The Princes' Brides

“What conspiracy?” Black sputtered.

“Which of you planned this?” A smile slashed across his face. “No matter. It comes to the same thing—though I admit, I choose to believe the added touch of seduction was the lady’s idea.”

“Don’t,” Aimee said, reaching out her hand. “I beg you. Don’t say anymore.”

“She and I would meet, seemingly by accident. I would find her coldness enticing.”

“Aimee? What is he talking about?”

“Then the sex. Incredible sex, but then, nothing less would do. And the coup de grâce. The disappearing act and the hope that I’d want more of what I had that night, enough so that when I learned the identity of my seductress, this little melodrama could be played for its full impact.” He looked at Aimee. “That was a nice touch, by the way, that ‘I’d never marry this man’ routine. My compliments. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have believed it.”

Her eyes, the color of pansies in the rain, pleaded with him to stop.

For one brief moment, he remembered how terrified she’d been when he followed her into the bathroom at Lucas’s club. How worried that someone would see them.

And he remembered what he had not permitted himself to remember until now, the way she’d trembled when he took her to his bed, the way she’d looked up at him when he made love to her, really made love to her, kissing her slowly, savoring her taste, taking all the time in the world to caress her and stroke her and, at last, enter her, how her face, her whispers, her caresses had told him that what she was feeling, what he was making her feel, was new and incredible and had never happened to her before.

Liar, Nicolo thought, and anger became rage so fierce it slammed into him like a fist.

“Wasted effort,” he said roughly. “You understand, Black? I’m not interested in you or your bank or your slut of a granddaughter.”

Aimee whipped her hand through the air and slammed it against his jaw. Nicolo grabbed her wrist and put enough pressure on it to make her yelp.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice soft with malice. “Do you hear me? Don’t do anything you will regret.”

“I couldn’t regret anything more than being with you that horrid night!”

She was shaking now, her eyes glistening with hatred for him. That was fine. Let her hate him. God knew, he hated her and the despicable old man who sat watching them.

James Black was sick, all right, but it had nothing to do with his stroke. His sickness was moral depravity.

The old man loved his damnable bank more than his granddaughter, who he’d sent to seduce him.

The night had been a travesty of passion. All of it. The deep kisses. The sighs. The way she’d framed his face with her hands and brought his mouth to hers while her dark-gold hair spread in abandon over his pillow.

Cursing, Nicolo reached for her now, dragged her to her toes and crushed her mouth beneath his. She cried out and it only made him more furious, hearing the cry, remembering how differently she had cried out in his arms that night.

The old man said something in a sharp voice. Nicolo ignored him. He went on kissing Aimee Black until her cry became a moan, until her mouth softened and clung to his.

Then he flung her from him, grabbed his briefcase and strode from the room.

Amazing, what an hour in a quiet place could do for a man’s disposition.

An hour—and three bourbons, straight up.

Nicolo looked at the half inch of amber liquid that remained in his glass, sighed and pushed it away.

He was much calmer. Still furious at the Blacks and the ugly game he’d been dragged into, but at least he had regained his equilibrium.

What he needed now was coffee, perhaps a bite to eat. Then he’d go to his hotel, phone his pilot, have him ready the Learjet.

A few hours, and he’d be home.

Goodbye, New York. Goodbye, James Black. Goodbye, acquisition of Stafford-Coleridge-Black.

He could live without all of them. The city, the crazy old man, the bank.

There were other private banks in the United States, maybe not quite as suitable for his purposes, but they would do. He still had the short-list from which he’d ultimately chosen SCB. As soon as he returned to Rome, he’d tell his people to begin researching them in depth all over again.

It wasn’t as if he’d fixated on this one financial institution…

As if he’d fixated on this one beautiful woman.

A lying, scheming, bitch of an immoral woman.

And, damn it, he didn’t know why what had happened should have made him react with such rage.

The bartender caught his eye. Did he want another drink? Nicolo shook his head, then mouthed the word, coffee. The guy nodded.

He’d been around long enough to know that the days of the old robber barons were not over. Scandals in the world of high finance erupted as frequently as squalls over the Mediterranean. Seemingly intelligent men did amazingly stupid things to advance their own interests.

James Black was no different.

Neither was his granddaughter, who had been willing to sleep with a stranger to whet his appetite for a dynastic merger.

“Your coffee, sir.”

Nicolo looked up. “Grazie.”

“Will there be anything else?”

“Si.” What was with all this Italian? When in Rome…or, in this case, New York…“Yes,” he said. “A sandwich.”

“What kind would you like?”

“Anything. Roast beef is fine.” He smiled. “Something to keep the bourbon company, si?”

More Italian, he thought as the bartender moved off. A clear sign he was still distressed, though surely not anywhere near as much as before. The whiskey, now some much-needed logic, were working their magic.

The simple fact was that Black was a man who would do whatever was necessary to get what he wanted.

So would his granddaughter.

Nicolo drank some coffee.

And, really, how different did that make her from some other women he’d known? Women who dressed in a way meant to gain a man’s interest. Who went to bed with a man and performed whatever tricks they imagined might win them points. Who lied to a man’s face, promised love and devotion forever, all in hopes of landing a suitable husband.

Of all the women he’d known, Aimee Black was the last woman in the world he would ever consider marrying. Her morals were lacking and it wasn’t because she’d slept with him that night.

It was because she’d done it as part of an act.

Nicolo took another mouthful of coffee.

Maybe his ego demanded it. Maybe his male pride required it. Whatever the reason, he’d wanted to believe that the woman with the violet eyes had felt the same uncontrollable hunger he had felt. That she could no more have kept from making love with him than she could have stopped breathing.

That what had happened that night was the most exciting memory of her life, and that they had created that memory with equal passion and desire.

He could see her now, that night in his bed. Eyes dark with pleasure. Skin fragrant with her need…

“Your sandwich, sir.”

Nicolo blinked. Had he ordered a sandwich?

“Would you like anything else? More coffee?”

Nicolo pushed the plate aside, rose to his feet and dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the table.

“No,” he said brusquely, and added what he hoped was a polite smile and a hurried, “Grazie.”

It wasn’t the bartender’s fault that what he wanted, what he damned well would not be denied, could not be found in this bar.

Aimee sat slumped on the sofa in her apartment, face buried in her hands.

Her anger was gone, replaced by a terrible emptiness in her heart.

“Let me explain,” Grandfather had said.

Explain what? That he’d been willing to sell her to a foreigner to get what he wanted for his precious bank?

She’d fled his office, ignored his voice calling after her, stumbled into a taxi and gone home.

She’d never harbored any illusions about her grandfather’s feelings for her. His lack of feelings, she amended, with a bitter smile. She’d accepted it.

What other choice did she have?

He’d taken her in after she’d lost her parents. He’d raised her, or maybe it was more accurate to say he’d paid a series of nannies and housekeepers to raise her. He’d sent her to the best schools; he’d seen to it she had tennis and skiing and riding lessons, all the things his fortune could buy.

But he’d never really loved her.

What he loved was his bank and the dead Staffords, Coleridges and Blacks who’d founded it. Everything else, including her, was secondary.

Even so, she’d never dreamed him capable of such a cold-blooded scheme. That he’d want to marry her off to a stranger…

Except, Nicolo Barbieri—Prince Barbieri—was not a stranger. He was the man she’d made love with endless times in a few short hours.

How could she have done that? Climaxed in his arms when she hadn’t even known his name?

Nausea roiled in her belly. Aimee clamped her hand to her mouth, raced to the bathroom and reached it just in time. A couple of moments later, pale and shaken, she flushed the commode and sank down on the closed seat.

God, she felt awful. She was tired of throwing up, tired of just plain feeling tired.

This time, at least she had a reason for feeling so rotten. Who wouldn’t, after today?

That son of a bitch. Prince Barbieri. Prince of Darkness, was more like it. To call her a—a—

She couldn’t even think the word.

How could he believe she’d deliberately seduced him? Offered herself as bait for her grandfather’s vile proposition?

She’d slept with Nicolo Barbieri because—because she’d been upset. Anxious. Stressed.

Aimee groaned and put her face in her hands again.

She’d slept with him because she’d wanted to. Because he was the most exciting man she’d ever seen and because she’d fantasized about him all that afternoon.

That was why she’d refused to exchange names.

To make what had happened real would have meant despising herself for what she’d let him do…

And ever since that night, she’d wanted him to do it all again.

No wonder he’d looked at her with such loathing today. She loathed herself. But to believe she’d deliberately—

The ringing of the phone made her jump.

She didn’t want to talk to anybody. Especially her grandfather and that was probably him calling. He was furious at her. She’d walked out of his office without a word, ignored his demand that she come back.

Let the answering machine deal with him. She wasn’t going to.

Another ring. Then the machine picked up.

Hi. You’ve reached 555-6145. Please leave a message after the tone.

“Ms. Black, this is Dr. Glassman’s office. Your test results are in. Please call our office between the hours of eight and—”

She ran for the phone, snatched it up. “I’m here! I mean, this is Ms. Black.”

“Ms. Black? Please hold for the doctor.”

Aimee held, imagining the worst. Why not, on a day like this? A brain tumor. A rare blood malady. Or—her breath caught at how stupid she was not to have thought of it sooner.

Or an illness of the kind people got these days, from having unprotected sex.

No. Not that.

Whatever else he was, she could not imagine the Prince of Darkness having that kind of disease.

“Ms. Black? Dr. Glassman here…”

Aimee listened. And listened. Then she put down the phone and stared blankly at the wall.

She’d thought right.

Nicolo Barbieri hadn’t give her a disease.

He’d given her a baby.

She sat motionless for hours, wrapped in her robe, oblivious to the passage of time.

What to do? What to do?

She was single. Unemployed. Living on temporary jobs because she refused to let her grandfather support her.

No money, no prospects, this small apartment in a not-very-good neighborhood…

This time, it wasn’t the phone that beat shrilly against the silence, it was the doorbell.

Aimee ignored it. Whoever it was would go away. The UPS man with a package, the super to drill a peephole in the door, something she’d been requesting for months.

The bell rang again. And again. Whoever was out there was persistent.

Aimee sighed, rose to her feet and went to the door. She undid the locks. The chain. Cracked the door an inch…

And felt the blood drain from her head.

“No,” she said. “No—”

“Yes,” Nicolo growled, and just as he had that fateful night, he put his shoulder to the door and forced it open.

Chapter Six

THEY SAID TIME defused anger.

The hell it did.

In the thirty or forty minutes Nicolo had spent looking up Aimee Black in the telephone directory, then taking a taxi all the way downtown, through the tangled snarl of midmorning traffic, his anger didn’t cool one bit.

If anything, it changed to something so hot and fierce he could damned near feel it inside him.

It was bad enough she’d been part of the ugly scam her grandfather had designed. If the actual seduction wasn’t part of it, at least the come-on was.

What was worse was that she’d kept lying to him, not only that night but again this morning.

She had intended to entice him. He was certain of that. Now, she’d lied about what she’d felt in his arms. She hadn’t intended to get caught up in her own game, but she had.

He was certain of it.

He knew women. The little things they did when they wanted to boost a man’s ego. The things they did when their passion was real.

What Aimee felt had been real.

The throaty little moans. The soft cries. The lift of her hips to his. Real. All of it. So real, he knew he’d never forget anything they had done together.

And he was damned well going to force her to admit it. She might have come on to him deliberately but after the first few minutes in his arms, everything had changed.

Aimee had followed where he led, all the way to ecstasy.

Dio, just thinking about it was making him hard, and if that wasn’t ridiculous, he didn’t know what was. He was a man who had his pick of women and even the occasional ones who started by pretending his touch drove them crazy soon forgot to pretend.

There were half a dozen women waiting for his return to Rome. One phone call, he’d have whichever of them he wanted ready to welcome him into her bed.

But he would be less a man if he didn’t end this in a way that made it clear who was the victor, not just by walking out on the deal James Black had engineered but by forcing the old man’s accomplice-in-crime to admit that what she’d felt in his arms had been real.

It was the penalty she’d pay for her duplicity.

Nobody lied to Nicolo Barbieri and got away with it, especially not a woman who had haunted his days and nights for three entire months.

The cab pulled up in front of a tired-looking, five-story tenement. James Black’s granddaughter, Saturday night’s party girl, lived here?

Maybe he had the address wrong.

There was only one way to find out.

Nicolo handed the cabbie a bill and told him to wait. Then he climbed the grimy steps to the front door. An unlocked front door.

Not a good idea in a neighborhood like this, but how Aimee lived was not his problem.

The door opened on a small vestibule, thick with the faint but unmistakable odor of beer and other, less palatable things. The only signs of life were the mailboxes set into a stained gray wall.

Nicolo scanned the nameplates. A. Black lived in apartment 5C.

The door that opened into the house itself had no lock, either. None that was usable, anyway. Ahead, a dimly lit staircase with time-worn treads rose into the gloom.

Nicolo started up.

By the time he reached the fifth floor and apartment 5C, he was almost hoping he’d come to the wrong place. This was the kind of building that epitomized the things people tried to avoid when they lived in Manhattan.

So what? he told himself again. How Black’s granddaughter lived was her affair.

He hesitated. Had coming here actually been a good idea? What would he gain by forcing her to admit she’d enjoyed what they’d done together? Was his ego that fragile, that it needed affirmation from a woman like this?

Before he could change his mind, Nicolo pressed the bell button.

Nobody answered.

He rang again. And then again. Okay. He’d come here, she wasn’t home. That is, she wasn’t home if he even had the correct address, which he doubted…

The door swung open. Not far, just a couple of inches, but enough for him to see the woman who’d opened it.

Aimee.

She stared at him. Her eyes widened. “No,” she whispered, “no…”

What would come next was in those wide eyes. Besides, they had done this dance before.

She started to slam the door but Nicolo was too quick. She cried out and fell back as he put his shoulder to the door and forced it open. A second later, he was inside a tiny foyer.

Aimee was pressed against the wall, looking up at him with fear in her eyes.

He felt a tightening in his gut.

She hadn’t been afraid of him that night…But this wasn’t that night. It was good that she was afraid. Hell, it was what he wanted. When he was done with her…

“No,” she said again, her voice high and thin.

Her eyes rolled up. She collapsed as if she were a marionette and someone had cut her strings.

Nicolo caught her before she crumpled to the floor. It was an automatic move but he knew damned well the faint was simply another outstanding performance…

Merda. His heart skipped a beat. It was not an act. She was limp in his arms.

He looked around frantically, saw a small sofa and carried her to it. “Ms. Black. Aimee. Can you hear me?”

Stupido! Of course she couldn’t hear him. She was unconscious. What did you do for an unconscious woman?

Cold compresses. And spirits of—of what? Ammonia? Who in hell had spirits of ammonia lying around in this day and age?

A doorway opened onto a kitchen. Nicolo hurried inside, grabbed a towel from the sink, stuffed it with ice cubes from the fridge’s freezer tray and ran back into the living room.

Aimee lay as he’d left her, small and unmoving, her pulse beat visible in her slender throat.

“Aimee,” he said softly.

She didn’t respond. Nicolo knelt beside her. Slipped his arm around her shoulders and lifted her to him.

“Aimee,” he said again, and gently placed the ice pack against her forehead.

After a moment, she groaned.

“That’s it, cara. Come on. Look at me. Open your eyes and look at me.”

Her lashes fluttered but her lids stayed down. Nicolo drew her closer. Held her against him, eased her silky curls from the back of her neck and ran the ice pack lightly over the nape.

She moaned softly, her breath warm against his throat.

He closed his eyes.

He had forgotten what it was like to hold her. The delicacy of her bones. The floral scent of her hair. The unblemished softness of her skin.

His arms tightened around her. “Aimee,” he whispered.

Suddenly he held a wildcat in his arms. She pulled back, curled her hands into fists and pounded them against his shoulders.

“Get away from me!”

“Aimee! Stop it!”

“What are you doing here?” Her voice shook. “Get out. Do you hear me? Get out!”

Nicolo grabbed her wrists in one hand. “Damn it, you fainted! Would you rather I’d left you lying on the floor?”

“I’d rather never see your face again!”

His mouth thinned. He let go of her and rose to his feet.

“My sentiments, exactly, Ms. Black. Where is your telephone?”

“What do you want with the telephone?”

“I’m going to phone for an ambulance. Then it will be my pleasure to walk out that door and not look back.”

“No!” Aimee sat up quickly. Too quickly; the room seemed to give a sickening lurch and the all-too-familiar nausea sent a rush of bile up her throat. “I don’t—I don’t need an—”

“Dio, look at you! You’re white as a ghost.”

“I am fine,” she said carefully, as she rose to her feet. The room tilted again. She took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “Thank you for your help, Prince Barbieri. Now, get the hell out of my apartment.”

“Not until I know you’re all right.”

“Why would you give a damn?”

“Why? Well, let’s see. I rang the bell. You opened the door, saw me and did an excellent imitation of a Victorian swoon.” His smile was lupine and all teeth. “I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I tell you I can envision a scenario in which you end up accusing me of somehow causing that swoon.”

He meant it as an insult, she knew, but Aimee could only think how close to the truth he’d come.

“I just thanked you for your help, didn’t I?”

“You’re a superb liar,” Nicolo said coldly. “Or did you think I’d forget that?”

“We’ve been all through this.”

“Yes. We have. And you lied.” His eyes narrowed as they met hers. “You told your grandfather I seduced you when we both know that what happened in that club, and in my hotel room, was by mutual consent.”

Aimee stared up at him. His face might have been the stone face of a Roman emperor, his eyes unseeing and unfeeling. It was impossible to imagine she’d slept with this man.

He was, indeed, a stranger.

“Is that why you came here? To hear me admit that I—that I let you seduce me?”

“That you let me seduce you?” Nicolo folded his arms and gave a hollow laugh. “Such clever phrasing.”

Aimee’s legs were like rubber. She’d never fainted before but she thought she might damned well do it again if she had to keep up a conversation with this arrogant ass who was in a snit because he believed she’d come on to him deliberately.

She could only imagine how he’d react if he knew she carried a baby.

His baby.

A choked laugh caught in her throat. Prince Nicolo Barbieri’s child. He wouldn’t believe it. Well, who could blame him? She could hardly believe it, either.

She couldn’t be pregnant. She took the pill. She’d been taking it for a couple of years now, not to prevent getting pregnant. Why would she, considering that the last time she’d been intimate with a man before she’d slept with Nicolo Barbieri was her senior year at college?

She took it to regulate her period, but what had happened to its primary function as a contraceptive?

Accidents happen. She could almost hear the tut-tutting voice of her boarding school’s sex-ed teacher. Remember, ladies, accidents happen.

Her legs buckled.

“Dio!” Nicolo grabbed her shoulders as she collapsed on the sofa. “That’s it. You need a doctor.”

“I need you to go away.” Aimee struggled up against the pillows as he took his cell phone from his pocket. “What are you doing?”

“Calling for an ambulance.”

“No! I don’t want an ambulance. Damn you, will you just—”

“Then tell me your physician’s number.”

Her physician’s number. The man who’d made her pregnant wanted to call the doctor who’d just told her about that pregnancy. Wild laughter rose in her throat.

“You find this amusing?”

“No. Not amusing. Just—just…”

Aimee shook her head. The only thing she wanted was to bury her face in her hands and weep. That meant getting Nicolo Barbieri out of her apartment and out of her life.

Time to ditch her stupid pride.

“You came here to hear me admit that—that what happened between us was as much my idea as yours.” She paused, touched the tip of her tongue to her dry lips. “All right. I admit it. I’m equally responsible for what happened.” She shuddered and drew the lapels of her robe together. “I behaved irresponsibly. But not like—like what you called me. There was no plan. No orchestration. There was just—there was just you, and me, and some kind of insanity…”