The Princess and the Billionaire Page 8

  He knew he was asking for trouble, showing up at the family house in Montauk for the annual mid-summer barbecue, but when Connie Bronson threw a party, she expected her children to show up, no matter how old they were.

  As usual, traffic on the Long Island Expressway was bumper to bumper, and he didn’t make it to the compound until nearly six o’clock. The entire brood was down on the beach where Matty was barbecuing ribs, hot dogs, chicken, and sirloin steaks while Connie worried about whether or not they’d have enough potato salad and coleslaw.

  It wasn’t that Daniel didn’t enjoy bonding with his siblings. Normally he would’ve been down there on the beach with the rest of them, bringing the same intensity to a game of volleyball that he brought to the boardroom. Today, their good-natured concern was getting on his nerves.

  It took his niece Katie to zero in on the matter with the laserlike precision of a six-year-old.

  “What are you doing?” She stood in the doorway to the library. She wore a hot-pink ruffled bathing suit, hot-pink thongs, and an oversize pair of polka-dot sunglasses. Her strawberry-blond hair was piled on top of her head and secured with one of those scrunchy rubber bands. She was about as cute as they came and she knew it.

  “Reading,” he said, smiling as she sashayed into the room.

  “Grandpa said to tell you it’s time to eat.” She placed her hands on her waist and jutted out her jaw in a great imitation of Matty. “‘Two minutes or I’m eating his steak!’”

  He tugged at one of her curls. “You tell Grandpa I’ll be there.”

  “Grandpa said not to come back without you.”

  A copy of People magazine lay open on the table in front of him. It was the last thing he wanted Katie to notice and the first thing she went to.

  “Ohhh.” Her big blue eyes took on a dreamy expression as she examined the two-page spread. “A princess!”

  He grabbed the magazine and flipped it shut. “Let’s go outside, Katie. You don’t want Grandpa to eat all the hot dogs, do you?”

  “I want to see the princess.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  He knew they were probably crocodile tears, but it didn’t matter. He knew when he was licked. He flipped open the magazine and handed it to his little niece. “One look, then we’d better get outside.”

  “She’s so pretty,” Katie cooed, looking at a picture of Isabelle that was part of an article on lesser European royalty. “Look, Uncle Danny! Isn’t that you?”

  He mumbled something about Juliana’s wedding.

  “You met two princesses!” It was obvious he’d just risen several notches in Katie’s estimation. “Did you dance with them?”

  He couldn’t help grinning. “Both of them.”

  “Ohh.” Her voice went soft with wonder. “Did they wear crowns?”

  “Not that day, Katie.”

  “Princesses are special,” she told him in a tone of utter seriousness. “They always marry princes.”

  “Not always. Sometimes a princess can marry a frog.”

  “No!” she said, giggling. “A princess kisses a frog, and then he turns into a handsome prince and they live happily ever after.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Everybody knows it,” she said solemnly. “Would you like to marry a princess?”

  “I don’t want to marry anyone, Katie. At least not for a while.”

  She studied him curiously. “Mommy says you’ve let all the good ones get away.”

  “Your mommy might be right.”

  Katie pointed at a picture of Isabelle. “Maybe you could marry her.”

  He believed in telling kids the truth, but this time he was willing to make an exception. Life had a way of screwing up most fairy tales soon enough. Katie deserved to hang on to a few of her illusions, at least until her next birthday. He didn’t want to be the one to tell the little girl that there were two princesses and that the odds of a happy ending to this particular fairy tale were a million to one.

  * * *

  Gianni Vitelli was six feet two inches of rippling inanity. His conversation was limited to soccer, wine, and the weather, and most of it was in Italian, but Isabelle didn’t mind. The last thing on earth she wanted was conversation. She wanted bright lights, loud music, beautiful people—and lots of champagne.

  “We drink champagne?” Gianni asked as the sommelier approached.

  “Of course we do, darling!” Isabelle reached across the table and patted him on the hand. “Champagne is mother’s milk to me.”

  Gianni chatted on about soccer—or maybe it was the unutterably beautiful summer weather. It didn’t matter. Isabelle smiled at the right moment or murmured something appropriate. Gianni would never know the difference. They were both using each other for the same purpose: to brighten the spotlight they each craved. Isabelle found herself wondering if that was as much as a woman could ask of a relationship.

  As far as she could tell, love had precious little to do with marriage. Certainly it hadn’t in the case of Juliana and Eric. In the six months since their wedding, Eric had been away on business at least half the time, and when he was in residence at the castle, Juliana expected him to wait upon her hand and foot.

  “Cara.”

  She blinked, bringing Gianni’s handsome face back into focus.

  “I apologize,” she said with her most winning smile. “You were saying?”

  He gestured toward a table near the huge picture window. “The husband of your sister, no?”

  Isabelle turned around in her chair, and her gaze locked on the table near the terrace doors. Her heart seemed to stop beating inside her chest. Eric was engaged in a tête-à-tête with Mireille Dubois, a tarty little cabaret singer better known for her boudoir gymnastics than her vocal abilities. Mireille, her dyed red hair tumbling about her face and shoulders, seemed mesmerized by Eric’s every word.

  The music shifted into a dreamy tune, and Isabelle extended her hand toward Gianni. “We must dance,” she said, looking at him through lowered lashes. “I have heard wonderful things about your talents.”

  “Many talents, Principessa. Many talents for you to explore.”

  Gianni danced well, but not as well as Daniel Bronson. Oddly enough, Isabelle had retained a strong sensory memory of the way she’d felt in his arms. It came to her at the strangest moments, that sensation of being in a safe harbor. Ridiculous, really, considering the fact that she barely knew the man.

  Unlike the American, however, Gianni could easily be maneuvered, and within moments Isabelle found herself standing in front of Eric and Mireille.

  “Mireille!” Isabelle cooed in the way of her set. “How splendid to see you.” She kissed the air in the vicinity of the singer’s cheeks then turned to Eric whose face was flushed an unnatural shade of red. Playfully she gave his tie a tug. “And my darling new brother-in-law.” She marked his cheeks with the touch of her lipsticked mouth. “How naughty of you not to offer me a ride in the Lamborghini!”

  Eric had the decency to look embarrassed. He nodded toward Gianni who was busy chatting up Mireille and taking stock of her many unnatural assets.

  “My father and Mireille are doing business together,” he said, forcing a note of casual indifference. “We were just now discussing a contract for Mireille to appear at Father’s—”

  “Oh, Eric! Don’t bore me with such foolishness,” said Isabelle with a wave of her hand. “Business is so dull. Surely you can find better things to do with your time.” She cast a knowing look toward Mireille who was dimpling artfully for Gianni.

  “Isabelle—” He lowered his voice. “Darling girl, surely you don’t—”

  “Think you’re having an affair with Mireille?” She shrugged her shoulders, allowing the straps of her beaded dress to slip just a fraction. “Certainly it’s no business of mine.”

  He rose to his feet. “Darling girl, can I convince you to dance with me?”

  “One dance,” she said, giving him her hand. “I should hate to keep you from
your little songbird.”

  “She means nothing to me.”

  “Really?” Isabelle arched a brow. “And Juliana?”

  “I have the utmost respect for your sister.”

  “I didn’t know respect resulted in pregnancy, Eric. I must remember that.”

  “Why do you torture me, Isabelle, when you are the one who is keeping us apart?”

  She tossed her head. “I’m not the one who wears a wedding ring.”

  He stopped dancing and drew her into an anteroom near the door to the restaurant kitchen. With a flamboyant gesture he removed the etched gold band and pressed it into her hand.

  “Take it,” he said, his golden hair glittering in the overhead light. “Do with it as you will.”

  “What if I took it to Juliana and told her we were lovers?”

  “Then that is your choice.”

  “I want my own ring,” she said, meeting his eyes, praying he could see the longing that was tearing her soul apart. “I want a home of my own.”

  “And those things will happen, darling girl, I swear it.” He drew her into his arms. His words were tender. His promises were sweet.

  And, dear God, how she needed to believe him.

  * * *

  It was wrong and she knew it, but by the time Eric turned the Lamborghini onto the road that led to the chalet, Isabelle had convinced herself that she no longer cared. She’d spent her entire life waiting for someone to love her, and now that she’d been given this second chance she wasn’t going to let anything or anyone stop her. Juliana had married him, but Isabelle owned his heart and that gave her the right.

  Eric unlocked the door to the chalet and ushered her inside. It smelled of damp earth and pine, and she walked across the front room and flung open the windows to the sweet night air. He switched on the lamp in the corner. The faded divan near the fireplace beckoned to her.

  She perched on the window seat and drew her knees up under her chin. A faint crescent moon rode high in the sky. She watched as it vanished behind a drift of clouds, only to reappear a few moments later.

  “Do you want some music?”

  She nodded. “That would be nice.”

  Seconds later the painfully glorious sound of Mozart reached out to embrace them.

  “We could dance,” Eric said, standing before her.

  “To Mozart?”

  He smiled and held open his arms.

  She rose from the window seat and stepped into his embrace. They stood motionless in the center of the room, their arms around each other.

  “So long,” he murmured, kissing her on the side of her neck. “How could you believe I would ever let you go?”

  She started to say that the fact of his marriage was a fairly good clue, but she bit back the words. What on earth was the matter with her? She’d dreamed of this moment for six long months, and now that it was here, she’d almost ruined it with a slash of her sharp tongue.

  “Soon we’ll be able to be together for all time,” he said, kissing her jaw, her throat. “Three short weeks...”

  His kisses were intoxicating but apparently so were hers. “But Juliana isn’t due until October.”

  He shook his head. “Three weeks,” he repeated.

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Darling girl,” said Eric with a chuckle, “surely I must know. I have been counting the days until—” He stopped. He met her eyes, and in that instant the final puzzle piece dropped into place.

  “My God!” She pulled away from him, stumbling in her haste to put distance between them. “How could you?”

  “Darling girl, I can explain. I—”

  “Be quiet!” Her voice resonated with her pain, her humiliation. “Don’t say anything! You cannot say anything I wish to hear.” What a fool she’d been to believe he loved her, that his marriage to Juliana had been nothing but an arrangement between two families. The proof of that was in the date of conception.

  “It happened,” he continued. “I don’t know how. I didn’t want it to, but Juliana—”

  “Spare me,” Isabelle snapped. “None of this matters—you don’t matter.”

  He grabbed her by the forearms. She struggled to pull away, but he held her fast. “She came to me, Isabelle. She said things—” He glanced away for an instant. “I’d never seen her that way. There was nothing I could do—” His yelp of pain mingled with the crashing brilliance of Mozart.

  “I can only hope I broke your leg!” Isabelle roared. “Consider yourself fortunate that I did not reach my goal, or there might never be another child!”

  Pain was a living force tearing its way through her body. She couldn’t think over the rush of blood pounding wildly in her ears. Her sister... her sister... she had to get out of there... she had to get as far away from this insanity as she possibly could.

  She grabbed for the key ring resting atop the mantelpiece.

  “Isabelle!” Eric lurched toward her, favoring his right leg. “It’s dark—you’ve had too much champagne. Let me—”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “I’ll drive,” he persisted. “You can’t—”

  “Good-bye, Eric,” she said as she opened the front door. “I’ll tell your wife you’ll be home late tonight.”

  * * *

  The Lamborghini skidded on the first in a series of hairpin curves that marked the beginning of castle property. Isabelle gripped the wheel more tightly and eased up on the gas pedal. Another mistake like that, and she’d find herself at the bottom of a three-hundred-foot cliff. She’d already wrecked her own car. Adding another to her list would hardly endear her to anyone.

  Maybe it really didn’t matter. Maybe the thing to do was drive as fast as the Lamborghini would allow in an attempt to keep one step ahead of the pain that had her in its grip and refused to let go.

  I’ll love him until the day I die.... I feel sorry for you, Mr. Bronson...

  She laughed out loud, the sound carrying a note of hysteria. He’d tried to tell her the affair was doomed, but she’d been too blinded by love to listen. That brash American with the Midas touch had seen it as clearly as he saw the numbers in one of his financial reports.

  “I should have listened to you,” she said into the stillness. No one else had had the guts to tell her that the whole thing was impossible. Only Daniel Bronson had taken her measure and told her the truth.

  Had he known that Juliana and Eric were having an affair, or had the affair started after the Tricentennial Ball? Not that it mattered any longer, but Isabelle was seized with the need to know everything.

  She gunned the engine, leaping forward into the blackness. She wanted to revel in her pain, bathe in scalding tears, beat her breast, and curse the gods for letting her be such a fool.

  Her face burned with shame as she thought of her sister and the man she loved together in bed. How they must have laughed at poor little Isabelle, so young and so naive.

  Foolish enough to believe that someone might actually love her.

  * * *

  Juliana watched her sister with detachment. There was something unseemly about such an unbridled display of emotion.

  “It’s late,” she said as another vase went winging its way toward destruction. “You are obviously in no condition to talk rationally. Perhaps we can continue this discussion tomorrow.”

  Isabelle’s eyes were wild with emotion. Her cheeks were flushed and streaked with tears. Juliana could not remember a time when her sister looked less attractive.

  “It doesn’t matter to you, does it?” Isabelle shrieked. “My feelings, my happiness, my future.”

  “Perhaps if you thought less of yourself and more of Perreault, your future would be of greater consequence.”

  A porcelain statue crashed against a bookshelf. “I don’t give a damn about Perreault, and neither do you.”

  “You’re wrong, Isabelle. I care a great deal.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Juliana smiled. “As you wish.”
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  “You’re so cool about this,” Isabelle said, moving closer. “I may not matter to you, but I know who does. Your precious husband.”

  “Spare me your lies,” Juliana said in her most imperious tone of voice. She had heard her share of rumors about Eric and chose to deal with them by pretending they didn’t exist. Eric appreciated his position too much to endanger it.

  “He still wants me.”

  “He never wanted you. He took what you offered.”

  “Ask him,” Isabelle challenged, recovering too quickly for Juliana’s taste. “He’ll be home soon.”

  Juliana fingered the pearls at her neck. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. Eric is away on business.”

  The glint in Isabelle’s eyes grew wilder. “Eric was at the Savoie with Mireille Dubois.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  “It would appear your loving husband is the liar.”

  “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work. You’re pathetic, Isabelle, truly pathetic, and I am bored with you.” She turned toward the door. “Good night.”

  In an instant Isabelle was in front of her, barring the way.

  “I can prove it.” Isabelle reached into the pocket of those ridiculous satin shorts and pulled out a set of keys. She twirled them in front of Juliana’s eyes. “Look familiar?”

  “Car keys prove nothing,” Juliana said. She linked her hands over her stomach. “Move, please. I am fatigued.”

  Isabelle hesitated, her gaze lowering to rest briefly on Juliana’s belly. She took a deep breath. “A Porsche, Papa’s Daimler, your Rolls.” She fingered the keys one by one. “Still think it’s a coincidence?”

  “You took them from our bedroom.” Juliana snatched the keys from her sister. “Eric is in Italy. What need would he have for his keys?”

  “Eric is at the chalet.”

  “You lying bi—” Juliana raised her hand, but Isabelle grabbed her wrist.

  “You have already hurt me more deeply than any blow possibly could,” she said, “but I will not let you hurt me again.”