Italian Groom, Princess Bride. Rebecca Winters

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      CHAPTER ONE

      “GUIDO?”

      The wiry head gardener of the palace grounds turned around. He’d just lowered a bag of peat moss onto the pile inside the nursery shed behind the greenhouse. When he saw who it was, he made a slight bow.

      “Buona sera, Principessa. I’m very sorry about your father.” Though he was civil to her, she’d always felt his reticence around her. Of late she’d sensed his antipathy.

      No matter how many times she’d asked him to call her Regina, he’d always called her Princess and insisted his sons did, too. The rigid, class-conscious father of three would maintain his distance to the grave.

      “Thank you, Guido. I am, too,” Regina murmured.

      No one could have had a more wonderful parent than the man who’d reigned over the European Principality of Castelmare since before she’d been born. Lung cancer had finally taken her father and although it had been a blessed release, Rudolfo Vittorio IV had died too young.

      Her mother was handling it exceptionally well, probably because his long suffering was over and she had a new three-month-old granddaughter to dote on. Regina’s older brother, Lucca, now king, and his wife, Alexandra, had each other and their darling Catarina. Everyone had someone. Now more than ever before Regina needed the one man she’d always loved, the man who’d been her closest friend and confidante from the age of ten.

      “What can I do for you?”

      “Is Dinozzo still on the grounds?”

      “No,” was all he said before he went out of the doors to pull another bag off the bed of his truck. She flinched because Guido’s behavior bordered on open hostility.

      Her watch said it was after 6:00 p.m. She’d planned to come this late so Dizo, her special nickname for him, would be through with any jobs his father had saved for him after leaving the university’s animal hospital. Filled with a fierce disappointment that she’d missed him, she followed Guido.

      “If you should talk to him tonight, will you please tell him I’d like a word with him in the morning about some plantings we discussed earlier?”

      He went back out to the truck to pick up another bag. “I would, but he left for Sardinia.”

      She almost doubled over in shock.

      Sardinia—

      Without any other explanation, Guido returned to the shed to deposit the bag.

      “W-when did he leave?” her voice faltered. She’d been counting on him being here so they could talk. In her loneliest hours she could always turn to him. He’d been there for her at every crossroad. When she’d been betrothed to Crown Prince Nicolas of Pedrosa at the age of twenty-one, she’d run to Dizo in turmoil. Somehow he had always made her feel better.

      “Early this morning.”

      Early meant even before the funeral. While Guido sounded exceptionally happy about it, pain seared her so deeply she couldn’t breathe.

      While she and her family had been burying their father and husband in the plot that held all the past Castelmare rulers of the House of Savoy, Dizo had just left without letting her know why? He hadn’t even watched the burial from a distance when he knew how much her father had respected Dizo for putting himself through college and medical school.

      “I see.” She fought to maintain her composure so Guido couldn’t take satisfaction in her devastation. Today was a national day of mourning in honor of her father. Now that Nic had become king and was pushing for her to marry him right away, this had turned out to be the blackest day of her life. “How soon do you expect him back?”

      “I don’t.”

      She swallowed hard. “Is someone ill?” The Fornese family had been born in Sardinia. They had extended family in Sassari. Dizo was particularly fond of his aging grandmother who lived with Guido’s brother.

      Dizo visited them when he could, but between his studies at the University of Castelmare and helping his father in his spare time, there weren’t as many visits anymore.

      Even so, Regina hated it whenever he had to be gone for a day or two at a time. She found herself counting the seconds until he returned.

      “No. He will be getting married soon.”

      That was a lie. Though Guido could have wished his eldest son had settled down with a wife years ago, it hadn’t happened. What he’d just said were the words of a wishful thinking father. If it were the truth, Dizo would have told her himself. Guido valued family over education, not wanting to admit his hardworking son could have both in time.

      Choose the battle you’re sure of, Regina’s father used to tell her. This was one she would let pass. “I had no idea. Thank you for the information, Guido.”

      “Prego, Principessa.” When he went back for the next bag, she realized she’d been dismissed.

      As she walked away in agony, she saw Dizo’s younger brothers returning in one of the other trucks. Out of desperation she waved them down.

      The vehicle slowed. Fonsi tipped his head out the window. “Princess? Is there something wrong?”