Temporarily His Princess (Married by Royal Decree 1)

And she’d always thought getting answers would resolve the misery that had consumed six years of her life. In truth, it had dealt her a fatal blow.

Despair and exertion hacked through her lungs as more details and realizations sank their shards into her heart…

“Glory.”

Vincenzo. His booming desperation shattered everything inside her into shrapnel of grief, of panic. It all burst out into a surge of manic speed.

She couldn’t stop. Couldn’t let him catch her.

Not now that she knew he’d always loved her. Now that she knew it could never be.

*

Vincenzo arrived at the Monaghans’ house just as Glory exited it. It was clear the confrontation with her mother had devastated her.

A man in his right mind would have caught up with her without alerting her. But the mass of desperation that he’d turned into had just bellowed her name the moment he’d seen her, sending her zooming faster, screeching for a cab.

But he could have overtaken a speeding car right now. A woman running in high heels looked stationary compared to his speed. He intercepted her as she opened the cab’s door.

His arms went around her, filling them with his every reason for living. “Glory, amore, please, let’s talk.”

She pushed weakly at him. “There’s nothing more to talk about, Vincenzo. Just forget I ever existed. In fact, when your situation allows, just prosecute me and my family.”

Before he could utter another word, she surprised him by ducking out of the circle of his arms and into the cab.

His first instinct was to haul her out, carry her back to their home and tell her he’d never let her go again.

The one thing that stopped him was knowing it would be pointless without performing another imperative step first. Another confrontation with her mother. He had to break whatever hold she had on Glory, once and for all.

After Glory’s cab disappeared, with his every cell rioting, he turned and walked back to the Monaghans’ house.

The woman who opened the door exhibited Glory’s same devastation. He wanted to blast her off the face of the earth for what she’d cost him and Glory, but he couldn’t. She looked so fragile, so desolate, so much like an older version of Glory, that he couldn’t hate her. He even felt a tug of unreasoning affection.

She grabbed at him with weak, shaking hands. “Glory wouldn’t listen to me, but please, Vincenzo, you have to.”

Suddenly, looking into those eyes that could be Glory’s, everything fell into place.

It had never been Glory. It had always been Glenda.

He staggered under the blow of realization. How had he never considered this?

“It was you. In the past, and again now.”

The woman’s tears ran thicker, her whole face working. “I—I did it to save Dermot and Daniel!”

Her sob tore through him, with its agony, its authenticity. So he’d been right, just about the wrong person. Glenda Monaghan had been the one who’d been forced to spy on him.

She was now weeping so hard he feared she might tear something vital inside her.

His arm went around her as she swayed, helping her to the nearest couch. He sat beside her, rubbing her shaking hands soothingly. “Mrs. Monaghan, please, calm down. I’m not angry this time, and I promise, I won’t hurt you or them. Just tell me why you did it, let me help.”

“No one can help,” she wailed.

He forced a tight smile. “You clearly don’t realize what kind of power your son-in-law has. I would turn the whole world upside down for Glory, and by extension for her family.”

“You’re a scientist and a prince. You can’t possibly know how to handle those…those monsters.”

“Who do you mean?”

“The mob!”

And he’d thought nothing could ever surprise him again.

He raised his hands as if to brace against more blows. “Just tell me everything from the beginning.”

She nodded, causing her tears to splash on his hands. It made him hug her tighter, trying to absorb her upheaval.

Then haltingly, tearfully, she began. “Fifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with lymphoma. Dermot panicked because our insurance would pay only for a tiny percentage of my treatments, and we were already in debt. At the time, Dermot and I worked in a huge multinational corporation, him in accounting, me in IT. Our financial troubles were soon common knowledge and a guy from work approached Dermot with a way to make easy, serious money.”

She paused to draw a long, shaky breath.

“Dermot told me and I refused. But I was soon in no condition to work and with only one income and the bills piling up, it was soon untenable. Dermot began to gamble then fix books and was soon so deep in debts and trouble that when the recruiter approached him again, he agreed.

“For a while, I was so tired and drained, I was just relieved we weren’t scrabbling anymore. I bought his stories that he’d entered a partnership in a thriving import/export operation. Then things started getting uglier with his mob bosses asking terrible things of him. And the worst part was they’d also dragged Daniel, who was only nineteen, into their dirty business.

“Unable to go on, Dermot had us pack everything and move across the country. We kept hopping from one place to another in his efforts to escape the mob. During remissions, I worked from home, but my relapses kept draining us. Dermot and Daniel kept trying everything to keep us afloat. But at least the mob was off our back. After seven years, I thought we were home free.

“Then six years ago, I got a call. The man said that they’d always wanted me, the real expert in the family, and that they had some jobs for me, if I valued my husband’s and son’s lives. They owned us. Not only with the debts but with what they had on them. They’d send them to prison if I didn’t cooperate.” Shame twisted in his gut, that he’d once employed the same method with Glory. “But it wouldn’t end with prison if I said no. Accidents happened on the inside, even easier than on the outside. The job was you. They’d found out about your relationship with Glory and thought it put me in a perfect position to spy on you.”

He stared at her, six years worth of agony being rewritten, the realization of the needless loss of his life with Glory choking him up.

Glenda sobbed harder now. “As a taste of what they’d do if I refused, they beat Daniel up—we told Glory it was a bar fight—and he was hospitalized for a month. I was ready to do anything after that. And I did. I used Glory’s total trust in me, and your total trust in her, to hack her computer, and yours. Then you discovered everything.