No wonder the Jacksons were celebrating.
As she leaned forward and sang cheekily into the microphone he saw movement out of the corner of his eye as Bobby Jackson, an ex-footballer whose colourful and varied love life was catalogued by the tabloids, tried to remove his daughter from the limelight.
Matteo watched with mixed feelings.
It was definitely time someone prised her away from the microphone, but the fact that it was the flamboyant, scandal-ridden Bobby simply magnified the transgression.
‘Come on, love.’ Bobby Jackson made a clumsy grab for his daughter’s arm but she shrugged him off and he almost lost his balance. ‘Give the microphone back, there’s a good girl.’ His face was the colour of a Santina sunset. The deep hue could have been the result of intense embarrassment but Matteo suspected it was more likely to have been caused by an overindulgence of the very best champagne. Bobby Jackson was too thick-skinned to suffer from embarrassment. Matteo knew he’d dragged himself up from nothing and was determined that his family should do the same, although apparently that ambition didn’t stretch to encouraging his daughter to sing.
Matteo glanced at his own father and saw that the king’s features were as rigid and inflexible as one of Michelangelo’s statues.
‘Izzy!’ Bobby made another abortive grab for his daughter. ‘Not now. Best behaviour and all that.’
Izzy.
Of course.
Matteo realised where he’d seen her before. He recognised her now as the five-minute wonder who had exploded onto the manufactured pop scene after appearing on a reality TV singing show. Izzy Jackson. Hadn’t she hit the headlines for wearing a bikini on stage? Basically for doing everything but singing. Presumably she had a voice like a crow with a throat infection, like most of the wannabes that warbled and croaked their way onto people’s TV screens, which was why he remembered nothing about her singing.
Even her own family didn’t want her to sing in public, he thought, watching as her father tried to drag her from the stage.
It was like pulling a mule. She dug her legs in and stood, chin raised, eyes flashing as she carried on belting out the tune.
It was clear that she thought this was her opportunity to shine and she wasn’t going to relinquish it easily, a fact that raised Matteo’s radar for trouble to full alert status.
‘Maybe we should turn this whole farce into a reality TV show,’ he drawled to his brother. ‘Celebrity Love Palace? I’m a Prince, Get Me Out of Here?’
‘Do me a favour? Get her out of here. The focus of attention has to be on my engagement.’ Alex spoke with an urgency that rang alarm bells in Matteo’s brain.
‘Are you going to tell me why?’
‘Just do it, Matt. Please.’
Without further question Matteo handed his champagne to a passing footman.
‘You owe me. And I will be calling in the favour.’
With that he strode across the room to separate trouble from the microphone.
‘He’s the only one for yooooou …’ sang Izzy in her rich alto voice, pleased with herself for hitting a fiendishly difficult note right at the top of her range and furious when her father tried to prise her away from the microphone.
Wasn’t he the one who was always telling her that it was up to her to make the most of opportunities? Well, this was a massive opportunity. She’d planned it carefully. Her Goal of the Day was to sing the song she’d written to the prince. Not the smiling, charming heir to the throne that her sister had snagged, but his brother, Matteo Santina, the Dark Prince, otherwise known to a fascinated public as Moody Matteo because he was so deadly serious. Deadly serious and deadly sexy, Izzy thought dreamily. He was tall, dark, gorgeous and very, very rich. But she wasn’t interested in any of those attributes. She wasn’t interested in his spectacular bone structure or his royal heritage. Nor did she care about his hard athletic body or his reputed skills as a pilot. And although the romantic side of her was mildly jealous of her sister’s whirlwind romance, she wasn’t the least interested in the whole marry-a-prince fantasy. No, there was just one thing she cared about and that was the extent of his influence—in particular, his role as president of the Prince’s Fund. In that role he had overall responsibility for the famous Rock ‘n’ Royal concert, a globally televised live fundraising event that was only weeks away.
Singing at that concert would be all her dreams rolled into one. It would kick-start her dead career.
Which was why today’s goal was to make sure he heard her.
Shaking off her father, she increased the volume, but the prince was now in conversation with his brother, the heir to the throne and her sister’s fiancé.
Izzy felt a frantic moment of desperation followed by a sharp thud of disappointment. She’d been so sure that this would be her big moment. She’d glugged down the champagne to give herself the courage to take over the stage. She’d imagined heads turning and jaws dropping as people heard her voice. She’d imagined her whole life changing in an instant. Hard work and perseverance was going to finally pay off.
Heads were turning. Jaws were dropping. But Izzy hadn’t drunk so much champagne that she didn’t realise her being the centre of attention had nothing to do with her voice.
They were looking at her because she’d made a fool of herself. Again.
They were mocking her.
So, in fact, her life hadn’t changed at all because, as usual, she was on the receiving end of ridicule. Each time she dragged herself back onto her feet she was knocked over again, and each time she emerged just a little more bruised and battered.