Olivia Gates Bestseller Collection 2012 (36 page)

“Whatever you feel for me, it’s not enough to overcome everything it has against it. You might think now that it’s ‘until the end of your days,’ but give yourself, say, a month or two.
And
a woman or two. I bet you’ll forget about me. Or maybe, when all the illusions have dissipated and nothing but desire remains, you’ll walk back into my life like your father walked back into my mother’s and be my part-time lover, too. If you’re still single, that is. Whatever happens, the dream, the grand and unique and indestructible love, the guaranteed forever, is over. You ended it. And from where I’m standing, it’s better this way.”

He had no idea how he remained on his feet.

He’d thought he’d known how much he’d hurt her. Until she’d hurt him back. Caused him irreparable damage just by giving him a good look at her wound. He knew now. He also understood. Why his father had lost so much of himself when his lover had been suffering, why he’d almost died when she had.

He had broken her trust. Not just in his ability to always treat her with restraint and respect, but in the depth and constancy of not only his feelings but his character. More pledges now would mean nothing. Worse than nothing. His amends had to be undeniable, until she believed him and in him again.

And if she couldn’t? If this was irreversible?

He laid the dossier on her desk, leaned burning palms and trained blind-with-tears eyes on it. He couldn’t consider this. Not if he wanted to remain alive to see his plan through.

“Non rinuncerò mai ad amarti. Sono tuo per sempre.”

I will never give up loving you. I’m yours forever.

His only indication that the words that had scraped their longing into his mind had actually left his lips was the lurch that shook her, the two wet trails that spilled down her haunted face. He filled his soul and senses with one last look at her, a sight that would fuel him during the desolation of being without her. Then he turned and walked away.

It felt as if he was walking away from life. As he was.

T
he door clicked closed. Durante. Gone.

She’d made him go.

Something skewered its way through her gut. An unvoiced scream. For him to come back. That she took back every word. About not trusting him. Not forgiving him. Not believing in his love. Not feeling as if she’d die if he forgot her, if he sought out others, if he sought her out again with nothing but lust in his heart and body.
She’d lied.

But she’d had to.

She couldn’t have let him prove to her how much he loved her. How much he regretted doubting and hurting her. For she would have believed again, surrendered all the way now that her last shackle—his father’s secrets and her fear of their exposure—had been lifted.

But Durante’s shackles would never be lifted. Not when they were created by her very identity. The daughter of the woman he believed had caused his mother’s devastation and
death. That knowledge would poison his love, would chip away at its foundations. Then his bitterness and paranoia would rise again and he’d decimate her, forever this time, under the brunt of his cruelty.

She crumpled to the ground.

She’d gotten home, somehow. She didn’t remember how. She’d found herself there, weeping. She hadn’t stopped since. It was morning now. She thought.

Her nerves flamed with impulses, her mind roiled with obsessions, her cells burned with longing.

She needed him back.

How could he not come back? Was that it? The extent of his all-powerful emotions? His unstoppable persistence? She’d slapped him with words, clearly trembling for a repudiation, and he’d taken them as cause to give up on her? He was really gone?

He
couldn’t
be. He’d said he’d never give up. Why had he? Wasn’t what they’d shared worth more than an hour’s cajoling and a few pledges? Had all feeling been on her side, after all?

Which would make sense. More than a man like him feeling the same absolute emotions for her as she did for him.

But he’d said he
did.
And he never lied.

So had he faced himself with the truth, that in time he’d wonder how he’d disregarded who she was? Was he now wondering just how much of their rapport was real and how much had been his father’s tutoring? Could suspicion be taking hold of his mind again?

If it was, then his mind was a time bomb and she shouldn’t even think of coming within a mile of him again. She couldn’t survive another blow up.

But…she could have carried on in her lifelessness if he hadn’t shown up yesterday. How dared he jump-start her heart and hopes, then walk away again? This time she wasn’t flatlining, as she had the first time. This time she was fibrillating, the
spikes of chaos intensifying by the second, threatening to rupture her heart…

Stop. You’re not doing this. You’re not following in your father’s footsteps. Or his mother’s.

She had to behave as if she was alive, go through the motions. In time, it was bound to simulate life, maybe even re-spark it. She had to go through her morning routines, take them, and the rest of her life, one second at a time.

She dragged herself out of bed. One foot in front of the other. A shower, breakfast, morning show on TV, dress, work. Wait for him, pray for him to contact her again. She’d take him back if he did, grab at anything he offered, offer all of herself again come what may…

No, no,
no.
If she wasn’t right for him, it would end far worse than any of their parents’ stories had ended. For she was sure none had loved this intensely.

She walked back to the living room, taking a sip of her orange juice only to inhale one then spew it out in a fit of coughing.

His voice.

God, she was starting early, imagining hearing it.

Her eyes panned to where she thought she’d heard it issuing from, and she almost choked on her lungs in shock. He was…he was…

On TV. On the morning show she watched every day.

The gawking, swooning, hyper-excited female anchor was squeaking, “So why did you decide to break your silence with the press, Prince Durante? And in this spectacular way, too?”

Durante turned his brooding eyes from the woman’s face to look directly at the camera. Gabrielle collapsed under the brunt of his stare. She knew every woman in the globe would be similarly affected, but she knew. He was looking at her.

Then he began to speak, dark, driven, unraveling her with each syllable and intonation. “I am here offering the love of my life a public apology, issuing a plea that she give me one last
chance. I am announcing that Gabrielle Williamson’s Le Roi Enterprises—besides publishing my biography, which will include the details of the situation that led to my…postponement of our wedding—will also have the exclusive on every public plea I’ll continue to issue. Also, as a token of my total love and absolute trust, I have signed over all my holdings to her.”

Among the bombs, she realized one more thing.

This was on air live. Right in front of her building.

She’d never thought anything solid could move so fast. She streaked out of her apartment, saw that the elevator was in use. She didn’t even think of waiting, ran to the stairs and down the ten-floors, a missile set on Durante.

Once outside her building, she barreled her way through the barricade of human flesh he towered above. The crowd parted each time someone recognized her, and murmurs and exclamations spread like wildfire in dry tinder.

Her momentum slammed her into him. He barely moved under the impact. Hesitation, something she’d never felt from him, filled the arms that steadied her. His eyes devoured her as his face clenched with such longing, regret and entreaty that her chest heaved from their bombardment far more than with exertion.

His lips worked for a moment before they started to open. She just knew he was going to say more crazy, compromising things.

Her hand lurched up, clamped over his mouth. “This is all a publicity stunt, world,” she panted. “A dare I didn’t dream he’d take me up on. So…stockholders, don’t panic. And tabloids, don’t hold your breath. He will
not
be revealing anything, as there’s nothing to reveal. And yes, the book is going to be great, and everyone should preorder their copy, but it will not contain any sensational confessions, just the secrets to this…this phenomenal powerhouse of a dreamboat’s success, okay? What’s more—”

“Non posso più vivere senza di te, Gabriella mia.”

Her voice vanished, every electrical impulse powering her body shut down. She sagged in his arms. He was singing. Here.

I can’t live without you, my Gabrielle.

The crowd gaped. All of New York City seemed to hold its breath. He continued the song he’d written for her, had proposed with, his voice setting the yearning lyrics on passionate fire, turning the evocative melody into all-encompassing enchantment.

A hush reigned after his last vibrato had died away.

Then a storm of applause and questions exploded.

“Did you write this song?”

“Will you be recording this song?”

“Will you release it as a single? Part of an album?”

He shrugged. “It’s Gabrielle’s song. She decides what I do with it.” He turned his eyes down to her, his all-out surrender stoking the inferno raging inside her. “Just say the word and I’ll turn it into a rock number and perform it in a jumpsuit—”

She surged up, sealed his lips with hers, shutting him up.

He sagged in her arms, groaned his relief long and shuddering into her mouth, shaking the foundations of her soul. Then he suddenly dropped down. She panicked. For a millisecond.

He wasn’t fainting. He was bending for leverage. Then she was in his arms, feeling weightless, his gaze, the emanations of his whole being making her feel priceless.

The sea of bystanders parted, raged with hoots and applause. She vaguely thought New Yorkers must be reveling in the unfolding of yet another chapter in the fairy tale of their resident Castaldinian prince and his commoner American princess.

She missed the journey back up to her apartment. She only knew she was on her bed, her world once again anchored by Durante’s beloved weight, the heat and hardness of his steel-fleshed body driving security and equilibrium back into hers.

A long time after the frenzy unleashed in the wake of the barely escaped catastrophe abated, she lay boneless and throbbing with satiation, cleaved into him, sighing her bliss. “That was quite a stunt you pulled down there.”

Durante pressed into her, almost entering her again “down there,” purred, “Glad you approve.”

She wanted nothing more than to have him inside her again. But this couldn’t be put off. She dug her nails in his buttocks, stopping his movement.

He groaned in disappointment, rose over her, his eyes growing serious. “It wasn’t a stunt. I was showing you everything I held dear, my privacy, my pride, my status, my achievements, are a negligible price for regaining your trust. None of them mean a thing without you.”

Her heart swelled until it seemed to fill her down to her toes. Seemed it squeezed against her now ever-filled tear glands. “I won’t let you do any of the things you said you’d do.”

“I already did them.

“You’re undoing them, right this second.”

“I can’t. It’s all yours now.”

“Okay, Durante, this long ceased to be thrilling and is getting pretty scary. Stop. Now! Before this crazy stunt backlashes, you crazy, insane man.”

“I was insane to hurt you. I’ve never been saner or clearer about what matters. You, the restoration of your pride, your trust in me and my love. All I need is for you to let me be yours…yes, until the end of my days.” His lips crooked. “I just hope you’ll let me give you advice on what to do with your newly acquired wealth, so your stockholders don’t suffer a cent’s devaluation in the transfer. That’s the only catch, really, that you can’t give it all away to your favorite charities and causes.”

“But I can give it to anyone I want, right? So I’m giving it to you. End of conversation.” Something enormous mushroomed in his eyes, until she almost wailed. “What now?”

“I was just wondering. Who else would toss back something of that magnitude, without even pausing to make me sweat it first? Not that I am sweating it. I don’t care about it at all. I made my billions, and I’ll just make more. In fact, on the
way here, I made a transaction that resulted in half a billion in my newly emptied account. I’m not destitute, if that what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried. I’m
disintegrating.
”

“While I’m rejoicing. If I managed to prove the extent of my trust. Even though you’re making it so hard to prove anything by tossing everything back to me like that, I hope you know I wouldn’t have risked anything with such catastrophic potential to so many if I didn’t trust you more than I trust myself.”

“Everything has to be larger-than-Jupiter with you, doesn’t it? I toss around a few stupid words when I’m upset, and instead of giving me those couple of days—of hours you once suggested—to get my act together, you fling a whole financial empire at me.”

“And my kingdom, for good measure.” He sighed in contentment.

Suspicion sank its ice into her bones. She exploded out of his arms, sprung standing on the bed. “God, what did you
do?
”

He spread his magnificence like a replete lion, hooked his hands behind his head. “I told my father to go for his third candidate for the crown.”

Her heart almost fired out of her ribs. “What do you think I am? An insane goddess appeased only with atrocious sacrifices?”

“You are my goddess, but you’re regretfully too benevolent. You tried to stop my sacrifices, are trying to reverse them now.”

He stirred, prowled on all fours to her, bent to kiss her feet. She cried out the surplus of emotion. He crooned worship, worked his way up her legs, her calves, the back of her knees, burning one fuse after another, congealing the valves of her heart. She collapsed at the first touch of his tongue inside the thighs that trembled again with the need to wrap around him.

He received her nerveless mass in his cherishing arms, cosseted all of her quivering flesh. “This has nothing to do with what happened between us. But it is the best course of action
for
us. We’re both too much citizens of the world, too invested in our careers. As much as I love Castaldini and know you can come to love it, too, I don’t see our life bound to it.”

She squirmed. “God, no, don’t even consider my career in this decision. I’ll find a dozen ways to maintain it. I’m sure you can work out as many ways to run your empire by remote control. Take this back,
please.
”

“I won’t, because it’s the right thing to do. If I’m crowned, it will pulverize the law that made Castaldini such a unique and prosperous kingdom until my father’s personal life interfered with his being the formidable king he was. My reign would be the end of the crown for merit. And I truly think King Antonio had a great idea in making the king work for his crown, not be born to it.”