“Believe me, bambinàia, right now I wish I wasn’t either. I’m in this damned situation because of those damned double X chromosomes and that damned accident of birth.”

“What ‘damned situation’ is that? I hope you don’t mean having someone of Signore Selvaggio’s caliber interested in you.”

“First my father, now you. And no doubt I’ll find out everyone knows of his so-called interest in me. And it seems you’re all thrilled about it. I wonder why none of you ever told me that?”

“I’ve spent six years wondering how you could possibly be not falling all over yourself to return his interest.”

“And you didn’t try to bulldoze me into seeing the error of my ways? Shock and awe!”

“That’s the one thing I took it upon myself never to try to influence you in, Clarissa.” Clarissa met her nanny’s shrewd eyes, saw the sadness there. She was talking about Clarissa’s mother, to whom Antonia had been lady-in-waiting since she was eighteen, twelve years before she’d become Clarissa’s nanny. Antonia was the one who’d witnessed how Angelica, Clarissa’s mother, had been influenced to marry her father for business and political reasons, how the wrong reasons for marriage had never amounted to a healthy relationship and had ended up destroying the queen. Antonia finally sighed. “And then, it’s been a long time since you’ve needed my guidance in anything.”

A surge of love and emotion welled up in Clarissa. She hugged Antonia, needing the assuagement of her sturdy body and spirit, the impenetrable haven of her embrace. “As if that ever stopped you, bambinàia.”

After a moment of hugging her back, Antonia pushed her away. “You’re right. I’ll always be an overbearing, interfering woman where it comes to you, the jewel I spent a good chunk of my life polishing and protecting, the daughter I didn’t bear, who is now the one thing that brings joy to my heart after I lost my Benito. So here’s some more unsolicited guidance. This Selvaggio man is the one for whom I will break my rule of noninterference in your future choices where men are concerned. Stop being a fool, girl. Snatch him up.”

“Ah, bambinàia, you really have no idea who he is, do you?”

“If you mean that he’s an illegitimate D’Agostino, yes, I do.”

Clarissa coughed an incredulous laugh. “Seems I was the last to know that, too. But that’s not what I meant. I meant his character, his nature.”

“He’s the most complex man I’ve ever met. And that’s what makes him the right one for you.”

“If you mean that because I’m such a multifaceted character myself, thanks for the implied praise. I think. But the problem with such a labyrinthine man is that, among the qualities you admire, you find others to abhor. He might be godlike in looks and personal influence, in success and power, but he’s also arrogant, driven and cruelly ambitious.”

Antonia gave her a considering look. “Hmm. Arrogant, you say? I’ve seen only evidence to the contrary. All those exquisite invitations he sent you that I found in the bin, torn apart as if they had tainted your hands. Besides being confounded by your reaction, I know that an arrogant man would have taken one such rejection and never again given you the time of day.”

Clarissa’s lips twisted. “That’s where ‘driven’ and ‘cruelly ambitious’ come into play. Ferruccio Selvaggio pursues his target until it drops of exhaustion in his lap.”

“So that’s your evasive maneuver? Going to him, not when he demanded, but when you deem to, half a day later?” Antonia scowled. “You were free to act as you wished when it was a personal matter, Clarissa, but this meeting is official business. After the way you treated him in the past, any other man would have called the king and Council and filed a formal complaint against you. Frankly, that he hasn’t, makes me admire him more.”

“So why don’t you go to him?” Clarissa snapped, and immediately burned in embarrassment at the look that devolved her into a ten-year-old. She shook it off, went on determinedly. “He should be thankful I’m going at all. If this meeting didn’t have ‘official business’ squished in between his personal agenda, he would have never gotten the chance to be in the same square mile I’m in. And if any woman can be late, surely a princess can get away with being inexcusably, obscenely late.”

Antonia raised one eyebrow at her. “When did you get a personality transplant?”

Clarissa shrugged. “It’s a personality that sprouts up at the mere mention of Ferruccio Selvaggio-slash-D’Agostino.”

Antonia gave her suspicious look. “You’re playing the spoilt princess, trying to drive him away, aren’t you?” She stopped, her eyes rounding, as if she’d just realized the secret of the universe. “Dio Santo! How didn’t I see this before? You’re not interested in him, you’re crazy about him!”

There was no use trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the woman who’d practically raised her. It was astounding that Antonia hadn’t realized the true nature of her feelings for Ferruccio till now. Seemed she was a better actress than she’d thought. “And I’d be crazier if I did ‘snatch him up.’”

For the first time in twenty-eight-years’ worth of memory, Clarissa witnessed the sight of Antonia dumbstruck. After a long moment of gaping at her open-mouthed, Antonia shook her head. “Si, it’s true. I have absolutely nothing to say at the moment. I’m speechless. I’ll probably overcompensate later, but for now, go ahead. Either apologize to his envoys and reschedule, or go to the meeting and try to explain the hefty oops of a ten-hour delay. Or just do him the courtesy you’ve been doing for six years. Turn him down and be done with it. You’ve had plenty of practice after all. Or…no, scratch that. I have no clue. This situation isn’t complex, it’s incomprehensible.”

Clarissa gave a sarcastic huff. “Even when you don’t get something, you always end up summing it up perfectly.”

Antonia turned and walked away, still shaking her head. Clarissa duly went to Ferruccio’s envoys.

They again escorted her to the royal airport to board the jet he’d sent to collect her. During the twenty-minute flight and the drive on landing, she was accompanied by the man who’d met her last night at the airport and had driven her to Ferruccio’s mansion. From the few words she managed to extract from him she found out he was Alfredo, Ferruccio’s valet and personal assistant.




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