Page 6 of Royally Roma
So he was to be the sacrificial lamb, then? While Cassian was exiled back at the palace in Lazaretto, Niccolo would be the one to smile for the cameras, act like a responsible adult, and kiss and make up with the sport on behalf of the royal family. The press would eat it up. He’d be hounded by photographers for the duration of the trip. The newspapers would print his picture on the front page, right alongside the more risqué images of Cassian. It would be, in essence, an exercise in royal humiliation.
He stared into his drink. “I suppose it could be worse. I’m not to act as towel boy, too, am I?”
Piero grew still. Too still.
“Piero.” Niccolo’s head throbbed. He was beginning to regret pre-nine-in-the-morning vodka. Where was that pleasant woozy feeling he’d had just moments before?
Somewhere at the bottom of a swimming pool, no doubt.
“Tell me the rest,” he said.
“At the final game, you’re to perform a simple exhibition number with some of the athletes.”
Surely he’d heard that wrong. “What?”
Piero’s knuckles whitened. If he hadn’t had such a death grip on that damned iPad of his, Niccolo would have snatched it out of his hands and broken it in half over his knee.
“It’s to be a short, simple routine, sir. No more than two minutes.” Piero held up two fingers.
It took superhuman effort for Niccolo not to snap them right off his hand. “I don’t care how short. Or how simple. This is absurd. I’ll do no such thing.”
What was this?Swimming with the Stars?
“They’re expecting you. All the arrangements have already been made.”
Of course they had. “By whom?”
Piero cleared his throat. “The office of the king, sir.”
Niccolo stared quietly at his own hands resting casually, interlocked on the table. Since birth those hands had been destined to hold power and responsibility. Those hands had joined with those of presidents and prime ministers, kings and queens. Yet sometimes, times like now—perhapsneveras much as now—he longed to open those fists and let it all slip right through his fingers.
He would never actually do it, of course. A La Torre had sat on the throne of Lazaretto for over two hundred years. The monarchy was his legacy, and he would do whatever necessary to protect it. He wouldn’t let anything threaten the crown—neither parliament nor Cassian’s antics.
“Are you all right, sir?” Piero asked quietly.
No. Absolutely not.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, a bit too harshly perhaps. But what did Piero expect? For him to bare his soul? Not bloody likely.
“Can I get you anything before the car arrives?”
Food would probably be a good idea. He couldn’t remember hearing anything about lunch in between the car and the tree and the orphanage and the leeches, also known as the press. Wait, he was having lunch with the foreign minister, wasn’t he? Or was it the ambassador?
His jaw involuntarily clenched. He needed to get it together. He had a jam-packed day ahead of him, followed by a flight to Helsinki to endure, not to mention his burgeoning career as a synchronized swimmer to contemplate. As outlandish as they were, he simply didn’t have time to bemoan his circumstances.
“Breakfast.” He frowned at his near-empty drink. His third. Or was it the fourth? “Of the solid variety, Piero.”
“Right away.” His secretary scurried off.
No sooner had he left than the bartender reappeared with yet another Bloody Mary. He didn’t particularly need it, nor had he ordered it. Niccolo was rarely required to voice his wants. They typically appeared before him, just like the Bloody Mary.
“Thank you,” he said. Then when the bartender lingered, “You’re dismissed.”
The bartender bowed quickly and made his way back to the bar, which was discreetly situated in the corner beneath the shade of a trio of massive peach-colored umbrellas. Niccolo watched him return to his post, and just as his gaze began to drift away, a young woman stepped onto the smooth tile floor of the piazza.
Even if she hadn’t been the only other soul up and about at the Stravinskij Bar at this early hour, she would have captured his attention at once simply by the fact that she was so clearly out of her element. The socialites who frequented the Hotel de Russie wouldn’t be caught dead in her ensemble. Not that there was anything necessarily wrong with her bright red skinny jeans, black-and-white polka-dot blouse, and massive gauzy scarf wrapped round her slender neck.
It was the shoes that had snagged his attention—boyish loafers, the likes of which he’d never seen on a woman’s feet outside a classic black-and-white movie. They definitely made a statement. And that statement was that she wasn’t about to teeter around on Italian cobblestones in stilettos for fashion’s sake. And the faded denim backpack hanging from her shoulders was a far cry from the designer handbags hanging in every shop window that lined Via del Corso.
