Читать книгу Pure Princess, Bartered Bride - Caitlin Crews - Страница 7

LUC GARNIER did not believe in love.

Love was madness. Agony, despair and crockery hurled against walls. Luc believed in facts. In proof. In ironclad contracts and the implacable truth of money. He had been relentless and focused all his life and as a result, wildly successful. He did not believe this was a matter of luck or chance. Emotion played no part in it.

Just as emotion played no part in picking out his future bride.

The Côte d’Azur preened itself in the warm afternoon sun as Luc strode down a side street in Nice, headed for the Promenade des Anglais, where the famously luxurious Hotel Negresco sat in gracious Victorian splendor, looking out onto the sparkling blue waters of the Baie des Anges and the Mediterranean Sea beyond. The Hotel Negresco was one of Luc’s favorite hotels in France, and thus the world, overflowing as it was with museum-quality art and a famously accommodating staff—but he had a far more pressing reason for visiting Nice’s landmark hotel today.

Luc had flown in that morning from his Paris headquarters, determined to see for himself if the latest potential bride—who looked so good on paper—looked even half as good in person. But then, they all looked good on paper, as they had to be of a noble family to so much as make his list. The last woman he had considered for the position had seemed like a perfect match on paper—but a few days spent tailing Lady Emma around her London society life had quickly revealed that the young noblewoman had a secret penchant for late nights with rough gentlemen.

It wasn’t that Luc necessarily minded that his wife might have a past—he simply preferred that, whatever the past was, it had involved the sort of people who would not make interesting headlines should the tabloids catch wind of them. Lady Emma Prefers Goths to Garnier. He could imagine it all too well.

“That’s the way modern women are these days,” his number two man had told him, after Luc had discovered Lady Emma’s late-night bar-crawling. Alessandro was the closest thing Luc had to a friend, but even so, he’d thrown his hands up in the air when Luc had glared at him across his opulent Paris office.

“Modern women may be as loose as they like,” he’d snapped. “But my wife will not be. Is this so much to ask?”

“This is not all you ask!” Alessandro had replied with a laugh. He’d begun to tick off the necessary items on his fingers. “She must be noble, if not royal, to honor your bloodline. She must be pure in word and deed. She must never have been young or stupid, as no scandal can ever have touched her.” He’d shaken his head sadly. “I do not think this woman exists.”

“She may not,” Luc had agreed, closing the dossier he had compiled on Lady Emma and setting it aside with distaste. “My mother taught me long ago that beauty is too often a mask for dishonor and betrayal. One cannot depend on it—only on an irreproachable reputation.” He had smiled at Alessandro. “If she does exist, I will find her.”

“And what if this paragon does not wish to marry you when you have hunted her down?” Alessandro had asked dryly. “What then?”

Luc had laughed. “Please.” He’d sat back in his chair and gazed at his friend, crooking his brow in amusement. “That is not very likely, is it? What woman would not benefit from becoming my wife? What can any woman possibly want that I cannot give her? I will place all of my wealth and power at the disposal of whatever woman can fill the position.”

Alessandro had sighed heavily, his romantic Italian soul no doubt mortally wounded at the prospect of filling the position of wife. “Women like romance and fairy tales,” he’d said. Luc rather thought Alessandro was the one who preferred such fripperies, but had not said so. “They do not want marriage to be conducted as a business proposition.”

“But that is what it is,” Luc had said, shrugging again. “The correct woman must understand this as well.”

“I fear you will be looking for a very long time, my friend,” Alessandro had said, shaking his head.

But Luc had never been afraid of hard, seemingly fruitless work, he reflected as he turned the corner and saw the famous façade of the Hotel Negresco before him. In fact, he thrived on it. His famous parents had died when he was barely twenty-three, and he had had to make his own way in the world in their considerable shadows. Even before their deaths in a boating accident he had been more or less on his own—his parents having been far more interested in each other and their endless romantic complications than in their son.

Luc could not bring himself to regret his unorthodox upbringing, no matter how many people seemed to think it pointed to some lack in him—something no one had dared say to his face in some time. Growing up in such a way, surrounded by so much heightened emotion mixed with jealousy and betrayal and avid outside interest, had stripped him of many of the needs that ruled other men. It had also made him that much more successful, which was all he cared about—for what else was there? He did not need the emotions that other men did. He was not interested in love, and all the upheaval and agony it brought. He wanted a wife in the most traditional sense, for the most traditional reasons. He was nearing forty now, and it was time he created a family to carry on his legacy and his mother’s royal Italian bloodline. The wife he chose would have to be from an equally august bloodline—noble for centuries, at the very least, as his family was. It was tradition. It was his duty.

He needed a wife who knew her duty.

He strode into the elegant old hotel, past the white-gloved doormen, and did not bother to gape like a tourist at the sparkling lobby that emanated old French charm and elegance all around him. He had seen it many times before. The Hotel Negresco prided itself on its luxuriousness. Luc made his way toward the Salon Royal, with its Gustave Eiffel-designed dome and Baccarat chandeliers sparkling over a crowd of some of the world’s foremost philanthropists. He ignored the well-dressed and genteel throng, as well as the priceless art that graced the walls. He searched the room until his eyes fell on the woman he’d been looking for—Princess Gabrielle of Miravakia.

She stood out from the crowd in a good way, he was pleased to note. She did not call attention to herself. She did not display her chest in an inappropriate manner or hang all over the men who competed for her attention. She seemed cool and elegant, refined and royal, as she stood in the center of a knot of extremely well-dressed patrons.

She was lovely—but then, she should be. She was a royal princess, after all—the heir to her country’s throne. He ignored her looks and concentrated on the way she presented herself: her public persona, which was by all accounts completely without blemish.

Her hair was swept back into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck, and she wore a simple cocktail dress with restrained hints of jewelry at her ears and one wrist. Nothing flashy or gauche. She was all sophistication and class, presiding over this great reception for one of her pet charities with all the grace for which she was known. She was every inch the perfect princess.

He liked what he saw. But he couldn’t trust what she showed the world at a reception for six hundred. Could a woman really be as above reproach as this one appeared to be?

Luc signaled a passing waiter and requested a drink, then moved to the outskirts of the crowd, from where he could watch her without being observed in return. She was in Nice for the week, he knew, and was expected to make a number of appearances—which interested him less than what she got up to in her free time.

He was sure that, like Lady Emma before her, Princess Gabrielle would eventually show herself to him. He had only to wait, and watch.

But as Luc watched the perfect-looking princess make her rounds, he allowed himself a moment of cautious optimism as he sampled his drink.

If she proved to be as perfect as she looked, he had done it. He had finally found his bride.