by Lucy Monroe
“It hurt finding out about the will and your reason for marrying me from your sperm donor.”
Pain twisted Demyan’s features. “I am sorry.” He reached up to wipe along the tear streaks on one cheek. “You cried.”
“At first, all I could think was that you’d tricked me into loving you when you felt nothing for me at all. That you probably planned on getting rid of me as soon as the ink was dry on the marriage certificate.”
“No!” He kissed her, the connection between their mouths infused with a desperation stronger than anything she’d ever felt from him.
It was a magnified version of the feelings that emanated off him at night when making love since their arrival in Volyarus.
She did nothing to stop the kiss for a long time, needing this connection as badly as he so clearly did.
But eventually, she broke her mouth away. “Were you going to tell me?”
“Maybe someday. I do not know. I did not want to.”
“You were afraid.”
“I am never afraid.”
“Not usually, but the idea of losing me scared you.”
“Have I lost you?” His arms tightened around her even as he asked the question.
“No.”
“No?” he asked, his voice breaking so the word sounded as if it had two syllables.
“Definitely not. Yet.”
His big body went absolutely rigid. “Yet?”
“It all depends on your answer to a question.”
He stared down at her.
“You never break your promises, right?” She let her body mold completely to his, trying to give him strength.
That’s what people who loved each other did—they lent their strength when it was needed.
“Right.”
“Tell me you love me.”
The tension emanating off him increased exponentially.
“Your mom told me what she made you promise her.”
Demyan’s expression was haunted.
“You promised not to say you love me unless you really mean it,” Chanel reminded him. “You can say it now, Demyan. I will treasure your love forever, too.”
“But…”
“You love me.”
“I do?”
“That stuff you were saying earlier, about missing me, being afraid to lose me, even the way you changed the prenuptial agreement, it all means one thing.”
“It does?” Comprehension and acceptance dawned over his features, making him smile with heartbreaking happiness. “It does. I love you, Chanel, more than my life as a prince. More than anything.”
More tears filled her eyes, but these didn’t burn or hurt her heart. “I love you, too.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean…we don’t have to live with the whole royalty thing. I know it’s not the life you want. I can abdicate my role.”
It wasn’t an empty promise and it would not come without significant cost to this amazing man. Especially after finally acknowledging his true role as son of Oxana and Fedir, but Demyan was entirely sincere in his offer.
“No. I love you, Demyan. Ruthless prince. Corporate king and shark. All of you.”
“I love you for all that you are, too, Chanel, and that includes the woman who has never aspired to be a socialite.”
“I’m not going to be one now, either.”
“My uncle…father is not going to know what to do with you.”
“He’ll probably call me princess just to annoy me.”
Demyan laughed, the sound freer and filled with more joy than she’d ever heard from him. “You may well be right.”
“So long as you call me love.”
“Koxána moja,” he said, calling her his love in Ukrainian. “Always and forever. You are the very heart that beats inside my chest.”
And then he took her back to the rooms they would share whenever staying at the palace for the years to come and made tender, night-long love to her, using those words and so many others to tell Chanel that this man truly loved her and always would.
Later she snuggled into his body and yawned as she said, “I guess it’s a good thing you’ve got a sneaky, underhanded side.”
“Is it?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“We never would have gotten together otherwise. You snuck past all my barriers.”
“It is only fair, since you destroyed mine.”
Two broken people who had not even realized they were broken had been made whole by love.
Yes, Chanel thought, that was exactly right and fair.
“Love you, Demyan.”
“I love you.”
“Always.”
“For the rest of our lives.”
“And beyond.” Eternity would not end a love so strong.
“And beyond.”
EPILOGUE
OXANA CUDDLED HER latest grandchild. The tiny infant was only three days old, but he was so alert that the queen could not help smiling into soft gray eyes so like his mother’s.
Little Damon was her fourth grandchild and she had no doubts he would bring her every bit as much joy as the other three she’d been gifted by her sons and their wives.
The oldest, Mikael, was five and the only child Gillian and Maksim had conceived. Their youngest was adopted, a beautiful little girl who had both her besotted parents wrapped around her dainty little fingers.
Demyan and Chanel’s oldest had turned two, four months before the birth of her little brother. Both children were cosseted and adored by parents who showed a decided ruthlessness when it came to putting their family first.
Oxana could not be more pleased. She’d given up a lifetime of love and found little personal happiness in order to give her sons the best chance at a better life. One would be king, the other would continue to oversee their business interests, but both were blissfully happy.
And Oxana thought that a more-than-fair compensation for the sacrifices she’d made. After all, she had her grandchildren around her now. They called her Nana, not Your Majesty, and didn’t hesitate to muss her designer couture with messy fingers.
How incredibly blessed she was, but her sons had received the true gift beyond measure.
A lifetime love with women who not only knew but accepted both men for who and what they were.
Fedir often didn’t know what to make of his independent-minded daughters by marriage, but he loved being a grandfather and already had grand plans for the children.
Oxana didn’t tell him, but she had plans, too, and she knew exactly what each grandchild needed for the future. Love.
Just as she had done her best to make sure both her sons realized their loves, she would do whatever it took to ensure each of her grandchildren knew true love, as well.
Fedir could plan all the machinations he wanted, but in the end? Love would triumph.
Just as it had for her children.
*
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CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS HIS. All his. Almost his, for tomorrow he had an appointment to sign the papers transferring the ownership of the Corretti Hotel Palermo from Corretti Enterprises to
Corretti International. Angelo Corretti’s mouth twisted at the irony. From one Corretti to another. Or not.
Slowly he strolled through the hotel lobby, watching the bellhops catch sight of him, their eyes widening before they straightened to attention. A middle-aged woman at the concierge desk eyed him apprehensively, clearly waiting to spring into action if summoned. He hadn’t been formally introduced to any of the hotel staff, but he had no doubt they knew who he was. He’d been in and out of the Corretti offices for nearly a week, arranging meetings with the major shareholders who had no choice but to hand over the reins of the flagship hotel in view of their CEO’s absence and Angelo’s controlling shares.
It had, in the end, all been so gloriously simple. Leave the Correttis alone for a little while and they’d tear themselves apart. They just couldn’t help it.
‘Sir? Signor…Corretti?’ The concierge finally approached him, her heels clicking across the marble floor of the soaring foyer. Angelo heard how she stumbled over his name, because of course everyone knew the Correttis here, and in all of Sicily. They were the most powerful and scandalous family in southern Italy. And he wasn’t one of them.
Except he was.
He felt his mouth twist downwards as that all too familiar and futile rage coursed through him. He was one of them, but he had never—and never would be—acknowledged as one, even if everyone knew the truth of his birth. Even if everyone in the village he’d grown up in, from the time he was a little boy and barely understood it himself, had known he was Carlo Corretti’s bastard and made his life hell because of it.
He turned to the concierge, forcing his mouth upwards into a smile. ‘Yes?’
‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ she asked, and he saw the uncertainty in her eyes, the fear that he’d come in here and sweep it all clean. And part of him was tempted to do just that. Every single person who worked here had been loyal to the family he despised and was determined to ruin. Why shouldn’t he fire them all, bring in his own people?
‘No, thank you, Natalia.’ He’d glanced at her discreet, silver-plated name tag before meeting her worried gaze with a faint smile. ‘I’ll just go to my room.’ He’d booked the penthouse suite for tonight, intending to savour staying in the best room of his enemy’s best hotel. The room he knew for a fact was reserved almost exclusively for Matteo Corretti’s use, except since the debacle of the called-off Corretti/Battaglia wedding, Matteo was nowhere to be seen. He wouldn’t be using the suite even if he could, which from tomorrow he couldn’t.
No Corretti, save for himself, would ever stay in this hotel again.
‘Certainly, Signor Corretti.’ She spoke his name more surely now, but it felt like a hollow victory. He’d always been a Corretti, had claimed the name for his own even though the man who had fathered him had never admitted to it or him. Even though using that name had earned him more black eyes and bloody noses than he cared to remember. It was his, damn it, and he’d earned it.
He’d earned all of this.
With one last cool smile for the concierge, he turned towards the bank of gleaming lifts and pressed the button for the penthouse. It was nearly midnight, and the foyer was deserted except for a skeleton staff. The streets outside one of Palermo’s busiest squares had emptied out, and Angelo hadn’t seen anyone on his walk here from his temporary offices a few blocks away.
Yet as he soared upwards towards the hotel’s top floor and its glittering, panoramic view of the city and harbour, Angelo knew he was too wired and restless to sleep. Sleep, at the best times, had always been difficult; he often only caught two or three hours in a night, and that not always consecutively. The rest of the time he worked or exercised, anything to keep his body and brain moving, doing.
The doors opened directly into the suite that covered the entire top floor. Angelo stepped inside, his narrowed gaze taking in all the luxurious details: the marble floor, the crystal chandelier, the expensive antiques and art. The lights had been turned down and he glimpsed a wide king-size bed in the suite’s master bedroom, the navy silk duvet turned down to reveal the six hundred thread count sheets underneath.
He dropped his key card onto a side table and loosened his tie, shed his jacket. He felt the beginnings of a headache, the throbbing at his temples telling him he’d be facing a migraine in a couple of hours. Migraines and insomnia were just two of the prices he’d had to pay for how hard he’d worked, how much he’d achieved, and he paid them willingly. He’d pay just about anything to be where he was, who he was. Successful, powerful, with the ability to pull the sumptuous rug out from under the Correttis’ feet.
He strolled through the suite, the lights of the city visible and glittering from the floor-to-ceiling windows. The living area was elegant if a bit too stuffy for his taste, with some fussy little chairs and tables, a few ridiculous-looking urns. He’d have a refit of the whole hotel first thing, he decided as he plucked a grape from the bowl of fresh fruit on the coffee table, another fussy piece of furniture, with fluted, gold-leaf edges. He’d bring this place up to date, modern and cutting edge. It had been relying on the distinctly tattered Corretti name and a faded elegance for far too long.
Restless, his head starting to really pound, he continued to prowl through the suite, knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep yet unwilling to sit down and work. This was the eve of his victory after all. He should be celebrating.
Unfortunately he had no one to celebrate with in this town. He hadn’t made any friends here in the eighteen years he’d called Sicily home, only enemies.
You made one friend.
The thought slid into his mind, surprising and sweet, and he stilled his restless pacing of the suite’s living area.
Lucia. He tried not to think of her, because thinking of her was remembering and remembering made him wonder. Wish. Regret.
And he never regretted anything. He wouldn’t regret the one night he’d spent in her arms, burying himself so deep inside her he’d almost forgotten who he was—and who he wasn’t.
For a few blissful hours Lucia Anturri, the neighbour’s daughter he’d ignored and appreciated in turns, with the startling blue eyes that mirrored her heart, had made him forget all the anger and pain and emptiness he’d ever felt.
And then he’d slipped away from her while she was sleeping and gone back to his life in New York, to the man of purpose and determination and anger that he’d always be, because damn it, he didn’t want to forget.
Not even for one night.
Even more restless now, that old anger surging through him, Angelo jerked open the buttons of his shirt. He’d take a long, hot shower. Sometimes that helped with the headaches, and at least it was something to do.
He was in the process of shedding his shirt as he came into the bedroom and to an abrupt halt. A bucket of ice with a bottle of champagne chilling inside was by the bed—and so was a woman.
*
Lucia froze at the sight of the half-dressed man in front of her, three freshly laundered towels pressed to her hard-beating heart.
Angelo.
She knew, had always known, that she would see him again, and occasionally she’d embroidered ridiculous, romantic fantasies about how it would happen. Stupid, schoolgirl dreams. She hadn’t done that for years though, and she’d never imagined this.
Running into him without a second’s notice, totally unprepared—
She’d heard whispers that he was back in Sicily but she had assumed they were, as they’d always been, mere rumours, and she’d never expected to see him here.
From just one shocked glimpse of him standing there, his hair rumpled and his shirt half undone, she knew he didn’t recognise her. Meanwhile in the space of a few seconds she was reliving every glorious and agonising moment she’d spent with him that one night seven years ago, the feel of his satiny skin, the desperate press of his lips against hers.
Such thoughts were clearly the furthest from his mind. His eyes had narrowed, his lips thinned, and he looked angry. S
he recognised that look, for God knew she’d seen it enough over the fraught years of their childhood. Yet even angry he was beautiful, the most beautiful man she’d ever known.
Known and loved.
Swallowing, she pushed that most unhelpful thought away. She hadn’t seen Angelo in seven years. She didn’t love him any more, and she absolutely knew he’d never loved her.
Which, of course, shouldn’t hurt all this time later, yet in that unguarded moment as she stared at him, his shirt hanging open to reveal the taut, golden expanse of his chest, she knew it did.
Angelo arched an eyebrow, obviously annoyed, clearly waiting. For what? An apology? Did he expect her to do the little chambermaid stammering act and scurry away?
Two desires, both deep-seated, warred within her. On one hand she felt like telling Angelo Corretti exactly what she thought of him for sneaking out of her bed seven years ago. Except she didn’t even know what that was, because she thought of Angelo in so many ways. Desire and despair. Hope and hatred. Love and loss.
In any case, the far more sensible impulse she had was to leave this room before he recognised her, before any awful, awkward reunion scenarios could play out. They may have been childhood friends, he may have been her first and only lover, but she was next to nothing to him, and always had been—a shaming fact she did not need reminding of tonight.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, lowering her head just a little so her hair fell in front of her face. ‘I was just getting your room ready for the night. I’ll be out of your way.’
She started to move past him, her head still lowered, hating the ache this simple, terrible exchange opened up inside her. It was an ache she’d had for so long that she’d become numb to it, learned to live with it the way you might a missing limb or a permanent scar. Yet now, in Angelo’s uncaring presence, she felt it throb painfully to life and for a second, furious with herself, she had to blink back tears.
She was just about to slip past him when his hand curled around her arm, jolting her so hard and deep she almost stumbled.
