Olivia Gates Bestseller Collection 2012 (18 page)

He heard himself saying, “I’ve chosen a wife, Phoebe.”

He stopped, torturing himself with every nuance of her masterful act. Such expectation on her face. Such trust. Such adoration.

And he lost whatever shred remained of his control, his sanity, in the conflagration that consumed his soul.

“You want to know who she is? The only woman to suit me, the woman worthy of being my princess, my future queen, mother of my children, my heirs, owner of my heart and soul?”

He waited again. Saw the dawn of absolute delight.

Then he drawled, “A pure, noble, Castaldinian woman.”

He opened himself to the shock wave razing through her until the agony of it decimated his last shred of humanity.

And he taunted, “What do you think of Clarissa D’Agostino?”

Phoebe stared at Leandro. The man she loved with everything in her. The father of her unborn baby.

He’d turned into a stranger. And he’d said…he’d said…

This had to be some trick. But he didn’t have a sick sense of humor. And this was beyond sick…this was…was…

The banked panic began to rise. “Don’t, Leandro. That’s one thing that just isn’t—isn’t…”

“Funny? You think I’m joking? I’m not. Can’t you see
that? So—how does it feel now? To be led on until you think you have the world in your hand, only to be cut down in one vicious stroke? To know that you mean nothing?”

She wanted to close her eyes. She couldn’t see this. That face. Demonic in beauty and evil. Far worse than Stella’s. Than anything. But she couldn’t look away. She was paralyzed. Beyond agony. Beyond shock.

All this time, he’d been building up to this moment? When she’d believed in him, lived and would die for him? He’d done this just for the pleasure of slamming her down? This was his revenge for her daring to run away from him once? Was there cruelty like this?

There was. And worse. It was him, looking at her with that mad gleam in his eyes, a feline hunter waiting for its kill to twitch so he could batter it again. And again.

But she wouldn’t curl up and play dead. She had to fight back. If he was the monster he was showing himself to be, she wouldn’t just expire in silence.

She could say nothing. The truth was sinking its talons into her guts, preparing to wrench them apart.

“So what do you think of my choice, Phoebe? As the king’s daughter, Clarissa is everything my wife should be. And she was such a vision tonight. Don’t you agree? Come now, Phoebe, tell me. You know how I value your opinion.”

Every word was one more slash, tearing everything she’d believed they’d had apart, everything she’d thought would sustain her for the rest of her life.

“I wouldn’t have believed that even you had the nerve to ask something like that, to…to…”

“To…what?
Mat’ooli,
don’t say…you expected me to choose
you?
”

She could only stare into his malice. So there truly was no end to one’s capacity for suffering.

She wondered if pain could kill. It should. Nothing should be this cruel without an end. “Isn’t that what you wanted me to expect? What you worked so hard to lead me to expect,
when I started this relationship with no expectations? Beyond feeling blazingly alive in your company, in your arms? Isn’t this what you planned? What do you want to hear now—how completely you’ve taken me in?”

Hot tears corroded her eyes, scouring down her face, splashing down her chin to spread darkness on her red taffeta dress, his choice. Had he planned that, too? So that she’d look down and see the stains spreading like oozing blood?
Were
those tears, or was her pierced heart bleeding out?

More needed to gush out of her. “Have you appeased your monstrous pride? Have you taken your revenge on me for once daring to escape your abuse? Are you now satisfied that you’ve damaged me beyond repair? And you’re asking my opinion on your ‘pure woman’—me, the woman whose innocence you took, whose pride and heart you destroyed and who you’re reviling for it? But I can’t blame you. I set myself up. Again. I got what I deserved. But though I now know that my opinion—and I—mean less than dirt to you, I’ll tell you I believe that Clarissa would make the best queen. I just wish for her sake you weren’t the one who’ll be king.”

Run.
She had to run. Pride had nothing to do with it—it was maternal instinct. The baby inside her was the one thing that gave her the strength to get away, to survive.

She passed him, reached the door when she turned. “I once told you we owed each other no hellos. I owe you one thing now, a wish…” He was standing there, chest heaving, eyes scary, his focus that of a madman. Pain ruptured her heart all over again, crushed it in its own blood. “I wish for you to go to hell, Leandro. The same one where you sent me.”

I
take it all back. Every word I said was an unforgivable lie. I was cut open and bleeding and I went mad. Forgive me.

The pleas looped like a broken record inside his head.

They hadn’t made it out of his mouth.

He’d stood there, mute, as she’d turned away, looking like everything inside her had been crushed. He’d stood there until she’d disappeared. Then he’d collapsed to his knees and remained there for several mind-destroying hours, reliving every word she’d said, suffering every pang she had, burning at every tear she’d shed.

Then he’d launched himself after her. But it had been too late.

A murderous Julia railed against him with the rage of a lioness on the scent of blood. She had a formidable ally in an outraged and disgusted Paolo. Among them, they made sure Phoebe’s trail was stonecold.

That had been three months ago.

He’d gone stark raving mad within three hours.

He’d become dangerous. Everyone was regretting pursuing
him so hard to take on the succession. Having an insane crown prince, one with all this power, was a recipe for disaster. He might yet be the end of the monarchy and Castaldini, much sooner than the king’s worst fears.

He
needed
Phoebe. He had to find her, prostrate himself at her feet, beg her forgiveness, take back every word, erase every hurt, to remain sane. He couldn’t. So he…rampaged.

Just this morning, he’d thrown a delegate out during a televised negotiation session. Bodily. Right there on the live feed, he’d lunged at the offensive weasel, bundled him up like a soiled sweatshirt, marched him, kicking like a cat about to be dropped in boiling oil, down the stairs and out the palace door. It made world news within minutes. Along with the details of the brewing international incident.

He hadn’t even missed a beat before he’d stalked to his jet and gotten the hell out of Castaldini on another search for her, following the last lead he’d gotten. It had been another false one. He’d just finished putting the investigative agency who’d supplied him with it out of business.

“When will you stop your never-ending tantrum?”

Ernesto’s disapproval jolted its icy tranquility through him.

“
Not
a good time, Ernesto,” he barked. “Not a good
life.
”

“She doesn’t want you to find her. Why don’t you move on?”

“Why don’t
you,
Ernesto? Before I throw another ‘tantrum’?”

“As long as getting violent makes you feel better.”

“Nothing will make me feel better. Ever.”

“Finished being melodramatic? I never thought I’d say something like this, but if she left in such a condition that made her family wish you dead, maybe you don’t deserve to find her.”

Leandro closed his eyes. He was only hanging on because she was there, and safe, somewhere in this world. But he didn’t deserve to find her. That was why he hadn’t. Ernesto was right.

Then the moment of sanity passed and frustration sheared through him again, tearing his eyes open. “No, Ernesto, I don’t deserve to find her. But I have to, if only to offer her the chance to finish me herself and take her revenge.”

Ernesto pursed his lips. “I fail to imagine what you could have done to her this time. If she left you, left Castaldini and her family, evidently never to return, then you’ve hurt her beyond repair. Even worse than the first time, when she left because she felt she meant nothing to you.”

Incredulity boomed out of him. “Where did you get that piece of unadulterated crap? Are you claiming that she told you—?”

“She told me nothing. She never did.”

“So that is
your
interpretation? That she meant nothing to me?
Dio,
Ernesto, how can you think anything so insane? You saw how much I needed her. You yourself, who advised me not to spend crucial time with her, saw how unable I was to even consider your advice.”

“What I saw was a young man in the throes of an all-consuming passion, but
that
didn’t indicate any true or lasting emotions. Many times as I escorted her to you I found myself aching for her. She was so eager to come to you, so amenable to your decree of secrecy. But I always felt her pain. You might have been blind, but I saw her face many times when you passed her at a function with another woman on your arm. My sympathy must have started to color my expression, because she once asked—with such shyness and trepidation—if I was reluctant to play the role of go-between. When I assured her I wasn’t, she persisted. She felt my disapproval. Did I fear she was distracting you? Harming your campaign for the crown? Was I offended by her behavior? I vehemently denied it. But I realized later, I
did
disapprove, I
was
disappointed and offended. By
your
handling of her and the situation.

“I did recommend that you leave her alone, not because I thought the crown was more important than her, but because you were not giving this exquisite woman the respect and consideration she deserved. And I started to fear you were incapable of giving them to her. You might have decreed the secrecy a necessity, insisted that you hated it, but to me it started to look like you were having your cake and eating it,
too. At her expense. And if I can suspect you, do you wonder she had no faith in your intentions toward her?”

“
Dio,
how could you have doubted me?” he groaned. “I would never treat even a woman I disrespected with anything but dignity, but Phoebe…Didn’t you see the power of my involvement?”

“I did, but I had no idea of its true nature. I even feared it for its very power, for being unprecedented. You were behaving out of character, and your next steps became a total mystery to me. But then, there was only one projection, really. You’d worked for the crown since you took your first steps. And I believed that if you had to take it at the cost of casting Phoebe aside and taking the wife it came with, that you would have done it.”

“How could you have been so wrong about me?” Leandro exploded. “I only kept her a secret because they wouldn’t have given me a fair chance at the crown if they’d known beforehand that I wouldn’t marry the queen they wanted beside me on the throne. But I had only one plan—to make Phoebe my princess, my queen, at any cost. And if I couldn’t have both her and the crown, I would have chosen her. But I had to give the chance to get them both all I had first.”

“And you told me that? You certainly didn’t tell her.”

“You know I don’t discuss my plans before they bear fruit. I couldn’t promise her what I didn’t yet have to give.”

“And she was supposed to…do what? Just know? Trust you?”

“Yes.”
This was bellowed.

“I never thought you had unreasonableness in your makeup, not even when you were knowingly going against everything Castaldini stood for. You had every right then, according to your set of beliefs. But to demand that she trust you based on intentions you never declared, that goes beyond perverse.”

“What’s perverse about expecting the woman who trusted me with her heart and body—
Maledizione,
her
life,
when she came to me with no one knowing—to trust me to be a man of honor?”

“But that was probably why she believed she didn’t have any place in your heart or life—because she believed you are one.
A man of honor who wasn’t honor-bound by the promises he hadn’t made. A man of honor who had a momentous destiny, one that from every possible indication, didn’t include her.”

Leandro’s heart stampeded. His skull seemed to squeeze his brain until he felt it would crush it. He couldn’t…He never…He didn’t…

“And when you saw how her desertion devastated me, you still didn’t realize how much she meant to me?”

“How could I have known you weren’t devastated over the other catastrophes that had taken place at that time? How could I have guessed, when you seemed to remember her only four months later, sent me to fetch her without a word, and two hours later she ran out, begging me to take her back? I never saw anyone more miserable.”

And he howled. “
Dio
…how can this be? How can I have behaved in such a way that I misguided you both, the man I value most, the woman who means everything to me, so totally about my emotions and intentions?”

“You were always the best at everything except the one thing you had no practice in. Relationships. But I understand now. A man of your capacity for commitment and passion, in love for the first time, at the most trying time of his life. You had tunnel vision, leading to your goal, couldn’t perceive anything from anybody else’s perspective. And both Phoebe and I were guilty of perpetuating that problem, catering to your every whim and accommodating your every demand, giving you the impression that all was well.”

“But even if I was a fool who gave her no indication of my feelings, that was before I was exiled. When I brought her to New York…
Dio,
I told her I
needed
her.”

“As what? And why only then? And how do you think she should have handled that out-of-the-blue admission? It might have been a precedent for you to admit you needed anyone, but to her it could have meant something very different. That you needed her as the ever-faithful, ever-accommodating lover who would provide a convenient outlet for your tumul
tuous emotions at the time. How could she have done anything but refuse to be that, to walk away before you destroyed her?”

“
Dio…Dio
…she couldn’t have believed that…. She would have had to think I was unscrupulous, heartless…a
monster
to believe that.”

“Not really. Just a man who’d suffered a grave injury and was looking for the best salve for his wounds. It still didn’t mean you wanted her forever.”

“What about the time I sent you to her again? That was five
years
after she walked out on me. What did that action signify to you, if not my continued commitment?”

“The day I arrived and learned she’d announced her engagement, I thought you were dangling yourself again to get her to break it off with Armando.”

“You thought I was being a spiteful son-of-a-bitch? A dog in the manger? Don’t you know me at
all,
Ernesto?”

“I did think of other reasons, but after a five-year silence, none of them was in your favor. I saw her whenever I could, and it always broke my heart to feel her still hoping for a word from you. A word I could never deliver. You were busy playing the martyr, it seems, in your own version of reality.”

“She did accuse me of living in a universe starring me…” He dropped his head into his fists, pressing with all his strength against his temples, to stop it from exploding.

Ernesto went on. “But that was then. What did you do differently this time? Besides desire, what emotions did you confess?”

“
Everything.
I showed her in every way the depth of my involvement, which is a hundred times stronger than my past love.”

“You probably only
think
you gave sufficient proof of your emotions. You believed the same in the past, and you were totally wrong. Is it any wonder she left you again?”

“That’s not—not what happened…
Dio,
Ernesto, everything was beyond perfect and I believed in her again, would have never believed any evidence against her, but when the evidence was her own words…
Dio
…I
heard
her, Ernesto.”

Ernesto’s frown was spectacular. “You heard her? Saying what? In what context? And to whom?”

“She was gloating about her total power over me, to Stella—”

“Stella?”
The name was an explosion of disdain and revulsion.

Leandro understood too well. After his exile, he’d discovered what a vile creature she was. “
Dio, si
…anything she said to Stella had to have been provoked, no doubt a defense against the acid that drips from that witch’s tongue. But I—I think I lost my mind. All I could think was that my worst nightmares were true, that she’d been manipulating me from day one, never wanted me for myself and I—I told her I’d choose a wife, but never her…and more…and by the time I regained my senses, she was gone.”

He stopped, retched at the memory of the vile things he’d said, at realizing the enormity of his crime against her yet again. At the look in Ernesto’s eyes.

“I struck you only once, Leandro.”

Leandro shoved a fist against his heart, wanting to punch through his rib cage and snatch it out. Maybe then it would stop battering his insides to a pulp. “I might have been only eleven then, but if you think I can ever forget the slap that sent me hurtling to the ground, think again.”

“In case you’ve rewritten history in that intractable mind of yours, let me refresh your memory. You accused a servant of stealing and he was punished, only for me to discover later that you built your case against him based on nothing more than that it ‘made sense’ to you. You’ve used that same kind of senseless sense again on Phoebe. And not only have you accused her, you’ve condemned and punished her. And you dare to seek her now? You think no one can ever look beyond your assets to want you for yourself, so you keep superimposing your suspicions on everyone’s actions. I think you’ve gone too far this time. And you’ve lost the woman you failed to deserve.”