Page 27 of Incognito (Royally Reckless #1)

27

“ H e’s left?” Gina bristled like an angry porcupine, her dark curls spiking in all directions as she leaned over the concierge’s desk. “What do you mean he’s left?”

Natasha took a deep breath, not in the mood to placate the pushy princess. “Like I already said, Dante isn’t here.”

“But he told me he was staying here.” Gina’s brows drew together in a formidable frown. “Why would he change hotels?”

Natasha had pondered that very fact on the interminable tram ride home, grateful when she’d arrived back at the hotel to find she had to fill in for a shift.

Anything to dull the pain of realising Gina must’ve been right, that Dante had only been after one thing, and when she’d been too slow in producing the goods, he decided to cut his losses and run.

Who knew, maybe he was over at the Sofitel right now buttering up some other gullible female with his sexy smile and piercing eyes?

“I have no idea why he changed hotels,” Natasha said, her glare implying ‘don’t push me, lady, I’m not in the mood.’

She should be doing cartwheels through the hotel foyer after finally getting rid of Clay. Instead, she wanted to rant and rave and scream at the injustice of losing the man she’d fallen for, then having to face his sister when Gina was the last person she wanted to see right now.

“But you’re his friend.” Gina crinkled her nose like she smelled something bad. “Surely he would’ve given you some idea why he changed hotels?”

Gritting her teeth in frustration, Natasha shook her head. “I’m not your brother’s keeper. I provided a service for him while he stayed here, that was all. If you need to speak to him, try calling him.”

Gina wouldn’t get the location of his new hotel from her. Natasha had gone through enough trouble for the royal heartbreaker and being sued because she leaked information against the hotelier’s confidentiality act was more than she was willing to do.

“This is all very strange.” Gina fixed her with a suspicious glare, as if she didn’t believe a word Natasha had said. “Dante doesn’t do anything impulsively. His official hotel residence was scheduled here months ago. I can’t understand why he’d leave, especially without telling me.”

Natasha refrained from rolling her eyes, just. If Gina didn’t understand the workings of Dante’s mind, what hope did she have? Trying to figure out his thought processes was a total waste of time and ten times more frustrating than those stupid twisty coloured cubes.

“If you want answers, the only way to get them is to ask Dante.” And leave her alone. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more assistance.”

“Perhaps I should be saying the same to you.” Gina’s dark eyes took on a speculative gleam and Natasha didn’t like the implication.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Gina waved a bejewelled hand in front of her face. “I’m not blind or stupid, despite what my brother might think. I may have made some silly decisions with my life but that doesn’t mean I can’t see what’s going on with his.”

She leaned closer and dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper. “Dante likes you. He would never have brought you to my home otherwise. And by the look of your long face, I’d say you’re just as confused as me by his departure.”

Natasha stiffened, despising herself for the surge of hope Gina’s words elicited. Dante liked her? Yeah, right, that’s why he’d high-tailed it out of here without an explanation, leaving so fast her head still spun.

Keeping her voice steady with effort, Natasha said, “Dante’s departure has nothing to do with me. Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do—”

“Dante is a proud man, a stubborn man. Don’t let his casual attire this last week fool you. He is regal to the bone and if you want answers, you’ll have to go straight to the source.”

“I’m not going to see Dante.”

Damn it, the response popped out before she could stop it and Gina’s gaze glittered with triumph. “I can see his interest isn’t one-sided. You have feelings for him too.”

Natasha shook her head, wishing her brain hadn’t gone into overdrive at Gina’s suggestion.

What if the princess was right? She could waste hours, days, longer, wondering why Dante left and why he lied about it. She was a worrier just like her mother, an integral part of her personality she couldn’t shut off.

She’d worried about what her family would think of her hasty engagement to Clay.

She’d worried about taking money from her fiancé when the hotel hit a really tight spot.

She’d worried about losing the family business being her fault.

And now this.

In the grand scheme of things, her interlude with Dante should mean nothing. She should be able to move on, forget him, chalk up her foolish crush to a woman whose self esteem had taken a battering and she’d fallen for the next nice guy to smile her way.

However, what she’d shared with Dante hadn’t been nothing. It had been something. A big something that kept her awake at night dreaming the impossible dream.

“You know I’m right,” Gina said, her tone surprisingly gentle. “Go see him.”

She needed answers.

She needed closure.

She needed some sort of reassurance that what they’d shared hadn’t been entirely in her imagination.

If her self esteem had been butchered by Clay, it would be nothing on the realisation that she’d conjured up some imaginary bond with Dante to soothe her weary soul.

How pathetic could she be?

Gina flung her hands in the air with typical Italian flamboyance. “You’re in love with him.”

Natasha stared at Gina in open-mouthed shock. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Yeah, she heard, and apart from being stunned by the words themselves, she couldn’t believe a woman she barely knew, a woman who had warned her off falling for her brother, had uttered them.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Natasha said, covering her discomfort with a fake chuckle. “And I must say, coming hot on the heels of you warning me off Dante, it sounds rather hilarious, not to mention presumptuous.”

Gina reached out as if to grab her hand and Natasha scuttled back, wondering if her day—her week—could get any crazier. “I’m sorry for what I said to you at Paolo’s party. I love my brother and I’m protective of him. He has a hard life and I didn’t want it to get harder if he fell for the wrong woman.” She shook her head. “I can see I’m too late.”

“There is nothing between Dante and me.” Natasha kept her voice steady with extreme effort, trying to project enough force without knocking the other woman down. Besides, what did she mean the wrong woman?

This had to stop. She didn’t have to listen to this.

“I think you should leave.”

Her harsh tone should’ve convinced Gina to leave her alone but it didn’t work. She merely stood there with a sorrowful expression on her expertly made up face. Damn it, the woman had a hide like a rhinoceros.

“Deny it all you like. I know my brother, and I can see it in your eyes. You cannot hide it.” Gina stared her down. “Well? Are you in love with him?”

She couldn’t love Dante.

She may be many things but she wasn’t a complete fool. Falling in love with a bad boy would be crazy, falling in love with a prince from the other side of the planet insane.

He had a country to run, a wife in the wings waiting for him back home. She couldn’t interfere with that even if she did love him.

An image of Dante, with his too-long hair, dark stubble, and sexy smile, trussed up like she’d seen him in his online photo and standing next to a princess bride, flashed into her mind. Another Dante altogether, a fake Dante, a Dante who wasn’t hers.

Spots swam before her eyes and she gulped for air, hating the constricting band tightening around her chest leaving her breathless and woozy.

That’s when it hit her.

She didn’t want a prince in a fancy suit. She wanted her Dante, the guy she knew, the guy she’d fallen for, and she wanted him all for herself.

She loved him.

Heart and soul.

The kind of love that lingered long after the person had left your life, the kind of love you remembered forever, that lasted a lifetime no matter how much you tried to forget.

Natasha blinked several times, somewhat surprised to find Gina staring at her with concern, a concierge desk between them in a foyer she’d sought refuge in many times over the last few years.

Her hotel’s foyer, with its familiar ochre and red swirly rugs, its chocolate brown suede couches and a hand-carved wooden chest her mother had given her for her twenty-first, taking pride of place at the entrance to her office.

Other mothers would’ve called it an old-fashioned glory box and hinted at a future of wedded bliss for their daughters, but not her mum. Natasha’s chest had been stuffed with her favourite things: a handmade quilt, one of her mum’s best patterns with red Chinese silk alternating with gold, five boxes of her favourite caramels, the entire DVD collection of Friends, and a jade elephant for good luck.

Her mother had been the best and she missed her terribly. Every time she snuggled up in the quilt she felt secure, as if her mum was wrapping her arms around her along with the silky comforter.

What would her mother think of Dante?

She’d always had a thing for royalty and Natasha remembered staring through the stair banisters of the hotel as a little girl, mesmerised by a visiting Asian king and queen that her mum had spun fantastic tales about.

Yeah, her mum would’ve liked Dante, but would she recommend her only child take a chance on love knowing it could lead to heartache?

“You don’t have to say a word. Your face says it all.” Gina reached over the desk and patted her on the shoulder. “Go and see him. It’s the only way.”

The fool’s way.

The dreamer’s way.

Natasha felt like a combination of both. She’d spent her life living up to responsibility, taking control of what needed to be done, and she was exhausted.

Maybe it was foolish, maybe dreams were for suckers, but facing up to the truth after hearing it from a woman she barely knew had been the wake up call she needed.

“I guess I should be thanking you, Gina, but I’m too busy blaming you.”

“What did I do?” Gina’s tentative grin took years off her face and Natasha could see a glimpse of the cheeky, rebel princess Dante had described, the type of woman who fell for a foreign guy and left her home to follow her dream.

If only she had the courage to do something like that… if only she had the opportunity…

“If you weren’t so terrible at organising kid’s parties, Dante wouldn’t have needed my help and none of this would’ve happened.”

Gina shrugged, not at all insulted by her bluntness. “I am a princess, what can I say?”

Natasha joined in her chuckles though they petered out quickly. No matter how she felt or whether she acknowledged her feelings—let alone suss out how Dante felt—this couldn’t end well.

There could be no happy endings here.

Dante had a country to run, she had a hotel to run.

They lived oceans apart.

And even if by some miracle he felt something for her, what did she think? That he’d ask her to be his princess?

Fat chance.

However, she needed to do this, and confronting Dante would be the first step in getting over him.

“I’m going to see him right now,” she said, frantically signalling at a front desk employee to act as stand-in concierge before she changed her mind.

“Good.” Gina’s smug grin annoyed her and she fixed her with a glare.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I love Dante.” That made two of them. “I care about what happens to him.”

Though Natasha didn’t have a sibling, she understood Gina’s concern. If anyone ever messed with Ella, she would interfere too.

“If there’s anything else I can do—”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, Gina, but I’ve listened to your crazy theories about me loving your brother,” not so crazy as it turned out, “and I’ve considered what you’ve said when I hardly know you, but I think I can take it from here.”

Could she say, ‘butt out’ any more politely?

“I think that will change very soon, the part about you not knowing me,” Gina said, not fazed in the slightest by her outburst. “Now, I must go. Tell the runaway prince his sister is looking for him and get him to call me? Ciao .”

Gina blew her a kiss and strolled across the lobby, looking every inch a princess in head to toe designer black.

Natasha must be crazy to listen to his sister, a woman who earlier in the week had been warning her to stay away. She must be totally insane to consider confronting Dante after he’d made it perfectly clear he wanted nothing more to do with her.

Well, luckily for her, she was in a loco mood and after the fastest handover in history, she sprinted to her room.

“I’m not trying to impress him,” Natasha muttered, yanking her favourite black cargo pants and apple green halter out of the wardrobe as she shimmied out of the boring navy suit she’d worn to her meeting with Clay. But she didn’t want to scare him off either.

Besides, perhaps a change of outfit would give her a much needed confidence boost?

Annoyed by her dithering, she dressed, slipped her feet into high heeled sandals, and fastened small silver hoops in her ears, before running a quick slick of gloss over her lips.

Go get him, princess.

While Natasha frowned at her frightened reflection, she couldn’t help but like how the title sounded.