The Heir the Prince Secures

Life wasn’t a game to be won or an asset to acquire. It wasn’t a business based on profit or loss.

Life meant giving your heart. Taking the risk. Because though loss was guaranteed, joy was a choice. And joy came only from loving others.

Love was a gift, freely given. A leap of faith in this cold modern world. It wasn’t weakness. It wasn’t illusion. It wasn’t even an ocean to drown in.

Love was the life raft.

*

“I never should have agreed to this,” Tess breathed, raking her hand through her untidy red waves. “Why did I think I could do this?”

Her two friends looked at each other.

“Because you can,” sai

d Lola firmly.

“Easy,” said Hallie.

Tess’s first runway show was due to start in five minutes, in the intimate venue of the hotel’s elegant Edwardian tearoom. They were in a backstage area with the models and mirrors and racks of clothes. Their three babies were being watched by Cristiano and Tess’s cousins.

Looking at her now, Hallie gave a low laugh, then covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry. But you look so nervous.” At Tess’s glare, she added with a grin, “I’m just remembering how it felt. But you guys still made me go onstage and sing!”

“Because you’re amazing,” Tess said.

Hallie looked at her pointedly. “And so are you. Which is why I invested in your brand.”

Tess’s brand? She had a brand? All she’d done was design clothes she liked. But Hallie was right. She had a brand now. The thought made her want to run back to cower in the Morettis’ old hotel suite upstairs, where Tess had been staying with Esme since Hallie’s family had moved into their remodeled mansion in the West Village. “I never should have let you invest in my company, Hallie. I’m not ready!”

“Of course you are.” Lola looked at the models around them, each of them carefully dressed in an outfit that Tess had designed and sewn herself. “Your clothes are so pretty.” She looked down at her own outfit, also a Serena original. “And shockingly comfortable!”

“We’re going to make a bundle,” Hallie said gleefully, rubbing her hands together. “I can’t let Cristiano be the only entrepreneur in the family.”

Nervousness roiled in Tess’s belly as she thought of how much money her friend had already invested in her. Grabbing a pin from her belt, she tightened the neckline of a model’s brightly colored shirt. “What if my collection is a flop?”

“A flop?” Hallie said indignantly. “At the Campania? Impossible! And we’re raising money for charity. How can it go wrong? Serena is going to be a huge hit!”

Serena. Tess shivered. She’d named her company after her mother, and this show would raise money to fight the disease that had killed her. Another layer of pressure if she failed.

The last month had been a whirlwind. Since she’d returned to New York, Tess had spent hours in her new baby-friendly office working on her designs. In the evenings, Hallie and Lola had joined her with their babies, drinking wine and listening to Tess talk tearfully about her marriage. Naturally, her friends had taken her side.

“That so-called prince is the biggest jerk in the world,” Hallie had said.

“Second biggest,” Lola had mumbled, but wouldn’t explain. After all this time, she still refused to reveal the identity of her baby’s father, forcing the other two to wonder. Hallie thought the man might be a famous celebrity. Tess guessed he might be a married jerk, like her own father who’d abandoned her. But Lola refused to say, making Tess wonder if baby Jett’s father was even worse than they imagined...

But how would Tess know? She’d been wrong about so much, first and foremost Prince Stefano Zacco di Gioreale. Grief still twisted her heart. How could she face the world without him?

“I’m scared,” she said to her friends, whispering so the models and hairstylists and makeup artists wouldn’t hear.

Hallie squeezed her shoulder, then turned to speak quietly to an assistant, who hurried out of the room.

“Stop whining,” Lola said. “Your clothes are good. You know they are. So just shut up and do it.”

Slowly Tess walked past every model yet again, looking carefully at each outfit. Her clothes weren’t expensive or intimidating. Instead, she’d created warm, colorful, comfortable outfits designed to make women happy, both with how they looked and how they felt.

Twelve outfits, each of them brightly colored, a mixture of old and new. She stopped at the very last model, who was wearing an ivory-colored wedding dress, embroidered with a small blue bird on the edge of the skirt. The bride held a bouquet of bright blue tulips.

Staring at the bouquet, Tess stopped, remembering her own wedding bouquet of pink roses. How happy she’d been, how sure that the two of them would live a fairy tale...