The Husband Fund

“All right. Take care and good luck, mon vieux.”

Nic knew what his cousin meant. Since Luc’s wedding, Nic hadn’t laid eyes on Piper. Because of the hated black band, a grim reminder of his dark past with all its attendant pain, he hadn’t been able to do anything about her.

For the last eleven months, twenty-five days and seven hours, he’d worn the band faithfully…except for a four day period last June when he’d taken it off to go undercover as the captain of the Piccione.

Those four days had been long enough for him to have become bewitched by a pair of aquamarine eyes shot with blue while he and his cousins pursued the Duchess triplets, believing them to be the thieves responsible for the stolen jewels from the Varano family palace in Colorno, Italy.

Nothing could have been further from the truth, and in that short period of time his life had changed forever.

“I’m going to need it, Luc.”

“What’s your plan?”

“That’s a good question. Technically speaking I should have waited another week before removing the band. But since I’m leaving the country for an indeterminate period, no one’s going to know the difference except Piper. That is if she’s still speaking to me.”

“If anyone can win her around, you can. Talk to you later.”

“I’ll let you know when I’ve made contact,” he said with more confidence than he felt. Nic wasn’t certain of anything where she was concerned. All he knew was that he felt out of breath just anticipating seeing her again.

Now that he’d brought his period of mourning to a close, nothing and no one was going to stand in the way of his getting what he wanted…

January 29

Kingston, New York

“Excuse me for interrupting, Piper, but there’s a man out in front who’s asking for you.”

Jan, the former northeast distributor for Duchesse Designs was now Piper’s assistant in the company she’d formed with Don Jardine. They’d ended up calling it Cyber Network Concepts.

Piper kept sketching at her drafting table. “I’m not officially in until tomorrow.”

She’d moved into the Jardine office building where Don still ran his printing business on the side. He’d given her the suite next to him with a connecting door. So far the arrangement had been working perfectly.

“I told him that, but he insists on seeing you anyway.”

“What’s his name?”

“He said he preferred to surprise you.”

“That’s a pushy salesman tactic. He’s probably the regional manager from Mid Valley machines. They’ve been pestering us to buy their products for months. Get rid of him, Jan.”

“He warned me he wouldn’t leave until he’d spoken to you. I’m afraid he means it.”

“They all mean it. If he’s so anxious, tell him to talk to Don.”

“He doesn’t want to talk to him.”

“Then he’s wasting our time. If he were a client, he would have told you his name. Since we’ve paid all our bills, he couldn’t be a creditor. Tell him we just got back from Sydney with a ton of work to do. Tomorrow’s Tuesday. I’ll see him then.”

In the last six months she and Don had already garnered four lucrative advertising accounts with American companies doing business in Australia and South America. Piper had more work than she could handle now.

“I’m afraid he’s not going to take no for an answer.”

A certain nuance in her voice brought Piper’s head around. Bringing Jan in as office manager and head of their calendar sales in the U.S. had been a master stroke. Because Jan had great business sense, Piper was surprised to discover that her recently engaged assistant could be intimidated by anyone.

“How come you’re afraid to tell him no?”

“He has an aura about him. You know…a certain presence, probably because he’s foreign.”

The hairs prickled on the back of Piper’s neck. “How foreign?”

“If you’re talking about his English, he speaks it perfectly with a slight accent. I think he might be a Mediterranean type or something close to it.”

“So he’s dark-haired?”

“Yes. But tall and…well…you know…built like you wish all guys were built if you know what I mean. To be honest, he’s the most attractive male I’ve ever met in my life. Please don’t tell Jim what I said—”

The charcoal slipped from Piper’s fingers. Three men fit that description. They all belonged to the same family.

“Did this man’s accent sound French?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Are his eyes a fiery black?”

“No. They’re a piercing brown.”

Help!

Piper tried to swallow. It was impossible. “Is he wearing an arm band?”

“A what?”

“A black arm band above the elbow to designate he’s in mourning?”

“No. He’s dressed in this fabulous stone gray suit. I know this might sound weird to you, but he carries himself like he’s…royalty.”

Piper jumped up from her drafting table in shock. “Jan? You’ve just met the future Duc de Pastrana of the House of Parma-Bourbon. Nic is the first cousin of Greer and Olivia’s husbands.” No wonder Jan acted as if she’d just been through a life-changing experience. In an absolute panic she continued.

“If you value your job, you’ll let me put your engagement ring on. I only need it for a few minutes. Until he leaves I’m not just Don’s business partner, I’m his fiancée! Have you got that?”

Her assistant slowly nodded before removing her modest diamond ring. Piper slipped it on. It was a little loose because Jan was larger boned, but it didn’t matter. It was an engagement ring and would do the job.

“Thank you. For this favor you’ll get a bonus in your next paycheck. Go ahead and send him back.”

Piper’s heart thundered beneath the navy pullover she’d slipped on with her jeans earlier that morning. When she wasn’t traveling to meet with clients, she hibernated in her office to do her artwork away from people.

She sat down at her desk, then stood up again, trying to decide how she would greet him. When she caught sight of his tall, striking physique in the doorway, she’d just sat down again which was a good thing. Her legs wouldn’t have supported her.

“Well, well, well,” she declared with feigned nonchalance, taking the offensive. “If it isn’t the captain of the Piccione.”

CHAPTER TWO

“BUENOS dias, Señorita Piperre.”

When Nic rolled the “r” that way, Piper felt it resonate through every particle of her body. No matter how hard she tried to harden herself against his potent male presence, she failed.

“The last time I saw you, you were hiding in the bushes on your estate, waiting to spirit me away so Luc could do his worst to Olivia.”

At the time she’d hoped Nic had forgotten about his mourning period and would do his worst to her. After all, he’d removed the mourning band for a short while on the Piccione. Piper had been dying for him to kiss her.

Instead he’d led her to the family chapel with the priest in attendance. That’s where she’d found Greer and Max, in fact the whole Parma-Bourbon family, waiting to observe the imminent nuptials of the youngest Duchess triplet and the oldest son of the Duc de Falcon.

Nic must have been remembering that night too. He flashed her what she and her sisters called his Castilian smile, a dazzling white masculine smile that was his unique signature.

But as he’d once explained, Castilian was a misnomer since the Varano part of him was Italian, and the Pastrana side of him didn’t come from Castile. The Pastrana’s royal roots lay in that southern region of Spain known as Andalusia.

Through Piper’s sisters she’d learned that the Robles family also claimed a royal connection through the Spanish House of Bourbon, but never gained the Pastrana’s prominence.

“How come you’re slumming it in American waters? Has some urgent business brought you to the other side of the Atlantic?”

He lifted his proud, aristocratic head and shot her an enigmatic glance. She thought he looked leaner, a little more drawn, yet he was more gorgeous than ever. Piper wasn’t the type to faint, but if she were, she’d be lying flat as a pancake on the floor of her office!

“I’ve been in New York for the last few days because another piece of jewelry from the stolen collection showed up at Christie’s auction house. It turned out to be authentic.”

“Don’t tell me the Duchesse pendant has been unearthed at last?”

“No. A jeweled comb.”

Piper had forgotten all about the collection. If she and her sisters hadn’t worn their own Duchesse pendants to Italy on their first trip, they would never have known about the museum theft of another pendant identical to theirs, or have become involved with the three cousins.

She would never have met Nicolas de Pastrana.

No matter that he’d crushed her heart, the thought of not knowing him was so incomprehensible, she shivered.

Furious at her involuntary reaction to him she said, “If by any chance my sisters suggested you drop by here to persuade me to fly to Europe for a visit, you’ve wasted your precious time.”

He stood with his legs slightly apart, his strong tanned hands clasped in front of him. “Your sisters have no idea I’m here.”

She flashed him her arctic smile. “Since your period of mourning isn’t up until February, I’ll wager Nina’s family doesn’t know you’re here either.”

Piper had purposely introduced his dead fiancée’s name to remind him of the way he’d rejected her advances to him that hot afternoon after Max’s wedding.

When she’d tried to help him remove his tuxedo jacket and suggested they take a little nap in the grass by the old water wheel to cool off, he’d pushed her hands away.

After mocking her because she didn’t know how to behave in polite society with a man wearing a mourning band, he’d said he would excuse it on the grounds that she was one of the notorious Duchess triplets.

The hurt he’d inflicted would never go away. She would never forgive him.

He must have been reading her mind because he removed his suit jacket with effortless male grace, drawing her attention to the breadth of his shoulders. There was no band on the outside of his dove gray shirtsleeve either.

“As you can see, I’m no longer in mourning.”

“Don’t tell me— You had other business in New York, so you removed your arm band early. It couldn’t be because you’ve decided you’re ready to lie down and take that nap with me before you fly back to Marbella, could it?” She eyed him narrowly. “In my neck of the woods, that’s called cheating. It’s something I don’t do.”

Lines darkened Nic’s rugged features. Good. She’d hit a nerve, and she would go on pressing against it until she got rid of him.

“I’ve come to ask an important favor of you,” his voice grated.

“Really.” Flame licked her cheeks. “Does Nina’s sister Camilla know about this? I understand she’s waiting in the wings until next month when she expects to become your new fiancée.”

A tiny nerve throbbed along the ridge of Nic’s taut patrician jaw. It had to frustrate him that nothing in his personal life was sacred now that his cousins were married to her sisters.

“I’m here to talk about us.”

“Us?” she exploded. “There is no us! I got engaged in Sydney and know enough about polite society to play around with my own fiancé and no one else.”

A stunning stillness pervaded the atmosphere. Nic’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I don’t believe you.”

Her heart almost palpitated out of her chest. “What don’t you believe? That I have principles? Or that I’m an engaged woman now?”

Enjoying this triumphant moment, she buzzed Don. It was a huge risk to take, but he knew all about her broken heart. She was depending on him to play along.

“Don?”

“Hi. I was just about to ask if you want to go to lunch at Alfie’s.”

Don got A-plus for that opening.

“I’d love it! First though, can you come in my office for a minute? We have a visitor from Spain, Nicolas de Pastrana, Greer’s and Olivia’s cousin. He’s here to ask me a favor. Since you and I got engaged in Sydney, I’d like the two of you to meet.”

“I’ll be right there,” Don said without missing a heartbeat. Bless the man.

The second her business partner breezed through the connecting door, Piper gravitated toward him and was given a loving hug. She looked up at him. “Honey? I was just telling Nic our news.”

As she turned to Nic, she purposely exposed her left hand for him to view the ring. A thrill of alarm passed through her body to see his fierce expression, showing a hint of the Mediterranean fire that flowed through his Andalusian veins.

“This is my fiancé, Don Jardine.”

Nic nodded to Don, not making an effort to shake his hand. “Jardine—weren’t you once involved with Greer?”

Piper reeled for a moment.

“We dated.”

At Don’s brief reply, Nic’s lips twisted in distaste before he impaled her with his dark, penetrating gaze. “All for one, and one for all. The Duchess motto,” his deep voice trailed.

Before she could credit it, he’d reached for her left hand. “A very nice ring, but it’s a little loose isn’t it?” With the agility of a magician he slipped it from her finger and lifted it to eye level for examination. “To Jan forever,” he read the inscription aloud.

Don gave Piper’s waist a “good luck, you’ll need it” squeeze before retreating to his office. Once she heard the click of the door Nic said, “He’s a pushover for the Duchesses of Kingston. I actually feel sorry for him.”

She stiffened. “That was a cruel thing for you to do in front of him.”

“No crueler than you asking your assistant to relinquish her ring because you’re the boss. I noticed it on her finger while she waited on me at the front desk.” He made a fist around it and put it in his pocket.

Piper might have known his eagle eye would catch her out in her blatant lie. Nothing got past him. “You’ve missed your calling as an undercover agent.”

“I was just going to say the same thing about you. More than ever I’m convinced you’re the only person who can help me.”

She let out an angry laugh and the movement caused the fine gold strands of her hair to settle around her jawline. “I bet Camilla doesn’t have a clue you’ve made this side trip to Kingston to dally with the last unattached, notorious Duchess triplet.”

“Camilla and her family will know soon enough,” the cryptic words dropped like icicles off a roof.

Though she was trembling with conflicting emotions, she would rather die than let him know it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I need your assistance. It’s important.”

“You said that before.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

“If you’re talking money, forget it. You and your cousins may have bribed Signore Tozetti to lure Olivia back to Europe, but that kind of charade only works once. Don and I have our own business enterprise now. I prefer to earn my money the old-fashioned way.”

He moved closer, making it difficult for her to function or breathe. “I was thinking more along the lines of a baby.”

“A baby—”

“Yes. Both your sisters are expecting one in the near future. You could be too…”

Piper blinked in shock, trying desperately to connect the dots. What on earth was he getting at?

“If you’re insinuating I’ve been sleeping with Don, then you’re way off base! In the first place, neither of us has ever been interested in each other that way, and we would never do that to Greer.

“In the second place, if I were expecting Don’s baby, I certainly wouldn’t need your money. I’m doing just fine on my own.”

His sensual mouth broke into a condescending smile. “I’ve already satisfied myself about you and Jardine. I was thinking in terms of my giving you a baby.”

Piper couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly. “Why in the world would you think I want a baby, let alone yours?”

“Because I was in Luc’s office the day Olivia called you with her news. The speakerphone happened to be on.” Piper’s heartbeat picked up speed while she tried to recall her exact words. “The second your sister told you, you broke down in tears of happiness for her, then you said you thought she was the luckiest woman in the world.”

“Of course I said that!” Piper defended in the steadiest voice she could muster. “Olivia was fortunate enough to fall in love with a man who loved her and wanted to marry her. It’s the only way I would want to have a baby. By now you ought to know the Duchess sisters don’t sleep around.”

He cocked his dark head. “Once upon a time you invited me to take a nap in the grass with you.”

She gave him a fatuous smile. “That was different. I didn’t intend to sleep with you in the way you’re thinking. I was only having a little fun with you because I didn’t really believe you were in true mourning. Otherwise you would never have removed the band, not even to go undercover.”

Caught up in her emotions, she kept on talking faster and faster. “Since my purpose for being in Europe was to win a proposal from a Riviera playboy, then throw it back in his face, I decided to see if I could kiss one out of you for the sheer challenge of it.

“But it seems I underestimated your love for your deceased fiancée after all.” She shrugged her shoulders. “In any event none of it matters because it’s water in another ocean now.”

Shadows darkened his handsome face. “Not quite. Your instincts were right the first time. I never loved Nina Robles.”

Piper couldn’t be positive, but it sounded like he was telling the truth. She suspected that if he’d really been in love with Nina, he would have married her years before.

“So you wore the arm band a whole year to do penance for your sin?” she taunted.

“Yes,” came the surprisingly fierce rejoinder.

“Oh I see—” She flashed him another mocking smile. “Because you were born a royal, you were forced to enter into a loveless engagement and keep up the pretense. Poor Nicolas. In fairness to you, I don’t suppose most royal engagements are true love matches.”

“Some are,” he responded in a silky tone. “In my case the situation was complicated because my family and the Robles family are distantly related and have been very close over the years. A marriage between Nina and me was expected.

“Her untimely death has complicated things further because Señor Robles expects me to marry Camilla according to an old law.”

“Sounds Biblical to me.”

“That’s because it is,” he muttered. “My father is leaning heavily in that direction too.”

“So Camilla doesn’t appeal to you either?”

“No. I’m in love with someone else, but I can’t do anything about that because she’s not in love with me.”

Nic’s interest in another woman had to be the Parma-Bourbon’s best kept secret, otherwise her sisters would have heard about it. The devastating revelation drove Piper to her desk where she sat down before pain caused her to disintegrate right in front of him. He was so out of her reach.

In a wooden voice she said, “Why are you really here, Nic?”

“My official mourning period is over in three days. In order to foil both families’ future plans for me, I would like to arrive back in Marbella with a wife.”

“A wife, huh? Well you shouldn’t have any trouble. There must be a dozen eligible royal females who’ve had their eye on you for years.”

“None of them will do for what I have in mind. You’re the one titleless woman I could bring home that my family won’t be able to take exception to publicly, or ask me to renounce.”

“You mean I’m tolerable because my sisters are married to your cousins, therefore I win the prize by default?” she cried out, her face red hot.

“That’s part of it,” he came back quietly. “My parents have met you and find you charming. They know the history of the Duchess sisters, and are aware you and I have spent time together on two different occasions during my mourning perio—”

“Wait a minute,” she broke in. At this point she was so beside herself with anguish, she jumped to her feet again, then had to hold on to the edge of the desk for support. “That talk about a baby—you’re not suggesting we pretend we’ve been seeing each other on the sly, and now I’m pregnant with your—”

“There’d be no pretense if we got married and had a short honeymoon on our way back to Spain,” he interrupted. “By then we could tell the family it’s possible we’re expecting. That would make my marriage a fait accompli in every sense of the word.”

She shook her head. “No way— The favor you’re asking of me is impossible. Aside from the fact that I don’t like you, you’re in love with someone else!”

“Does that have to matter?”

His cold-blooded response left Piper nonplussed. “Obviously not to you, but it does to me. We’re not in love with each other, so it wouldn’t work. Furthermore I like my world just as it is. My career has taken off and I’m excited to see where it leads.

“Personally I can’t conceive of anything more absurd than the two of us parading around as man and wife in a loveless union just because you want to pull some stunt to get out of marrying Camilla, and I’m the nearest available pawn.”

After a period of uncomfortable quiet he said, “I understand how you feel.” His benign response managed to infuriate her even more. “My apologies for having asked something of you that is pure selfishness on my part and could even be dangerous. I won’t disturb you again.”

With one of those barely discernible yet imperious bows which was second nature to him, he started for the door.

That did it.

“Oh no you don’t!” She ran ahead of him and put her back to the door so he couldn’t leave. “You don’t drop a little bomb like that and then just walk out of here while I stagger around like a victim of shell-shock.”

Trying to catch her breath, she thought she detected a faint smile of satisfaction on his lips. Since he’d always found her amusing, she ought to be used to those horrible, patronizing looks he gave her. Unfortunately he’d only enflamed her.

She put her hands on her hips. “I knew there had to be some other reason you came all this way to see me. Explain dangerous. To whom?”

“To both of us. Naturally I’d provide security so no harm would ever come to you.”

Hairs prickled on the back of her neck once more. “Security?” Despite her bravado, the sudden oblique expression in his eyes gave rise to an uneasy feeling inside her.

“A necessary precaution,” he answered solemnly, trapping her eyes with his dark brown gaze. “But it’s a moot point now. Rest assured that if you had agreed to become my wife, you would have been helping the entire family. In time you would have known the full gratitude of the House of Parma-Bourbon.”

“I don’t want anyone’s gratitude!” Piper practically spit out the words. She wanted Nic’s love, but that wasn’t possible.

“Forgive me for having taken up your valuable time, Señorita Piperre.” He shrugged back into his elegant suit jacket. “I’ll let myself out.”

As he reached past her to open the door, their arms brushed, sending a current of electricity through her body. Her pain flew off the chart.

“Be sure to give Jan back her ring before you leave the building,” she cautioned in a brittle voice.

He paused in the entry, eyeing her through veiled lids. “But of course.”

But of course nothing!

Her eyes prickled behind their lids. She glared at the door he’d closed on his way out.

How dare he have the gall to invade her space like some arrogant Spanish nobleman from the past, expecting her to fall for his droit de seigneur routine with its own peculiar Pastrana twist.

Dangerous my foot!

Wild with hurt, she wheeled around and poked her head inside Don’s office. He looked up at her. “Something tells me I’m about to lose my business partner. Like I said, those Varano genes are fatal for the Duchess triplets.”

“You’re wrong, Don. He’s gone for good. I came in here to apologize for putting you in an untenable position. If you don’t mind, I’d rather work through my lunch hour.”