Yo! Presenting the next installment of madness with Antonio as the victim of my torment~!

Big thanks to Aperio for reviewing!

As soon as the Cardinals Meeting came to a close Antonio Borgia rushed from the room a politely as a man of his rank could, which was a brusque walk until he was around the corner before legging it to his office, all the while ignoring the looks he could feel from the other cardinals, most likely wanting him to explain what had just happened.

"Mother, why did you do that!" he cried placing his face in his hands – this had to be the worst situation possible. Well, no, he could have been told he was marrying one of the other suitors his family had selected – most he knew were either ugly, snobbish or had several men on the side, and in some cases all three. Antonio shivered and shook his head to dispel the various images that had formed.

He had to find a way of salvaging the situation before Caterina concocted a highly elaborate hair-brained scheme to end the wedding – or kill him, whichever took less effort. Probably killing me, Antonio thought with a sigh.

It wasn't that he didn't like Caterina – on the contrary, she was everything he looked for in a woman, minus being a member of the clergy and owning enough manpower to level an entire country if she wished. She was beautiful, intelligent, strong-willed – perhaps overly polite and hated his guts, but hey, if he could show her his more serious side, maybe she'd lighten up. Or… Still hate him…

Antonio cursed in his mother tongue before sitting behind his desk, the faint hope that work would distract him causing him to leaf through the day's paperwork. Unfortunately fate was not on his side today.

"What the hell!" Antonio exclaimed reading an article that was one of the topmost documents. Racing out into the main room Antonio yelled at his staff, "What on God's green Earth is this claptrap, why is on my desk and has it gone to print? If so I want that idiot's head on a pike," Antonio grumbled the last part under his breath as he glared at the shocked priests and nuns.

"What are you talking about, sir? That article was printed this morning, you gave the order yourself via letter," a brave priest stated, retrieving a note from one of the many desks and handing it to Antonio. It did indeed appear to be his handwriting and contained his signature, but Antonio knew he hadn't written the note.

"I wrote no such thing, it's a forge," Antonio said shaking his head, "At any rate, get it out of circulation – and for the love of God, make sure Cardinal Sforza doesn't get wind of it!"

"Get wind of what exactly, Cardinal Borgia," a beautiful, yet dangerous voice rang out across the room. "If it's this article about our 'happy announcement' I'd rather you just explained what this drivel is about?" Caterina Sforza said from her position leant against the doorframe, her voice laced with silent anger.

"C-Caterina!" Antonio stuttered, panic crawling into his voice."I-I swear to you I didn't know anything about it until just a moment ago! Argh, will you people hurry up and track this thing down and destroy it!" he demanded to his still silent staff, which immediately jerked and hurried about in a bustle of activity.

"I'm serious, Caterina, I wouldn't have written this and the arrangement was news to me too!"

"Then why did you run off after the meeting? It seems more than a little suspicious, Cardinal Borgia."

"What was I meant to do? You and Francesco were glaring daggers into my back like it was my fault! I-" Antonio cuthimself off, not sure what else to say, thankfully he didn't have to as a young nun interrupted the conversation.

"Excuse me Your Excellences, but we've uncovered the original source – from an analysis of the paper and ink used we concluded someone from Cardinal Borgia's family holiday villa must have wrote this – the paper is the brand found only used by Your Grace's family and the ink isn't exported out of it's area of origin…"

"Someone from my family…" Antonio mumbled, eyes widening as he came to a conclusion. "Curse that woman – she's making a media scandal of this AND undermining my authority!"

Caterina raised an eyebrow, "Who's undermining your authority?"

"My mother. She must have set everything up to fall into place. The letter arrived here after I left, so I wouldn't be able to touch it until I returned from the Cardinals Meeting, by which point it'll have circulated half of Rome if not further. This way it also looks like a choice where our supposed 'love' challenges church ideals-"

"And makes it look as though Rome is the one making exceptions, losing standing and looking to Hispania for assistance," Caterina finished, her razor-coloured eyes flashing. "How far did the article get?" she asked with a sigh.

"Too far for us to stop without arousing suspicion," a priest answered without looking up from a monitor.

"I suppose that means we need to pretend like we've been going out for a couple of years!" Antonio said with his usual brightness.

Caterina was silent for a long moment as she frowned at Antonio before stating, "I hate the cold, my favourite colour is turquoise, I prefer white gold to yellow and I am very private when it comes to my family – I'm sure you can make something out of that to sate the interest of people."

Antonio started before realising he needed to reply, "Ah, um – I like Summer too, I like green, don't like jewellery and I have an extended family of three older brothers, two younger and three sisters – their names aren't important, you can look them up if you think it'll help."

Caterina nodded, making a mental note of the conversation and left the room and its stunned inhabitants to their own devices, still none the happier about her current situation.

Urgh... I had to upload this on my ipod... Not fun. Anywho I think I added the right spacing and stuff, if not I'm sorry and please tell me so I can fix it!

Well 'til next chapter!