Olivia Gates Bestseller Collection 2012

by Olivia Gates

  “No, Phoebe, you must give me another chance—”

  “Get out, Leandro. If you don’t want to spend your time at the dentist implanting teeth from now till your coronation.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Ever again. So do it. Hit me, Phoebe, vent your outrage. I misjudged you and mistreated you and tormented you. I took from you and never gave anything back. I made you feel like nothing, like less than nothing with the way I hid you in the past, and the way I flaunted our intimacy in the present. I gave other women my public respect, showed you you’re only good for providing entertainment, then when you gave me all of yourself, I took it all and told you that you meant nothing to me, that when I chose a wife I’d choose a woman of good reputation and high social standing, that you had neither—”

  A lash cracked.

  He barely felt the blow fall on his cheek. He was too numb with pain and dread already.

  Her chest heaved, her paleness evaporating in a tide of crimson. “Can’t you leave me with something to look back on as clean and beautiful…Can’t you leave me…Just leave!”

  “I’m never leaving you. Hit me again, Phoebe. Harder. Do some real damage. It doesn’t matter that none of what I just said is true, that I didn’t mean to make you feel any of it. What matters is that I did.”

  “Yeah, and I’m not giving you the chance to ever make me feel any of that again, unintentionally or otherwise. And no, I won’t hit you again. I only did that to stop your rant.”

  “Nothing will ever stop me from proving to you that the only lies I ever told you were that madness I struck you with. I’ll spend my life atoning, reminding you of the magic we shared, reviving it until you believe that you are my life. Take it, mi tesoro hebbi, it’s yours to do with as you please.”

  The horror on her face only mounted as tears became a thick cascade drenching her trembling lips. “God…you know, don’t you? That’s what this is all about!”

  The sight of her anguish made him stagger. “Know what?”

  She started sobbing until he could barely understand her. “How did you find out? It has to be your armies of informers and investigators. It can’t be one of my family who told you.”

  “Per Dio, Phoebe…what are you talking about?”

  “I can’t bear to see you. I never want you near me again…and I’m damned…if I’m letting you near…my baby. It’s mine, do you hear me? It has nothing to do with you.”

  Baby?

  Agony clamped him with the force of a heart attack.

  He reached for her, ignoring the pain. Only defusing hers mattered, defending her. Healing her was the one thing he’d do before he died. “I swear, offering my life has nothing to do with…Dio santo, I didn’t…hebbi preziosa…I didn’t even know…you were…were…”

  “Of course you’d say you didn’t know…you’d say anything to get your hands on your heir…”

  “Giuro su Dio—I swear to God—I swear by everything, by my love for you…” And he caved in under the brutality of it all, dropped to his knees before her, caught her around the hips, frantic to stem the tide of her anguish. She struggled, pushed him away, her sobs rattling through them both. He clung, his own agony dripping down his cheeks. “I’m only here because I never knew what love was before you, what needing another was. The first time around, I plunged wholly into loving and needing you. I was so submerged that I didn’t realize how I was messing up. I loved you so much more deeply the second time around that I messed up far worse, because I depend on you to the point of total vulnerability. When I heard you talking to Stella…”

  She stilled so totally that if she hadn’t been standing, he’d have thought she’d lost consciousness. She realized.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was lifeless. “You loved me so much you gutted me the moment you heard something you misinterpreted.”

  “And my crime, after all you gave me, after all I knew of you, is irredeemable. I can only beg your understanding. I reacted so viciously because I have been in the hell you wished me to go to, for eight long years. Then we were together again, and though I didn’t I realize it, I was living in dread of losing you again. A word from you can cast me into heaven or into hell. When I heard you, I went out of my mind with pain, with the dread that I meant nothing to you and that I’d plunge into purgatory again, this time forever. I came to my senses the moment you disappeared, and there was no way I could have known you were pregnant then. Ask your family, ask Ernesto. They didn’t tell you I was tearing up the world looking for you because they believed you were better off without me, because they thought I deserved to lose you. I’m here for you, and only you. I’d do anything for you. Remember the night of the fire and you’ll remember I will brave burning to death for you. Just like you would for me. Have mercy, on both of us, Phoebe and forgive me. Be mine and let me be yours.”

  He stopped with a huge gasp, buried his face in her abdomen, where their love was taking a life of its own.

  Then he told her everything about the past, things he now understood fully, thanks to Ernesto. His life depended on her believing every word.

  She finally sagged in his hold, allowed him to have her again, hugged him back into her, let him breathe and let his heart beat again, blessing him with her resurrected belief and passion.

  And he told her about the present. And about the future.

  “You made me understand myself, hebbi, you opened my eyes to what I must be. And you were right from the start. I am not the right king for Castaldini. I cannot change to the extent the kingdom needs, and it sure can’t handle my modernizing, expanding ways. But I’ll remain regent until they make up their mind to pursue Durante or Ferruccio. I hope to God one of them accepts. And then I’ll return to doing the best job I ever did on behalf of my kingdom—being its ambassador to the world. And I want only the best negotiator, the best deal-maker, the best diplomat I’ve ever known to be my partner, not only through life, but also in representing Castaldini, in bringing it what most suits it from the world. You. My love. My life.”

  The import of Leandro’s words sank like depth charges in Phoebe’s mind. Then they exploded.

  She pounced on him, dragging him by the arms as if to pull him back from the edge of an abyss. “What have you done? What have I done? I convinced you you’re wrong for Castaldini? God, Leandro, no! I was only trying to make you adjust your expectations and take it easy in your integration-into-the-world plans. You’ll be the best king Castaldini ever had!”

  “No, I won’t. I’m too much of a capitalist democrat, remember? But I can be of much use in other capacities. You were right. About everything. Everything, mi galia tesoro.” When she kept squirming and protesting, he suddenly hugged her off the ground, his reddened eyes gleaming wickedness and worship. “Does it disappoint you too much that you won’t be queen?”

  “Don’t you dare joke now, or I’ll hit you, as you so wanted me to.”

  He guffawed as he spread himself to the hands flailing on his chest. “You are hitting me. And I love it. Hit me some more.”

  She oohed. “I knew you had an S-M streak!”

  “And I hope you’ll exploit it to your imagination’s content.” He gathered her up and she immediately melted into him. “That’s my one regret. And was half my reasons for accepting the succession. I wanted to give Castaldini the best queen ever, to make you the queen, as you deserve to be.”

  She hit him again, hugged him. “I deserve only to be loved by you. Are you getting that, or do I need to use more force?” He drowned her in another kiss, chuckling in elation and relief. As he wrapped her around him and carried her off to bed, she murmured, “I want you to rest your mind on this point, for as sure as I knew I’d never love another, I never thought I was queen material. But you would make the best king!”

  “I want only to be king in your eyes.”

  “In my eyes, you’re everything.”

  It was still after much debate and tears that she came to accept his decision, to believe s
he hadn’t caused a huge loss to him, to Castaldini, that the path he’d charted was the best one.

  Then he knelt before her at the foot of the bed, produced an embossed silver and gold box from the pocket over his heart.

  Phoebe stared as he opened it. A ring, and a pendant.

  In Castaldini, she’d seen what she’d believed to be the most stunning creations in the world. These surpassed them all in taste and craftsmanship. But it was the significance of the design—her name wrapped around his and his family’s crest—that had tears bursting from her eyes.

  And he pledged. “This is you owning me and holding in your hand and near your heart my future and that of my family. Will you be queen of my life, keeper of my heart and destiny?”

  She fell to her knees before him. “I’ll be anything you want me to be. Take all of me, my love. You already own it all anyway.”

  He swept her up, and to bed, rejoined them, mended forever what had almost been sundered, what could never be parted again.

  “It’s a boy?”

  Phoebe snuggled up to Leandro. Boy, he was big enough for her to drape herself over in extreme comfort. “So far.”

  He tugged a lock of hair gently. “What do you mean ‘so far’?”

  She rubbed herself over him, every cell bursting with the delicious soreness of satiation. “I feel I might get pregnant again after what you just did to me.”

  He guffawed, turned her to her back, luxuriated in feeling his unborn son under his hands. “And you might well be. Our lovemaking did feel…supernatural this time. I’m amazed how much pleasure I can endure. But I don’t think this was a one-off, because of the urgency of almost losing each other. I think this is going to be the norm from now on. It’s the…certainty.”

  She hummed in agreement. Yes. Certainty. It was indeed a super power. A magical one.

  Suddenly he rose above her. Her heart gave that clutched pause it always did whenever she realized again how much she loved him, just how beautiful he was. Which was so often her heart was developing a new rhythm.

  “I shouldn’t ask, but I don’t ever again want to have anything on my mind that I don’t resolve with you. You mentioned that you thought you’d never love again. Does that mean you…didn’t?”

  “Are you going to be very disappointed or hurt if I…did?”

  “I won’t lie. It will hurt like hell. But it wouldn’t change a thing. In any way. And I didn’t deserve your fidelity. It would even be fitting punishment for all the pain I put you through if you…did when I…didn’t.”

  “Oh, you’re more deserving than you think. Eight years of pining that would’ve become a lifetime of such. But then, one time with you is worth a lifetime…” She stopped, gaped at him. “Are—are you telling me you…abstained?”

  He shrugged. “Why so surprised? You did.”

  “I didn’t know men could do that,” she blurted out.

  “Do you know just how sexist you sound?” He nipped her nipple. Wonderful chastisement. “And I’m not ‘men.’ I’m me. I had sex until I found you, then I had passion. I couldn’t go back to sex and I knew I’d never find passion again. As I don’t have any say in being Castaldinian, no matter what, I’m a one-woman man.”

  She collapsed under the enormity of his revelations. “Leandro, oh, God…you mean you didn’t even try…”

  “Try how? Besides the handicaps I told you about, those accompanying the one-woman-man syndrome, I’d sustained a crippling injury, remember? That tiny matter of a smashed heart?”

  Tears flowed again. “I was the one you fell for all the way.”

  “Did you even have a doubt?”

  “Oh, I had nothing but. Oh, God, Leandro…it’s so hard to imagine…you’re such a sexual being…”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “Oh, God, don’t look. Not now. I think my eyes are dissolving.” She hiccupped. “Oh, Leandro, all that time? No sex?”

  “You talk as if I’m some sort of sex maniac. Okay, so I am. But it’s only with you. Aren’t you the same with me?”

  “It’s just you’re so…incredible at it…”

  “And you thought I had plenty of practice? You still don’t realize I’m just a superior talent?” She charged him in a ferocious kiss. He took it all, let her have her fill before he drawled, “All it takes to be a great lover is to love you so much that giving you pleasure is the only way I can find pleasure myself. And then, you were a virgin, and as soon as you dropped your inhibitions with me, you became a lover I hadn’t known could exist. All it takes to find perfection is to give it your all. As I give you. As you give me.”

  She tackled him on his back, rained tears of love and gratitude all over him.

  He wiped them away, teased, “But I had sexual relief, if this is what you’re wondering. You do know the concept of self-help in this area, don’t you?” She poked him, collapsed on his chest in another fit of weeping giggles. “I became quite the guru. And I have to thank you for my expertise in the field. The memory of you—and your photos—were quite the inspiration.”

  She rained kisses and bites all over him, igniting again at imagining him pleasuring himself to her image. She just had to watch him do that. A lot. “Any time. And then you know how eager I always am to give you…a helping hand. Or tongue. Or body. Or whole life, you unbelievable man, you.” She came up on her elbows. “Say, can we stay on Castaldini longer than you did before? Or at least return more frequently?”

  “We’ll do anything that ever crosses your mind. Though I don’t have to stay on Castaldini to be regent, I will so you can be with your sister as often as you please.” Then he muttered, “Maybe the wretch will stop wanting to carve me open and eat my heart.”

  “Oh, my love, it’s all a misunderstanding. She thought you were hurting me. She turns vicious at times like that.”

  “Si, I got that impression. That woman could wrestle an alligator with just a stare. But since that ferocity is on your behalf, she’s my new best friend. We’ll form a league, with Ernesto and Paolo, call ourselves Phoebe’s Fabulous Fearsome Four.”

  “Mmm, I’ll supply the superhero names and costumes.” She chuckled, wriggled deeper into his embrace. “But really, Leandro, Julia outgrew her need for my nearness long ago, and though I’ll always want to see her and the kids as much as possible, that isn’t why I wish we could go to Castaldini more often. I want to spend the rest of my pregnancy in your home, have our baby there. I want his first breath to be of the sea air, want him to bond with the magic of the land from his first moment.”

  Leandro’s arms convulsed around her. “So bursting with pride and emotion isn’t such a far-fetched notion, after all. Whatever you wish for, amore, always consider it done. And it’s our home.”

  Her sigh had to be what bliss sounded like. “Our home. So, how about going back there at once? I have countless fantasies that are unfulfilled yet, each and every one in your…our paradise.”

  Leandro jumped up at her demand, streaked to fulfill her wish. He arranged a journey home in record time and bounded back to fill her waiting arms.

  “In eight hours we’ll be there,” he said against her lips, luxuriating in her, in everything they were together. Then he groaned, “This is too long. I will have to get that teleportation enterprise underway.”

  She shone up at him, made him feel like only she could, invincible, incomparable. Loved to his last spark of life.

  “If anyone can do it, it’ll be you. But then who needs teleportation, when we can have instant wish fulfillment?”

  She slid down his body, beamed him up into the first of many. As he reciprocated, he knew how right she was.

  Who needed anything more than this?

  There was nothing more than this.

  This, her, them, was everything.

  *Throne of Judar

  *Throne of Judar

  *Throne of Judar

  †The Castaldini Crown

  THE PRODIGAL PRINCE’S SEDUCTION

  Oli
via Gates

  He Shouldn’t Have Been So Smug.

  He should have known that she’d had more cards to play. And she’d played them. Played him. And how.

  She was the woman he’d spent the most revitalizing, enthralling time of his life with. The woman who’d made him forget exhaustion and every preconception about himself and what he could feel.

  She whimpered at his sudden withdrawal. It had only been moments since their lips had met, before he’d learned her real name and plunged from the heights of delight to the depths of disillusion.

  So what if she wasn’t the woman he’d thought her to be? It should change nothing. His body was reaching critical mass. And she was offering…everything. He should drag her inside, throw her to the ground and take it all. Then walk away.

  Dear Reader,

  Being a romance author has got to be one of the best jobs there is. For in what other job can one experience the rush of falling in love over and over again?

  And it happened again in the second installment of THE CASTALDINI CROWN trilogy, where I fell in love with my hero, Prince Durante D’Agostino. Each hero I write is another fantastic specimen of manhood and humanity, but Prince Durante has characteristics that surprised even me as I wrote his story. Contrary to all the über alpha males I’ve written about, he was so open to the notion of falling in love, so wholehearted about it. He was like that massive source of romanticism and sensuality that had gone unplumbed until he laid eyes on Gabrielle Williamson and it all came pouring out.

  I mean, who could resist a hero who wants to savor the torment of not touching the woman who has him on fire until he gets to know more of the “real” her, who serenades her, who actually offers the other cheek, and who eventually gives up everything to atone for the sin of not trusting her, for hurting her?

  I was certainly not immune, and I hope no reader will be, either.