Carol Marinelli - The Royal House of Niroli - Billion Dollar Bargains

‘No more calls,’ Luca snapped. ‘I’m finished for the day—you can go home now.’

‘It’s Her Royal Highness.’

And if it had been any other minute of any other day, Luca would have taken the call without hesitation, his mother, Laura, the one woman whose calls weren’t screened, who was usually put through without hesitation—just not this time.

‘I said no calls,’ Luca barked. But instead of marching out of the office, instead of heading to the bar where it would be so, so much safer to go, he sat back down in the darkness, black bile churning in his stomach as a piece of this reluctant puzzle slotted into place….

Unwelcome, seldom-visited memories pelted his mind like a sudden hailstorm—a storm so violent, so forceful, so rapid in its arrival that there was no time to seek cover, no time to shield himself from its onslaught, so that all he could do was wait, sit at his desk with his head in his hands and ride out the storm in the hope it would quickly pass.

It didn’t.

Each memory lashed him more fiercely.

Watching again his father’s fist slam into his mother’s face, her long black hair, taut in his fingers, as over and over she took the beating, never once crying out—just as Luca hadn’t. Peering into the room that hateful night he had stifled his screams by instinct, something telling him, even at this tender age, that what he was witnessing must never be acknowledged.

He’d tried, though. Ramming his knuckles into his fist, Luca felt the slap of his mother’s hand again on his cheek; felt the confusion, the bewilderment all over again as she’d later denied what he had seen take place, told him off for even t hinking such filthy things.

But he had seen it, had seen his mother, despite the indignity, somehow still proud, somehow stronger in her passiveness than the brute that beat her.

He’d seen that expression once in his mother, her face etched with stricken dignity as that bastard had laid into her, and he’d seen it again today—with Meg.

It was a fifteen minute drive to the palace, but Luca did it in eight—his silver car rattling around the tight bends at breakneck speed. Instead of turning off into the guarded private road to the palace, he carried on to the prison, not even taking the keys out of the ignition before he strode in. ‘Where is she?’

The guard jumped to his feet, recognising Luca instantly and fumbling to cover his sordid trail—stubbing out a cigarette and ramming a bottle into a drawer.

‘In the cell.’ He gave a low laugh, which revealed black, rotting teeth. ‘She says she wants a lawyer. I told her all the lawyers in Niroli are retained by you!’

‘What else has she said?’

‘She’s crazy.’ He tapped the side of his head a couple of times. ‘She refuses her meals, refuses to sleep, or to put on the clothes we give her. She went crazy in there before—like an animal, pulling off the mattress, kicking at the walls, throwing her meal when we gave it to her. Now she says she is sister to Prince Alessandro….’

‘What?’ Luca barked. ‘What exactly did she say?’

‘That she came to the island to meet her brother—she gave his other name—the one he had before….’

‘Alex Hunter?’ Luca frowned, his mind racing. Was that what had happened—had the attraction that had flared the second he’d laid eyes on her actually been recognition?

Alessandro was his cousin—they shared the same grandfather, so if somehow he had a sister.?

‘I want to talk to her.’ It wasn’t a request, it was an order, Luca’s urgent words delivered almost in anger, and the guard knew better than to question it—just a slight raise of untidy eyebrows as he shrugged and led Luca to the cells.

She was adopted! As he followed the guard down the dank stairwell he replayed their earlier conversation over, recalling the details, and relief flooded him as he remembered what Meg had said. Even if she were somehow related to Alessandro, then it wasn’t by blood—but it was a royal prince’s sister who was locked up in a cell and about to be charged with theft—a scandal the family could do without just now.

For the old king’s sake—for the honour of the family—the fact Alessandro’s sister had been arrested for the attempted theft of the Niroli jewels, no less, was something that had to be kept quiet.

‘Aspetta —wait!’ Despite Luca’s haste to get to her, there was one unsavoury duty that needed to be performed first—one last court with disaster before the king made his decision. Pulling out his wallet, Luca delivered his orders to the guard, hoping to God as he did so that the half-drunk bottle of whisky he had seen him shove into the drawer would be empty by the morning—that this blurry exchange would be nothing but a distant memory by dawn.

The cells were mainly empty apart from a couple of drunks sleeping it off, but the pubs and clubs hadn’t closed yet. Luca knew that by morning the place would be rank with Niroli’s low life. As he entered the dreary area that housed Meg, Luca knew that it wasn’t duty that was driving him—as he made his way in, his eyes taking a moment to accustom to the dim lights, Luca knew it was her he was truly there for.

She was sitting on the simple metal bed, back rigid, staring fixedly ahead, not even turning as they approached, and Luca knew, quite simply, that she didn’t belong in such a rank place.

Whatever emotions he’d been feeling before were paltry compared to what he felt now. He’d thought her beautiful, but realised it was a shallow description. Here, with her hair dark from sweat, her face a mess of dried blood and grime, and her top torn, sitting on the bare metal frame of the bed with a rudimentary attempt of a meal upturned on the floor beside her, he witnessed something in Meg far deeper and longer lasting than beauty. Despite the chaos of the room there was an elegance to her that seemed to reach somewhere deep inside him and twist his stomach, something about her that tugged at him. He’d always liked women, always enjoyed their company, but this ran deeper. This feeling Meg stirred wasn’t about him, but instead about her and what he could do for her—only she mustn’t know.

This isn’t your doing!

There was an attempt at reason, to remind himself that it was her actions that had put her in this place—but it was futile. Whatever her reasons, whatever had driven her to steal last night, he wanted to know them—wanted so much more from Meg than he wanted from most women.

He wanted to get to know her….

Good or bad—he wanted all of her.

‘Alzarsi!’ Meg’s grasp of the Italian language might be less than basic, but as the guard entered her cell and pulled her to her feet there was little room for misunderstanding and Meg did as she was told: she stood up. But nothing more—refusing to turn her head, refusing to acknowledge Luca Fierezza as he stepped into the tiny cell.

She’d known he was here—had heard his deep, angry voice for the last few moments—but whatever his reason for coming, it was too little, too late. The last couples of hours had been a nightmare: no one spoke more than a few words of English and, combined with Meg’s few words of Italian, the police and guards had seemed to take pleasure in the chaos it had created. Taunting her when she’d asked for a lawyer or for them to contact the embassy, laughing in her face when Meg had written down Alex’s name for them and tried to explain that until recently her brother had worked at the hospital. Then, after a rough body search, she had been thrown in the tiny, damp cell—which for Meg was the worst part of all, the tiny cell, the isolation, so reminiscent of her younger years it was impossible not to compare, not to relive the virtual prison of her childhood, impossible for it not to provoke a reaction. The guard bringing her a meal, ordering her to eat, had, for Meg, been the final straw and now, exhausted from her outburst, amidst the chaos she’d created, she stood before Luca.