‘I...I missed you,’ Vitale declared with unexpected abruptness.
Her green eyes widened. ‘You...did?’
‘Of course, I did. I only sent you away for your benefit and I assumed you’d appreciate a private break with your family,’ Vitale asserted almost accusingly. ‘I had too much official business to take of at the palace and very little time to spare for you.’
Jazz stiffened at the reminder. ‘I understood that.’
‘No, you seem to think I wanted to get rid of you and that is not true at all. In fact it is so untrue, it’s ridiculous!’ Vitale informed her on a rising note of unconcealed annoyance. ‘If you’d stayed on at the palace you wouldn’t have been able to go out those first few days and I was in back-to-back meetings. It would have been selfish to keep you cooped up just for my own pleasure.’
Jazz froze. ‘When you sent me away I felt like I was an annoying distraction to you, just one more burden.’
Vitale stilled by the door that led out to the terrace, his lean, darkly handsome features rigid. ‘You are not and have never been a burden. In fact you are the only thing in my life that has ever given me pure pleasure...’
Jazz loved to hear nice things about herself but that was too over-the-top and from Vitale, of all people, to convince her. ‘I can’t believe that.’
Vitale’s hands knotted into fists of frustration and he made a gesture with both arms that telegraphed his inability to explain what he had meant with that statement.
‘I’m being snappy because I was hurt when you sent me away,’ Jazz admitted guiltily, badly wanting to put her arms round him and only just resisting the temptation by filling the uneasy silence for him.
‘Do you think it didn’t hurt me to be without you every day?’ Vitale shot back at her at startling speed. ‘Not even to have a few minutes I could call my own with you? But I was trying to do the right thing, only somehow it seems to have been the wrong thing...the story of my every dealing with you!’ he completed bitterly.
‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked uncomfortably.
‘No, thanks. I had a couple of drinks after you announced your intention of returning to London and it didn’t noticeably improve my mood,’ he admitted wearily.
‘I thought you might welcome my departure. Clearly I misunderstood,’ Jazz said for him, reading between the lines, reckoning that he had flown out to the yacht because he was panicking at the idea that she might run out on their marriage even before the coronation and cause yet another scandal. ‘I wasn’t threatening to leave you, Vitale.’
‘Per meraviglia...you weren’t?’ Vitale froze to prompt in open bewilderment and disbelief.
‘No, I wouldn’t let you down like that. I wouldn’t do that to you. As you said, we’re in this together. Whatever happens, I’ll stick things out at the palace until you think it’s the right time for us to separate and go for a divorce,’ Jazz promised him earnestly.
Vitale paled below his bronzed complexion, stunning dark golden eyes narrowing as if he was pained by that speech. ‘I don’t want a divorce any more. I want to stay married to you until the day I die, amata mia. I know we didn’t start out with that understanding and that I’m ignoring the terms we agreed on but... I’ve changed.’
‘Have you?’ Jazz said doubtfully. ‘Or is it that you feel us divorcing so soon after your mother’s abdication will look bad?’
‘You are a very difficult woman to reason with,’ Vitale groaned, raking long brown fingers through his already-tousled black hair. ‘When I said I changed, I meant I changed, nothing to do with the crown or my mother or anyone else. You and I are the only two people in this marriage and I really don’t want to lose you. That’s why I’m here. I also had to resign from the bank.’
‘You’ve resigned?’ Jazz was taken aback.
‘Naturally. I can’t be a king and a banker as well. I also need time to be a husband and father. Something had to go to give us enough space for a family life,’ he pointed out. ‘But if you still want a divorce, of course—’
‘I didn’t say that!’ Jazz interrupted in haste.
‘Everything you’ve said and done implies that, though,’ Vitale condemned with curt finality, squaring his broad shoulders as if awaiting a physical blow.
‘You take the worst possible meaning out of everything I say,’ Jazz scolded without meaning to. ‘I’m waiting for you to tell me why you decided you wanted to stay married to me...’
‘I answered that,’ Vitale contradicted squarely. ‘You make me happy...and,’ he hesitated before adding with visible discomfiture, ‘I love you.’
He said it so quietly and so quickly that she wasn’t quite sure she had heard him correctly.
‘I mean,’ Vitale began afresh with a faint air of desperation, ‘I suppose it’s love. I hate it when you’re away from me. I miss you so much. I can’t imagine being with any other woman. You’re different somehow—special—and you know how I think—which I didn’t like at first—but I’m beginning to believe I should be grateful for that. I know you’re not happy at the idea of me becoming King... I did see your face when that reality dawned on you but I really don’t think I can do it without you,’ he told her awkwardly. ‘If it came to a choice between the throne and you, I would choose you...’
Jazz’s heart expanded like a giant warm globe inside her ribcage as she appreciated that she was listening to a genuine but rather clumsy declaration of love and in a sudden movement she moved closer and wrapped both arms round him. ‘I’d never ask you to make a choice like that. I’m not thrilled at the idea of being a queen or being on show all the time, but if I have you with me I’ll survive it,’ she declared breathlessly, her hands sliding up over his torso and round his neck. ‘Why? Because I love you too, you crazy man. How could you miss the fact that I love you?’
Vitale released his pent-up breath in an audible surge and closed both arms tightly round her, a slight shudder of reaction rocking his lean body against her. ‘You do?’ he pressed uncertainly. ‘But why? I’m kind of boring compared to you.’
‘No, you’re not!’ she argued feelingly, hurt that he could think that of himself.
‘You’re chatty and funny and lively, everything I’m not,’ Vitale persisted argumentatively. ‘It’s like you’re a magnet. You pulled me in even though I tried very hard to resist you.’
‘You didn’t resist for very long,’ Jazz commented, thinking about their encounter in the kitchen on the first night of her stay at his town house.
‘You were more temptation than I could resist. Everything about you attracted me.’
‘No, you tried to change everything about me to make me presentable,’ she reminded him. ‘All those lessons.’
‘That was educational stuff to ensure that you could hold your own in any company. I live in a different world and I wanted you to feel as comfortable and confident in it as I do. That’s past. We’ve moved way beyond that level now,’ he pointed out.
‘Yes.’ Momentarily, Jazz simply rested her brow against a warm shoulder sheathed in fresh scented cotton and drank in the familiar smell of him. A silly, happy sense of peace was flooding her because Vitale was finally hers, absolutely, irretrievably hers. He had learned to love her in spite of their many differences and perhaps the most wonderful discovery of all was that, mismatched or not, together they made a very comfortable and secure whole.
‘But you kept on reminding me that we were supposed to be getting a divorce,’ he muttered grimly.
‘Well, that is how you set up our marriage,’ Jazz reminded him helplessly.
‘I know,’ Vitale groaned out loud. ‘But every time you threw that at me, panic gripped me. I’d dug myself into this ridiculous deep dark hole and I didn’t know how to get out of it again. I didn’t want to let you go but I’d promised you that I would and I always keep my promises. I made such a mess out of everything between us. I should’ve told you sooner that I no longer wanted a divorce but I was afraid you’d tell me that you st
ill wanted your freedom back and I couldn’t face that. In fact I thought it was wiser to keep quiet about my plans.’
‘Honesty works best with me...even if I don’t want to hear it, and what you didn’t say,’ she told him for future reference, ‘was what I most wanted to hear these past few weeks.’
‘Why did our royal wedding upset you so much?’
Jazz withdrew her arms and stepped back from him to look at him. ‘Seriously? You’re asking me that when six suitable wife candidates followed me down the aisle?’
His brow furrowed in bewilderment. ‘Suitable wife candidates?’
‘From that file of your mother’s. Didn’t you recognise them? I mean, you must have met at least a couple of them prior to our big day,’ she reasoned.
‘The bridesmaids were the women in that file?’ Vitale demanded, dark colour edging his hard cheekbones as comprehension sank in and he muttered something unrepeatable in Italian. ‘Madonna diavolo... I never looked at those photographs or that file. It’s called passive resistance and I refused to encourage my mother’s delusions by playing along with them.’
‘You never even looked?’ Jazz repeated in astonishment.
‘No, I refused. Even when she spread the photos on her desk in front of me, I refused to look. But that she asked them to act as your bridesmaids sickens me,’ Vitale admitted with a furious shake of his proud dark head. ‘It’s hard to credit that even she could be that vindictive. You should’ve told me.’
‘I assumed that you would recognise them. Anyway,’ Jazz framed uncomfortably, ‘reading that file was bad for my confidence. I started making these awful comparisons between me and those women and my self-esteem sank very low and that made me very touchy and more inclined to misinterpret everything you did.’
‘Even though you are head and shoulders above the women in that pointless pretentious file?’ Vitale demanded. ‘Because you are the woman I love and the only woman I want as a wife!’
And he meant every word of that declaration, Jazz recognised with her self-esteem taking a resulting leap as she accepted that wonderful truth. He thought more of her than she thought of herself, she registered in awe.
‘Even though you once said I was as flat as an ironing board?’ she began teasingly.
‘Not a problem we have now,’ Vitale told her with a flashing smile as he unwound the towel and backed her purposefully towards the bed. ‘As for the hair—I love your hair and you know I do. I’ve told you often enough.’
And he was always playing with her hair, she conceded thoughtfully while she allowed herself to be rearranged on the bed, a little tremor of awareness and hunger sliding through her as Vitale lowered his long, lean, powerful body down over hers. ‘I love you,’ he said again. ‘And I haven’t slept a night through since you left me. I miss the hugs.’
‘Well, you have to start hugging back to get them,’ Jazz informed him with dancing eyes of challenge.
And he hugged her and she giggled like a drain. ‘Again!’ she demanded like a child.
The happiness Jazz had brought into his life far outweighed every other concern, Vitale appreciated, and his answering smile was brilliant.
‘Oh, I do love you, Vitale,’ she whispered when she could breathe again, because he was a little too enthusiastic with his hugs. ‘When did you realise how you felt about me?’
‘I should’ve realised the day I almost punched Angel for flirting with you because I was jealous.’
‘You were.’ Jazz savoured that belated admission with unhidden satisfaction.
‘But it took me a lot longer to realise what you’d done to me.’
‘What I’d done to you?’ Jazz queried.
‘Sì...turned me upside down, inside out and head over heels and all without me having a clue about what was happening,’ Vitale confided ruefully. ‘And then you never missed a chance to remind me about the divorce plan. That was a real own goal on my part.’
Jazz smiled. ‘Glad you recognise that.’
Vitale rubbed his jawline gently over her smooth cheek. ‘I shaved... Do I have to keep on talking all night?’
Jazz laughed, feeling amazingly cheerful. ‘No, you don’t have to talk any more.’
‘Grazie a Dio,’ Vitale’s sigh of relief was heartfelt. He realised that he was much more like his emotional father than he had ever appreciated, although he still lacked his father’s ability to easily discuss his feelings. But the key to his happiness was Jazz, he acknowledged. Jazz, who had taught him how to enjoy life again. He could cope with anything as long as she was by his side.
And Jazz looked up at him with eyes that shone with love and appreciation and, eagerly drinking in that appraisal, Vitale kissed her with all the passion she inspired in him. They made love and the rest of the world was forgotten. Later, much, much later, she twitted him about the prenup agreement that had so depressed her and he kissed her again, contriving to avoid talking once more with remarkable efficiency, but then when Vitale learned anything to his advantage he was always quick to use it.
EPILOGUE
FIVE YEARS LATER Jazz lay back on her sun lounger in the shade and watched the children play in the new swimming pool. Angel was on duty as a lifeguard and, considering that a good half of the overexcited children belonged to him and Merry, that was only fair. Jazz had had to nag at Vitale to get him to agree to a pool at the Italian farmhouse because he liked their lifestyle there to be simpler and less luxurious than life in Lerovia.
‘Enrico!’ her husband suddenly yelled full throttle at the four-year-old trying to push his twin brother into the pool. ‘Stop it!’
Enrico grinned, mischief dancing in his dark eyes, and while he wasn’t looking his twin, Donato, gave him a crafty shove into the water.
‘That was dangerous!’ Vitale thundered.
‘The men get so het up when the kids are only doing what comes naturally,’ Merry marvelled from her seat beside Jazz while her own little tribe frolicked in the water, noisily jumping up and down and splashing each other.
‘But then they’re not as accustomed as we are to the daily shenanigans.’ Jazz sighed, smoothing her light dress down over the prominent swell of her abdomen.
‘Are you hoping for a girl this time around?’ Merry asked with the casual curiosity of a close friend.
‘I think Vitale is but I don’t care as long as the baby’s healthy,’ Jazz confided, thinking how worried and stressed she had been when her newly born twins had had to go straight into incubators after their premature birth.
Enrico and Donato had thrived from that point on and had soon gained sufficient strength to take up residence in the colourful nursery their parents had created for them at the palace. But, still, Jazz would not have liked to go through the experience of having to leave her babies in hospital again while she went home alone. Her current pregnancy, however, had been much easier than the first. She had been less sick and she felt much more relaxed about her condition, although, if anything, Vitale fussed even more than he had the first time around.
Their lives in Lerovia had gone through a dizzying cycle of change in every sphere. First of all, they had had to move into what had previously been Vitale’s mother’s wing of the palace. A full-scale redecoration had been required and Jazz still sometimes suspected that she could smell wet paint. Vitale had opened up the ceremonial rooms of the palace to the public for the first time and now Jazz’s mother was happily engaged in running the palace gift shop and café opened in a rear courtyard.
Peggy Dickens had made a new life in Lerovia. She had wanted to be close to her grandchildren and she now occupied a small palace apartment where her sister, Clodagh, was a regular guest. Jazz had been relieved when her mother had passed her most recent health check with flying colours and she was delighted to have her only parent living within easy reach. Vitale had been very generous agreeing to that development, she thought fondly. Not every man would have wanted his mother-in-law living on his doorstep. He had been equally generous when Pe
ggy had told him that she wanted to get involved with the huge challenge of opening part of the palace to the public. Able to engage in meaningful work again, Peggy had gone from strength to strength and had rediscovered her vitality and interest in life.
When the twins were a few months old, Jazz had completed her degree in the History of Art at the University of Leburg and had graduated with honours. Now she was one of the directors of the Leburg Art museum and all the paintings in the palace had finally been exhaustively catalogued, which had led to the exciting discovery of an Old Master of one of Vitale’s ancestors. Her life was incredibly busy but she loved it.
The tiny country of Lerovia had become her home and she was a very popular working royal. Prince Eduardo now regularly conducted public engagements on his nephew’s behalf and was fully restored to the status his sister had once taken from him. Jazz had been shocked when Vitale had informed her that it had been Eduardo who had choreographed Queen Sofia’s downfall by tipping off a friend in the media about her affair.
‘It was payback for a lifetime of slights. Mean and cruel of him,’ Vitale had conceded of his uncle’s behaviour. ‘But who am I to criticise? Eduardo was once a very popular member of the family and my mother cut him out of our lives and kept him criminally short of money. He didn’t deserve that and her mistreatment of her brother came back to haunt her.’
Sofia Castiglione, now known as Princess Sofia, was still living in her opulent Alpine chalet with Cinzia. She phoned Vitale from time to time to reprimand him about changes she had heard he was instigating and she warned him that he would lose the respect of the people if he lessened the mystique of the monarchy by embracing a less luxurious lifestyle. She had flatly refused to ever set foot in Lerovia again, confessing that she had never liked the Lerovians, and Vitale had laughed heartily when he’d shared that particular gem with Jazz. He had visited his mother on several occasions but he did it out of duty, rather than affection. His failure to divorce Jazz had infuriated his mother and Jazz was still waiting, but not with bated breath, for an invitation to the Alpine chalet.