The Prodigal Prince's Seduction (Castaldini Crown 2)

Leandro sighed, winking at Durante. “We’re doomed.”

Durante looked heavenward. “From your lips.”

They all laughed as they started walking into the palace, the men falling into step with each other, as she did with Phoebe.

The conversation flowed with bantering ease, to her immense relief. Phoebe was going to be a constant presence in her life and it would have been a source of unneeded strife if they hadn’t hit it off. But she felt they’d only like each other better on deepening exposure. It felt so good, looking forward to this unexpected bonus. A woman her age, in her same unusual situation, becoming an ally, a friend. Something she sorely needed.

Suddenly they both fell silent. It seemed Phoebe’s ears had pricked like hers on hearing the turn in conversation their men had taken.

“He isn’t in good shape, Durante. Take it easy on him.”

“I am taking it easy on him. I came back, didn’t I?”

“Not enough, amico mio. Give him a chance. Let him talk this time. Maybe he has something to say.”

“If he did, he would have said it years ago.”

“You already tried thinking the worst and it ate up five years of both of your lives. Why not try giving other possibilities a chance? I would have thought you incapable of relenting on this one, but because you are here, I am hopeful that miracles indeed do happen.”

After a moment’s silence, Durante turned, caught her eyes in a searing look of passion and tenderness and whispered, “They do.”

Gabrielle almost cried out with the slam of emotion.

And she prayed. For this miracle of his love to overpower whatever ugliness there was, even if there was no hope of erasing it. To overlook the unwilling deceit she’d perpetrated.

“Durante. You came back.”

Durante looked at the man who’d once been his hero. The father he’d idolized. He almost didn’t recognize him.

Pain seared his heart. He refused to give in to it. “Sì. But not for you. For Gabrielle.”

He held out his hand to her. Her gaze was frozen on his father’s face as she unsteadily came to his side. “Gabrielle Williamson, my bride-to-be. We’re getting married here in a week’s time. It’s for love of her, for needing to give her a future untainted by the shadows of the past that I’m here, Padre. But I’ve also met you halfway. Now it’s your turn. Tell me the truth.”

“The only truth, Durante…” His father’s weakened voice revved sickness and regret behind his sternum. He gritted down on the weakness. “…is that there was no villain or victim.”

“So you didn’t have a mistress?”

“No, I did have a mistress.” Gabrielle lurched at his side. He barely stopped himself from exhibiting his own shock at having all his doubts validated. “And she was the only woman I ever loved. She was the one, Durante. Like your Gabrielle is to you.”

The lava of betrayal and hatred and anger rose in him, obliterating all his intentions to give peace a chance. “And of course you discovered this after you married a woman who gave you her heart and life and children.”

“I loved that woman before I ever met your mother. I banished her over insane and wrong suspicions and married your mother on the rebound.”

Every word was prodding skewers deeper into his wounds. “So not only was my mother your victim, but the other woman, too.”

“Your mother was my queen. But I was not in love with her. Neither was she with me. She married me to become queen. I thought she was what the crown needed. When I renewed my relationship with the woman I loved, I kept it a secret for many reasons, your mother’s feelings not being among them. She wouldn’t have cared.”

“Why did she write all that, then? If she wasn’t going literally insane with jealousy over your loving another?”

His father seemed to shrivel back into his bed. “I…I don’t know. But there’s nothing to be gained from digging up skeletons.”

Accumulated heartache and confusion and disappointment erupted through him like a geyser. He lunged forward, wanting to shake his father and roar for him to put him out of his misery. He was hiding things. Things that would make everything make sense.

Then he felt it. Gabrielle’s hand trembling on his arm.

He cursed himself. He’d sworn he’d never distress her again, and here he was, forcing her to witness him resurrecting his family tragedy.

He pulled her into him, looked his entreaty for forgiveness into her reddened, teary eyes, his heart compressing at having caused her such anguish.

Then he turned and almost wept himself at seeing the devastation on the face of a man he’d thought indomitable. He had to believe at that moment that his father might also prove to be not as heartless as Durante believed him to be.

“We’ll leave skeletons in the past, Padre, even if they come out of the closet sooner or later. Now, the future and all I am belong to Gabrielle.”

As he supported the almost-collapsing Gabrielle and turned to lead her out, his father’s thick, tear-filled rasp stopped him. “Gabrielle.”

Gabrielle lurched in his hold as if she’d been shot. Durante almost had to support her full weight as he turned them around.

His father was smiling, a smile distorted by the devastation his stroke had left in its wake. It twisted Durante’s heart. And that was before his father rasped, “Thank you for bringing my son home…figlia mia.”

Chapter Fourteen

The wedding was tomorrow.

And Gabrielle was going insane.

King Benedetto had pretended he didn’t know her. She’d been so shocked that she’d gone mute.

Then Durante had taken her to his apartments, drowned her in his passion until she’d forgotten that a world outside him existed. Before she could remember, he’d swept her into the whirlwind of preparations and one chance to tell him after another slipped by.

She needed to see King Benedetto before she could reveal the truth to Durante. This was the first day he’d been allowed visitors since they’d seen him. His health had taken a turn for the worse after his confrontation with Durante.

She waited until the king’s valet had left them alone before she blurted out her agitation and fear. “Why didn’t you tell Durante of our relationship? It’s been killing me, keeping my word, but I believed you finally would. He might…would have understood then, that it was never my intention or idea to hide facts from him. Now, after that stunt you pulled, I’m dreading the worst.”