Jane Porter - Marco's Pride

“You’ve been successful.”

“Surprisingly so, yes.”

“I guess it doesn’t hurt being a d’Angelo after all.”

She felt her face grow hot. She couldn’t speak for a moment, formulating silent protests, wanting instinctively to defend herself but it would do no good. Marco wouldn’t believe she’d kept his name for the girls’ sake. All Payton had wanted was to keep Gia and Liv’s lives simple. Uncomplicated. As free from tension as possible.

“You’ll be meeting Princess Marilena tonight. She’ll be here in a half hour. I expect you’ll treat her with nothing but kindness and respect.”

Payton felt as if he’d tossed a sandbag at her middle. She drew a quick breath, the air nearly knocked out of her. “Of course.”

“I ask that you’ll keep your distance.”

Her cheeks burned. “I understand, Marco. We’re speaking English.”

“Yes, but you’re famous for selective listening. You hear only what you want to hear and I’m telling you now that you can not, will not, come between Marilena and me.”

“Good, because I have no desire to come between you and the princess. If anything, I want to ensure the stability of your relationship—”

“Why?”

He could have been a surgeon with his cold precision. She struggled about, searching for the right words. It wasn’t easy. “If anything happened to me, the girls would…” her voice faded for a moment. Her mind swept the future, saw only a great blankness and shied away. “They’d go to you.”

“I thought you’d always intended they’d go to your mom—” Marco broke off, realizing he’d just erred. Her mother had died in the past year. Payton and her mother had been very close. “I’m sorry. I’d forgotten.”

She nodded painfully. “Thank you.”

Damn her, Marco thought. She looked so guileless standing there, long hair loose, the soft auburn curls flattering her high cheekbones, softening her firm chin. But he knew her. Knew the tricks in her heart. She was no Botticelli angel. She had a goal when she traveled to Milan four years ago. She wanted an internship with a prominent fashion house and she wanted to snare a prominent man. She’d done both.

And yet…yet she looked so tired, so vulnerable just now and it weighed on him. She’d been raising the twins on her own for two years now, and God knows, that couldn’t have been easy.

“I didn’t bring the girls to create friction,” Payton added after a moment. “I thought it’d be good for them to meet the princess before the wedding. I thought it’d help them adjust.”

He looked at her long and hard. Was she telling the truth? Could he possibly trust her?

“Have the girls been in bed long?” he asked, changing the subject, not knowing where to go with any of this. Seeing Payton again wasn’t easy. Nothing with Payton had ever been easy. “I wanted to get back earlier but I had a meeting that turned nasty.”

“They fell asleep a couple hours ago. They’re exhausted. The traveling and the time change.”

Payton saw the new lines at Marco’s eyes and the tightness at his mouth. Those lines hadn’t been there two years ago. He seemed to be feeling so much pressure and she wondered at the stress he was under.

“I was thinking,” she said, “that perhaps we—you, Princess Marilena, and I—could have dinner tonight.”

He tensed. “Tonight?”

“Yes. The three of us. But you might already have other plans—”

“We do.”

She heard the reproach in his voice. He hated things being thrown at him last minute. “It’s not a problem. We can do dinner another time. Or lunch, too, if that’s better.”

The double salon doors suddenly opened and Princess Marilena stood there, a hand on each handle, her tall slender figure elegant in a trim suit, navy silk the color of midnight, that accented her narrow waist and long legs. “Am I interrupting?” she asked, her English flawless, just like the rest of her.

Marco stood up, a warm smile easing his tight features. “Not at all, darling. Come in. We were just talking about you.”

Her lips twisted. “No wonder my ears were burning. Tell me, was it good?”

She was crossing the grand salon, her heels tapping against the marble parquet and yet she only had eyes for Marco and he only had eyes for her.

“It’s always good,” he answered, his voice dropping, husky and intimate as Marilena reached his side.

His arm reached out, circled her waist, hand resting lightly on her hip. “Everything all right?” he whispered, the question clearly meant for Marilena but loud enough for Payton to hear.

Marilena nodded, smiled faintly. “Yes, darling, thank you.” Then she turned to Payton who had risen when Marilena entered the room. “You must be Payton.”

Payton felt a stab of envy. She shouldn’t be jealous. There was no reason to be jealous. She didn’t want a life with Marco—she’d had her chance two years ago—yet it felt peculiar seeing Marco so warm with the princess.

Not just warm, she corrected, but close. Comfortable. Payton had never been comfortable like that; she’d always felt nervous, on edge. But that was all in the past. Marco wasn’t her husband anymore and she wasn’t part of his future.

She forced herself to act, and she held her hand out. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Princess Marilena. And congratulations, too.”

Princess Marilena inclined her head, but didn’t take Payton’s hand. “Thank you, Payton. We’re very much looking forward to the wedding. The ceremony will be at the Duomo,” she said, referring to the city’s famous Gothic cathedral. “The reception will probably be here.”

“I’m sure it’ll be beautiful.” The words were beginning to stick in Payton’s throat and no one else said anything.

The silence grew weighted and Payton realized Marco and Princess Marilena were exchanging curious glances.

Marco straightened. “Payton was suggesting that the three of us have dinner together sometime—”

“A lovely idea,” Marilena charmingly agreed, her voice beautifully modulated. “We really should get to know each other.”

Marco’s heavy eyebrow lifted. “Unfortunately, getting acquainted will have to wait. Payton, you’ll forgive us if we sneak out? We have dinner reservations.”

As Marco assisted Marilena into the passenger seat of his Ferrari, a car he’d bought himself a month after Payton moved back to America, he found his thoughts returning to his ex-wife.

She was different, he thought. She even looked different. Something had happened. Something had changed. Was she having money trouble? Man trouble? Was it something with the girls?

And just like that he realized he’d just made another tactical error. She shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have allowed her into his house. She was trouble. She’d been trouble from the very get-go.

As he started the car, Marilena reached out to rest her hand on his thigh. “Don’t worry so much. Everything will be all right, Marco. Everything will be just fine.”

His eyes met hers and he lifted her hand and kissed it. Yet even as he kissed the back of her hand, his thoughts strayed once more to Payton. Payton had a way of getting under his skin, unsettling him. And she was doing a damn good job of it right now.

In an effort to keep her mind off Marco, Payton set to work emptying the girls’ knapsacks, sorting out the toys and chunky books from the tangled bits of clothes.

It was odd being back in this house, she thought, folding the tiny lilac and sky-blue cardigans and stacking the delicate sweaters on top of the matching striped cotton leggings.

Although Marco’s father had died two years before Payton met Marco, the villa still embodied the great late Franco d’Angelo. Which made it especially painful when Marco moved out and left her and girls behind in his family house.