Beauty and the Reclusive Prince (13 page)

“Oh. Of course.” She calmed herself down. Naturally he wanted to see how having a few workmen around worked out for him before he committed to a huge operation. It was only logical. She was just happy he’d decided to take this step at all.

“Okay.” She sighed happily. “We’ll do it your way.”

He gave her an adorably crooked grin. “What other way is there?”

A
FTER
spending so much time with Max, Isabella finally had to admit that she needed to concentrate on just how much her own family was making her crazy. Everything should be going swimmingly. They had the herb again. People were flocking to the restaurant just as they had in the best days of the past. You would think everyone would be happy with that—but no. There was a constant drumbeat of concern for her relationship with the prince, from her family and from everyone else, too.

Everyone in town seemed to know about it now, and each and every one had to stick his nose into it and give her the benefit of his or her great advice.

“Isabella, don’t you think it is time to get over this obsession with the Rossi prince? He’s not for you. You know how these things turn out, every time. You may be happy with it now, but in the end he’ll want another sort of woman, a woman he can marry, and you’ll be stuck with the consequences of your time with him.”

That trend of thought was the most annoying, because it was very difficult to answer. She could either get mad, or walk away. She usually did the latter.

Her father was the most troubling because she knew he really did care about her and was genuinely worried.

“Where are you going?” he seemed to ask every time she came near a door. “When will you be back? You’re not going to go see
him
again, are you?”

She was very careful not to take too much time away from the restaurant. She knew he needed her help and she didn’t resent that at all. In fact, she wanted to make him feel less anxious, if only she knew how. Talking didn’t seem to do it. And she decided a lot of it was based on his worry about the threats from Fredo—and those were beginning to worry her, too.

“Papa, what does he have against you?” she asked him again and again. “Why is he doing this?”

“He worked with me when I first had my stand on the Via Roma. We argued. He went off to start his own place, which failed. For years he’s claimed I stole his recipes. Even after he opened his ice cream store, he told everyone my success was due to his recipes.”

“Does he have even a tiny, tiny justification for thinking that?”

“Not a bit. He never even knew where I got the basil. He’s just a crazy, angry old fool.”

But crazy, angry old fools could do a lot of damage.

She went to a planning committee meeting with her father. He was too weak to stand up and speak his mind, so she did it for him and the arguing got pretty heated for a while. Even after all that, she wasn’t totally clear on what the issue was and she didn’t have a good feeling about things.

“What is it that you want?” she demanded of Fredo at one point. “Do you want us to admit guilt? Do you want money? What?”

Fredo was sitting in his chair at the long table and giving her his evil look. “I want Luca to lose his business like I lost mine.” That was all he would say.

“The problem is,” her father said as they were walking home from the meeting, “now that he has the mayor’s ear and a seat on the planning commission, he thinks he can put the screws to me.” He shook his head. “At first I was wondering if your aunt Lisa might not be behind it all. But he’s gone further than even she would now.”

“Oh, Papa. Aunt Lisa loves you deep down.”

“Hah!” He shook his head. “A lot you know about it.”

Luca’s sister Lisa was a very different type from plain, sweet Luca. Isabella knew her well, though she had a way of flitting in and out of life in Monta Correnti, despite having a very successful restaurant right next to the one her brother ran. Lisa also had a habit of bestowing different fathers on each of her three daughters, all cousins to Isabella. Scarlett, who was just her age, had been a close friend when they were young. But the two of them had been involved in some childish antics that had put a pall on their friendship and to this day their secret was like a barrier between them and they seldom spoke.

But her aunt Lisa did enough talking to make up for it.

“Well, I hear you’re flying high these days,” she said, meeting Isabella in the courtyard outside their respective restaurants.

Isabella decided to play dumb. “What are you talking about?”

“Running with royalty, they say.”

She bit her tongue. She couldn’t explain to Lisa how it had all come about, because that would be giving away the secret of the basil, something only a few people knew about. When you came right down to it, Lisa was the last person they would want to know. In many ways, she and Luca were in direct competition and had been for years. If Lisa found out about the basil, Isabella knew she would get
her hands on it immediately and hire the best chefs from Rome to come try out new recipes. As if they didn’t have enough trouble with declining revenue at Rosa as it was. If Lisa took over the basil and began to promote it as only she knew how, they would be sunk.

“I’ve always heard he’s such a recluse he won’t even allow tradesmen at the palazzo. But suddenly he’s hobnobbing with our little Izzy.” Lisa gave her a flippant look. “If I’d known he was so easy to get to, I’d have been out there to see him myself.”

A flare of panic rose in Isabella’s throat. What if she tried it? “What would you want to see him about?” she asked, frowning.

“I’d invite him to dinner, of course.” Lisa smiled. She knew she’d hit a nerve. “Can you imagine the promotional possibilities? I’m surprised you haven’t had him in to your place yet. But I suppose that’s to come. Isn’t it?”

She shook her head. She really had to head off this thinking at the pass if she could.

“It’s not like that, Aunt Lisa. I’ve been doing some consulting with him. He has some projects he’s thinking of tackling and I’m putting him in touch with local experts.”

“Is he thinking of starting a restaurant? I can’t imagine you know much about anything else.”

That did it. Lack of respect from relatives was a deal breaker as far as she was concerned. If her aunt couldn’t even pretend to have some deference for her, she was toast.

“You’d be surprised what I know about, Aunt Lisa,” she said icily, turning away. “You might want to think about that before you get involved in things you don’t understand.” She looked back at Lisa. To her surprise, the woman was looking flustered. “I would hate to think certain rumors might come back to bite you where my cousins are concerned.”

Lisa looked downright startled and Isabella had a twinge of guilt. She didn’t actually have a lot of juicy rumors about her aunt, but she was pretty sure there were some out there. So let her stew!

“She’s just so arrogant,” she explained to Max later that day as they were riding out across the estate, heading for another feast of tapas at the Spanish stand outside the walls. “I can’t abide that.”

“Forget about her,” he advised. “We have a long, lazy afternoon with no one else but each other. Let’s enjoy it.”

That sounded good to her. He was in a good mood because work had started on the vineyards and he’d actually gone down and done a bit of supervising. No one had blanched at his scars. No one had turned green and gone behind a tree to vomit, something that had actually happened to him once at a seaside resort. He was feeling pretty good about prospects for the future. Maybe he could have something of a normal life after all.

They tied the horses and he went to sit at a table overlooking the river, while Isabella headed for the stand to get the food. She went inside and greeted Señor Ortega. He began talking the moment she entered and she laughed because it was obvious he was going to go on talking even after she was out of sight. She picked out some spiced clams, some corn fritters, some fried black pudding, some stuffed mushrooms, and nice cold beer for Max. Señor Ortega fried up some special samosas for her, and as he did the most beautiful little girl came into the store. Tiny and small-boned, she had a halo of light curls that flew around her pretty face like a cloud of spun gold.

“This is Ninita,” Señor Ortega told her proudly. “My first grandchild.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Ninita,” Isabella said, shaking
the child’s hand and getting a solemn smile in return. “What a beautiful child,” she said sotto voce to the man behind the bar.

“Yes, she is my angel,” he said. “Here, take this tray. You’ve ordered so much food, I’ll help you carry it out.”

“Can I help too?” Ninita asked sweetly.

“Of course, my darling,” said the older man. “Here, you can carry the napkins.”

They formed a small train, carrying everything to the table where Max sat waiting.

“We come bearing lots of delicious tapas,” Isabella said as they approached. “And we have help from Señor Ortega’s grandchild. Meet little Ninita. Ninita, this is Prince Max.”

The little girl had been carefully carrying the napkins and now she looked up, eager to meet a real live prince. Her face registered her shock as she saw him. Isabella saw what was happening as if in slow motion. She knew she had to stop it. She tried. But it was too late. The little girl took in a loud, gasping breath, dropped the napkins and threw her hands over her face. Then she began to scream as though she’d seen something horrible. Turning, she ran as fast as her little legs would carry her, screaming all the way.

Max sat very still. His face was drained of all color. Señor Ortega was apologizing profusely, and Max tried to smile as he waved away the older man’s regrets. But the gaze that met Isabella’s horrified eyes was full of self-loathing. As soon as Señor Ortega went back into the shop Max rose from where he was sitting. Without saying a word, he strode toward his horse and mounted, and before Isabella could say anything at all he was gone, too.

She stood there, holding the tray, knowing something very terrible had just happened—knowing it was going to
change things. Something deep inside her was clenched like a fist and she was afraid it was going to be a long time before that feeling went away.

It was over an hour later before Isabella found Max, sitting by the river in a part of the estate she’d never seen before. She slid off Mimi’s back and went to sit beside him. But when she reached out to take his hand, he pulled it away, then looked at her with eyes as cold as ice.

“It’s over, Isabella. Our idyllic interlude is done.”

She stared at him, aghast. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought I could elude my fate, but of course I was wrong. My crime is advertised on my face. I can’t escape. I may fool myself for a while, but in the end it comes back to haunt me.”

“Max, don’t talk like that. It was my fault. I should have prepared her…”

He swore. “Can you prepare the whole world, Bella? I think not.”

“But, Max…”

“Isabella, can’t you see?” He turned his dark, tragic eyes on her. “I can’t do this. I can’t go out and mix with the world if I’m going to make precious little girls scream. I don’t have the right to do that to them.”

Suddenly it was clear to her that she had misunderstood his entire mental state. She’d thought he was shrinking from the pain of seeing how people reacted to his face. But he was way beyond that by now. It was evident to her that his motivations were very different. He was trying to avoid giving pain to others by inflicting his very disturbing scars on them.

And what could she possibly do about that? She couldn’t control what others thought when they saw him. She stared into the water and felt a wave of hopelessness that wasn’t
like her. She was done. She had no more ideas, no more plans and projects. She had tried. And now it was over.

Turning so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes, she rose and went to where Mimi was tied. In a moment, she was over the ridge and out of his sight. And then she let the tears fall like rain.

She spent the next week working hard at the restaurant, trying to develop some ideas for her father, ideas that would help brighten up the place. She hadn’t been able to generate much interest as yet, but she was determined to try harder. Something would come of it yet.

She hadn’t heard anything at all from Max, but she hadn’t been able to think of much else. She missed him. She needed him. She was so in love…why hadn’t she realized that before? She’d been in denial. Now that she’d lost him, she knew it was true. She loved him with all her heart. But what could she do about it?

She heard he’d paid off the workmen and sent everyone home. There were to be no more Rossi vineyards. She also heard a group from town had gone out to talk to him about using the estate for a fundraiser for the Monta Correnti Beautification Committee. He had refused to see them. He was doing just what he’d said he would do—reverting to his normal life. And that had no room for her in it.

Could it really be all over so soon? It seemed so. It truly hurt to have finally found a man whom she knew she could love with all her heart and soul, a man whose mind and interests fit nicely into the scope of her own, a man whose touch sent thrills through her body and created an ache of longing where her feminine secrets lay—and then have to give him up this way. But her life, as usual, was a less than stellar existence.

Okay, now she was whining and feeling very sorry for herself. But didn’t she deserve to? Yes—though she knew very well too much of that self-indulgence could ruin a good summer if she didn’t watch out. She gave herself one more day to mope about and cry, and then she was going to move on and find a place for herself where she could count for something and make a difference.

There. Just making a plan made her feel so much better.

Unfortunately, life had made its own plans and they didn’t take hers into account. She was sitting in the kitchen, shelling peas with Susa, when a young man arrived to serve Luca with a writ of failure to comply with a permit ordinance. The warrant stated that he had been deemed to be in noncompliance and, unless he paid an exorbitant fine, he would have to vacate the restaurant premises within forty-eight hours.

Isabella was numb as she read it over to her father again and he struggled to understand what it meant.

“It means we lose the restaurant,” she told him, unable to think straight, unable to understand much of this herself. “There is a meeting of the licensing board in two days. Unless we pay the fine by then, we have to pack up and get out.”