The Royal House of Niroli: Billion Dollar Bargains. Carol Marinelli

refused to let anyone see how much this was hurting her, refused to look at anyone—until her eyes caught sight of him….

      Luca Fierezza standing there, despite the forty-degree heat, impassive and cool, watching the proceedings from a slight distance, his face unreadable as he registered her plight. Meg’s first instinct was to cry out to him, to ask him for assistance. She knew somehow that he was the one person who could help her, but even as she opened her mouth to call out to him she choked her plea back. The black eyes staring at her held none of the warmth she had briefly witnessed, the mouth that had kissed her was now pressed in the same firm, grim line it had been when she’d left him, and somewhere deep inside Meg knew, just knew this was his doing, knew in that instant that he wasn’t going to help her.

      Well, she wouldn’t let him see her pain—wouldn’t let him know any of her agony. Whatever twisted game he was playing, she wasn’t going to partake in it! And though the fight in her might have appeared to have died—her body seemingly weak and pliable as the police officers roughly shepherded her into one of the cars—inside she was regrouping, stronger perhaps than she had ever been in her life. Pressed against the door, she pulled her thighs away so there was no contact with her captor, closed her mind to his angry words. Meg hunched herself forward, watched as blood dripped from her face to her legs, and ran a dry tongue over her bruised and swollen mouth. Taking slow, deep breaths as the car careered through Niroli at breakneck speed, she tried to somehow regain control when there appeared to be none.

      She would call the embassy—whatever mess she was in it would soon be sorted. There were rules for this sort of thing, procedures in place for tourists in trouble abroad—she had nothing to fear.

      Despite the direness of her predicament, Meg felt her fear abate a notch, the steely grit that had got her through her difficult, difficult life coming to the fore when she needed it most, but it wavered a touch as she recalled Luca’s hostile stare—the man she had almost trusted, nearly let into her life, causing her more pain than the injuries and indignity she had so recently suffered.

      Well, she’d learnt her lesson.

      For the first time she’d let down her guard, trusted that the world could be kind and gentle if only she let it, and look what had happened….

      Never again.

      Meg held her head high now, stared out of the window as they turned a corner and the Niroli palace came into view, its impressive walls burnt orange in the late afternoon sun, its beauty mocking her as the car halted and she was roughly pulled out, the sight of the palace her last image of the outside world as she was frogmarched into the police station and forced to endure another degrading search before she was bundled into a tiny, dimly lit cell.

      No one would hurt her again.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      SHE DESERVED IT.

      Scribbling his signature on a thick pile of correspondence, Luca tried and failed to put the image of Meg from his mind. Since her arrest, Luca had made several impromptu checks on various areas of the casino, taken care of endless phone calls he’d long been putting off, and, for the first time since he’d taken the business over, cleared his overflowing correspondence tray, but nothing he did managed to fully erase the image of Meg’s stricken face as the police had led her to the car.

      Where had he seen that expression before? His mind started to drift, to search the recesses of his mind in an attempt to match the image he was seeking, but Luca abruptly halted it there.

      Forget about her, Luca demanded of himself. Forget about the wretched thief, the woman who could have brought him shame and scandal when he needed it the least. Glancing at his watch, Luca saw that it was nearly midnight. Glad that this vile day was nearly over and with a shake of his head, he stood up, deciding to head to his suite and shower and change, then head to the bar, end his wretchedness with a stiff drink and perhaps some company. Only despite his best efforts, still Luca’s thoughts reluctantly turned to her….

      She hadn’t even put up a fight, Luca scorned—if she’d been innocent, surely she’d have been enraged, hissing and spitting like a kitten. No, it was almost as if she’d been expecting it, had known what the police were there for.

      ‘A call for you, sir.’ Despite the lateness of the hour, his secretary buzzed the intercom—her day not over until Luca discharged her.

      ‘No more calls,’ Luca snapped. ‘I’m finished for the day—you can go home now.’

      ‘It’s Her Royal Highness.’

      And if it had been any other minute of any other day, Luca would have taken the call without hesitation, his mother, Laura, the one woman whose calls weren’t screened, who was usually put through without hesitation—just not this time.

      ‘I said no calls,’ Luca barked. But instead of marching out of the office, instead of heading to the bar where it would be so, so much safer to go, he sat back down in the darkness, black bile churning in his stomach as a piece of this reluctant puzzle slotted into place….

      Unwelcome, seldom-visited memories pelted his mind like a sudden hailstorm—a storm so violent, so forceful, so rapid in its arrival that there was no time to seek cover, no time to shield himself from its onslaught, so that all he could do was wait, sit at his desk with his head in his hands and ride out the storm in the hope it would quickly pass.

      It didn’t.

      Each memory lashed him more fiercely.

      Watching again his father’s fist slam into his mother’s face, her long black hair, taut in his fingers, as over and over she took the beating, never once crying out—just as Luca hadn’t. Peering into the room that hateful night he had stifled his screams by instinct, something telling him, even at this tender age, that what he was witnessing must never be acknowledged.

      He’d tried, though. Ramming his knuckles into his fist, Luca felt the slap of his mother’s hand again on his cheek; felt the confusion, the bewilderment all over again as she’d later denied what he had seen take place, told him off for even thinking such filthy things.

      But he had seen it, had seen his mother, despite the indignity, somehow still proud, somehow stronger in her passiveness than the brute that beat her.

      He’d seen that expression once in his mother, her face etched with stricken dignity as that bastard had laid into her, and he’d seen it again today—with Meg.

      It was a fifteen minute drive to the palace, but Luca did it in eight—his silver car rattling around the tight bends at breakneck speed. Instead of turning off into the guarded private road to the palace, he carried on to the prison, not even taking the keys out of the ignition before he strode in. ‘Where is she?’

      The guard jumped to his feet, recognising Luca instantly and fumbling to cover his sordid trail—stubbing out a cigarette and ramming a bottle into a drawer.

      ‘In the cell.’ He gave a low laugh, which revealed black, rotting teeth. ‘She says she wants a lawyer. I told her all the lawyers in Niroli are retained by you!’

      ‘What else has she said?’

      ‘She’s crazy.’ He tapped the side of his head a couple of times. ‘She refuses her meals, refuses to sleep, or to put on the clothes we give her. She went crazy in there before—like an animal, pulling off the mattress, kicking at the walls, throwing her meal when we gave it to her. Now she says she is sister to Prince Alessandro….’

      ‘What?’ Luca barked. ‘What exactly did she say?’

      ‘That she came to the island to meet her brother—she gave his other name—the one he had before….’

      ‘Alex Hunter?’ Luca frowned, his mind racing. Was that what had happened—had the attraction that had flared the second he’d laid eyes on her actually been recognition?

      Alessandro was his cousin—they shared the same grandfather, so if somehow he had a sister.?

      ‘I