she had been in college. He hadn’t really expected anything different since reading the report Hawk’s agency had compiled on her. It also said she retained other characteristics he remembered from his college days.
According to her past employers, she was efficient, content in the domestic environment and peaceful to be around. Traits he hadn’t appreciated nearly enough at the time. He’d been too interested in outward beauty to understand how much her presence meant to him…until it was gone.
He’d taken for granted how smoothly his life had run when Maggie was his housekeeper. Four years in a volatile marriage with Liana had cured him of that complacency.
The first year after her death, Tomasso had refused to even consider taking another wife, having no desire to repeat his first foray into marital disharmony. But neither did he wish to end up like his father and for the past few months, he’d begun to crave the peaceful ease his older brother had in his marriage to the kind and even-tempered Therese.
Every time Tomasso fantasized about that kind of harmony, he could only picture it with one woman. Maggie Thomson. He could hear her gentle voice reminding him to eat breakfast before leaving the house, could remember her busy hands making sure his life ran smoothly.
He wanted that harmony again, but this time he would not make the mistake of giving her an out.
She’d walked away from him once, saying they had nothing more than a working relationship and one that had no place in her life once he was no longer her boss. He’d accepted that blatant untruth for two reasons. The first was because he knew he had hurt her and even though he’d meant to do anything but, he had felt he owed her the honor of respecting her desire to cut him from her life.
The second was that Liana had been jealous of his relationship with Maggie and quite vocal in her desire for him to sever ties completely with the other woman. The unreasonable jealousy had flattered him at the time. He’d taken it as proof of Liana’s passionate love for him. The idiocy of that belief still rankled.
Liana had loved only one person…herself.
He had been the means to her having the lifestyle she wanted. Nothing more. Marry a prince, become a princess. He wondered if knowledge that he was a prince would change Maggie’s attitude toward him.
It did with everyone else. Which was why he had attended college under the assumed identity of Tom Prince.
He’d wanted to make relationships based on who he was, not what he was. He’d wanted to prove that he could succeed on his own, not the strength of his family name. He’d proven that, at least. He’d graduated with honors solely on his own merits, but the relationships had been another story.
Unbeknownst to him, Liana had known his royal status all along, and Maggie had walked away from the simple man Tom Prince too easily.
Would she want him as Liana had, once she knew he was of royal blood?
He conceded that it did not matter. She was exactly what he wanted in a wife and mother for his children. Why she chose to marry him wouldn’t matter because she would still be herself, a woman eminently suitable to make his life more peaceful and to give his children the nurturing they so desperately needed.
He wasn’t a fool, though.
He would not base a lifetime commitment on memories six years old. By hiring her to care for his children, he would have a chance to observe Maggie and be certain she was all that he remembered before informing her of his desire to make her his wife. He also wanted to be sure the latent passion that had existed between them had not disappeared and that it was as intense as the one scorching encounter of his memories.
He was not a man who would be comfortable with a wife who did not appeal to that side of his nature.
He refused to be like his father, finding sexual solace outside the marriage bed. He considered that behavior reprehensible and so in fact, did his father, which was why the king had never remarried after one failed attempt following the death of his first wife.
His father had called it the Scorsolini curse. According to King Vincente, Scorsolini men were fated to have one true love. Claudio and Tomasso’s mother had been his. After her death, no other woman could hold his interest completely enough to ensure fidelity. He’d married Marcello’s mother only months after the death of his queen because he’d got her pregnant.
He had an affair and the usually mild-mannered Flavia had gone ballistic. She had refused to be cuckolded and moved back to Italy with the young Marcello, doing the unthinkable and filing for divorce in the process. Since then, his father had had a string of mistresses.
Tomasso didn’t care about his supposed fate. He never wanted to love like his father had and end up a widower, always searching to fill an empty void that could never be satisfied.
He knew that he was different from his father. Even a superficial passion would be enough for him to remain faithful. It had been with Liana. Though he’d believed when they married she was his one true love, he’d soon discovered differently.
Yet he had remained faithful to her despite the troubles in their marriage and his discovery that what he had thought was love was nothing more than being blitzed by her outward beauty.
How much easier would it be to maintain fidelity in marriage to a woman he respected, even if he did not love her?
“Papa will be home soon, won’t he?”
Maggie smiled and tucked Annamaria into the child-size bed. “Yes, sweetie. Just two more days.”
“I miss him.”
“I know you do.” Maggie brushed the little girl’s dark curls away from her face, leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Good night, Anna.”
“Good night, Maggie. I’m glad you came.”
“Thank you, I am, too.”
She turned off the overhead light and left the small night-light glowing before making her way to her own suite of rooms in the opulent home after checking in on Gianfranco one more time. He was asleep…finally, a small lump in the race car bed that was the same diminutive size as Anna’s.
Tall for his five years, he would need a big boy bed soon. Maggie wondered if that would fall under her jurisdiction. There were so many questions she wanted to ask her absent employer, not the least of which was why it seemed the entire domestic staff looked to her for direction as if she was the housekeeper, not the nanny?
There was a housekeeper-slash-cook already, two maids and a groundskeeper besides, but they all seemed to turn to her for major decisions and she found that odd.
It was certainly different than in her last two positions, but then she was working for royalty now. They obviously had their own unique way of dealing with the domestic side of life. It felt odd, but she liked the sense of respect she got from her fellow employees and the obvious importance the prince placed on her role in caring for his children.
She closed the door to Gianfranco’s room, hoping he and his little sister slept well tonight. Their father had not called as was his norm and it had been difficult settling them both into their beds. Her small charges needed her, even more than the family she had left behind.
Which was not surprising considering the fact that Gianni and Anna’s
