It’s the reason I’ve come to you for advice.”
“My advice?” he mocked. “Since when did you ever want it?”
“Since this morning when I woke up to find her in my bed.”
A stunning silence followed.
Aghast at the revelation, his father paled and staggered over to the chair to sit down. The two men stared long and hard at each other. “She showed up at the farmhouse?” he asked incredulously.
“I’m afraid so. I left Zitta’s bar around two. Nothing else registered after that except that I had this fantastic dream about her. When I woke up, there she was.”
A ruddy color spilled into his father’s cheeks. “Did you—you know what I mean—”
Yes, Dizo knew esattamente what he meant.
“I don’t really know. She still had her clothes on.” Though admittedly not all. “I was wearing my pants and nothing else.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” he muttered.
Dizo had been thinking about that and had come to the same conclusion. “That’s why I’m here.”
His father wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Did my brother see her?”
“He saw someone in the bed, but I got her out through the window before he could identify her. Unfortunately you and I both know her bodyguards had to be close by.”
“Si, and bodyguards talk.” A serious moan came out of his father before he crossed himself.
“That’s all I’ve been thinking about. I told her to wait for me inside the fruit shed, but when I drove up in the truck, she was gone.”
He jumped to his feet. “It was a trick! She knows every one of them.”
And they work every time.
Dizo rubbed the back of his neck. “Whatever it was, it got me back here on the double.”
His father started to pace, then stopped in front of Dizo. “You don’t have a choice but to go to Lucca and tell him the whole truth. Once King Nicolas finds out—” He shook his head in despair. “If there’s any chance at all you impregnated the princess, her brother has to know before anyone else! That’s one thing the bodyguards don’t know yet.”
“And then what, Papa? If she’s carrying my child, she would never abort it. Nic would have to live with the knowledge that she’d been with another man first.” There was a secret part in Dizo’s heart that rejoiced at the very thought of her giving birth to his son or daughter.
“She could never marry you, let alone acknowledge you or your love child in public, either! How does that sit with you?”
He shut his eyes tightly. “It doesn’t. I have to pray to God I didn’t make total love to her.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
“No,” he said in a tormented whisper. “She’s the only one who can tell me the truth.”
“Have you ever known her to lie?”
“No.” Gina didn’t have a deceitful bone inside that breathtaking body, but since last night he realized she’d been willing to risk the unthinkable to be with him. He couldn’t believe she would go that far. On the day she’d buried her father, she’d flown all the way from Castelmare in the dead of night to find him. It went against everything her royal training had taught her from the cradle. But it secretly thrilled him.
“Then you have to ask her what happened,” his father said, bringing him back to the present.
“I intend to. No matter the answer, I’ll go to her brother. He deserves to know exactly what happened before King Nicolas finds out.”
Guido nodded. “Lucca’s the only one who has the power to control her.”
Dizo hated to tell his father, but no one controlled Gina. She’d always been a law unto herself. That was part of her incredible appeal. He’d been friends with Gina from the beginning. Their relationship had penetrated class barriers, allowing them to share their thoughts and interests.
His poor father came from a culture that couldn’t conceive of a commoner being friends with royalty. Much to Guido’s chagrin, Dizo’s desire for Gina had gotten into the mix, making everything so much more complicated and painful.
What if Dizo had made love to her and she was carrying his child? He’d had dreams where it had happened, but he’d never wakened up before to find her luscious body under the covers with him.
When she’d been away at college in London, she’d managed to come home most weekends to study. He almost had heart failure every time she sunbathed on the grounds where he was planting or weeding. She’d lie on her stomach in shorts and a fetching little top with her head in a book. He’d stabbed his hand more than once with the trowel just watching her turn over.
“We Fornese’s are honorable people.” His father’s sad voice trailed.
“You’ve always been honorable, Papa. My behavior has been questionable since the day I stopped listening to your warnings.”
When their family moved to Capriccio, Dizo had been sixteen, old enough to tease his younger brothers and Gina who was six years younger than himself. Assuming she was a spoiled little terror, he’d determined to ignore her, but she’d turned out to be completely different. She fascinated all of them because although she was a real princess, she was fun and a good sport.
Though she had lots of cousins and friends, Dizo realized she preferred the company of the gardener’s son. Being that she had an intelligent mind aided by a superior royal education, it flattered his ego. When she asked him to teach her his native language, he discovered she was an excellent student. He found he enjoyed her hanging around him while he worked.
Time went by. The day she came running to him because their family dog had died, he’d put his arms around her to comfort her. It had been the first time he’d ever really touched her except to help her in and out of the ornamental pool or help her down from a tree or some such thing.
But this time other feelings took over. When he eased her away from him he realized she’d grown up and filled out. It seemed like overnight the lovely young girl had become a beautiful woman, inside and out.
No other female compared. To his surprise and dismay, the women he had dated during college and graduate school only illuminated the difference between her and every other female. He found he wanted Gina in all the ways a man could want a woman. The rest didn’t come close.
A deep sigh came out of his father. “This is all my fault. As soon as I saw what was happening between you two, I should have taken the family back to Sassari.”
“Don’t, Papa—her father asked you to come to Castelmare and work for him because you were the best gardener in Sardinia. I’ve always been so proud of you, yet this is how I show it,” he said in bitter self-abnegation.
“I shouldn’t
