His blue gaze went through her soul. How had he known the deepest longing of her heart? Prince Maximo d’Aquilla really was too good to be true.
But as happy tears streamed down her face unchecked, and she was trying to think of a way to express the depth of her gratitude and joy, his hand tightened on hers.
Turning to face the crowd of people in the salon, he spoke in English, his voice commanding and clear. “My dear friends, thank you for coming today. Allow me to introduce my bride. After twenty years, she has finally come home. Allow me to present…Lucia Ferrazzi.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LUCIA Ferrazzi?
Lucy nearly gasped aloud.
Ferrazzi—as in Ferrazzi handbags?
As in the company he was trying to gain through hostile takeover?
She looked at him, the man who just a moment ago had seemed too good to be true. And all her gratitude and joy evaporated like smoke.
“Lucia Ferrazzi!” The people in the salon, perhaps fifty or sixty in total, burst into excited rapid-fire speech in both English and Italian. “Lucia Ferrazzi!” A white-haired old woman in the corner suddenly burst into tears, crying above the din, “Bambina mia…”
And Lucy felt sick.
“I want to talk to you,” she ground out to Maximo. “Right now.”
“Later.” He gave a charming, gracious smile. “Greet your guests and friends. Some of them have waited for you for decades.”
“But I’m not—” she gasped as she was dragged from him and Chloe, pulled away by the tide of people rushing forward to embrace her. They had tears in their eyes as they cried out her name. But it wasn’t her name, Lucy Abbott, that they were crying with such wonder and amazement and shock. It was Lucia Ferrazzi. Miracolo, they repeated over and over.
As she was hugged by a crowd of excited strangers, Lucy glared across the salon at Maximo. Watching him smile and joke with the villagers’ children, he looked so handsome and wonderful that it made her heart ache. As if he had no idea of Lucy’s torment, he sat down calmly on the floor with Chloe in his lap and helped her open her first birthday present. He ripped the pink wrapping paper, pulling it down just enough so the baby could reach up and rip the rest.
Discovering a train set in the box, Chloe chortled happily. Maximo looked up at Lucy and smiled.
And she hated him. Fiercely. Savagely.
He’d almost made her believe. Against her will, he’d almost convinced her he was an honest man. When the truth was that he was an even bigger liar than Alex.
The prince was a cheat.
A fraud.
The white-haired old woman who’d sobbed in the crowd threw her arms around Lucy, nearly knocking her over with the impact of the embrace.
“Mia bambina,” the old woman gasped. “Che meravigliosa notizia!” Her eyes were rheumy with weeping. Lucy tried haplessly to separate herself as the woman continued to babble in Italian. Even if Lucy had spoken Italian, she didn’t think she would have understood a word as the woman gasped and sobbed through every syllable. The woman choked out a question. She looked at Lucy, her eyes begging for an answer.
Lucy shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Italian,” she said. “And I’m not who you think—”
“Annunziata was your nurse,” a voice said in English behind her. “Your bambinaia.”
Glancing back, Lucy saw a girl who couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. She was petite, slender and extremely pretty, with masses of dark hair and olive skin. The girl continued, “She is asking to know if you have had a happy life. She says after you disappeared as a baby, she prayed every night that you escaped the fire. And now she has seen a miracle. You are here.”
“What fire?” Lucy asked, wondering if the girl was another of Maximo’s mistresses. Trying not to wonder, because for some reason it made her hurt all over. “What are you talking about?”
The old woman chattered rapidly, embracing her. Then, as if her emotions were too much, she ran away, fleeing with a sob.
“Don’t you know?” The girl’s expressive blue eyes widened. “You’re famous here. When you were one year old, your father skidded his car off a cliff and it exploded in a fire. Your parents died at once, but you were never found. Everyone thought you were dead. Except for your grandfather.”
“Grandfather?” Lucy repeated, troubled.
“Sì.” The girl gave a brief half smile. “Although last month he finally petitioned the courts to have you declared dead. But I think that has more to do with him needing money than really believing you were…where are you going?”