Do you think his clients would be interested to know that he’s been lying about his medical issues for the better part of two years?”

Her breath caught. “The work hasn’t suffered.”

“Still. People do not take kindly to being lied to, not where their money is concerned.” He paused. “There is another matter, as well. One that pertains to your dear, departed mother. I promise your father would suffer more than the loss of his reputation should it be made public. I don’t think he would last long in the royal dungeon, do you?”

“Leave us alone.” Maggie hung up with as much force as she could muster, her hands shaking as though she was the one fighting Parkinson’s.
 

The vegetables blurred through her tears, which plopped onto the counter as she finished chopping them and swept them into the waiting salad. While she grilled a fresh chicken breast and cut it up, arranging it on top of the lettuce and veggies before serving it to her father at the table, the man’s words played again and again in her mind.

What could he mean?

She tried to think of a way to bring up the phone call, to ask what the caller could have been referencing, as they ate. They never spoke of her mother, though, and the words refused to find their way past her lips. It didn’t take long until she’d decided the man was nothing more than a lying asshole. She wouldn’t let him drive a wedge between her father and her, no matter what happened.
 

“Everything in order?” her father asked, picking at his dinner.

“Yes. Juliet is going to come and stay with you while I’m gone, too.”

He looked as if he wanted to argue, but after a moment, his shoulders slumped in defeat and he nodded. Maggie’s heart broke in two at the sight. She thought that the indignities of getting older were worse than the illnesses, or the death that waited for everyone at the end of them.
 

She reached out and covered her father’s frail hand with her own, squeezing as tight as she dared. He refused to look up at her, and Maggie forced good memories to the front of her mind—her strong father, giving advice, lifting her onto his shoulders, teaching her how to throw a punch and change the oil in her car, how to make a strong, hidden stitch. That’s who he was, not this.

“I love you, Papa.”

He gave her a smile, then. “And I, you,
bella mia
.”

It was clear neither of them felt much like eating, so after another five minutes of trying, Magdalena rose and cleared the dishes, putting the salad away in the fridge in case they were hungry later. As she worked, the Matrigna man’s hubris dug beneath her skin like needles.
 

Maggie tossed the dishrag on the counter, then popped her head into her father’s study. “Papa? I think I will go and see my friends.”

“Have a good time, dear.”

She wasn’t alone in her hatred, in her desire to fight. He thought he knew everything about the families he was displacing, enough to cow them into leaving the homes they’d worked so hard to keep, but they knew nothing about him.

It was time they figured out a way to change that.

It hadn’t taken long to round up a small group of disgruntled Arcobaleno citizens at the local pub. Her friend Camilla was one, plus two boys they’d gone to school with, Bartomaleo and Lorenzo. Once Brigida took a seat and a long pull from her dirty martini, Magdalena thought they could get started.

Barty ordered a plate of deep fried mushrooms, but for once, food didn’t sound good.

The adrenaline that came from at least attempting to take action had erased her fatigue and she fidgeted with the peeling label on her bottle of beer as she ran down the latest letter, her visit to the odd Matrigna Holdings office in town, and the phone call earlier that night.
 

She didn’t go into details regarding the threats, but the expressions of swirling anger and understanding on the others’ faces promised they got the gist.

“Have you guys been threatened with some kind of exposure, too?”

“My grandmother thinks Matrigna started killing her sheep,” Brigida offered. “After she said no way, no how, for a third time, the flock started disappearing, two or three at a time. She’d find them days later, half eaten by carrion birds and other scavengers, too mutilated to figure out how they died.”

“Why does she think it’s Matrigna?” Lorenzo asked.
 

“The timing. And the fact that she’s lost half her flock at this point, and that’s never happened before in the fifty years she’s been farming.”

“Anyone else?” Maggie asked, wiping her lip after taking a swig of her beer.

“Me,” Barty volunteered. “Threatened to expose my sexuality to my superior officer.”

Maggie felt sick. “What did you say?”

“I told him to go fuck himself.” Barty shrugged. “But I’m probably going to sell. It’s against the recruitment rules for me to have been accepted, and I love my job. I don’t want to lose it.”

“My mother apparently had a juvenile record,” Camilla sighed. “Expunged when she turned eighteen, but it wouldn’t look great if it came out, given my father’s station.”

“Jesus,” Lorenzo said, echoing Magdalena’s thoughts. “Who is this guy?”

“That’s what we need to find out,” Maggie said, motioning for the waitress and another beer. The bar was the same one they’d been coming to since they were sixteen, even though the place smelled like sweat, old wood, and stale vomit and it was hard to see in the impossibly low lighting.
 

She suspected the lighting choice was to keep people from looking too closely at their food, but at least there were fewer creepers than the trendy place she’d been the other night.

“How?” Barty asked, patting his perfectly coiffed hair back into place. “The company is privately held and no one seems to know who the owner or shareholders are. You said yourself that the office at the address on the letter is a sham. He calls from unlisted numbers.”

“Do you think his voice sounds familiar?”