by Lyla Payne
Amalia had done her hair and makeup, promising that she had taken a bunch of theatre classes in the States that made her up to the task. Maggie had worried she’d end up looking like someone on their way to debut in a production of Cabaret, but her mistrust had amounted to nothing. Amalia had made her look as if she belonged in this room full of beautiful women vying for the hand of a prince, even if she truly did not.
Salvadore seemed to have done a disappearing act, which wasn’t right, considering he had thrown this party. Luca and King Alfonso were staring at her from the royal box, their expressions complete opposites. Luca looked as if he would strangle her with his bare hands if he could manage it from so far away, and the King…he looked sad.
Everyone was looking at her, and then they weren’t. They were looking instead at a dashing, raven-haired prince as he made his way to the bottom of the staircase and, with adoration shining in his eyes, beckoned her toward him.
For the first time in a long time, Maggie didn’t hesitate. She picked up the dress so that she wouldn’t fall on her face with such an audience, and stepped carefully down the steps in her glittering heels—also borrowed from Juliet. There was paper stuffed in the toes to make them fit her smaller feet.
Her hand slid into Salvy’s, and it felt like coming home.
His fingers went around hers and he smiled, making the room tilt onto its side and then spin around. “I thought you wouldn’t come.”
“How could I stay away after what you did?” she whispered back, gratitude and pride making her want to explode happiness all over the room.
“I wanted to be the prince you deserve, Magdalena, even if you had decided I would never be the man you wanted.” The music kicked up, a slow number that she thought was a rendition of Debussy, and Salvadore raised an eyebrow. “Shall we dance?”
“Yes,” Maggie breathed, stunned by the magic of it all. Knowing that magic wouldn’t—couldn’t—last but willing to live inside the bubble until it burst.
She saw only him as he led her to the center of the floor, people parting for them like the Red Sea did for Moses. Felt only his hands, as one settled at her waist and the other held hers. They moved together easily, Salvadore as accomplished at dancing as he was at pleasing her in the bedroom, at making her laugh and reading her mind. It was still hard to breathe, but Maggie thought maybe in this world, she didn’t need to.
“I’m so proud of you, Salvadore,” she managed after several minutes of struggling out of the fog wrapped around her head. The room had started to come into a bit of focus. When she saw Camilla’s angry, red face, she decided perhaps it was best to continue to ignore it. “You did the right thing. I’m sure that your father will see that.”
“He did. In fact, he also said he was proud of me.”
“I guess I’m a little anticlimactic, then.”
“Are you kidding? With an entrance like that?” He tugged her closer, until the smell of him buckled her knees. “You’re the only person I’ve wanted to see all night. The only person I need to hear say is proud of the man I’m hoping to be. Don’t you know that?”
Maggie swallowed, his words too perfect. Fear tried to rear its ugly head, to still her own tongue, but she shoved it away and stared into his perfect eyes. “I love you, Salvadore. I didn’t want to say it before because I thought it would be too hard, to know that it couldn’t lead anywhere, but now I don’t care. You deserve to hear it.”
His eyes widened and he held her tighter, far too close to be considered appropriate. “My own feelings have not changed, Magdalena.”
“But neither have the circumstances. Despite your wonderful actions.” She felt sad, but also euphoric. Sure that she had done the right thing in coming here.
“I…things have changed, but not in the way that you think.”
Confusion wrinkled her brow. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you…” He glanced around, seeming to want to be sure that no one was near enough to overhear, then changed their pattern so that he swirled her out onto the cold balcony. They continued to dance as people looked through the windows. “Did you set fire to the Matrigna offices?”
Her heart spasmed painfully. “What? How did you…how did you know?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He sighed.
“Because it’s a crime, and you didn’t need to know. It was better if you didn’t.”
“What happened?” he asked, a sorrow in her gaze that made her whole body feel heavy.
“It was an accident. I…some of my friends who were being bullied and I got together to try to figure out who was behind the company. We broke into the office looking for clues and left a space heater on. It was an accident, but it was my fault.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, beautiful girl.” He leaned his forehead against hers and took a deep breath. “But you don’t have to worry about a thing.”
Maggie stopped dancing. Stopped moving as she stared into his face trying to confirm what she’d heard in his words. Cold fingers of dread wrapped around her spine. “What do you mean?”
“Luca knows. He was behind Matrigna the whole time, and he is also aware of how I feel about you, Maggie. How we feel about each other. He’s…unless I abdicate my title and join the church tonight, he’s going public with both the photographs of us and the proof that you committed the arson at his offices.” He stepped forward and put his arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug and resting his chin on top of her head. “I can’t let that happen.”
Even the warmth of his familiar embrace couldn’t stop the chills, or thwart the shudders racking her limbs. Luca Piacere was going to get one step closer to the crown because of her actions.
No. That couldn’t happen.
She pushed Salvy away, her fingers trembling as she curled them into fists. “No, Salvy. You can’t do that for me. I can accept the consequences of my own actions, but you can’t let your father down. You can’t let the people of Cielo down, because Luca can never be king. We both know that.”
“He’ll never be king, Maggie. Nico will be.”
“You don’t know that.” Tears filled her eyes and she didn’t bother to blink them away. “We both know that life can be stolen in the blink of an eye. Nico must know that better than anyone. You can’t let Luca take your place in line. Not for me.”
“I would do anything for you, Magdalena. You can’t tell me not to.” His own eyes shone with emotion. “This is the better solution, for me. I can’t imagine being married to anyone but you now. Committing such a farce would be to spit in the eye of what we feel for each other. I won’t let Luca destroy you.”
She took a step back, then another. Through the glass windows, she met Camilla’s rage-filled gaze. The space helped, and when she looked back toward the prince she’d always loved, with all of her heart, Maggie knew that this time she had to really let him go.
“You will let him destroy me. You’ll marry someone else, and find a way to be happy. Forget about me, Salvadore, and be the prince that Cielo needs.”
He called after her, but Maggie didn’t stop as she ran back inside, up the stairs, and toward the front entrance of the palace. She stepped out of her shoes and left them when she heard guards following her across the bridge to where she’d left Juliet’s car, but didn’t breathe a shuddering, painful sigh until she’d driven all the way back to the house in the country where, she hoped, she could hide.
Maybe forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Salvadore
Salvadore ran after Magdalena but was deterred by the crowd, pressing around him with their whispered questions about the mysterious beauty who had captivated him. The guards came back with her shoes, the toes stuffed with paper, but no Maggie.
It didn’t matter. She could say what she wished, but he would do what he knew was right. Despite her urgings, he would abdicate before he let Luca hurt her in any way.
It didn’t mean he wanted to stand around and
listen to people gossip about her for the next several hours. Since his mind was made up, there seemed to him to be no more reason to go on with the pretense of dancing with every eligible woman in the room.
They may as well get used to the idea that he didn’t want any of them.
Knowing there was no point in leaving the castle altogether, not with the announcement that needed to be made sooner than later, he retreated instead to the wing that housed his father’s office. There would be the best scotch there, and a quiet, dark room to go with it. He had no doubts about what he was about to do, but that didn’t mean a guy couldn’t take a few minutes to mourn the last moments of his sexual life.
And the woman he loved. He had to let her go, but he knew that in his heart, he would never lose her. She would be there, whispering in his ear, helping him be a better man. Salvy had no idea what that might look like once he abdicated his crown, but anything was better than watching her suffer and knowing that he could have stopped it.
Voices filtered through the heavy door of the King’s private office, which, given the thickness of the expensive wood, meant someone was yelling.
Salvy paused. His father.
He crept closer and listened, not caring in the slightest whether he got caught.
“Luca, I have done my best to treat you like another of my sons, but you refuse to permit it. I have warned you about your underhanded dealings on more than one occasion, but this time, you have exhausted all of my good will. You will not breathe a word about this family’s tailor, or his daughter, or I will prosecute you for your shady business dealings, and bring a defamation suit against you on behalf of Gabriel and Miss Rossi, as well. Is that understood?”
Luca either didn’t answer, or spoke too softly for Salvy to overhear. He couldn’t imagine his cousin was going to give in without more of a fight, but the more Salvadore considered his father’s words, the fewer options he could see that remained open to Luca.
His cousin was angry, and he had made no secret of his aspirations to steal the throne. If the King, or the Piacere family as a whole, turned against him publicly, he would lose all his credibility with the people. They would never support his bid for power, and that was if he didn’t end up in prison.
After everything Maggie had told him about Matrigna, and the people who had stood up to support her version of events since the news of their closing became public, Salvy thought there was a good chance they could send Luca to prison if they tried hard enough.
He knew his father would never do that. As much of a thorn in the side of the royal family as Luca had made himself over the years, the King felt a strong loyalty to his brother’s son. Salvy didn’t know what Luca would have to do to make King Alfonso shun him completely, but it would have to be bad. Worse than this.
The voices in the room lowered to murmurs, and Salvy retreated from the door to sit in the chair behind his father’s assistant’s desk. Relief over what the King had told Luca made way for gratitude at the way his father had spoken about Maggie and her father. Protective and gentle.
The response shouldn’t surprise him. His father was good to his staff and employees, far more so than he had to be, and their loyalty had never been questioned. Salvy felt better knowing that Luca would have had no trouble taking the photographs of Magdalena and him, or pulling security footage, without the help of anyone on his personal detail. He wanted to believe he was right to trust those guys.
Luca threw open the King’s office door a moment later, his face and neck mottled with bright red splotches as he stalked through the outer office so fast he almost didn’t notice Salvadore sitting there. When he did, he paused and whirled, his fingers balled into tight fists that made his knuckles white.
“You think you’ve won, but I’ll find a way to wipe that smug smile off your face.”
“How?” Salvy asked, staying seated. He swung the chair back and forth with one heel. “By leaking more stories to the tabloids? I’d be careful with that if I were you. I’ve been tolerant until now, but defamation of character isn’t a thing to take lightly.”
“It’s not defamation if it’s true,” Luca sneered.
Salvy pursed his lips. “It might have been true, but it will not be any longer. You will not find me the disinterested, easy mark going forward that I have been in the past. Consider yourself warned.”
“It’s not yours, the crown. It’s mine by rights, and I’m going to get it back.”
Luca whirled and strode out into the hallway without giving Salvadore a chance to reply. There’s nothing he could have said, anyway. His cousin had been promising the same thing since his father abdicated the throne shortly before his death, leaving Salvadore’s father in charge—and his sons the new heirs to the throne.
He could see how Luca could be upset, but facts were facts. He had decided, instead of accepting the world the way it was, to alienate his remaining family. Indulge conspiracy theories. Be generally awful.
“Salvadore, please come in and shut the door,” King Alfonso said from inside his office. He must have heard Luca hissing at him like some kind of demented snake.
Salvy rose and walked into the office, closing the thick door behind him and turning to face his father, still dressed for the ball. The King was handsome in his old age. Distinguished, though Salvy still thought that he looked fatigued.
“Father, thank you for standing up for Magdalena and Gabriel. I know it will mean a lot to her that you consider the two of them family.” Salvy took a deep breath and looked his father in the eye. “I’m happy that I won’t have to abdicate my place here, but I’m not going to marry. If that means you want me to join the church, then so be it.”
The King studied him for a long time, his expression inscrutable. “You love her, don’t you? That’s what inspired these great changes in you—Magdalena Rossi?”
“Yes.” It was a simple answer, but it was the only one. He loved her, and he would do anything for her, even remain alone for all of his days. “She believed there was more to me than the life I’d been living and slowly, I started to believe it as well. And desire more.”
“I could see it, even before tonight. Hell, I could see it when you were children, how your souls seemed to line up. I found it strangely endearing that you refused to see it as a boy.”
The confession took Salvadore by surprise. “I had no idea.”
The King waved a hand. “Teenage boys have a great deal of trouble seeing past the ends of their noses. You are my son, but you were not so different. Not then.”
Salvy said nothing to that. There were no more words, really—he had confessed the reason he would not follow through on his promise to choose a bride, and had offered to leave for the church, despite Luca being subdued. He waited for his father to make a choice, contentment in his own choices flowing easily through his veins.
“Salvadore, as I said before, I want you to be happy. Before Luca came charging in downstairs, you were about to say something to me. Ask something of me. I think you were about to propose that I allow you to marry Magdalena, despite her low birth.” The King raised an eyebrow, waiting for assent even though he must know now that he had guessed correctly. “I might have said no, had you asked me then. Now, after I saw you willing to give up everything, including your birthright, just to make her happy, I am convinced of the trueness of your feelings. Of your convictions, and of the fact that she makes you the best prince you can possibly be. And how could I say no to a love like that, when so few in this world are blessed to find it?”
Salvadore could hardly believe his ears. He frowned, needing to hear it again, just to be sure. “So you’re saying…”
“I’m saying that you may marry whomever you deem worthy.” The King smiled, something of his younger, spunky self in his grin. “As long as it’s Maggie. She’s a good girl, son.”
“Thank you, Father.” Though he hadn’t done so in years, Salvy felt the urge to hug his father.
So he moved the few steps necessary
and put his arms around the King’s neck, squeezing. His father patted his son’s arm and they stayed for a moment in the rare moment before Salvy pulled away.
“It seems as though you’re getting your fairytale after all,” the King commented.
“Only if I can dig up a happy ending.”
“Go get her. She can’t have gotten far, and I trust that you remember what she looks like, so we won’t have to waste time on the trying on the shoes nonsense.”
The sound of his father’s boisterous laugh followed Salvy down the hall, and left the prince shaking his head with amusement. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the smile from his face as he plotted how to find Magdalena and propose.
She could run, but she’d never been all that good at hiding. Not from him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Magdalena
It took her longer than it should have to get back to Juliet’s house in the country. She kept pulling over, wondering if she should go to the press right now, or the police, and confess all of her sins to keep Salvy from doing something stupid. Something undoable.
No. He had done the right thing with Matrigna. Salvy had decided to be the prince he’d been born to be, and he would realize after some careful thought that all of the things he would be able to do with the power of the crown behind him were far more important than her reputation.
If he didn’t, she would take care of it herself, first thing in the morning.
She had to stop and put gas in Juliet’s car, and by the time she turned down the long, dirt lane to the house in the country, her eyelids felt as if they needed to be propped up by toothpicks. That was part of the reason she had to look twice, blink her gaze clear, and then look again to be sure there was actually a helicopter sitting in the field nearest the house.
