Chapter Four
“Hush, Marietta,” Alisa soothed, holding the angry, coughing bundle tightly to her body. “You have to take your medicine. She ought to see the doctor,” Alisa added to her neighbor and trusted friend Bella, who hovered nearby.
“You have given her an extra dose of medicine,” Bella pointed out. “That is what the doctor will tell you to do, and charge you for the pleasure. She is just missing you.”
“I miss you, too,” Alisa breathed, hugging her sister more closely as her eyelids grew heavy. “Tomorrow, after Sunday school, we will have the whole afternoon together.”
“You sound tired.” Bella’s voice was sympathetic. “Are you very busy?”
“Not really—there isn’t much work to do. Benito lets me use the computer when he is out so I have been catching up with my studies.”
“Benito?” Bella frowned.
“That is what he likes to be called.”
“Why is this man doing you any favors?”
“Because he’s…nice.” Alisa gulped, glad for once of Bella’s fading eyesight so she couldn’t see dull blush on her cheeks, the blush that was ever present whenever she so much as thought about Benito.
She’d fled to her bedroom after his provocative words, had tried and failed to ignore the sizzling tension between them, struggled to remind herself she was a mere maid, that he was a prince, that nothing could ever come of it, but the opportunity to talk about him was just too tempting to pass up. “Really nice sometimes. You know, Bella, despite all the scandal attached to his name, he’s actually a very kind man.”
“A man who’s used to getting what he wants!” Bella said, unusually sharp. “Watch yourself, Alisa.”
“As if he’d even look twice at me!” Alisa attempted a casual laugh, but Bella wasn’t about to be swayed.
“You’re young, you’re beautiful,” Bella said, “and you have a heart of gold, a heart he would use, then cast aside without a second thought. Don’t go getting fancy ideas in your head, Alisa…if he is being nice, you can be assured it is just a means to an end for him.”
“Perhaps,” Alisa conceded.
“No perhaps about it!” Bella insisted. “I know you well, Alisa. You always were a dreamer, and you are doing it now. One night in his arms would not be enough for you. You deserve more than the dregs Prince Benito Fortesque would give you.”
“You should see how he lives, Bella—I’ve never seen such waste. Why should he get everything and Marietta has nothing?”
“She has you,” Bella said wisely. “Once you finish your schooling you will be able to give her the things you want to, the things your parents would have wanted you both to have.”
At the mention of her parents, Alisa felt her throat thicken. Even after five years she missed them terribly.
“They would be so proud of you,” Bella said softly. “It would have been so much easier to let the authorities take Marietta—instead you have taken her on as your own. Suffered the unfair shame of raising an illegitimate child here on Niroli. I know it hasn’t been easy.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Alisa hugged the elderly woman. “I will pay you back. As soon as I can afford it, I will fly you to the mainland and you will get your eye operation.”
“Dreaming again!” The old lady gave a weary shrug.
“Nice dreams, though,” Alisa countered. “I have to go. It is only me on tonight, and if he comes back and no one is there…”
“It’s Saturday night,” Bella laughed. “Why would Benito be home?”
Why indeed?
* * *
Walking into the darkened lounge, Alisa almost shot out of her skin as she saw him sitting in the chair, a dark, foreboding expression on his face that had her heart quickening.
“I had to make my own supper!” He stared at her accusingly. “I came back a dark house and no staff. You said you would cover for Alberto. I was about to ring the palace!”
She should have apologized, should have begged his forgiveness if she had a hope of keeping her job, but Marietta’s sobs were still ringing in her ears; Bella’s plight, her warning, still buzzing in her head. And the shame of wanting him too much… Instead of scaring her, his reaction enraged her—gave her, if not the strength, then the stupidity to say her piece.
“Poor Benito,” she purred, but it was laced with venom. “Poor Benito had to open his own door, had to turn on the lights by himself and then, my goodness, fix his own supper! My heart bleeds for you.”
“That is no way to talk to me.” He stood up caught her wrist and spun her around. “I am your boss.”
“Not now.” Alisa spat. “So don’t humiliate me by insisting on an apology when you will dismiss me a second later. I am not sorry that I went home for half an hour to kiss my—my daughter good-night.”
“You have a child?”
“I have a life, Your Royal Highness. A life you’re about to ruin, so get it over with.”
He should—Benito knew that was exactly what he should do. Her insolence, that she hadn’t been here to tend to him, were good enough reasons—not that he needed them. But the anger that broiled him now wasn’t because of that. She had a child. He couldn’t fathom why it mattered, only knew that it did. She had a husband waiting at home, missing that long-limbed body each night, just as Benito would miss her.
Hell, he’d hit the casino, had gone to the clubs and the bars, spent the past three days trying to lose himself in all the glamour Niroli could offer, only he hadn’t been able to. He could think about only her, Alisa, the little spitfire in his arms now.
“You need this job?” His eyes held hers.
“Of course.”
“What if I let you go home to kiss your child every night?” He saw the hope that flared in her eyes disappear almost instantly as doubt impinged when he spelled out his terms. “And then you come back to kiss me?”
It should have been the most abhorrent of offers—from anyone, anyone else it would have been—but staring deep into his eyes, feeling the pad of his fingers on her leaping pulse, awareness coursing through her body, it was anything but abhorrent.
Too stunned to respond, too shocked to question, she stood there as his lips found hers, moved gently on her resisting flesh as her mind begged for reason.
He was skilled. If he’d moved too fast she’d have backed away, would have slapped his cheek with her tense hands, but instead her head arched slightly backward as his lips trailed down her neck, his tongue making its debut only then. He kissed her skin slowly, moving back up to the little piece of flesh at the base of her ear. She shivered beneath him.
“Or,” he offered more generously, “I kiss you.”
It wasn’t a teasing taste this time—his thorough mouth was hot on hers, his tongue delicious. Her whole body flared, a tiny shift was all that was required till it pressed against his. His hands were off her wrist now, knotting into her thick curls as he devoured her, his manhood hard and urgent against her. It was bliss to lose herself for the first time in the longest time, to not think, to just feel…
“I want you,” he gasped the words between kisses. “From that morning when first I saw you…I have wanted you. I will not get rid of you if you…”
His words propelled her from ecstasy to hell, the crude terms of his offer glaringly laid out. Breathless and angry, she pushed him away.
“I will not be your puttana!” She spat the words as she ran out the door. “I scrub you floors, Your Highness, so I can stay off the streets, not the other way around.”
Trembling with rage she slammed her bedroom door, pulled off her uniform and jumped into bed, pulling the sheets around her body, reeling with shock at her bold words and all that would surely ensue. For Marietta’s sake maybe she should have just tended to his obvious needs.
Her obvious needs.
Her nipples felt like thistles against the starched, scratchy sheets, the space between her legs hot and heavy with insatiable desire.
Alisa closed her eyes as full horror hit. The words he’d uttered in passion might just as well have been her own; he’d dammed the intimacy because he’d spoken her impossible truth.
From that morning when first I saw you…I have wanted you.
She wanted him, too.
But she wanted more than just one night with him.
She wanted the impossible
04-12-07, 09:29 AM
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