Sandra Marton - The Orsini Brides

“Fax me the letter,” he’d snapped. “And everything we have in that damned file.”

His PA had obliged. Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, Draco had read through it all until the pink light of dawn glittered on the sea.

By then he’d known what he had to do. Give up the cooling trade winds of Hawaii for the oppressive summer heat of Rome, and a confrontation with the representative of a man and a way of life he despised.

The worst of it was that he’d thought he’d finished with this weeks ago. That initial ridiculous letter from someone named Cesare Orsini. Another letter, when he ignored the first, followed by a third, at which point he’d marched into the office of one of his assistants.

“I want everything you can find on an American named Cesare Orsini,” he’d ordered.

The information had come quickly.

Cesare Orsini had been born in Sicily. He had immigrated to America more than half a century ago with his wife; he had become an American citizen.

And he had repaid the generosity of his adopted homeland by becoming a hoodlum, a mobster, a gangster with nothing to recommend him except money, muscle and now a determination to acquire something that had, for centuries, belonged to the House of Valenti and now to him, Prince Draco Marcellus Valenti, of Sicily and Rome.

That ridiculous title.

Draco didn’t often use it or even think it. He found it officious, even foolish in today’s world. But, just as his PA would have resorted to using it in her search for a way to get him from Hawaii to Italy, he had deliberately used it in his reply to the American don, couching his letter in cool, formal tones but absolutely permitting the truth— Do you know who you’re dealing with? Get the hell off my back, old man —to shine through.

So much for that, Draco had thought.

Wrong.

The don had just countered with a threat.

Not a physical one. Too bad. Draco, whose early years had not been spent in royal privilege, would have welcomed dealing with that.

Orsini’s threat had been more cunning.

I am sending my representative to meet with you, Your Highness, he had written. Should you and my lawyer fail to reach a compromise, I see no recourse other than to have our dispute adjudicated in a court of law.

A lawsuit? A public airing of a nonsensical claim?

In theory, it could not even happen. Orsini had no true claims to make. But in the ancient land that was la Sicilia, old grudges never ended.

And the media would turn it into an international circus—

“Excuse me.”

Draco blinked. Looked up. The American and the lounge hostess were standing next to his chair. The American had a determined glint in her eyes. The hostess had a look in hers that could only be described as desperate.

“Sir,” she said, “sir, I’m really sorry but the lady—”

“You have something I need,” the American said.

Her voice was rushed. Husky. Draco raised one dark eyebrow.

“Do I, indeed?”

A wave of pink swept into her face. And well it might. The intonation in his words had been deliberate. He wasn’t sure why he’d put that little twist on them, perhaps because he was tired and bored and the blonde with the in-your-face attitude was, to use a perfectly definitive American phrase, clearly being a total pain in the ass.

“Yes. You have two seats on flight 630 to Rome. Two first-class seats.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed. He closed his computer and rose slowly to his feet. The woman was tall, especially in those ridiculous heels, but at six foot three, he was taller still. It pleased him that she had to tilt her head to look at him.

“And?”

“And,” she said, “I absolutely must have one of them!”

Draco let the seconds tick by. Then he looked at the hostess.

“Is it the airline’s habit,” he said coldly, “to discuss its passengers’ flying arrangements with anyone who inquires?”

The girl flushed.

“No, sir. Certainly not. I don’t—I don’t even know how the lady found out that you—”

“I was checking in,” the woman said. “I asked for an upgrade. The clerk said there were none, and one word led to another and then she pointed to you—you were walking away by then—and she said, ‘That gentlemen just got the last two first-class seats.’ I couldn’t see anybody with you and the clerk said no, you were flying alone, so I followed you here but I figured I should confirm that you were the man she’d meant before I—”

Draco raised his hand and stopped the hurried words.

“Let me be sure I understand this,” he said evenly. “You badgered the ticket agent.”

“I did not badger her. I merely asked—”

“You badgered the hostess here, in the lounge.”

The woman’s eyes snapped with irritation.

“I did not badger anyone! I just made it clear that I need one of those seats.”

“You mean you made it clear that you want one.”

“Want, need, what does it matter? You have two seats. You can’t sit in both.”

She was so sure of herself, felt so entitled to whatever she wanted. Had she never learned that in this life no one was entitled to anything?

“And you need the seat because …?” he said, almost pleasantly.

“Only first class seats have computer access.”

“Ah.” Another little smile. “And you have a computer with you.”

Her eyes flashed. He could almost see her lip curl.

“Obviously.”

He nodded. “And, what? You are addicted to Solitaire?”

“Addicted to …?”

“Solitaire,” he said calmly. “You know. The card game.”

She looked at him as if he were stupid or worse; it made him want to laugh. A good thing, considering that he had not felt like laughing since that damned middle-of-the-night phone call.

“No,” she said coldly. “I am not addicted to Solitaire.”

“To Hearts, then?”

The hostess, wise soul, took a step back. The woman took a step forward. She was only inches away from him now, close enough that he could see that her eyes were a deep shade of blue.

“I am,” she said haughtily, “on a business trip. A last-minute business trip. First class was sold out. And I have an important meeting to attend.”

This time it was her intonation that was interesting.

He had not bothered shaving; he had taken time only to shower and dress in faded jeans and a pale blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, the top button undone. He wore an old, eminently comfortable pair of mocs and, on his wrist, the first thing he’d bought himself after he’d made his first million euros—a Patek Phillipe watch for no better reason than the first own he’d owned he had stolen and, in a fit of teenage guilt, had a day later tossed into the Tiber.

In other words he was casually but expensively dressed. A woman wearing an Armani suit would know that. He’d reserved two costly seats, not one. Add everything together and she would peg him as a man with lots of money, lots of time on his hands and no real purpose in life, while she was a captain of industry, or whatever was the female equivalent.

“Do you see why the seat is so important to me?”

Draco nodded. “Fully,” he said with a tight smile. “It’s important to you because you want it.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “My God, what’s the difference? The seat is empty.”

“It isn’t empty.”

“Damnit, will someone be sitting in it or not?”

“Or not,” he said, and waited.

She hesitated. It was the first time she had done so since she’d approached him. It made her seem suddenly vulnerable, more like a woman than an automaton.

Draco felt himself hesitate, too.

He had booked two seats for privacy. No one to disturb his thoughts as he worked through how to handle what lay ahead. No one with whom he’d have to go through the usual Hello, how are you, don’t you hate night flights like this one?