don’t believe you,” she gasped out.
Nico shifted and the medal’s point thankfully stopped pricking her. He gripped her arms, forced them above her head. He seemed to hover on the edge of control. “Have you never thought that gossip magazines might lie?”
“They can’t all be lies.” There had to be a grain of truth, right? Perhaps they exaggerated, but there must be something to it. Not one of the reporters she knew at the Register would dare write something so patently false.
Nico’s laugh was short and bitter. “You have obviously never been the victim of these carrion. They feed on outrage and misdirection. There’s hardly a single thing they print about me that is true.”
“Now I know you’re lying. I’ve seen photos of you with lots of women—”
“I have had many mistresses,” he said, cutting her off. “This is to be expected—”
“Why? Because you’re some kind of God’s gift—”
“Basta! You seek to exasperate me, signorina, and you succeed. Nevertheless, I have one child.”
Lily’s chest heaved in frustration as she stared up at him. But her eyes closed as the truth of his words sank in. Gossip magazines thrived on scandal. She knew that. But she didn’t want to believe he spoke the truth. Because if he did, so much she’d thought about him would be wrong. The blood drained from her head as the implications sank in.
“But if Danny really is the only one, that would mean—”
She couldn’t finish the sentence, uncertain what to say next. Was Danny in line for a throne? Impossible.
Nico said it for her. “Yes, cara, our child is my heir and second in line to the throne of Montebianco.”
Her insides were jelly. “How is that possible?” she managed. “We aren’t even married.”
“It just is,” he said, his accent thickening suddenly as she moved.
Lily took advantage of his distraction to try and buck him off. She arched her back and flexed her body upward, shoving into the cradle of his hips. His arousal sent a jolt of sensation sizzling through her.
In spite of her anger and frustration, the feeling was delicious.
Dangerous.
Nico’s breath caught as she shoved against him. The sound was slight, but she heard it nonetheless.
And just like that she was on fire, absolutely aflame with longing. How could it be possible? How could she feel sexual desire for him when he wanted to ruin her life? He’d given her the most precious thing in her world, and now he wanted to take it away. And her body didn’t seem to care. She redoubled her efforts to throw him off.
“Maledizione,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Stop moving—or would you like to take this into the bedroom and do it properly?”
Lily’s palms pushed against the crisp material of his uniform. A desperate, greedy part of her did indeed want to do it properly. But her common sense, her anger, her sheer dislike of the man won out. “Get off me.”
“As you wish,” he said, then bounded up and left her to climb to her feet alone.
Lily hugged herself, her body still tingling with the shock of desire. How could she want him? She closed her eyes, squeezed her arms tight around her middle. My God, she really was her mother’s daughter.
She could not afford the distraction of such thoughts. She had to focus. “What now?”
He whirled on her, his uniform as crisp and perfect as if he hadn’t just been rolling on the floor with her. His royal bearing was absolute. She wondered that she’d never noticed it in the three days she’d spent with him in New Orleans.
“You will call your friend and instruct her to turn over the child.”
Lily shook her head. “Why? So you can marry your princess and raise my child with her? Not just no, but hell no.”
Nico’s brows drew together. “We will need to work on that mouth of yours. It’s unfit for a royal.”
Lily snorted. “But not unfit enough for you two years ago when you seduced me, huh? Go to hell, Nico,” she said, stressing his name without the title.
“You most definitely require etiquette lessons, cara mia.” His gaze raked her from head to toe. “And a suitable wardrobe.”
Lily stiffened. Her clothes might not be the height of fashion, but they were usually clean and neat. Unlike now, when she’d spent the last twenty-four hours in a prison cell and just wrestled on the floor with a prince.
Nico retrieved a cell phone from a table. “You and your son will never want for anything again. You will no longer have to work. I will take care of you both.”
Lily stared at the gleaming phone held so casually in his hand, his words more seductive than she cared to admit. Never to have to struggle again? Never have to worry about keeping her apartment or her health insurance? Money and freedom from the fear of not having enough to take care of her baby?
But no. What was he offering her—the chance to be a kept woman while he married his princess and had babies with her? She’d work herself half to death before she accepted such treatment. She’d taken care of Danny this long; she could continue to do so just fine on her own.
“I can take care of my son without you,” she said.
His expression grew so chilly she had to suppress a shiver. “Apparently I have not expressed myself in a manner you understand. There is no choice, Liliana. You and the boy belong to me.”
Lily snorted. “Even you can’t own people, Nico.”
He merely smiled at her. A frisson of warning raced down her spine and pooled in her belly. A moment later, he lifted the phone to his ear and began speaking in Italian. This time, it was a conversation, not simply a set of orders. When he finished, he laid the phone on a nearby table.
“What did you do?”
His self-satisfied smile did nothing to ease her tension. “Five million dollars is a lot of money, no? Do you think your friend will turn this down for you?”
Black spots swam before her eyes, but Lily refused to buckle. “My God…”
“Si, it is not likely, is it?” He moved closer, shadowing her like the predator he was, impossibly male and utterly beautiful in spite of the hatred she felt for him in that moment. “She will not turn it down, Liliana. Shall I tell you why?”
When she didn’t reply, he continued, “Carla has a boyfriend with a little problem. He likes the game tables in New Orleans a bit too much, yes? He has taken much from her in the last three years. Her savings are gone, her house leveraged in excess of its current value. This money represents a new life, cara mia. She will not say no.”
Lily blinked up at him. She knew she was defeated. Carla hadn’t
