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

as he shrugged and led Luca to the cells.

      She was adopted! As he followed the guard down the dank stairwell he replayed their earlier conversation over, recalling the details, and relief flooded him as he remembered what Meg had said. Even if she were somehow related to Alessandro, then it wasn’t by blood—but it was a royal prince’s sister who was locked up in a cell and about to be charged with theft—a scandal the family could do without just now.

      For the old king’s sake—for the honour of the family—the fact Alessandro’s sister had been arrested for the attempted theft of the Niroli jewels, no less, was something that had to be kept quiet.

      ‘Aspetta—wait!’ Despite Luca’s haste to get to her, there was one unsavoury duty that needed to be performed first—one last court with disaster before the king made his decision. Pulling out his wallet, Luca delivered his orders to the guard, hoping to God as he did so that the half-drunk bottle of whisky he had seen him shove into the drawer would be empty by the morning—that this blurry exchange would be nothing but a distant memory by dawn.

      The cells were mainly empty apart from a couple of drunks sleeping it off, but the pubs and clubs hadn’t closed yet. Luca knew that by morning the place would be rank with Niroli’s low life. As he entered the dreary area that housed Meg, Luca knew that it wasn’t duty that was driving him—as he made his way in, his eyes taking a moment to accustom to the dim lights, Luca knew it was her he was truly there for.

      She was sitting on the simple metal bed, back rigid, staring fixedly ahead, not even turning as they approached, and Luca knew, quite simply, that she didn’t belong in such a rank place.

      Whatever emotions he’d been feeling before were paltry compared to what he felt now. He’d thought her beautiful, but realised it was a shallow description. Here, with her hair dark from sweat, her face a mess of dried blood and grime, and her top torn, sitting on the bare metal frame of the bed with a rudimentary attempt of a meal upturned on the floor beside her, he witnessed something in Meg far deeper and longer lasting than beauty. Despite the chaos of the room there was an elegance to her that seemed to reach somewhere deep inside him and twist his stomach, something about her that tugged at him. He’d always liked women, always enjoyed their company, but this ran deeper. This feeling Meg stirred wasn’t about him, but instead about her and what he could do for her—only she mustn’t know.

       This isn’t your doing!

      There was an attempt at reason, to remind himself that it was her actions that had put her in this place—but it was futile. Whatever her reasons, whatever had driven her to steal last night, he wanted to know them—wanted so much more from Meg than he wanted from most women.

      He wanted to get to know her….

      Good or bad—he wanted all of her.

      ‘Alzarsi!’ Meg’s grasp of the Italian language might be less than basic, but as the guard entered her cell and pulled her to her feet there was little room for misunderstanding and Meg did as she was told: she stood up. But nothing more—refusing to turn her head, refusing to acknowledge Luca Fierezza as he stepped into the tiny cell.

      She’d known he was here—had heard his deep, angry voice for the last few moments—but whatever his reason for coming, it was too little, too late. The last couples of hours had been a nightmare: no one spoke more than a few words of English and, combined with Meg’s few words of Italian, the police and guards had seemed to take pleasure in the chaos it had created. Taunting her when she’d asked for a lawyer or for them to contact the embassy, laughing in her face when Meg had written down Alex’s name for them and tried to explain that until recently her brother had worked at the hospital. Then, after a rough body search, she had been thrown in the tiny, damp cell—which for Meg was the worst part of all, the tiny cell, the isolation, so reminiscent of her younger years it was impossible not to compare, not to relive the virtual prison of her childhood, impossible for it not to provoke a reaction. The guard bringing her a meal, ordering her to eat, had, for Meg, been the final straw and now, exhausted from her outburst, amidst the chaos she’d created, she stood before Luca.

      ‘Meg, are you okay?’ It was such a relief to hear English, her determination not to look at him, not to talk to him, weakened a touch, but she held on—still, even at this eleventh hour, trusting that order would prevail, that a lawyer, an official, someone would come and sort out this chaos.

      ‘Meg, talk to me,’ Luca insisted. ‘I can help you.’

      Her top lip sneered in disgust and somehow Luca knew she wasn’t going to accept his offer of help, that, even if she was the guilty one, somehow it was he, Luca, she mistrusted. ‘Aqua,’ Luca snapped to the guard, thinking on his feet, trying somehow to get her to realise that he was on her side. He barked orders in Italian to the guard, demanding he get food and something to clean up Meg’s face with. Only when they were alone did he approach Meg, but she recoiled as if he were poison and with supreme effort he halted, stifling the instinct to take her in his arms and soothe her. ‘Meg …’ He stared at the paltry room, took in the upturned meal on the floor and struggled to find what to say, how to reach her. ‘You should eat something….’

      ‘I’d rather starve than eat what they bring me.’ Even if it was laced with venom, at least she was talking, Luca conceded.

      ‘You could be here for some time—you should change out of these dirty clothes, get some sleep. You need to eat—’

      ‘Why?’ Angry, defensive eyes turned to him. ‘Why should I wear their clothes or sleep or eat at their command when I have done nothing wrong? Anyway, what is it to you? What exactly are you here for, Luca?’

      ‘As I said, I am here to help you.’

      He thought she might spit at him—her face was so sour with contempt she was barely recognisable.

      ‘More likely, you’re here to make sure that your handiwork has been carried out properly. Well, as you can see, it has been. Is this what happens when you refuse to sleep with the prince of Niroli?’

      ‘It has nothing to do with that!’ The guard was back and, taking the bowl of water and cloths he’d brought with him, Luca dismissed him, leading her to the bed where she reluctantly sat, examining the small cut in her eyebrow. ‘I will clean your face. It is dirty in this cell—the wound will get infected.’

      ‘I’ll clean it,’ Meg snarled, but he didn’t listen, just calmly dipped the fabric into the water and bathed her wounds as the first sting of tears since her arrest reached her eyes. His hand was so supremely gentle, so tender, she couldn’t help but compare it to the treatment the guards had given earlier, and for a second it was just easier somehow to let him help, to close her eyes as gently he removed the dried blood and dirt before pulling out of his pocket a heavy silk handkerchief and telling her to press it to her face.

      ‘You will need a stitch or two. Do you know if the guard has arranged a doctor?’

      ‘I’m sure that he has it on his list of people to call for me.’

      Her sarcasm wasn’t wasted on Luca, his eyes shuttering closed for a moment and she hoped it was in guilt, guilt for what he had done to her, but in that second he changed, his demeanour shifting from tender to practical.

      ‘You stole from me, Meg—I saw the evidence myself. I had no choice but to call the police. You are here because you are a thief. Now we have to work out what to do with you.’

      ‘Do with me?’ Meg gave an incredulous laugh. ‘And what the hell do you mean that I stole from you?’

      ‘I’ve seen the evidence, Meg.’

      ‘How?’ She balled her fists to her temples in an attempt to calm down, the whole thing getting more ludicrous by the moment. She’d realised the guards thought her a common thief, that much she understood, but hearing it from Luca, realising he thought that of her, was almost more than she could take. ‘How could you have seen something when it didn’t even happen?’

      ‘The