His Josselyn. At last.
She had piled her hair up on the top of her head and was wearing a kind of smock over her usual uniform. Jeans and a T-shirt, both simple and sophisticated at once. Like her.
The very sight of her walloped him. She hadn’t even turned around to note his presence, and still, he felt as if she’d sucker punched him.
And again, his memories did him no favors. Because all he could remember now was her. Not his plans before he hit his head. Not his certainty in himself after. All of that and then none of it, because all there was in the center, holding up the world, was Josselyn.
She glanced over her shoulder, then froze, taking her time to turn around and meet his gaze.
He didn’t know what he’d expected. But it wasn’t the grave way she regarded him now.
“You told me you would come. In your note.”
He had forgotten he’d written a note. “I did.”
“I thought it would be a while. Years, perhaps.” She studied him. “I assumed public humiliations would play a part.”
He thought of the way she’d sobbed in his arms as she’d taken her pleasure, again and again. The look on her face when he had told her he lost his memory. Cenzo had spent this whole month since he’d last seen her replaying every single thing that had ever happened between them. Over and over again.
And he did not want her gravity.
“You told me you wanted this marriage to work, Josselyn.” He lifted a brow. “That you thought we were lucky because we did not start off muddled by romantic notions.”
She looked away for a moment, and when she looked back at him she looked more sad than grave. It was not an improvement.
“You don’t have to mock me,” she said with quiet dignity. “If there was something I could do to take back what happened, I would do it. But I can’t.”
His jaw felt like granite. “Which part of what happened?”
Josselyn took a visible breath, as if gathering herself. “Making you my servant. It was petty. I regretted it almost immediately, but I couldn’t take it back. I apologize.”
Cenzo hadn’t anticipated an apology. Not to him.
“You regretted it, yet you had me cleaning windows and scrubbing floors,” he said dryly. “It seems to me that you owe me.”
And then he had to bite back a smile. Because he had become adept at reading each and every one of her expressions while serving her. He knew that flush on her cheeks. He knew that particular shine in her eyes.
He was Cenzo Falcone, as close to a king as a man could be without a crown. And once a humble manservant.
In both lives, he had always gotten what he wanted.
He did not intend for that to change now that he was both men. Now that he had learned both lessons.
“Cenzo,” Josselyn said then, sounding...breathless. “Can we just...start over?”
And he moved closer to her, so he was directly in front of her. Close enough that he could have swept her into his arms. He could have kissed her silly, as every part of him longed to do.
But instead, he held her gaze.
And then, heeding the urge of the man he hoped he would become, not the versions he’d been, he dropped to one knee before her.
“I don’t want to start over,” he told her, every truth he’d discovered along the way in his voice. His gaze. “I don’t want to forget a single moment, Josselyn. I want to remember them all. From the moment you came into that room in a cottage in Maine and upended everything. I took you to a ruined castle and thought that I would turn you into rubble, but you are the one who leveled me.”
Her beautiful eyes widened. “Cenzo...” she whispered.
But he kept on. “How can I condemn you for the trick you played on me when what I planned to do to you was worse? Some would call it karma. But I call it a miracle.” He reached over and took her hands in his, that stone that had cursed so many before him reminding him of what mattered. The sea and the sky and the place they were one. And this woman, who made all of them shine. “Because whether I remembered myself or not, there was you. And I am not too proud to use the debt you feel to keep you with me. To prove to you that despite everything I have done to you, and wanted to do to you, you are the one who won after all.”
She looked fierce, even as that shine in her eyes spilled over into tears. “I don’t want to win. I don’t want either one of us to win, because that means someone has to lose. And what kind of life is that?”
“Josselyn—” he began.
But she silenced him by tugging her hands free and pressing her palms to his cheeks. Bringing her face to his as he still knelt there before her.
“I lost my mother and my brother in an instant. An afternoon storm and that was it. They were gone.” Her voice was urgent and low. Her gaze was intense. “Life is so fleeting, Cenzo, and it can end so quickly. You could have died in that fall. And if all you think about is winning and losing, taking revenge and plotting against your enemies, don’t you see? You’re going to miss the whole thing.”
He did see. He saw her, and nothing else had made sense since. Not until he’d found his way back to her.
“I have been two men for you,” he told her then. “And I have spent this last month desperately trying to pretend that at least one of them was a lie, but I keep coming back to a single, inescapable truth. I wanted to bind you to me. I wanted to make you unfit for anything at all but my bed. And instead it is I who might as well be rubble beneath your shoe, Josselyn. You humbled me, and yet I think you saved me. Because had you not, I would never know.” He lifted a hand and held hers, there where it still lay against his cheek. “Had you not toppled me from the height of my arrogance, I could never have known how much I loved you. How much I will always love you. And whether this life is long or short, none of it will matter at all unless I keep on loving you. Forever.”
She whispered his name as if it was a prayer. “Do you know, all the while I was making you clean and cook and serve me, all I really wanted was you. Not the you I’d already met and married, but the one you showed me every night. Not twisted, but real. Fascinating and beautiful, commanding and breathtaking, and that was when you thought you were a humble man with a humble life. I wanted you then.” Josselyn blew out a shaky breath. “And if I’m honest, I wanted you before. My father wanted me to marry a man of his choosing, it’s true. But if it hadn’t been you, there’s no way I would have gone through with it. It was always you, Cenzo. Whatever version of you. It was still you.”
“I love you,” Cenzo told her, gazing up at her. “I want you to marry me, again. Just you and me, the sky and the sea, and who knows what we can do?”
“I will,” she whispered. “I will marry you, again. I love you too. Because I have seen both sides of you, dark and light. Cruel and caring. And I have loved them both.”
“I cannot promise that I won’t revert to form.” He took the hand that wore his ring and pressed his fingers to the blue stone that proclaimed her a Falcone. And forever his. “I can only promise that going forward, it will not take a knock on the head to put me right again. All it will take is you, my beautiful wife. My only love. Believe in me and I promise, I will be the man you deserve.”
“And I will be the wife that you need,” she promised him. “No pettiness or poison, Cenzo. Only this. Only us.”
Tears still slid down her cheeks as she bent to him and kissed him at last. First a sweet seal on these vows they’d made today, but then the roar of his dragon rose up, becoming part of that fire that burned between them.
Passion, not poison.
Bright, hot, and theirs, forever.
And then she was in his arms, or perhaps he was in hers, and everything was that heat, that need, that impossible, glorious greed—and all of that was love. Every touch, every whisper, every sigh.
All of it was love, and he knew, th
en, that it would be like that forever.
They rolled this way and that, there in all that humidity, the air thick and perfumed with growing things.
It felt like a new beginning. It felt like spring, here in a dark November.
Because Josselyn’s eyes were bright and her smile was beautiful, and she looked at him as if all she saw was the man he vowed, there and then, he would always be for her.
Always.
She settled herself astride him, still smiling as she looked down at him. His hands found her waist, and they both sighed a little, fully clothed as they still were, as the hardest part of him found that soft sweetness that was only his. Only and ever his.
“I love you,” he told her, in every language he knew.
But her eyes lit up in the same way they had when she’d told him he was a servant.
“I promise you this, husband,” Josselyn said, mischief in her voice and forever in her eyes. “You will never know a moment’s peace. Your life with me will be a delicious agony. I will make you an addict for my touch, my gaze, the barest possibility of my approval.”
His own words said back to him were electrifying. They made his heart pound. They made him hunger to taste her again. He wondered if they’d had the same effect on her, back then.
Josselyn leaned closer. “You will live for it. For me.”
“This does not sound like a threat, my little wife.”
She placed her fingers over his mouth and he nipped at them, making her laugh. “And I will do the same. We will be riotously happy. We will make each other feel safe, you and I. We will not be junkies, Cenzo, because we will know joy. We will raise our children swathed in it. And we will live, as long as we can, loving each other more. And more. And always still more.”
“More,” he agreed.
Because he was Cenzo Falcone. He would see to it.
And then he started as he meant to go on, there on the floor of her father’s greenhouse, making both of them laugh, then groan.
Until, at last, they made each other whole.
And kept right on doing it for the rest of their lives.
* * *
If you loved The Sicilian’s Forgotten Wife you’re sure to love these other stories by Caitlin Crews!
Christmas in the King’s Bed
His Scandalous Christmas Princess
Chosen for His Desert Throne
The Secret That Can’t Be Hidden
Her Deal with the Greek Devil
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Wedding Night They Never Had by Jackie Ashenden.
WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK FROM
Escape to exotic locations where passion knows no bounds.
Welcome to the glamorous lives of royals and billionaires, where passion knows no bounds. Be swept into a world of luxury, wealth and exotic locations.
8 NEW BOOKS AVAILABLE EVERY MONTH!
The Wedding Night They Never Had
by Jackie Ashenden
PROLOGUE
PRINCE CASSIUS DE LEON, second in line to the throne of Aveiras, sat in his limo after a hard night’s partying and contemplated his choices. Outside, four women waited, all beautiful and all eager to be his companion for the night.
He wasn’t going to rush choosing one, however. He liked to take his time when it came to deciding on his bed partners, because there were many important things to take into account.
Would the delicious brunette with the hot, dark eyes turn out to be passionate or shy? Would the curvy redhead with the infectious smile let him lead the way? Perhaps the tall, Amazonian blonde would be more demanding than the other brunette, the one with the dirty laugh, but did he feel like ‘demanding’? Or did he want someone more low-key?
It was a difficult decision; he didn’t like to disappoint and someone was going to have to miss out. Though...maybe not. He could have all four. He was, after all, feeling quite energetic tonight.
At that moment, the door to the limo opened and a fairy got in.
Cassius blinked.
No, not a fairy, but a tiny, fragile-looking woman wearing the shortest, most clinging black mini-dress in the history of creation. She was very pale, with long, silvery white hair that hung to her waist, and she stared at him from under lids heavy with garish blue eyeshadow and lashes gone spidery with inexpertly applied mascara. Her eyes were a luminous grey and the biggest he’d ever seen.
He blinked again.
No, not a woman. A girl. A teenage girl.
Cassius frowned. What the hell was a teenage girl doing climbing into his limo? It wasn’t entirely unheard of, but his staff was usually better at weeding out people who shouldn’t be approaching him.
‘Your Highness,’ the girl said earnestly. ‘I’m sorry. I know this is quite rude, but...um...well... I really need you to ruin me.’
Cassius blinked a third time. ‘What?’
‘I need you to ruin me. Quite urgently, in fact. Tonight.’ She glanced nervously out the window. ‘Right now, if possible.’
It was true that his reputation as a notorious womaniser was well-earned and he was famous for never saying no to anything that might prove to be enjoyable. However, that did not extend to teenage girls. And, if this one thought he customarily ruined teenagers, then his reputation was even worse than he’d thought.
Won’t your father be proud?
Cassius did not appreciate this thought so he ignored it.
‘First things first,’ he said, giving her a narrow stare. ‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty.’ Her grey eyes shone. ‘I’m not a child.’
He sighed. ‘Of course you’re a child. And, sadly for you, I’m not a pervert. Get out of the limo, little one. I have actual women to see tonight.’
The sprite frowned then reached into the tiny silver mesh bag slung over one narrow shoulder, pulled out a pair of glasses, rubbed the lenses on her dress then put them on her pert nose.
‘Look,’ she said very seriously, ‘You don’t have to do anything to me. I only need everyone else to think that you have.’
Cassius knew he should open the limo door and get one of his guards to get rid of her, and he couldn’t think why he wasn’t doing so now, especially when he had several delicious beauties all ready and waiting for the crook of his finger. But he was curious about, not to mention intrigued by, her boldness. It took guts to climb into the limo of a prince of Aveiras, automatically assuming he wouldn’t simply throw her out.
He stretched out his legs and shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I assume you’re going to tell me why you need everyone to think I’ve taken a sudden liking to teenagers?’
Her forehead creased. ‘I’m not a teenager. Anyway, the reason is that my parents want me to marry this horrible, abusive man. But, if word gets out that I’ve spent the night with Prince Cassius, he’ll know I’m not a virgin any more and he won’t want me.’
Cassius waited for her to offer more, but she didn’t. So he opened his mouth to issue a gentle but firm refusal when she added, ‘The man is Stefano Castelli.’
Cassius closed his mouth.
Stefano Castelli was the head of one of the old aristocratic families. He was fifty if he was a day, childless since his wife had died some years before, and he’d made no secret of the fact that he was in the market for a new wife to deliver him heirs. What he did keep secret was the rumours of his...unorthodox sexual tastes. The man was a monster and, if this child was given to him in marriage, she wouldn’t stay a child much longer.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked, curious, because if an arranged marriage was on the cards she must come from one of Aveiras’s aristocratic families.
‘Inara Donati.’ She gave him an owlish look. ‘Well? Will you help me?’
He hadn’t heard of the Donatis. Then again, he’d never pa
id attention to the interminable lessons about royal protocol his father had put him and his brother through when they’d been children which, among other things, had required memorising the list of important Aveiran families.
Perhaps the Donatis were part of the nouveau riche who were desperate to claim links to the aristocracy in order to bolster their own social standing. Aveirans were notoriously snobbish when it came to their lineages and arranged marriages were common. Though they didn’t usually start them off that young.
Whatever the case, if what she said was true—and she probably wasn’t lying—then marrying off this child to Stefano Castelli was nothing short of criminal.
Cassius seldom stirred himself for others, because he was nothing if not committed to his life of supreme self-indulgence, but he didn’t like that thought. At all.
‘I need more information,’ he said. ‘Your real age, for example.’
She looked irritated by this. ‘I don’t see how—’
‘If you please,’ Cassius commanded.
The girl pulled a face. ‘Okay, fine. I’m sixteen.’
It wasn’t illegal to be married at sixteen, not if you had your parents’ permission, or in this case your parents’ insistence.
‘I see,’ he said carefully. ‘And why are they so set on the marriage?’
‘Because the Castellis are an old family and my parents want to be part of the aristocracy.’ Inara fiddled with her bag. ‘Is that all?’
‘What about other family members who could help you? Or friends, perhaps?’ It was a perfectly reasonable question, but he thought he knew the answer to that already.
She shook her head. ‘I’m an only child and no one will stand up to my father.’
A difficult situation. Even more difficult when her parents had a legal responsibility for her until she turned eighteen.
You could help her, though. No one will say no to a prince. And perhaps this is your chance to show your father what you’re made of.
The Sicilian's Forgotten Wife Page 15
