Page 19 of His Royal Bride Replacement

Tearing her attention from all those flexing back and abdominal muscles on the beach had been tough enough and watching him with an axe was an even hotter experience. Perspiration glistened on his bronzed skin as he worked. For goodness’ sake, she was practically perving on the guy! Her face burned as she donned her clothing and wondered why he was chopping wood when it was still so warm. As she went back for another look at his truly stunning torso, muscular biceps and lean hips, she smiled. If she chose to perve over her very hot husband, that was her business.

She went downstairs and noted that the dining room table had been laid for their meal, complete with glasses, tablecloth and napkins. She was being shown the correct way and she supposed Alessio wasn’t accustomed to casual dining unless he was on the beach. She had worked as a waitress while at university and she would manage.

* * *

Alessio strode through the front door and paused in the entrance to the kitchen. Her hair wildly curly and still rather damp round her incredibly delicate triangular face, Rosy was looking particularly appealing in something summery and soft that clung to the sweet pouting curve of her breasts. As she looked up from her task, the fullness of her lush mouth and the brightness of her blue eyes entrapped him.

In a split second, the nagging pulse at his groin raced from zero to sixty and he shifted his lithe hips as if to ease the pressure of arousal. ‘Have I got time for a shower?’

‘If you’re quick. Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes,’ she told him. ‘In the dining room. We’re going to be formal tonight in honour of all the work that has been done here.’

‘The roofers finished while you were upstairs,’ he told her. ‘They did a great job.’

Punctual to the minute, Alessio reappeared in the dining room clad in the perfect mix of formal and casual, tailored trousers smoothly outlining his long strong legs, a shirt rolled back to his elbows and open at his brown throat, his luxuriant black hair still damp from the shower. Rosy was setting out the cold starters and he was in the act of pouring the wine when his phone rang and he dug into his back pocket to answer it.

A frown line divided his brows. ‘How may I help you?’ he asked, his dark deep drawl unusually cool and clipped in tone. His attention moved to Rosy and he said in aside to her, ‘Excuse me… I’ll take this outside.’

* * *

Alessio strode out onto the shaded front porch, anger he was striving to contain paling his olive complexion. ‘Graziana?’ he prompted in an expressionless voice.

‘Look, I honestly believed I had no choice,’ she declared stridently. ‘I know you have to be angry with me but at the time, I thought I was pregnant.’

‘Pregnant?’Alessio almost whispered in his astonishment.

‘And I knew that I couldn’t do that to you.’

‘Andthat, in our circumstances, I couldn’t be fooled,’ Alessio cut in with lethal bite, wondering if she was also aware that secret DNA tests were now mandatory with royal births.

‘That too. But I panicked. I told Marco and the only answer seemed to be for us to run away and face the music at a later date. I persuaded the palace priest to do the marriage honours and then we rushed to the airport.’

‘And at no stage could you find five minutes to phone and warn me?’ Alessio interposed with scorn.

‘I sent you a text!’

‘Saying that you were sorry but not what you were sorry for.’

While Graziana argued weakly that she hadn’t known what to say, Alessio thanked her for her explanation, keen to end the exchange.

But his former fiancée was far from finished and continued. ‘The important point is that I’mnotpregnant! I found that out before we even arrived in New York. It was all a stupid, crazy comedy of errors,’ she lamented, her tone sharpening into angry shrillness. ‘So, now Marco and I are applying for an annulment, but my father has cut off my access to my trust fund. I didn’t even know that he had the power to do that!’

‘I don’t understand what all this has to do with me,’ Alessio admitted flatly.

‘Oh, don’t act as if you’re dim!’ Graziana snapped. ‘Or superior, just because you contrived to produce a new bride overnight to replace me. What I’m trying to say is that you could go for an annulment or a divorce now too, andwecould—’

‘No,’ Alessio pronounced succinctly. ‘There is no “we” now. I’m married. Let’s leave this pointless conversation here and agree to continue as former friends for the sake of both our countries.’

He cut off the call against a backdrop of her protests because he had nothing more to say to her. All he knew was that she wasn’t the woman he had once believed her to be. She had no sense of honour or loyalty and now that her father had pushed her into a corner by flexing his financial control, she was trying to turn back the clock in the craziest way possible.

* * *

While he was still outside, Rosy finished pouring the wine and sipped hers. She spread her napkin and toyed with a lettuce leaf on her plate before defiantly taking a first bite. Several minutes passed and just as she was about to commence her own meal, Alessio came back.

‘Sorry about that,’ he breathed, folding down into his seat and reaching for his wine.

‘It was… Graziana and I needed to hear what she had to say.’

‘Graziana?’Rosy parroted in surprise at the admission.

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