by Olivia Gates
And he got her point. Right through the heart.
Something else skewered him there. Shame.
He of all people, who suffered slander, shouldn’t have been party to perpetuating it, to judging her and carrying out his judgment based on secondhand information.
But beyond shame, which was self-indulgent and worthless, something harsher tore at him. The hurt he felt emanating from her.
He could no longer deny it. His instincts hadn’t been tampered with. They’d told him the truth all along. Everything else had lied. Everything he’d heard about her had been as false as the reports propagated against him by his enemies.
The fair reports were also out there, as abundant, but they weren’t as interesting as the defamatory ones, weren’t sensational enough to be bandied around. His friends didn’t feel the need to defend him and he’d never wanted them to, leaving the field wide open to the foes who spoke loudest, were most persistent.
She stopped sifting through the pages. “All reports of Prince Durante’s atrocities remain unsubstantiated allegations, because he manages to remain beyond reproach, faultlessly covering his amoral and immoral tracks. As such, he is considered to be our era’s only Machiavellian prince. Some even claim that he used Machiavelli’s most famous work, Il Principe—The Prince—the immortal guide to acquiring and maintaining power, as the template from which he forged his persona and kingdom. What he added of his own heartlessness and intelligence has created a modern hybrid even the philosopher couldn’t have imagined being spawned.”
He raised his hands, surrendering. “Abbastanza, Gabrielle. Enough. You can stop now. I get it.”
Without a glance at him, she rearranged the papers back into the dossier, bent to pick up her briefcase. He caught her arm.
“We need to talk.” Her blank stare deepened his desperation. He gritted his teeth. “I need to talk.”
“That you do, now, is of no consequence. I am not here to talk. I am here to tell you something. You’re a paranoid bastard who’s so full of your own convictions and hang-ups, you can’t see how your actions injure and maim people around you. If you have one shred of humanity—and according to your lofty opinion of yourself, you’re full of…it—I’m giving you an assignment to find out how much you do possess. Write down a list of all the people in your life. Be honest about their condition today, emotionally, psychologically, financially, and calculate the role your condemning, unforgiving nature has played in it.”
Her accusation slid right off him. Not because it didn’t shame him that it might be true, but because his only concern was for undoing the injury he’d caused her.
Pedestrians and even drivers were slowing down to watch the scene unfolding between their city’s most famous resident royal and the stunning woman who was clearly telling him off. Some were openly gawking. Some were clicking away on their cell phones.
Not that he cared. But he was beginning to realize the role speculation and the media must have played in smearing her reputation.
He had to take her away from prying eyes and wagging tongues. “Come up with me, Gabrielle. Please.”
“No.” She extricated her arm from his urgent grip. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my…vast experience, it’s what to avoid in the interest of self-preservation. I thought being punched black and blue was the worst thing that had happened to me, but now I know how hard you hit, I’d be crazy if I came near you again. Goodbye, Prince Durante.”
He blocked her path. “Per favore, Gabrielle, you must listen to me.”
Her disdain would have annihilated a lesser man. At least a less determined one. “As you listened to me? Oh, wait, you didn’t give me the chance to say anything to listen to. You heard my name, recalled the report some bored assistant collated on me and disregarded everything you learned about me during that night you kept calling magical and unprecedented—the line you handed me when you wanted to score another one-night stand. Funny part is, although your criteria for one-nighters are reportedly pretty flexible, it seems you draw the line somewhere. At my level.”
He surged forward as if to stem the flow of her bitterness. She took two steps back to his every step forward in a wretched parody of a waltz.
He stopped, clenched his fists so he wouldn’t haul her over his shoulder and take her someplace where he could make her listen. “You think I leave functions I sponsor, dedicate whole nights and ignore work—for days on end—for anything, let alone what you make sound like scratching an itch? It was all real and magical to me.”
Something terrible flared in her eyes, which turned the color of turbulent smoke. “Yet as soon as you heard my name, you looked at me as if I were something vile. You made me feel soiled, worthless, like no one has ever made me feel—not the sick jerk I married, not the paparazzi who scoop up his poison to mix with their own and peddle it to the rumor addicts of the world.”
Suddenly a man with a cell phone held up toward them came too close. The bastard wanted to get sound with his footage.
“Gabrielle, let’s stop this sideshow. Come inside with me.”
“This sideshow will stop when you move out of my way so I can get on mine. So move. Just don’t forget to make that list. Start with your father and work your way down.”
“I will. I promise. But I’ll start with you.”
“Don’t bother. I’m sure you felt validated as you walked away from me. Enjoy the company of your prejudice, Prince Durante.”
“Maledizione, Gabrielle, I wasn’t feeling validated when I walked away, I was feeling violated. I’ve been incapacitated ever since. All the vile things I had heard about you overwhelmed me until all I could see was another trap like those that have been laid for me ever since I became old enough for women to consider me a ticket to wealth and social status. But I’m used to those traps. I watch them being laid in bored amusement. When I thought I’d failed to see yours, I was enraged. But what really hurt was when I started negotiating with myself to let you have whatever you want, so that I could have you, too. That was the lowest place I’ve ever been. So I walked away.”
Her eyes darkened to the color of cumulus about to hurtle down a deluge. Then she gave a slow nod. “Okay. It must be tough being you. It must be almost impossible for you to trust people’s motivations enough to indulge in even healthy casual contact. I can relate to that, because the would-be exploiters in my own life make it tough for me to trust anyone. In your case, that must be multiplied by a factor of thousands. I just hope you remember it wasn’t my idea to hide my identity that long, that I only delayed introducing myself until you gave me a fair hearing, fearing the reaction you ended up so predictably having anyway.”
“You don’t have to remind me how things went, or that it was I who steered the situation. I remember every second of that night.”
“I’m sure you had fun superimposing your version of my ‘trap laying’ on every second.”
“Fun? I said I was paralyzed for the past few days. I’ve been going mad wondering how you fooled my instincts so totally, yet wanting you so fiercely still, I was willing to risk anything to have you.”
“Sure. You were so out of your mind you would have never seen me again if I hadn’t insulted you into confronting me.”
“I wasn’t in the least insulted. I was stunned, then thrilled. And I was on my way to find you when you arrived.”
That startled her. But not for long. She clearly discounted his claim, huffed. “What a coincidence, huh?”
“I don’t believe it’s a coincidence. I think we’re attuned to one another on a very basic level. We reached the same decision, reached our limit for staying apart at the same time.”
“Not exactly the same time. I arrived here when the idea of coming after me was still in the embryonic stage with you.”
His lips twitched. “Actually, it was in the last stage of labor.”
Her lips almost gave in to the humor tugging at them. Almost. He knew part of her was reveling in their volley mat
ch, but she wasn’t about to let him get off that easy. As she shouldn’t.
“Still, according to your theory, because I acted first on that transmission between us, either my receptors are keener, or signals take longer to penetrate that thick skull of yours.”
This was a serious situation. As serious as when she’d been relating her life story. She’d poked fun then, too, if at herself.
He shouldn’t. He couldn’t help it.
He threw back his thick skull and laughed.
No one else had or would ever talk to him like that. Only her.
He stopped laughing abruptly when her gaze strayed behind him. He turned. His bodyguards had closed in and were trying and failing to look as if they were not on full alert.
“So even your bodyguards are terrified I might suck you dry or swallow you whole, huh?” She smirked.
“Should you really be saying things like ‘suck you dry’ and ‘swallow you whole’ to me, out here, where I can’t do much about it? Now that’s a spectacularly effective method of punishment.”
Divine color cascaded from her sculpted cheekbones to flood her face and neck. His mouth tingled to latch onto every inch until he swallowed her whole.
“You turn everything into a sexual innuendo,” she muttered.
“Believe it or not—and you’re not in the mood to believe anything I say—I never did before. I never saw the attraction in the practice. Now I can’t see anything but.”
She fidgeted, as if her skin were suddenly too tight. No matter how affronted, how hurt she was, her body still yearned for his. That was the one thing he hadn’t doubted. He’d thought she’d been playing him, but enjoying him with every fiber of her voluptuous body while at it.
She stole a self-conscious look at his bodyguards. “They’re almost reaching for their guns. Do you have an APB out on imminent redheaded danger?”
“They’re jumpy because the last time I stopped in the street to talk to someone I know, he stabbed me.” Horror burst into her eyes. After a frozen moment, they wrenched from his, careened down his body, as if she could see the injury through his clothes. “Then he bid ten million for a chance to say he was sorry.”
“He was the…? Oh, God…was it…? Are you…?” She seemed unable to go on, her throat working as if swallowing tears.
After what he’d done to her, seeing her so disturbed to think of him hurt was too much.
He interrupted her agitation. “I moved out of the direct path of his thrust. He only penetrated skin and muscles in my left flank.”
Her hand jerked up, trembled as it reached halfway to where his injury was, before she fisted it, pulled it back.
The unwilling gesture of concern closed his throat. “And you know what? I’ll add him to my list. I was adamant about not giving him a second chance, but now I’ll seek him out to talk this through. I find I have a new wealth of empathy for him and his need for forgiveness now that I’m in the same position.”
She gaped. “You’re equating a physical wound with a moral one?”
“I think the moral one is far worse in this situation. I didn’t lose any sleep over the flesh wound. And there are no lingering ill effects. But even though I don’t expect you to forgive me any more easily than I chose to forgive him, I demand that you give me another chance, so that I can earn your forgiveness.”
“Demand? My, is that a royal edict, Your Highness?”
His lips twisted. “I’m a bit out of my jurisdiction, royally speaking. But then, this is my new kingdom, as your report put it. My demands here are considered edicts.”
She coughed a furious chuckle. “You’ve just shot through the barrier of unbelievability into the realm of what’s-he-on.” She thrust her dossier at him. “Here, keep this. Read it through for laughs if you want to see how creative people can get in their vindictiveness, in case you don’t fully know yet. I only read you the highlights, which amounted to three pages out of sixty-two.”
She walked away then. He knew she wasn’t going to stop.
He had to get her back anyway he could. He called after her.
“You wanted me to write a book baring the details of my life and journey to success, the workings of my mind and methods. I’m interested.”
She whirled around, a magnificent lioness with a mane of fire, her eyes iridescent with ire. “Oh, no, you’re not.”
Lust corkscrewed in his loins. He savored the twisting ache, cocked his head. “You’ve changed your mind about your offer?”
Her eyes narrowed at him. “You know I haven’t.”
“How do I know that when you didn’t bring it up again?”
“I didn’t bring it up at all. First you wouldn’t hear of business, then you wouldn’t hear anything I had to say.”
“I want to hear everything you have to say now.”
“Sei serio? You’re serious? This isn’t just pretext for…for…”
“For taking you to bed? No. Although I am suffering permanent damage here as we speak, because I haven’t taken you to bed and kept you there for the last ten days, because I’m standing in the middle of smog-infested, ground-level downtown New York instead of lying inside you in a bed eighty floors up in serenity and seclusion, I am interested in hearing about your book offer.”
Suspicion flared higher in her eyes. “And why are you?”
“Because I believe that anything you propose will have a lot to recommend it. I didn’t say I’d accept, though.”
She pursed her lips. “Fair enough. I want you to accept only if I convince you, not because you want me in your bed. In fact, I won’t sign a thing if that’s your motive. Contrary to ‘common knowledge,’ I don’t barter my body for business deals.”
“I don’t either.” She narrowed her eyes. He held out his hand, inviting, placating, coaxing, barely holding back the need to reestablish the connection, to drag her into his arms. “I owe you one hour of the exclusive use of my ear. Then, if you wish, you can have the exclusive use of the rest of my body.”
Eight
Gabrielle looked up at Durante from his kitchen table.
He was handing her a hot chocolate he’d prepared himself.
She took the very masculine, clean-cut, but clearly expensive and possibly specially made fine China mug from him. He brought his own and sat across from her, dominating his stainless steel and obsidian marble spaceship of a kitchen.
This was surreal. To be in his kitchen of all places, with him waiting on her. In fact, she didn’t know if she’d actually walked back to his building, crossed the extensive foyer littered with still-gaping denizens, entered his private elevator and ended up in his floor-wide penthouse, or if he’d levitated her there.
She wouldn’t put it past him. Those reports hadn’t exaggerated his influence at all.
He leaned across the table, enveloped her hand in his—the one that had slapped him—smoothed his thumb over her knuckles, before turning it over and doing the same to her palm.
“Can you please stop that?”
“Why? You like it. From your breathing, I’d say too much. Is that the problem?”
“I didn’t come here with slapping you in mind, Durante…”
“But you saw me and emotion overwhelmed your judgment?”
“Quite the reverse actually. I held myself back at the last moment.” She told him what she’d done in her dream.
He bellowed with laughter. “So I owe it to your self-mastery that I’m not now undergoing rhinoplasty and a jaw reset.” He wiped tears of hilarity with one hand, the other taking hers to his lips. He planted tiny kisses on knuckle after another, zapping her with enough voltage to power a block. “Ah, Gabriella mia, grazie a Dio you held back, or these works of divine art would be bruised and swollen now. But let me assure you, your slap almost achieved one of your wishes. My jaw may never resume its former position.”
“If the way you’re using your mouth is any indication, I’d say I made it extra efficient.”
He lunged across the t
able. Before she even blinked, he twisted hair at her nape, tilted up her face and claimed her lips in a compulsive kiss. He inhaled as he took and took of her until she felt he’d drawn her essence inside him. The warm, moist firmness of his lips, the way they plucked at hers, massaged, kneaded, shot tremors from her lips to her core. Then he exhaled and thrust deep, flooding her with his taste and scent.
Each kiss he gave her was new, different, giving her more and more. It was as if, through every press and glide and thrust, he was fathoming her preferences, many she didn’t know herself, deciphering the code of her responses, the combination to unlock the pleasure her body had the potential to feel and never had.
She’d become addicted from the first exposure, had felt hollow knowing she’d never have more.
She did now. Could have far more if she dared. Again.
His rejection still reverberated in her marrow.
She recoiled from the echo of anguish just as he released her, sat down heavily in his chair, threw his head back and closed his eyes, veins standing out in his corded neck.
He let out a slow, ragged breath and opened his eyes. Streaks of brilliant blue radiation seemed to sweep over her and through her with unbridled carnality. “In the interest of self-preservation, let’s drink our concoction and discuss your offer.” He sat forward, linked his hands. “So, what makes your offer different? You advertized your certainty that I couldn’t refuse it.”
She blinked. “I only said that to Gerald Whittacker as he wanted to champion my request but wanted to make sure I was on to something that wouldn’t be a waste of your time. I didn’t think he’d relay it to you.”
“How do you know Gerald?”
She set her teeth. “How do you think?”
He sighed. “I admit, I thought…the worst. At first.” She bristled, and his eyes gentled. “Now I’m just curious, not suspicious.”
