to his skin. How in hell was he going to live with that?
She flashed him that captivating white smile. “Your uncle’s going to know how I disappeared.”
Dizo pulled the shutters back and opened the two panes that swung outward. “It won’t be the first time,” he muttered, “but as he was young once himself, he knows better than to say anything, especially with nonna in the house.”
For reasons he didn’t dare contemplate right now, it was imperative Gina leave Sardinia immediately. He picked her up none too gently and swung her through the opening, then lowered her until her feet touched the ground. When he would have let go of her hands, she held on.
“Last night you told me you desired me. Over and over again in every conceivable way,” she added with those wine dark eyes never wavering from his. “If the woman you’re supposedly going to marry is still unaware of your feelings for me, then it’s time you went to her with the truth.”
While he stood there reeling from the implication that more might have gone on than he could remember, she stole away.
His jaw set, he closed the window and put the shutters back in place. After he’d slipped on his shoes, he left the room and practically ran into his uncle who’d just come out of his grandmother’s room.
“I owe you an apology,” Dizo began in a quiet voice.
To his surprise his uncle broke into a smile. “No apology is necessary.” He patted his shoulder, seemingly more affable than usual. “Your papa has worried. You know. No women for a long time, but I phoned him just now and assured him there’s nothing wrong with his Dinozzo.”
Dio mio.
“Then you’ll understand I need your truck again for a little while?”
His head bobbed. “Si, si. I’ll explain to your nonna you have business in town but will be back soon.”
“I swear I won’t be long. Grazie, zio.”
He took off out the back door for the truck. The keys were in the ignition where he’d left them last night. Gina must have seen him drive away from the house and decided to wait for him to return. When she realized he was on the verge of passing out, she’d helped him in the house and things had gotten out of hand from there. That was the only explanation he could think of that made any sense.
“Princess?” he called to her once he’d reached the entrance to the shed. “Quick—come and get in—”
When she didn’t answer or appear, he frowned. “Princess?”
Nothing.
After climbing down from the driver’s seat, he went inside. A thorough investigation revealed no sign of her.
His mind replayed the moment he’d helped her to escape. Only now did it occur to him that after delivering her last salvo, she’d had no intention of hanging around for him. Too late he remembered she never went anywhere without her network of staff and personal bodyguards.
Now his crime had more witnesses who’d watched him lower her out his bedroom window. It was conceivable the news had already reached her brother’s ears. How long before Nic heard the worst—Dizo suddenly realized he was in the biggest trouble of his life.
He pounded a fist against his forehead. By now she was on the helicopter winging her way toward Castelmare. With no time to lose he raced back to the farmhouse.
After swearing his uncle to secrecy, he explained he had to go back to Castelmare on an emergency before the day was out. Six hours later his commercial flight landed in Nice, France. He rented a car at the airport, then drove over the speed limit to the capitol city of Capriccio in Castelmare fifteen miles away.
Before he did anything else he needed to talk to his father who would still be on the palace grounds. Since the death of Dizo’s mother, Guido never left for home before seven in the evening.
When he walked in to the greenhouse, three pairs of Fornese eyes widened to see him appear unannounced. His father’s slid away. Guilt had a way of revealing itself.
Over the years Dizo had worked out the important issues with his father, but he’d never been truly angry with him until now.
He flashed his brothers a speaking glance. “If you don’t mind, I have to talk to Papa alone.”
Both looked distinctly uncomfortable before they nodded and left, closing the doors behind them.
Dizo moved closer. “I’ve always been aware of your dislike for Princess Regina, but you chose the wrong day to tell her I left Castelmare because of my nonexistent impending marriage. Do you have any conception of the pain she was in after her father’s funeral yesterday?”
His father’s dark head with only a sprinkling of gray lifted abruptly. “How do you know what I said to her?”
“She told me.” In person. In Technicolor. Dizo was still in shock.
“Of course. The telephone.” He slapped his own leg. “That young woman never leaves you alone. Because she’s the principessa of Castelmare, no place is far enough away from her, is it.”
After what had happened to Dizo last night, he couldn’t honestly answer his father.
“I may not have your college education, figlio mio, but I’m not as unintelligent as you think I am.”
“That’s your assessment, not mine.”
“Basta!” He shook his head in fury. “It’s exactly because I knew how hard it was on her I said what I did.” His index finger lifted, a sure sign a lecture was coming. “Since I took this job here sixteen years ago, I’ve seen her traipse after you like a lovesick puppy and you allowed it knowing nothing could ever come of it.”
Tell me something I don’t know, Papa. Gina’s destiny had been decreed the moment her royal parents knew another royal baby was on the way.
“Before your mother died, she made me promise I would put a stop to it, but I couldn’t persuade you to go back home to college. You planned your life so you could be around the princess. You think I don’t know you could have made triple the money doing another kind of part-time job away from the grounds?
“Only one man has ever mattered to her besides her father. That man is you!
“When she came hightailing it in here yesterday after the funeral looking for you, I took matters into my own hands. She’ll be marrying King Nicolas of Pedrosa in the very near future. As long as you finally showed the good sense to leave Castelmare for good, I decided to make certain the umbilical cord got cut once and for all!”
Dizo inhaled sharply. “I’m afraid it didn’t work.”
“Obviously not. You’re back here in twenty-four hours looking like the very devil despite my big brother’s news that you were with a woman last night. What did the princess do? Order you back to the palace on some excuse about the plantings at her father’s grave?”
He experienced more pain remembering the day they’d talked
