Scorsolini Baby Scandal (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HE
SAND
ON
the beach outside Mich’s borrowed Caribbean villa was golden, fine and moister than what she’d grown up knowing in either California or the pebbly beaches of Spain’s eastern coastline.

A gentle breeze, heavy with humidity, lifted her hair, and Kiki was glad she’d foregone the sun hat she’d worn the last time with this dress.

She was getting married in the white Oscar de la Renta sundress she’d worn the day she had met Mich in Palermo. But she’d left off the hat and her sandals. She’d added the white gold diamond teardrop necklace and earrings her parents had given her for her graduation.

It helped her to feel as if they were there with her, witnessing the vows she spoke on the beach with the man she’d fallen in love with so quickly and deeply.

Mich was barefoot too, wearing a pair of Calvin Klein chinos and a white Spanish-style shirt of fine lawn, embroidered in traditional patterns around the hem and neckline in white silk thread.

When Kiki had asked him to wear the shirt her dad had left behind on a visit, Mich had given her a strange look.

“It’s a connection to my Spanish heritage. It will make my parents happy to see it in the pictures later,” she’d explained.

Mich had shrugged and taken the shirt. “I will wear it. Our future will hold a multitude of opportunities for us to bow to my own heritage.”

She was so relieved he’d agreed to her request, she hadn’t questioned the odd wording of his answer. Kiki didn’t know why it was so important to her to feel as if her parents were there, even though if they were, she just knew the wedding wouldn’t be happening. Her dad would insist on investigating Mich to the nth degree and forcing him to somehow prove he wasn’t marrying Kiki for her father’s money.

Miguel Menendez would never believe that Mich didn’t know anything about Kiki’s family background. But their name was a common one, and she didn’t make it a habit of getting her picture taken by the press.

One of the reasons she’d gone to university in New York had been to maintain her anonymity.

All thoughts of family and past choices flew out of her head when the priest asked her to speak her vows. Mich’s eyes flared when the priest said her full name.

But she figured he would understand why she didn’t use her stuffy first name, Constanza.

She spoke her vows while looking directly into Mich’s eyes, meaning every syllable of the promises with every fiber of her being.

The priest turned to Mich and started to say, “Prin—”

“Father,” Mich cut him off with a serious glower.

The priest nodded and began again, his voice more nervous than when he’d led Kiki in her vows. “Vittoro Micheli Scorsolini, will you take this woman...”

Ah, so he had a first name he didn’t like or use, either.

The vows were traditional, but Kiki felt she was the first woman in the world to hear the promises uttered in such a determined, rich masculine voice. Mich’s words were thick with a Sicilian accent, one she had never heard outside of lovemaking with him.

When he slid the diamond-encrusted platinum band on her finger, it was accompanied by a second ring with a diamond that rivaled her mother’s in a gorgeous setting of rubies and more diamonds.

She stared up at him, questioning how he’d managed to produce such a dazzling wedding set for their unplanned elopement.

“I had it overnighted,” he mouthed.

The priest still gave them a disapproving look but continued with his blessing at a nod from Mich.

Kiki dipped her head to hide her smile and the happy tears filling her eyes. Her ring for him had a ruby too, set in antique white gold. It was her grandfather’s, an heirloom that he’d given to Kiki when she had turned sixteen to save for her future husband.

Kiki took the fact that the two rings both bore the stones of passionate love as a good sign for their future.

That passion was very much in evidence when they returned to the master suite in the villa. Mich couldn’t keep his hands off her, and Kiki didn’t mind at all.

They were naked together in every way as he poised to slide inside of her, no condom, no security of birth control. Just her and him and the baby they’d made together.

He looked down at her, his expression so intense she shivered. “We are a family now.”

“Yes.”

He surged inside her, sending her nerves skyrocketing.

“Oh, yes,” she moaned, the sensations different in an undefinable way.

She didn’t know if it was that they were man and wife, committed to a lifetime, or that she was pregnant, or simply that they’d both admitted their love. But laced with the overwhelming passion was a primal and profound connection they had never achieved before.

And although he made love to her with undeniable sexual urgency, there was a new tenderness and care to his movements.

They came within a second of each other; she couldn’t even tell which one had climaxed first. It didn’t matter. Their bodies had just consecrated their union with as much power and worship as the priest’s final blessing.

“And the two shall become one,” Mich said, still inside her and proving that their thoughts were on the same page.

“Forever,” she promised.

“
Invece.
” His
beloved
was a vow all on its own.

* * *

Mich was watching his wife...
saints above
,
his wife
...as she slept the morning after their wedding. Bright sunlight filtered through the gauze covering the windows, illuminating every perfect, beautiful line of the woman he’d fallen for.
The mother of his child.

His family was going to have a royal conniption. He thought his mother, Queen Therese, known so well for her patience and calm, might even yell. A prince did not elope.

For the heir to the throne to do so? A criminal offense in his grandfather’s eyes, Micheli had no doubt.

And yet, even knowing the storm he faced—
they
faced—could not make him regret that so very precious ceremony on the beach.

He moved to touch her shoulder, not to wake her, only to feel the satin smoothness of her skin under his hand. A thunderous pounding on the villa’s front door aborted his movement, Mich’s fingers a centimeter from her shoulder.

A masculine voice shouted in Spanish—the open windows allowing cross breezes to cool the house making it almost as loud as if he were in the room with them.

Kiki sat straight up in bed, her eyes going comically wide as she turned her head side to side. “What? Who... Papa?”

“Constanza Kiki Menendez, open this door
immediamente
, or I will break it down!”

Then Mich could hear a female voice, but not make out her words.

“I will not call her Scorsolini. I have not even met this man who dares to steal my daughter away!”

Mich had no trouble hearing that.

Kiki had heard the words too, because she was out of the bed, rushing around the room looking for clothes and then just grabbing the sheet.

Wrapping it around her, she ran for the door. “Papa, calm down. You’re upsetting Mom. You know you are. She hates it when you yell.”

Oh, no.
Mich’s
wife was not tearing through the house to appease another man. Not even her father.

He leaped from the bed, then grabbed his chinos and pulled them on even as he followed Kiki at speed.

He reached her just as she went to open the door. He grabbed her arm and shook his head. “Go back and dress. I will let them in.”

Pure panic glowed in her storm-gray eyes. “No. You don’t understand. I need—”

Another loud knock at the door, what sounded like a single kick and more Spanish, which was close enough to Italian for Micheli to know the older man had demanded once again for the door to be opened.

It was the sound of distress Kiki made that convinced Micheli to open the door, not her father’s clearly increasing ire.

He gently pushed her back so Micheli stood between his new wife and the irate man on the other side. Then he reached out, unlocking and opening the door in one movement.

It could have been his own family on the other side, the group seemed so eerily familiar. A tall man, who was clearly Kiki’s father, vibrated with incandescent fury. Beside him stood a stunning older version of the woman he’d married—Kiki’s mother. Behind them was a full contingent of security.

Micheli drew his royalty around him like the suit he wasn’t wearing and stepped back. “Come in.
Signore e Signora
Menendez, I presume.” He could have used their Spanish titles, but that would have established a different power dynamic than the one he wanted: the one in which they recognized him as the primary man in Kiki’s life now.

Kiki’s father glowered, making no move to enter the house after all his demands to be let inside. “And you are?”

His wife slapped his arm. “You know very well who he is, Miguel. He’s your daughter’s husband, and if you don’t want to alienate her, I suggest you get your temper under control.”

Miguel’s gaze slid past Micheli to Kiki, and a slight tightening of his mouth said maybe his wife’s warning had been heard and heeded.

“Mom,” sounded from behind him, the single word expressing happiness, anxiety and even desperation.

It was the tiny quaver that had Micheli turning around to see his wife. She was blinking back tears and looking too damn vulnerable.

Ignoring the people behind him, he reached for her. “All will be well,
invece.
We knew this moment was coming.”

They just hadn’t expected it this quickly.

“Don’t make my daughter promises you may not be able to keep,” Miguel said in strained voice.

His arms firmly around his trembling wife, Micheli turned back to her parents, no doubt in his heart to come through in his expression or tone. “Any promise I make to your daughter, I will honor. All vows I have made to her are permanent.”

Some of the fury in Miguel’s eyes seemed to bank, and it was then Micheli realized the man was worried for his daughter. But why?

“You two need to get dressed immediately. I convinced your father to allow me to collect you, but you are facing a storm of epic proportions when we reach the palace. I will not allow my daughter to be hit by its lightning. You understand me?”

“Palace?” Kiki asked. She tipped her head back to meet his eyes. “Mich, what is my dad talking about?”

Miguel replied before Micheli could. “Kiki, meet your husband.
Principe
Vittoro Micheli Scorsolini.”

“You’re a prince?” she asked in shock.

“And you are a billionaire’s daughter.” Micheli’s brain had finally started firing on all cylinders, and he recognized Miguel Menendez from the financial news.

Incredibly, she blushed. “Um, yeah, about that...”

He shook his head. “No. It doesn’t matter. I fell in love with you, Kiki Scorsolini.” He wasn’t forgetting her new last name like her father. “And you fell in love with me, not my role.”

“But you
are
a prince?”

“Heir to the throne of Isole dei Re,” her father answered again.

Micheli glared at him. “I’m capable of speaking for myself.”

“Really? Then why is it that my daughter is not aware that one day she will be queen?” Miguel looked at Kiki, one brow raised. “And you had issues with taking over my company.”

The temptation to clock the billionaire had Micheli clenching his hands into fists.

“Don’t,” Kiki said softly.

He looked down at her.

“I know. The temptation to smack him is almost overwhelming, but it won’t solve anything.”

“I was going to tell you, before—”

“Before you found out I was pregnant with your heir?” she asked, interrupting.

Her mother gasped. Her father cursed.

Kiki ignored them both. “Before you whisked me off to marry you so no one, not even a king, could stop us?”

She understood. The relief flowed through him in a near-debilitating wave. “
Sì.
I was going to tell you everything today.”

“You do not think you should have told her
before
you married her?” Miguel demanded.

“Forgive me, please,” he said to Kiki, refusing to acknowledge the Spanish billionaire.

“Yes, Mich. I love you, and there is nothing to forgive. We both wanted to be loved for who we are, not where we come from. Our future is a little more complicated than I thought, though.”

“A little.” He smiled down at her, very glad when she returned it.

“We do need to get back on the plane. The royal family’s PR team is working with ours, but we must face this news with a united front.” Surprisingly, that came from Kiki’s mother.

“Amber, as always, you are the voice of intelligent reason,
mi amor.
”

“I’m going to be a grandmother,” the voice of reason said emotionally to her spouse.

“They’re kissing. That should give us enough time to shower and dress anyway,” Kiki said drily.

CHAPTER FIVE

T
HE
ROYAL
PALACE
of Isole dei Re impressed Kiki, but it was the royal family, gathered en masse in their private reception room, that intimidated her.

There were a lot more of them than in her family, and not one person looked particularly welcoming. The prevailing emotion didn’t seem to be anger so much as utter shock. Apparently Mich was the responsible one, the guy everyone counted on to do the right thing.

He hadn’t left her side though, not even to greet his parents, making it clear where his loyalty lay.

Her own parents and their top two security men flanked them.

King Claudio looked a lot like his son, except for the gray at his temples and the chill in his dark eyes as they took Kiki in.

“So, you are the woman who has convinced my son to disregard his training and obligation to marry you in some
elopement.
” He made their beach wedding sound so sordid.

“She is the woman I love,” Mich replied, ungiving steel in his tone.

Whoa. That was not a voice she’d want directed at her.

“You love her so much, you did not think enough of her to introduce us?” the queen asked, sounding more upset and confused than angry, her lovely Italian features wreathed with concern.

Mich’s arms tightened around Kiki as if he was worried she’d take his mother’s words as truth. “I had every intention of introducing you when the time came.”

If anything, King Claudio’s expression grew darker. “The time would have been
before
you asked her to marry you.”

“Because you think you should have a say in who I marry?” Mich demanded, sounding every inch the prince she now knew he was.

“Your wife has an important role to play in this country. An inappropriate match could do damage to our political and economic standing.”

Kiki almost snorted. She didn’t think Mich marrying the daughter of Miguel Menendez was such a hardship for Isole dei Re. Her father’s voice said almost those exact words in a frigid tone she’d heard very rarely in her life.

The king looked nonplussed for a moment, though nowhere near cowed.

Queen Therese interjected calmly, “The point is, we were not given the opportunity to know her before the deed was done.”

“The deed can be undone easily enough.” The king glared at both Kiki and Mich. “But not without scandal.”

“No one is
undoing
my marriage,” Kiki said with deadly calm.

King Claudio shook his head. “You did not marry merely a man, young lady. You married a future monarch.”

“She married
me
,” Mich argued. “If Kiki is deemed unsuited for the role of queen, or if she ultimately refuses the role, I will abdicate in favor of Adamo.”

Mich should have sounded overwrought to say something like that, but he didn’t. He sounded absolutely sure of himself.

The entire room erupted into arguments and exclamations, but Kiki didn’t care how anyone else was taking that announcement.

She turned and looked up at the man who had married her and claimed their child without hesitation. “You would do that for me?”

“
Sì.
T’amu.
I love you. That means your happiness is paramount.”

“Are you sure you are not using my daughter to justify abdicating responsibilities you do not want yourself?” her dad demanded.

Kiki wanted to kick him. Her mother’s furious admonishment was even better. Especially when she stepped away from her husband and moved to Mich’s other side.

The look on her dad’s face was worth admission. The expression on the king’s, not so much.

“You will apologize, Miguel,” Kiki’s mom demanded.

“It is a legitimate question,” the king said before her dad could decide whether to risk defying the love of his life.

Kiki giggled. Maybe it was hysterical laugher, but really? The whole situation was taking on farcical proportions. If it were not for the pained expression on her love’s face, she would have burst into real laughter.

“
Invece?
” Mich asked.

Unexpected exhaustion washed over her, but she grinned up at him tiredly. “Our dads are like two peas in a pod. It’s almost scary. Bet you want to kick yours, too.”

He didn’t share her amusement, his own expression turning concerned. “You look pale, Kiki. Are you all right?”

“Maybe a little tired.” She leaned heavily into him, suddenly not so steady on her feet.

“Take Kiki someplace where she can rest,” her mom instructed Mich.

“We are not finished with this discussion,” the king said.

“Can you not see the girl needs a break?” Mich’s grandfather admonished.

Mich had told her on the plane that the former king had abdicated in favor of his eldest son for the sake of his health several years ago.

“What do you call an ex-king?” Kiki wondered aloud, things going a little sparkly at the edges.

“Micheli!” Queen Therese barked at Kiki’s husband, sounding very different than the calm woman she’d been only moments before. “
Now.
”

“Excuse me—” King Claudio started, only to be interrupted by Amber Menendez.

“Excuse
me
, Your
Highness
, but my daughter is carrying your first grandchild, and she has had a very stressful few days between graduating university, telling the father of her baby about their coming joy and flying off to marry him on a Caribbean beach, and then being summarily summoned to a palace she didn’t even know was in her future this morning. You will save the rest of your questions, harangue and attitude for later.”

Oh, man, her mom could do icy disdain with the best of them.

Even her dad knew to back down when Mom got this angry. Apparently the King of Isole dei Re wasn’t a complete idiot either, because he kept his mouth shut.

Mich showed he knew when to take an order too, lifting Kiki into his arms and carrying her from the room.

His mother and Amber Menendez followed them, giving advice, expressing concern and watching over them all the way down the long corridors, up marble steps and down another plush hallway until Mich stopped outside a set of double doors.

The queen gracefully moved around him to open both doors into what turned out to be a luxurious suite done in masculine tones. Mich carried Kiki inside, crossing the outer room without pausing and going directly into the bedroom, where he laid her down after her mother pulled back the bedding.

Mich tucked Kiki in and then poured her a glass of water from the carafe by the bed. “Drink this,
invece.
”

Still feeling ridiculously light-headed, she didn’t argue and took several sips before resting against the pillows. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Stress. It can be debilitating in early pregnancy,” the queen said softly.

“Mama, you have to talk to him. I don’t care if he wants to yell at me, but he’ll treat Kiki with tender care, or I’ll take her away.”

Queen Therese nodded. “I will speak with him, but I’m confident
Signora
Menendez’s announcement will have already gone a long way toward bringing your father back from his anger and his confusion. He is only hurt, you understand? That you did not introduce us to the woman you love. He thinks you are ashamed of us.”

Mich snorted in disbelief. “Father is too arrogant to believe that.”

“You forget his love for his family is greater than even his arrogance.”

“He changed when he became king.”

“It was inevitable, but underneath he is the same man who taught you to swim, who took time from a schedule most would not to be a dad to his children as well as their royal father.”

Mich sighed and Kiki reached out to take his hand. “Be nice, he loves you.”

He stared down at her. “How can you say that?”

“Because he’s so much like my dad.”

“Your dad is a billionaire, not a king.”

“Same thing.” She winked up at Mich.

He shook his head. “You’re going to be trouble, Kiki Scorsolini.”

“You are just figuring this out?”

* * *

The following days were filled with frantic activity. A diplomatic reception that had been in the works for over six months was suddenly the venue by which the marriage would be announced. There was no more talk of Kiki’s
suitability
or ending her marriage before it had really begun.

It had been decided that the pregnancy would not be announced until Kiki had reached her second trimester. It was not an uncommon practice, so would hopefully minimize speculation on the reason for Kiki and Mich’s elopement.

King Claudio hadn’t warmed up exactly, but he’d stopped glaring at her like Public Enemy Number One. So, she took that as a win.

Kiki wasn’t worried. The man would come around. He just had to do it in his own time. Her own dad wasn’t exactly all sunshine and approval with Mich, though he was showing a bit more tolerance each day for the man who had dared to marry his daughter.

A lot more worrying was Giannetta Bellini, the daughter of one of Isole dei Re’s top diplomats. And apparently a very good friend of the family.

Also the woman who had expected to marry
Principe
Vittoro Micheli Scorsolini, if Kiki didn’t miss her guess.

The woman had already been helping Therese plan the reception and had managed to insert herself in the middle of its transformation to formal wedding announcement and reception. She’d dropped several oblique comments that implied she thought the wedding announcement premature, going so far as to suggest they keep the elopement under wraps completely until a traditional wedding could be planned.

Yeah, that was going to work. Events like that in their world? Took a minimum of a year to pull together; Kiki’s mom would have preferred two, she was sure. She dreaded her five-year anniversary. She just knew Amber Menendez was going to use it as an excuse to do a formal wedding with a renewal of vows.

Queen Therese had finally told Giannetta about Kiki’s pregnancy, no doubt to shut down the suggestions, and because the woman was such a trusted friend of the family.

Therese hadn’t seen the fury on the younger woman’s face when she heard the news. Kiki had, though. She’d told Mich about it, and he’d just laughed, telling her that she, Kiki, was the woman he’d married. If his own father didn’t get a vote, friends definitely didn’t.

* * *

Kiki wore a strapless vintage Alexander McQueen gown her mother had convinced the design house to pull out of their vault to the reception. Her finery didn’t stop there by any means, though. She wore a choker and ornate earrings set in platinum with stones to match her wedding rings, a bridal gift from her parents. The complementary ruby-and-diamond tiara, placed carefully amid her gold and brown curls swept up in an elegant pile, had been a gift from the king and queen.

“You look like a princess, even if you never expected to be one,” Mich said, his gaze hot with admiration.

She smiled up at him as they waited in the formal reception line for the first guests to be allowed into the cavernous ballroom. “Thank you. I like the prince togs, too. Who knew epaulets could be so sexy?”

He laughed, looking amazing in the formal suit of Isole dei Re royalty, identical to his father’s but for the subtle difference that proclaimed him prince and heir rather than king.

They had been greeting guests as they arrived for two hours when a tall man, who could give her husband a run for his money in the whole “too gorgeous for words” category, arrived.

Only this guy’s eyes? Were cold like January in upstate New York.

“Prince Vittoro, may I extend our most sincere congratulations on behalf of Volyarus and my family?” Hottie McHotterson said.

Mich introduced her, revealing the man was the Prince of Volyarus. Goose bumps chased up her arm when the imposing man bent over her hand.

The Volyarussian prince moved on and Kiki fanned herself. “Wow. Who was that guy?”

“I introduced you,” Mich said with some asperity.

“Yes, but he’s kind of intense, isn’t he?”

“He’s the perfect prince. My father only wishes I was as dutiful and committed to my country’s welfare.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. They never had dealt with the accusation the king had made in that first volatile meeting after the wedding.

“So, you were just in Palermo on vacation?” she asked after greeting another guest.

“No. I was on business, I told you.”

“For Isole dei Re.”

“We run many interests to support our island country’s economy.”

“Uh-huh. You took a long break after university before diving into the country’s business though, right? Traveled the world. Dated beautiful women. Played with the other young royals of the world.”

He did another introduction and then laughed drily. “Not a chance. I took over my current position a week after getting my MBA from Harvard.”

“I’d say you’re pretty darn dutiful and committed to the best interests of your country then.”

Mich didn’t reply, but he was smiling when she looked at him.