“The prince?” He shrugged. “I don’t think so. I usually deal with an old fellow who tries to get something for nothing every time.” He chuckled. “The place is like a mausoleum. You’d think it was full of old dead ancestors, but somebody seems to have an appetite for salmon and scallops.”
And so, a plan was born.
The gap in the stone wall that surrounded the Rossi estate was still there. No one had filled it in—and that was lucky. Without this little piece of access, her plan would never have worked at all.
And so the following Wednesday, Isabella squeezed through and then stood very still in the warm noon sun, listening as hard as she could. The wind was quiet. The water was a distant babbling. And once the pounding of her heart quieted down, she could tell—the guard dogs didn’t seem to be loose. There wasn’t a sign of them.
She bit her lip, tempted to race up the hill and gather basil as fast as she could, then race back again. But she knew that was no solution. And such an action certainly held no honor. Much as the prince scared her, she had to confront him about this and do things openly and honestly.
He’d told her not to come here. She had to change his mind—not steal from him. Taking a deep breath, she started up the hill toward the castle.
It was a long climb and she was carrying a heavy backpack with supplies—her special sauce pan, her favorite olive oil, the tomatoes that would form her base—and a small container of all that was left of the basil supply for her restaurant. She was going to go for broke and cook for the prince. It was pretty much the last idea she had left.
All the way, she kept expecting to hear someone shouting for her to go back. That didn’t happen and she found some shade once she’d reached the top of the hill. There were no cars in sight, and not a sign of life anywhere. The castle looked just as old and moldy, but a lot less intimidating in the sunlight.
A few minutes of rest and she began to work up the nerve to go on with her plan. She knew where the cook’s entrance was. She would use that first, hoping to find things unlocked. Once she was inside, she knew exactly what to do next.
She scanned the windows as high as she could look. There was no telling where his rooms were, no way to know where he hung out during the day.
Her fingers trembled a bit as she reached for the latch on the kitchen door, and she paused for a moment. Closing her eyes, she muttered a quick plea. This had to work. He had to understand. He was a prince, but he was also a man and she was counting on that basic humanity to come through for her in the end.
And whatever chance there was, she had to take it. She had no choice.
Max stood with his eyes closed and savored being bombarded by water. He’d just had a grueling workout in his gym and the water pouring over his naked body was creating a special kind of ecstasy. Every aching muscle sang with relief. Every body part relaxed with delight. Every nerve, every fiber, came together in rapt happiness.
He would have to pay for this someday. Maybe at the gates of heaven. This was pure self-indulgence and he was probably wasting water to boot, but he let it go on and on, gushing through his thick hair, making small silver rivers over his tanned shoulders and through the dark thatch on his chest. It felt so damn good. He was pure appetite today, appetite for pleasure.
And what the hell? It was his birthday.
It was his birthday and no one had remembered.
That was okay. In fact, it was exactly as he wanted it to be. He hated people making a fuss. What was a birthday, anyway? Just a day. Nothing special. All the celebrating was just a pretence that something had actually happened, something had actually changed, a milestone had been set down. And actually, it was all much ado about nothing.
A memory floated into his mind, how his birthday had been when Laura was still with him. She’d slipped out of bed early in the morning and taken little gifts and hidden them all over the castle. It had taken him the entire day to find them all. How she’d laughed when he’d looked in all the wrong places. He could almost hear her musical voice now.
But he shook it away. Thinking of Laura was still too painful. Would there ever come a time when he could remember her without that dull, hopeless, agonizing pain of guilt in his gut?
Finally he was ready to put a stop to this and get on with his day. He turned off the water and stood there for a moment, feeling the mist around him turn into clear air, the warmth turn into refreshing coolness, the moisture evaporate on his skin. For some reason his senses seemed especially acute today. He was feeling things he never noticed, hearing birds outside, feeling a breeze, enjoying the rays of the sun that came in through the open window. As usual, he avoided looking in the mirror while he dried himself with a huge fluffy towel, glancing out the window at the beautiful day instead.
“There’s no place like Italy,” he murmured to himself. “And in Italy, there’s no place like Monta Correnti.”
He stretched in the warm sunlight, smelling the clean scent of his soap. And…something else.
He stopped, frowning, and sniffed the air again. There was something else in the wind—or, more likely, wafting up from the kitchen. Someone was cooking. How could someone be cooking? There was no one here. Even Renzo was gone, making his weekly trip to see his daughter an hour’s drive away.
Was it his imagination?
No, it got stronger. Garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, and something else.
It was a wonderful smell. A slow smile began to transform his face. It seemed someone had remembered his birthday after all and had come back to surprise him. It had to be Renzo.
Much as the old sourpuss tended to be a dour figure, he had his moments. Max pulled on a pair of jeans, suddenly in a hurry to find out what was going on. He turned to the stairway, bounding down, barefooted and shirtless, feeling happier than he’d felt in a long time. Funny how the fact that someone had remembered his birthday after all seemed to buoy him. He was smiling as he pushed in through the swinging doors to the kitchen.
“So you did remember my birthday after all,” he said, and then he stopped dead, shocked to the core. It wasn’t Renzo who turned to greet him.
“You!” He stared at her. “How did you get in here?”
Isabella was opening her mouth, and as she did so she thought she had words to say. But somehow they never made it out past her lips. For the moment, she couldn’t speak.
It was all too much. She was startled by the way he’d come barging into the room, but, more than that, she was stunned at the beauty of the man she saw before her. His bare chest, his strong shoulders and muscular arms, the way his worn jeans rode low on his hips, revealing a tanned stomach that was smooth and tight as a trampoline canvas, all combined to present a picture of raw, candid masculinity that took her breath away.
“Oh! I…I…”
His jaw was hard as stone and his eyes blazed. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Uh…” She gestured toward the stove. “Cooking?”
His head went back. That part was obvious. He was tensed, every muscle hardening, as though ready to pick her up physically and throw her out onto the front walkway.
“That’s not what I mean,” he said through teeth that were close to clenched.
“I know. I know.”
She shook her head, trying to clear it. She’d never responded to a man like this before. She was swooning like a young girl in the sixties at a Beatles concert. She had to get a grip.
But something about him had hit her hard, right in the emotions. He had come barging into the kitchen and as she’d turned to greet him she’d seen this beautifully sculptured image of a man, backlit by the golden light coming in from the high windows. Michelangelo’s creation in the flesh. She had that feeling