The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize

by Maisey Yates

  She should feel happy for them. Part of her did feel happy for them. But so much of her was broken, smashed into tiny pieces. Tiny, aching pieces. That made it difficult to feel wholly happy for anyone or anything.

  She wasn’t entirely certain she would ever take a full breath again, much less crack a full smile.

  It was seriously dramatic, but she felt seriously dramatic.

  She would like to think of Alex as her first love. Her first heartbreak. But with each and every beat of her heart the word wasn’t first, it was only. Her only love. Her only lover. The only man she would ever want, the only man she could ever possibly need.

  She was hurt. But she was also angry at him. Because no matter what he said she knew that there was more to him than this. She knew that he hadn’t seduced her, tricked her, just for a little bit of sport. He felt something for her, and she knew that. The fact that he was so cruel when he’d abandoned her earlier today was proof enough of that.

  He talked about being like his father, but she knew that people like their parents were not intentionally cruel. They were simply self-seeking. When he had been confronted with his half brother he had preferred to ignore the situation.

  This was different. His reaction was different. Yes, she knew he had a reputation for being a monster, but she had also never seen it in action.

  Still, even knowing that something deeper was going on inside of Alex, it didn’t mean this didn’t hurt. Because while she had confidence that he had feelings for her that went beyond the physical, she had no confidence that they would be able to resolve it.

  Though there was something wonderful in finding a belief in true love because of the reunion of their grandparents, there was also something sobering about the fact that it had taken them more than fifty years to come and find each other. She didn’t want to wait fifty years for Alex.

  She flopped backward onto the bed, groaning loudly. She closed her eyes, letting her lips part, imagining that Alex was here. That he was leaning in, about to kiss them. She let her imagination drift. To the way that he touched her. The way that he held her.

  She might have been a virgin, but she wasn’t an idiot.

  She opened her eyes, sighing heavily.

  There was a knock on the door and Gabriella rolled onto her side, her head on her arm. “Come in,” she said, not quite sure why she was allowing anyone entry when she felt like day-old crusty bread.

  When the door opened, Gabriella straightened. It was her grandmother. “Hello, Gabriella,” the older woman said, walking into the room slowly.

  “I trust everything is going well?”

  Lucia smiled. “Better than.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I know Bartolo’s health is not as good as it might be, but I am more than happy to devote time to caring for him.”

  Those words, so gentle, so serene, shook something inside of Gabriella. It made her think of Alex again. She would do that for him. She would care for him. She didn’t need the whole world in return; she only needed what he could give. At least for now. If he hadn’t sent her away she would be willing to be patient. She didn’t need him to throw rope around the moon and lasso it, didn’t need him to pull it down for her. He was the moon all by himself. The idiot.

  “Gabriella,” her grandmother said, her tone gentler now. “Is there something you wish to tell me?”

  “Alex,” she said, because she knew that would be enough.

  “I did warn you,” the older woman said, her eyes soft, no condemnation in her voice.

  “I know you did. Unfortunately, Alessandro was a bit more persuasive than you are.”

  Lucia laughed then. “They always are. I have some experience with that, as you may know.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “And sometimes they push us away because they think they are doing what’s best for us. In truth, while I know Bartolo believes I was angry at him, I was angry at myself. I knew what he was doing that whole time. He was trying to play the part of nobleman. He didn’t want me to be denied anything he considered my birthright. Didn’t want me disowned by my family. But I have always felt that I should have fought harder. Always wondered what would have happened if I would have told him no. If I would never have let him get away with hurting me to save me.”

  The truth of her grandmother’s words resonated inside of her. Because it was what she had imagined Alex might be doing. Of course, she was too afraid to hope. Maybe he simply didn’t want to be with her. “How do you know?”

  Her grandmother took a step forward, patting her on the hand. “You don’t. Not unless you go ask. Take it from someone who spent half a century wishing she would have asked—it’s worth the risk. Pride does not keep you warm at night. Pride won’t smile at you every morning, day in day out, with ever deepening lines as the years pass. Pride is very cold comfort, Gabriella.”

  Lucia straightened and walked back out of the room, closing the door softly behind her. Gabriella thought of the way Alex had looked at her before leaving her in the garden earlier. Of the painful words he’d spoken, designed specifically to inflict the deepest wounds on her.

  Her grandmother was right. There was no room for pride. Her pride could go straight to hell, but she would keep her love for Alex.

  She had spent a great many years hiding. Trying to prevent herself from being rejected ever again, the way her parents made her feel rejected. But all that had ever gotten her was a dusty library. She was done with that. She would have her dusty library and her man.

  It was suddenly clear. She’d been doing her family’s genealogy for years. Trying to uncover the mysteries of the past, to shine a light on history and events lived by other people. She used it to hide.

  But there would be no more hiding. She could no longer pin everything on the past. She had to make her own life. Her own history.

  She stood up, vibrating with determination. Alessandro Di Sione might think he was the most fearsome creature to roam the earth. But hell had no fury like Gabriella D’Oro when she was scorned. And she was determined to show him that.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ALEX WAS CONTEMPLATING the merit of filling his bathtub with whiskey and seeing if he could absorb the alcohol straight through his skin. Anything to dull the roar of pain that was writhing through his body, the pounding in his temples, the bone-deep ache that had settled down beneath his skin and wrapped itself around his entire being.

  Drinking had proven ineffective. It wasn’t strong enough. He could still see her face. Could still see the way she looked at him. Wounded, impossibly hurt, as he had done what he had thought to be the noble thing.

  Was it the noble thing? Or are you simply a coward?

  That question had been rattling around in his brain for hours, settling like acid in his gut and eating away at his every justification.

  And once it had been introduced, he couldn’t shake it. Was he protecting her? Or was he protecting himself? She had been very open about the fact that she had hidden away from the world, choosing to protect herself from further rejection because of the way her parents had treated her. Like an incidental. Like she didn’t matter.

  And he had…

  Hadn’t he hidden away from the world, too? Behind the facade of being a dragon, of being a soulless monster. Keeping everyone at a distance. Most especially the half brother who had been there that terrible night. Who had been wound around that most painful event.

  The thought was enough to take his breath away. To realize that his own actions had been born not of a need to keep control, but out of fear. It ate away at the very foundation of who he believed he was. He thought himself strong. He thought himself in total command.

  Now he wondered if he was still a boy, hiding from difficult feelings. Difficult decisions. Concealing the existence of the truth so that he didn’t have to face it. Just as he had done with Nate.

  But what life could she have with him? What did he offer to Gabriella? He knew what she did for him. She gave h
im hope. She made him see art, made him see beauty. With her, he experienced softness, hope, in a way that he hadn’t done in his entire life. Yes, he knew exactly what she offered him, and he feared that all he had to offer her was his endless, dark well of neediness. Left open the night his parents died. It held nothing but fear, nothing but anguish, and those things consumed, they didn’t give.

  Suddenly, the door to his apartment swung open. He had to wonder for a moment just how much he’d had to drink, because there stood Gabriella, the light from the hallway illuminating her with a golden halo around her dark hair, making her look like an angel standing in the middle of hell. His own personal hell. As though she had come to raise him from perdition.

  And he desperately wanted it to be so. dpg

  How was it that this young innocent could reduce the jaded playboy like himself to such a needy, desperate thing? How was it that she had reached inside of him and scraped him raw? He should have had all the control here. She should be the one in pain because he had ended things. And he should be able to move on as he had always done. And yet, he couldn’t.

  “Gabby,” he said, the word raw and rough as his insides.

  “You don’t get to call me that,” she said, sweeping into the room and slamming the door behind her. “Not unless you intend to fix what you did.”

  “My list of sins is long, Gabriella. You have to be more specific.”

  “The small matter of lying to me and breaking my heart.” She crossed her arms, her proud chin tilted upward, her small frame vibrating with rage. “I understand. It took me a while, because I had to dig beneath my own pain to understand, but I do. You’re afraid. Just like me. And just like me you are protecting yourself.”

  Hearing the words from Gabriella’s lips made it even harder for him to deny. He had suspicions about his own behavior, but they were just that—suspicions. Gabriella knew him. And he trusted that. She had an intelligence about emotions, the kind that he could hardly lay claim to.

  “But we can’t do that anymore,” she said. “It isn’t worth it. What do we get for it? Years of wishing we were together? We can be what we’re expected to be. We can be safe. No, Alex, I shouldn’t be with you. I’m a princess. And I should be with a man who is at the very least a member of nobility, or failing that, not a complete and total dissolute playboy. You should be with a woman who is sophisticated, who has a tough outer shell and a lot more experience than I have. But that is what we want. We want each other. Because you’re my deep love, Alex. The other half of my amulet. The one that I’ll never forget. You are the hole in my soul, the one that I have carried from the day I was born and I wasn’t even aware that it was there until the moment I met you.”

  Her words echoed inside him, rang with truth. It was the same for him. He knew it was the same for him.

  “How?” He swallowed hard. “How do we just forget everything else?”

  “I figure it’s either that or we forget that we love each other, Alex. And I would so much rather forget my pain. I would so much rather forget my fear. I would rather forget that on paper we don’t make any sense and just remember that I love you. In the end, doesn’t that sound easier?”

  His chest seized tight, his breathing becoming labored. “I’m not sure if there’s anything simple about love, Gabriella.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe I’m living in a fantasy. But… Oh, Alex, how I would love to live in this fantasy with you. I know you think I’m young and silly—”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think you’re silly. I think you are magically unspoiled by all of the things that have happened to you in your life. I think you are a gift that your parents didn’t deserve, that they didn’t appreciate. I think that you are a gift I don’t deserve.”

  “Well, what’s the use in being a gift that no one wants?”

  He felt like his chest was going to crack open. “I do want you. I do. But…I am…a thousand years too old for you. A thousand ways too corrupt. Wouldn’t you rather be with a different man?”

  “No,” she said, the word so simple, with no hesitation. “No one else made me want to come out of the library. I liked small things. Quiet things. And what I feel for you…it isn’t quiet or small. It’s big and loud and it rings in my ears, in my chest, and it terrifies me. But I want it still. I was so caught up in the fact that the rake could come after the wallflower that I didn’t stop to think how amazing it was that I came out of hiding for you. Alex, the fact that I want you is a miracle in and of itself. I’m not sure you appreciate that.”

  He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Believe me, I do.”

  “Well, so do I. I love you. And I’m sorry if that isn’t sophisticated. I’m sorry if it wasn’t supposed to happen. But it did. And it’s the most amazing, wonderful thing. So much better than hiding away. Please, come with me. Away from the guilt. Because I know you still feel guilty. But you were a boy. You have to forgive yourself.”

  He nodded slowly. “I do. Because you’re right, I was a boy. But I’m not a boy now. I’m a man. Still, I was hiding like one. And it has to stop, Gabriella. You are right. I was very dedicated to the idea that I was a monster. Convincing you, to convince myself. Because I’m a very convenient hiding place. That mask was the best thing I had. It kept everyone away. But…I don’t want that anymore. I thought that it made me strong. I convinced myself that I was turning away from the way my parents lived. Cutting myself off from that kind of reckless behavior, keeping myself from poisoning other people in my life. But I wasn’t afraid for others. I was afraid for myself. But you are right. Living without you would be far worse than learning to let go of all this.”

  He took a step toward her, cupping the back of her head and gazing down into her dark eyes. “If you will have me, after all the things I said, after everything I have done, both before and since I met you, then I would be very honored if you would… I suppose I can ask you to marry me, can I?”

  “No,” she said, causing his heart to sink. “You can’t. Because you haven’t said you love me yet.”

  “I thought that was implied.”

  “Not good enough. I like art, I like poetry, I like books. I like all of the beauty laid out before me.”

  He felt a smile curve his lips upward. “My face isn’t enough?”

  “It’s a start. But I need the words.”

  “I love you, beautiful Gabby.”

  “Really?” she asked, tears filling her eyes. The good kind of tears. The kind that made his chest ache and his whole body shake at the wonder of it. “Even though I’m not boring?”

  “Most especially because you aren’t boring. Because you are clever. Because you teach me things—about the world and about myself. I want to spend the rest of my life holding you, touching you, being with you. I want your lips to be the last lips I ever kiss. And your heart to be the only one I ever hold. And in case you missed it the first time, I love you.”

  She smiled, the kind of dreamy smile he had never dared hope to be on the receiving end of. The kind of dreamy smile he hadn’t even known he ever wanted to be on the receiving end of. Amazing the things that his princess was teaching him. “That’s better.”

  “Now can I propose to you?”

  “You really want to get married, Alex?”

  “Yes. Because that’s what you deserve. Forever. All in. And…I still feel like there are things inside of me that I’ll have to work through. I’m afraid that I’ll take too much from you.”

  “Never. Maybe you will sometimes. But then, there will be other times when I take too much from you. We’re not in half-and-half. We are all in. Forever. When you need to be carried, Alex, I’ll carry you,” she said, taking a step forward and resting her palm on his cheek. “And I know that when I need to be carried you’ll carry me. That’s what love is. It gives. We know what it looks like when people take, when they consume and do only what pleases them. But that isn’t us. It isn’t this.”

  “If I falter, Gabriella,” he said, gra
bbing hold of her chin with his thumb and forefinger, “promise me you’ll put me back on the path.”

  “You have my word.”

  “I can’t paint you, Gabriella. I can’t show you the way that I see you. I can’t explain it to you in terms of art, and really, I’m not all that good with poetry.”

  “Lies. You’re wonderful with it.”

  “I’m really not. So I’ll just say it plain, and honest. I love you. From now until forever.”

  “That’s really all I need.”

  “No white tigers?”

  She tapped her chin, as though she were considering it. “I wouldn’t say no to a white tiger.”

  “Well,” he said, “I may not be able to accommodate you there. But how about a white Christmas wedding?”

  She smiled, throwing her arms around his neck and stretching up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss. “That sounds just about perfect.”

  EPILOGUE

  A WEDDING BETWEEN a billionaire and a princess really was an amazing thing. Mostly because when titles and money were thrown around it became surprisingly easy to throw things together in only a couple of weeks.

  The entire family came to help Gabriella and Alessandro celebrate their love. Love was always beautiful, but there was something particularly beautiful about watching Gabriella and Alessandro joined together. It wasn’t simply the ring she wore on her finger, or the tiara she wore in her dark hair, nor was it the earrings that glittered in her ears. It was the love that radiated between them, the strange sort of symmetry evident there.

  Giovanni had to wonder if their family blood was simply destined to love a D’Oro. If there was something ingrained on a soul-deep level that was inescapable. If so, he was glad of that. As he sat, watching his beloved eldest grandson pledge his life to the granddaughter of the woman he had always loved, he felt a sense of absolute completion wash through him.