The Brides of Bella Rosa: Beauty and the Reclusive Prince. Rebecca Winters

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      “All right,” she said at last in a very small voice. “I’ll stay away. At least I’ll stay away until I can find a way to convince you—”

      “You’re not going to convince me. I’m changing this number, remember?”

      “But, Max…”

      He winced. Hearing his name in her voice sent a quiver through him, a sense of something edgy that he didn’t like at all. Given a little time, it would chip away at his resolve, bit by bit.

      “Goodbye, Isabella,” he said firmly.

      She sighed. “Goodbye.”

      Her voice had a plaintive quaver that touched his heart, but he hung up anyway. He had to. Another moment or two and he’d have been giving in to her, and that was something that couldn’t happen.

      This entire connection had to end. He couldn’t afford the time and emotional effort involved in maintaining a relationship, even on the phone. He had work to do.

      But returning to his research was hopeless at this point. Instead, he rose, grabbed his towel and headed for the fully equipped gym he’d had built into half of the whole ground level of the building. It was obvious he was going to have to fight harder to push Isabella Casali out of his system.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      ISABELLA fought back tears of frustration as she clicked off her phone connection to the palazzo.

      “There go any hopes of a career in negotiations,” she muttered to herself. “Turns out I’m not any better at that than I am at breaking and entering.”

      Hardly a surprise, but disappointing anyway. What now? Giving up wasn’t an option. One look at her half-empty restaurant told her that. She was going to have to find another way. But how? She’d promised him she wouldn’t go near the hillside or the river and she was going to keep that promise, much as it hurt.

      But there had to be a way to breach those high walls in a more effective manner. Someone in the village had to have dealings with the palazzo. It didn’t make sense that they would import everything from Rome. Slowly, carefully, she began to ask around. At first all she got were blank stares.

      And then, finally, she hit pay dirt of a sort. Much to her surprise, the man who delivered seafood to her restaurant every morning also made a stop at the Rossi palazzo once or twice a week.

      “Only on Tuesdays and Fridays,” he told her chattily, wiping his hands on his big white apron. “Wednesdays are out. It seems to be the day off for the staff, such as it is.”

      “Really?”

      “Oh, yes. I made the mistake of showing up on a Wednesday once. I couldn’t even get in the gate. I had two pounds of Chilean sea bass go bad over that little error.”

      “Do you ever see the prince?” she asked quickly, afraid he might escape before she got all she needed to know from him.

      “The prince?” He shrugged. “I don’t think so. I usually deal with an old fellow who tries to get something for nothing every time.” He chuckled. “The place is like a mausoleum. You’d think it was full of old dead ancestors, but somebody seems to have an appetite for salmon and scallops.”

      And so, a plan was born.

      The gap in the stone wall that surrounded the Rossi estate was still there. No one had filled it in—and that was lucky. Without this little piece of access, her plan would never have worked at all.

      And so the following Wednesday, Isabella squeezed through and then stood very still in the warm noon sun, listening as hard as she could. The wind was quiet. The water was a distant babbling. And once the pounding of her heart quieted down, she could tell—the guard dogs didn’t seem to be loose. There wasn’t a sign of them.

      She bit her lip, tempted to race up the hill and gather basil as fast as she could, then race back again. But she knew that was no solution. And such an action certainly held no honor. Much as the prince scared her, she had to confront him about this and do things openly and honestly.

      He’d told her not to come here. She had to change his mind—not steal from him. Taking a deep breath, she started up the hill toward the castle.

      It was a long climb and she was carrying a heavy backpack with supplies—her special sauce pan, her favorite olive oil, the tomatoes that would form her base—and a small container of all that was left of the basil supply for her restaurant. She was going to go for broke and cook for the prince. It was pretty much the last idea she had left.

      All the way, she kept expecting to hear someone shouting for her to go back. That didn’t happen and she found some shade once she’d reached the top of the hill. There were no cars in sight, and not a sign of life anywhere. The castle looked just as old and moldy, but a lot less intimidating in the sunlight.

      A few minutes of rest and she began to work up the nerve to go on with her plan. She knew where the cook’s entrance was. She would use that first, hoping to find things unlocked. Once she was inside, she knew exactly what to do next.

      She scanned the windows as high as she could look. There was no telling where his rooms were, no way to know where he hung out during the day.

      Her fingers trembled a bit as she reached for the latch on the kitchen door, and she paused for a moment. Closing her eyes, she muttered a quick plea. This had to work. He had to understand. He was a prince, but he was also a man and she was counting on that basic humanity to come through for her in the end.

      And whatever chance there was, she had to take it. She had no choice.

      Max stood with his eyes closed and savored being bombarded by water. He’d just had a grueling workout in his gym and the water pouring over his naked body was creating a special kind of ecstasy. Every aching muscle sang with relief. Every body part relaxed with delight. Every nerve, every fiber, came together in rapt happiness.

      He would have to pay for this someday. Maybe at the gates of heaven. This was pure self-indulgence and he was probably wasting water to boot, but he let it go on and on, gushing through his thick hair, making small silver rivers over his tanned shoulders and through the dark thatch on his chest. It felt so damn good. He was pure appetite today, appetite for pleasure.

      And what the hell? It was his birthday.

      It was his birthday and no one had remembered.

      That was okay. In fact, it was exactly as he wanted it to be. He hated people making a fuss. What was a birthday, anyway? Just a day. Nothing special. All the celebrating was just a pretence that something had actually happened, something had actually changed, a milestone had been set down. And actually, it was all much ado about nothing.

      A memory floated into his mind, how his birthday had been when Laura was still with him. She’d slipped out of bed early in the morning and taken little gifts and hidden them all over the castle. It had taken him the entire day to find them all. How she’d laughed when he’d looked in all the wrong places. He could almost hear her musical voice now.

      But he shook it away. Thinking of Laura was still too painful. Would there ever come a time when he could remember her without that dull, hopeless, agonizing pain of guilt in his gut?

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