The Prince's Scandalous Baby by Holly Rayner Read Free Book Online

was, she wasn’t quite ready for that. Not after he’d come after her.
     
    She stopped in her tracks, though she still looked straight ahead of her, her fists clenching and unclenching at her side. She heard the sound of the car door opening, and closing again, and the sound of expensive shoes walking on cheap roadside gravel. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder.
     
    “Don’t touch me!” she cried, whirling around. And with the words and the emotion behind them, the same embarrassment rose up in her again.
     
    She was angrier than she should be, and she didn’t know why.
     
    Giancarlo removed his hand, but didn’t step back. He was standing so close to her, now. Nearly as close as they had been when they were laying down, staring at the stars the night before. They were almost touching.
     
    “I know you’re angry,” he said, his voice quiet, soothing.
     
    Juliette looked into his eyes for a moment before she had to avert her gaze. His eyes were still magnetic. If she looked any longer, she’d be lost again; lost again to the lying man.
     
    Instead, she swallowed hard, staring out at the ocean. She could hear the water, just as she had been able to last night.
     
    When it became clear that she wasn’t going to respond, he spoke again.
     
    “It’s a long walk back to the city, and it’s going to be a hot day. I’ve already upset you, and I’m sorry for that. Don’t let me make you have a miserable last day in Italy, too.”
     
    He hesitated, then, as though it were just occurring to him to question everything she’d told him. When he spoke again, she detected a little more pique in his voice.
     
    “If today even is your last day in Italy?”
     
    Juliette swallowed hard, again, and nodded, fighting back the tears that wanted to spring from her eyes.
     
    “OK,” he said, a tinge of sadness in his words. “I’m going to walk back to the palace. I’ll leave my car and driver here. I hope you’ll consider letting him drive you home.”
     
    He stepped back, and Juliette steeled herself before looking back up at his face. His gaze was shifting from one of her eyes to the other, as though he were searching for something there.
     
    “And,” he said, hesitantly, “if, before you leave, you can find it in you to forgive me, I’d very much like to see you again. I’ll be at the fountain tonight, waiting for you. I hope you will come.”
     
    She wanted to respond, but didn’t have the words. Instead, she looked down at the ground. She saw his expensive shoes walk away, and heard, again, the hateful crunch of the gravel.
     
    She stood there, without moving, listening to his departing footsteps and staring at the ground until she could no longer hear them over the sound of the waves. Finally, she looked up and saw him, some distance down the road. He wasn’t looking back. Not now. She couldn’t tell, in her own mind, if she wanted him to be.
     
    Now that he was far away, her mind began to calm a little. It was easier to breathe, and it was easier to think. She looked down the road, in the direction of the city, and felt the heat on her skin from the sun above. It was hotter, now, than when she’d first set out. Giancarlo was right; it was going to be a long, hot day, and a walk all the way back to the city would make it even more miserable.
     
    There was no harm in accepting his offer of a ride back, she finally decided. After all, he was the one who stranded her out there in the first place. So, she got into the limo, and told the driver where he could take her. The driver seemed surprised to hear her speak Italian, but respectfully complied.
     
    The city, when they reached it, felt like a very different thing, viewed from behind the tinted glass of the limo. It was so distant, somehow. She could see the people, but none of them could see her. She could see their envious, curious, or fearful glances at the car as it passed them. They had no way of knowing it was just her inside. They had