Olivia Gates Bestseller Collection 2012

by Olivia Gates

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Damn him and damn everyone else in this damn stupid world. But the biggest damns were reserved for herself and her stupidity.

  She was done being stupid. She’d start by never again shedding a tear. Certainly not over Prince Durante D’Agostino.

  She spilled from the bed, barely saw herself in the mirror through her turgid lids as she plodded to her bathroom.

  She came out an hour later feeling as if the hot bath had homogenized the pain clamping her chest and melted it to seep through her. She now ached down to her toenails.

  She called Megan, her PA, and told her she was taking a few days off. She was sick.

  She wasn’t lying. She was. Sick of the whole world. Heartache should be at the forefront of ailments one should take sick leave for. And she was taking it.

  She needed time to rearrange her mental and emotional papers, invent some priorities, locate her vanished purpose. First on the agenda was purging her memory of Prince Durante D’Agostino.

  To do that, she had to admit she owed him a debt of gratitude. He’d made all the slander she’d ever suffered come crashing down on her. She could now face her fury and bitterness, deal with it, put it in perspective and move on.

  She should also thank him for curing her of a delusion she’d been suffering from without even realizing it—that miracles happened sometimes and Prince Charming existed somewhere.

  Now that she knew for certain that was a load of crap, she could at last have her mind functioning at capacity, unhindered by the insidious virus of such self-sabotaging illusions.

  Maybe now she could get rid of all the shackles that had been holding her back. Maybe now she would start to live for real.

  Gabrielle looked at her cell phone.

  Come on. Do it.

  She’d put it off long enough. It had been ten days. She had to call him now. He wouldn’t be happy. But he, too, had to face facts. Like she had.

  Facts said she’d back down if she waited another moment.

  Do. It. Now. She hit the speed dial button, flinching as if she’d hit a remote for a nearby bomb.

  The ringing blared on speaker mode until the line disconnected. Relief that he hadn’t answered and reluctance to try again sent nausea bubbling in her stomach. Coward. Do it. Get it over with.

  She pressed the button just as the phone came alive.

  She almost dropped it in fright. Then she remembered. She had it on vibration-mode. The caller ID blazed on the screen. The king.

  She gulped and hit the answer button.

  His voice flowed into her ear, sounding worse than she’d last heard it. “Figlia mia, apologies for the delay in answering.”

  “I should have called much sooner. I-I…” The words congealed into a lump, choked her. Just spit them out. “I-it’s about your son. I-I tried and failed. He wouldn’t talk to me.”

  That last bit wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was true. All the talking Durante had done had been with his “bella misteriosa.” He hadn’t given her the consideration of one word.

  Not that the king who’d told her to do “anything” would take her failure lying down. She braced herself for his arguments, for the brunt of his desperation, the distress of having to disappoint it. Just as she thought she was ready for anything, his exhalation almost deflated her with its dejection.

  “It was a desperate gamble, Gaby. I was deluded to hope that Durante would relent. Castaldini and I will have to face our fate without his intervention. Forgive me if I caused you any discomfort by involving you in this.”

  A long time later, she didn’t remember what she’d stammered in answer to King Benedetto’s apology and acceptance of defeat.

  She knew only that her temperature was rising geometrically.

  Durante. That cruel, intractable, holier-than-thou bastard.

  So he’d condemned her and walked away without a glance back. Fine. She was no one to him. But she was damned if she’d let him get away with doing the same to his father and live happily ever after with his sanctimonious “disconnection.”

  She didn’t care that he thought his position validated. It was still indefensible. And besides, she’d bet he had as much proof of his father’s so-called crimes against his mother as he had of her alleged ones against male-kind.

  She didn’t care about the level of demeaning disdain with which he’d no doubt smear her. She was not letting this end without stripping off a few layers of his rhino hide. Maybe she’d even find something beneath to shame into coming through for his father and his kingdom.

  She unclasped her death grip on her phone, hit another speed dial button. Megan answered on the first ring.

  She fired away. “Megan, I want you to get me every shred of info on Prince Durante D’Agostino of Castaldini. And I don’t mean financial and personal profiles. At least, nothing reported in ‘reliable’ or ‘respected’ sources. Dig me up all the dirt. Make it thick, and make it quick. I need it…ten days ago.”

  Durante stared at the wall across his extensive bedroom.

  It looked so…tempting. All walls did. He wanted to bang his head against each and every one.

  It was the conviction that some explosive pain and serious self-abuse might dampen the volcano seething inside him that tempted him.

  How? How had he found himself in this position?

  He trusted his instincts, which had steered him through his meteoric rise. But he’d always deferred acting on them until he’d deliberated all ramifications. Instinct didn’t equate with impulse to him. He’d believed that he was without urges, did nothing with spontaneity. His closest people told him he took premeditation to uncharted and aggravating heights. That was, until Gabrielle Williamson. Her.

  His instincts hadn’t just totally misled him about her nature. He hadn’t thought once before accepting their verdict, hadn’t found ramifications to ponder as he let himself be swept away in the tide of what he’d thought mutual perfection. She’d satisfied his every demanding taste, his merciless critical eye finding only things to appreciate in her. Even the qualities that she’d put forward as her shortcomings, her hang-ups, had charmed him, secured his unquestioning empathy. And it had all been the practiced routine of a hardened seductress who got ahead in the world by seducing powerful fools like him.

  If that night had been her first approach, if he hadn’t researched her in advance, if he’d found out her truth after he’d tasted her for real, he wouldn’t have been able to walk away, would have blinded himself to wallow in the pleasures she offered. He would have signed that contract, and maybe, like her previous victims, would have ended up signing over half his fortune. Or all of it.

  And the worst part? His condition seemed hopeless.

  He’d known how hopeless it was when his cousin Eduardo had passed by to check on him with that outspoken bride of his, Jade.

  Durante hadn’t exited his penthouse for five days, spending that time prowling the cage of his mind. He’d thought it might save his sanity to have a distraction, especially that of people whose show of caring wasn’t a setup. So he’d invited them in.

  It hadn’t played out that way. He’d bristled at their alarm at the sight of him. But when their solicitude had taken the form of questions, prodding, advice, with Giancarlo joining in the chorus of concern, he’d gone off like a landmine.

  They’d exchanged the same look that he’d seen on employees faces during the last and most aggressive of his uncharacteristic blowups at his offices. Eduardo and Jade had given Giancarlo—the keeper of the beast—sympathetic murmurs, before they’d left, telling Durante he needed to seek one of two things. A radical lifestyle change. Or psychiatric help. He’d faced it then.

  The one thing he needed to seek was her. Gabrielle.

  No matter how much he’d told himself to forget her, to move on, he couldn’t.

  He still couldn’t bring himself to seek her out. He missed the persona she’d projected as much as he missed his mother, with the same hopelessness of ever seeing her again.
To him, that persona had also disintegrated before it died. The night he’d shared with Gabrielle was entrenched in his memories and senses. He couldn’t bear to see her wear another face.

  But he’d reached the point where he no longer cared. He had to see her, with any face, at any cost.

  He grimaced at his reflection in the full-length mirror then exited his bedroom. At least he no longer looked like the missing link between primates and Neanderthals.

  He’d go to her now. This time, he knew what he was getting into, who he was dealing with. He’d walk into the situation with all the brutal clarity of disenchantment, take from her what he needed to get her off his mind and out of his system before walking away…

  “I hope this won’t get me tossed from the veranda.”

  Durante rounded on Giancarlo. “If you’re worried, as you should be, wear a parachute first. We’re high up enough that there’s a fifty-fifty chance you’d land with only minor fractures.”

  Giancarlo grinned. He was Durante’s deceased valet’s youngest son and was eight years Durante’s junior. But for the past seven years, since he’d taken over his father’s position, he’d become even more invaluable than his father had been. He was an irreplaceable assistant who observed their situations impeccably in public and in private became a friend as trusted as Durante’s younger cousin Eduardo and younger brother Paolo, if less intrusive than either. Not that that said much, because those two were incorrigible. Each had married the “love of his life,” and things had gone from bad to dismal.

  But Durante wasn’t in any condition to humor even Giancarlo. Now that he’d decided to see Gabrielle, he felt as if there were burning coals beneath his feet.

  “I know you forbade me to interrupt you unless there was a lot of blood involved—”

  “And you’re not bleeding,” Durante growled. “Yet.”

  Giancarlo went on as if he hadn’t spoken, unperturbed. “—but there’s a lady downstairs asking to speak with you. She’s—”

  “Gabrielle.” Her name blared in his mind. He growled it, not wanting Giancarlo to utter it as if he had to be told she was here. When he knew. Knew. “Gabrielle Williamson.”

  Giancarlo nodded. “That’s her name, yes. I took the liberty of admitting her to the foyer. I judged she warranted the courtesy, because she was the first woman you ever took to Angelica, and the first—and I trust, the last—creature you’ll ever sing to. But because you’ve been like a tiger with a half-ripped-out claw since you stormed down from her residence, I assume you don’t want to see her? Shall I tell her you’re busy having a breakdown?”

  Durante’s hiss could have scraped steel. “Bring her up.”

  Giancarlo gave him an opaque glance. “Molto bene, principe.”

  Durante paced on those coals, feeling the burn spreading through his system. Gabrielle. Here. She’d sought him out. At the exact moment he’d been about to seek her. How did she know that he was ripe for another incursion? How could she be so attuned to thoughts and decisions that seemed random even to him?

  Giancarlo returned within two minutes. He wasn’t doing a good job of hiding his smile. Durante would bet he wasn’t even trying.

  The man cleared his throat as if he were going to sing. “Signora Williamson insisted I deliver her message word for word. She said, quote, ‘I’m not coming up. You’re the one who’s coming the hell down here and facing me like a man. If you are one, that is’…unquote.”

  Durante came the hell down.

  After a moment of being unable to believe anyone could not only talk to him that way, but have the temerity to deliver a slap through his right-hand man, to even win said man to her side so that Giancarlo had felt justified and satisfied to transmit it full force.

  So he came the hell down. He hurtled, streaked, zoomed and tore his way the hell down. He forced himself to slow once he exited his private elevator. She might have thrown down the gauntlet, but damn if he would give her proof of how she had seeped into his blood, had taken hold of his reactions.

  He came to a stop just outside the foyer, depleting reserves of control that he saved for navigating crises of global scope. He yelled inwardly at his instincts, wrestled some rhythm into his heartbeat and breathing. He should make her wait.

  He couldn’t wait. Her challenge, his eagerness to see her again, was boiling in his blood.

  He started walking again, his gait a study in subterfuge, radiating the opposite of what roiled inside him.

  He turned the corner and…there she was. Standing at the reception desk, part of her profile visible to him.

  She was wearing a skirt suit in another shade of blue, a cross between royal and navy, the richness and depth of the color setting off the clarity of her complexion, the vivid gloss of her hair. The getup was impossibly more flattering than that evening outfit he’d thought the best showcase of her lushness. It molded to her lithe frame, emphasizing her height, the perfection of her proportions, detailing each curve and dip, showing off the symmetry and sculpted creaminess of her legs. Those legs. Her flowing skirt had deprived him of seeing them before. He’d had them wrapped around him when he’d been stupid enough to walk away from the promise of fulfillment they’d been offering, almost dealing his potency an irreparable blow.

  She was carrying a briefcase. Navy blue to go with her outfit. She looked all business today. And there was this…royal assurance to her bearing, a bring-it-on air to her stance, befitting the potent woman that she was and the mission that had brought her here. To conquer him? He’d bet that was it.

  She turned, as if she’d sensed his entrance. She couldn’t have possibly seen him, not at the periphery of her vision, not in any reflection. He was still too far for his footsteps to be heard. She had sensed him.

  And he sensed her. Her emanations were unchanged. How did she do that? How did she mess with his perception so that he felt only what she wanted him to feel?

  He didn’t care. He had to get closer, get more.

  He struggled to keep his stride tranquil, as if reaching her was low on his priorities.

  When he was finally within arm’s reach, he stopped. Her face was a mask captured in blankness, her vibe transmitting nothing of her mood or intentions.

  A crack exploded by his ear, on the side of his face, slashing the tranquility of the exclusive foyer’s silent occupants and sourceless music.

  Seven

  Durante blinked, gaped. Beyond stunned. Paralyzed.

  He would later swear that she hadn’t even moved. But the evidence that she had would resound inside his head forever. Echoes ricocheted off every sound-reflecting surface in the all-marble, chrome and quartz massive space. He barely heard the gasps that went off in a chain reaction of incredulity around him, the quickening footsteps of the guards whose perpetual orders were to stay out of sight.

  He made an adamant gesture, banishing them back where they came from. He couldn’t bear for others to exist in this moment. Only Gabrielle. Gabrielle, whose eyes were panning away from his with the same void filling them as if she didn’t even see him.

  Then she brushed past him, walked away with all the grace and serenity of a fairy creature.

  It was only when she exited the door the stunned bellman held open for her that Durante registered the burn spreading through his flesh. His hand went instinctively to the pain from the imprint of her fingers, as if to investigate the damage. He moved his mouth from side to side. His jaw felt almost loose.

  It excited the hell out of him.

  Which made him even more of a colossal fool than he’d realized.

  She was pulling his strings. He knew it. But he could sooner resist the pull of a black hole. He rushed out after her.

  He caught up with her in less than a minute, her head start and brisk stride no match for his longer legs and urgency.

  She suddenly stopped. He overshot her by six strides and retraced them at once.

  “Here’s the other cheek.” He presented her with it. “Go ahead, I know y
ou want to.”

  She gave no indication that she heard him or even felt him there. She put her briefcase on the ground, opened it, produced a dossier, took papers out, straightened, started reading.

  “Prince Durante Benedetto D’Agostino. Eldest son of the King of Castaldini, and therefore, according to the ancient laws of succession, the only member of the extensive D’Agostino royal family ineligible for the crown.”

  She was reading him a report? On him?

  “To prove to the world that his inability to run for the crown meant nothing to him, Prince Durante decided to be king of his own kingdom, emperor of his own empire.”

  Would there be a point to this somewhere? Knowing what he did about her, she was bound to have a whopper. But what could it be?

  “During his meteoric ascent from age twenty, the prince masterminded takeovers that redefined the word hostile. Those he took an ax to say that they would have preferred it if he’d taken a contract on their lives and been done with it. Two of those he destroyed did end up taking their own lives. Then, at thirty-five, he engineered a market crash that sent thousands into bankruptcy while catapulting himself from mere billionaire status to that of financial god. Ever since, he’s been shearing his way through the pantheon, cutting down fellow deities in his climb to the absolute and solitary top.”

  He’d heard all that before. Not that articulate or concentrated, and certainly not to his face.

  She wasn’t finished. “On a personal level, it is said that Prince Durante is as cold-blooded and unrepentant a lady-killer as he is a rival-slayer. He is known to pick beauties from those who crowd around his feet, use them and discard them. On one notable occasion, one of his fleeting indulgences tried to commit suicide and is still undergoing intensive psychiatric treatment. Her family reports that Prince Durante systematically destroyed her self-esteem, and she ended up despising herself. A second woman—a married one—said that Prince Durante’s influence rivals that of the Prince of Darkness himself. After her husband divorced her and gained custody of their two toddlers, denying her even visitation rights, the spellbound and discarded woman still said that, even knowing where it would lead, she’d do it again. She only wished Prince Durante would take her back.”