Something hot and wet rolled down his cheek. He closed his eyes and tried to suck it back. ‘Mi vida, what you said about me pushing people away is true. I push them away before they can hurt me. But you were wrong about my heart being too cold for anyone to touch it. You touched it. You touched it and you brought it to life. I think you brought me to life too, and I thank you. I thank you for teaching me how to love. I thank you for bringing my brother back to me. And I thank you for doing all this and not even knowing you were doing it. I am a better man for knowing you.’
Throughout this outpouring of his feelings, Mia simply stared at him, eyes wide, her fingers grasping tightly at the wrap huddled around her, the only movement the tears falling soundlessly down her face.
Drying his eyes with the palms of his hands, Damián got to his feet. ‘Thank you for giving me your time and listening. All I have left to say is this—please, mi vida, reach for the stars. If Broadway ever calls, let me know. I have friends who will help you with the visa. If ever you or your family need help with anything, you call me. Okay? The debt I owe you will take ten lifetimes to repay.’
Her wrap fell off a shoulder as she released her grip on it and straightened. ‘You’re leaving?’
‘I have said what I came to say, and I promised not to take too much of your time.’ Terrified of the desperate need to touch her, to take her face in his hands and touch the skin he’d missed so much and breathe the scent that had imprinted in his memories, he forced his legs to move. He’d purged his conscience and now it was time to leave and find some privacy to release the agony in his heart.
‘Don’t go. Please.’
His back to her, he took a shuddering breath. ‘I have to.’
‘When you said that you love me... Did you mean it?’ Her voice dropped to a stifled whisper. ‘Or were you talking hypothetically?’
‘I meant it. I love you. I will always love you.’
A hand touched his shoulder.
A huge shudder racked him. ‘Please, mi vida, let me leave. Don’t make this any harder for me, I beg you.’
‘Please, look at me.’
His throat closing tightly, he choked, ‘I can’t.’
Her hand brushed over his neck as she moved to stand in front of him.
He closed his eyes tightly. ‘Don’t do this.’
Cold hands slowly cupped his face. A slender body pressed against his.
‘Please, Damián, look at me.’
He opened his eyes.
Her face was inches from his. She tightened her hold on his face and brought hers even closer, so the tips of their noses touched. ‘I love you too,’ she whispered. ‘Haven’t you realised that?’
His heart thumped loudly, both at her words and the tenderness reflecting from her eyes.
She gave a pained smile. ‘I haven’t been warm since we parted. I...’ She swallowed. ‘Those press cuttings on my table... I keep them because they’re all I have of you. I torture myself staring at them. I stare at your face even when I know I shouldn’t, when I know that I’m making things worse for myself.’
Her warm breath danced over his mouth before she placed the lightest of pressure to it. A tear that could have come from either of them fell over their lightly locked mouths.
‘That night... I knew you were lashing out at me. I knew you didn’t mean half of what you said. I’ve seen grief and pain that strong before, with Amy. And, just like with Amy, all I wanted was to take that pain from you and protect you and smother you with so much love that you never felt unloved or unwanted again. Because I love you. I want you. I want to be with you. I want to wake up with you every day for the rest of my life. I want to be there for you, in good times and bad.’
Damián continued to stare into the tear-filled eyes, still hardly able to breathe, hardly daring to believe. ‘You love me?’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘How?’
‘You have to ask?’ She sighed then gave a smile of such brilliance that it dived straight into his battered heart. She pressed a lingering kiss to his mouth before giving another sigh. ‘I love you because you are everything to me. You make me feel like I can take on the world and win, but if I stumble on the way you’ll be there to catch me. I love you because with you I can be me. Just me. You make my heart sing and when I’m with you, when I’m not with you, all I want is to rip your clothes off and feel your heart beating against mine. You make me feel so many things I never knew I could feel, and I don’t want to go through the rest of my life never feeling like this again. So please, if you feel you still must go...take me with you.’
A crack rent through his chest and then, in a rush that knocked out what little air he had left in his lungs, a tsunami of joy filled the crevice, flooding into all the parts of him he’d thought would never feel again. ‘You love me?’
‘I love you. So much it hurts to breathe.’
‘Mi vida...’ Crushing his mouth to hers, he wrapped his arms tightly around her and when her arms wrapped tightly around him and he felt all her feelings for him in the heat of her kisses he became suffused with the sweetest feeling imaginable: the love of the woman he would worship for the rest of his life.
EPILOGUE
MIA HOOKED A leg out of the bathroom door. ‘Ready, Señor Delgado?’
‘Si, Señora Delgado.’ The excitement in Damián’s rich voice was palpable.
She poked her head around the door. ‘Are you sure?’
He pulled the bedsheets back and slapped his hand on the mattress. ‘Stop teasing me.’
She pouted. ‘I like teasing you.’
‘And I like you naked in my arms, so come here.’
She shimmied to him, as unashamedly naked as he, revelling in the hooded expression in his eyes and the erection that had sprung to attention. After three years of marriage, the potent effect they had on each other remained undiminished.
As soon as she reached the bed he pounced. Seconds later, she was flat on her back, covered by his gorgeous body. ‘Tell me,’ he murmured, nibbling her neck in the way that never failed to turn her on.
For the past year of their marriage they’d been trying for a baby. Mia had tried out for the role of Miss Hannigan and, to her surprise, got the part. Whether that had been down to her talent or her famous husband—back then her famous lover—hadn’t mattered in the end. She’d been determined to prove herself worthy of the role and she had. She’d also discovered, while spending all that time with the kids in the show, that she really wanted children. They’d decided to wait for a while and enjoy their marriage.
Damián had restructured his business, which now had its headquarters in London. They’d had a glorious time exploring the world together. They’d travelled and made love under so many different skies that she’d lost count. They’d partied. They’d spent time with their families. Celeste was rarely mentioned between them but they saw a lot of his brother. Damián had bought Mia’s mum and sister a new house each. Naturally, they adored him. The exposure Mia had feared for her family had never materialised and she no longer worried about it. Her sister had fallen in love too and would be marrying that summer.
He nipped her neck then raised himself up and pinned her arms above her head. With his sternest expression in place, he said, ‘Tell me.’
But the gleam in his eyes told her he already knew the answer.
He knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t dramatize a negative result, not when they’d been through four false hopes.
The magnitude of what she was carrying inside her suddenly hit her and, without any warning whatsoever, tears filled her eyes. Sniffing them back, she loosened one of her hands from his hold and palmed his cheek. ‘We’re going to be parents.’
Even though he’d already guessed, hearing it from her left him momentarily stunned. ‘For real?’
She nodded and pulled his head down to kiss him. And then she wrapped her leg
s around him and burst into laughter. ‘We’re going to be parents!’
He kissed her and laughed into her mouth before springing down to kiss her naked belly. ‘I’m going to be a father.’ Chin resting lightly on her abdomen, he grinned so wide and with such force she was certain their tiny little nutmeg must be able to feel it. ‘I love you, Señora Delgado.’
She stroked the top of his hair tenderly. ‘Not as much as I love you.’
‘I love you more.’
‘No, I love you more.’
‘No, I love you more.’
‘No, I love you more.’
Some time later, having tried to prove who loved each other the most the best way they knew, they conceded that they loved each other equally.
* * *
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Christmas in the King’s Bed
by Caitlin Crews
CHAPTER ONE
“YOUR BETROTHED IS waiting for you, sire,” came the diffident voice of King Orion’s personal steward from behind him. “In your private salon, as requested.”
Orion murmured his thanks, but didn’t turn around. He kept his brooding gaze on his beloved country, laid out before him in the November sun. This view from the heights of the palace took in the largest town on the main island that made up the kingdom of Idylla, a sweep of stark-white buildings with the blue Aegean beyond. He had always loved this view. In the long, dark days of his father’s tumultuous, dissolute reign—meaning, the whole of Orion’s life until a few months ago—he had often stood here. He had gazed out on the splendor of the tiny kingdom that had endured so many wars, regime changes, and horrors in its time, yet still stood.
He had told himself that Idylla would survive his father, too.
And he had spent long hours imagining what he would do differently when it was his turn to rule. How best he could honor and serve his people, who deserved so much better than what they’d had in King Max.
Orion had vowed he would do whatever it took to erase his people’s memories of his father’s excesses and scandals. Whatever it took to restore peace and serenity to the island kingdom.
But now the time had come to do just that.
And he did not want any part of it.
“‘Your betrothed,’” echoed his brother, Prince Griffin, in the lazily sardonic tone that matched the way he lounged in his preferred armchair, there before the fireplace that took up the better part of one wall. “You do know that you’re the king now, Orion—don’t you? I was there when they put the crown on your head.”
“Do you mean when you swore an oath of fealty to me?” Orion asked mildly, without turning around. “Feel free to enact it.”
“Yes, yes, my entire life is an act of homage to my liege,” Griffin murmured in the same tone. He paused a moment. “You could also choose not to be betrothed. Then make it law. Again—you are the king. You can do as you like. I would have thought that was the main benefit of the whole thing.”
Orion could do just that. Of course he could. But there were factors at play that Griffin didn’t know about and, more important, Orion had given his word. Their father had gone back on his word habitually. Constantly. King Max’s word had been meaningless.
Orion had no intention of being anything like his father.
“If I did such a thing I would be no better than him,” he said quietly, to the only other person alive who knew how seriously he took these things.
“You were born better than him,” Griffin retorted, a familiar harshness in his voice that always accompanied any discussion of their late, unlamented father.
Because King Max had not simply been a bad monarch, though he was that. In spades. He had been a far worse father than he’d been a king, and a terrible husband to their mother to boot.
But this was not the time to compare scars.
The future Orion had promised his people was here. He was that future. And he had no intention of breaking his promises. His earliest memories were of the vows his father had broken, one after the next, as if it was a game to him. He had betrayed his family and his country with the same carelessness. Orion would do neither.
No matter how little he liked what he needed to do next.
When he’d been sixteen, he had made a vow to the pack of reporters who had followed him about, clamoring for the crown prince’s take on his father’s every scandal. He had told them with all the ringing intensity of youth that he would live a blameless, honorable, scandal-free life.
Orion had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep that promise.
He saw no reason to stop now.
“Then I will leave you to your martyrdom,” his younger brother said. “I know how you love it.”
Orion turned, then. Griffin grinned at him, then rose—as wholly unrepentant as ever. He stretched like a cat instead of a prince, because he had always taken great pleasure in flaunting his physicality at every turn.
The spare could do as he liked. The heir, on the other hand, had always to think first of the kingdom.
Their father had apparently missed that lesson, but Orion had stamped it deep into his bones.
“Duty comes for us all, brother,” he said lightly.
Or lightly for him, in any case.
“I haven’t forgotten what I promised you,” Griffin replied. “Even though, obviously, you could wave your autocratic pinkie and save us both from our fates.” He let out a long, delighted laugh when Orion only frowned at him. “Please spare me another lecture on what we owe our subjects. Or your subjects, more like. I’ve heard it all before. I, too, will commit myself to blamelessness. Soon.”
“It becomes no less true in the retelling,” Orion said with what he hoped was quiet dignity. Instead of what he actually felt. That being the lowering realization that if he could, he would shirk this betrothal in a heartbeat, no matter what destruction that might cause. He would wave the royal pinkie—
But he did not break vows. To himself, to others, or to his people.
That had to be the beginning and the end of it, or who was he?
Griffin rolled his eyes at his older brother and king as if he could read Orion’s mind. He likely could. He lifted a hand, then prowled his way out of Orion’s private office. No doubt off to despoil virgins, carouse, and enjoy the last days of the scandalous reputation he’d built for himself as possibly the most unrepentant playboy in the history of Europe.
Orion stood where he was, a muscle in his jaw flexing with a tension and fury he couldn’t control.
You are controlling it, he told himself stoutly. Because, unlike your father, you are always in control. Always.
And always, always would be. That was one more promise he’d made himself.
He blew out a breath, there where even Griffin couldn’t see him.
And then there was nothing for it. Putting off his unpleasant duty wasn’t going to make it any better. It wasn’t going to save him from the unwelcome task he had no choice but to perform.
Like everything else in his life, he was sim
ply going to have to do what must be done, no matter what.
His personal feelings were irrelevant and always had been.
He had learned that beyond any reasonable doubt when, at seventeen, he’d been the one to discover his mother, the queen, after she’d taken her own life. And when his father had proved unequal to the task of handling her funeral—preferring to decamp to the Caribbean with a brace of starlets on each arm—Orion had stepped in to handle it.
Not because he’d wanted to handle it. He’d been seventeen. Still considered a child by some. But despite his feelings and his youth, he’d handled it because it needed to be handled.
As the years passed, his father had increased his vile behavior, made ever more unhinged demands, and had shirked more and more of his royal duties. Orion had stepped in and shouldered the load, each and every time.
He’d been doing the lion’s share of the monarch’s actual work for a decade, but always with the knowledge that at any moment, on the slightest whim, his father could and likely would sweep in and undo all his work.
Today was an example of the old king’s machinations from beyond the grave, in point of fact, and it was the same as it ever had been. As if he was still alive to ruin lives. Orion would have to do what needed doing, not because he wanted to do it. But because it was for the good of Idylla.
He pushed away from the window and headed for his door, automatically checking his appearance in one of the mirrors as he passed. Not because he was vain, but because he was the crown. And in contrast to his father’s visible, heedless decline, he wished to look above reproach—and as much like the official photographs of himself—as possible.
The Billionaire's Cinderella Contract Page 17