His hand clamped on to her wrist as she turned away. “Not so fast, Miss Bishop.”
Caroline looked at him over her shoulder. “Let go of me, please,” she said quietly.
“Just where do you think you are going?”
“That’s none of your bus—Ouch!” She swung around and faced him, her eyes flashing dangerously. “You’re hurting me!”
He stepped closer to her, close enough so she could smell the scent of an expensive masculine cologne, see a muscle knotting and unknotting in his jaw.
“I am not finished with you yet, Miss Bishop.”
“Listen here, you. If you think—”
A man balancing two flutes of champagne jostled against him and Sabatini glared at him, then at Caroline, and his hand wrapped firmly around her wrist.
“We will not discuss this here,” he said grimly.
“We will not discuss it anywhere, mister. If you think you’re going to get some kind of reward for—”
“You have a short memory.” His fingers were like a circle of steel around the bones of her wrist as he began moving again. Caroline had no choice but to trot alongside as he strode toward an arched doorway. “You forget how to address me—”
“I didn’t forget anything,” she said furiously. “Americans don’t bother with such nonsense.”
“—and that you are in my debt. You don’t really think I risked making a fool of myself for a quick thank-you and a handshake, do you?”
“You must be joking.”
He thrust her through the archway and into a small anteroom where a fire blazed in an ancient fireplace, then swung around and faced her, his eyes glittering coldly like chunks of a harsh autumn sky.
“Do I look as if I am joking, Miss Bishop?”
Caroline twisted her hand from his grasp.
“You’ve wasted your time, Your Highness,” she said, her tone painting the title with contempt. “If you think what happened out there gives you a claim to me—”
“Would you have preferred I leave you to the tender mercies of your American admirer?”
“I would have managed,” she said with more conviction than she felt.
“Yes.” He smiled unpleasantly. “I am sure you would. After all, an hour with a man like that is a hazard of your profession, isn’t it?”
She had no awareness of trying to strike him. She knew only that suddenly her hand was upraised, that his shot out with lightning speed and caught it in midair.
“You—you son of a bitch,” she hissed, her breasts rising and falling rapidly beneath the gown, “you—you bastard. You—”
“You must learn to sheathe your claws, gattina. If you do not, you will have to pay the consequences.”
“Really?” Enraged beyond endurance, she met his look of controlled anger with one of defiance. “What will you do if I don’t? Torture me? Throw me into a dungeon at the Castello Sforzesco? In case you’d forgotten, this isn’t the Middle Ages. You can’t—”
“No. I cannot.” She gasped as his hand tightened on hers and drew it swiftly behind her back. The sudden motion brought her forward a step, so that all at once they were barely a breath apart. His eyes moved over her face and he smiled tightly. “But then, there are far more effective ways of reminding a woman who is master, signorina.”
His eyes grew dark, as they had been when Caroline had first seen him from the catwalk. He shifted his weight so that his body brushed lightly against hers. She could feel the heat of him, the hardness of muscle that lay hidden beneath the elegant cut of his dinner jacket, and all at once there was a subtle shift in the atmosphere, as if the anger that burned between them could, in the flicker of a heartbeat, become something even more primitive…
“Nicolo?”
Their eyes met, and Caroline’s heart began to race. He was going to kiss her, she thought wildly, he was going to bend her back over his arm and put his mouth to her throat, and she—she would close her eyes, she would arch her body to his…
“Nicolo, you have brought her to me! Ah, che bella. I must have fallen asleep—but then, that is the prerogative of an old woman, isn’t it?”
Nicolo Sabatini blinked. He looked at Caroline like a man rising from a deep sleep, and then his face hardened. He took a rasping breath, dropped her hand and turned toward the fireplace. Caroline, heart still pounding with anger and confusion, did the same.
A woman, leaning lightly on an ebony-and-silver cane, was rising slowly from the depths of the high-backed chair that had hidden her from view. She was small, obviously frail, with silvery white hair drawn back from her face and secured in a knot at the nape of her neck. Her skin had the beautiful, paper-thin translucence of great age. But her smile was bright and her eyes—as blue as Nicolo’s—glinted with happiness.
“Nico,” she said, her eyes on Caroline’s face, “I think perhaps you should introduce us.”
Caroline watched as the Prince’s face underwent a metamorphosis. A heartbeat before, he had looked at her with blind passion, then with something that bordered on contempt. Now, as he looked at the old woman, his expression became soft, almost tender.
“Nonna.” He smiled. “I did not mean to disturb you. Were you sleeping?”
“Resting, Nico.” Her smile broadened. “It is a long time since I have had so much excitement.”
“Yes.” He gave Caroline a cool look, as if the old woman’s admission were somehow her fault. “That is true, Nonna.”
The woman smiled at Caroline. “Pay no attention to my grandson, my dear,” she said. “He is angry because I did not keep my promise to go home early. But how could I, without meeting you first?”
Caroline managed a bewildered smile in return. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m afraid I don’t—”
“Nico? Where are your manners? Introduce us.”
“Forgive me, Nonna.” He gave Caroline a quick unpleasant glance. “Caroline Bishop, may I present my grandmother, la Principessa Anna Sabatini?” His mouth twisted. “Nothing would do but that she have the honor of meeting you, signorina despite my best efforts to convince her otherwise.”
The Princess laughed. “Quite right, Signorina Bishop. I sent him into the ballroom, with instructions that he was not to return without you.”
Caroline’s head swiveled toward Nicolo Sabatini. She had been wrong, then. He had not been determined to put her in h
is debt because he wanted to seduce her. His intentions had been honorable, even if his behavior had left something to be desired.
A pang of conscience sent a light wash of pink into her cheeks. She still didn’t like him. He was too arrogant, too proud, too ready to sit in judgment on her, but—
“Come, Miss Bishop.” Princess Sabatini smiled and patted the chair nearest hers. “Sit here with me, and we shall chat for a while.” Sighing, she sank into her seat. “I spent much time in the States when I was a girl. New York. Wash-ington. Florida…”
The old woman’s voice trailed off. Caroline hesitated, then took a step toward the fireplace, but Nicolo Sabatini swung toward her.
“She will want to talk forever, longer than is good for her,” he said, very softly. “You will not let her.”
“No. Of course not. But I don’t understand why—”
“What an expressive face you have, cara.” He smiled coolly. “Of course you don’t. And it disturbs you to realize that I did not come after you for the reasons you thought, doesn’t it?”
Caroline’s blush deepened. “Your Excellency—”
“I am sorry to have disappointed you. It must be a rare occasion when you meet a man who does not want you in his bed.”
Her face stung as if he’d slapped it, but her eyes held defiantly to his.
“Not as rare as it is for you to meet a woman who wants to be there.”
“Basta!” His hands shot out and caught hold of her shoulders, and in that same instant, his grandmother’s voice called his name.
“Nicolo? Are you still there? Be a good boy and get us something to drink, will you, carino?” The old woman peered around and smiled. “I am sure Miss Bishop and I would both like some champagne.”
Caroline took a deep breath. What she wanted was to slap Nicolo Sabatini’s face, to stalk out of the Sala dell’Arte and never look back.
But the Princess Sabatini was no more responsible for her egotistical grandson than she was for tonight’s overblown charity event. She was merely an old woman who wanted to spend a few minutes in nostalgic memory of long-ago visits to America.