Prince's Virgin In Venice

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‘With who? Oh...’

She gave Rosa another look up and down, her eyes evaluating her as if she was a rival for Vittorio’s affections. Ridiculous. She’d only just met the man tonight. But she wasn’t mistaken. There was clear animosity in the woman’s eyes.

‘And what do you think of Vittorio’s outfit...? What was your name again?’

‘Rosa,’ Vittorio growled. ‘Her name is Rosa. It’s not that difficult.’

‘Of course it’s not.’ Sirena gave a lilting laugh as she turned to the woman whose name she couldn’t remember and smiled. ‘What do you think of Vittorio’s outfit? Don’t you think it’s a bit over the top?’

‘I like it,’ she said. ‘I like the blue of the leather. It matches his eyes.’

‘It’s not just blue, though, is it?’ Sirena said dismissively. ‘It’s more like royal blue—isn’t it, Vittorio?’

‘That’s enough, Sirena.’

‘Well, I would have said it was royal blue.’

‘Enough, I said.’

The woman pouted and stretched herself catlike along the brocade chaise longue behind her, the beads of her skirt falling in a liquid slide to reveal the tops of her long, slender legs—legs that ended in sandals with straps that wound their way enticingly around her ankles.

The woman made an exquisite Cleopatra. But then, she was so exquisitely beautiful the real Cleopatra would no doubt have wanted to scratch out her eyes.

‘It’s all right, Vittorio, despite our difference in opinion Rosa and I are going to be good friends.’ She smiled regally at Rosa. ‘I like your costume,’ she said.

For the space of one millisecond Rosa thought the woman was warming to her, wanted so much to believe she meant what she’d said. Rosa had spent many midnight hours perched over her mother’s old sewing machine, battling with the slippery material and trying to get the seams and the fit just right. But then she saw the snigger barely contained beneath the smile and realised the woman hadn’t been handing out a compliment.

‘Rosa made it herself—didn’t you, Rosa?’

‘I did.’

Cleopatra’s perfectly threaded eyebrows shot up. ‘How...enterprising.’

Vittorio’s presence beside her lent Rosa a strength she hadn’t known she had, reminding her of what her brothers had always told her—not to be cowed by bullies but to stand up to them.

Her brothers were right, but it was a lot easier to take their advice when she had a man like Vittorio standing beside her.

Rosa simply smiled, not wanting to show what she really thought. ‘Thank you. Your costume is lovely too. Did you make it yourself?’

The other woman stared at her as if she had three heads. ‘Of course I didn’t make it myself.’

‘A shame,’ Rosa said. ‘If you had you might have noticed that there’s a loose thread...’

She reached a hand out to the imaginary thread and the woman bolted upright and onto her sandalled feet, a whole lot less elegantly than she had reclined, no doubt imagining one tug of Rosa’s hand unleashing a waterfall of glass beads across the Persian carpet.

‘This gown is an Emilio Ferraro creation. Of course there’s no loose thread.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I must have been mistaken.’

Sirena sniffed, jerked her eyes from Rosa’s and placed a possessive hand on Vittorio’s chest. ‘Come and see our friends when you’re free. You won’t believe what they’re wearing. I’ll be waiting for you.’

And with a swish of her beaded hair and skirt she was gone.

‘That,’ said Vittorio, ‘was Sirena.’

‘Cyclone Sirena, you mean,’ Rosa said, watching the woman spinning out of the room as quickly as she’d come in, leaving a trail of devastation in her wake.

She heard a snort and looked up to see Vittorio smiling down at her. It was a real smile that warmed her bone-deep, so different from one of Sirena’s ice-cold glares.

‘You handled that very well.’

‘And you thought I wouldn’t?’ she said. ‘My brothers taught me to stand up to bullies.’ She didn’t mention that it was Vittorio’s presence that had given her the courage to heed her brothers’ advice.

‘Good advice,’ he said, nodding. ‘If she finds that thread you saw she’ll bust the balls of her precious Emilio.’

Rosa returned his smile with one of her own. ‘There was no thread.’

And Vittorio laughed—a rich bellow that was laced with approval and that made a tide of happiness well up inside her.

‘Thank you,’ he said, his arm going around her shoulders as he leaned down to kiss her cheek. ‘For the best belly laugh I’ve had in a long time.’

It wasn’t really a kiss. Mouth to cheek...a brush of a whiskered jaw...a momentary meeting of lips and skin—probably the same kind of kiss he might bestow upon a great-aunt. Even his arm was gone from her shoulder in an instant. Yet to Rosa it felt far more momentous.

It was the single most exciting moment in her life since she’d arrived in Venice.

Chiara had told her that magical things could happen at Carnevale. She’d told her a whole lot of things and Rosa hadn’t believed her. She’d suspected it was just part of Chiara’s sales technique, in order to persuade Rosa to part with so much money and go along to the ball with her.

But maybe her friend had been right. Rosa had been kissed by a man. She couldn’t wait to tell her friend.

‘You’re blushing,’ said Vittorio, his head at an angle as he looked down at her.

She felt her blush deepen and dropped her head. ‘Yes, it’s silly, I know.’

He put his hand to her chin and lifted her face to his. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s delightful. It’s been a long time since I saw a woman blush.’

She blinked up at him, her skin tingling where his fingers lingered.

Oh, boy.

Talk about a distraction... She’d wanted to ask him more about Sirena, but the woman had faded into insignificance. Now all she could think about was Vittorio and the way he made her feel.

‘Come, come!’ said Marcello, clapping his hands as he walked into the room to gather everyone. ‘The entertainment downstairs is about to begin. You don’t want to miss it.’

Downstairs, the entire level of the piano nobile had been divided into performance areas, with stages and dramatic velvet drapes, and they spent the next hour wandering between the rooms to see the spectacle of gymnasts and jugglers and opera singers, and aerobatic performers who spun on ropes in the air. Then it was the turn of the clowns, and Rosa was soon almost doubled up with laughter at their antics.

She found herself thinking about Chiara and wondering how her night was going. They’d treated themselves to the cheapest tickets to the cheapest Carnevale ball they could find—and that only gave admission to the dancing segment of the evening. They hadn’t been able to afford the price for the dinner and entertainment that came first. But surely even that entertainment would be no match for this.

And then Vittorio took her hand in his and she stopped thinking about Chiara, because her heart gave a little lurch that switched off her brain.

She looked sideways up at him to find him watching her, the cobalt of his eyes a shade deeper, his sensual slash of mouth curled up at the ends.

He gave the slightest squeeze of her hand before he let her go, and she turned her eyes back to the entertainment. But suddenly she wasn’t laughing any more. Her chest felt too tight, her blood was buzzing, and she was imagining all kinds of impossible things.

Unimaginable things.

Chiara had said that magical things could happen at Carnevale.

Rosa had been a fool not to believe her.

She could feel the magic. It was in the air all around her. It was in the gilded frames and lush silks and crystal chandeliers. It was in the exquisite trompe l’oeils that adorned the walls with views of gardens that had only ever existed in the artist’s eyes. And magic was pulsing alongside her, in leather of blue and gold, in a man with a presence she couldn’t ignore—a man who had the ability to shake the very foundations of her world with just one look from his cobalt blue eyes.

Chiara had said she might meet the man of her dreams tonight. A man who had the power to tempt her to give up her most cherished possession.

She hadn’t believed that either.

It would have to be a special kind of man for her to want to take such a momentous step. A very special kind of man.

Vittorio?

Her heart squeezed so tightly that she had to suck in a breath to ease the constriction.

Impossible. Life didn’t work that way.

But what if Chiara had been right?

And what if Vittorio was the one?

She glanced up to sneak another look at him and found him already gazing down at her, his midnight hair framing the quizzical expression on his strong face.

His heart-stoppingly beautiful, strong face.

And she thought it would be madness not to find out.

* * *

Sirena either had spies everywhere, or she had a knack for knowing when Rosa had left his side for five minutes. The entertainment was finished but, while the party wouldn’t wind down until dawn, Vittorio had other plans. Plans that didn’t include Sirena, no matter how hard she tried to join in.

‘This is supposed to be a party,’ Sirena sulked conspiratorially to Marcello when she cornered him standing at the top of the stairs, where Vittorio was waiting for Rosa so they could say their goodbyes. ‘A party for friends. An exclusive party. But did you see that woman Vittorio dragged along?’

‘Her name is Rosa.’

Sirena took no notice. ‘Did you see what she was wearing, Marcello? It was appalling.’

‘Nobody’s listening, Sirena,’ Vittorio said dismissively.

‘Rosa seems very nice,’ said Marcello. ‘And I like her costume.’

Vittorio nodded. ‘She is nice. Very nice.’ He thought about the way she’d pulled that ruse with the loose thread and smiled. ‘Clever, too.’

Sirena pouted, her hand on Marcello’s arm, pleading. ‘She wasn’t even invited.’

‘I invited her.’

‘You know what I mean. Someone like her wouldn’t normally be allowed anywhere near here.’

‘Sirena, give it up.’ Vittorio turned away, searching for Rosa. The sooner he got her away from here—away from Sirena—the better.

‘That’s our Vittorio for you,’ Marcello said, trying to hose down the antagonism between his guests, playing his life-long role of peacemaker to perfection. ‘Always bringing home the strays. Birds fallen from their nests. Abandoned puppies. It made no difference. Vittorio, do you remember that bag of kittens we found snagged on the side of the river that day? Dio, how long ago was that? Twenty years?’