Vitale studied her with brutally male appreciation and a heat she was instantly aware of, his dark eyes scorching hot with the thought of possibilities, and something clenched low in her body, the stirring primal impulses of the same hunger.
‘I’ll leave you in peace,’ he began.
‘No,’ Jazz countered, reaching out her hand to close into his sleeve. ‘I’m not that tired.’
Vitale dealt her a sizzling smile that sent butterflies tumbling in her tummy and bent his head to kiss her, both his hands sinking into the torrent of her hair. Excitement leapt into her slender body like a lightning bolt and then just as suddenly the bedroom door burst noisily open. Vitale released her instantaneously and Jazz thrust herself up on her hands, her face flushed with annoyance and embarrassment as she focused on the woman who had stalked into their bedroom without so much as a warning knock. Even worse, a gaggle of goggle-eyed people were peering in from the corridor outside.
‘Close the door, Vitale,’ Jazz murmured flatly, staring at the enraged blonde, garbed in a stylish blue suit and pearls, standing mere feet away. ‘We don’t need an audience for this—’
‘Oh, I think we do, leave the door wide, Vitale,’ Queen Sofia cut in imperiously. ‘I’d like an audience to see your red-headed whore being thrown out of the palace.’
Vitale closed the door and swung round. ‘I will not tolerate so rude an intrusion, nor will I tolerate such abuse.’
‘You will tolerate whatever I ask you to tolerate because I am your Queen!’ the blonde proclaimed with freezing emphasis. ‘I want this creature gone. I don’t care how you do it but it must be done before the ball this evening.’
‘If my fiancée leaves, I will accompany her,’ Vitale parried.
‘You wouldn’t dare!’ his mother screeched at him, transforming from ice to instant fiery fury.
A woman with no volume control, Jazz registered, only just resisting the urge to physically cover her ears. The Queen shot something at Vitale in outraged Italian and the battle commenced, only, frustratingly, Jazz had no idea what was being said. Vitale’s mother seemed to be concentrating on trying to shout him down while Vitale himself spoke in a cool, clipped voice Jazz had never heard him employ before, his control absolute.
‘Jazz will be my partner at the ball this evening,’ Vitale declared in clarifying English. ‘Nothing you can say or do will change that.’
‘She’s a servant’s daughter... Oh, yes, I’ve found out all about you!’ Queen Sofia shot triumphantly at Jazz, her piercing pale blue eyes venomous.
Jazz slid off the bed and stood up, instantly feeling stronger.
‘You’re a nothing, a nobody, and I don’t know what my son’s doing with you because he should know his duty better than anyone.’
‘As you have often reminded me, my duty is to marry and produce a child,’ Vitale interposed curtly. ‘Jazz is the woman I have chosen.’
‘I will not accept her and therefore she has to go!’ The older woman cast the file she had tightly gripped in one hand down on the bed beside Jazz. ‘Have a look at the candidates I selected. You couldn’t compete with a single one of those women! You have no breeding and no education, none of the very special qualities required to match my son’s status.’
‘Get out,’ Vitale breathed with chilling bite, closing a firm hand to the older woman’s arm to lead her back to the door. ‘You have said what you came to say and I will not allow you to abuse Jazz.’
‘If you bring her to the ball, I will not acknowledge her!’ Queen Sofia threatened. ‘And I will make your lives hell!’
‘I imagine Vitale is quite used to you making his life hell,’ Jazz opined dulcetly, her head held high as the older woman stared at her in disbelief, much as though a piece of furniture had moved forward and dared to address her. ‘And as long as I have Vitale by my side, you will not intimidate me with your threats either.’
‘Are you going to let this interloper speak to your Queen like that?’ his mother raged.
In answer, Vitale strode forward and addressed his mother in an angry flood of English, a dark line of colour edging his hard cheekbones. The older woman tried to shout him down but Vitale slashed an authoritative silencing hand through the air and continued in the same splintering tone, ‘You will not call my fiancée vile names ever again. You will not force your way into my private quarters again either. I am an adult, not a child you can bully and disrespect. Other people may tolerate such behaviour from you but I no longer will. Be careful, Mother, very careful because your future plans could easily fall apart. Your insolence is intolerable and if it continues I will leave the palace and I will leave Lerovia,’ he completed harshly. ‘I will not live anywhere where my fiancée is viciously abused.’
The Queen was pale and seemed to have shrunk in size. She opened her mouth but then just as suddenly closed it again, visibly shattered by his threat to leave the country. As she left, Vitale shut the door firmly again.
For an instant there was complete silence. Jazz was shaken by his vigorous defence but still unconvinced by his decision not to tell the whole truth immediately.
‘You should have told your mother that the deed was already done and that you are married,’ Jazz told him unhappily. ‘Why wait to break that final bit of news when she’s already in such a snit?’
‘I have my own ways of dealing with my mother,’ Vitale countered curtly. ‘Don’t interfere and give her another excuse to attack you.’
‘There’s more than one way of skinning a rabbit!’ Jazz tossed back at him, determined to fight her corner as best she could. ‘Could you have my cases brought back in?’
Vitale froze, a winged ebony brow lifting. ‘Why would you want your cases?’
‘Because if your mother is free to walk into our bedroom any time she likes, I’m not staying,’ Jazz told him bluntly.
‘Dannazione...’ Vitale swore with clenched fists of frustration. ‘You heard what I told her.’
‘I just witnessed a grown woman throwing a tantrum and hurling outrageous insults with apparent impunity. Being royal, being a queen, does not excuse that kind of behaviour.’
Vitale ground his teeth together and raked long brown fingers through his cropped blue-black hair. ‘I agree,’ he conceded. ‘But I threatened to leave this country if she interferes again and that shocked her.’
‘Ask for my cases, Vitale,’ Jazz urged, refusing to listen. ‘We could have been in bed when your mother walked in and she wouldn’t have cared.’
In a provocative move, Vitale settled his broad shoulders back against the door and braced his long powerful legs. ‘You can’t leave. I won’t let you,’ he told her lethally.
‘If you can’t protect me in your own home, I’m leaving.’
‘Over my dead body,’ Vitale murmured, dark eyes glittering with challenge even as he stood his ground. ‘You will be protected. I will accept nothing less.’
In reality Jazz was more incensed by his stubborn refusal to take her advice. ‘I still think you need to tell the Queen now that we are married, I’m pregnant and that the marriage is only a temporary measure,’ she countered between stiff lips.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Vitale could feel his temper suddenly taking a dangerous and inexplicable leap forward again.
Jazz angled her head back, aware of the flare of angry gold brightening his forceful gaze but quite unafraid of it. ‘Well, of course I don’t... You don’t tell me anything. It’s all too personal and private for you to share, so you hoard all your secrets up like a miser with treasure!’ she condemned resentfully.
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Vitale shot back at her quellingly.
But Jazz was in no mood to be quelled. ‘You had no problems telling me that I would only be your wife until the twins are born, so I can’t understand why you would be so obstinate about sharing that same information with your mother! After all, she’ll undoubtedly be delighted to hear that I’m not here to stay.’
At
that unsought reminder of the terms he himself had laid down, Vitale’s lean, strong features set like a granite rock and the rage he was struggling to control surged even higher. ‘Now you are making a most inappropriate joke of our situation, which I intensely dislike.’
Jazz’s green eyes took on an emerald glow of rage at that icily angry assurance because if there was one thing that drove her mad, it was Vitale aiming that icy chill at her. She had been proud of him when he’d targeted his mother with that chill though. ‘Oh, do you indeed? I intensely dislike a stranger blundering into what is supposed to be the marital bedroom when we’re on the bed! She’s the kind of royal who gives me Republican sympathies! I will never ever forget that woman calling me a whore and I won’t forgive her for it either, no, not even if she apologises for it.’
‘The Queen does not do apologies. You are safe from that possibility,’ Vitale derided. ‘Now, you will calm down and have lunch, which is being prepared.’
‘You will not tell me to calm down!’ Jazz raged back at him. ‘I will shout if I feel like it.’
Place cards were carelessly swapped at the dining table to ensure that they sat with Angel and Merry and Jazz tucked into the first course with appetite, striving not to look in the direction of the Queen at the top of the exceedingly long table.
‘Why’s Zac not here?’ Jazz asked curiously. ‘I was hoping to meet him.’
‘He’ll be at the ball. He’s not a fan of formal dinners,’ Angel explained. ‘He hates restrictions of any kind.’
‘Very different from Vitale then... Interesting,’ Jazz mused, incredibly curious about the third brother and already conscious that although Vitale hadn’t actually admitted it, he didn’t seem to like his Brazilian sibling much.
An hour later, Jazz was busily identifying the women in the ball room from their photographs in Queen Sofia’s file, the ‘suitable wives’ file as she thought of it. And not a plain face or a redhead amongst the six candidates, all of them terrifyingly well-born, several titled, all possessed of the ability to speak more than one language, a high-flying education and a solid background of charitable good works. None of them would have required lessons on how to use cutlery or how to address an ambassador or curtsy to a reigning monarch. By the time she had finished perusing that damning file Jazz had felt horrendously inadequate. She had also felt ashamed that she had instinctively resented Vitale’s certainty that theirs could only be a temporary marriage.