Page 48 of Stranded with His Runaway Bride

Violetta listened in growing shock.

The moment her uncle knew her wedding to Leo wasn’t going ahead he’d fled the country. He’d been counting on the marriage to refill the San Nicolo coffers that he and her father had emptied. Oh, not through any malice. While it would have increased their personal wealth, they’d thought to make the duchy as rich as their neighbour. But their investment plans had been high risk. Her father had been weak and allowed himself to be persuaded by his younger, more ambitious brother, who’d continued on the path after the grand duke’s death. The investments had failed. That was why he was so keen for his younger niece to make the match with Leo.

San Nicolo was flat broke.

Marry me, Leo thought.Marry me and I can make all those problems go away.

He could legitimately pour funds into the grand duchy, but then she’d be bound by her constitution, which would immediately hand all power over to him. She’d lose all chance of running the country herself. Her dreams of democracy would be over.

If they remained apart he could not fund San Nicolo’s recovery without it appearing as if he were trying to take the duchy by stealth. He would be unable to offer anything but the most basic financial support.

There was no choice, he had to let her go, and could offer nothing in the way of help. A steel gauntlet clamped about his heart.

Violetta was speaking.

‘I have my personal wealth. We have the family treasures. We can raise the funds we need to fund the essential services in the short term and we’ll take it from there. I won’t let the people suffer because of my uncle’s reckless behaviour.’

Dressed in baby-pink feathers and a man’s tailcoat that swamped her, dwarfed by the three men towering over her, she was still every inch the grand duchess.

It was hard to say who looked the most surprised at this new, determined Violetta: her minister or Seb, who shot his cousin a look. Whowasthis woman?

Leo’s chest swelled in pride, but his moment had also passed. She’d already laid out her plans and none had any mention of him.

The shaft of pain was quickly bested. How was it any different from anything he’d been hurt by before? His own mother hadn’t loved him enough to stick around. His only value to his father had been as a pawn to reclaim the duchy. With a bitter taste in his mouth, he acknowledged he’d even failed in that.

In comparison, rejection by this woman was trifling.

He’d survived before and he’d get over this...this...infatuation, surely, it was nothing more than that. A man did not fall in love in two days. It was the circumstances they’d found themselves in. None of the attraction he felt would survive being back in the real world.

She gazed up at Leo, those warm brown eyes filled with compassion. And some newly tender thing inside him cracked apart. ‘But first we help Grimentz,’ she said.

She was moving on, so must he.

‘Then we’d better get on with it,’ he said.

Leo beckoned towards the helicopter. Two more figures appeared. Matteo, Leo’s valet, bearing a small suitcase and, behind him, a woman, also clutching a bag.

‘Luisa...’ Violetta breathed. Her dresser, herfriend. She wanted to run to her and fling herself into her arms, but she was mindful of the men around her. She was a grand duchess now.

Leo gazed down on her, gauging her reaction, and she knew who she had to thank for the restoration of her closest confidante.

‘Thank you,’ she mouthed as Luisa arrived at her side with a curtsy.

Leo dipped his head in acknowledgement.

‘Can you have your mistress ready to leave in ten minutes?’ he asked.

‘Of course, sir.’

Precisely ten minutes later Violetta, in jeans and blue shirt, was climbing into the helicopter. She’d avoided all the questions Luisa’s eyes had asked but the woman had mercifully left unvoiced.

‘Later,’ Violetta had said, not able to tell her the truth of what had happened.

The man I ran away from is stealing my heart.

Leo joined them, in jeans and heavy boots.

As the helicopter lifted into the sky Violetta watched the chateau disappear beneath her. Apart from some missing tiles and fallen trees it was relatively undamaged. A place of magic still.

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