by Olivia Gates
Then haltingly, tearfully, she began. “Fifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with lymphoma. Dermot panicked because our insurance would pay only for a tiny percentage of my treatments, and we were already in debt. At the time, Dermot and I worked in a huge multinational corporation, him in accounting, me in IT. Our financial troubles were soon common knowledge and a guy from work approached Dermot with a way to make easy, serious money.”
She paused to draw a long, shaky breath.
“Dermot told me and I refused. But I was soon in no condition to work and with only one income and the bills piling up, it was soon untenable. Dermot began to gamble then fix books and was soon so deep in debts and trouble that when the recruiter approached him again, he agreed.
“For a while, I was so tired and drained, I was just relieved we weren’t scrabbling anymore. I bought his stories that he’d entered a partnership in a thriving import/export operation. Then things started getting uglier with his mob bosses asking terrible things of him. And the worst part was they’d also dragged Daniel, who was only nineteen, into their dirty business.
“Unable to go on, Dermot had us pack everything and move across the country. We kept hopping from one place to another in his efforts to escape the mob. During remissions, I worked from home, but my relapses kept draining us. Dermot and Daniel kept trying everything to keep us afloat. But at least the mob was off our back. After seven years, I thought we were home free.
“Then six years ago, I got a call. The man said that they’d always wanted me, the real expert in the family, and that they had some jobs for me, if I valued my husband’s and son’s lives. They owned us. Not only with the debts but with what they had on them. They’d send them to prison if I didn’t cooperate.” Shame twisted in his gut, that he’d once employed the same method with Glory. “But it wouldn’t end with prison if I said no. Accidents happened on the inside, even easier than on the outside. The job was you. They’d found out about your relationship with Glory and thought it put me in a perfect position to spy on you.”
He stared at her, six years worth of agony being rewritten, the realization of the needless loss of his life with Glory choking him up.
Glenda sobbed harder now. “As a taste of what they’d do if I refused, they beat Daniel up—we told Glory it was a bar fight—and he was hospitalized for a month. I was ready to do anything after that. And I did. I used Glory’s total trust in me, and your total trust in her, to hack her computer, and yours. Then you discovered everything.
“I was so scared Dermot and Daniel would be the ones who’d be dragged into this when everything they’d done came to light during the investigation. I found only one way out. To tell you it was Glory.”
And he groaned with six years of heartache. “Per Dio, why? Didn’t you think what you’d be doing to her, to me? Didn’t you realize how much I loved her?”
“It was because I knew exactly how much you loved her that I did this. I knew you loved her so much you might forgive her, or at least wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to punish her, would let her get away with it—let us—let me—get away with it. And I was right. You did.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “You don’t consider breaking her heart a punishment?”
“It was her heart or my husband’s and son’s lives.”
Silence crushed down as he gazed into the woman’s drowned eyes, the pieces falling into place like hammers.
Then he said, “Then it happened again.”
Her tears ran continuously now. “They gave me the new assignment as soon as your wedding was announced. I begged them to let me go, tried to tell them that there was no way you wouldn’t be prepared this time, that you wouldn’t find out. They only said that with Glory as your wife now, it would be impossible to guard yourself, and that even if you found out, you wouldn’t be able to expose her—or rather me. They didn’t care what happened as long as they got their info. I owed them for giving them what had turned out to be useless info before. And they still owned my men. So I did it again. But I was only waiting until you caught me at it.”
“But you still left tracks leading to Glory, to take refuge in my love for her again.”
Her face crumbled. “And I was right again. Even when you thought she’d betrayed you twice, you wouldn’t have ever hurt her.”
His groan was agonized. “I already hurt her beyond what you can imagine. I’m only now beginning to realize the magnitude of the pain and damage I caused her.”
She clung to his arm, her feeble grip barely registering. “I beg you, don’t blame yourself. It was all my doing.”
He covered her hand with his. “I do and will blame myself. I loved her, should have given her the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t. And I hurt her so much she no longer wants to have anything to do with me.”
“No, Vincenzo. You’re her heart. She must only be running away to lick her wounds. She’s shocked and anguished at what I did. Don’t give up on her, I beg you.”
He hugged her gently, defusing her panic. “I would give up on life before I gave up on Glory.” He withdrew to wipe the tears of the woman he now hoped would live to see his and Glory’s children and be their grandmother for long years to come.
“Now give me names. I’ll get those people who’ve turned your lives into a living hell off your backs once and for all.”
*
Keeping his promise to Glenda had taken far longer than he could stand. Two full, unending days.
But at least it was over. He’d terminated the hold those mob bosses had over the Monaghans’ lives.
Contrary to Glenda’s belief, he wasn’t so refined that he couldn’t handle criminal scum. He’d negotiated a perfect deal with them. He’d paid more than handsomely for the lost revenue ensuing from losing some of their efficient operatives. And he’d let them know how much they’d lose, in every way, if they came after his and Glory’s family, or his work, ever again.
Now one thing remained. The only thing that mattered to him anymore in the world. Glory.
“We’ll get to her in time, Principe.”
Vincenzo gritted his teeth at Alonzo’s assurance. He didn’t know if they would. The flight taking her away to Darfur was in less than an hour. She must already be at the gate. Not that he’d let that stop him. Even if she flew away, he’d follow her. To the ends of the earth.
In minutes that passed like torturous hours, Alonzo pulled up at the airport’s departure zone. He lowered the window as Vincenzo exploded from the car, yelling after him, “Just ring when you get your princess back, Principe. I’ll be waiting to drive you back home.”
Vincenzo ran, Alonzo’s last words skewering his heart.
If he didn’t get her back, he’d never go home. He had no home to go to without her.
But then, not getting her back wasn’t an option.
He tore across the airport, only stopping to ask about Glory’s flight. It was boarding in twenty minutes.
He bought a ticket, produced his diplomatic passport and begged for security checks to be rushed so he could catch up with his runaway bride. Then he was streaking across the airport, bumping into people left and right. He’d run out of sorrys by the time he’d reached her gate.
She was standing in line, holding her boarding pass and one of those nondescript handbags of hers, looking terrible. And the most wonderful sight he’d ever seen. The only one he wanted to live his life seeing.
His heart kicked his ribs so hard it had him stumbling into another run, pushing through the line to reach her. She was so deep in her misery she only noticed the commotion he’d caused when someone bumped into her. Her eyes, his own pieces of heaven, looked up at him with a world of pain and desperation.
The drain of anxiety and the surge of relief shook his arms as he enfolded her and his voice as he groaned against her cheek, her neck, her lips, “Come home with me, amore, I beg you.”
She only went inert in his embrace.
*
Deadness crept up Glory
’s body like fast-growing vines.
She welcomed its suffocation, its stability, which allowed her to stand in the circle of his arms, feeling his beloved body seeking her and enfolding her, without collapsing in a mass of misery.
It also gave her the strength to push away, even though she felt she pushed away from her life source.
She staggered a step, barely aware of the hundreds of people around, watching them. She had eyes and senses only for Vincenzo, for noticing how his hair and face were captured by the atrocious lighting of the airport, enhancing every gleam, emphasizing every jut and hollow.
A blaze of love and longing shriveled her heart. She’d been too optimistic thinking there had been a chance she’d survive this. There wasn’t.
He reached for her again, hands urgent, coaxing, moving over her back, her arms, her face, leaving each feeling forever scarred with the memory of what she’d never have again.
“Come with me, amore,” he urged again.
“I can’t.” Her voice sounded as dead as she felt.
“You can’t do anything else, amore. You belong with me. To me. You’re the only one for me.”
“That’s not true, never was, never will be.”
His arms fell away, and he looked at her as if she’d just emptied a gun in his gut.
“You—you don’t…” His bit his lower lip then his voice plunged to a hoarse rasp that sounded like pain and dread made audible. “You don’t love me?”
She should say she didn’t. He’d stop blaming himself for his role in her devastation, stop trying to make amends. This was what he was here doing, after all. And she no longer blamed him for anything. She only wanted to set him free.
She still couldn’t bring herself to lie. Not about this.
She escaped answering. “I am not the one for you, Vincenzo. Anyone else would be better for you. Anyone who doesn’t have a family with a criminal history.”
His devastated expression fell apart with the snap of tension, morphed into the very sight of relief. “This is what you meant? What you’re thinking?”
“It’s not what I’m thinking. It’s the truth.”
“According to whom?”
“To the world.”
“Does it look like I care what the world does or doesn’t think?”
He spread his arms, encompassing the scene around them. Everyone was staring openly at them, the buzz of recognition, curiosity and amusement rising. Some were even taking photos and recording videos.
Embarrassment crept up her face. “You do care or you wouldn’t have married me as a social facade. And when the truth comes out…”
“It never will.”
“…it will cost you and Castaldini too much. That’s why it’s a fact that any woman who doesn’t have a family with a criminal history and connections would be better for you.”
“No one is better for me. No one is better, period.” She started to shake her head, her heart ricocheting inside her rib cage at his intensity and the unwilling rise of hope. He caught her face, his hands gentleness and persuasion itself. “And pretending to care about that social facade was just so I could have you without admitting the truth. All those years I’ve been looking for a way to have you again. Because I haven’t been truly alive since I walked away from you. And now I can’t live without you. I only cared about your family’s crimes when I thought you’d been involved in them, but lately, not even then. And now none of that is an issue. I’ve managed to wipe your family’s slate clean.”
“Y-you did…? How?”
He told her, quickly, urgently, as if needing to get this out of the way, to move on to what he considered relevant.
And she felt her world disintegrating around her again.
“I never suspected… I always thought… God!” Tears gushed, then burned down her cheeks. “The years I spent being angry at Dad and Daniel, thinking they were irresponsible, criminal, when they…they…”
He dragged her to him, protecting her from her anguish, all the missing parts of her fitting back. “You can now have your family back, forgive them for everything that has been beyond them and be happy loving them again.”
She raised her eyes to his, unable to grasp the enormity of it all. “How can you be so…so forgiving, so generous, after all they’ve done to you?”
“Conceiving you is an achievement that would make up for any past or future crime. And then they were under threat. A threat I ended, so they can now go on with their lives without the shadow of fear.”
She started to protest and he scooped her up in his arms, clamping his lips over hers. As the power of his kiss dragged her down into a well of craving, she thought she heard hoots of approval and clapping.
He pulled away, groaning, “Gloria mia, ti voglio, ti amo—I’m going crazy wanting you, loving you.”
She felt he was letting her look deep into his soul, letting her see what she’d always thought would remain an impossible fantasy. Vincenzo didn’t only love her, his love was as fierce and total as hers.
But this was why she’d had to walk away. So she wouldn’t disrupt his life and destiny.
She had to protect him, especially since he clearly wasn’t willing to protect himself. “You can’t only consider your heart…you have duties, a status, and I’m…”
He clamped his lips on hers again, aborting her panting protest. “My first duty is to you. My status depends on honoring you first.”
She shook her head. “My family…if the truth comes out…God, Vincenzo, you can’t have them for your in-laws….”
His expression was resoluteness itself. “I already have them as my in-laws, and they’ll always be my in-laws, and I will be proud to have them as the family of our children.”
“Our ch-childr…” With those two magical words, a fierce yearning sheared through her, draining every spark of tension holding her together. She swooned in his hold.
His arms tightened until she felt he was trying to merge them. “Yes, our children, as many and as soon as you want.”
The magnitude of what he was offering, the future he was painting, stunned her into silence as her mind’s eye tremblingly tried to imagine it all. A future, a whole life, filled with love and alliance and trust, with him. Children with him. Even her family back, because of him.
Vincenzo took advantage of her silence and strode away with her still in his arms, talking to many people, then on the phone. She watched everything from the security of his embrace, as if from the depths of a dream. Somewhere it registered that he was arranging their exit after they’d been checked in as far as the boarding gate and arranging for her luggage to be sent back.
Then a sound penetrated the fog of her bliss. A horn.
Her dazed gaze panned around, found Vincenzo’s car with Alonzo at the wheel, waving to them urgently as he stopped in an unloading-only zone.
In seconds, Vincenzo had her inside the cool, dim seclusion of the limo. As Alonzo maneuvered smoothly into the traffic, Vincenzo bundled her onto his lap.
After a kiss that left her breathless, he drew away, his faced gripped in the passion she couldn’t wait to have him expend all over her.
“I have to get this out of the way once and forever, gloriosa mia, then we’ll never speak or think of it again. You had nothing to do with your family’s mistakes. You are the one woman I could ever love, the soul mate I would be forever proud to call mine, and to call myself yours. I truly care nothing about what the world will bring me as long as you’re mine forever.”
Her head rolled over his shoulder, her lids and insides heavy with need. Every nerve alight with delight at his declarations, she caressed the wonder of his hard cheek. “As long as you understand it will probably take the rest of my life to get used to all those unbelievable facts.”
He pressed another urgent, devouring kiss on her lips as if compelled to do it. “I don’t think there is any such thing as ‘getting used’ to this—” he hugged her tighter “—what we share. Just to always marv
el at it, be humbled by it and thankful for it.”
Then his smile suddenly dissolved, leaving his face a mask of gravity. Her heart quivered with a tremor of uncertainty.
Then, with all the solemnity of a pledge, he said, “Will you marry me again, Glory? This time with our love declared, because we are each other’s destiny?”
Joy exploded inside her, making her erupt in his arms and rain tears and kisses all over his beloved face and hands. “Yes, Vincenzo. Yes, yes, yes, to everything, forever.”
Smiling elatedly, as choked with emotion as she, his own eyes filling with tears, Vincenzo took her lips, drowning her in the miracle of his love.
Deep from the security of his love and embrace she heard Alonzo exclaiming, “Eccellente. I not only get my princess back, I get to arrange another wedding. But now with true love declared and the catastrophe of separation averted, this calls for a much more elaborate ceremony.”
Glory gaped up at Vincenzo. “There could be anything more elaborate?”
Vincenzo poured indulgence over her, pinching her buttock playfully. “Have you even met Alonzo?”
Carefree giggles burst out of her for the first time in… She didn’t even remember when she’d laughed so freely.
But she still had to make a stand. “While I loved the first ceremony, Alonzo, I really would rather we used all the expenses in something…uh…”
Alonzo smirked at her in the rearview mirror. “Is worthwhile the word you’re looking for?” At her apologetic nod, he sighed. “I can see it’s not going to be as much fun as I thought having a philanthropist for a princess.”
At her chuckling sigh, Vincenzo smoothed the hair he’d mussed off her face lovingly. “How about we have everything? The figure you name for your worthwhile endeavors, the all-out-expenses wedding—” He turned to meet Alonzo’s eyes in the mirror. “Preferably a double wedding this time.”
She looked between both men then exclaimed, “Gio proposed?”
A smile of pure happiness spread Alonzo’s lips, even as his green eyes misted. “Ah, si…and how he did.”
She waited until he stopped at a traffic light, then exploded from Vincenzo’s arms and jumped on Alonzo, hugging him and soundly kissing him on his widely smiling cheek.
