Secret Prince's Christmas Seduction

She was happy to get up. Antonietta was more than a little bit fed up with Chi-Chi’s rather grating nature.

‘I need to get the linen ready to take up to the August Suite.’

Fetching the linen was one of Antonietta’s favourite tasks. Here at the Old Monastery the linen was tailor-made for each bed and was washed and line dried without a hint of bleach.

Antonietta breathed in the scent of fresh laundry as she walked in. Vera, who worked there, must be on her lunch, so Antonietta selected crisp linen and then walked across the stunning grounds.

A guest who had just arrived that morning had told her that it had been raining and grey in Rome when they’d left. Here, though, the sky was blue, and it was a little brisk and chilly, with cold nights.

The guard checked her ID and actually addressed her. ‘He will be back by two, so please make sure you are done and out by then.’

‘Certainly.’

Given that it took well over an hour to service the August Suite to standard, guests often went for a stroll, or down to the Oratory for a treatment, or to the restaurant while the maids worked. Usually she was relieved when the guests were out, but today she felt a stab of disappointment that she chose not to dwell on.

Of course she knocked before entering anyway, and when there was no answer she let herself in and stood for a moment, looking around. The place was a little chaotic, and she was wondering where to start when someone came in from the balcony.

Certainly she had not been expecting to see him.

‘Buongiorno,’ she said, and then immediately lost her tongue, for Rafe was dressed in black running shorts and nothing else.

‘Buongiorno.’ He returned the greeting, barely looking over. ‘I’ll be out of your way soon,’ he added.

Indeed, Rafe had fully intended to go for a run—his first since the accident. But now he glanced over and recognised the maid from the fog of his first morning here. ‘You’ve had some days off?’

‘No,’ Antonietta said. ‘I haven’t had any days off.’

‘So why did they send me Chi-Chi?’ he drawled, and rolled his eyes.

Antonietta almost smiled, but quickly recovered, because even if Chi-Chi drove her insane she would not discuss her colleague with a guest. Instead she answered as she headed into the bedroom. ‘I’ve been working in the Oratory.’

She paused for a second to let him speak, as she should any guest, but truly she wanted to flee, for her cheeks were on fire and she hoped that he had not noticed. He did not reply.

‘I hope you have a pleasant day,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’

Antonietta put down the list that she always worked from and immediately started stripping the vast walnut bed. She worked quickly, but the exertion was less out of necessity and more to match her heartbeat, which had tripped into a rapid rhythm at the sight of him semi-naked. And when he came into the bedroom to collect his trainers she had to force herself not to look—or rather not to stand there and simply gape.

‘You work in the Oratory?’ he checked. ‘So you are a therapist?’

His voice caught her unawares; for she had not expected the terse gentleman she had met a few days ago to initiate a conversation.

‘I’m training to be one,’ Antonietta said, and glanced up from the bed.

And then it ceased being a glance, for she met his eyes and the world and its problems seemed for a moment to disappear.

‘You look better,’ she commented, when usually she would not, but the words had just tumbled out.

‘I’m feeling a lot better,’ he agreed. ‘Although I still look as if I’ve been paint-bombed.’

She couldn’t help but smile, for indeed he did. Those bruises were a riot of colour now, from blue to brown right through to a vivid pink, and they were spread across the left side of his torso and down to his shoulder and arm, and there were savage lines across his shoulder. Rafe’s left eye looked as if he was wearing violet eyeshadow.

Yet he wore it well.

In fact, paint-bombed or not, Rafe looked stunning.

And as her eyes briefly travelled over his body, to take in his comment, she found that they wanted to linger on the long, yet muscular arms, and on his broad chest with just a smattering of black hair. More, she found that they lingered on his flat stomach. It was not bruised, so there was no real reason to look there. But Antonietta just found that she did, and a glimpse of that line of black hair had her already hot cheeks reddening as if scalded.

She wanted to ask, What happened to you?

Were those bruises from a fight? Or had he been in an accident? For once she wanted to know more, and yet it was not her place to ask.

‘I shan’t be long,’ Rafe said, though usually he did not explain himself to maids, or even particularly notice that they were near.

Crossing the room, he took a seat by the bed she was making and bent over to lace his trainers.

Antonietta did her best to ignore him and not to look at his powerful back and the stretch of his trapezius muscles as he leant forward. Never had her fingers ached to touch so. To reach out with her newly trained therapist’s fingers and relax the taut flesh beneath. Only she was self-aware enough to know that that kind of desire had precisely nothing to do with her line of work. He was so very male, and she was so very aware of that fact in a way she had never been until now.

Confused by this new feeling he aroused, Antonietta hurriedly looked away and resumed making the bed. But as she was fitting a sheet he must have caught the scent, and he made a comment.

‘The sheets smell of summer.’

Antonietta nodded as she tucked it in. ‘They smell of the Silibri sun. All the linen here is line-dried.’

‘What about when it rains?’

‘The stocks are plentiful—you have to make hay when the sun shines,’ Antonietta said. ‘Nico, the owner—’

‘I know Nico.’

Rafe’s interruption said a lot. Nico was prominent, and Rafe had not said I know of Nico, or I have heard of him. And then he elaborated more. ‘It was he who suggested that I come to Silibri to recover.’

That admission made her a little more open to revealing something of herself. ‘Aurora, his wife, is my best friend.’

‘You are chalk and cheese.’

‘Yes...’ Antonietta smiled. ‘I am drab in comparison.’

‘Drab?’

‘Sorry,’ she said, assuming he didn’t know that word. ‘I meant...’

‘I know what you meant—and, no, you are not.’

Rafe met a lot of people, and had an innate skill that enabled him to sum them up quickly and succinctly.

Yesterday’s maid: slovenly.