Olivia Gates Bestseller Collection 2012 (33 page)

“E il profumo della tua pelle accompagni ogni mio passo…per sempre.”

And the perfume of your skin to accompany my every step…forever.

“Vuoi percorrere il sentiero della vita insieme a me, amore?”

Will you walk your life’s path with me, my love?

Then he fell silent. And she wept. Her first tears of wonder, of being moved by beauty to an extreme surpassing any pain.

Suddenly trepidation pushed aside the tenderness in his eyes.

She couldn’t let him think her reaction wasn’t one of extreme joy and enjoyment. She blurted out, “That’s the most unbelievably, almost painfully beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. How did something like that not become an immortal hit?”

“Maybe because its writer wanted only one woman to hear it.”

“You…?” Shock hurtled through her.
“Dio…Durante…”

“Sposami, anima mia.”

Marry me, my soul.

“Gabriella mia, mi vuoi sposare?”

Durante asked again.
Will you marry me?

And nothing. Gabrielle was staring at him as if she’d suddenly stopped understanding Italian.

His certainty wavered. This didn’t look like surprise. Not the pleasant kind. But…why? What could be so…shocking? Surely she’d known where all this was leading? But if she was…unpleasantly surprised, did that mean she didn’t…?

No. He wouldn’t speculate. Never again. No doubts. He’d ask, and she’d tell him the truth. She always told the truth.

“Gabrielle? Don’t you have anything to say,
bellissima?
”

“Say? I-I can’t think of anything…can’t think…”

“Then tell me the first thing that jumped into your mind.”

Her eyes were enormous, shock still expanding. “I-I thought I heard wrong, then I thought, it’s only been a month. Three weeks, if you take away your famous Ten Days of Tantrum.”

He stared at her for a moment. Then he hooted with laughter. “Ah,
preziosa mia,
I never laughed for real before you.”

Her eyebrows shot up, her shock receding, her effort to match his teasing evident. “You want to marry me and make me your jester?”

“I want to marry you and make you my
everything.
My lover, my confidante, my friend, my ally, my psychoanalyst, my conscience, my perspective. As for how long we’ve known each other, you’ve known many people for years. Did that make you need them? Even like or tolerate them? Time isn’t a factor here and you know it.”

She nodded, shook her head, looking lost. “So time doesn’t promote involvement, but lack of it makes said involvement’s validity iffy. If…if in a few months’ time, a year’s, you still feel the same…”

“I will feel the same in sixty years’ time. This is only going to deepen, as it has every second of the past month.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You mean because no one knows what will happen in the future? But anything the future brings is irrelevant, because I am positive of one thing. Myself. In my thirty-eight years I have never even fancied myself in lust with any woman. I was waiting for you. From the first moment, it was like finding the missing parts of
m’ anima e corpo
—my soul and body. You think I can go back to living without what makes me whole?” Pain streaked across her face. His heart compressed, the world
going lightless. He groaned the unbearable fear. “Don’t you feel the same, Gabrielle? Are the doubts yours?”

His heart almost ruptured in the moments before she gulped the breath she needed to cry out what made him breathe again. “No! God, no! I love you so much I have panic attacks with it sometimes. I-I just can’t imagine having this, you, for always. I never thought happiness like this could be anything but temporary. I was waiting for you to…to have enough of me and…and…”

“Can I have enough of bliss? Of sustenance? Of air?”

“Durante…this is too much…too much…”

“Nothing is too much for you. My life, the whole world, they’re yours, if only you’ll take them. Will you,
alma mia?
”

She looked as if something was tearing her apart. Before he could blurt out his demand that she reveal whatever burden she had for him to bear, she surged into his body. “Yes, please, please, Durante. I want to never be without you again. I want to live my whole life enriching yours, if only you’ll let me.”

He groaned as if his soul had been dragged out and suddenly left to return to its sanctuary deep within him. He crushed her in his arms, moaned the ache of relief. “You have already enriched it beyond imagining,
mia cuore.
You healed me, purged my anguish. Now I owe you, us, myself without bitterness or shadows anywhere inside me. I owe you the best man I can be. And you were right, as you always are. This can only happen if I let go of my anger. I also need to give you the wedding that you deserve, and all of that can only happen one way. By going back. To make whatever peace I can with my father, to marry you on Castaldinian soil.”

W
ith every mile deeper into Castaldinian soil, it rose.

The suffocating feeling of being dragged into the worst days of her life, of feeling that they would start again, and this time, they would never end.

Gabrielle had spent what she remembered of her childhood on a Mediterranean island. Although that childhood had been turbulent, the sheer beauty and brightness of the backdrop it had played against had ameliorated much of its anxieties and heartaches. That had been reversed during her last stay in Cagliari.

Witnessing her mother fade away in that sun-drenched, olive grove-ensconced villa, watching her eyes empty of life on that veranda overlooking her beloved white-gold beaches and azure bay, burying her in the embrace of the land she’d called home, had forever linked this magnificence of nature, this balminess of weather, with irretrievable loss and bottomless grief.

Now similar scenes unfolded before her eyes, the influence of another ancient, blessed-by-the-gods land permeating her senses.

She took what comfort she could in the differences she’d been discovering since they’d started their drive to the capital, Jawara, from the private airfield Durante’s jet had landed in.

Castaldini’s landscape was wilder, more varied, segueing from mountain chains with rivers traversing them to plains with lakes and ponds that softened the harshness of the craggy terrain they rolled from. Then, at the very edge of the island, the land gave way to dense maquis followed by miles-deep expanses of powdered gold lapped by what seemed to be liquid turquoise.

Durante embraced her, as if feeling her turmoil. “This is your first trip here, isn’t it,
bellissima?
”

Tell him. Tell him now.

The urge almost burst her heart. It had been doing so ever since he’d asked her to marry him two days ago.

Dread had won out then. It won out again now. Weakness, too. She’d snatched at his offer without coming clean, and she still couldn’t do that now. And in an hour’s time they’d meet the man who could reveal the secret he’d made her keep. She dreaded Durante’s reaction, but at least she’d finally breathe easy that it was out.

For now she was powerless to do anything but let him clasp her to him. “It is strange that I never came here.”

Stranger than she could let on, with her lifelong relationship to King Benedetto.

“But it was your connections to this land that led you to find me. And this convinces me. Someone out there must really want to reward me. I wonder what I ever did to deserve that much? I must have done something huge. Why else did I find you? Why else do you love me? But even if I didn’t deserve you before, I’ll do everything I can, for the rest of my days, to deserve the gift of you.”

Awe and gratitude deluged her. She clung harder, until she felt as if she were submerged in his flesh, his love. “Don’t start me on correcting you about who’s the gift here.” After an
endless moment of supercharged communion, he looked away as if compelled, watched the scenes going by. “You miss it. It’s been five years?”

“Months,” he muttered. “I came back after
Padre’s
stroke.”

“But you said…”

“I couldn’t stay away. I stayed until he was out of danger. Paolo and Clarissa have been supplying me with constant reports of his condition ever since. But I swore them to secrecy. Needing to make sure he is all right has nothing to do with forgiving him, as
they
both seem to have done.”

“But you’re willing to give him a chance now.”

He seemed to struggle for an answer. He had pledged it to her, but it was tearing him up. King Benedetto had better have something solid to put Durante’s mind to rest, or she would be the first one to tell Durante that the king didn’t deserve his turmoil.

She stroked his hair until he moaned his enjoyment. “Don’t say anything,
amore mio.
Whatever happens, I just want you to be at peace.”

“I am, now that I have you. And I want you to be at peace, too. Remember when I told you not to worry about…anything?”

She nodded slowly. She’d almost forgotten. She’d been pulling her company back into the black just by working to full capacity the past three weeks. The news of Durante’s book was also restoring stockholders’ faith with a vengeance.

“The moment I realized that the recession in Castaldini wasn’t temporary, I started making plans to put an end to it. I slowed down their implementation when Leandro came into the picture, giving me time to perfect them instead of rushing in without every long-term outcome accounted for. Then I met you, and I felt I owed it to our love to consider nothing else but us for those short weeks. Now everything is in place, so you have nothing to worry about, but my plans have to wait a bit longer while I give you a wedding and a honeymoon like no bride has ever had.”

She turned in his arms. “But the simplest wedding is all I want, and every day with you is like a hundred honeymoons. Don’t you worry about my company. You’ve done way more than enough and we’re going to be fine. It’s Castaldini that needs you now, and I can’t have you putting off any work because of me or I would have failed in my most basic function as your lover and wife—to give you the peace of mind that will make you even more productive and effective.”

He let out a shuddering sigh. “It’s hopeless. I’ll never find words or deeds enough to express how much I love you.” Suddenly his lips crooked. “Now have mercy and let me give you what I need to give you without exhausting me. I need all my stamina for all that work ahead of me.”

She melted into him, deluged by another wave of love and wonder. “I called it right the first time I saw you.
Sietto un uomo cattivo.
”

Jawara was very much what its Moorish name said it was. A jewel of a city, glittering bright and unique under the perfect heat and illumination of the Mediterranean sun. It nestled between the banks of a river, which Durante informed her was the Boriana, and an imposing, vegetation-covered mountain, the Montalbo. The rolling plains to its north and south looked like a carpet.

Durante had warned her that the past decade had taken its toll on the city’s former flawlessness. But Gabrielle couldn’t see the deterioration that he as a native discerned. The place looked pretty incredible to her. She’d been to almost every European and North African capital in the last few years, and Jawara was the only one that didn’t have one building younger than the seventeen hundreds. It looked like an ancient city transplanted into the twenty-first century, a mixture of Gothic, Moorish and Baroque architecture and influences that she’d never imagined could mingle in homogeneity, but that here was simply breathtaking.

As they came to the first cobblestone street, the royal palace came into view, crouching like a gigantic, ancient creature on a hill that dominated the oldest part of the city.

On entering the palace grounds, a complex of enormous buildings surrounding the central palace, Durante pointed out the National Library, the Royal Museum, the ceremony halls and government offices. He said it would take some time to get to the Royal Apartments, because they were at the end of ten miles of grounds and he wasn’t asking Giancarlo to drive faster over the cobblestones and risk giving her a headache. When they drove past the central palace itself, she gaped, comparing it to a twilight zone episode in which someone passed a never-ending building. Durante laughed, said it was just another of his family’s pretentiously sized places. It did lie over four-hundred-thousand square feet.

Then the car stopped. In seconds she was smiling up at Durante as he opened her door even as her heart stampeded.

In a few minutes they’d see King Benedetto. And her horrible burden would be lifted. And then…?

“If it isn’t the prodigal prince returning.”

The deep drawl had Durante relinquishing his smile and turning on his heel. She followed his gaze and did a triple take.

Strolling toward them was a man who, while looking nothing like Durante in features or coloring, made almost his same impact, in size and height and in sheer radiation of power and charisma. It took her a moment to realize who he was. Prince Leandro D’Agostino, the one-time rebel, once-exiled prince, now regent of Castaldini.

“Leandro! My regent!” Durante exclaimed as he strode toward him with open arms.

Durante pulled his cousin into a rough embrace, one Leandro reciprocated, adding thumps on his back before drawing back to grin widely. “You’re looking absolutely radiant.”

Durante guffawed. “I thought the term was reserved for
brides. Preferably our brides.” He looked back at her, elation turning his beauty from breathtaking to heartbreaking, before he looked at the woman Gabrielle noticed coming up behind Leandro with tranquil steps. He turned to Leandro with a quirked eyebrow. “But then,
you’re
absolutely glowing.”

“Indeed, I am. Any wonder with such a power source?” Leandro put his arm around the woman’s shoulders, gathered her to him in a gesture so eloquent with tenderness, possessiveness and dependence that it sent a frisson of emotion through Gabrielle, at how much it mirrored what Durante blessed her with. The woman—who must be Phoebe Alexander, the sister of Durante’s sister-in-law and Leandro’s brand-new bride—smoldered reciprocation into her husband’s adoring eyes.

Phoebe was the first truly silver-eyed person Gabrielle had ever seen. She was gorgeous, with all that glossy black hair and creamy skin. She looked blissful. And pregnant. The fact that she was showing meant she’d been already pregnant before the wedding.

Something hot and overwhelming stormed through Gabrielle, lodging into her womb. She’d never thought of having a baby. Until Durante. How she yearned to have his. She prayed to God she could.

“So miracles do happen.” Phoebe was looking at her in candid and benign interest. “I never thought the day would come when anyone softened the inflexible Durante.”

Gabrielle took her hand, grinned conspiringly at her. “So you’re a power source, and I’m some sort of softener. We must put our disparate abilities together in an unstoppable collaboration.”

Leandro sighed, winking at Durante. “We’re doomed.”

Durante looked heavenward. “From your lips.”

They all laughed as they started walking into the palace, the men falling into step with each other, as she did with Phoebe.

The conversation flowed with bantering ease, to her immense relief. Phoebe was going to be a constant presence in her life and it would have been a source of unneeded strife if
they hadn’t hit it off. But she felt they’d only like each other better on deepening exposure. It felt so good, looking forward to this unexpected bonus. A woman her age, in her same unusual situation, becoming an ally, a friend. Something she sorely needed.

Suddenly they both fell silent. It seemed Phoebe’s ears had pricked like hers on hearing the turn in conversation their men had taken.

“He isn’t in good shape, Durante. Take it easy on him.”

“I
am
taking it easy on him. I came back, didn’t I?”

“Not enough,
amico mio.
Give him a chance. Let him talk this time. Maybe he has something to say.”

“If he did, he would have said it years ago.”

“You already tried thinking the worst and it ate up five years of both of your lives. Why not try giving other possibilities a chance? I would have thought you incapable of relenting on this one, but because you are here, I am hopeful that miracles indeed do happen.”

After a moment’s silence, Durante turned, caught her eyes in a searing look of passion and tenderness and whispered, “They do.”

Gabrielle almost cried out with the slam of emotion.

And she prayed. For this miracle of his love to overpower whatever ugliness there was, even if there was no hope of erasing it. To overlook the unwilling deceit she’d perpetrated.

“Durante. You came back.”

Durante looked at the man who’d once been his hero. The father he’d idolized. He almost didn’t recognize him.

Pain seared his heart. He refused to give in to it. “
Sì.
But not for you. For Gabrielle.”

He held out his hand to her. Her gaze was frozen on his father’s face as she unsteadily came to his side. “Gabrielle Williamson, my bride-to-be. We’re getting married here in a
week’s time. It’s for love of her, for needing to give her a future untainted by the shadows of the past that I’m here,
Padre.
But I’ve also met you halfway. Now it’s your turn. Tell me the truth.”

“The only truth, Durante…” His father’s weakened voice revved sickness and regret behind his sternum. He gritted down on the weakness. “…is that there was no villain or victim.”

“So you didn’t have a mistress?”

“No, I did have a mistress.” Gabrielle lurched at his side. He barely stopped himself from exhibiting his own shock at having all his doubts validated. “And she was the only woman I ever loved. She was the one, Durante. Like your Gabrielle is to you.”

The lava of betrayal and hatred and anger rose in him, obliterating all his intentions to give peace a chance. “And of course you discovered this after you married a woman who gave you her heart and life and children.”