The Princes' Brides

Lately she didn’t even have the energy.

She was tired all the time. Exhausted, really. Plagued by bouts of nausea.

Stress, she’d told herself. Over her grandfather because, despite everything, he was her blood and she loved him. Over what would become of Stafford-Coleridge-Black, because she loved it, too.

And stress over that night. What she’d done. That she’d let a stranger seduce her—

Except, he hadn’t. She’d gone to him willingly. Eagerly. Making love with him was the most exciting thing she’d ever done. Sex had never been like that before. Sex would never be like that again, especially since she couldn’t imagine being with another man…

Aimee blinked.

She had more important things on her mind this morning.

Yesterday, she’d finally gone to her doctor for a checkup. He’d listened to her litany of complaints, examined her, had his nurse take blood and urine samples and told her he’d have lab reports in a few days.

“Not to worry, Ms. Black,” he’d said briskly. “I suspect whatever ails you is simple to deal with.”

Vitamins, she’d thought. More rest.

Fewer dreams.

Still, it was hard not to worry until the lab results were in and now, on top of everything else, she had this meeting Bradley had orchestrated, undoubtedly so he could crow with triumph as he told he’d taken permanent control of the reins.

When she was dressed—cotton summer suit, low heels, light makeup—Aimee looked in the mirror. The woman looking back at her was the woman she really was. Intelligent. Educated. Competent.

She bore no resemblance to the woman in the bathroom mirror that night at the club…

No. She would not let those memories take over this morning.

Bradley was about to knife her in the back, but she’d be damned if she’d let him see her bleed.

She would show absolutely no emotion today, no matter what happened.

That was the plan, and it would have worked…except for what she found waiting for her in the Stafford-Coleridge-Black boardroom.

Grandfather, not Bradley, sat ramrod-straight in his usual chair at one end of the long mahogany conference table.

The stranger she’d gone to bed with was seated at the other.

Nicolo was not in a good mood.

He was in New York for the first time since the episode three months before and he’d found the night had tainted his feelings about the city.

Unfortunate.

He’d always enjoyed spending time in Manhattan. Now, he couldn’t wait to see the last of it. And, he thought, with a not-so-discreet glance at his Tag Heuer watch as he sat waiting for the meeting in James Black’s office to begin, he would be doing that soon.

Just this one last session with Black and the deal he and the old man had worked on the past two weeks, via a volley of faxes and phone calls, would be completed.

Yesterday, when they’d met face-to-face, Black told him there was just one last point to agree upon.

“Just one,” he’d repeated, his voice quavering because of the stroke that had, it was said, almost killed him.

“And that is?” Nicolo had replied.

Black had wagged a bony finger. “Nothing a smart man won’t be willing to accede to, Prince Barbieri, I assure you.”

Nicolo had almost reminded him that he didn’t use his title, but he’d decided to play along. Black obviously liked the idea that Nicolo was royalty. Why do anything to spoil the finalization of the deal?

Not that he was concerned over this last point, especially since he was sure he knew what it was. They’d agreed on a price. On a takeover date. What could be left to discuss?

Only Black’s repeated concern that the company his ancestors had founded not lose its identity among Nicolo’s holdings.

The old man, he was sure, was going to want some sort of guarantee, and Nicolo had come up with one.

He would keep the bank’s name, Stafford-Coleridge-Black, intact.

In fact, he’d almost said so yesterday in hopes of avoiding this morning’s meeting, but he suspected that giving in without at least a small battle would only make Black ask for something more.

So he’d agreed to today’s meeting, which had meant spending another night in the city.

Another night plagued by memories of how he’d let a woman make a fool of him.

Dio, how ridiculous he was! He’d had a night of sex—the best sex of his life, and that was saying a great deal. A night of fantastic sex, with no morning-after to deal with. No female batting her lashes over coffee, telling him how wonderful he was, asking when she would see him again.

Ask half a dozen men what was wrong with that scenario and they’d laugh and say there wasn’t a thing wrong with it.

Mind-blowing sex. No names. No commitment. A man’s fantasy.

Then why was it driving him insane, that she’d left his bed while he slept? Why should it bother him?

He still winced when he recalled how he’d gone searching for her in the hall. Made a fool of himself with the elevator operator, the night clerk. Taken a cab to that damned club and demanded answers.

Embarrassing? A little…

Hell. A lot.

A woman should not be the one who walked out of a relationship. Even if that “relationship” only lasted a few hours. Yes, he knew all about the Age of Equality but a woman had never walked out on him, not under any circumstances.

This one had, and he didn’t like it.

That was why she was in his head, even now. Even when he was about to complete a deal he’d worked on, dreamed of, for years. Instead of concentrating on it, he was thinking about a woman who—

“Prince Barbieri?”

Who should consider herself fortunate he’d had no way to locate her because if he had—

“Prince Barbieri. Sir? If you please—”

“Si,” Nicolo said, and cleared his throat. “Are you ready to begin? I was, ah, I was just reading through my notes, and—”

And, he looked up.

The world tilted.

The woman with the violet eyes was standing in the doorway staring at him just as he was staring at her, as if one of them was an apparition.

He saw the color drain from her face. Saw her mouth drop open. Saw the swift rise and fall of her breasts beneath the jacket of a demure blue suit.

“Demure” was the word for her, all right. Whoever she was, whatever she was doing here, today she was playing the part of a virgin.

A muscle knotted in Nicolo’s jaw.

He shoved back his chair. Rose to his feet, his eyes never leaving her. She took a quick step back. Her lips formed a silent plea.

No!

He forgot everything. The boardroom. The old man. The deal he’d worked so long to finalize.

“Yes,” he said grimly. “Oh, most definitely yes, cara!”

She shook her head. Stumbled back another step…

“Do you two know each other?” Black asked.

Nicolo swung his head toward the old man. “What?”

“I said, have you met my granddaughter before, Your Highness?”

Nicolo, a man who had glibly talked his way into the presence of captains of industry and heads of nations during his determined rise to the top, opened his mouth, then shut it again.

Black’s granddaughter? This—this creature who would sleep with a stranger and then disappear into the night was his granddaughter?

Yes. Of course. A spoiled rich brat, accustomed to playing a seductive nymph by night and a sweet virgin by day. He’d seen lots of women like this. The rich seemed to specialize in breeding them.

“Grandfather.” Her voice shook but Nicolo had to give her credit for recovering fast. “I—I didn’t realize you were busy. I’ll come back later. This afternoon. Or tomorrow. Or—”

“Prince Barbieri? Please, sit down. You, too, Aimee. This meeting very much concerns you.”

Her stricken gaze swept from the old man to Nicolo.

Nicolo narrowed his eyes. What the hell was going on here? The temptation to tell Black he would not talk business in front of the woman was strong, but he suspected Black would not back down. He wanted her here, but why?

Nicolo had no choice but to learn why.

“What a pleasant surprise,” he said, his tone silken, “Miss…Is it Miss Black?”

She nodded. “That’s—that’s correct.”

“Ah. In that case, please, join us.”

The look she gave him told him she’d regained her composure.

“My grandfather’s already asked me to stay. I don’t need your invitation.”

“Aimee!”

“No. That’s all right, Signore Black.” Nicolo drew his lips back in a cold smile. “Your granddaughter is right. These are your offices, not mine.”

“But not for long,” the old man said.

Aimee looked at him. “What does that mean?”

“Sit down, Aimee, and you’ll find out.”

Nicolo pulled out the chair beside his. “An excellent suggestion, Miss Black.” His voice hardened. “Sit down.”

He saw her throat move as she swallowed. Then she raised her chin, ignored him and took the seat to the right of her grandfather. Nicolo sat down, too, and Black cleared his throat.

“Well,” he said briskly, “you haven’t answered my question. Do you know each other?”

“We—we might have met before,” Aimee said.

“Have we?” Nicolo flashed another icy smile. “Perhaps your memory is better than mine. After all, if we’d met, we’d know each other’s names, wouldn’t we?”

Color painted crimson patches on her cheeks but when she spoke, her tone was cool.

“I really don’t see that it matters.” She turned to her grandfather. “Who is this man? And why is he here?”

Black folded his gnarled hands on the highly polished wood before him.

“Aimee, this is Nicolo Barbieri. Prince Nicolo Barbieri, of Rome.”

Her expression showed how little impressed she was by his title.

“I suppose you expected to find Bradley.” Black glanced at Nicolo. “My nephew and Aimee’s cousin.”

Aimee didn’t answer. She was stunned by the presence of the stranger she’d slept with. Why was he here? And what was he going to say about that night?

“Aren’t you curious as to why Bradley isn’t present, Aimee?”

A good question. Bradley would never miss the chance to see her reaction as control of SCB was placed permanently in his hands.

Aimee sat up straight. Finding this—this man here had driven logical thought out of her head and she could not let that happen, not if there was the slightest chance of talking sense to her grandfather.

“I am curious,” she said. “Knowing Bradley, I’d assume he’d want to be here to gloat.”

James chuckled. “As you can see,” he told Nicolo, “my granddaughter believes in being frank.” He turned his attention to Aimee. “But Bradley has nothing to gloat about. I am, as you can see, in control of things again and after examining the records of the past three months, I can see that I was wrong to put Bradley in charge.”

Aimee put her hands in her lap and clenched them into fists.

“I’m glad you realize that, Grandfather.”

James nodded. “It’s the reason you’re here today.”

“Excuse me,” Nicolo said with barely concealed impatience, “but I would like to be let in on what is happening here, Signore Black. What has this woman—”

“My granddaughter. My own flesh and blood.”

“What has she to do with our agreement?”

“What agreement?” Aimee said, looking from her grandfather to Nicolo.

“Aimee believes she should take over as head of Stafford-Coleridge-Black, Prince Barbieri.”

Nicolo’s mouth twitched. A woman, this woman, in charge of a private bank worth billions? He would have laughed, but the old man’s expression was serious.

At least now he understood why Aimee Black was in the room. Her grandfather wanted her present for the announcement of his decision to sell the bank to Nicolo. Was it because he thought she’d take the news better than hearing it another way? Was it because Black thought, as he did, that her hope to head SCB was laughable?

Nicolo didn’t give a damn.

For weeks, he’d imagined all the ways in which he could get even with this woman but what was about to happen was better than anything he’d considered. Her shock when she learned that he, of all people, was going to get what she so obviously—so foolishly—wanted, was more than he could have hoped for.

Sometimes, he thought, sitting back in his chair, sometimes, a man got very, very lucky.

“My granddaughter worked here summers for many years.”

“How nice,” Nicolo purred.

“She studied finance, economics and business.”

Nicolo tried to look impressed. Amazing, what they taught rich girls in boarding school these days.

“She knows how I felt about keeping SCB in the family.”

Nicolo nodded. “Unfortunately,” he said politely, “fate did not cooperate.”

“No. Not until now.”

Nicolo frowned. Even a prince could smell a rat when it got close enough. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Signore Black.”

James looked at Aimee. “How badly do you want to keep Stafford-Coleridge-Black in our family?” he said softly.

Aimee’s heart began to race. “You know the answer to that, Grandfather.”

“Now, just a moment, Black.” Nicolo sat forward, his eyes narrowed and fixed on the old man’s face. “We have a deal.”

“What deal?” Aimee said.

“We have a tentative agreement, Prince Barbieri. Subject, as you know, to the outcome of this meeting.”

“I do not like being hustled,” Nicolo said sharply.

“Hustled?”

“Hustled. Played for a fool. Pushed for more money.”

“This is not about money, Your Highness.”

“Dio, will you stop calling me that? Call me by my last name. My first name. Just stop with the nonsense.” Nicolo slapped his hand on the table. “Damn it, just tell me what you want.”

James took a long breath.

“I want this institution to be in the hands of someone with experience. Someone with a record of achievement that I can trust.”

“That someone is me,” Nicolo said coldly, “and we both know it.”

“I also want it to be the legacy I leave to future generations of Blacks. Call it pride, call it what you will, Barbieri, but I don’t wish to see two hundred years disappear.”

“I understand.” Nicolo took a breath, too. For a couple of minutes, he’d thought the old man was trying to tell him the sale was off. Impossible, of course. Black was not a sentimentalist. He would never leave the bank in the hands of an irresponsible female. “And that is why I’m sure what I say next will please you, signore. I’ve decided to retain the name of the bank. It will be known as Stafford-Coleridge-Black, just as it has for generations.”

Aimee snorted. Nicolo shot her a warning look.

“Do you find this amusing, signorina?”

“I find it arrogant, signore. Can you actually believe my grandfather is naïve enough to think you’ve decided to keep a name that’s worth its weight in gold in financial circles as an act of kindness?”

Nicolo gave her a long, cold look. Then he turned to James.

“With all due respect,” he said, in a tone that made it clear the words were a polite lie, “I will not continue this meeting with your granddaughter present.”

“With all due respect,” Aimee snapped, “you are the outsider here, Prince Barbieri.”

“You know nothing about this.”

“I know everything about it.”

Nicolo’s mouth thinned. “What you know,” he said slowly, “has nothing to do with boardrooms or corporations or responsibility. The only person here who does not know that is your grandfather.”

Aimee sprang to her feet. “You—you no good, insolent son of a—”

“Stop it!” James’s voice was sharp. “Aimee. You are to show the prince respect.”

“Respect? If you knew—if you only knew what this man is really like. If you knew the truth about him—”

“Tell him,” Nicolo said softly. “Go on, Miss Black. Why not explain things to your grandfather?”

Aimee stared at him, eyes glittering with angry tears, lips pouting with suppressed rage, breasts rising and falling with each breath.

It made him remember how she had looked that night, in his arms.

In his bed.

With a swiftness that stunned him, he felt his body harden.

“Why is he here?” she said, her voice rising. “I demand to know the reason!”

James Black looked from his granddaughter to the one man he was certain could guide the company he loved through the twenty-first century. Bradley couldn’t do it. Aimee had tried to make him see that, and she’d been right. In the short time the boy had been at the helm, the company had lost clients and come close to taking dangerous changes of direction.

That left only one other Black to head the bank.

Aimee.

In the endless weeks of his recuperation, James had finally reviewed the proposals she’d made and he’d ignored. They were, he’d been forced to admit, good.

Excellent, actually.

And Aimee was of his blood.

But she was also a woman. A young woman. Even if he managed to convince himself that her sex was not a drawback, her inexperience was.

How could he entrust her with the responsibility handed down by generations of Staffords, Coleridges and Blacks?

He’d put thoughts of Aimee aside. Concentrated on Nicolo Barbieri. The man had the intelligence, the courage, the experience to move SCB forward.

If only he carried the right blood, James had thought…

And the solution had come to him.

Barbieri was young. Thirty, thirty-two. Something like that. Aimee was in her midtwenties.

Once upon a time, nations had forged bonds through marriage. So had powerful institutions. Men and women had been joined in matrimony so they could produce children who carried the proud ancestry of both.

“Grandfather, I want an answer. Why is Nicolo Barbieri here?”

Black looked at the Italian prince, then at his headstrong American granddaughter.

“He is here,” he said calmly, “to make you his wife.”

Chapter Five

FOR A MOMENT, no one spoke. No one moved. Even the dust motes hovered in the silence.

Then Aimee collapsed into her chair and made a choked sound. Was she laughing? One glance at her and Nicolo knew she wasn’t. She looked the way he felt, as if an elephant had suddenly appeared in their midst.

“A bad joke, Grandfather. Now tell me the real reason.”

“That is the real reason.” James was unsmiling as he met her eyes. “You have some good ideas, Aimee, but you’re too inexperienced to run SCB.”

“I’m fully capable of running SCB. And in the event I needed advice, I’d turn to you.”

“If I could rely on lasting long enough to do that,” her grandfather said bluntly, “I wouldn’t be handing my company to someone else.”

“I’m not someone else. I’m your granddaughter!”

“You need guidance, Aimee.” The old man paused. “And you need a husband. A woman’s function is to marry and bear children.”

Fascinated, not yet believing what was happening, Nicolo sat back and became a silent observer.

“You’re a century behind the times, Grandfather.”

“So it would seem. Which is why I’m willing to see you as second-in-command to a man capable of running my company.”

“Second-in-command?” Aimee’s voice rose. “Do you actually think I’d agree to such an arrangement?”

“Stafford-Coleridge-Black needs strong, proven leadership. It also needs, as you have pointed out many times, new blood. His Highness can provide both those things.” Black fixed her with an autocratic eye. “He can also provide our bank with a new generation of leaders.”

A flush rose in her cheeks. “You speak as if—as if I’m a broodmare!”

“I speak sense, child,” Black said, somewhat more gently. “You know I do. This is the perfect solution to everything.”

A muscle knotted in Nicolo’s jaw as silence fell over the room again. The offhand comment about providing the bank with a new generation was, perhaps, the most infuriating of all the infuriating things the old man had said.

If he took Aimee Black to bed, breeding a future generation of bankers would not be the reason.

What about the night you spent with her, Nicolo? A man who doesn’t use a condom is a man flirting with fatherhood.

A knot formed in his belly. He’d never done such a foolhardy thing before, forgotten protection in the rush to take a woman, but then, he’d never done anything as crazy as making love to a stranger, either.

He looked at Aimee.

Nothing to worry about, he thought coldly. A woman who slept with a nameless man would be using protection of her own. She looked innocent now, in that demure outfit, tears glittering in her eyes, but it was all an act.

An act, he thought, and felt anger overtake surprise. What a pair they were, the old man and his granddaughter.

Did they really take him for such an easy mark?

Perhaps it was time to remind them of who he was.

“Excuse me,” he said, his voice dangerously soft, “but perhaps I might say a word…Or would that spoil this rather amusing little scene?”

“Your Highness.” James Black cleared his throat. “Maybe I should have mentioned this to you during an earlier meeting, but—”

“Indeed, signore. Maybe you should have.”

“I considered it, but—”

“But, you were afraid I’d laugh in your face.”

“I admit, I thought it possible you might see my idea as…unpalatable.”

The woman gave a soft moan, as if she’d only just remembered his presence. Nicely timed, Nicolo thought, and decided the game had gone on long enough.

“There is more than that possibility,” he said coldly, as he pushed back his chair. “There is that certainty.”

“Your Highness—”

“Yes,” Nicolo said through clenched teeth, “that is who I am. I am Prince Nicolo Antonius Barbieri, of a lineage much older and far more honorable than yours, and you would do well to remember it.”

Had he really said that? Dio, he had. And his speech was going from lightly accented to the way it had been when he’d first come to this country to attend university, thirteen years ago.

It was a measure of his rage, and rage was not a good thing. A man could only succeed when his emotions were under control.

Nicolo stood and wrapped his hands tightly around the top rung of his chair.

“You were right, Signore Black. I would have brought this bank the leadership it needs. And, someday, I will surely produce the sons who will succeed me.” He flashed a look at Aimee, whose cheeks were crimson.

Good, he thought with savage pleasure. It was a joy to see her humiliated.

“But I will do that with a woman of my choosing, who brings pride to my name and not dishonor.”

Aimee’s chair fell back as she scrambled to her feet and rounded the table to face him, head high, lips drawn back in a snarl.

“You—you no good, dissolute son of a bitch!”

“I am dissolute?” Nicolo let go of the chair and pounded his fist on the table. So much for self-control. “No, Miss Black. I hardly think it’s I who should bear that label.”

“You think, because you’re a man, you can keep to a different level of morality? Let me tell you something, Prince Whoever You Are—”

“Do not think to lecture me about morals, Miss Black. Not unless you want me to tell your grandfather about the night we spent together.” He paused, and his mouth twisted. “Or does he already know the salient details?”

All the color drained from her face. “What?”

“Your grandfather gives as good a performance as you. Not quite as enjoyable as the one you gave this spring, but still more than acceptable.”

James looked from one of them to the other. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Of course you understand.” Nicolo gathered his papers together and stuffed them into his briefcase. “I am Italian. My people go back to the time of Caesar. My bloodlines flow with conspiracy.”