Royal Scandals: The Royal Bastard Part 3

She nodded again and continued to breathe-just breathe-two counts in, two counts out. He tightened his arms around her and lifted so he bore more of her weight, which eased the pressure on her legs.

This was the Rocco she met all those years ago. The protective, loving Rocco she married. The man who didn't give a rip about her fame, her medal count, or her endors.e.m.e.nt deals. The man who smelled so d.a.m.ned amazing, despite having spent the day burying his mother and the night sprinting through the streets of Dubrovnik's Old City.

The man with so many secrets.

She exhaled in one long whoosh. If he'd brought this h.e.l.l upon her, she'd kill him.

Wind rustled the leaves of the lone tree in the convent's rear garden.

The stray cat nestled near its trunk stretched, yawned, then meandered to the middle of the garden. It sprang to the seat of a wooden bench and resettled, only to rise again when a discarded grocery bag blew into the fence. The cat glowered at the flapping plastic, then leapt from the bench, squeezed between the iron rails as far from the ensnared bag as possible, and disappeared into the city streets.

In front of Rocco, Justine's shoulders expanded and contracted with the measured rhythm of her breathing. He marveled that she'd held still for so long, especially given her injury. A lifetime of elite-level training had given her a mental toughness few possessed. Still, much as he wanted to wait another ten or fifteen minutes to be certain Radich and Karpovsky were gone, he suspected even Justine's stamina wasn't infinite.

With any luck, Radich had crawled into a small, dark hole to put an ice pack on his face and Karpovsky had gone with him.

"I'm going to look. If the coast is clear, I'll wave you out."

Rocco felt more than heard Justine mumble into his s.h.i.+rt. Taking it as a.s.sent, he released her upper body and eased away from her, then picked his way out of the bushes and crept along the gra.s.s to the fence. He saw no movement, heard nothing out of the ordinary. He leaned over the fence to ensure no one was on the street, then turned to signal for Justine only to discover she was already tiptoeing across the gra.s.s toward him. She moved awkwardly, one shoulder higher than the other, but her grimace of pain disappeared when she caught him studying her.

"Figured it was safer to make noise once instead of twice."

Since he hadn't heard her behind him, he wasn't about to tell her she should've stayed put.

Her gaze went to the gate. "Think we can unlock it from the inside instead of climbing?"

"Let's hope."

It took less than ten seconds to locate the latch and cautiously open the gate. After another check to ensure the area was empty, they stepped into the street, then turned in the direction opposite the one in which the men had gone. Keeping to the shadows, Rocco guided Justine toward the city walls while pulling his cell phone from his back pocket to call a taxi. "I'll have it meet us a few blocks outside the Old City. I hate to ask, but are you going to be able to make it that far?"

"Don't have a choice unless I plan to sleep here, and I don't."

An I'm sorry nearly popped out of his mouth before he thought better of it. Justine must have a million questions; apologizing to her before he could explain the night's events wouldn't serve either of them. Not that he could explain, even if he tried.

He got through to a taxi service and made arrangements for the pickup. When asked for his destination, he provided the address of a villa uphill from his own.

Justine said nothing. She remained silent for the rest of their walk through the Old City, then for the entirety of the ride. Only her eyes seemed to move, constantly checking the taxi's rearview mirror to see if anyone followed them. It wasn't until Rocco paid the driver and the vehicle's taillights disappeared that she turned to him.

He expected a demand to know the ident.i.ty of their pursuers, why the men attempted to kidnap her, or why Rocco had the cab drop them off a few houses away from his own. Instead, what came out of her mouth was a flip, "When you told me I was in danger, did you have the slightest inkling I'd spend my Tuesday night running through the Old City in my pjs?"

"It's technically Wednesday."

She crossed her arms over her chest and angled her face to the stars, as if silently pleading for help from the heavens. "I'm technically going to kill you if you don't give me a full explanation, beginning with" -her look turned direct and venomous- "what...the...h.e.l.l?"

"I'd love to, but I can't." Before she could make good on her promise, he held up a hand. "Not entirely. And doing so while standing in front of my neighbor's house at this hour isn't exactly wise."

"G.o.d forbid we do anything unwise tonight."

He'd earned that, he supposed. Calmly, he said, "Before we talk, I want to check out the villa to make sure it's secure and pick up a few things. Then we're both getting out of here to someplace safe."

"How about we get to the police?"

"We will." Eventually. Once he figured out what in the world he'd tell them...and how he'd answer their inevitable questions without blowing his entire life-and those of his siblings-to shreds.

"Now?"

"Soon."

"Of course. Soon. We've been shot at, chased, beaten-you're still bleeding, for Pete's sake-but hey, let's go to the villa first." Despite her anger, she kept her voice down. "I could give you a thousand other arguments, but since I'm in moccasins, sweats, and a nightgown with no money and no phone, I don't suppose I'd win any of them." She swooped a hand in the direction of his villa. "Let's go."

He wasn't going to give her a chance to reconsider. He strode through a stand of trees to approach his villa from the rear, keeping his pace slow for Justine's sake. Behind him, she continued to mutter. Finally, he swung around and asked, "What are you mumbling about?"

"I said, 'good thing I still have on my bra. Too bad it wasn't made by Nike.'"

He turned back toward the villa, refusing to rise to the bait. She had every right to be angry. She was hurt and tired and had no idea what was happening. But he was angry, too.

A man shouldn't have to bury his mother, deal with his biological father's spouse, and defend his estranged wife from gunfire all in a twenty-four hour period. And-he pressed a hand to his temple and realized that Justine was right, he was still bleeding-he shouldn't have to pound his fists into another man's face.

The stone wall surrounding his property materialized in front of them. He stopped and used his cell phone to access his surveillance system. All was in order. Nevertheless, he approached the rear gate with his senses on alert and gave the back yard a thorough scan before disengaging the locks and going in.

"You think they might come here?" Justine's question was barely audible as she slipped through the gate behind him.

"It's not out of the question." He led her through the back door, then up the wide staircase to the master bedroom without turning on the lights. They both knew the villa well enough to move through it in the dark. The bedroom, in particular.

"There's aspirin and ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet."

She ignored his offer, tracking his movements instead. "You're packing a bag."

"I told you, we're going to go somewhere safe. Then we both need to sleep." He could feel her argument coming and cut it off. "We can't deal with the police when we're this tired. Chances are your neighbors called when they heard gunfire and the police are already on it."

"In that case, chances are I could go back to my apartment and sleep in my own bed."

"Justine." Two simple syllables carried the weight of his fatigue, both physical and mental.

She slumped into the chair in the corner. It wasn't like her to give up during an argument, which solidified his decision to prioritize sleep. They were both exhausted and on edge. He strode to the bathroom to grab his shaving kit, then rummaged in a drawer to find a toiletry pack he'd received a few weeks earlier on a flight. It didn't have makeup, but it'd provide Justine with the basics. He threw in the aspirin and ibuprofen along with antibiotic ointment and a few bandages before returning to the bedroom.

Justine's eyes were closed. Long wisps of hair had fallen across her face. Before he could reach out to wake her, she asked, "Where are we going?"

"I'm thinking."

"Think faster."

"Follow me."

Sliding one backpack strap over his shoulder, he went to the study and accessed its hidden safe. He couldn't risk having anyone-the police or the Russians-go through his private materials. After stuffing the papers and memory stick in his backpack and adding his laptop computer, he remembered the cornflower blue box Queen Fabrizia had left behind. If anyone entered the study, he didn't want them to find it and question its origin. He withdrew it from his desk drawer without looking inside and added it to the backpack.

"Ready?"

She nodded, though he could see she was fighting to stay on her feet. With a glance out the window to ensure all remained quiet, Rocco turned and took the stairs down to the garage. Bypa.s.sing the cars, which he a.s.sumed Karpovsky and Radich could identify, he grabbed the old Vespa his sister Lina had asked him to store. Justine didn't argue as he slipped the backpack onto her shoulders and urged her to climb on behind him. After checking the gas gauge, he eased it out of the garage and took an indirect route to the marina, where he parked the Vespa behind a row of trash cans.

"I'm not spending the night on your yacht."

"Too dangerous," he agreed. "We're going to my stepfather's boat instead."

"That's not what I meant." She paused. "Wait...I didn't know Jack had a boat."

"My mother planned to sell it after he pa.s.sed away." Of course, she'd never gotten around to it. "Kos has arranged for maintenance, so it should be in good shape."

"Rocco-"

"It's a place to sleep. We'll deal with the rest tomorrow."

She stared at him, indecision clouding her light blue eyes before she slung the backpack at his chest. "First thing in the morning, I'm going to the cops."

Chapter Five.

Rocco Cornaro was a momma's boy.

Justine hadn't known that when she met him, of course. One didn't discover such character traits during early evening conversation at a ski bar in the storybook setting of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Or even the next day, after being tossed out of the same bar at closing time, talking for yet another hour beside the fire in her hotel lobby, then experiencing mind-blowing s.e.x with a sensual, attractive, well-built man whose world view and manner of speaking made it clear he was no ordinary ski b.u.m. A man who, unlike the other men who'd pursued her, wasn't the least bit interested in managing her career or stealing a piece of her spotlight. Rocco was well-traveled, confident, astute, and possessed an inner calm that most men she knew lacked. Likely because he was eight years her senior, an age gap that suited her just fine.

In Rocco, she finally found a man who valued a woman with a strong sense of self. A woman who pursued her Olympic and World Cup goals with as much pa.s.sion as he pursued his scientific ones, who understood his desire to make his mark on the world. A woman with whom he shared off-the-charts s.e.xual chemistry. A woman who found his design work interesting rather than dull, and who didn't ask a lot of questions about his family.

Of course, that was the point upon which their relations.h.i.+p eventually splintered.

They married in Aspen between World Cup events a few short months after that first meeting. Only Justine's parents, Rocco's mother, and Rocco's siblings Enzo and Lina had attended. The Cornaros flew home after the simple mountainside ceremony. Justine's parents gifted the newlyweds a bottle of expensive champagne and the key to a ritzy hotel suite, then left with an abundance of happy tears and hugs.

Rocco and Justine proceeded to get plowed, laugh their heads off over the fact their wedding was the least-planned event in either of their highly-scheduled lives, and make slow, pa.s.sionate love for the next two days, until Justine had to leave for an event in Gren.o.ble and Rocco flew to Boston for a meeting with a venture capital group interested in funding his work.

Over the next three years, they spent enough time apart to miss each other madly-Justine training and competing on the World Cup circuit, Rocco busy in various research labs or traveling to medical conferences-and enough time together in hotels around the world to fall more deeply in love without having to adjust to each other's inevitable faults.

It wasn't until she and Rocco decided to establish a home base in Croatia, where his mother had settled after Jack Cornaro retired and Rocco had recently purchased a villa and rented lab s.p.a.ce, that the faults became apparent.

Teresa Cornaro had an inexplicable hold over her eldest child. And Rocco could not-or would not-explain why. At first, Justine attributed Teresa's odd, possessive behavior toward Rocco to the fact she'd lost her husband shortly before Rocco and Justine married. But then there were the hushed conversations when mother and son were together. The suspicious manner in which Teresa studied Justine when she thought Justine wasn't looking. Teresa's insistence that Rocco skip the most high profile of Justine's races, stating that it would keep the limelight on Justine's skiing rather than her personal life.

Justine could've understood the sentiment if it'd come from Rocco. Coming from Teresa, the edict pushed Justine's weirdness b.u.t.tons.

Then there was Teresa's pointed suggestion that Justine keep her condo in Tahoe when Justine had offhandedly mentioned putting it on the market. Only after Justine explained that there was no point now that she and Rocco were married did Teresa explain with overplayed sincerity that she thought it'd be a smart long-term investment.

When Teresa's liver disease became evident to Rocco, he moved his mother into the villa without telling Justine in a case of take-action-first, apologize later. Though Justine felt a deep sense of betrayal-after all, she'd left the tour only two weeks earlier to convalesce from her skiing injury-she let Rocco's actions slide, knowing the situation would be temporary. Teresa was dying; there was no denying it, only delaying it, and it made Rocco feel as if he had a sliver of control over the situation. And at that point, Justine had convinced herself that she'd be skiing again in no time, doctors and prognosis be d.a.m.ned.

But one late spring afternoon-the first following her accident where she felt healed enough to venture out alone on foot- she walked into the villa with an armload of groceries and paused on the way to the kitchen when she spotted Teresa and Rocco standing in front of an Italian entertainment news broadcast. A photo of Sarcaccia's Prince Stefano flashed on the screen. Whatever the announcer was saying, both Rocco and Teresa appeared riveted. In a good mood from her excursion and curious about the show, given that neither Rocco nor Teresa cared a whit for celebrity gossip, Justine entered the room behind them. Justine had barely translated the wording at the bottom of the screen-secret love child-only to have Teresa snap off the television. Neither Teresa nor Rocco would answer Justine's question about what they'd been watching.

It should've been a little thing-an offhanded thing-but the intensity of their expressions told a different story. Justine changed the subject by asking about Teresa's visit to the doctor the next day. Later that night, when she privately asked Rocco what had been on television and he gruffly told her to drop it, her patience ran out. She demanded that he tell her what they'd been watching. Why a freaking gossip show about foreign royalty was secret. Why everything about his mother was such a big secret.

He refused. She left.

He asked her to return once, a few days later when he showed up at her hotel room with a bottle of wine and dinner. He told her he missed her. They made love. Romantic, pa.s.sionate love. But he didn't apologize. He said it was a private concern of his mother's and that he wouldn't betray her confidence.

Justine told him she missed him, too. She meant it with her whole heart. But she wouldn't move back to the villa. Not even when she was told during a follow-up appointment for her leg injury that her career was over. She'd wanted Rocco's comfort desperately that night, but she refused to let Teresa see her laid low. She refused to allow Rocco to console her knowing he'd never ask the same of her.

She found a short-term rental not far from the rehab center and moved in.

They'd been at an impa.s.se for nearly a year now, neither of them wanting to let the other go...but neither of them able to move forward. While Justine hadn't hoped for Teresa's death, deep down she'd known that she needed to wait for it before making any decisions about her marriage or returning to the States.

Until a need to make a decision dropped into her lap in the form of a job interview. That's when she realized-Teresa or no Teresa-she needed to move on. If Rocco couldn't be honest with Justine about his mother-because as much as he swore it was his mother's issue, Justine knew it was Rocco's, too-what other secrets did he hold? Did he truly love her?

A low groan near Justine's ear woke her. She blinked, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. A firm body curved behind hers, generating heat under the covers. A light rocking motion indicating she was on a boat. Memories of the previous night clicked into place. Shots. A menacing man in her bedroom, his cold, flat eyes staring her down. Fleeing through the streets. The ache in her left leg. The suit she'd left behind in her apartment.

She flipped back the coverlet and flailed for a clock, even though she knew it was too late. The sun shone too brightly against the shaded portholes of the boat's lone room for her to have a chance of making the meeting.

"It's nine-thirty." The grit of sleep laced Rocco's voice. He'd dozed beside her in the boat's narrow bed, his arm draped over her hip as he'd done when they'd slept under the same roof.

She'd been too tired to object to the fact there was only one berth on board, having used the last of her energy to convince him to let her clean his head wound after they'd boarded. Her ministrations revealed a deep gouge where the driver caught Rocco with the metal band of his watch during their scuffle...at least, that was Rocco's drowsy guess as to what happened. He also speculated that it could've occurred when he tackled the guy.

He'd drifted off as she'd dabbed at the dried blood with a wet paper towel. She'd tucked the pillow under his head, studied the wound to be sure the bleeding stopped, and remembered nothing after that.

She plucked the blood-tinged paper towel from the tiny night table. Apparently she'd fallen asleep before she could throw it away. Before she could find a clock and set an alarm.

"Mind if I use your phone?"

"Gotta plug it in first. It's out of juice." Using his elbows, he pushed to sit and watch her. Hair over his left ear was spiked sideways and pillow lines crisscrossed that side his face. The phone showed a minimal charge and only a weak signal. "You calling the police?"

"I have an appointment this morning. I need to cancel."

"You can't tell them why."

At her side-eyed glare, he corrected himself. "Please don't tell them why. At least until I have a better handle on what happened last night."

"I wasn't going to. I prefer to talk to the police before I tell anyone else."

Before Rocco could say more, Justine's call went through. She left an apologetic message with the administrative a.s.sistant who'd arranged the job interview, explaining that she'd been unavoidably detained due to a family emergency. After she promised it was a short-term issue and expressed sincere regret, she ended the call.

"That sounded important." Rocco swiped a hand over his bearded chin and swung his legs over the side of the bed. To her surprise, Justine saw they were bare. He'd kicked off his shoes and discarded his bloodied dress s.h.i.+rt when they'd arrived on board, but had fallen asleep in his slacks. He must've awakened at some point during the night.

Now that she thought about it, he must've covered her while he was at it. She didn't remember burrowing under the coverlet.

"I'll reschedule." If she could. Given that the team conducting the interview stopped in Croatia specifically to meet with her while on their way back to New York from an a.s.signment in Greece, she'd have to arrange a trip to the States. a.s.suming they'd give her a second chance.

Rumbles from Rocco's stomach were audible as he rummaged through his backpack and withdrew a pair of jeans and a heather blue T-s.h.i.+rt for himself, then handed her an airline toiletry kit. She flashed back to the noise she'd heard from his stomach while they'd been hiding in the garden. "You didn't eat yesterday, did you?"

"Had an apple last night."