LUCIA Ferrazzi?
Lucy nearly gasped aloud.
Ferrazzi—as in Ferrazzi handbags?
As in the company he was trying to gain through hostile takeover?
She looked at him, the man who just a moment ago had seemed too good to be true. And all her gratitude and joy evaporated like smoke.
“Lucia Ferrazzi!” The people in the salon, perhaps fifty or sixty in total, burst into excited rapid-fire speech in both English and Italian. “Lucia Ferrazzi!” A white-haired old woman in the corner suddenly burst into tears, crying above the din, “Bambina mia…”
And Lucy felt sick.
“I want to talk to you,” she ground out to Maximo. “Right now.”
“Later.” He gave a charming, gracious smile. “Greet your guests and friends. Some of them have waited for you for decades.”
“But I’m not—” she gasped as she was dragged from him and Chloe, pulled away by the tide of people rushing forward to embrace her. They had tears in their eyes as they cried out her name. But it wasn’t her name, Lucy Abbott, that they were crying with such wonder and amazement and shock. It was Lucia Ferrazzi. Miracolo, they repeated over and over.
As she was hugged by a crowd of excited strangers, Lucy glared across the salon at Maximo. Watching him smile and joke with the villagers’ children, he looked so handsome and wonderful that it made her heart ache. As if he had no idea of Lucy’s torment, he sat down calmly on the floor with Chloe in his lap and helped her open her first birthday present. He ripped the pink wrapping paper, pulling it down just enough so the baby could reach up and rip the rest.
Discovering a train set in the box, Chloe chortled happily. Maximo looked up at Lucy and smiled.
And she hated him. Fiercely. Savagely.
He’d almost made her believe. Against her will, he’d almost convinced her he was an honest man. When the truth was that he was an even bigger liar than Alex.
The prince was a cheat.
A fraud.
The white-haired old woman who’d sobbed in the crowd threw her arms around Lucy, nearly knocking her over with the impact of the embrace.
“Mia bambina,” the old woman gasped. “Che meravigliosa notizia!” Her eyes were rheumy with weeping. Lucy tried haplessly to separate herself as the woman continued to babble in Italian. Even if Lucy had spoken Italian, she didn’t think she would have understood a word as the woman gasped and sobbed through every syllable. The woman choked out a question. She looked at Lucy, her eyes begging for an answer.
Lucy shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Italian,” she said. “And I’m not who you think—”
“Annunziata was your nurse,” a voice said in English behind her. “Your bambinaia.”
Glancing back, Lucy saw a girl who couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. She was petite, slender and extremely pretty, with masses of dark hair and olive skin. The girl continued, “She is asking to know if you have had a happy life. She says after you disappeared as a baby, she prayed every night that you escaped the fire. And now she has seen a miracle. You are here.”
“What fire?” Lucy asked, wondering if the girl was another of Maximo’s mistresses. Trying not to wonder, because for some reason it made her hurt all over. “What are you talking about?”
The old woman chattered rapidly, embracing her. Then, as if her emotions were too much, she ran away, fleeing with a sob.
“Don’t you know?” The girl’s expressive blue eyes widened. “You’re famous here. When you were one year old, your father skidded his car off a cliff and it exploded in a fire. Your parents died at once, but you were never found. Everyone thought you were dead. Except for your grandfather.”
“Grandfather?” Lucy repeated, troubled.
“Sì.” The girl gave a brief half smile. “Although last month he finally petitioned the courts to have you declared dead. But I think that has more to do with him needing money than really believing you were…where are you going?”
“To kill my husband,” Lucy said, clenching her hands into fists.
“What?” the girl gasped.
First a sweet old lady, now a grandfather? How many people was Maximo willing to hurt to gain control of Ferrazzi?
Lucy ground her teeth. “I’m going to get my daughter away from that liar.”
The girl’s hand grasped her shoulder. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” Lucy’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her husband. “You said exactly the right thing.”
Maximo stood out above the crowd, a handsome, dark giant of a man. Everyone deferred to him. Everyone admired him. He was twice as handsome as blond, slender Alex. And twice the liar.
The more handsome the man, she thought, the more selfish and cold the heart.
She’d wondered why he rescued her from the cold Chicago winter. Now she knew. Due to some chance resemblance, he meant to use her to get control of the Ferrazzi company. He thought he could trick people into believing she was that poor missing baby. People like the gullible, heartbroken old nurse. Like the baby’s grandfather, who must have suffered unimaginable grief. When they discovered the truth, it would be like losing that baby all over again.
But what did her husband care about that, so long as he got what he wanted?
Maximo met her gaze over the crowd and gave her a sensual smile. It made her shiver—and she stiffened her spine. If he thought that he could seduce her into silence with his dangerously sexy charm—if he thought he could buy her integrity with his power and wealth, he was dead wrong…
He was wrong, wasn’t he?
Lucy took a deep breath. Of course he was wrong. She’d consented to sell three months of her time. For her daughter’s sake, she might be willing to do more. She didn’t care about her own life. Just Chloe’s. For her daughter, she would sacrifice anything—even her own life.
But hurting innocent people? To benefit her own child? That was entirely different. That was evil. Lucy wasn’t such a monster.
Some things were more important than financial security. Her own mother had taught her that.
Lucy took a deep breath. “I’m going to go tell everyone that their prince is a big fat liar.”
“No! You can’t!”
Lucy straightened her shoulders. “Look, I’m sure you’re in love with him just like every other woman in the world, but the truth is—”
“I’m not his mistress!” the girl exclaimed, sounding insulted. “I’m Amelia, his cousin. But I do love him. Maximo has always taken care of me and my mother. I don’t know why you’re so angry, but you must at least give him the respect of speaking with him in private! It’s your duty as his wife!”
“My duty as his wife!” Lucy repeated in shock. Had they traveled to Lake Como in a time machine, and gone back to the nineteenth century?
With an expressive sweep of her hand, the Italian girl indicated the party decorations, the cake, the presents, the laughing children. “My cousin must be deeply in love with you. He will therefore forgive you—”
“Forgive me!” Lucy gasped, dumbfounded.
“But he is a proud man, and if you humiliate him in front of the whole village your marriage will never be the same. Don’t destroy your life together before it has even begun!”
Amelia’s blue eyes were pleading. She didn’t know that Lucy’s relationship with Maximo was a marriage of convenience. She actually thought that Maximo had married her for love.
Exactly what he wanted everyone to think.
Right, Lucy thought, her throat choked with bitterness and hurt. As if he’d ever be vulnerable that way in a million years.
But looking around at all the bright eyes of the villagers, hearing the happy laughter of the children, she took a deep breath. She would restrain herself for their sakes, not his. “Fine,” she ground out. “But you can’t expect me to just stand here while he’s telling these lies—”
“Let me take you on a tour of the villa,” Amelia suggested brightly. “I’ll get your baby.”
But a minute later, when she placed a squirming Chloe in Lucy’s arms, the baby didn’t seem entirely happy about it. She kept peeking over Lucy’s shoulder, reaching her pudgy arms toward Maximo, whimpering and shaking her hippo in his direction.
But Lucy was afraid to even look back at him. Afraid if she saw him, she’d scream out her anger and hurt. Or she’d rush across the salon and stand on her tiptoes (or possibly get a chair) to slap him hard across the face.
But why? Why did she feel so hurt? How could she possibly feel so betrayed, when she’d known from the beginning she couldn’t trust a handsome man who seemed too good to be true?
“Such a sweet baby,” Amelia said softly, stroking Chloe’s downy hair as they left the salon and started down the hall. “Maximo thinks I am wasting my time at university. He tells me to find a nice man and settle down.” She gave an impish grin. “I’ve always told him that he had to get married first! But now he’s finally found you, I no longer have an excuse…”
“For heaven’s sake, stay in school!” Lucy blurted out. “Love ruins everything!”
Amelia stopped above her on the wide staircase, looking down at her in surprise. “But you love my cousin. Surely you wouldn’t allow one moment of anger to make you forget that? Maximo is a great man. Bossy, certamente, but only to protect the people he loves.” She stroked Chloe’s hair again. “Whatever he has done to make you angry, I’m sure it is because he loves you, Lucia.”
Lucy felt a sudden lump in her throat. She envied the girl’s pure heart. Amelia loved her cousin and believed the best of him. Just the way Lucy had once had faith in people.
But looking at the girl’s idealistic, shining face, Lucy couldn’t take that same faith from her. Swallowing, she turned away. “Tell me about the villa.”
“Look at this room first.” Amelia stopped in front of the third door on the left of the second-floor hallway. “The nursery.”
Lucy couldn’t believe her eyes.
Just yesterday, she’d thought the Drake Hotel had the most elegant bedrooms she’d ever seen.
But this nursery was a pure extravagant fantasy. Wide windows overlooked the rosy twilight as the sun fell behind the lake and distant hills. The carpet was thick and pink, perfect for a crawling baby who would soon learn to walk. The crib was white with pale pink bedding. On the far wall, a built-in white bookshelf was lined with hundreds of children’s books. Brand-new toys cascaded from a white antique toy chest, and in the closet, carefully unpacked by unseen hands, were the adorable baby clothes she’d bought in Milan.
But their morning in Milan, the most fantastic morning of her life, had been nothing more than bribery, an attempt to convince Lucy to pretend to be the Ferrazzi girl.
Chloe saw the toys and started wriggling desperately, wanting to be put down on the floor to crawl and explore and play.
Lucy’s throat hurt.
This baby nursery was everything Chloe deserved. Everything Lucy wished she could provide for her. It was a fairy tale, and she desperately wished she could give it to her daughter.
But then she’d have to stay married to an ogre. No, worse: she’d be an ogre herself, hurting other people just to keep her own child in silks and toys.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy whispered, pressing her cheek to her baby’s. She felt like crying. “I can’t give you this.”
“Ugh. It’s getting dark.” Amelia turned the light switch, illuminating a wrought-iron chandelier that was a fantasy confection of white and pink flowers. “That’s better.” She held out her arms for Chloe. “Can we play a bit? She’s my second cousin now, and we need to get acquainted!”
Chloe eagerly shook her hippo at Amelia.
Lucy knew she shouldn’t allow them to be friends, not even for a second. She had to leave this place. Tell everyone that she was not Lucia Ferrazzi. She’d be unable to accept the hush money he’d offered her in the prenup, since her conscience wouldn’t allow her to earn it. She’d take her daughter back to Chicago. Back to their cold, threadbare apartment, to their ripped-up old carpet and sparse secondhand clothes. Back to the desperation of working multiple dead-end jobs, never seeing her daughter, praying the apartment manager would give her time to catch up on rent.
Maybe, if she begged Darryl, he would let her have her old job back at the gas station.
“Lucia?”
Fighting tears, she gave Chloe to Amelia without a word.
“That’s your room over there,” the girl said, nodding toward a door on the other side before she sat down on the floor near the toys. She smiled down at Chloe, showing her a baby-size grand piano. “Maximo knew you would want it to connect directly to Chloe’s room, so he had it refurbished for you.”
Lucy had a fantasy bedroom as well?
She knew she shouldn’t look. Mustn’t. Why give herself a taste of what she’d never have? In a few hours, she would return to Chicago, to the real life that fate had decreed for her. Why even allow herself a vision of what she’d lost? Why make her heart yearn for the fantasy?
She looked at the closed door.
Right or wrong, she had to see it. Even if it hurt. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life wondering…
Leaving Amelia and Chloe playing with toys on the carpet, she pushed open the door.
It was dark.
Only the light from Chloe’s room traced the unlit crystal chandelier hanging from the soaring ceiling. She saw blackout curtains drawn across the windows. But the bedroom was huge, in white and blue toile, like exquisite china. In the far corner she saw a dark wood vanity, obviously an antique; multicolored leather-bound books lined the opposite wall.
She walked farther into the room.
Inside the walk-in closet, she saw the exquisite designer clothes and shoes she’d bought in Milan, organized neatly. On the other side of the closet were tailored suits and men’s shoes.
This fantasy bedroom hadn’t been meant for Lucy alone.
A voice, low and grim, spoke from behind her.
“You disobeyed me. Again.”
Maximo!
But as she whirled around to face him, the open door slammed, plunging the room into darkness. She heard slow, heavy footsteps against the carpet, heard the rapid beating of her own pounding heart.
“You are a liar,” she gasped, trying desperately to see where he was, “and I’m going back to Chicago.”
A growl came from the shadows, and suddenly, his body was against hers. Holding her captive, he held her tight against his heat in the darkness.