hope not.” Luci’s eyes opened in alarm.
“I was only joking. See you at eight.”
“THANK YOU, VIGGO.” Gio acknowledged his driver as he parked the car in front of the villa. Viggo quickly got out of his seat and dashed around to the passenger side to open the door for Luciana and Gio. After Gio helped her out of the car, she straightened the skirt of the pale blue dress she’d worn to dinner with him and his investors.
It was her little secret that she’d chosen the dress to complement the color of her handsome companion’s eyes. Of course, the color of Her Royal Highness Princess Luciana’s dress for the evening was the least of her secrets. Nonetheless, with her cool blond wig, silver shoes and diamond earrings, she felt like a woman who had been on a real date with a real man, as opposed to a shielded virgin locked in a stone tower. Gio had quickly become part of her grand adventure.
“Do we have to go in?” Luciana touched Gio’s jacket sleeve as he reached in his pocket for his fob entry to the wooden exterior door.
“Would you like to walk?”
“I’d love to.”
Driving from the restaurant after the dinner, Luciana was agog as they drove past landmarks she wanted to visit while she was here. The incredible piazzas, historic churches, marketplaces, museums and neighborhoods she’d seen only as an armchair traveler in the solitude of her palace sitting room. While she’d traveled to many places in the world for ceremonies and royal engagements, she’d never seen them as a tourist, able to meander and linger, and appreciate anything that caught her fancy. She could hardly wait to get started.
“Let’s walk this way.” Gio gently placed his hand on the small of her back to direct her away from the villa door. Her awareness arched to meet his touch.
“Thank you for accompanying me to dinner. As I mentioned, I generally leave the finessing of investors to my brother, Dante, now that our father has retired.”
“And Dante was unable to attend tonight?”
“Dante is spending some time at our offices in Mumbai. We have restructured the company and I will now serve as CEO.”
“What did you do before?”
“Product development. Which is where my heart is. You’d find me happier trying to make an AGP bus that can carry graphics faster than anything else on the market than you would seeing me in a conference room.”
“AGP?”
“Accelerated graphics port.”
“Of course,” she joked. “How would I not know that?”
“But now I’ll do what needs to be done for the company. Actually, I welcome the opportunity to do things my way. To get them right.”
“Are things not right?”
“Look at those two.” Gio pointed to two dogs on leashes across the street that barked at and sniffed each other with great interest.
Ah, Luci noted, she had asked too snoopy a question about Gio’s work and he’d changed the subject. Her inner Princess Luciana should have known better than to pry, in spite of her curiosity to know more about him.
She hoped to recover with, “Your investors were a lovely group of people. I saw photos on many a smartphone of grandchildren performing in school plays and rosebushes that had yielded prizewinners.”
The princess was only too used to smiling and taking interest in the lives of total strangers. In fairness, she was always quite honored that people she met wanted to share details about their lives with her. Meeting people was one of the things she did like about royal life. But not as much as she liked this, walking in the open air with Gio, and not a handler or schedule in sight.
“Enough about me,” he said as they continued after watching the dogs perform mating rituals. “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a teacher,” Luciana fibbed. That was what she would be if she could. Royal duties combined with her father’s outdated ways kept her ambition from coming to fruition. “I spend most of my days talking to four-year-olds.”
“A teacher? I never would have figured you for that.”
“Why not?”
“You’re very—” he searched for the right word “—elegant. The way you handled yourself at dinner was distinguished. Well, there we go when we stereotype or pigeonhole anyone. My apologies.”
If he only knew. How badly she didn’t want to always have to be elegant. How her father raised her in a very old-fashioned monarchy she didn’t question, where Luciana had been groomed her whole life to make appearances. To never share anything of herself, her hopes, her likes. To be only in the service of the crown. While she led a life of luxury and privilege for which she was grateful, her heart ached for more.
Perhaps she’d be content if the man she was to marry wasn’t so much older and who, in the handful of meetings she’d had with him, hadn’t talked to her as if she were already his possession. Maybe her life would be sublime if she was to wed a bold and good-humored man like say, just for example, Gio.
She blushed at her own thought as she noted the shadows the night sky cast onto Gio’s defined cheekbones.
“Bellissima, what is a teacher doing traveling alone with only a bag full of jewels to pay her way?”
As she had learned in her years of training, restraint was always the best policy, so rather than answer him, she occupied herself taking in the light of the moon and how it played against not only Gio’s face but also the architecture of this great ancient city.
“Where are you from, Luci?” Gio pressed.
“Spain,” she simplified.
She had a flush of concern that she was out late at night in a foreign country with a man she’d only just met. Half of her considered the potential danger, but the other half wanted to throw caution to the wind and grab as many experiences as she could out of this trip to Florence. Including this unexpected interlude with a beguiling man.
“Your Italian is flawless.”
“I studied for many years.”
Indeed, Princess Luciana had always been fascinated with Italian history, art and literature, especially the Renaissance period when Florence was the center of Europe. It was a thrill to finally use the language she had practiced so diligently. While she had been to Rome for royal occasions and adored it, the City of Lilies had always held her interest.
About a year ago, her father, King Mario, had informed her that she would be marrying widower King Agustin of the neighboring island Menocita. She didn’t protest, always wanting to please her father after her mother had died.
Izerote was racked with problems. Because theirs was a tiny country with limited development, unemployment had become a crisis. As the current generation had grown, many households sent their offspring away for higher education or to seek jobs in Spain or the rest of the world. Without careers on the island for future generations, the population would continue to shrink.
On Menocita, King Agustin’s father had brought tourism to their shores. Exclusive resorts along with family-friendly water sports and vacation rentals had turned the island into a year-round paradise that created thousands of jobs for the inhabitants. After King Agustin’s wife died, he’d decided to find another island to merge with to create the same tourism and bring larger prosperity to his family name. When the proposal of marriage to his daughter came to King Mario, he could not refuse. In turn, Princess Luciana could not let her father or her subjects down, so she had no option but to agree to it.
Yes, a future she wouldn’t have chosen for herself was