Page 1 of Forbidden Noble
Chapter 1
In the space of two weeks, Clara Fortuna had finally turned her luck around and could now live up to her last name. She feltveryfortunate to be sitting on the edge of the world where she’d read Hercules had supposedly split mountains, and separated Europe from Africa.
This was far from her usual day-to-day, working odd jobs to pay for her tiny but clean studio apartment in Miami.
She’d done enough of other people’s unwanted tasks that she now knew how to do almost any chore, including change the oil in a car. Today she wasn’t a maid, or a landscaper, or a handywoman. She blinked against a drop of rain as she smelled the sea she’d traveled to see.
Clara was about to indulge in her dream to be a writer, all thanks to Astorre Manfredi, who'd spent the last ten days showing her around Paris, Venice, Florence, and her surprise favorite, Barcelona--until now they were here and she peered down at the straits below. The view of the Rock of Gibraltar was magnificent, even if the weather was cloudy and drizzling.
Across the narrow sea was a whole other continent that began with Morocco.
No book she’d read had prepared her for this splendor and her skin broke out in goosebumps as she remembered her crazy journey that had brought her first to Paris, and now here to the rock of Gibraltar.
A tap on her shoulder snapped her out of her reverie. Astorre, the Duke of Modena, handed her an umbrella so she wouldn't get even more wet, then showed her a box beneath his arm. “Our new phones arrived.”
He’d asked her to wait for him until he'd gathered supplies but she'd been too excited to see the legendary vista, and now Astorre was dry while her brown hair was plastered against her forehead.
Under cover of the umbrella, she accepted the new phone he'd given her. She would never have been able to afford the latest device on her own. He'd synched it with her old number. “Twenty-four messages. Rossie must have called, a lot.”
He glanced across the bay and then at her. “Are you done sightseeing?”
If anyone could play the part of Hercules, Astorre was in the running. He was all muscles, everywhere. His brown eyes had shadowed depths that made her weak at the knees. From the time they'd spent together, she’d already figured out that if she thanked him for something, he’d cringe. Clara took his offered arm and said, “Yes. Let’s get going.”
He lifted his hand with the bags. “I bought a bottle of wine so we can relax if we find a quiet place on our walk.”
Outside was preferable to the plane or earlier cable car ride and honestly she liked the rain. She couldn’t help her smile as she said, “I’m honored, Your Grace.”
His lips thinned. “Clara, we discussed this on the plane.”
“And I meant what I said.” They walked to the Moorish Castle at a quick pace as the rain intensified. Astorre’s voice was grave when he said, “You didn’t have to come. You were enjoying Barcelona.”
“I want to be with you, until the end.” He’d dismissed the trip to Gibraltar as nothing important, but she’d packed her small bag to join him on the train this morning anyway. She hadn’t expected him to argue with her. Maybe it was the rain getting to his mood. Maybe it was his birthday tomorrow.
She couldn’t see much as the fog thickened but once inside the ticket center of the castle she shook out her umbrella. At the entrance, instead of going to the box to pay for entry, the ticket attendant took down one of the red ropes. A private showing? Amazing. Clara needed to soak in all the details of this world and then return to her tiny studio box where she'd live in her mind here, as she wrote it all down.
Astorre talked to the agent in Spanish she hadn’t known he'd spoken at all. He then said to her, “Listen to your voicemails. You might have something more important to do.”
Doubtful. Rossie was her only friend and she’d just gotten married in Paris to a very wonderful man that she'd fallen in love with. Clara had no one else. Rossie probably just wanted to know Clara was fine. She and Astorre had taken off from Rossie's wedding pretty fast. She shrugged. “I’ll do that later. I’m here on a mission to see the world and wine sounds good.”
They didn’t follow the tour and no one questioned his bag. Must be nice to be rich…she had no idea how he could think of giving all this up. They were brought into a medieval stone work room overlooking the seas that was clearly Moorish design, and breathtaking in medieval carving from stone that somehow held pops of bright mosaic color.
No one else was around. Astorre put his bag on a table near a stone glassless window where they could relax without being seen.
This must have been what he'd talked to the ticket agent about.
Too bad her pink sneakers were all muddy and looked a wreck. She didn’t want to glance down but she knew her jeans had also seen better days. Clara took her seat as Astorre said, “The Rock of Gibraltar will still be here, waiting for you on a clear day where we can see it better.”
Okay, so now he was ready to talk about his birthday and losing his fortune without marrying. She was ready to listen. She’d write down her thoughts afterward. She folded her hands on the table. “It’s not going anywhere, I agree. You said you had business here, Your Grace.”
He opened the wine he’d brought and poured it into two glasses as castle employees carted in a selection of fruit and nuts. Astorre's cleft chin gave him a chillingly handsome exterior. He said, “You’re not working for me.”
No. This was a vacation from odd jobs. She took the wine and met his gaze without blinking. “I’m here because I want your story.”
In another life maybe she’d be the kind of girl to attract a man like him. But Clara knew who she was and she wasn’t Cinderella out looking for a handsome Duke to marry, though the poor part of the story fit.
Clara sipped the fine red wine with no idea what brand it was--she hadn't bothered to read the label as it was out of her budget. Astorre lifted his eyebrow. “You've never written a story before. How do you know mine is worth all this work?”
She didn't. Maybe at the end of the day, she'd be a horrible storyteller, but for the past almost two weeks she'd been who shewantedto be without worrying about bills or paying for anything. She’d taken Astorre's deal to explain her simple life and how to live cheaply, while he took her on his final luxurious trip around Europe.
