The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize

He did so hate having to employ charm.

He had better end up in possession of the painting. And it had better truly be his grandfather’s dying wish. Otherwise, he would be perturbed.

The door behind him clicked shut and he turned just in time to see Princess Gabriella, in her fitted sweatshirt and tight black leggings, headed toward him. She was holding her hands up beneath her breasts like a small, frightened animal, her eyes large behind her glasses.

That was what had put him in the mind of her being an owl earlier. He did not feel the need to revise that opinion. She was fascinating much in the way a small creature might be.

He felt compelled to watch her every movement, her every pause. As he would any foreign entity. So, there was nothing truly remarkable about it.

“Well, my princess,” he said. “What have you learned?”

“I know where the painting is,” she said, tucking a silken strand of dark hair behind her ear before returning her hands back to their previous, nervous position.

“Excellent. Draw me a map on a napkin and I’ll be on my way.”

“Oh. There will be no direction giving. No napkin drawing.”

“Is that so?”

She tossed her hair and for a moment he saw a glimmer of royalty beneath her rather dowdy exterior. And that was all the more fascinating. “No. I’m not giving you directions, because I have the directions. You are taking me with you.”

He laughed at the imperious, ridiculous demand. “I most certainly am not.”

She crossed her arms, the sweater bunching beneath them. “Yes, you are. You don’t know how to get there.”

“Gabriella, I am an expert at getting the information I want. Be it with money or seduction, it makes no difference to me, but I will certainly get what I need.”

Her cheeks turned a rather fetching shade of pink. He imagined it was the mention of seduction, not bribery, that did it.

“But I have the key,” she insisted. “Or rather, I know where it is. And trust me when I tell you it is not something you’ll be able to acquire on your own.”

“A key?” He didn’t believe her.

“And the...the instructions on how to use it.”

He studied her hard. She was a bookish creature. Not terribly beautiful, in his estimation. Not terribly brave, either. Intensely clever, though. Still, the lack of bravery made it unlikely that she was lying to him. The cleverness, on the other hand, was a very large question mark.

It made her unpredictable.

This was why he preferred women who were not so clever.

Life was complicated enough. When it came to interactions with the female sex he rather liked it simple, physical and brief.

He had a feeling his association with Gabriella would be none of those things and that only set his teeth on edge all the more.

“I do not believe that you have the key, or rather, have access to it that I cannot gain.”

“Okay, then. Enjoy the journey to Isolo D’Oro without me. I’m sure when you get there and find that you hold nothing in your hand but your own—”

“Well, now, there’s no need to get crass.”

She blinked. “I wasn’t going to be crass. I was going to say you hold nothing in your hand but your own arrogance.”

He chuckled. “Well, I was imagining you saying something completely different.”

“What can I have possibly—?” She blinked again. “Oh.”

He arched a brow. “Indeed.”

She gritted her teeth, her expression growing more fierce. “Crassness and all other manner of innuendo aside, you are not gaining access to the painting without me.”

“Right. So, you know where it is, and you clearly possess the key. Why not go without me?”

“Well, it isn’t that simple. I am a member of the D’Oro family. And while technically I can return to the island because I am only of the bloodline, and I never ruled, gaining access could still be a problem.”

“I see. So, how do we play this? Wealthy American businessman on a vacation takes a beautiful...” He paused for a moment, allowing his eyes to sweep over her, not hiding how underwhelmed he was by the sight. “A beautiful princess as his lover?”

“Absolutely not!” She turned a very intense shade of pink, and he found himself captivated by the slow bleed of color beneath her skin.

“You have a better suggestion?”

“I want to prevent scandal. I want to bring the painting back here with as little fanfare as possible. I don’t want you making a big production of things.”

“And I assure you I will not. This is for a private collection and has nothing to do with causing embarrassment to the royal family.”

She worried her lip between her teeth. “I don’t trust you.”

“Excellent. I wouldn’t trust me, either.”

“Excellent. No trust.” Her cheeks were getting redder. This time, he figured it was from frustration. “I want to go with you. But I don’t want to cause a scene. I can’t cause a scene. You have no doubt seen the kind of scandal my parents create in the headlines with their drug use, affairs, separations, reconciliations... The press would love to smell blood in the water around me and I just can’t chance it.”

An evil thought occurred to him and it made him smile. “Well, if you don’t wish to go as my lover—”

“I don’t!”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to come as my assistant.”

“No one will believe that I’m your assistant. I’m a princess.” She lifted her little nose in the air, dark hair cascading over her back like spilled ink. Now she did indeed look every inch insulted royalty.

“What do you typically look like when you go out and about? I imagine it isn’t like this,” he said, indicating her rather drab trappings.

“I don’t go out frequently. But when I do I have a stylist.”

“Your glasses?”

“I normally wear contacts.”

He nodded slowly. “Princess Gabriella D’Oro. I have seen pictures of you—it’s only that I would never have recognized you in your current state. The difference is remarkable.”

He had an immediate picture in his mind of a glossier, more tamed version of the woman in front of him. Sleek and, actually, quite beautiful. Though not remotely as interesting as the version of Gabriella that stood before him.

She waved a hand. “Between professionally fitted dresses, undergarments to hold in all undesirable lumps and bumps, makeup to cover every flaw, false eyelashes, red lips... I’m scarcely the same person.”

“A good thing for our current situation.” He regarded her for a longer period of time. “Yes, that will do nicely. You will come as my assistant. With your hair just like this. With your glasses. And with some horrible pantsuit. No one will ever believe you are Princess Gabriella. No one will look twice at you. Certainly not close enough to identify you. That eases any and all problems we might have with the press, with the local government and with scandal.”

He could see that she was fuming, radiating with indignity. He quite liked it. He didn’t have a lot of time. He certainly didn’t have extra time to stand around negotiating about keys and directions with a silly girl.

So she would come. It was no difference to him either way.

“That is a ridiculous idea,” she said. “Anyway, I’ve never traveled. I mainly stay here in the estate.”

“Curled up on a cushion reading a book?”

She blinked. “What else would one do on a cushion?”

“Oh, I can think of several things.”

“Drinking tea?”

“No. Not drinking tea.”

Her expression was a study in confusion. It was almost cute. Except that he had no interest in bookish virgins.

She was...naive. Young. For a moment he was concerned about how young. “How old are you?”

She sniffed. “I’m twenty-three. You can stop looking at me like I’m some sort of schoolgirl.”

“Cara mia, you are a schoolgirl to me.”

“How old are you?”

“That is none of your business.”

“Am I to respect my elders?”

He laughed, he couldn’t help it. Rare was the person who poked back at him. He rather enjoyed having fun at other people’s expense, but they didn’t dare have it at his.

His secret was that he found it rather entertaining just how afraid everyone seemed to be in his presence. His formidable reputation afforded him a great deal of enjoyment. Though the fact that he took pleasure in making people quake in his presence was likely why he had so few friends. Not that he minded.

He had sycophants, he had business associates and he had mistresses. He had no room in his life for anything else. Nor had he the desire for them.

Unfortunately, he also had family, and with them came obligations. Family was, after all, how he found himself here now.

“Then it is decided. You will be my personal assistant, a college student, doing a work experience program. Traveling with me to Isolo D’Oro to take in some of the local culture and scenery while I negotiate a business deal.”

“I’m supposed to be your...intern?” She was positively incandescent with irritation now.

“Yes. Of course, Gabriella is a little bit posh for that. How about Gabby? It has a very nice ring to it. Don’t you think, Gabby?”

“I hate being called Gabby.”

“But I’ll wager you hate scandal even more. So, Gabby my assistant you will be, and we will not create any of it.”

She frowned, her dark brows lowering, disappearing behind the thick frame of her glasses. “If you’re going to be this exasperating for the entire journey I can see it’s going to be a problem.”

“I don’t plan on being this exasperating for the entire journey.” She breathed out a sigh of relief. “I plan on being at least twice as exasperating.”

Her eyes flew wide. “And why is that?”

“Oftentimes I find life short on entertainment. I do my best to make my own fun.”

“Yes, well, I live in an estate with an old woman in her nineties. I make a lot of my own fun, too. But typically that involves complicated genealogy projects and a little bit of tatting.”

“Tatting?”

“You can never have too many doilies. Not in a house this size.”

He arched a brow, studying her face to see if she was being sincere. He couldn’t get a read on her. “I will have to take your word for that.”

“Don’t you have doilies?”

He lifted his shoulder. “I might in one of my residences. I can’t say that I ever noticed.”

“I could make you some. No one should have a doily deficiency.”

“God forbid.” He turned and began to walk away from her. “Aren’t you going to show me to my room?”

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Aren’t you going to show me to my room?” he repeated. “We will leave early tomorrow morning for Isolo D’Oro. I don’t see any point in my staying elsewhere. You have a great many rooms in the estate. And they are replete with doilies, I hear. Which means you should be able to accommodate me.”

He turned his most charming and feral smile in her direction. Usually women shrank back from them. Or swooned.

She did neither.

“I did not invite you to stay. And it’s particularly impolite of you to invite yourself.”

“It wasn’t particularly hospitable of you to not invite me. I will put aside my pique for the sake of convenience, and a more companionable journey tomorrow. Now,” he said, his tone uncompromising. He excelled at being uncompromising. “Be a good girl and show me to my room.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“WHAT IS THIS?”

Gabriella came out of the bedroom positioned toward the back of his private jet. She was wearing her glasses, as instructed, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was also newly dressed in the outfit he had gone to great lengths to procure for her before his plane had departed this morning for Isolo D’Oro. Well, one of the palace servants had gone to great lengths to procure it. He had taken a rather leisurely breakfast during which he had checked his stocks and made sure that things were running smoothly back at his office in Manhattan.

“Your costume, Gabby,” he said.

Had she been an owl he was certain that at the moment her feathers would have been ruffled. “It isn’t very flattering.”

“Well, neither was the sweatshirt you were wearing when we met yesterday. But that did not seem to stop you from wearing it.”

“I was having a day at home. I had been sitting in the library reading.”

“Naturally.”

She frowned. “What does that mean?”

“You look like the type. That’s all.”

She shifted slightly, her frown deepening. “Yes, I suppose so. But I’m not entirely lacking in vanity. This...” She indicated the black dress pants, tapered closely to her skin—much more closely than he had anticipated—and the white blouse she was wearing, complete with a large pin that should have looked more at home on her grandmother than on her, but managed to look quite stylish. “This is not the kind of thing I’m used to wearing in public.”

She didn’t look like a princess—that much was true. But the outfit was not actually unflattering. The outfit was very nearly fashionable, albeit in a much lower-rent way than she was no doubt used to looking.

“What exactly is the problem with it?”

“The pants are very tight.”

“Their most redeeming feature in my opinion.”

He was rewarded with another of her blushes. “I do not like to draw attention to my body.”

“Believe me when I tell you this, Gabriella. You do not have to do anything to draw attention to your body. The very fact that it exists does draw attention to it.” He found it was true even as he spoke the words. He had not readily noticed her charms upon his arrival at the estate yesterday, but she was certainly not lacking in them. Her figure was not what was considered attractive these days. There was no careful definition of muscles earned through long hours in a gym. No gap between her thighs.

She was lush. Soft. Average-size breasts that were remarkable if only because breasts always were, a slender waist and generously rounded hips. Hips that were currently being flaunted by the pants she was complaining about.

“Oh. Well. That is... Was that a compliment?”

“Yes. It was a good compliment.”

“Sorry. I’m not used to receiving compliments from men.”

He found that hard to believe. She was a princess. Moreover, she wasn’t unattractive. Usually one or the other was enough. “Do you ever leave the estate?”

“In truth, not that often.”

“That must be your problem. Otherwise, I imagine you would be inundated with compliments. Sincere and otherwise.”

“Why is that?”

“Because. You have quite a few things men would find desirable.”

“Money.”

“That is certainly one of the things. Though right now you could easily pass for a personal assistant. Which is exactly what we are going for.” He took a seat in one of the plush armchairs and picked up the mug of coffee he had poured himself earlier.

“What are the other things?”

“Your body. And its various charms. I thought I made that clear.”

She frowned. He expected her to...well, to get angry. Or shrink up against the wall like all bookish virgins should do. Instead, she walked through the plane and took the seat opposite from him, crossing her legs at the ankles and folding her hands in her lap. “You’re very blunt.”

“Yes. I find it frightens people. Which I very much enjoy.”

“I’m not certain if I’m blunt in quite the same way you are. But I do tend to say whatever pops into my mind. Often it’s about something unrelated to the situation. That also seems to frighten people. Men specifically.”

“The reason you don’t receive many compliments?”

“My mother always told me to keep conversation to the topic of the weather. But we live on an island. Unless a hurricane or tsunami is threatening, the weather isn’t all that interesting.”

“That’s the point. A great many men prefer their women to be dull on the inside and shiny on the outside.”

“You among them?”

He chuckled. “Oh, I am chief among them.”

She tilted her head to the side, a rather bemused and curious expression on her face. “Why is that?”

“Why is what, cara mia?”

“Why do so many men prefer their women to be quite the opposite of what one should prefer in a person?”

“Because. Those sorts of men, myself included, don’t want women for sparkling conversation. They want them for one thing, and one thing only.”

She sighed, a rather heavy, irritated sound. “I imagine you mean sex.”

He was momentarily surprised by her directness. Not that directness shocked him in any manner; it was simply that this kind of directness coming from her was shocking.

“Yes,” he said, not seeing why he shouldn’t be equally direct in return.

“Predictable. I suppose that’s why my mother is able to skip through life behaving so simply. She’s a prime example of what you’re talking about. Someone who is all sparkle and shine. My father no longer even possesses any shine. But I imagine in his case it’s the promise of money and an eventual payoff that bring women into his bed.”

“That sounds quite familiar to me.”

She studied him, a confused expression crossing her face. “But—and I’m speaking in a continued metaphor—you seem to be quite shiny.”

He laughed. No one had ever characterized him as shiny before. “I wasn’t thinking of myself. It’s true, I have my own set of charms that bring females into my bed. Money. Looks, so they tell me. But in this case I was thinking of my parents.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. It sounds very much like they would have been friends with yours.”

“Do your parents enjoy drugs, wild affairs and questionable fashion sense?”

He laughed, but this time the sound was bitter. “They liked nothing more. In fact, they loved it so much it killed them.”

She seemed to shrink in her seat, the regret on her face pronounced. “Oh. I’m sorry. I should not have made light of it. Not without knowing your background.”

He picked up his clear mug of coffee and turned it until the light coming from outside the plane window caught hold of the amber liquid, setting it ablaze. “One must make light of these things. Otherwise, it’s all darkness, isn’t it?”

“Some things are only dark, I fear.”

He shrugged, taking another drink. “They don’t have to be.”

“How did your parents die?”

The question struck him. She genuinely didn’t know. But then, it stood to reason. She’d had no idea who he was when they had first met. Rare was the person who didn’t know his entire family history before introducing themselves to him. She was an odd creature. And her cleverness was still off-putting. But he found small pieces of her to be a breath of fresh air he hadn’t realized he’d been craving.

“They died in a car accident,” he said. “They were having one of their legendary fights. Fueled by alcohol, drugs and a sexual affair. Basically, all of their favorite things combined into one great fiery ball of doom.”

“Oh. That’s awful.”

“Yes. I suppose it is. But I was very young. And not much a part of their lives.” He did his best to keep the memories of that night from crowding in. Snowy. The roads filled with ice. His parents shrieking obscenities. And a small boy standing out in the cold, looking lost and lonely. “I find them a tragedy. A cautionary tale. I might be a bit jaded, but I’m not a total libertine. I suppose I have their tragedy to thank for that.”

She nodded, as though she completely understood what he was talking about. He had no doubt she had little experience of libertines outside the pages of a book.

“If it weren’t for my parents,” she said, her words coming slowly, “who knows how I would be? It is their example that has kept me so firmly planted in the estate in Aceena. It’s their example that has caused me to crave a quieter existence.”

That surprised him. It seemed she did understand. At least a little bit better than he had guessed she might. A little bit better than most.

All of his siblings had started life with the same parents he had, and yet he had been the only one affected in quite this way.

His twin brothers were hellions. They were playboys who lived their lives entirely as they saw fit. At least, they had been before their respective true loves had come into their lives.

But always, they had lived with much more passion than Alex ever had. Even now that they had settled down, they continued to live with more passion and emotion than Alex would ever consider.

“Everything makes much more sense if you see life as a business,” he said, speaking the thought before he had decided he would.

“Do you think so?”

He nodded. “Yes. Business is sensible. Everyone is in it to make money. That’s the bottom line. Because of that, everyone’s motives are transparent from the beginning. They’re going to serve themselves. Sometimes favors are traded. Contracts are drawn up, terms are met.”

“A bit more clear-cut than people,” she said.

“I’ve always found it slightly strange that divorce is much easier than breaking a business contract. If people took marriage as seriously as they took business deals, the world would be a different place.” He leaned back in his chair. “Of course, you could go about metaphorically hopping into bed with other partners after taking on exclusive deals with another. But you would quickly lose your credibility, and your business with it. It wouldn’t serve your bottom line. Personal relationships are much more murky. There is no common bottom line. I find that disturbing.”

“I see what you’re saying,” she said. “I hadn’t thought about it that way. But then, I suppose it’s because I don’t have a head for business.”

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