Jennie Lucas - Italian Prince, Wedlocked Wife

“Oh,” she gasped, humiliated to the core.

“You are not a woman to me,” he said coldly. “You are a weapon.”

A weapon? She sucked in her breath. “What do you intend to do to Alex?”

“Why do you care? Unless you’re still in love with him.”

She shook her head. “Of course not! But he’s my baby’s father!”

“Don’t worry.” His lip curled into a sneer. “He will merely be forced to admit that he has a daughter. Surely you have no objection to that?”

Alex had been keeping Chloe a secret? “No,” she muttered. “I’ve no objection.”

“And he will lose his bid for a company. Someone else—someone you don’t know—will also lose.”

“How many enemies do you have, anyway?” Lucy demanded, then shook her head. “Hundreds. Thousands. Everyone who’s ever met you, I imagine! I don’t care. Just take me to my daughter. If you’ve hurt or frightened her, I swear I’ll—”

“I would never hurt a child, signorina . Just as I would never hurt a woman.” His lip curled as he added under his breath, “Although you tempt me.”

She followed him up the steps to the elegant 1920s-style lobby. The soaring ceiling sparkled with enormous chandeliers. Beneath them, wealthy revelers crowded together, some wearing diamonds and fur coats, celebrating the advent of the new year with a half-drunken chorus of “Auld Lang Syne.”

Maximo led her past the well-heeled guests to the golden elevators behind the lobby. When they were alone behind the closed doors, he hit the button for the tenth floor.

Lucy repeated in a low voice, “I don’t even know you. So I don’t understand why you’ve done this. Kidnapped my daughter. Gotten me fired. Turned my life upside down—”

He turned to face her. “Don’t you want to be rich, Lucia?” he demanded. “To buy clothes, cars, jewelry? Don’t you wish to spend time with your daughter and buy her everything her heart desires?”

She stared at him, heart pounding in her chest. “Are you crazy? Of course I do! But strangers don’t just fall out of the sky and offer money. I’m trying to figure out your angle!”

“No angle. I’m offering a lifetime of wealth and luxury for you and your daughter. And the chance to repay the man who abandoned you both.”

“But there’s a catch,” she said.

“What makes you so sure?”

“There’s always a catch.”

“Perhaps.” He looked at her. “Does it matter?”

The elevator doors opened, and he strode out. Feeling as if she were Alice who’d just fallen through the looking glass, Lucy followed him down the maroon carpet of the hallway. The wainscoted walls were yellow-gold, illuminated by glistening chandeliers at every corner. He stopped at a door.

Mrs. Plotzky opened to his knock. Her hair was in curlers and she was wearing a luxurious white robe and cushy hotel slippers. The television was blaring softly behind her in the elegant living room. She beamed at sight of Lucy.

“Oh my dear! Such a wonderful day! I’m so happy for you. When Prince Maximo’s bodyguards explained he was taking you both to Italy, I—”

“Where’s Chloe?” Lucy bit out, angry that her babysitter had been so gullible.

Taken aback, the elderly woman pointed to a door inside the suite. Mrs. Plotzky sat back down on the gold sofa with her knitting while Lucy went to the adjacent door.

She stood in the doorway of the darkened bedroom, listening to her daughter’s deep, even breathing. When Lucy’s eyes had adjusted, she saw a small lump in the center of the enormous bed surrounded by pillows. Her baby. The light from the doorway scattered across Chloe’s plump cheeks. The baby was clutching her tattered purple hippo to her chest.

Lucy crept closer. She stroked Chloe’s hair, tenderly tucking the blankets beneath her chubby legs. The linens made her pause. They were soft against Lucy’s fingers. Luxurious and white, not stained and threadbare from a thousand washings at the quarter Laundromat.

Slowly she looked around the palatial bedroom. From the windows overlooking Lake Michigan, to the plush, pristine carpet, the room had every luxury and comfort.

Not like their tiny apartment, where the windows rattled every time the El train went by. Where Chloe’s crib was crammed against Lucy’s bed, which was jammed up against the kitchen counter. Where it was cold all winter, no matter how high Lucy turned up the thermostat. Where spiders and mice kept turning up, no matter how hard or often Lucy cleaned in the middle of the night.

Chloe turned over in her sleep, stretching in the luxurious bed with a contented sigh. Lucy’s heart went to her throat.

Her baby deserved a life like this .

Don’t you want to be rich? she heard Maximo’s voice say. Don’t you wish to spend time with your daughter and buy her everything her heart desires?

Stroking Chloe’s soft downy hair, Lucy saw the worn-out elbows of her baby’s pajamas, and her throat started to hurt.

Alex had told her he loved her. He’d proposed marriage. He’d begged Lucy to have his baby. He’d refused to use a condom, laughing at her fears, seducing her, reassuring her. Older than her, with a high-status job, he’d promised to give them both security and comfort and love—forever.

Against her better judgment, she’d let herself love him. Let herself believe .

Then she’d come home on Christmas Eve last year. Heavily pregnant, weighed down with grocery bags of fresh cranberries and canned pumpkin, she’d been singing “Deck the Halls” when she pushed open the door with her hip. She’d found her apartment empty and dark. All his clothes were gone. His toothbrush. His briefcase. His computer. Even the three-carat engagement ring she’d left lovingly in the velvet box on her dresser, because it no longer fit her pregnancy-bloated finger.

Everything. Gone.

A year later, and Lucy still couldn’t hear “Deck the Halls” on the radio without feeling sick.

He’d left her, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was that he’d left his own child to starve. He’d even tried to deny Chloe was his.

Lucy would never forgive him for that.

Just as she would never forgive herself for trusting his easy charm. She could still hear his whisper sometimes at night. “I love ya, Luce. I’ll always take care of you.”

Liar , she thought, then looked down at her daughter. Alex had lost more than he would ever know.

But so had Chloe. She had no father.

Lucy’s eyes narrowed. If she could just see Alex, she could break through his selfish stupor and he would realize what he’d done. He would realize that he loved his daughter. He would act like a decent father, and her daughter would be safe and warm, with two parents to protect her.

Lucy could still give her precious baby the life she deserved .

Whatever it took.

Whatever the catch.

To give her baby a good life, Lucy would do anything—work herself to exhaustion. Sell her body. Even risk her soul.

In sudden decision, Lucy softly kissed Chloe good-night. She spoke briefly with Mrs. Plotzky before leaving the elderly babysitter knitting in front of her game show.

Every step Lucy took was deliberate. Determined.

She found Maximo in the gold-and-cream hallway, leaning against the wall.

“Well?” he asked quietly. “What is your decision?”

She raised her chin. “My daughter will never worry about money again? She’ll have food and a warm house and be happy and safe?”

“Correct.”

“And I will be able to speak with Alex in person?”

His blue eyes glittered. “Oh, yes.”

“I accept your offer.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“ V A BENE .” Maximo looked down at her with a strange light in his eyes. “Come with me.”