The Royal Marriage Arrangement

“Your manager has to eat lunch sometime today. Since he’s on the premises, I can’t believe he wouldn’t take out a moment to see me.”

“I’m sorry.” The jeweler was implacable.

“What kind of a man are you?” she cried out in torment. “You can at least call him on the phone. Tell him who I am. Inform him this is a matter of life and death!” Without hesitation she grabbed the phone on his desk and held the receiver in front of him.

Maybe it was the fact that her five-foot-nine height gave her the advantage over him, or possibly it was the narrowing of her eyelids with their slightly tilted shape. Whatever the explanation, he finally took the receiver from her, but then hung it up.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw his hand move to press a button on his console. He was probably summoning security. So be it. Alex had come to New York on a mission.

Alex’s mother had once accused her of being incredibly stubborn like her father. She’d been born Alexandra Carlisle Grigory. The one picture she had of her father showed him to be a tall man who’d died when Alex was just nine months old. Like her mother’s death, the police still hadn’t determined if his was accidental or staged to look like one.

The few people who knew she was Kathryn Carlisle’s only offspring remarked that she must have inherited her father’s genes. Michelle had once told her, “Your father gave you great bones, and your eyes are exactly the same gray as Greta Garbo’s—you could be her double!” Nevertheless, Alex and her mother had been as different as apples and bananas.

Kathryn had been of medium height, and curvy. On or off the set, the platinum-blond bombshell had been the ultimate drama queen.

Alex on the other hand had unruly dark blond hair with nothing remarkable about her looks, even though Manny, like Michelle, had also insisted there was a similarity between her and Garbo. Alex had laughed off both their comments. They might think she looked like a film star, but Alex preferred to work behind the scenes where she transformed other people who acted in front of the camera.

Selfishly neglected by her mother and tragically deprived of the father she never knew, Alex had learned to function on her own from an early age. She had no extended family, but did have a few close friends that she could rely on. However, no one understood the extent of her grief, or her shame….

The pitiful legacy from both her parents had left a burning stain on Alex’s soul. Now the questions surrounding her mother’s death had left new scars on Alex, whose conception, according to her mother, had been a mistake from the beginning.

Kathryn Carlisle had been a film-star idol. She had been like a brilliant comet who had swept in and out of her daughter’s existence once every millennium for only brief moments without an atom of motherly love. Alex had been raised by a trail of nannies from the age of three weeks old, and there’d been no anchor in her life except for Betty, the nanny who had taken a liking to her and who had introduced her to Michelle, head of the makeup department at one of the film studios.

When Alex had been set adrift physically and financially by her mother when she turned eighteen, Betty had been instrumental in getting her her first job in the makeup department. Alex had started off just helping out at first, but then over the years she had continued to work there while she attended college and after.

Michelle had said she was a fast learner with a natural talent. In time she paid a salary that allowed Alex to get a modest apartment and take care of herself. After her apprenticeship, Michelle had asked Alex to stay on. Lately she had hinted that she planned to give Alex more responsibility and a raise.

Alex was grateful, of course, and she’d never want to hurt Michelle’s feelings, but she’d always had a dream of doing something else. Tragically it seemed out of reach now that she was saddled with her mother’s debts and needed to find a fast way to pay for them.

Surely Mr. Defore had made a mistake, or the bank hadn’t realized there were two jewel cases in the vault. One way or another Alex would straighten things out. It would be too excruciatingly painful to go home without the money.

She simply couldn’t do it.

* * *

While the thirty-four-year-old crown prince of Castelmare sat in the security room of the House of Savoy chatting quietly with Carlo, one of his bodyguards, other local security guards manned the monitors of the twenty-four-hour surveillance cameras. They’d been strategically placed around the store to watch for anything out of the ordinary.

This stop in New York represented the last leg of a long trip that had taken Lucca around the world on business for his country. Unfortunately, he had no more excuses to stay away from Castelmare. The dreaded reunion with his parents was coming and inevitable. When he returned home this time, there’d be no escape from certain matters that would change his life forever.

Suddenly his attention was caught by the American woman he could see in the monitor. She was obviously upset, and he found himself listening intently. It seemed there was a situation developing in Defore’s office.

Lucca’s ears picked up the word Grigory, a name associated with the old Russian aristocracy. Curious, he turned to one of the computers and logged into several Web sites including the store’s archives.

When he found what he wanted to know, he moved closer to the monitor with its black-and-white screen. That’s when he heard another exchange that gave him pause. The woman battling with the head jeweler was Kathryn Carlisle’s daughter?

He was stunned because he didn’t know the Hollywood film idol even had children—he could see no physical resemblance.

Like all hot-blooded Italian males, Lucca appreciated a beautiful woman. He’d seen one of the star’s films several years ago during a flight to Asia. The tempestuous actress, whose life had come to a tragic end like all too many American A-list celebrities, did have exceptional looks with her come-hither blue eyes and champagne-blond hair. Yet it appeared the only thing she’d passed on to her offspring was her legendary, impossible temperament. Like mother, like daughter.

Defore didn’t make mistakes. For that exact reason Lucca had appointed him to be head jeweler three years ago. Naturally he couldn’t help but be fascinated by the woman’s refusal to take Defore at his word. Evidently she was as spoiled as her mother and even more naive.

How could her daughter not have known the troubled star with her uncontrollable hunger for money would have run through her own finances a long time ago and had hocked her jewels as a last resort?

When the security alarm sounded, one of the guards said he’d take care of the problem and started for the door, but Lucca moved his six-foot-three frame out of the chair and reached it ahead of him.

“I’ll deal with it.” As he left the room with Carlo, he nodded to his other bodyguard standing outside the door. The three of them walked down the hall to Defore’s office.

“Wait for me and don’t let anyone else in,” he told them both before opening the door. Once inside, he told the wide-eyed secretary she could take a long lunch, then he entered Defore’s office.

The jeweler took one look at Lucca and was so shocked to see him rather than one of the security guards, he was struck dumb. Lucca had never had reason to interfere with Defore while he was working with a client, but then, he’d never been this intrigued before.

“I’ll take over,” he murmured, freeing a worried-looking Defore so he could leave. Lucca gave a barely perceptible shake of his head, warning the jeweler not to give him away.

“Yes, yes. Of course.”

Lucca shut the door behind him before turning to face the flushed woman whose tall, willowy figure hadn’t been noticeable from watching the screen. “Signorina Grigory?” He extended his hand.

After a slight hesitation she held on in a firm grip before releasing it. “I’m embarrassed Mr. Defore had to call in security, but all I wanted was to speak to Mr. Hudson for a minute,” sounded a tearful voice she didn’t try to hide.

He in turn didn’t bother to correct her faulty assumption that he was part of the security team. In fact, he was glad of it, since it didn’t happen very often that he wasn’t recognized. The photos and lies perpetuated in the tabloids about Castelmare’s playboy prince made anonymity virtually impossible no matter the continent where he traveled to do business for the crown.

Right now he was fascinated by her slightly windblown, dark blond hair and her lack of self-awareness. To his surprise there was nothing fake about her. Somehow he hadn’t expected Kathryn Carlisle’s daughter to be her total opposite in every way.

She was dressed in a draped, smoky-blue blouse tucked into pleated beige pants, putting him in mind of a 1940s style. Only a woman of grace with long elegant legs, soft curves and square shoulders could get away with it.

This close he could see shadows beneath her pewter-gray eyes with their sweeping dark lashes. Lines caused by suffering bracketed her wide, voluptuous mouth, one of the few physical traits she’d inherited from her infamous mother.

The other familiar trait was less definable. She had a certain breathlessness bequeathed to her by her mother who’d exhibited that same quality on the screen. In person it created an air of urgency Lucca found exceptionally distracting.

“You said this was a matter of life and death?”

She tossed her head back nervously. “Yes,” she blurted, “b-but I didn’t realize our whole conversation had been captured on camera,” she stammered. “Evidently you heard every word of it.”

He shrugged. “A necessary precaution in this business.” She eventually nodded. “Why don’t we both sit down.”

“Thank you.” She returned to the chair opposite the desk. “I didn’t mean to take you away from your duties when you have the responsibility of helping keep an eye on the Ligurian diamond display.”

Lucca hadn’t expected her to be this polite. Now that she was in control he found her low, husky voice incredibly attractive.

“It’s under heavy guard. I’m not worried.” He noticed she was still torturing the bracelet in her hand. “May I see it, please? Everyone hired by the House of Savoy is trained to recognize a mined diamond from a fake.” Which was true.

As she handed it to him, their fingers brushed. Strange that he would be so aware of her he could still feel the sensation while he examined the stones beneath the loupe.

After a moment he said, “I’m afraid Mr. Defore was right. This bracelet is pure imitation. Dare I say not even a good one?”

The second he saw her face lose color, he moved to the corner of the room where he switched off the camera and the audio so they would have complete privacy.

“But my fath—”