The Marcelli Princess

11

Mia found herself unable to breathe. White-hot fury poured through her until she felt sure she could melt steel simply by touching it. She stood as if nailed to the floor, unable to move as Rafael finished his conversation with his father. A conversation that revealed everything.

When he’d hung up, she forced herself to walk into her bedroom, where she picked up the phone and called Joe’s cell.

“Get to the house now,” she said, her voice low and thick. “Bring a gun.”

She hung up before he could ask anything; then she stalked into Rafael’s bedroom and wondered if she was truly capable of murder.

At that moment it seemed more than possible-it seemed likely. She wanted him dead. No, she wanted him in pain. She wanted to see blood and bone jutting through flesh. She wanted him writhing and begging, and she wanted to watch him disappear into a puddle of green slime.

He turned and smiled at her. “Mia. I was just speaking with my father and we were-” He stared at her. “What is wrong?”

She could feel the scream building, but as it hadn’t reached the surface yet, she spoke in a quiet voice, one laced with so much anger, it practically snapped.

“Did you think I was so fucking stupid that I didn’t speak Portuguese?”

He paled slightly. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said, you bastard. I heard and understood every damned word. Ironically, I wasn’t paying attention when you were speaking Italian. I wasn’t even listening. But you switched. I guess you thought I could be Grandma Tessa, who also speaks Italian. You sure as hell wouldn’t want her hearing your little plan for my future.”

She felt as angry about his assumption that she wouldn’t understand him as she did about what he’d said. That bothered her for a second until she realized it was safe to be furious about the language he’d chosen. She wouldn’t kill him over that.

“I heard you,” she told him. “I heard every word. You lied. You deliberately lied. How dare you? You’re not here to marry me, you’re here to take my son.”

The scream built and built until it finally burst free. She reached for the lamp on the dresser by the door and threw it at him.

“You fucking bastard. You tricked us all. You came here with your stories and your princely manners and the whole thing was a scam.”

He’d sidestepped the lamp easily. Now he walked around the mess on the floor and moved toward her.

“Mia, calm down. You have misunderstood.”

“Get away from me. I swear, if I had a gun I’d shoot you right now. Right in the gut. Or the balls. You didn’t come here for me. You don’t care about me or my family or anything. You want your son. You want to kidnap him.”

“You’re being ridiculous. Daniel is my heir. It is reasonable for me to-”

“Don’t talk to me about reasonable,” she screamed. “Don’t you dare. You lied. It was all a lie.”

“Daniel is my son.”

“His name is Danny. He’s a little boy. You want to take him away from me, but that will never happen. Never. Do you hear me?” She looked around for something else to throw at him and was frustrated by the lack of vases and lamps.

“He is my heir. My people have a right to-”

“Fuck your people and fuck you. Go to hell, Rafael. You’re never getting him. Never. I don’t care what I have to do. This is all bullshit. Why now? Why did you suddenly show up?”

She pressed a hand against her forehead as she remembered what he’d told her. “My God. The picture in the paper. That damn picture. You saw it and you recognized me and him. The age is right and he looks enough like you.” She paused again and found herself unable to do more than gasp out. “The birthmark. Somehow you saw it.”

“That first morning,” he agreed. “The men in my family have carried it for generations.”

“You didn’t need the DNA test, did you?”

He shrugged. “I knew he was my son after I saw the birthmark.”

“Of course. You saw the paper and knew, so you had to come here. Only you couldn’t just show up. I would get really suspicious if after five years you suddenly appeared in my life. So you…”

She couldn’t believe it. No. This wasn’t happening. “You lied about everything. About being told I was dead, about missing me. You came up with that story as a way to make me trust you. You not coming after me had nothing to do with me being dead or not. You didn’t care. You’d had your fling and then it was time to get back to your regular life. The prince one. You didn’t give me another thought. Then you found out about Danny and suddenly you had an heir to worry about.”

“Mia, you will make yourself sick.”

“So what? I’ll survive. You living through the day seems much less likely.”

“Do not threaten me.”

“Or what? You’ll pretend you care about me so you can trick me into marriage and steal away my son?”

Her eyes began to burn, but she refused to give in to the tears. She couldn’t think, couldn’t believe this was happening.

“I was such a fool. How could you do it? How could you steal my child?”

“You are being melodramatic. Of course I would have allowed you to see Daniel. We would have made arrangements for-”

She heard footsteps on the stairs. “In here,” she yelled.

Joe ran down the hallway and she was pleased to see he held a handgun.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

Rafael stepped into the hallway. “Mia, you are taking this too far. Be reasonable.”

“Reasonable?”

She lunged for Joe’s gun, but he easily kept it out of reach.

“Shoot him!” she told her brother. “Shoot the god-damned prick right in the balls. He wants to steal Danny. He tricked me. He tricked us all. He pretended to care, but he doesn’t. He wanted me to marry him so that when we got to Calandria he could take Danny away from me.”

Joe grabbed her and shoved her behind him, then turned the gun on Rafael.

“Get out,” he said quietly. “Get out of this house and take the bodyguards with you.”

“I’m not finished here.”

“Yes you are.”

Rafael stared at the gun, then at Joe’s face. He swore in Italian, then stalked out. As he passed Mia, he paused.

“This isn’t over.”

“It is,” she told him. “More than you know.”

And then he was gone. Mia stared into the empty room and saw the broken lamp. It was as if that shattered bit of ceramic represented all her hopes and dreams.

“Oh God,” she breathed as her muscles began to shake and she felt herself go down.

Joe grabbed her and pulled her close. She went into his arms, feeling his strength and knowing nothing would ever be right again.

“I can’t believe it,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“He lied. He tried to take Danny.”

“But he didn’t get him. We’ll fix this, Mia. I swear.”

She wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t. It was too horrible.

“Danny,” she said with a gasp. “Where is he? He was in the family room. What if Rafael took him?”

“Mommy?”

She turned and saw the Grands holding Danny’s hands. Her son looked terrified and confused. She dropped to her knees and held out her arms. He rushed toward her and clung so tightly she couldn’t catch her breath.

But that didn’t matter. He was here and he was safe. She was going to make sure that never, ever changed.

They held a family meeting after Danny was in bed. Mia didn’t want to attend. She didn’t want to cry or breathe or eat ever again. Most of all, she didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to keep reliving those horrible moments when she’d found out the truth about Rafael, when she’d realized that everything he’d told her was a lie.

No, she thought as she stood at the top of the stairs and listened to the low voices coming from the family room. His lies weren’t the worst of it. The true pit of her life was that she’d believed him.

Once again she’d trusted a man and he had betrayed her.

If Rafael had come after her, she could have handled it. If he’d wanted to hurt her or kidnap her or even kill her, she would have been able to cope. But he’d come after her child, and she would never forgive him for that.

She made herself walk downstairs. When she entered the family room, she saw everyone was already there. Katie and Zach, Francesca and Sam, Brenna and Nic, Joe and Darcy. The Grands were there, too, pressing food on everyone. Only her parents were missing. Since she hadn’t called to tell them about marrying Rafael, she saw no reason to upset their vacation by admitting she’d almost lost her son.

Katie saw her first. “Oh, Mia.” Katie held open her arms.

Mia moved into them and felt her other sisters closing ranks. They hugged her and whispered promises of revenge. The men stood a few feet back, looking angry and uncomfortable.

Mia absorbed their love and support. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry over Rafael ever again, and she managed to get through the group hug without breaking down.

When everyone took a seat, Grammy M pressed a mug of tea into Mia’s hands. She took the hot liquid but passed on food.

“I’m not very hungry,” she admitted.

Grammy M started to say she had to eat something, but Tessa pulled her away.

“Mia will eat tomorrow,” her paternal grandmother said quietly. “She’s strong. You’ll see.”

Mia didn’t feel very strong. She felt as if her heart had been run over by an eighteen-wheeler and left for road-kill.

“How’s Danny?” Darcy asked.

“Confused. Apparently he didn’t hear what I said to Rafael, but he knows we had a fight and his father has moved out. He kept asking for him tonight. He wanted Rafael to tuck him in.”

Katie looked at Joe. “You should have shot him when you had the chance.”

“It didn’t seem the time. Besides, I can always do it later.”

“We can arrest him,” Grandma Tessa said to Joe. “He broke the law, didn’t he?”

Joe stood by the fireplace. He shifted uncomfortably. “Technically, he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“All lying and cheating aside,” Mia said with a lightness she didn’t feel.

“Joe, there has to be something,” Katie said. “He can’t get away with this.”

“He won’t,” Mia told her. “Danny is staying right here, with us. If I don’t take him to Calandria, there’s nothing Rafael can do. Right, Joe?”

He nodded. “I suppose he could petition the international courts, but that could take years. Appealing to the president won’t help.”

Darcy leaned toward Mia. “I already called my dad. Should the Calandrian ambassador try to see him, he won’t be available. He also said to tell you that he would be happy to have Rafael thrown out of the country.”

“I’m not sure I want this going public,” Mia said. “Let’s just keep it between us for now. We need a plan. We need to keep Danny safe and keep Rafael away from him.”

“I don’t know how this happened,” Grammy M said with a sigh. “He seemed like such a nice man.”

“He fooled us all,” Grandma Tessa grumbled. “I thought I was too old and too crabby to be fooled.”

“It wasn’t exactly a fair fight,” Katie told them. “We’re basically honest people. We weren’t looking for deception. Plus there’s the whole prince angle. He had our attention there.”

Brenna patted Mia’s arm. “See? You’re not the only one.”

Mia appreciated the support, but it didn’t help. She’d been the one who’d been willing to blindly commit her life to someone she barely knew. That impulsive decision could have cost her Danny.

“You’re all forgetting something,” Joe said. “Rafael is Danny’s father. He might be an asshole, but he’s still the father, and Mia can’t keep him away forever.”

“I don’t want to hear that,” Mia said flatly. She didn’t want to be reminded of any connection to Rafael.

Francesca crossed to where Mia sat and crouched in front of her. “I understand you’re beyond anger. We all are. Rafael came in here and treated us all like idiots. He tried to steal away one of our babies. I would like to spend a couple of days thinking up very special tortures for him.”

Mia glanced at her sister and sighed. “You’re going to be rational, aren’t you?”

Francesca nodded. “You can’t keep Danny from his father. Being an asshole isn’t against the law.”

“It should be.”

“I agree, but it isn’t. However much we all hate Rafael, Danny doesn’t. He loves his father. He loves every minute they’re together. He doesn’t know what happened and none of us are going to tell him. In his world, nothing has changed. He’s going to be four and he has a new daddy.”

Mia understood the message. What her sister was trying to say in her calm, trained, psychologist way was that Mia didn’t get to throw a tantrum. That whatever had happened between her and Prince Jerk, there was still Danny to consider, and her little boy deserved to have a father.

“I don’t trust him for a minute,” Mia said.

“You shouldn’t,” Francesca told her. “Rafael has proved he can’t be trusted. Whatever you decide about custody or visitation or whatever, I’m here to remind you that you don’t want to break Danny’s heart.”

Mia hated all of it. “You’re saying I have to let him come to Danny’s birthday party? That I have to let them hang out and trust him not to simply disappear with Danny?”

“I’m saying you can’t refuse to let Rafael see his son. You can do things to keep Danny safe. You can make it difficult for Rafael and easy for us, but you can’t stand in the way of father and son being together. As for his birthday, that’s your call.”

Mia heard the words and knew their truth, but she didn’t want to listen. She didn’t want to think about how much Danny wanted Rafael there. She turned to her brother. “Joe?”

“I hate that she’s right, too,” he said quietly. “I want to tell him to go to hell and maybe even help him along, but he’s the kid’s father and we can’t undo that.” He paused for a second. “Sam and I will make some calls. We’ll talk to a few people and get more security here. I would like to think Rafael is smart enough not to try to take Danny, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“I can help, too,” Zach said.

Mia turned to Katie’s husband. “You mean legally?”

“Sure. There are laws in place to prevent a child from being taken out of the country. Danny being the heir to a throne might complicate things, but he’s only four. That should be in our favor. Plus Rafael tried to trick you instead of seeking a straightforward custody agreement. One of the lawyers in my office is an expert on child abduction. Let me get her working on this.”

“Thank you,” Mia told him. “That would be great.”

“I can get my sister to call the attorney general,” Darcy said. “Lauren’s dating her son.”

“Talk about friends in high places,” Mia said, feeling her insides shake as a dozen emotions washed through her. “I really appreciate all of you rallying around. I would hate to go through this alone.”

Katie joined Francesca, who pulled Mia to her feet. The sisters hugged.

“This is going to be fine,” Katie told her. “You’ll see. As you said, you’re not alone. You have us, and hey, we’re the Marcellis.”

Brenna joined them. “You have to stay strong. Don’t go beating yourself up about this. Whatever happens, it’s never wrong to fall in love.”

Mia appreciated the sentiment, even if she didn’t believe it. “Falling in love might not be wrong,” she said, “but sometimes it’s pretty damned stupid.”

The hotel was not to Rafael’s liking. Despite the fact that Oliver and Umberto had paid off enough guests to claim an entire wing, Rafael still hated to be in such a public place. He disliked the location, on the edge of a busy highway, the flowering plants that seemed to overrun the place, and most of all he hated that he was here at all.

He paced the length of his suite, ignoring the floral wallpaper and matching drapes and bedspread. The owner had been delighted to show him all the amenities of the suite, but Rafael had not so politely closed the door in her face. What did he care about blow-dryers and heated towel racks when everything of importance had gone terribly wrong?

He had no one to blame but himself. He hated to admit that, but it was true. He’d grown complacent. He should never have called his father from the house. He knew better. Until that last call, he had been very careful.

He paused by the window and stared out at the distant view of the ocean. Mia’s fury had burned with a fire so bright, he’d expected the house to ignite. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her that angry before. In truth, he couldn’t blame her for her feelings. A part of him disliked that he had hurt her. She was angry now, but later there would be tears and he would not be there to comfort her.

Comfort? What was he thinking? He had to remember his goal and how his plan had failed.

He had now shown his hand and she would be on guard against him. No doubt her entire family would be upset when she told them what she’d overheard.

He tightened his hands into fists and cursed himself for forgetting Mia’s ability with languages. When he’d heard footsteps in the hallway, he’d reacted without thinking. Better to have ended the call, but no. He’d switched to a language he’d been sure Grandma Tessa would not understand. He had not suspected the footsteps were Mia’s.

Oliver knocked on the open door. “Everything is taken care of, your highness. We have all the rooms on this floor. Umberto is running background checks on the other guests, but there is no reason to suspect any of them.”

“Good.”

“I have arranged for the menus of local restaurants to be delivered. When you are ready, one of us will order your meal and then go get it.”

He nodded. “Thank you for your efficiency.”

Oliver nodded. “Sir, I do not mean to presume, but perhaps it would be best to simply take the child. We could go tonight and be well on our way to Calandria before anyone knew he was gone.”

“An excellent plan,” Rafael said. “If we had used it that first night. Now it will not be possible. Mia’s brother is more highly trained than you and Umberto. Her brother-in-law Sam is a security expert. We would not be successful.”

Oliver’s silence indicated he agreed with Rafael’s assessment. “Perhaps a diplomatic solution,” he offered. “If our ambassador spoke with the president.”

“I doubt the president will be available anytime soon. You forget Joe’s wife is the president’s daughter. She already will have called her father. It is what I would have done. They are not fools, which is unfortunate for us.”

He had been the only fool. He hated that he’d been caught. Damn Mia for being the kind of woman who would make this all difficult. He’d meant what he said-he would not have kept her from Daniel. The boy was the heir to Calandria. He belonged with his people. But would she ever see that? Would she ever be sensible?

Would she ever forgive him?

“I will come up with a plan,” he said at last. “There is a way and I will find it. I always win.”