Olivia Gates Bestseller Collection 2012 (37 page)

“But the law is too absolute and unfair,” she protested. “Many sons won’t live up to their fathers’ level, but you’ve surpassed yours. It would be glaringly obvious you were made king on total merit, that after you the law would be enforced again, until another king’s son proves himself as worthy of the crown.”

“Even if I’m worthy of it, I didn’t grow up dreaming of it, wasn’t fighting for it when I built my success and fortune.”

“But that should only make you even more worthy of it!”

“It doesn’t work that way in Castaldini. And then, I truly don’t
want
the power and the responsibility, and that’s a
huge
strike against me. All I want is to be yours.”

There were no limits to the heights he’d make her scale.

She pitched herself from those heights into the depths of arms she knew would always be there to catch her. “It’s too much!” He rumbled. She swallowed his protest, sobbed. “Don’t contradict me. I’m stating facts here.”

He chuckled. “Here’s one more fact,
bellissima.
My father, too, believes the long-term repercussions of the precedent of my crowning would change the face of Castaldini, something we should all fight against. He was desperate for me to take the
crown, not because I was Castaldini’s last hope, but because he feared the Council’s rigidity. They proved it by choosing me over the third candidate because he’s an illegitimate D’Agostino, a factor that in this day and age shouldn’t be a consideration. He still fears they’ll let him, the one they know would probably make the best king go because of this stupid prejudice.”

She raised an eyebrow, suspicion and hackles rising. “Going overboard alert. Losing all credibility here. Way to go to
de-
convince me. There can be no better king-material than you.”

Delight crackled from his depths, rich and infectious and unbearably arousing. “Never stop saying things like that to me.”

“No danger of that whatsoever. Just hope you can stomach all the nonstop adulation. So what’s this exaggeration about this third candidate making the best king?”

“It’s what I believe. We—my father’s candidates—are on par as far as power and success go. But I believe Ferruccio is the one among us who has that most drive to lead. He’s also the most…old-fashioned, if you will. And he might never admit it, but he craves setting down roots, which he’s never had. That combination makes him the best choice for Castaldini’s king. I pray they make him the offer and fast, and that he agrees to take up the mantle when they do. I’m not sure he will. If I were him, I’d probably courier the D’Agostino family and Castaldini to hell.”

“What if he does refuse? Will you then take the crown?”

“I won’t think of that unless I’m the last candidate left standing. But I agreed to be Leandro’s co-regent. Once Ferruccio is crown prince, we’ll be his main men on his new Council, continuing to do our utmost in Castaldini’s service. That means many, many visits there. Would you like that?”

She plunged into his embrace, kissing him all over. “I would love that! And I love you, most of the time beyond endurance…”

She cursed herself for the tremor in her voice when he
heaved up, his eyes alert, alarmed. “What is it? Surrender all your worries,
anima mia,
let me erase them.”

“I-I’m just so afraid…and that was the reason I…”

“The reason you said what you did yesterday.”

“I always forget that you can read my mind.”

“Just partially now. I can’t tell what still pains you so.”

“I-I…oh, hell…tell me the truth, okay? I’ll know if you don’t and it will prey on my mind. You
really
don’t care who I am?”

“I couldn’t care more.” She jerked, and he gentled her, leaned her against his propped up thighs, stroked and kneaded her, at once mind-blowingly sexual and heart-meltingly emotional. “You are the one who has awakened my heart, reawakened my ability to care, to enjoy, introduced me to the full potential of life. You have nothing to do with our parents’ choices. I was insane to suspect you of knowing of their affair, to doubt your motives toward me. But at the core of my madness was my fear that I didn’t deserve you and all the happiness you bring me, that something would happen to prove it was all too incredible to be true.”

“And even though you deserve to be punished, slowly, agonizingly…” She lunged at him, kissed her way down his body until he growled, thrust at her, drove convulsing fingers in her hair to stop her, to urge her on. “…you also deserve far more than I can possibly be or give…hush, don’t contradict me again.” She raised her eyes, found that his were rivaling Castaldini’s shores in vividness and translucency, radiating pure azure adoration. “And that’s the same fear that paralyzed me into keeping silent. I couldn’t believe this could be happening to me. I was living in dread of ending the perfection.”

His lips quirked. “So you don’t think it was fool’s gold?”

She fluttered her lashes. “So you don’t think I seduced you?”

“You did seduce me. To the point that my mind unravels at the merest thought of losing you.” Distress gurgled in her throat. A slash of bedeviling white lit up his dark gold face as he
hauled her to him. “And
Grazie a Dio
that you did. You seduced me just by being yourself, with no motive other than being unable to have enough of me. But
ragazzaccia mia,
you stopped my amends too soon. Not that I’ll stop. I’ll just keep on making them, keep showing you, proving to you what you are to me, my everything.”

“Them’s fightin’ words, Your Highness. Prepare to witness that you are this and more to me. For starters, I’ll never withhold anything from you again, not facts, not the last shred of thought or emotion.” She bit her tongue. “Uh…that sounded as if I’ll be a blabbering, overemotional pain in the rear.”

“This kind of pain?” He squeezed her buttocks, pressed her into his aroused flesh, groaned as if in suffering. Her insides clenched, needing, gnawing. She knew how he felt. “Or the other kind, where you agonize me by reassuring me I’m in your heart and thoughts, that I’m pleasing and pleasuring you? If that’s the kind of torment you have in store for me, I beg you to never stop.”

She opened herself to him, pledged with body and soul, to never, ever stop.

Much, much later, she was draped over her man, her lover, the most incredible gift in this plane of existence, feeling savagely pleasured and overcharged with satiation.

It was why the thought, when it came, ripped through her like a hot knife through butter.

He felt it at once, gathered her more securely. “Tell me.”

She didn’t hesitate this time. “You still don’t know what really went on with your mother, what her diary meant.”

“I know she was disturbed. From the thankfully little I saw of my grandfather, I can see why, now that I’ve opened my mind to other possibilities rather than the obvious ones pointing to my father.”

“So you don’t believe your father drove her to suicide?”

He shook his head. “Or your mother. It was a tragedy, but I believe my father now, that there was no villain.”

“Do you
really
believe that, or are you just—”

“Manipulating history to get closure in a way that would exonerate both our parents for obvious self-serving purposes?”

“Will you quit finishing my thoughts and questions?” She scraped her teeth against the abrasion of his stubble.

He groaned his pleasure before he pulled back, his eyes solemn. “And no, I’m not deluding myself here. I punished myself and my father long enough for the failures I believed we were both guilty of. But finding you gave me the clarity to see that neither of us could have done anything to help her, just like neither you nor your mother could help your father. I also faced it that neither of us could have suspected Clarissa’s ordeal, that we did intervene immediately when we found out. I was never able to forgive either of us for this. But loving you opened up my ability to forgive, to let only positive emotions thrive.”

The serenity he exuded enveloped her, the freedom from darkness that blazed in his eyes lighting up the universe. Searing joy spilled from her eyes, as for the first time she knew the real meaning of security, of stability. This was unshakable.

He suddenly frowned. “
Dio mio,
what a fool I am!”

She jerked up. “What?”

“I dared presume you’ll walk down the aisle on the strength of a proposal I effectively rescinded.”

“It’s okay. It’s reusable. Like a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

He guffawed as he jumped up, scooped her up in his arms. “If you ran a jail, I’d never want to get out. Now, will you lend me your yacht? I want to reenact a certain proposal scene.”

“Oh, God! You still haven’t taken all your stuff back.”

“You make it sound like some old clothes and a guitar.”

“Just tell me how to get everything back in your name or I’ll hold my breath until I pass out!”

He sighed, let her down on her feet. “I trust this won’t be the way you operate with me from now on?”

She gulped a breath and he shook his head, grudgingly walked away, reached down to his strewn clothes for his cell phone.

He’d hit two numbers when she cried out. “Wait!” He cocked a daunting eyebrow at her. “You’re penniless right now, right? Comparatively speaking?”

“Sì.”
His eyes flared and subsided like blue pulsars as he prowled back to her, running his hands suggestively down his chiseled body. “Why? Do you have a…position for me?”

She glowed up at him. “Many, permanent ones. In my bed. And everywhere else.”

“Hmm. Do I get to be…on top sometimes still?”

“On top, under, behind, around. All positions are…wide open.”

“I can say I’m interested.” He licked his lips. “Rabidly so.”

She hauled him to her in a ribs-cracking hug. “You just want me for my money.” She giggled and sobbed and deluged him with kisses. “So, Your Scrumptiousness—now that I’ve proven, from my exalted upper-hand position, that I want you for you, will want only you, will love, cherish and defend you, be there for you with all that I am, for the rest of my days,
sposami,
Durante. Marry me,
amore mio.
Make me complete.”

He hugged her off the ground, the elation and adoration radiating from him enough to power the whole city with years of love and wonder. “On one condition. If I say yes now, I still get to do my reenactment.”

“Say yes now and you can do whatever you like, always. In fact, you’d better.”

“You’ll let me give you all that I am?”

“Oh, yes, please.”

He let her down, kneeled, still hugging her, his eyes pledging more than his all. “Then, yes,
amore mio.
Love me and let me love you…forever.”

She hugged him into her, body and being, bliss shaking her, gushing from her eyes. And she knew.

There’d never be doubt again.

This
was
unshakable. This was forever.