The Prince's Forbidden Bride (The Princess Brides 2)

For the rest of the afternoon the world receded to a place where only Enrico could take her. They would have been late for dinner if his cell phone hadn’t rung.

Her husband groaned in protest. “I’d better answer it.”

He reached for his shirt on the floor and found his phone. It was Giovanni. Clicking on, he said, “Ciao, amico.” Enrico eyed her. “It’s hard for us to come back, you know?”

Whatever his cousin said next produced a frown, forcing him to leave the bed and head for his walk-in closet. After noticing the time, Donetta got up to take a quick shower.

By the time she’d dressed in a silky black-on-white printed short-sleeved dress and slipped into her white high heels, he’d reappeared in a navy robe.

His eyes played over her. “You look fabulous.”

She eyed him anxiously. “Thank you, but I can tell something’s wrong.”

“Give me a minute to shower and change. Then we’ll talk.”

* * *

Enrico dressed in record time, putting on a casual light blue suit with an open-collared darker blue shirt. Ten minutes wouldn’t give him much time for what he had to tell his wife, but he needed to prepare her after hearing Giovanni’s latest news.

“Donetta?”

“I’m right here, enjoying the view.” So she was. He joined her at the bedroom window. “There are a lot of sailboats out on the lake. Do you have one?”

He smiled. “I’m sure you know the answer to that. Have you done much sailing?”

“No. You’ll have to teach me.”

“I’ll take you out this coming weekend. There’s a resort on the other side where we’ll have dinner and go dancing. Afterwards we’ll sleep on the boat overnight.”

“That sounds heavenly, but now I want to know what has produced those lines around that mouth I can’t stop kissing.”

He drew her over to the love seat and sat down with her, resting his arm on the frame behind her.

“As I told you when you first came to Vallefiore, our country has too much corruption causing serious trouble. My father did his best to deal with the problems. But just when he was gaining ground, he was stricken with Alzheimer’s.”

“I realize that’s why you were so involved when you returned from England. But I had no idea how deeply you’ve had to contend with these problems.”

“I’m glad you understand. The day Giovanni informed me you had arrived in Vallefiore, I’d been in one of the villages where I’d ordered some arrests. I had just left there to drive to Caserta, another village, to do an investigation. But when I knew you were at the hotel, I turned around and sped home.”

He took a few minutes to explain the reason for the arrests. “But there are other problems cropping up. Because prosecutors have tried to break up certain strongholds, the criminals have been pushed back to their rural origins. Some of them have been operating their corrupt money laundering and drug business dealings here in Vallefiore for years.

“Let me give you

an example of what has been happening on another part of our island. A family of wheat farmers have complained to the police that a huge herd of cows and horses have been invading their fields and destroying their entire wheat harvest.”

“That’s unconscionable, Enrico.”

“Amen. Illegal grazing is the oldest form of intimidation. Six months ago a poisoned dog and half a dozen poisoned cow carcasses were delivered to the home of one of the farmers. A few months later the farmer’s thresher had been destroyed.”

She shook her head.

“All this has to be stopped, but it takes a lot of undercover investigating and difficult police infiltration work to produce the proof for the prosecutors. Since I’ve given our police full power to go after these people, we’re getting a lot of pushback.”

“You mean death threats.” Donetta was a quick study. “Who’s receiving them?”

“In the past, a police chief and several of the officials in my government.”

“What about you?”