Forced Wife, Royal Love-Child (16 page)

Except knowing he’d achieved that didn’t make him feel any better. It made him feel a damn sight worse. And he was damned sure his father had never felt this bad when he’d exiled his mother, or he would have changed his mind in a heartbeat and kept her for his own.

And the gears crunched some more before settling into a new configuration, something that worked on a different level.

And he remembered another time, another evening, when he’d walked that cliff-top walk with her, and he’d felt the swelling inside that had told him that this marriage would work, and at last he realized what that feeling had truly been. Not a beast inside him, needing to be fed, but a heart so crusted in tragedy and pain that it had taken a woman like Sienna to shed light and crack it free.

He hadn’t had to make her see this marriage would work. She’d shown him the light, she’d made it possible.

He couldn’t send her away, because he needed her here now, with him every day of his life. And without fully understanding
why, something told him that he had missed an opportunity back there in her room to tell her what he really thought, feelings he was still trying to come to terms with, feelings that would not be suppressed, no matter how much he denied them.

‘But it concerns Signorina Wainwright.’

The wind gusted around the castle then, pummelling the walls and rattling windows until they shook, and a niggling seed of premonition buried itself inside him and took root.

‘What is it?’

‘She was seen leaving in the helicopter. The one that brought Princess Marietta.’

He looked to the windows, where the tops of trees could be seen dancing wildly in the wind, leaves flying past, the rumble of thunder like an omen.

‘She’s out in this? Why the hell didn’t anyone stop her?’

Sebastiano crossed his hands in front of him and dipped his head. ‘That’s not all. There’s been a Mayday call reported from the helicopter. Some kind of electrical fault, coupled with a birdstrike.’

Rafe didn’t hear the words. He felt them like boulders raining down, their pain etching his soul. ‘How far did they get from the island?’

‘The
Guardia
Costiera
has been alerted, although in these conditions…’

‘How far did they get?’

Sebastiano hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with imparting his next piece of information.

‘Iseo’s Pyramid.’

Rafe’s blood ran cold. He’d sent her away. He’d told her to go. He might as well have sent her to the very Beast himself.
Christo
, why had it taken so long for him to realize what should have been so obvious all along? That he wanted this
woman because he loved her, in spite of every warning he’d had, he loved her.

And he wanted her back.

Ice filling his veins, he somehow made it to the rain-lashed terrace, his eyes searching out the familiar black outline of rock against the clouds and the storm tossed sea. But there was no missing it. Not today, even on the darkest night, no missing that other cloud that rose unnaturally from the other side of the island.

A single plume of smoke
.

I
T HAD
taken every shred of every ounce of pulling rank that Rafe could find, every firm promise that the Beast of Iseo was a myth and that the weather was their worst enemy, but finally he’d convinced the
Guardia Costiera
that he was going with them. Rain lashed his face, his hair was probably wetter than the sea right now, but he felt nothing. Nothing but this great yawning pit that had opened up inside him.

He’d sent her away. Damn well told her to get out, and she’d done exactly what he’d wanted.

What he’d thought he’d wanted.

He must have been insane! Cursed with some kind of madness, because right now the thing he wanted most in the world, the thing he wanted more than anything, was the one thing he’d told her he didn’t want.

Her love
.

Because that would mean she was alive.

How could he have let her go?

How could he have sent her into the darkness, crying and distressed? And the yawning hole in his gut snapped shut, catching him in the inescapable truth.

He was his father all over again
.

Casting aside her love. Telling her it was unwanted. And
in trying to protect himself he’d damaged himself even more. By lashing out at the one person who could show him otherwise. Who could show him how to love.

Rafe looked from the boat, his eyes always on the slick black rock, searching out any detail, anything out of place. The plume of smoke was long gone, but if there had been smoke, then the helicopter must be there, somewhere. For now that was all he would focus on. And if the helicopter was there, then so too was Sienna.

He would find her. And then he would tell her what had been so glaringly obvious the moment he’d known she’d gone, that he wanted to change places with her and smash himself into the rock in her place.

He was such a fool.

The cruiser rounded the rock, the beams from its powerful lights doing the best job they could to cut through the rain and illuminate the shore, every eye on board not concentrating on keeping the boat from the rocks, but searching for any scrap of evidence of the helicopter’s position.

And then there was a glint of white where there should be none, and a cry went up to launch a dinghy. Rafe pushed his way to the front. ‘I’m going,’ he said.

Strange that she should feel cold. The thought came from nowhere, a kind of hazy realization that it was summer, that she shouldn’t feel cold. It was wrong.

Sienna tried to move, but something was pinning her in her seat, something that kept groaning and waking her up, when all she wanted to do was sleep. It groaned again, the sound vaguely human.

Randall
.

He lay slumped against her, sharing the scent of his fresh kill, and she remembered where she was, a helicopter down
on Iseo’s Pyramid, and laughter bubbled out of some untapped place.

She’d landed a helicopter on Iseo’s damned Pyramid with the ugliest landing in history. But they were alive! At least for now, until that damned Beast found them.

She reached a hand for the radio, but her wrist screamed out in pain and she pulled it back, sinking back once more into grateful oblivion.

Inch by inch, with one coastguard hanging over the edge to check for rocks that might slice the dinghy’s shell to shreds, the boat had made it to the tiny sandy beach. To Rafe it had been an eternity. An eternity of waiting. An eternity of wondering.

And now that they were finally here, was it already too late?

His feet were amongst the first to splash into the water’s edge, the waves still surging in, sucking at his calves with ferocity. But then he was running. Splashing through the shallows and running for the unnatural egg-shaped object, its blades angled askew, the lighting from torches showing how they’d decimated the shrubs and bushes as the chopper had come down.

He reached the passenger door a scant second before the man behind him. He pulled at the latch, heaved it with all his might when it wouldn’t come, and wrenched it open.

And there she sat. Sleeping.

Pray God, she was sleeping!

‘Sienna!’

Her eyelids flickered open with the play of torchlight on her face, and he breathed out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She looked up at him, confused. ‘I knew the Beast would come,’ she mumbled, before slipping back into unconsciousness.

A doctor pushed his way in front of him, and he gave him room, while another worked on the pilot alongside. Rafe stood
back then, the angry sea sucking around his ankles, the shadow of the rock looming high above.

Oh, yes, if there was a Beast of Iseo, he was worthy of the title.

It was unsafe for everyone to move them from the Rock in the night, but they’d established there were no spinal injuries and they’d splinted Sienna’s wrist, and now she lay on a stretcher in a tent, Rafe by her side, stroking her hair.

Deep in the night, the wind dropping as the storm dissipated, she woke up to the touch of him, and she stirred.

‘You’re here,’ she murmured.

‘Where else would I be?’

‘But those rocks… You’re crazy. You came through those rocks?’

‘I came to find you. Do you think rocks were going to stop me?’

‘I don’t know. But I never expected anyone to come so late on such a night. I guess I should thank you for that. I suppose you told them that the future heirs of Montvelatte were at stake.’

He lifted up her good hand and pressed his lips to it. ‘No. I told them that the jewel in Montvelatte’s crown was at stake, and if they didn’t find you, I would personally feed them to the Beast of Iseo, one by one.’

‘You told them that?’

‘My exact words.’

‘But why?’

‘Because I realized after you’d left that there are more important things than avoiding love. And then I heard you were missing, and that your helicopter had gone down, and I was afraid I’d never get the chance to tell you.’

‘Tell me what?’

‘That I love you, Sienna.’ He smiled down at her and felt
his heart expand tenfold with the joy he saw reciprocated, even in a face shadowed in the low lamplight. ‘And I am sorry for all the pain I caused you, all the assumptions I made, all the decisions I made without even considering you.’

‘You’re sorry for all of them?’

‘I know,’ he admitted, ‘there were plenty of them. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize. Sorry I made you feel like you were trapped. Looking back, it should have been obvious to me. Even back after that one night in Paris, I was annoyed that events in Montvelatte had intervened, that I would not see you again.’

‘You were? I thought it was these babies of ours you were after—your potential heirs.’

He smiled and nodded. ‘They were an excuse, and a good one. But even back then I knew I wanted more of what you had to offer. I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to wake up, so sorry you had to go through all this.’

‘It wasn’t so bad. I kind of enjoyed being behind the joystick again.’

‘I heard. The pilot said you’d saved his life. And I got to thinking, Montvelatte needs a helicopter pilot.’

‘You don’t even have a helicopter.’

‘No, but if my refinancing plan works, we could have. And I’ll need someone to fill the position. If you’re not too busy to fly me around, that is.’

She smiled. ‘I think I accept.’

‘That’s good. And I have one other favour, that I really have no right to ask.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’d like to celebrate my love for you by asking you to share my life for ever. Will you marry me, Sienna, and become my wife?’

She blinked up at him. ‘You’re actually asking me?’

‘I’m asking you. Pleading with you if it comes to that. And if you don’t want to get married, I’ll even settle for that, so long as you promise to live in sin with me forever.’

‘But then your children will be bastards, forever.’

‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘It never did me any harm. So long as I can have you.’

And then he kissed her, and she knew forever would never be long enough.

S
UNLIGHT
poured through ancient stained glass windows, showering the congregation in puddles of fractured light. Organ music filled the cathedral, and the scent of fresh orange blossom filled the air as the tiny page boy and girl marched their slow march down the aisle.

Sienna waited at the head of the aisle, watching the procession, wondering how it would look if instead of waiting serenely until last, she skipped past her attendants and claimed her husband.

Not the way royals were supposed to behave in front of their own, but then she was only new at the job, and she still had a lot to learn.

Her soon to be sister-in-law, Marietta, gave her a final smile and squeeze of the hand, before she too set off down towards the altar. Where Prince Raphael of Montvelatte, her Rafe, stood waiting for her, tall, dark and utterly devastating.

She felt a flutter deep down inside her, touched one satin-gloved hand to her stomach, and knew with a woman’s instinct that it was more than mere butterflies. She smiled. The day could not become more wonderful.

Or so she thought. Until minutes later, when she joined Rafe at the altar and changed her mind. There, with the eyes
of the world watching, together they exchanged their vows, and she could not believe that anything would ever come close to that feeling.

‘I love you,’ he murmured, as he drew her to him for the bridal kiss that would seal their agreement and their future together. And, as he drew her deeper into the kiss, to the delight of the entire congregation, she knew it to be true, and that the Beast of Iseo had finally been tamed.