Olivia Gates Bestseller Collection 2012 (34 page)

“I loved that woman before I ever met your mother. I banished her over insane and wrong suspicions and married your mother on the rebound.”

Every word was prodding skewers deeper into his wounds. “So not only was my mother your victim, but the other woman, too.”

“Your mother was my queen. But I was not in love with her. Neither was she with me. She married me to become queen. I thought she was what the crown needed. When I renewed my relationship with the woman I loved, I kept it a secret for many reasons, your mother’s feelings not being among them. She wouldn’t have cared.”

“Why did she write all that, then? If she wasn’t going literally insane with jealousy over your loving another?”

His father seemed to shrivel back into his bed. “I…I don’t know. But there’s nothing to be gained from digging up skeletons.”

Accumulated heartache and confusion and disappointment erupted through him like a geyser. He lunged forward, wanting to shake his father and roar for him to put him out of his
misery. He was hiding things. Things that would make everything make sense.

Then he felt it. Gabrielle’s hand trembling on his arm.

He cursed himself. He’d sworn he’d never distress her again, and here he was, forcing her to witness him resurrecting his family tragedy.

He pulled her into him, looked his entreaty for forgiveness into her reddened, teary eyes, his heart compressing at having caused her such anguish.

Then he turned and almost wept himself at seeing the devastation on the face of a man he’d thought indomitable. He had to believe at that moment that his father might also prove to be not as heartless as Durante believed him to be.

“We’ll leave skeletons in the past,
Padre,
even if they come out of the closet sooner or later. Now, the future and all I am belong to Gabrielle.”

As he supported the almost-collapsing Gabrielle and turned to lead her out, his father’s thick, tear-filled rasp stopped him.
“Gabrielle.”

Gabrielle lurched in his hold as if she’d been shot. Durante almost had to support her full weight as he turned them around.

His father was smiling, a smile distorted by the devastation his stroke had left in its wake. It twisted Durante’s heart. And that was before his father rasped, “Thank you for bringing my son home…
figlia mia.
”

T
he wedding was tomorrow.

And Gabrielle was going insane.

King Benedetto had pretended he didn’t know her. She’d been so shocked that she’d gone mute.

Then Durante had taken her to his apartments, drowned her in his passion until she’d forgotten that a world outside him existed. Before she could remember, he’d swept her into the whirlwind of preparations and one chance to tell him after another slipped by.

She needed to see King Benedetto before she could reveal the truth to Durante. This was the first day he’d been allowed visitors since they’d seen him. His health had taken a turn for the worse after his confrontation with Durante.

She waited until the king’s valet had left them alone before she blurted out her agitation and fear. “Why didn’t you tell Durante of our relationship? It’s been killing me, keeping my word, but I believed you finally would. He might…
would
have
understood then, that it was never my intention or idea to hide facts from him. Now, after that stunt you pulled, I’m dreading the worst.”

The king struggled to sit up in bed, reached a trembling hand to her. “No, Gaby. He loves you so much he’d give his life for you. He wouldn’t blame you for abiding by the promise I made you give me. But I can’t tell him of our relationship and neither can you.”

“But this is ridiculous. It’s bound to come out sooner or later, and then what would you have me say? Oops, I forgot to tell you, your father was my family’s benefactor?”

“It’s imperative that Durante never find out.”

“Why?” she cried out in confusion.

The king seemed to age another twenty years before her eyes. Then he finally slumped back in bed and whispered, “Because if he finds out, he’ll put two and two together and realize that my mistress, the only woman I ever loved, was your mother.”

The world receded, her vision narrowed. Cold flooded in on her from all sides. Her heart lost momentum, stuttered, stalled.

The king’s voice became distorted. “I wanted to take our secret to my grave as she did. We never wanted you of all people to find out. But I have to tell you now.”

She felt her heart bleeding. “Not true…Mom loved Dad…”

“She did, but it was nothing like the love she had for me or I for her. She met him in my court, married him years after I left her in heartache and misery. It was almost as soon as she had you that your father’s depression began to manifest. Then I found proof that my suspicions—which had led me to break both of our hearts—had been unfounded. I sought her out, begged her forgiveness for the way I’d treated her. When I offered them my support, it felt as if your father suddenly let go with me around to carry the burden. She’d suffered so much,
I had to offer her solace and then it was beyond us not to succumb to our love. Your father wasn’t there by then, either mentally or emotionally, to notice let alone care.

“We kept our relationship a secret so that we wouldn’t hurt our children, but we were deeply in love and perfectly happy. Then she started to suffer from her rheumatoid arthritis and I started to let go of my own life and duties as I suffered her suffering. She chose to die without me around to witness it. Getting the news of her death, knowing that I wasn’t there for her in her last days, was almost a deathblow. I held on until I attended her funeral, made sure that everything was in order with her legacy and with you before I broke down. The only reason I’m still hanging on now is, I need to hand over Castaldini to a new king.

“I always wished Durante would be that king. But the laws were against it. Then he came to despise me so much he wouldn’t have accepted becoming my crown prince even if the laws changed. Then everything changed after your mother died, after I almost did. After Leandro turned down the crown, I had my chance to finally change the laws, to make Durante eligible despite his being my son. But the hard part was getting Durante himself back here. That’s when it finally came to me—the one thing that could bring him back, to me, to himself.
You.
”

“How did you
know
that?” she wailed. “God…
why me?
”

“Because, although I risked exposing everything by bringing you together, I had to try to give you what I and your mother could have had if I hadn’t spoiled it for us. I sent you to him because you’re so like your mother and he’s so like me, I was certain you’d fall as madly in love as we had. And you did.”

Durante stared down at the report in his hand.

He’d been trying to put the past into its inaccessible corner, never to touch the present or future again.

He hadn’t expected to end his own world.

His knees gave way under the enormity of the conspiracy the cold data spun.

“Durante!”

Durante heard the booming voice, the powerful footsteps’ escalating tempo as if through a separate consciousness. It felt as if it were another’s body that was dragged to its feet, that stumbled backward to hit something soft and yielding that broke its falling momentum.

“Durante, what’s wrong?”

He stared up out of eyes that felt alien, at a stranger with concern and anxiety blazing on his face. Somewhere in the black cascade that eclipsed everything, he knew this was Leandro, his cousin. But was he really? Did he know who anybody was anymore? Hadn’t it all turned into one big, convoluted lie?

“Did something happen? Is Gabrielle all right? The king?”

“Something happened. Gabrielle. The king.” Durante heard the stifled echo droning in a monstrous parody of his voice.

“What
is
it, Durante?
Tell
me.”

Durante wanted to tell him. He felt sure that uttering the words would finish him. And he wanted it all to be over. But his mind and tongue had lost their connection.

Leandro sat down slowly, as if afraid any sudden movement would make him crumble. He pried free something Durante was crushing in his fist. The report. The end of his world.

Every nerve in his body snapped. He fell back like a skyscraper coming apart in an earthquake.

Numbness crept over him like an army of spiders as Leandro looked at the papers. Nothingness expanded in his skull until he thought he felt the lines connecting its bones separate, widen, as if in preparation for explosion.

He pushed back against the inexorable pressure. “Read it. Out loud. From the beginning.”

Leandro gave a grudging nod and began to read.

“Investigations reveal that when King Benedetto was newly crowned, he had a secret lover, Clarisse LeFevre, a French-Canadian ballerina in an Italian ballet company that frequently performed in Castaldini. He broke off the affair over reports that she was cheating on him with a business rival, and almost immediately married Countess Angelica Boccanegra. Ten years later, the king, after investigating and proving the falseness of the allegations that had caused him to cast away his lover, finally located her. She was now married, but he became a constant presence in her family’s life, supporting them all after her husband, Andrew Williamson, suffered bankruptcy and depression. He had them all relocated to Cagliari, where he also kept a private home, where it was revealed after intensive investigation that he met with her regularly and in utmost secrecy a few months before her death seven months ago.”

“And a month later he had his stroke.” Durante heard the whisper, didn’t recognize it as his voice. “He weathered my mother’s death without a tear, but almost died when his lover did. The lover he named his own daughter after. The daughter of the woman he was betraying, the woman he broke in mind and spirit. And that lover’s daughter is now my bride-to-be. The love of my life.”

Leandro fixed him with a blank stare. Durante knew his lightning-swift mind was calculating all possible outcomes of every comment he could make.

Leandro finally exhaled. “I admit, this is totally unexpected. I can imagine how shocked you feel.”

“Can you, Leandro?” Tendrils of fury began to rise among the ashes of deadness. “Can you imagine what it feels like to surrender your heart only to find out you’ve fallen for your enemy?”

Leandro’s jaw hardened. “That is shock talking, Durante. Gabrielle has nothing to do with your parents’ affair.”

And the fury ignited. “
She lied.
She pretended she didn’t know my father—
Dio,
she blinded me so completely I never
suspected a thing. And all the time she’s been lying…about
everything.
”

“Don’t start jumping to conclusions,” Leandro said, like a father chastising sense into an overemotional son. “There could be a perfectly good reason why she couldn’t reveal their connection.”

“There
is
a perfectly good reason. Gabrielle’s reputation includes a warning not to let her within a mile of you. She knew I would never have met with her had I known. She played me so seamlessly, she had me groveling for believing the rumors about her instead.
Dio!
The hurt she poured out, the act I bought to the last tremulous treacherous gasp. I trusted her so much I didn’t even
think
of investigating her. And she’s been deceiving me all along. She’s—”

“Durante,
stop.
” Leandro’s growl was like a pressure bandage slammed on the hemorrhage of his rage and agony. “I once jumped to conclusions, listened to my fears and prejudices about Phoebe, and I ended up wasting eight years of our lives. Eight endless, miserable years of our living apart and in emotional exile. Don’t make the same mistake. The price is incalculable.”

And the torrent of pain gushed again. “Did Phoebe turn out to be the daughter of the woman your mother died of a broken mind and heart over? Did she keep lying to you until she had you depending on her for your every breath so that you wouldn’t be able to break free once you learned the truth? Is she a cold-blooded, manipulative cheat?”

Leandro’s gaze hardened to flint around the core of burning empathy. “All I can say is that this is circumstantial evidence, and I’ve learned the hardest way possible how misleading that can be. But as impossible as it may be for you to think right now, there are more important things at stake than your heart. Castaldini is in danger. The financial dangers are the least of our problems and the easiest to deal with. Political and ethnic conflicts are brewing, and as regent I don’t have the influence
of a king. Everyone believes they can wait for my proxy to be over—they don’t feel the necessity to bow to my power. Castaldini needs a king.”

“What does that have to do with this?”

“It has everything to do with it. The king has forbidden anyone to reveal to you his intention to approach you with his demand before he judged the time right to do so himself, but I believe none of us can afford to wait anymore. I can see that your personal situation is about to blow to kingdom come, and you
cannot
let that interfere with your decision.”

“What decision? What the devil are you talking about?”

Leandro looked as if he were about to stab him, hating to do it but knowing there was no escape. “After I declined to become crown prince, the king had the Council make an exigency amendment to the laws of succession. By this new amendment, he can now make you his crown prince. If you agree.” Leandro took him by the shoulders, shook him. “As you should, Durante. As you
must.
”

And it all made sense. Sick, macabre sense.

His father had set out to
make
him agree.

He’d known nothing would bring Durante back—nothing except an irresistible woman armed with thorough knowledge of him so she could project the image of his soulmate.

And she’d manipulated him to the point where they would achieve their objectives. At his expense. His father would get back the son who’d rejected him, would pass the crown to his line through Durante, while Gabrielle, the king’s partner in crime, the daughter of the woman he’d loved above all else, would be that son’s worshipped wife and queen, as his father had failed to make her mother.

His father was going to make his demand today. He knew it. And if he’d still been blind and fathoms-deep in love and trust, he would have agreed to anything to keep peace and harmony.

He exploded to his feet, rage and agony boiling his blood.

Leandro shot up, caught him. “Don’t do anything in this state, or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“
What
life?” Durante roared as he pushed his cousin away with all the violence tearing apart his insides before staggering away, a mortally wounded beast bent on slashing apart the two people who’d killed him before he surrendered to oblivion.

Gabrielle stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, whimpered as she brought the ice cube again to her swollen eyelids, trying to ameliorate the swelling.

She’d been back in her quarters for an hour now. She’d run there to get a hold of herself, but she’d failed miserably.

Shock and misery still wracked her. It felt as if acid were gushing through the gaping cracks of her shattered world.