The Prodigal Prince's Seduction (Castaldini Crown 2)

“But you’re willing to give him a chance now.”

He seemed to struggle for an answer. He had pledged it to her, but it was tearing him up. King Benedetto had better have something solid to put Durante’s mind to rest, or she would be the first one to tell Durante that the king didn’t deserve his turmoil.

She stroked his hair until he moaned his enjoyment. “Don’t say anything, amore mio. Whatever happens, I just want you to be at peace.”

“I am, now that I have you. And I want you to be at peace, too. Remember when I told you not to worry about…anything?”

She nodded slowly. She’d almost forgotten. She’d been pulling her company back into the black just by working to full capacity the past three weeks. The news of Durante’s book was also restoring stockholders’ faith with a vengeance.

“The moment I realized that the recession in Castaldini wasn’t temporary, I started making plans to put an end to it. I slowed down their implementation when Leandro came into the picture, giving me time to perfect them instead of rushing in without every long-term outcome accounted for. Then I met you, and I felt I owed it to our love to consider nothing else but us for those short weeks. Now everything is in place, so you have nothing to worry about, but my plans have to wait a bit longer while I give you a wedding and a honeymoon like no bride has ever had.”

She turned in his arms. “But the simplest wedding is all I want, and every day with you is like a hundred honeymoons. Don’t you worry about my company. You’ve done way more than enough and we’re going to be fine. It’s Castaldini that needs you now, and I can’t have you putting off any work because of me or I would have failed in my most basic function as your lover and wife—to give you the peace of mind that will make you even more productive and effective.”

He let out a shuddering sigh. “It’s hopeless. I’ll never find words or deeds enough to express how much I love you.” Suddenly his lips crooked. “Now have mercy and let me give you what I need to give you without exhausting me. I need all my stamina for all that work ahead of me.”

She melted into him, deluged by another wave of love and wonder. “I called it right the first time I saw you. Sietto un uomo cattivo.”

Jawara was very much what its Moorish name said it was. A jewel of a city, glittering bright and unique under the perfect heat and illumination of the Mediterranean sun. It nestled between the banks of a river, which Durante informed her was the Boriana, and an imposing, vegetation-covered mountain, the Montalbo. The rolling plains to its north and south looked like a carpet.

Durante had warned her that the past decade had taken its toll on the city’s former flawlessness. But Gabrielle couldn’t see the deterioration that he as a native discerned. The place looked pretty incredible to her. She’d been to almost every European and North African capital in the last few years, and Jawara was the only one that didn’t have one building younger than the seventeen hundreds. It looked like an ancient city transplanted into the twenty-first century, a mixture of Gothic, Moorish and Baroque architecture and influences that she’d never imagined could mingle in homogeneity, but that here was simply breathtaking.

As they came to the first cobblestone street, the royal palace came into view, crouching like a gigantic, ancient creature on a hill that dominated the oldest part of the city.

On entering the palace grounds, a complex of enormous buildings surrounding the central palace, Durante pointed out the National Library, the Royal Museum, the ceremony halls and government offices. He said it would take some time to get to the Royal Apartments, because they were at the end of ten miles of grounds and he wasn’t asking Giancarlo to drive faster over the cobblestones and risk giving her a headache. When they drove past the central palace itself, she gaped, comparing it to a twilight zone episode in which someone passed a never-ending building. Durante laughed, said it was just another of his family’s pretentiously sized places. It did lie over four-hundred-thousand square feet.

Then the car stopped. In seconds she was smiling up at Durante as he opened her door even as her heart stampeded.

In a few minutes they’d see King Benedetto. And her horrible burden would be lifted. And then…?

“If it isn’t the prodigal prince returning.”

The deep drawl had Durante relinquishing his smile and turning on his heel. She followed his gaze and did a triple take.

Strolling toward them was a man who, while looking nothing like Durante in features or coloring, made almost his same impact, in size and height and in sheer radiation of power and charisma. It took her a moment to realize who he was. Prince Leandro D’Agostino, the one-time rebel, once-exiled prince, now regent of Castaldini.

“Leandro! My regent!” Durante exclaimed as he strode toward him with open arms.

Durante pulled his cousin into a rough embrace, one Leandro reciprocated, adding thumps on his back before drawing back to grin widely. “You’re looking absolutely radiant.”

Durante guffawed. “I thought the term was reserved for brides. Preferably our brides.” He looked back at her, elation turning his beauty from breathtaking to heartbreaking, before he looked at the woman Gabrielle noticed coming up behind Leandro with tranquil steps. He turned to Leandro with a quirked eyebrow. “But then, you’re absolutely glowing.”

“Indeed, I am. Any wonder with such a power source?” Leandro put his arm around the woman’s shoulders, gathered her to him in a gesture so eloquent with tenderness, possessiveness and dependence that it sent a frisson of emotion through Gabrielle, at how much it mirrored what Durante blessed her with. The woman—who must be Phoebe Alexander, the sister of Durante’s sister-in-law and Leandro’s brand-new bride—smoldered reciprocation into her husband’s adoring eyes.

Phoebe was the first truly silver-eyed person Gabrielle had ever seen. She was gorgeous, with all that glossy black hair and creamy skin. She looked blissful. And pregnant. The fact that she was showing meant she’d been already pregnant before the wedding.

Something hot and overwhelming stormed through Gabrielle, lodging into her womb. She’d never thought of having a baby. Until Durante. How she yearned to have his. She prayed to God she could.

“So miracles do happen.” Phoebe was looking at her in candid and benign interest. “I never thought the day would come when anyone softened the inflexible Durante.”

Gabrielle took her hand, grinned conspiringly at her. “So you’re a power source, and I’m some sort of softener. We must put our disparate abilities together in an unstoppable collaboration.”