The Prodigal Prince's Seduction (Castaldini Crown 2)

It felt as if he was walking away from life. As he was.

Chapter Sixteen

The door clicked closed. Durante. Gone.

She’d made him go.

Something skewered its way through her gut. An unvoiced scream. For him to come back. That she took back every word. About not trusting him. Not forgiving him. Not believing in his love. Not feeling as if she’d die if he forgot her, if he sought out others, if he sought her out again with nothing but lust in his heart and body. She’d lied.

But she’d had to.

She couldn’t have let him prove to her how much he loved her. How much he regretted doubting and hurting her. For she would have believed again, surrendered all the way now that her last shackle—his father’s secrets and her fear of their exposure—had been lifted.

But Durante’s shackles would never be lifted. Not when they were created by her very identity. The daughter of the woman he believed had caused his mother’s devastation and death. That knowledge would poison his love, would chip away at its foundations. Then his bitterness and paranoia would rise again and he’d decimate her, forever this time, under the brunt of his cruelty.

She crumpled to the ground.

She’d gotten home, somehow. She didn’t remember how. She’d found herself there, weeping. She hadn’t stopped since. It was morning now. She thought.

Her nerves flamed with impulses, her mind roiled with obsessions, her cells burned with longing.

She needed him back.

How could he not come back? Was that it? The extent of his all-powerful emotions? His unstoppable persistence? She’d slapped him with words, clearly trembling for a repudiation, and he’d taken them as cause to give up on her? He was really gone?

He couldn’t be. He’d said he’d never give up. Why had he? Wasn’t what they’d shared worth more than an hour’s cajoling and a few pledges? Had all feeling been on her side, after all?

Which would make sense. More than a man like him feeling the same absolute emotions for her as she did for him.

But he’d said he did. And he never lied.

So had he faced himself with the truth, that in time he’d wonder how he’d disregarded who she was? Was he now wondering just how much of their rapport was real and how much had been his father’s tutoring? Could suspicion be taking hold of his mind again?

If it was, then his mind was a time bomb and she shouldn’t even think of coming within a mile of him again. She couldn’t survive another blow up.

But…she could have carried on in her lifelessness if he hadn’t shown up yesterday. How dared he jump-start her heart and hopes, then walk away again? This time she wasn’t flatlining, as she had the first time. This time she was fibrillating, the spikes of chaos intensifying by the second, threatening to rupture her heart…

Stop. You’re not doing this. You’re not following in your father’s footsteps. Or his mother’s.

She had to behave as if she was alive, go through the motions. In time, it was bound to simulate life, maybe even re-spark it. She had to go through her morning routines, take them, and the rest of her life, one second at a time.

She dragged herself out of bed. One foot in front of the other. A shower, breakfast, morning show on TV, dress, work. Wait for him, pray for him to contact her again. She’d take him back if he did, grab at anything he offered, offer all of herself again come what may…

No, no, no. If she wasn’t right for him, it would end far worse than any of their parents’ stories had ended. For she was sure none had loved this intensely.

She walked back to the living room, taking a sip of her orange juice only to inhale one then spew it out in a fit of coughing.

His voice.

God, she was starting early, imagining hearing it.

Her eyes panned to where she thought she’d heard it issuing from, and she almost choked on her lungs in shock. He was…he was…

On TV. On the morning show she watched every day.

The gawking, swooning, hyper-excited female anchor was squeaking, “So why did you decide to break your silence with the press, Prince Durante? And in this spectacular way, too?”

Durante turned his brooding eyes from the woman’s face to look directly at the camera. Gabrielle collapsed under the brunt of his stare. She knew every woman in the globe would be similarly affected, but she knew. He was looking at her.

Then he began to speak, dark, driven, unraveling her with each syllable and intonation. “I am here offering the love of my life a public apology, issuing a plea that she give me one last chance. I am announcing that Gabrielle Williamson’s Le Roi Enterprises—besides publishing my biography, which will include the details of the situation that led to my…postponement of our wedding—will also have the exclusive on every public plea I’ll continue to issue. Also, as a token of my total love and absolute trust, I have signed over all my holdings to her.”

Among the bombs, she realized one more thing.

This was on air live. Right in front of her building.

She’d never thought anything solid could move so fast. She streaked out of her apartment, saw that the elevator was in use. She didn’t even think of waiting, ran to the stairs and down the ten-floors, a missile set on Durante.

Once outside her building, she barreled her way through the barricade of human flesh he towered above. The crowd parted each time someone recognized her, and murmurs and exclamations spread like wildfire in dry tinder.

Her momentum slammed her into him. He barely moved under the impact. Hesitation, something she’d never felt from him, filled the arms that steadied her. His eyes devoured her as his face clenched with such longing, regret and entreaty that her chest heaved from their bombardment far more than with exertion.

His lips worked for a moment before they started to open. She just knew he was going to say more crazy, compromising things.

Her hand lurched up, clamped over his mouth. “This is all a publicity stunt, world,” she panted. “A dare I didn’t dream he’d take me up on. So…stockholders, don’t panic. And tabloids, don’t hold your breath. He will not be revealing anything, as there’s nothing to reveal. And yes, the book is going to be great, and everyone should preorder their copy, but it will not contain any sensational confessions, just the secrets to this…this phenomenal powerhouse of a dreamboat’s success, okay? What’s more—”

“Non posso più vivere senza di te, Gabriella mia.”

Her voice vanished, every electrical impulse powering her body shut down. She sagged in his arms. He was singing. Here.