Olivia Gates Bestseller Collection 2012 (19 page)

Leandro exploded to his feet. “No. I can’t lose her, Ernesto. I came to my senses without needing proof. I was mad to suspect her, and it will never happen again. I would die in atonement, I would die anyway for her, without hesitation, but I’d rather live for her, spend every minute of my life making her happy and fulfilled.”

Ernesto looked at him as if he was giving him a total mind and psyche scan. Just as Leandro felt as if he’d start destroying the place in a fit of helplessness and frustration, Ernesto nodded, as if coming to a decision. Then he said a clipped, “You
may
deserve another chance.”

The bark that exploded from Leandro’s depth felt as if it cut a sac of bitterness open inside him. “
Grazie.
As if your opinion matters. It’s hers, and only hers, that does.”

To Leandro’s shock, a wicked smile spread across Ernesto’s lips. “Oh, but my opinion does matter. If you’d failed to change it, I would never have told you where to find her.”

L
eandro stood at the end of the driveway of the delightful one-level detached house that Phoebe now called home. She wouldn’t call it that one more day. Even if it killed him.

Suddenly his senses flickered.

The emanations were unmistakable. Hers.

He swung around. And there she was. In white slacks, a loose turquoise top and ponytail, she was so unbearably precious, so brutally missed, a convulsion of emotion ripped through him. Her face was frozen with the same look of horror and devastation he’d last seen on it.

He whispered, “Forgive me,
mi galia amore.
”

After their long sessions in the whispering gallery, they no longer needed its medium. He knew she’d heard him.

And she ran. Tried to escape into her house.

He wouldn’t let her lock him out, his heart splintering for having to exert any force against her.

She suddenly backed away from the door, let him charge in under his unopposed pressure.

As soon as he closed it she hissed at him. “What do you want? More games? Sex? You decided you don’t want to get married immediately, so you’ll toy with me again until you do?”

“
No…no…per Dio,
Phoebe…no.”

“You don’t want sex? You’ve found a new nympho? Or is your harem already full of them?”

“
Li imploro
…I beg you…I only want to beg your forgiveness—”

“Why? You think maybe I didn’t deserve having you tread on me like you did? That you should have been a tad less brutal? You’re having conscience pangs? Do you even
have
a conscience, Leandro?”

“I don’t have anything, without you.”

She lurched as if he’d backhanded her. “You…
bastard.
Why are you doing this? What reminded you of me again, all of a sudden?”

“I’ve been looking for you, to beg your forgiveness, your return, since the day you walked away.”

“
Liar.
Every word you said, every smile, every touch, every moment, you lied. And you’re still lying. You showed me your real face that day. A monster’s. If you think I’ll ever forget it…”

“Did it look like the face of a monster or a madman, Phoebe?”

“I don’t care. It wasn’t the face of the man I thought I knew, the man I loved. It was the cruel, warped, sick…”

She choked on emotion and he urged her on. “Yes, Phoebe. Call me names, scream at me, shred me with your rage.”

She swayed away from him, escaping his begging hands. “Get out. And I don’t care if you are a crown prince or the most powerful man in the world. Come near me again and I’ll make you sorry.”

“No, Phoebe, you must give me another chance—”

“Get
out,
Leandro. If you don’t want to spend your time at the dentist implanting teeth from now till your coronation.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Ever again. So do it. Hit me, Phoebe, vent your outrage. I misjudged you and mistreated
you and tormented you. I took from you and never gave anything back. I made you feel like nothing, like less than nothing with the way I hid you in the past, and the way I flaunted our intimacy in the present. I gave other women my public respect, showed you you’re only good for providing entertainment, then when you gave me all of yourself, I took it all and told you that you meant nothing to me, that when I chose a wife I’d choose a woman of good reputation and high social standing, that you had neither—”

A lash cracked.

He barely felt the blow fall on his cheek. He was too numb with pain and dread already.

Her chest heaved, her paleness evaporating in a tide of crimson. “Can’t you leave me with something to look back on as clean and beautiful…Can’t you leave me…Just
leave!
”

“I’m
never
leaving you. Hit me again, Phoebe. Harder. Do some real damage. It doesn’t matter that none of what I just said is true, that I didn’t mean to make you feel any of it. What matters is that I did.”

“Yeah, and I’m not giving you the chance to ever make me feel any of that again, unintentionally or otherwise. And no, I won’t hit you again. I only did that to stop your rant.”

“Nothing will ever stop me from proving to you that the only lies I ever told you were that madness I struck you with. I’ll spend my life atoning, reminding you of the magic we shared, reviving it until you believe that you
are
my life. Take it,
mi tesoro hebbi,
it’s yours to do with as you please.”

The horror on her face only mounted as tears became a thick cascade drenching her trembling lips. “God…you know, don’t you? That’s what this is all about!”

The sight of her anguish made him stagger. “Know what?”

She started sobbing until he could barely understand her. “How did you find out? It has to be your armies of informers and investigators. It can’t be one of my family who told you.”

“
Per Dio,
Phoebe…what are you talking about?”

“I can’t bear to see you. I never want you near me again…and I’m damned…if I’m letting you near…my baby. It’s
mine,
do you hear me? It has nothing to do with you.”

Baby?

Agony clamped him with the force of a heart attack.

He reached for her, ignoring the pain. Only defusing hers mattered, defending her. Healing her was the one thing he’d do before he died. “I swear, offering my life has nothing to do with…
Dio santo,
I didn’t…
hebbi preziosa
…I didn’t even know…you were…were…”

“Of
course
you’d say you didn’t know…you’d say anything to get your hands on your heir…”

“
Giuro su Dio
—I swear to God—I swear by everything, by my love for you…” And he caved in under the brutality of it all, dropped to his knees before her, caught her around the hips, frantic to stem the tide of her anguish. She struggled, pushed him away, her sobs rattling through them both. He clung, his own agony dripping down his cheeks. “I’m only here because I never knew what love was before you, what needing another was. The first time around, I plunged wholly into loving and needing you. I was so submerged that I didn’t realize how I was messing up. I loved you so much more deeply the second time around that I messed up far worse, because I depend on you to the point of total vulnerability. When I heard you talking to Stella…”

She stilled so totally that if she hadn’t been standing, he’d have thought she’d lost consciousness. She realized.

When she finally spoke, her voice was lifeless. “You loved me so much you gutted me the moment you heard something you misinterpreted.”

“And my crime, after all you gave me, after all I knew of you, is irredeemable. I can only beg your understanding. I reacted so viciously because I
have
been in the hell you wished me to go to, for eight long years. Then we were together again, and though I didn’t I realize it, I was living in
dread of losing you again. A word from you can cast me into heaven or into hell. When I heard you, I went out of my mind with pain, with the dread that I meant nothing to you and that I’d plunge into purgatory again, this time forever. I came to my senses the moment you disappeared, and there was no way I could have known you were pregnant then. Ask your family, ask Ernesto. They didn’t tell you I was tearing up the world looking for you because they believed you were better off without me, because they thought I deserved to lose you. I’m here for
you,
and only you. I’d do anything for you. Remember the night of the fire and you’ll remember I will brave burning to death for you. Just like you would for me. Have mercy, on both of us, Phoebe and forgive me. Be mine and let me be yours.”

He stopped with a huge gasp, buried his face in her abdomen, where their love was taking a life of its own.

Then he told her everything about the past, things he now understood fully, thanks to Ernesto. His life depended on her believing every word.

She finally sagged in his hold, allowed him to have her again, hugged him back into her, let him breathe and let his heart beat again, blessing him with her resurrected belief and passion.

And he told her about the present. And about the future.

“You made me understand myself,
hebbi,
you opened my eyes to what I must be. And you were right from the start. I am not the right king for Castaldini. I cannot change to the extent the kingdom needs, and it sure can’t handle my modernizing, expanding ways. But I’ll remain regent until they make up their mind to pursue Durante or Ferruccio. I hope to God one of them accepts. And then I’ll return to doing the best job I ever did on behalf of my kingdom—being its ambassador to the world. And I want only the best negotiator, the best deal-maker, the best diplomat I’ve ever known to be my partner, not only through life, but also in representing Castaldini, in bringing it what most suits it from the world. You. My love. My life.”

The import of Leandro’s words sank like depth charges in Phoebe’s mind. Then they exploded.

She pounced on him, dragging him by the arms as if to pull him back from the edge of an abyss. “What have you done? What have I done? I convinced you you’re wrong for Castaldini? God, Leandro, no! I was only trying to make you adjust your expectations and take it easy in your integration-into-the-world plans. You’ll be the best king Castaldini ever had!”

“No, I won’t. I’m too much of a capitalist democrat, remember? But I can be of much use in other capacities. You were right. About everything.
Everything, mi galia tesoro.
” When she kept squirming and protesting, he suddenly hugged her off the ground, his reddened eyes gleaming wickedness and worship. “Does it disappoint you too much that you won’t be queen?”

“Don’t you dare joke now, or I’ll hit you, as you so wanted me to.”

He guffawed as he spread himself to the hands flailing on his chest. “You
are
hitting me. And I love it. Hit me some more.”

She oohed. “I
knew
you had an S-M streak!”

“And I hope you’ll exploit it to your imagination’s content.” He gathered her up and she immediately melted into him. “That’s my one regret. And was half my reasons for accepting the succession. I wanted to give Castaldini the best queen ever, to make you the queen, as you deserve to be.”

She hit him again, hugged him. “I deserve only to be loved by you. Are you getting that, or do I need to use more force?” He drowned her in another kiss, chuckling in elation and relief. As he wrapped her around him and carried her off to bed, she murmured, “I want you to rest your mind on this point, for as sure as I knew I’d never love another, I never thought I was queen material. But you
would
make the best king!”

“I want only to be king in your eyes.”

“In my eyes, you’re everything.”

It was still after much debate and tears that she came to accept his decision, to believe she hadn’t caused a huge loss to him, to Castaldini, that the path he’d charted was the best one.

Then he knelt before her at the foot of the bed, produced an embossed silver and gold box from the pocket over his heart.

Phoebe stared as he opened it. A ring, and a pendant.

In Castaldini, she’d seen what she’d believed to be the most stunning creations in the world. These surpassed them all in taste and craftsmanship. But it was the significance of the design—her name wrapped around his and his family’s crest—that had tears bursting from her eyes.

And he pledged. “This is you owning me and holding in your hand and near your heart my future and that of my family. Will you be queen of my life, keeper of my heart and destiny?”

She fell to her knees before him. “I’ll be anything you want me to be. Take all of me, my love. You already own it all anyway.”

He swept her up, and to bed, rejoined them, mended forever what had almost been sundered, what could never be parted again.

“It’s a boy?”

Phoebe snuggled up to Leandro. Boy, he was big enough for her to drape herself over in extreme comfort. “So far.”

He tugged a lock of hair gently. “What do you mean ‘so far’?”

She rubbed herself over him, every cell bursting with the delicious soreness of satiation. “I feel I might get pregnant again after what you just did to me.”

He guffawed, turned her to her back, luxuriated in feeling his unborn son under his hands. “And you might well be. Our lovemaking did feel…supernatural this time. I’m amazed how much pleasure I can endure. But I don’t think this was a one-off, because of the urgency of almost losing each other. I think this is going to be the norm from now on. It’s the…certainty.”

She hummed in agreement. Yes. Certainty. It was indeed a super power. A magical one.

Suddenly he rose above her. Her heart gave that clutched pause it always did whenever she realized again how much she loved him, just how beautiful he was. Which was so often her heart was developing a new rhythm.