Page 36 of Lorenzo & Lily

“Your father’s embezzlement.”

Her mouth dropped open, then shut. “You knew?”

He shook his head. “Not until after you left me. I eventually looked into your family a little, and discovered what had happened.”

She was hesitant when she spoke. “You didn’t, er, discover anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Like my involvement in all of that?”

He sat back. “Youembezzled money from your father’s company?”

She furiously shook her head. “No. No, of course not. But my father and brother forged my signature on several documents. I could have been implicated.”

Jesus. “That’s why you came to Valleria? To escape potential criminal charges? But we have excellent relations with Italy, including extradition agreements. You couldn’t hide here forever.”

“I know. My family wanted to redeem our reputation, which was hard enough on a regular day, much less with an embezzlement scandal. I didn’t find out about the forged documents until after my father and brother were arrested. They threatened to leak it to the press unless I did what I could to redeem the family name.”

She sighed. “I tried doing some volunteer work and leaked it occasionally to the press, so we could get in the papers for my charity work and be seen as doing good, but it was useless. The paparazzi were vicious to us in Italy, stalking and following us, and those articles about me were never front-page news. It wasn’t enough, and I needed a break. So, I decided to do my volunteer work here, in Valleria. Since the authorities hadn’t discovered the forged documents yet, I didn’t see it as running away. I just wanted some peace, just for a little while.”

He never expected that she’d been treated like this by her own family. “Why didn’t you just tell the authorities what had happened?”

“I was afraid. My parents…my parents weren’t kind. My mother, if you can believe it, was even more ruthless than my father. I wanted to escape them and that was my chance. Besides, I didn’t have any idea where the documents were, or how they were connected to the embezzlement. My parents had that information, and they weren’t keen on sharing it with me. How could I go to the authorities claiming I was being unjustly implicated without any evidence? I doubt they would have believed me.”

“God, Lily.”

“It wasn’t so bad. I actually enjoy volunteer work, and I somehow got connected to someone at the VSO, who placed me at the hospital. We’d already fallen in…that is, we were already together when the documents were finally discovered.”

Her eyes drifted away as she remembered, and she was suddenly in a trance. “I’ll never forget it. I was at the hospital and was told a patient wanted to speak with me. That wasn’t unusual, so I went. It didn’t even occur to me that there wasn’t a patient in the room I was directed towards. I just went in and found someone waiting for me.”

Dread filled his stomach. “Someone?”

Her arms were wrapped around her again, like a protective barrier. Her eyes, broken free of the trance, moved to his. “They told me they’d found the documents, and that they’d help me prove I was innocent. They said they’d do that if I promised to leave you. If I didn’t, they’d reveal my secret to the authorities and the press, and make my family pay as well.”

Shock struck him like a lightning bolt. “Someone forced you to leave me? Threatened you? Who the fuck was it?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

As a fucking prince, he should have been able to protect her. “The fuck it doesn’t. You should have told me. All those years ago, you should have told me.”

She pleaded with him. “I couldn’t. You were still recovering. You were barely out of the hospital by then, and you still had work to do. If I’d known I was pregnant then, I would have, but I didn’t discover that until nearly a month after I’d gone.”

“Lily, I would have helped you. I wouldn’t have flown off into some kind of rage–”

She gripped his hand tight again. “I know. I know. Please, just listen. I signed all kinds of confidentiality agreements when I left you. The person involved helped discreetly clear my name with the Italian authorities, but only if I signed them. When I found out I was pregnant, I tried to reach out to the person who helped me, because I needed their permission to speak to you.”

A wave of anger gripped him. What the hell kind of person would force them apart, then force her to sign agreements and prevent her from contacting him? “Permission? To speak to the father of your child?”

“I tried every year on Lily’s birthday. I tried a lot more than once a year, but always then, because she’d always ask me where her papa was on her birthday.”

His chest compressed. His little girl. No wonder she’d been so accepting of him and all of it. She’d been waiting for years for him to appear.

“I didn’t get through until a month or so before the royal wedding. They didn’t believe me when I told them about Lily at first, but they saw her pictures. You saw the resemblance instantly, and so did they. The DNA test I mentioned? They’re the ones who had it done, only it wasn’t five years ago, it was just before the wedding. Since you always donate blood regularly, they used some of your blood still stored at the hospital.”

She licked her tear-stained lips. “When they realized I’d had your child, they secured me an invitation to the wedding. I thought maybe they’d reach out to you before it took place, to let you know about me, but when we spoke it was clear my attending the reception was a surprise to you.”

“But why the wedding?”

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