She felt bruised inside. It hurt to breathe. To eat. Just being hurt.
She wished that she could just turn her feelings off, quick and clean like shutting off a water main. But it wasn’t that simple, not even close.
There was more to Lazaro than mindless acquisitions and status. She knew there was. She’d seen it. A man consumed only by a desire for things never would have cared that she had to take antacids to get through her day at work. He never would have encouraged her to work on her photography or bought her a camera.
He would never have made love to her as Lazaro did—with skill and tenderness, passion and heat. Always ensuring her pleasure came before his.
He had brought her out of her stagnant life. She felt as though he’d opened her eyes to living. To feeling. He had given her so much—the strength to chase her own desires.
She wiped a tear off her cheek, frustrated that she was still crying four days after he’d rejected her love. Unsure if she would ever stop.
No one else had ever really seen her before. She was afraid no one else ever would.
But I see me now.
She took a deep breath. At least she knew what she wanted now. No more living behind the four walls of her office, no more pouring everything she had into something that she didn’t love to do.
She’d found her own life. Her own path. And she’d lost her heart in the process.
But at least she was alive now. Truly living, making her own choices and living with the consequences, rather than hiding behind honor and duty. Cowering in fear of making choices and mistakes and playing the martyr instead of taking responsibility for things.
Still, right now, her newfound self was consumed with heartbreak that felt nearly fatal at the moment.
“This too shall pass. I hope,” she said into her empty living room.
At least this time she’d told him she loved him. Back all those years ago in the guesthouse, the words had hovered on her lips, and she wondered if things would have changed if she had just spoken them. If he had said he loved her too, or if the honesty would have at least made them talk. Made them understand each other.
Yes, he had rejected her love. But she’d offered it. She’d tried.
There was a sharp knock on her front door, followed by a rich, familiar voice. “Vanessa?”
Her heart stopped beating for a moment before racing forward, tripping over itself. She swallowed hard and went to the door, opening it but keeping the shield of the wood between her and her soon-to-be-ex-husband. If there was nothing between them she might just cast her pride aside completely and fall into his arms.
“Lazaro … I … didn’t expect you.”
“I have something for you.”
Her heart sank into her stomach and she opened the door wider, allowing him in. “Divorce papers? Do you want to sit down?” She gestured to her blue Victorian love seat.
“If you want them, and no.”
“If I want them?”
“I brought divorce papers. But … that is not all.”
She looked at him, really looked at him. He looked like she did. Tired, sick, tormented. His cheekbones looked sharper, the grooves that bracketed his mouth deeper. His black hair was disheveled, as though he’d been running his fingers through it.
“What else?” she asked, her throat tightening.
He cleared his throat, raising his hand and running it through his hair, just as she’d envisioned him doing. His hand shook as he lowered it. “I have to tell you this. I … I have spent every moment since that day I woke up facedown in the alley working my way up. I swore I would never stop until I reached the top. And I did. I reached it, Vanessa.”
“I remember,” she said, her voice cracking. “You asked for a divorce ten seconds after telling me this the first time.”
“Yes, I found it, all I was looking for. And then I found out the big hole that’s been inside me for all of my life was still there.” His voice broke. “I fixed nothing. I accomplished nothing. Because I was at the top, and I was alone. I used you as a stepping stone. I used you. I forced you to marry me. It’s unforgivable.”
Vanessa watched Lazaro’s expression contort, his eyes filled with bleak torment. “Laz …”
“Don’t, Vanessa. Don’t excuse me,” he ground out. “I don’t deserve it.” He drew his hand over his face. “When I was eighteen I had more than I do at this moment, because you smiled at me as though I meant something to you, and now when you look at me … there is no light. And you left me.”
“You asked me to.”
“I was a fool. I wanted to run after you the moment you turned away from me, and I did not. I couldn’t.”
Vanessa felt her heart fold in. “I thought … I thought you only wanted to be with me because of what I could give you and then … and then you asked for a divorce when you had what you wanted …” Her voice broke. “I needed so much to have someone love me. Me and not my name, not what I could do for them. Me. And you didn’t. You were just like everyone else.” The words were torn from her, her pride be damned.
He took a step forward and extended his hand, his fingers trembling as he cupped her cheek, ran his thumb over her lower lip. He let his hand fall back to his side. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I’m sorry I was such a fool. I didn’t realize, Vanessa. I thought I couldn’t be whole until I had all the money, all the status. All the power. I thought that when I was certain I would never be weak or helpless again, everything would be perfect. But I had it all. I’ve had it all since the moment I put that ring on your finger, but I am not whole. I’m in pieces. More now than I ever have been. I became a man I despise to gain the power and wealth that I craved. But I lost my soul. I lost my heart.”
He reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out a stack of papers. “I’m hoping that this will help me get it back.” He took her hand in his and lifted it, then he put the documents in her upturned palm. “This is everything I own. All of the shares for Pickett. All of my money. The title to the penthouse … all of my houses. It’s yours, Vanessa. Because it means nothing if I don’t have you. Without you, I have nothing, I am nothing. This isn’t just some empty gesture. If you want me to leave, I will. And I’ll leave you with everything I’ve acquired in the past twelve years. This is what I hurt you for, all of the things that I have defined myself by, and I would trade it all to have you in my arms again.”
Vanessa stared down at the papers in her hand. “There are no divorce papers?” she asked, the words sounding hollow, inane.
“They’re in there too. Whatever you want. But if you take me, it is only me. You can have it all without me. Money, power. Pickett will be safe. I’ll have no hold over you.”
“But … this is everything you have.”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing. I thought it was everything, Vanessa, I truly believed it. Do you know how frightening it was? To achieve my goal and realize that it was nothing more than vain emptiness? That I was more unhappy than I had ever been?”
He moved to her, cupped her cheek. “I do love you for what you can give me. Happiness. Hope. Satisfaction. Things I have chased all my life and found nowhere. Nowhere but with you. I love you, Vanessa Pickett. Everything about you. I have from the first moment I saw you, in your bright pink bikini, and I will love you until I take my last breath.”
He pressed his forehead against hers. “I come to you with nothing. I am just a man who loves you.”
She put the stack of papers on her hall table and wrapped her arms around his neck, her cheeks wet with tears. “I love you too.”
He pulled back, his dark eyes searching hers. “How?”
“Same as you. I always have. I always will.”
“What I said the other night … I was afraid you were only telling me you loved me so that you could secure Pickett’s future. I didn’t want that. And I didn’t want to hold you to an arrangement that I had forced you into.”
“I meant it then, I mean it now. With everyth
ing or with nothing, sickness or in health, I love you, Lazaro Marino. You. Not your position or your bank balance. Everything you are, everything you will be.” She kissed him, pouring all of her love into him. When they parted, they were both short of breath. “And I don’t want anything from you but you,” she said, looking down at the documents on the table. “I really, really don’t want the divorce papers.”
“I’m very glad to hear you say that,” he whispered, his voice rough.
She touched his face. “It’s easy to be angry for so many years lost. So many years when we could have been together.”
“I don’t know if I could have been the man you deserved then, Vanessa. I wasn’t the man you deserved twenty-four hours ago. I’m not sure if I am now.”
“You are. You’re the man I need. You push me. You make me stronger. You’ve shown me who I am.”
“That’s what you’ve done for me, Vanessa. I’m stronger, better, because I have you.” He kissed her lightly and she sighed, happiness filling her. “I’ve turned down your father’s offer to join his club,” he said, the corners of his mouth lifting.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I do. I don’t want to do business with men like that. It’s not worth any amount of money or prestige.” He looked at her, his eyes unveiled, the love in them clear and true. “I don’t need it. I love you, Vanessa Pickett. Not for your last name, not for your connections. For all of my days.”
She smiled, her heart so full she thought it might burst. All of the pain flooded from her, washed away by Lazaro’s love, the love they shared, leaving everything in her feeling clean. New. Complete for the first time.
“I’m glad you aren’t too attached to my last name,” she said. “Because I’m going to have it changed. Vanessa Marino suits me better. You’re my family now. I want everyone to know how proud I am to be your wife.”
“Vanessa Marino,” he repeated. “I am honored.” She touched his cheek. “The honor is all mine.”
EPILOGUE
THE past three years had been the best of Vanessa’s life. She felt as though all the time spent apart from Lazaro was slowly being restored, as though wounds were truly healing, the past no longer something filled with hurt and regret.
She took a deep breath and looked around the gallery, at the people looking at her photographs. It was her first real exhibition. She hadn’t been confident enough in her skills to have one right away, and she’d wanted to earn the right to have one, not simply have it handed to her because of her maiden name or her husband’s position in the community.
The picture that drew the biggest crowd was the one that was still her favorite. Lazaro, in their bed, looking at her with so much desire in his eyes that it made her burn to see it even now.
She walked over to the photo, drawn to it still.
“That’s a man in love.” It came from one of the women gazing at the print.
Vanessa smiled.
Lazaro came to stand beside her, his arm around her waist. “Yes, it is.” He leaned in and kissed her neck. “I’m still in love with you, too.”
“I know,” she said.
“Sure of yourself,” he said, smiling at her.
“Sure of you,” she said.
He’d never given her reason to doubt. He showed her his love every day in a thousand different ways. He loved her as she was, in all her moods.
He kissed her again. “Have I mentioned how very proud I am of you?”
“About a hundred times, but tell me again.”
“I’m proud of you,” he whispered, pulling her close. “Of everything you’ve accomplished. Of everything you are.”
Vanessa blinked back tears and leaned into his embrace, love filling her. “The feeling is one-hundred-percent mutual.”
The Inherited Bride
Maisey Yates
Mom, Dad, this one is for you.
Thank you for always believing in me.
If everyone had parents like you, the world would be a better place.
CHAPTER ONE
HE WASN’T Room Service. That was for sure. Princess Isabella Rossi looked up, way up, at the tall, forbidding man who was standing in the doorway of her hotel room. His muscular frame was displayed to perfection by the tailored black suit he was wearing. But the suit was where any semblance of civilization ended.
His expression was inscrutable, his dark eyes blank, his lips flattened into a firm line. His squared jaw was clenched tight, the tension mirrored in his stance. His golden skin was marred with scars in some places; his cheek, the exposed part of his wrists.
She swallowed hard. “Unless you have my dinner stashed on a cart somewhere, I’m afraid I can’t allow you to come in.”
He uncrossed his arms and held his hands out, as if to show that they were empty. “Sorry.”
“I was waiting for Room Service.”
He tapped the top of the door with his open palm. “They make peepholes in these doors for a reason. It’s always wise to check.”
“Thank you. I’ll remember that.” She made a move to close the door, but it didn’t budge. He was propping it open with his shoulder. She tried to close it again, this time putting more weight behind it. The door still didn’t move, and neither did he. His expression did not betray even a hint of strain.
“You’ve caused a lot of big problems for quite a few people. Including your security detail, who now find themselves without jobs.”
Her heart sank into her stomach. He knew who she was. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or even more upset by that. Relieved he wasn’t here to hurt her, but … but he was here to take her back. Either to Umarah or to Turan, and she didn’t want to go to either country. Not now. Not when she’d fallen so short of everything she’d wanted to accomplish.
One night of freedom. That was all she’d gotten. A glimpse of the world as she would never know it.
“Do you work for my father?”
“No.”
“You work for Hassan, then.” That should have been obvious. Judging by the faint accent that tinged his deep voice, she should have guessed that Arabic was his native language. She should have known that he was in league with her fiancé.
“You’re in breach of contract, amira. You should have known the Sheikh could not allow such a thing.”
“I didn’t imagine he would be thrilled about it, but …”
“You did a very foolish thing, Isabella. Your parents were concerned that you’d been kidnapped.”
The guilt she’d been holding at bay for the past twenty-four hours made her stomach feel tight. But with that tightening came a strange fluttering sensation that seemed to grow stronger when she looked into those dark, fathomless eyes. She looked down. “I didn’t mean to scare anyone.”
“And what did you think would happen when you disappeared? That everyone would go about their daily lives as if nothing had happened? You did not believe that your own parents would be frantic with worry?”
She shook her head mutely. In truth, she’d known her family would be upset, but she hadn’t considered that they’d worry about her. Be angry, yes. She’d imagined they would be angry. That they might be afraid the sheikh would want to renege on their bargain if there was a chance she’d been out in the big bad world long enough to become damaged goods, or something.
“I … no. I didn’t really think they would be worried.”
He shifted his focus to the hallway, to a young couple standing a few doors down, kissing passionately against the wall. “I am not going to continue this discussion in the hallway.”
She sneaked a glance at the passionate duo and her face began to burn with embarrassment. “Well, I can’t let you in!”
He looked past her and into the simple room. “Slumming it?”
“No. This is a perfectly nice hotel. Anywhere too upmarket and—”
“They would have known who you were. And they would have wondered.”
She nodded mutely.
“I w
ill be coming in,” he continued. “With your permission or without it. One thing you’ll learn about me very quickly, Princess. I don’t take orders.”
“There are two months and ten days until the wedding,” she said, desperation clawing at her. “I need … I need this time.”
“You should have considered that before you ran away.”
“I didn’t run away. That makes me sound like a naughty child.”
“Then what would you call it?” He looked down the long corridor, back at the couple, whose activities had heated up in the past minute, and then back at her. “I’m waiting to be let in. I find I’ve been extremely patient.”
She could tell from the fierce glint in his eyes that he absolutely would push his way into the room if she didn’t allow him access. She could tell by all of the barely harnessed power of the body, the strength that was radiating from him, that he was only seconds away from doing it.
A sound that could only be described as ecstatic came from the couple in the hall, and Isabella jumped slightly, releasing her hold on the door.
“Wise decision.” He stepped past her and into the small hotel room.
He stood rigid, his posture straight, his expression neutral. He was handsome. Extremely handsome. She realized that now. She’d been so struck by the immensity of his power, the energy that seemed just to radiate from him, that she hadn’t had the time to really look at him. But she was looking now.
Now that his mouth was relaxed she noticed that his lips were full and well shaped, even with the small scar running through a corner of his mouth. He had the darkest eyes she’d ever seen. Nearly black, and so intensely focused that she felt as though he could see everything about her—as if he was looking into her. He was the sort of man who evoked a visceral reaction that was impossible to fight or ignore; one she didn’t fully understand, and one she definitely didn’t know what to do with.
“I wasn’t letting you in. I was startled, that’s all.” she said, hoping she sounded at least mildly imperious. She was a princess; she ought to be able to do imperious.
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