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Give it up. A memory came of Lola’s tart voice. He’s never coming back, Tess.
Tess stopped. As streams of people passed by her stroller on both sides of the sidewalk, she savagely wiped tears off her cheeks. She’d planned to take the subway back to Brooklyn with her baby rather than ask Hallie for a ride and risk crying in front of her. Her friends always teased her about being too cheerful and optimistic. She couldn’t let them know how she really felt inside.
But that was wrong. Hallie was her friend, and Tess had left without so much as a farewell. Taking a deep breath, she tried to smooth her face into a smile. She’d go back inside now and congratulate Hallie. And if she asked why Tess was crying—
As Tess started to turn, she walked into a wall.
Not a wall. A man.
For a second, she saw stars from the blunt force of hitting her head against his chest. Dizzy, she shook her head, mortified.
“I’m so sorry,” she blurted out. “It was my fault—”
Then she saw him.
For a second, Tess couldn’t breathe. Her heart pounded in her throat as she tilted her head back to stare at the man’s handsome face, his sharp cheekbones and jawline shadowed by the lights of the hotel’s grand porte cochere.
Tall and dark-haired, the man wore a sleek black jacket that emphasized his broad shoulders, and trousers that fit snugly over powerful thighs. His tailored shirt was open a single button at the neck.
He wasn’t strictly handsome, perhaps. His aquiline profile was a bit too arrogant, the set of his square jaw too thuggish. But he gave the impression of intense masculine beauty. His face was arresting, his body powerful, giving him the look of a dark angel.
The man’s eyes widened, the irises so dark as to be almost black against his olive-colored skin.
Tess’s lips parted.
“Stefano?” she whispered, gripping the handle of the stroller for balance. “Is it really you?”
She knew those dark eyes. That handsome face. Those cruel, sensual lips. She knew every bit of him. She’d dreamed of him, day and night, for over a year.
“Tess,” he murmured.
His low, husky voice caressed the short syllable of her name. So he was real, then. He was real.
“You came back for me,” she whispered. Joy rose inside her, brighter than all the lights of Broadway and Times Square put together. “You came back!”
His jaw tightened. He looked down at her from his lofty height, his broad shoulders towering over her. “What do you want?”
What did she want? She wanted to throw her arms around him, to cry out her happiness to all the world. After a difficult year, with everyone mocking her, this proved that happy endings still happened as long as your heart was true and you had faith. She’d been right!
But, as Tess moved to throw her arms around him, Stefano stepped back from her.
Something was wrong. She bit her lip, bewildered. “I am so happy to see you. Did you just get back?”
“Get back?”
“To New York.” When he didn’t answer, she continued with a blush, “Our night together, you said that you had to return to Europe but you’d be back soon—”
“Oh. Yes.” His chiseled face was dark with shadow beneath his hard cheekbones as the lights of passing traffic moved past them on the avenue. “I’ve been in New York often this summer. And now for Fashion Week, of course.”
“You’ve been here all this time?” A chill went through her as her joy withered inside her. She whispered, “And you didn’t want to see me?”
Stefano frowned. His voice was a low baritone. “I liked you very much, Tess. It was an amazing night. But…”
“But?” she croaked.
Coming closer, he looked down at her, his dark eyes glittering. “But it was just a night.”
To him it had just been a one-night stand, nothing more? One night, easily enjoyed and easily forgotten?
Tess’s cheeks went hot as she remembered telling him in bed, in the hushed quiet before dawn with their naked bodies still intertwined, “I’m already falling in love with you.”
In her innocence, Tess had meant every word. She’d been intoxicated by sensual pleasure she’d never imagined. In just twelve hours, he’d given her the most intense happiness of her life, more emotion and joy and beauty than she’d known for twelve years before. If that wasn’t love, what was?
Now, looking at his coldly handsome face, Tess realized that her honesty had been a fatal mistake. Because when she woke the next morning, he’d been gone.
“Your Highness!” A young girl caught up behind him on the sidewalk. She was obviously a model—tall, slender, dark-haired and incredibly beautiful in a white dress that set off her dark skin. She held out a small notebook to Stefano. “You forgot this.”
“Thanks, Kebe,” he said gruffly.
She tossed her dark curls. “See you in Paris.”
She left in a perfect catwalk stride.
“Who was that?” Tess whispered.
“A friend,” he said. His dark eyes flicked briefly to the sleeping baby in the stroller behind her. “Well. It was nice to see you again.” His expression was cool. Courteous. Distant. “Goodbye.”
Pain and shock spread through Tess’s body, making her knees shake.
He hadn’t been looking for her.
At all.
He’d rejected her long ago. She just hadn’t known it till now. Stinging tears filled her eyes.
All this time she’d dreamed of him as a romantic hero who was desperate to return to her. The truth was that Stefano simply hadn’t wanted to see her again.
Over the last year, as Tess had dropped out of college to work full-time at her uncle’s bakery, struggling to provide and care for their baby, Stefano had been traveling the world, enjoying himself. In fact, it seemed he’d just been out on a date with a beautiful girl who looked barely eighteen. Whom he’d promised to see again in Paris.
Stricken, she looked at him with tears in her eyes.
Stefano’s expression hardened. “Tess, it was for the best.”
Wordlessly shaking her head, she backed away. For so long, she’d held out hope, imagining one perfect love brought by destiny, by fate. She’d remained faithful to Stefano’s memory, dreaming of the day her handsome prince would return on a white horse to whisk her and the baby to his castle.
But Stefano was no prince.
Her friends and family had been right.
Tess gripped the stroller for support as anguish and exhaustion punched through her.
They’d been right.
“Come now. Don’t act like your heart’s broken,” he said sharply. “How long did it take you to get over me? A few days?”
“How can you say that?” she whispered.
He looked pointedly at the baby in the stroller. “She’s yours, isn’t she?”
Yes. And yours. The words rose inside her, but got caught in her throat.
“And what about her father?” he demanded. “How would he feel if he knew you were here now, talking to me?”
“You tell me.”
“How would I know?” Reaching out, he cupped her cheek. For a moment, in spite of everything, she closed her eyes, shivering at his touch as a flash of heat pulsed through her.
Stefano dropped his hand. “Let’s not try to make more of our night than it was.” He glanced at the baby. “Obviously, you quickly moved on. So did I. Our night was enjoyable enough. But it was meaningless.”
Enjoyable enough?
Meaningless?
It was the final straw. She felt a flash of despair, the destructive kind that froze to the bone.
“Our night didn’t mean anything to you?” Heart in her throat, she whispered, “You changed my life.”
“Sorry,” he said coldly.
She felt the word like a bullet.
“Fine.” She closed her eyes briefly, shuddering. “We’ll survive alone.”
Knees shaking, she turned and walked away from hi
m as fast as she could, away from her broken heart, from her shame that she’d so foolishly believed in the fairy tale. She fled the glittering lights of the Campania toward a shadowy side street, desperate to reach the far-off subway entrance, where she could sob in peace.
* * *
Prince Stefano Zacco di Gioreale stared after Tess, shocked by the jolt of her words, by the raw emotion he’d seen on her face and, most of all, by his body’s reaction to seeing her again.
Tess Foster was even more beautiful than he remembered. He’d lied when he’d said he’d quickly moved on. The truth was that he’d spent the last year trying not to recall her hauntingly lovely heart-shaped face, her red hair, her bright emerald eyes, her sweet pink lips. He’d tried to forget her lush body and the way she’d felt naked in his arms.
