Chapter Eight
Briony clutched her hands together so hard that she thought the bones might crack. "No."
The word was soft, but it was perfectly clear, almost bell-like. In the back of her mind, she wondered what it was about Marco that brought out this other person in her, that made her so loud, so clear and so direct.
"No?" he asked with a frown.
"No. No, you are not going to take my daughter away from me. No, I am not going to let you say that I kidnapped her when you didn't even know she was alive."
His eyes were dark, and there was a violence of emotions there that should have taken her aback. Instead, even as her body tingled with remembered pleasure and a kind of need she had almost forgotten, she was filled with strength. She might never have been able to muster up this strength for herself, but finding it for her daughter was easy.
"Why didn't I know about my daughter?" he demanded. "It wasn't as if I simply laid her aside on the street! I never knew about her at all, and that was a choice you made, that was something that you took away from me."
"Keep your voice down, you'll wake her," she snapped, and to her surprise, Marco subsided.
"Why shouldn't I have taken you at your word?" she asked, and he look startled.
"What are you talking about now?"
"The things you said. How women couldn't defend their own honor, and how no matter how hard she tried, a woman would never have the character that a man could. Do you think I want my daughter growing up with that viewpoint echoing in her head, never thinking that she was anything on her own? Always thinking that there needed to be a man in her life?"
"If she took her proper place as a princess of Florence, she would never be left to deal with anything," Marcus said stonily. "She would be given everything she could ever want, and if a man dared crossed her..."
He looked around the apartment, distaste clear on his face. "She would be born to a palace, wanting nothing. Instead, here she lives..."
"Don't say it," Briony spat. "Don't. This place is perfectly fine. She's safe, she's loved, and I care more about her than I have ever cared about anything."
Marco made a move as if he wanted to grab her and shake her, but he stopped himself at the last moment, shaking his head instead.
"Do you truly believe that our daughter is better off here in a tiny apartment than in a palace in Florence being offered the world on a plate?"
"Here she is loved. That's what matters the most, it's what's always mattered the most, isn't it?"
For the first time, Marco dropped his gaze. He was too proud to say that she had won, but she saw a peculiar kind of defeat in his eyes.
"I am leaving now," he said, his voice icy. "But this is not over, Briony."
She said nothing, only waited until he had stormed out of her apartment. She managed to stay standing until he had closed the door behind him. Then after she latched the door, she fell onto the couch, a flood of tears wracking her body.
She tried to tell herself that she was scared for her daughter, but somewhere deep down, Briony knew it was not that. She had seen the awe in Marco's eyes when he’d seen Eva for the first time. The world might be large and terrifying, but it looked like Eva had won a protector for life.
No, her grief was far more selfish. She had thought that she had forgotten Marco. She had done her best to forget the one-night stand that had changed utterly everything in her life. Now she realized that even if memories were buried, they might come up again in the blink of an eye.
She could still remember the night she had danced with a masked man, and how it had felt to be someone else. Now it seemed she would suffer the rest of her life wanting to be that person again.
***
Briony decided that forewarned was forearmed. She needed to know more about the situation than she did, and that meant researching the heck out of everything involved.
She started with American family law, which told her that Marco did have a claim to his daughter, especially if a DNA test was taken. Still, courts would give it more weight that he hadn't been involved in the first few months of his daughter's life. It was extremely unlikely that Marco could take Eva away from her entirely. When she realized that, Briony breathed a sigh of relief.
What would it look like for her daughter, she wondered, living between two such separate worlds? Would Eva grow up to hate her humble beginnings in Los Angeles? Would she demand to live entirely in Florence? The thought stabbed Briony right through the heart, but she shook it away as best she could. That was a worry for the far future.
Briony wanted badly to call Seanan, at the very least to talk with her about meeting Marco and spilling the beans, but Seanan had taken off on another shoot, this time one in Nairobi. Her social media was full of shots of exotic stunts performed on racing cars, of face paint and hikes into the desert. She decided against trying to contact her sister, even if she might have sorely wanted the support. Seanan had always looked out for her, but this was a situation that she had to handle on her own.
Finally, Briony gathered all of her courage and started to look up Marco himself. The moment she Googled his name, she realized it was probably sheer chance she had never run into a mention of him before this.
Marco's life read like something out of a dream or perhaps a historical novel. He was a Florentine noble by birth, though of a cadet branch. He had a tidy fortune to begin with, but he had parlayed it into something immense and impressive, returning the Bianchi name to the limelight.
Briony flinched a little at page after page that detailed his assignations with models and starlets, pictures of Marco shirtless on his yacht with a woman on each arm and a wide, white grin on his face. For a while, it seemed as if he was associated with a new woman every week, but then things had changed.
When his uncle had died without an heir, there had been something of a scramble. The title of Prince of Florence held little real power except in the imagination of the people, but it was still a position that needed to be filled. At the end, Marco Bianchi was crowned, and Briony stared at the picture of Marco in the ancient cathedral, a solemn look on his face as his appointment was blessed.
She glanced at Eva, who was sleeping next to her on the couch.
"Dear god, baby, you're royalty."
As she read into the night, Briony saw a thread emerge in the articles she was reading. The death of Marco's uncle had left the city-state of Florence unsettled and uneasy. Nearly every interview with Marco involved a question about when he would be giving the throne an heir.
Marco fended off the answers with an adroit charm that spoke of a lifetime in the limelight, but Briony saw a man with steel nerves and a determination to do what was right.
"Well, princess," Briony said at last. "I wonder what your father's going to do..."
***
Briony was simultaneously relieved and slightly offended when Marco maintained radio silence for two weeks. The newspapers were quiet about him, but that wasn't too uncommon. It was the off season, when almost everyone was resting up after the immense social requirements of the months before. Seanan was a part of that rhythm when she wasn't on shoot, and Briony had learned a little about it.
Then one unusually gray Thursday, Briony got a strange phone call. She blinked, because there was really no reason that Kelly, her supervisor from work, would be calling her.
After the usual pleasantries, Kelly cut to the meat of the matter. "The university is undergoing some unique restructuring. By the time you return, your position is going to be eliminated."
Briony barely stopped herself from letting out a soft cry. Her stomach felt as if it had dropped straight to the floor.
"Don't worry, though, because there's a splendid opportunity for you opening up at one of our sister schools."
"Where at?" Briony asked, too flustered to be polite. "I mean, I'm grateful, but I would need to..."
"The sister school is in Florence," Kelly said. "The pay is far better, there is an apartment prepared for you, and though you'll have to take up residence soon, you'll be able to take the rest of your maternity leave..."
The moment that Kelly said “Florence,” Briony went cold and then hot.
"Tell me, Kelly," she said. "Does this restructuring have something to do with a great deal of money that was just given to the school?"
On the other end of the line, Kelly paused just long enough that Briony knew she was right.
"Was there a certain prince involved?"
"If you are asking about Marco Bianchi, he did offer a very generous endowment to..."
"Thank you. That's what I needed to know. Will you please send me the information on the new position via email?"
"Of course."
Briony sat on the floor where Eva was exploring with the single-minded enthusiasm of the very young.
"Your papa is something else," she said to the little girl, and she wondered if it was an accident when Eva looked up at her.
"Yeah, I'm talking about your Papa. Let's see what he has to say about himself."
***
It took a bit of digging, and she had to sit through three operators and a very distrustful security guard, but finally, Marco picked up the phone.
"What the hell?" Briony demanded. "You can't just...eat up people's jobs and move them where you please."
There was a pause, and then Marco laughed. "You know, when I was talking with your sister, she said that you were meek and shy. I almost thought I had found the wrong woman yet again, but when you say things like that, I remember that I have not."
"You make me act like some crazy, demanding version of myself," Briony said tartly. "If you want shy and sweet, maybe act otherwise. Now about my job..."
"I hardly thought you would object," he said, and she could almost see him shrug negligently. "It is more money, far better benefits, a far better place to live. Also, it will let Eva grow up in the heritage that will be hers. She is a princess, or she will be when I formally acknowledge her. I would not think that you would keep her from that."
Briony bit her lip, because objectively, everything that Marco was saying was correct. She would never want to rob her daughter of her birthright, and Marco held the key to it.
"If I go to Florence..."
"You are going to Florence," he said with such assurance that she gritted her teeth.
"Will you promise me that you have Eva's best interests at heart? That your only reason for doing this is to regain your lost princess?"
Marco paused.
"I can tell you that I am absolutely doing this with Eva's best interests at heart," he said finally. "But I cannot tell you that she is the only reason I am doing this."
The silence stretched between them, and Marco sighed, a sound so soft that Briony could have imagined it.
"Goodbye, Briony. People will be checking in with you to help you coordinate your move. I will see you in Florence."