Amy shivered.
Helios tightened his hold and gently kissed her. ‘I know I have the power to hurt you, matakia mou, and I swear on everything holy that I will never abuse it. But you need to understand one thing.’
‘What’s that?’ she whispered.
‘You have equal power to hurt me.’
‘I do?’
‘Living without you... It’s been like living in an emotional dungeon. Cold and dark and without hope.’ He brushed his thumb over her soft cheek. ‘If spending the rest of my life with you means I have to relinquish the throne, then that’s the price I’ll pay and I’ll pay it gladly.’
Her hold on his shirt tightening, her eyes wide and fearful, she said, ‘But what about the throne? What will happen to it?’
‘I don’t know.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘Theseus is next in line. That’s one of the things that struck me earlier—my grandparents raised three princes. It doesn’t have to be me. We’re all capable and worthy of taking the throne. Except Talos,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘Never mind that he’s marrying a commoner too. He can be particularly fierce. He’ll probably scare more people away from our country than attract them.’
She managed a painful chortle at his attempt at humour. ‘But what if Theseus doesn’t want it?’
‘He probably won’t want it,’ he answered honestly. ‘But he understands what it’s like to be without the one you love. His fiancée has royal blood in her. It should be enough.’
‘And if it isn’t?’
‘Then we will work something out. Whatever happens, I swear to you that we will be together until we take our dying breaths and that the Agon monarchy will remain intact. Have faith, matakia mou. And to prove it...’
Disentangling himself from her arms, he dug into his pocket and pulled out the object Pedro had set about retrieving a few short hours ago.
Dumbstruck, she simply stared at it as he displayed it to her.
‘This, my love, belongs to you.’ He took her trembling left hand, slid the ring onto her engagement finger, then kissed it. ‘One day the eldest of our children will inherit it, and in turn they will pass it to the eldest of their children—either to wear themselves upon marriage or for their wives to wear.’
‘Our children?’
‘You do want them, don’t you?’ he asked, suddenly anxious that he might have made one assumption too many. ‘If you don’t we can pass the ring to Theseus...’
‘No, no—I do want your children,’ she said. And then, like a cloud moving away from the sun, the fear left her eyes and a smile as wide as the sunset before them spread across her cheeks, lighting up her whole face. ‘We’re really going to be together?’
‘Until death us do part.’
Such was the weight of her joy that when she threw herself into him he fell back onto the grass, taking her with him, and her overjoyed kisses as she straddled him filled him with more happiness than he had ever thought possible.
She was his. He was hers.
And as they lay on the grass, watching the orange sun make its final descent through the pink sky, he knew in his heart that the rest of his life would be filled with the glorious colours of this most beautiful of sunsets.
EPILOGUE
Six months later
THE RED DOME of the Aghia Sophia, the cathedral located in the exact central point between the Agon palace and the capital, Resina, gleamed as if it were burnt liquid gold under the autumn sky.
As Amy was taken through the cheering crowds on a horse-drawn carriage she turned her face upwards, letting the sun’s rays warm her face, and sighed with contentment. Unlike many brides on their big day, she had no fear or apprehension whatsoever.
Beside her sat her father, who would be walking her down the aisle, and little Toby, proud as Punch to have been given the important role of ring bearer. In the carriage ahead of them sat her three bridesmaids: her soon-to-be sisters-in-law, Amalie and Jo, and Greta. Ahead of them were seven mounted military guards, in all their ceremonial attire, with the front rider holding the Kalliakis Royal Standard. More guards rode alongside the carriages, and there were a dozen at the rear.
It was pure pageantry at its finest. Triple the number of military guards were scheduled for a fortnight’s time, when she and Helios would return to the cathedral to be crowned King and Queen of Agon.
In the sky were dozens of helicopters, sent from news outlets across the world to film the event.
Unbelievably she, Amy Green—a woman abandoned as a two-week-old baby by her birth mother, a woman who had never been quite sure of her place in the world—was going to be Queen of Agon.
Helios would be King. And it was the woman who’d abandoned her who’d made it all possible.
According to Helios, Theseus had turned the colour of puce when he’d sat his two brothers down and explained the situation to them. As Helios had suspected, Theseus had reluctantly agreed he would take the throne but only if all other avenues had first been explored.
Constitutional experts had been put on the case, to no avail, until Talos had come up with the bright idea of changing the constitution, rightly pointing out it had been changed numerous times before.
A meeting with the Agon senate had been arranged, and there the president, who, like all the members of the senate, was sympathetic to the Crown Prince’s plight, had murmured about how much easier it would be to bring about the constitutional change if the bride were of Agon blood...
A referendum had taken place. Of the ninety per cent turnout, ninety-three per cent had voted for changing the constitution to allow a person of non-royal blood to marry into the royal family, provided that she was of Agon blood.
And now, as the carriage pulled up at the front of the cathedral, where the cheers from the crowd were deafening, Amy was helped down. She stepped carefully, so as not to trip over the fifteen-foot train of her ivory silk dress, handmade by Queen Rhea’s personal designer, Natalia.
How she loved her dress, with its spaghetti straps and the rounded neck that skimmed her cleavage, the flared skirt that was as far from the traditional meringue shape as could be. Simpler in form and design than both Queen Rhea’s dress and Helios’s mother’s dress, it was utterly perfect for her. And it was lucky she had insisted on something simpler considering they’d had to expand the waistline at the last fitting, to take into account the swelling of her stomach...
She and Helios had taken the decision a couple of months ago for Amy to come off the contraceptive pill, both of them figuring that it would take a good few months for the hormones to get out of her system. The hope had been that she would conceive after their coronation.
Whoops.
A month after taking her last pill Amy’s breasts had suddenly grown in size. Their baby—the new heir to the throne—was due in six months, something they had decided not to make public until after their coronation. Naturally half the palace knew about it.
Greta had been given Corinna’s job at the museum and was thoroughly enjoying bossing Amy about. Amy had gone back to curating King Astraeus’s exhibition and then, when the exhibition had closed, she’d taken on the role of museum tour guide. It was a job she would be able to fit around the royal duties she would have to take on when she was crowned Queen.
Helios still thought it appropriate to give bloodthirsty Agon history lessons to children in the dungeons.
In all, everything had worked out perfectly, as if the stars had aligned for them.
Jo stepped forward to adjust Amy’s veil, having to stretch to accommodate her own swollen stomach, which was fast resembling a beach ball, and then it was time.
When her arm was held tightly in her father’s, the doors of the cathedral were thrown open, the music started and Amy took the first step towards the rest of her life.
The congregation rose as one, every head turning to stare. The first face she saw was that of Princess Catalina, who, as gracious as ever, smiled at Amy with both her lips and her eyes. When the press had
bombarded her with questions about Helios and Amy’s marriage her statement of support for them had been heartfelt and touching.
Surely somewhere in this packed cathedral stood a prince in need of a beautiful, elegant princess to make his own?
In the back row was the woman who had made all this happen—Neysa Soukis, there with her husband, and their son, Leander. It was amazing how the thought of being Queen Mother had spurred Neysa to recognise Amy as her child with enthusiasm and thus proclaim her a child of Agon blood. No doubt Neysa had imagined this moment many times, had thought she would be sitting in the front row of the congregation.
Alas, Neysa had soon learned that the only place she had in Amy’s life was as a name on a piece of paper. Elaine—her mum, the woman who had raised and loved her—would be the officially recognised Queen Mother.
And, thinking of her mum, there she stood in the front row, beautiful in a pea-green skirt suit and an enormous hat, beaming with pride. Next to her stood Amy’s real brothers, Neil and Danny, with identical grins on their faces. Both of them had been fit to burst with pride when Helios had appointed them as his ushers. Their wives had a dazed, ‘someone pinch me to prove this is really happening’ look about them.
And best of all, standing at the front, beside the altar, his brothers by his side, stood Helios; her lover and her best friend all rolled into one.
The three Princes were dressed in their military uniforms: the Kalliakis livery complete with sashes. They all looked magnificent, like three benevolent giants.
Helios might not be able to see her face through her veil, but she could see his, and see the full beard he’d grown especially for her. The expression in his eyes made every step she took closer to him feel as if she were bouncing on the moon.
When she reached him Helios took her hand, and together they knelt at the altar to pledge their lives, fidelity and love to each other for ever.
They were pledges neither of them would ever break.
* * * * *
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Castelli’s Virgin Widow
by Caitlin Crews
CHAPTER ONE
“PLEASE TELL ME this is a bad attempt at levity, Rafael. A practical joke from the least likely clown in Italy.”
Luca Castelli made no attempt to temper his harsh tone or the scowl he could feel on his face as he glared across the private library at his older brother. Rafael was also his boss and the head of the family company, a state of affairs that usually did not trouble Luca at all.
But there was nothing usual about today.
“I wish that it was,” Rafael said from where he sat in an armchair in front of a bright and cheerful fire that did nothing at all to dispel Luca’s sense of gloom and fury. “Alas. When it comes to Kathryn, we have no choice.”
His brother looked like a monk carved from stone today, his features hewn from granite, which only added to Luca’s sense of betrayal and sheer wrongness. That was the old Rafael, that heavy, joyless creature made entirely of bitterness and regret. Not the Rafael of the past few years, the one Luca greatly preferred, who had married the love of his life he’d once thought dead and was even now expecting his third child with her.
Luca hated that grief had thrown them all so far back into unpleasant history. Luca hated grief, come to that. No matter its form.
Their father, the infamous Gianni Castelli, who had built an empire of wine and wealth and brusque personality that spanned at least two continents, but was better known around the world for his colorful marital life, was dead.
Outside, January rain lashed the windows of the old Castelli manor house that sprawled with such insouciance at the top of an alpine lake in Northern Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, as it had done for generations. The heavy clouds were low over the water, concealing the rest of the world from view, as if to pay tribute to the old man as he’d been interred in the Castelli mausoleum earlier this morning.
Ashes rendered ashes and dust forever dust.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
Rafael, who had been acting CEO of the family business for years now despite Gianni’s blustery refusal to formally step aside, was now indisputably in charge. That meant Luca was the newly minted chief operating officer, a title that did not come close to describing his pantheon of responsibilities as co-owner but was useful all the same. Luca had initially thought these finicky bits of official business were a good thing for the Castelli brothers as well as the company, not to mention long overdue, given they’d both been acting in those roles ever since the start of their father’s decline in health some years back.
Until now.
“I fail to understand why we cannot simply pay the damned woman off like all the rest of the horde of ex-wives,” Luca said, aware that his tone was clipped and bordering on unduly aggressive. He felt restless and edgy in his position on the low couch opposite Rafael, but he knew if he moved, it would end badly. A fist through a wall. An upended bookshelf. A broken pane of glass. All highly charged reactions he did not care to explore, much less explain to his brother—given they smacked of a loss of control, which Luca did not allow. Ever. “Settle some of Father’s fortune on her, send her on her way and be done with it.”
“Father’s will is very clear in regard to Kathryn,” Rafael replied, and he sounded no happier about it than Luca felt. Luca told himself that was something anyway. “And she is his widow, Luca. Not his ex-wife. A crucial distinction.”
Luca nearly growled but checked it at the last moment. “That’s nothing but semantics.”
“Sadly not.” Rafael shook his head, but his gaze never left Luca’s. “The choice is hers. She can either accept a lump settlement now, or a position in the company. She chose the latter.”
“This is ridiculous.”
It was something far worse than merely ridiculous, but Luca didn’t have a word to describe that gnawing, hollow thing inside him that always yawned open at any mention of his father’s sixth and final wife. Kathryn.
The one who was even now in the larger, more formal library downstairs, crying what appeared to be real tears over the death of a husband three times her age she could only have married for the most cynical of reasons. Luca had seen them trickle silently down her cheeks, one after the next, as they’d all stood about in the frigid air earlier, giving the impression she could not manage to contain her grief.
He didn’t believe it. Not for a second.
If Luca knew anything, it was this: the kind of love that might lead to such grieving was rare, exceedingly unlikely and had never made a great many appearances in the Castelli family. He thought Rafael’s current happiness was perhaps the only evidence of it in generations.
“For all we know, Father found her hawking her wares on the streets of London,” he muttered now. Then glared at his brother. “What the hell will I do with her in the office? Do we even know if she can read?”
Rafael shifted, the dark eyes that were so much like Luca’s own narrow and shrewd. “You will find something to keep her busy, because the will assures her three years of employment. Ample time to introduce her to the joys of the written word, I’d think. And whether you like her or not is irrelevant.”
Like was not at all the word Luca would have used to describe what happe
ned inside him at the mention of that woman. It wasn’t even close.
“I have no feelings about her whatsoever.” Luca let out a laugh that sounded hollow to his own ears. “What is one more child bride—acquired solely to cater to the old man’s ego—to me?”
His brother only gazed at him for a moment that seemed to stretch on for far too long. The old windows rattled. The fire crackled and spat. And Luca found he had no desire whatsoever to hear whatever his older brother might say next. He’d preferred Rafael when he’d been lost in a prison of fury and regret, he told himself, and unable to concentrate on anything outside his own pain. At least then he’d been a known quantity. This new Rafael was entirely too insightful.
“If you are determined to do this,” he said before Rafael could open his mouth and say things Luca would have to fend off, “why not set her up with something in Sonoma? She can get a hands-on experience at the vineyards in California, just as we did when we were boys. It can be a delightful holiday for her, far, far away.”
From me, he did not say. Far, far away from me.
Rafael shrugged. “She chose Rome.”
Rome. Luca’s city. Luca’s side of their highly competitive wine business. The marketing power and global reach of the Castelli Wine brand were, he flattered himself, all his doing—and possible in large part because he’d been left to his own devices for years. He had certainly not been required to play babysitter for one of his father’s legion of mistakes.
His father’s very worst mistake, to his way of thinking. In a lifetime of so very many—including Luca himself, he’d long thought. He knew his father would have agreed.
“There’s no room,” he said now. “The team is lean, focused and entirely handpicked. There’s no place for a bit of fluff on sabbatical from her true vocation as an old man’s trophy.”
Rafael was his boss then, he could see. Not his brother.
Helios Crowns His Mistress Page 16