by Olivia Gates
She tore herself away, stumbled against the wall at her back, pressed against its coolness. “So is this it? You…invested too much time and effort in…training me, and even though you despise and abhor me, you want your sex-marathon-on-demand nympho back?”
“No, Gabrielle, don’t…Don’t say anything like that.”
“You mean you don’t want to have sex with me? That wasn’t why you almost took me against the wall just now?”
“No, Gabrielle—yes, I desire you, now and always, but that isn’t why I’m here. I now know the truth, and…”
She cut him off. “So you deigned to talk to your father? Oh, wait, you think his word is as worthless as mine. So you must have done more investigations. And they…what? Cleared me? No, thanks. I’m not doing this again. I’m guilty of not telling you how it all started, when it wasn’t my secret. But you accused me of crimes. You found such comfort in believing the worst without even trying to hear me out.”
He neared her as if approaching a wounded, terrified animal, his voice a hypnotic croon. “I was in shock, in agony, over finding out you’re the daughter of the woman I spent years hating without knowing if she even existed. I went mad thinking you knew all along and had been leading me on. But I didn’t need you to slap sense into me this time, Gabrielle. What we shared, what I feel for you, what I know you feel for me, made me overcome the pain and madness. I did no investigations. And I didn’t talk to my father.” Hesitation entered his beseeching eyes. “What would he have told me?”
His words swirled inside her brain, making no sense. She refused to let them. They’d be lethal if they did. She’d succumb to their influence. Sink. All the way this time. And next time he gutted her and tossed her out to drown, she wouldn’t resurface.
But among all the things she couldn’t hear, there was one thing she could. A question. About his father.
She owed him no answers. Not after he’d judged and executed her. But he wasn’t just the man she’d loved beyond self-preservation, would love against all reason, for the rest of her days. He wasn’t just the one being who held the power of destruction over her, who’d used it again and, she swore, for the last time. He was also the man who held the fate of a kingdom—and that of his father—in his hands. She knew her mother would have wanted her to do anything she could to defend the one man Clarisse LeFevre had lived and died loving. Gabrielle’s answer might exonerate King Benedetto in his all-powerful son’s eyes. Or at least ameliorate his guilt. Durante might not exact his revenge on his father to the full.
She told him everything she knew.
Durante listened to Gabrielle, his heart twisting in his chest. She seemed sentient but not alive, aware but unfeeling, held together with the glue of automations and obligations, which was bound to come undone at any point. Even if it didn’t, and it stuck her together, fractures traversed her psyche and soul, fault lines that would splinter her again at the least pressure.
He’d done that to her. And he had to restore her, at any price. Starting with his own life.
He’d hoped that begging her forgiveness would garner him a hearing. Why had he hoped she’d grant him what he’d denied her?
He knew why. He’d counted on her being more forgiving than he was. But even her mercy had limits. He’d pushed her beyond them.
One hope remained. That something in what she’d said would give him insight into how to repair the devastation he’d wreaked.
He replayed every word, looking for clues. He got only blows, every one battering him with more shame at how he’d lashed out at the two people who’d put their pride and hearts on the line to save him from his bitter loneliness, to help him find contentment and joy, to learn what living truly meant at last. The one thing to redeem him was that his heart had already believed in her without proof, against all damning evidence.
It had all been his father’s orchestration, as he’d thought when he’d been in the throes of suspicion and pain-induced insanity. But not at all as he’d expected. His father did know him far better than he knew himself. He knew Gabrielle as deeply. He’d known it would take Gabrielle to save him, bring back his humanity, that it would take him to heal, cherish and worship her. So his father had sent her to him.
And though it had started out as a mission for her, their magic had taken over from their first glance, fulfilling his father’s prophecy.
But it had been the king’s fault again that she’d kept secrets. He’d made her pledge secrecy, fearing the violence of his son’s unreasonableness, the depth of his bitterness, things that would have made him blind himself to her true worth, costing him the one woman who shared his soul. Even when it had seemed that nothing could tear them apart, his father had still withheld the truth, fearing exactly what Durante had done upon finding it out.
Another verdict was as glaring. He might never know the true causes of his mother’s decline and death, but whatever those diaries contained, something else must have caused her to write them. His father was no cold-blooded abuser. Thinking otherwise had poisoned him for five long years. But the heart that had led him to loving Gabrielle would never lie to him. His father, while guilty of many things, had never been guilty of hurting his mother.
He not only owed Gabrielle a lifetime of apologies, he owed his father, too.
“…but instead of exonerating your father,” Gabrielle was going on, “I must have only added manipulating us to his offenses, in your opinion. Or rather, manipulating you, because I’ve been in on it, with the worst possible agenda, of course. So why not get on with your revenge? End your father’s reign in humiliation, take the crown from him, take my company from me, throw me out on the street and leave me the hell alone.”
“That was my rage talking,” he insisted, urgency writhing in his chest. “I would never have carried out my threats.”
“Really? So cancelling the wedding, telling the world why—”
“I told no one anything. And far from taking your company away, I’m here to give you these.” He flicked open his briefcase, handed her a dossier. When she didn’t take it, he explained. “These papers ensure that neither I nor anyone else can take your company away, that it will always be stable no matter what happens to any market in the world. And that’s just the beginning. Make any demands. I’ll do anything for you. Anything, Gabrielle. My father knew me, and you, too well—he knew we were made for each other. He did what he had to do, to bring us together, a debt I can never repay.”
“So you won’t dethrone him?”
“I was raving mad with shock when I said that. The moment I came to my senses, there was no question in my mind about your innocence.”
“Sure. Until the next time something rouses your suspicions, and you turn on me and maul me to death.”
“That is never going to happen again.”
“I’ve heard that before, Durante. From Ed. Every time he abused me, he’d say it would never happen again.”
“I’m nothing like him. Don’t, Dio, please don’t…don’t put me in the same thought as him, amore.”
“You’re worse than him.” Her sob sliced into his brain, its agony, its import, insupportable. “I cared nothing for him. His abuse cut nowhere beyond the surface. Yours carved me to the marrow.”
Her agony flooded his chest, became molten lead coursing through his left arm like the onset of a heart attack. He wished it would truly damage him. But self-abuse was self-indulgent. He needed to be at his fittest to undo what he’d done.
He wrestled with paralysis, surged forward to embrace her. She struggled like a cornered animal. He was distressing her more.
He staggered back, rasped, “I followed in my father’s footsteps—this genetic compulsion we once spoke about—to the point that I suspected the worst of you, the keeper of my soul, and cast you away, as he’d done with your mother. But he let her stay away, compounded his mistake by marrying for the crown, and made a mess of so many lives. But I’m done being my father’s son. I’m walking my own path f
rom now on and I’m repeating no one’s mistakes, starting with my own. Give me one last chance, Gabrielle. I’ll never ask for anything more. I’ll make amends, until the end of my days.”
Tears no longer flowed from her eyes. She was no longer shaking as if she’d unravel, no longer breathing as if her throat were swelling closed.
Dared he hope…?
“Words are cheap, Durante.” Her voice was steady, lifeless. “To you, everything is cheap. You can throw companies and fortunes at me, but the one thing I want is what you’ve failed twice to give me. The benefit of the doubt. Fair treatment. I once said, when you were as generous with superlatives, that ‘never’ has forever scope. I should have waited and seen.
“I thought at the beginning that I could handle it, if you were offering something simple and superficial, like no-strings sex. But you weren’t, and even though I told you I wasn’t in your league, I let you sweep me away, into all those powerful emotions and bottomless passions, let you seduce me into wanting—and expecting—too much, way too soon. I was right to be wary of your rash proposal, and again too weak to heed my wariness. I own my mistakes—whether it was falling into your arms then believing we could have forever, or abiding by a promise of secrecy, not only because I couldn’t break my word, but because I feared for the fool’s gold perfection of what I thought I had with you.
“Whatever you feel for me, it’s not enough to overcome everything it has against it. You might think now that it’s ‘until the end of your days,’ but give yourself, say, a month or two. And a woman or two. I bet you’ll forget about me. Or maybe, when all the illusions have dissipated and nothing but desire remains, you’ll walk back into my life like your father walked back into my mother’s and be my part-time lover, too. If you’re still single, that is. Whatever happens, the dream, the grand and unique and indestructible love, the guaranteed forever, is over. You ended it. And from where I’m standing, it’s better this way.”
He had no idea how he remained on his feet.
He’d thought he’d known how much he’d hurt her. Until she’d hurt him back. Caused him irreparable damage just by giving him a good look at her wound. He knew now. He also understood. Why his father had lost so much of himself when his lover had been suffering, why he’d almost died when she had.
He had broken her trust. Not just in his ability to always treat her with restraint and respect, but in the depth and constancy of not only his feelings but his character. More pledges now would mean nothing. Worse than nothing. His amends had to be undeniable, until she believed him and in him again.
And if she couldn’t? If this was irreversible?
He laid the dossier on her desk, leaned burning palms and trained blind-with-tears eyes on it. He couldn’t consider this. Not if he wanted to remain alive to see his plan through.
“Non rinuncerò mai ad amarti. Sono tuo per sempre.”
I will never give up loving you. I’m yours forever.
His only indication that the words that had scraped their longing into his mind had actually left his lips was the lurch that shook her, the two wet trails that spilled down her haunted face. He filled his soul and senses with one last look at her, a sight that would fuel him during the desolation of being without her. Then he turned and walked away.
It felt as if he was walking away from life. As he was.
Sixteen
The door clicked closed. Durante. Gone.
She’d made him go.
Something skewered its way through her gut. An unvoiced scream. For him to come back. That she took back every word. About not trusting him. Not forgiving him. Not believing in his love. Not feeling as if she’d die if he forgot her, if he sought out others, if he sought her out again with nothing but lust in his heart and body. She’d lied.
But she’d had to.
She couldn’t have let him prove to her how much he loved her. How much he regretted doubting and hurting her. For she would have believed again, surrendered all the way now that her last shackle—his father’s secrets and her fear of their exposure—had been lifted.
But Durante’s shackles would never be lifted. Not when they were created by her very identity. The daughter of the woman he believed had caused his mother’s devastation and death. That knowledge would poison his love, would chip away at its foundations. Then his bitterness and paranoia would rise again and he’d decimate her, forever this time, under the brunt of his cruelty.
She crumpled to the ground.
She’d gotten home, somehow. She didn’t remember how. She’d found herself there, weeping. She hadn’t stopped since. It was morning now. She thought.
Her nerves flamed with impulses, her mind roiled with obsessions, her cells burned with longing.
She needed him back.
How could he not come back? Was that it? The extent of his all-powerful emotions? His unstoppable persistence? She’d slapped him with words, clearly trembling for a repudiation, and he’d taken them as cause to give up on her? He was really gone?
He couldn’t be. He’d said he’d never give up. Why had he? Wasn’t what they’d shared worth more than an hour’s cajoling and a few pledges? Had all feeling been on her side, after all?
Which would make sense. More than a man like him feeling the same absolute emotions for her as she did for him.
But he’d said he did. And he never lied.
So had he faced himself with the truth, that in time he’d wonder how he’d disregarded who she was? Was he now wondering just how much of their rapport was real and how much had been his father’s tutoring? Could suspicion be taking hold of his mind again?
If it was, then his mind was a time bomb and she shouldn’t even think of coming within a mile of him again. She couldn’t survive another blow up.
But…she could have carried on in her lifelessness if he hadn’t shown up yesterday. How dared he jump-start her heart and hopes, then walk away again? This time she wasn’t flatlining, as she had the first time. This time she was fibrillating, the spikes of chaos intensifying by the second, threatening to rupture her heart…
Stop. You’re not doing this. You’re not following in your father’s footsteps. Or his mother’s.
She had to behave as if she was alive, go through the motions. In time, it was bound to simulate life, maybe even re-spark it. She had to go through her morning routines, take them, and the rest of her life, one second at a time.
She dragged herself out of bed. One foot in front of the other. A shower, breakfast, morning show on TV, dress, work. Wait for him, pray for him to contact her again. She’d take him back if he did, grab at anything he offered, offer all of herself again come what may…
No, no, no. If she wasn’t right for him, it would end far worse than any of their parents’ stories had ended. For she was sure none had loved this intensely.
She walked back to the living room, taking a sip of her orange juice only to inhale one then spew it out in a fit of coughing.
His voice.
God, she was starting early, imagining hearing it.
Her eyes panned to where she thought she’d heard it issuing from, and she almost choked on her lungs in shock. He was…he was…
On TV. On the morning show she watched every day.
The gawking, swooning, hyper-excited female anchor was squeaking, “So why did you decide to break your silence with the press, Prince Durante? And in this spectacular way, too?”
Durante turned his brooding eyes from the woman’s face to look directly at the camera. Gabrielle collapsed under the brunt of his stare. She knew every woman in the globe would be similarly affected, but she knew. He was looking at her.
Then he began to speak, dark, driven, unraveling her with each syllable and intonation. “I am here offering the love of my life a public apology, issuing a plea that she give me one last chance. I am announcing that Gabrielle Williamson’s Le Roi Enterprises—besides publishing my biography, which will include the details of the situation that led to my…post
ponement of our wedding—will also have the exclusive on every public plea I’ll continue to issue. Also, as a token of my total love and absolute trust, I have signed over all my holdings to her.”
Among the bombs, she realized one more thing.
This was on air live. Right in front of her building.
She’d never thought anything solid could move so fast. She streaked out of her apartment, saw that the elevator was in use. She didn’t even think of waiting, ran to the stairs and down the ten-floors, a missile set on Durante.
Once outside her building, she barreled her way through the barricade of human flesh he towered above. The crowd parted each time someone recognized her, and murmurs and exclamations spread like wildfire in dry tinder.
Her momentum slammed her into him. He barely moved under the impact. Hesitation, something she’d never felt from him, filled the arms that steadied her. His eyes devoured her as his face clenched with such longing, regret and entreaty that her chest heaved from their bombardment far more than with exertion.
His lips worked for a moment before they started to open. She just knew he was going to say more crazy, compromising things.
Her hand lurched up, clamped over his mouth. “This is all a publicity stunt, world,” she panted. “A dare I didn’t dream he’d take me up on. So…stockholders, don’t panic. And tabloids, don’t hold your breath. He will not be revealing anything, as there’s nothing to reveal. And yes, the book is going to be great, and everyone should preorder their copy, but it will not contain any sensational confessions, just the secrets to this…this phenomenal powerhouse of a dreamboat’s success, okay? What’s more—”
“Non posso più vivere senza di te, Gabriella mia.”
Her voice vanished, every electrical impulse powering her body shut down. She sagged in his arms. He was singing. Here.
I can’t live without you, my Gabrielle.
The crowd gaped. All of New York City seemed to hold its breath. He continued the song he’d written for her, had proposed with, his voice setting the yearning lyrics on passionate fire, turning the evocative melody into all-encompassing enchantment.