The Illegitimate King (Castaldini Crown 3)

Durante closed his eyes on a grudging nod. “We have a lifetime and six years of acquaintance to rewrite.”

“Actually, many lifetimes, Durante. Mine, your mother’s, my mother’s, Clarissa’s father’s. When and if I’m able to resolve this mess with my wife, if anything good comes of this, it will be that we finally forge a deeper relationship as siblings. In secret. This isn’t going public under any conditions. You’d better have been careful in your investigations.”

“My investigator only came up with circumstantial evidence, he couldn’t learn your identity. It’s me who worked that out. I kept the medical evidence anonymous, the samples unnamed. Only I knew who they belonged to.”

“Good. Now please, get out of here. Let me tend to my wife.”

“You love her the way I love Gabrielle, don’t you?” Durante’s eyes filled with wonder, relief. “You would die for her.”

“To start with. Now, get.”

This time when he turned away, Durante did leave, still clearly in turmoil, but with a smile on his face.

Ferruccio forgot him the moment he exited his field of vision. He forgot that a world beyond the woman filling his arms existed. And he did what he’d longed to do for the past week.

He curved himself around her, contained her, whispered against her velvet cheek, “I’m here, amore. I’ll always be here.”

Clarissa surfaced from the nightmare, struggling to reach for the soothing lure reiterating, “I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

“I’m not who I thought I was.”

Her own voice finally dragged her out of the vortex.

She’d passed out. To escape the medley of living nightmares she’d been living through. Living without Ferruccio’s love, the horrible suspicion, then the terrible truth.

It had to be the truth. A DNA test like the one Durante had done would prove it. But she didn’t need a test. She knew Ferruccio had told the truth. And he’d known it all this time.

He gathered her tighter to him. She didn’t know if the tremors originated from her body or his arms.

“It doesn’t matter. You remain the same, your life does, past and future. Your father…”

She whimpered.

“He is your father. He never cared that you aren’t his biologically.”

“He knew…all along?” Could this get worse? And she wailed, “How did this happen? Ferruccio, please, tell me the whole truth.”

Every muscle in his face worked. Then he at last nodded.

“My mother’s name was Clarisse LeFehr.” At her gasp, he took her lips in a compulsive kiss. “Yes. He named you, Clarissa. He loved you from the moment you were born, and he named you for the love of his life. She was a ballerina with an Italian ballet company that performed in Castaldini. He was the new king, and they fell madly in love. Then she betrayed him, or so he believed. He cast her out of his life, immediately took a ‘suitable’ wife, your mother, Angelina. Their marriage was arranged, with no passion on either side. Even so, they had Durante, then Paolo. King Benedetto said he cared for her, but could never love her, not when he still loved his ex-lover, my mother. Then your mother’s old lover—Pierro Bartolli, the man her father must have ‘disciplined’ her over—resurfaced, and she resumed their affair. When she got pregnant with you, she told him she would leave your father. But he convinced her not to, said that they would remain lovers. So she confessed to the king.

“At the same time, the king had long discovered that my mother hadn’t betrayed him. Knowing how much he’d wronged her, and having never stopped loving her, he’d been searching for her, intent on resuming their relationship. So he felt as responsible as your mother for the situation. He told her they’d continue to project a façade of a solid marriage for their children’s and their kingdom’s sake, that he’d love her daughter as the daughter he’d longed to have.

“Your mother probably didn’t believe him, and that may be why she overprotected you when you were young. But your biological father—according to King Benedetto—was only using her to live way beyond his means. When she’d expended all her personal fortune on him, Pierro tried to pressure her into asking the king for money, or even to steal it for him. He verbally abused her. She started pawning her jewelry for him, and Antonia told the king, who got it back and basically put your mother under house arrest. She considered him a jailer, escaped and went to her lover. She found him with another woman. When he was certain she couldn’t get him more funds, he told her she was worth nothing without the money she’d provided him with from the first day, that he’d spent all her money on his lover, a woman she wasn’t fit to be a servant to. I think that’s when she began to abuse you.”

“She wrote all that in her diaries. Durante thought she’d meant our…his father.” She struggled to hold back sobs. Then she choked, “What happened to my…my biological father? Pierro? What about his…my…family.”

Ferruccio’s face became impassive. She guessed he was trying to withhold his opinion of the man who’d abused her mother and denied her, his flesh and blood. He didn’t want to add to her turmoil. She felt rage and affront blasting off him. But when he spoke, he sounded controlled, neutral. “Pierro died five years ago, just before your mother did. In a boating accident. As far as I know, he had no living relatives. He came from a background much like my own.”

“And his death…that was why she…” Her words choked off again, her tears now a stream.

But they weren’t tears of pain or shock anymore. They were tears of pity. For the pettiness of it all, the waste. And of relief. The release of finally knowing how and why. Of closure.

Through her tears, she saw something she’d never thought to see. Tears in Ferruccio’s eyes. Those hurt.

She surged up, clutched his face. “No, Ferruccio, no…please, don’t cry. Not you.”

“You suffered so much, amore. And now…”

“Now I’m just relieved I know at last.” A tear escaped down his cheek and she cried out, caught it with her lips. “Don’t make me hate myself for daring to feel devastated for a second, when I had the loving father—your father and the privileged upbringing, while you had nothing.”

He wiped at his tears, his smile coming out a grimace that severed more of her heart’s tethers. “I have everything now.”