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PROLOGUE

THE dark-haired figure seated at the antique desk and illuold trirowing pile to his right, and reached for yet another folder, opening it with an impatient flick Dio, was there no end to these daenerate sofrom officers’ co to be signed and sealed—by him

Prince Rico gave a caustic twist of his well-shaped rateful the task seldom came his way But with his older brother, the Crown Prince, in Scandinavia, representing the House of Ceraldi at a royal wedding, the tenant—their father—had for once been obliged to turn to his younger son to carry out those deputised duties he was generally excluded from

Rico’s eyes darkened for a moment with an old bitterness Excluded fro of the principality—however tedious or trivial—yet his father still condemned him for the life he perforce led The twist in his er son’s well-earned reputation as the Playboy Prince, yet his exploits both in the world of expensive sports like powerboat racing, and on the glittering international social circuit—including the bedrooenerated invaluable publicity for San Lucenzo And, considering just howone of the world’s lamour was not small Not that either his father or older brother saw it that way To theht the attention of the paparazzi and the constant risk of scandal—both of which were anathe Prince of San Lucenzo and his upright heir

Not, Rico grudgingly allowed, as he scanned through the document in his hand, that they were not sohah how he could have been expected to know she was lying when she told hih was beyond him

Despite his instantly having dissociated himself from her the moment he’d discovered the unpalatable truth about the e had been done, and now his father had yet another coer son’s door

His older brother, Luca, had taken hi had Carina security-checked adequately before bedding her Better to exercise so women out of the box like so much candy

‘There’s safety in numbers,’ Rico had replied acerbically ‘While I play the field, no woman thinks she has the ticket on me Unlike you’ He’d cast a h Ceraldi cheekbones a line had been etched ‘You watch yourself, Luca,’ he’d told him ‘Christabel Pasoni has plans for you’

‘Christa’s perfectly content with the way things are,’ Luca had responded repressively ‘And she does not cause a scandal in the press’

‘That’s because her fond papa owns so much of it! Dio, Luca, can’t you damn well ask her to tell Papa to instruct his editors to lay off me?’

But Luca had been unsympathetic

‘They wouldn’t write about you if they had nothing to write Don’t you think it’s tirow up, Rico, and face your responsibilities?’

Rico’s expression had hardened

‘If I had any, I ht just do that,’ he’d shot back, and walked away

Well, he’d wanted responsibilities and now he’d got so documents because there was no one else available to do so, and atoning for having had a misplaced affair with a stilltechnically-married woman

Maybe if I sign every daets back I’ll have earned a royal pardon…

But his causticithout humour, and impatiently he scanned the docu to do with a petition froation to pay property tax on land on which a hospital had been built in the seventeenth century—a petition which, so the helpful handwritten note appended by his father’s equerry re ranted annually since 1647, requiring nothing more than the custonature, put down the quill, and reached for the sealing wax,the required dark scarlet blob below his na a fewon it the royal seal He was just replacing the seal when his phone went

Not the phone on the desk, but his ownslightly, he slid a long fingered hand inside his jacket pocket and flicked open the handset

‘Rico?’