The Illegitimate King (Castaldini Crown 3)

He now gestured for her that he’d take the phone calls and catch up with her, and she walked out to their apartments.

As she entered the place that had previously been an unused wing in the palace, which he’d transformed into their own world of ecstasy and intimacy, she found herself holding her breath.

She was almost always holding her breath, with dread that something might happen to shatter the perfection.

Ferruccio had turned out to be far more than she’d ever dreamed. He was a better king than her father had been, and she didn’t feel disloyal thinking that. It was simply the truth.

He was the right man at the right time, giving Castaldini the stability it needed, introducing innovations with utmost care, while making certain to maintain its uniqueness and traditions, and to protect it from the infringement of harmful outside influences.

The one thing she’d thought marred his character, the chunk of steel he had for a heart, was nowhere to be found. As a liege he was approachable and just, as a new member of an extensive family where many had accepted him only as a dire fate, he was tolerant, patient, even amused. As a lover and husband he was…indescribable.

She kept wondering, could this be real? Or was he only making the best of it, as he’d told her during their wedding? To keep the future mother of his children happy to stay in the marriage? But if he kept on being this incredible to her, should she even care about his motives or his true emotions?

She hadn’t done anything about protection, for fear of harming the baby that could have been forming inside her. She’d also wanted to have full intimacy with him, and wanted all this pleasure to bear fruit.

It hadn’t. She’d had a period.

He hadn’t said anything, but she felt his disappointment. He really wanted a child. Probably more.

What if she couldn’t give him one? What would happen if, after the time he’d specified had elapsed, she still hadn’t? Would he decide their marriage wasn’t a “viable endeavor” and cast her out of his life? Could she survive if he did?

She felt sick with uncertainty.

She sat down, leaned over until her head was almost between her knees. The world spun in a purple vortex.

“Clarissa!”

She jerked up, but her blood didn’t follow. Everything blinked out.

It blinked back again. Ferruccio was kneeling before her, propping her up. She’d fainted. She didn’t know how he’d reached her in time to prevent her collapse to the ground. Her superhero.

“Clarissa, amore, you’re sick!”

She waved away his diagnosis. “I’m just missing a few hours of sleep. You know, those I regularly forgo to feast on Your Mouthwatering Majesty.”

His lips compressed. “I’m calling in a doctor.”

Her objections that she was fine fell on perfectly formed, selectively deaf ears.

Twenty minutes later, she was in bed being prodded by five royal physicians. She was sure there was nothing wrong with her. But it was bliss to be fussed over by Ferruccio like this.

Even if he was only concerned about the health of the potential mother of his child?

She sighed again as she lay back for the exam.

Yes, even then.

Ferruccio sank his fingers in his newly grown hair, almost pulling it out.

He’d been constantly wondering whether Clarissa really no longer considered him beneath her. If she really didn’t think him a marauder, a usurper. If she’d truly forgotten their original deal, wanted to continue their marriage because it was all working so spectacularly.

Everything had been flowing so much like a dream that he’d been constantly dreading some rude awakening. But all his anxieties paled into nothing compared to the dread that ate at him now. He would welcome anything now, would be willing to lose her in any way but something happening to her. He’d give up everything, his very life, to make her whole.

“King Ferruccio.”

He turned around, looking at the five men as if they were monsters he would take apart at the slightest wrong move. That move would be to tell him anything was wrong with Clarissa.

“King Ferruccio, are you all right?”

“Shut up,” he snarled. “Talk.”

The men looked more confused and more than a little alarmed, until one seemed to understand, came forward, his expression that of someone bearing news he knew he’d be obscenely rewarded for. “Congratulations, Your Majesty. The queen is pregnant.”

Ferruccio stared at the man as if he’d just told him the queen was really a man. Then he growled, “What are you talking about? She’s just had a period!”

This time none of the men were fazed. Another doctor ventured to approach. “That does sometimes happen during the first couple of months of pregnancy. But it means nothing, and it doesn’t affect the pregnancy in the least.”

Ferruccio’s world emptied. His mind. His heart. And then, one thing filled them all. Clarissa. Everything to him. And now, impossibly, more than everything. She’d already given him everything. Now she’d give him more. Pregnant.

“By our calculations, the queen must have conceived on your wedding night.”

Ferruccio’s gaze swam around, registering the men with the last working faculty in his mind, seeing the male kudos in their eyes at the proof of his virility.

Then he no longer saw them. Everything disappeared from his awareness except one thing. A conviction. He knew Clarissa had conceived that first time they’d claimed each other.

Then he was hurtling through their apartments on a tidal wave of joy, sending a pile of paper scattering as if zapped by a whirlwind. He was. A whirlwind of boundless bliss and eternal gratitude.

His Clarissa would give him a miniature of her to adore.

He slowed down as he entered their room. She might not be sick, but she wasn’t feeling well. How thoughtless would it be to explode into the room like a delirious dog, oblivious of her state and bound only on slurping her up in his hyperexcitement?

Good thing she hadn’t seen him yet. She lay on the bed facing away from the door. She hadn’t heard him, either, not with the ultrathick carpets he’d strewn the place with so they could make love anywhere and everywhere. Grazie a Dio. Outside, he’d sounded—and must have looked—like a one-man riot.

He started crossing the room and…stopped. Froze. Impaled on the spear that had stabbed him through the heart.

Dio santo…Clarissa…she…looked bereft.

She didn’t want the baby? Because it was his?

Basta! Stop it…you fool. Dio solo sa—God only knew what she was feeling now, physically. A woman pregnant for the first time, in that delicate first trimester, with all its physiological adjustments, when she’d had to deal with so much during the past weeks. The wedding and coronation, the enormous workload she’d imposed on herself. But the real tests had been the emotional upheavals he’d put her through, the unrelenting physical demands he made on her, as she’d told him just an hour ago. He was the cause of her distress the way he’d been…Dio, he hadn’t even asked those doctors if he should…