Temporarily His Princess

Ten

Amore mio.

The words rang in a loop inside Glory’s head as she stood staring around her condo. Amore mio, amore mio—crooned in Vincenzo’s voice, soaked in his passion.

He’d been calling her that constantly, among all the other endearments he kept lavishing on her. At least he had for the first six weeks after their wedding. It had been over a week now that he hadn’t been around to call her much of anything.

They’d been back to New York after their honeymoon ended. Vincenzo had extended their time away to two weeks at a hefty cost to all the people who’d arranged their schedules counting on his presence a week earlier.

A wave of oppression descended over her as images from those two weeks in paradise bombarded her. At their end, she’d thought that if she died then, she would have certainly died the most fulfilled, pleasured and pampered woman on earth.

Then they’d gone back to New York. He’d started his position and she’d gone back to work, and instead of everything slowing and cooling down, it had gotten better, hotter. He’d kept his promises and more, making time for her, for them, always, but even better, making a place for her in his working life, and asking for and taking a place in hers.

He’d taken her with him to every function, showing her off as if she was his most vital asset. He’d come to her like he used to with his work issues, taking her opinion and following her advice. He’d thrown his full weight into making difficulties in her work disappear and making far-fetched hopes achievable, without her even asking.

And through it all he’d been saying amore mio. My love.

He’d called her that in the past. She’d believed he’d meant it. Then everything had happened, and she’d known the name had just been an empty endearment. Now, she no longer knew what to believe. After he’d confessed he’d lied about his reasons for leaving her. After the past weeks in his arms, in his life.

So what had it meant to him then? What did it mean now?

The need to ask, to understand everything that had happened in the past, mushroomed daily. She’d tried more than once to broach the subject, but he’d always diverted her, unwilling to talk about it, as if he hated to bring up the past, fearing it would taint the present.

She could understand that. He appeared to have decided to live in the moment, without consideration for the past or the future. And she tried to do that, too, succeeding most of the time. At least, when he was with her. The moment she was out of his orbit, obsessions attacked her, and questions that had never been answered preyed on her. And it was all because she’d done an unforgivable thing.

She’d let herself hope. That this wouldn’t be temporary, that it couldn’t be, not when it was so incredible.

At least it had been incredible until last week when he’d suddenly started becoming unavailable. Even though he’d apologized, blamed work problems, swore it would only be temporary, his absence had plunged her into a nightmarish déjà vu. Though he still came home, still made love to her—not like before when he’d cut her off suddenly—it still made her feel this was the beginning of the end. She tried to tell herself that the “honeymoon” was over, that it happened with everyone, that there was no way he could have sustained that level of intensity. It didn’t mean anything was wrong.

Tell that to her glued-back-together heart.

But all her upheaval had one origin. The missing piece that could explain how the noble man she was now certain Vincenzo was could have been so cruel to her.

Her eyes fell on the prenup he’d left on her entrance cabinet what felt like ages ago, and something turned in her head, clicked.

Her eyes jerked up, slamming into their reflection in the mirror above as that missing piece crashed into place.

Her family.

God, how hadn’t it occurred to her before? This had to be the explanation. He’d said her father and Daniel had been perpetrating crimes for a long time. What if it had been as far back as six years, and he’d discovered it when he’d been investigating them during his espionage crisis?

Then another idea whacked her like an uppercut.

Even if he’d found it out of the question to be involved with someone with a family of criminals, there had been no reason to be vicious with her over her family’s crimes. That meant one thing. He’d thought she’d been involved in those crimes. Or worse, he’d thought she’d embezzle or defraud him, too, and had thought to preempt her, cut her off before she had the chance.

Gasping as suspicions solidified into conviction, she staggered to the nearest horizontal surface, sitting heavily.

Then another realization pushed aside the debris of shame and anguish.

He’d believed her an accomplice to her family, a danger to him, and he’d simply walked away. He’d turned vicious only when she’d cornered him. That meant one thing—he had felt something for her. Something strong enough that it stopped him from prosecuting her even when he’d thought she deserved it.

Following that same rationalization, the way he was with her now, even with his new evidence of her family’s crimes, meant that he believed she couldn’t be party to those. As for what she’d been seeing in his eyes, the way he said amore mio, this could mean…

In the next moment her trembling hope was shot down like a bird before it could spread its wings.

Even if he didn’t think she was involved in illegal activities now, he would never think her worth more than a fleeting place in his life. And who could blame him?

She couldn’t.

Her aching eyes panned around her condo. She’d come here to empty it, to end its lease. Vincenzo had asked her to do so a couple of weeks ago. She’d felt alarmed at what that implied and had groped for a reason to dismiss his request, arguing she needed a place to entertain family and friends away from their own private quarters. But he’d already thought of that, producing a lease to another condo, far more lavish, and a minute’s walk from his building. It looked as if he was thinking of her all the time, going out of his way to provide her with anything that would make her life easier, fuller.

But she couldn’t count on anything from him, or with him. She wouldn’t do this to herself again. She had to live with the expectation that this would end, and after last week, it appeared that the end would be sooner rather than later. She had to be ready to fade back into her own life once he pulled away completely. But to do that, she had to make sure she had a life to fade back to.

She rose, headed back to the suitcases she’d packed, opened them and started putting everything back in its place.

An hour later, on her way out, she stopped by the entrance cabinet. After a long moment of staring at the prenup, she picked it up.

*

Vincenzo whistled an upbeat tune as he exited the shower.

He caught his eyes in the steamed-up mirror and grinned widely at himself. He felt like whistling all the time now. Or singing. He’d been struggling not to do either in all those stuffy meetings and negotiations he’d been attending. He’d had the most important one so far today, what he’d been working toward since he’d gone back to New York with Glory after their honeymoon six weeks ago.

The memory of their honeymoon cascaded through him again. He’d extended it for a week and had representatives of a dozen countries scrambling to readjust their schedules. When they’d complained, he’d told them they instead had to thank his bride for putting their agendas ahead of her rights and consenting to cut short her honeymoon for them. He’d seen to it that each and every one had thanked her, in all the functions to which she’d accompanied him.

A thrill of pride spread through him. She’d been beyond magnificent. A consort of a caliber he couldn’t have dreamed of. Though she’d gone back to her own hectic schedule, she always made time for him. She aided, guided and supported him with her counsel, honored, soothed and delighted him with her company. Every moment with her, in and out of bed, had been better than anything he’d dared plan or hope for.

He’d never known happiness like this existed.

Just as he thought that, a frown invaded his elation.

He hadn’t been able to have her with him for over two weeks now. With back-to-back meetings and unending follow-up work, he’d had to leave her behind, cancel dates and generally have no time for her. He hadn’t even come home for the past three days.

He was paying the price for taking too much time with her during the first weeks of their marriage. Work had accumulated until it had become unmanageable, and resolving the mess had been like digging in the sea, with new chores only pouring over the unfinished ones. He’d needed to clean out his agenda then start fresh using the system Glory had set up for him.

So, for the past two weeks, he’d worked flat out to get this phase, the groundwork his whole mission was built on, out of the way once and for all.

Though it had been agonizing being without her, at least he’d succeeded in fixing the problem he’d caused by being too greedy for her. He was now out of the bottleneck and the first phase of his mission here had been concluded.

And before he entered the next phase, he had a prolonged vacation with Glory planned. A second honeymoon. He intended to have another one every month.

Grinning to himself again, luxuriating in the anticipation, he entered the office he hadn’t used for weeks.

He saw it the moment he stepped inside and recognized it for what it was at once.

The prenup agreement.

Was his mind playing tricks on him? He’d left it in Glory’s condo over two months ago.

A surge of trepidation came over him as he neared it, approaching it as if it was a live grenade. A quick, compulsive check ended any doubt. That was the copy he’d given her.

Why was it on his desk, as if Glory was loath to hand it to him face-to-face? If she was, why put it there at all? After all this time? All this intimacy?

What was she trying to tell him?

Was she reinforcing his original conditions, telling him this was still how she viewed their marriage? As a temporary hostile takeover? But that had stopped being true almost from the start. He’d told her he’d changed his mind after hours of being with her again. She hadn’t changed her mind after weeks of being with him? But she’d agreed to marry him of her free will, then proceeded to blow his mind with passion and pleasure ever since. He’d thought she’d been showing him that she’d forgotten how this had started, that she’d been demonstrating with actions how she now viewed their relationship, that she wanted it to continue. He sat down, staring at the offensive volume as if it was his worst mistake come back to haunt him. Which it was.

And it was his fault it was haunting him. He’d avoided a confrontation about the past, with her, with himself. He’d just been so scared it might spoil the perfection they had now.

But here was what avoidance had led to.

He now had to admit to himself what he’d been thinking and feeling all along.

He’d at first thought she’d changed her ways. But when he couldn’t find a trace of subterfuge in her—something that couldn’t be wiped so totally from someone’s character—he’d been able to sanction only one thing. That she’d always been what he’d believed her to be from the start, the upstanding human being and the incredible woman he’d fallen in love with. And this had led him to one conclusion. That she’d been forced into her past betrayal.

There was only one scenario that made sense. As soon as he’d employed her, those who always looked for chinks in his armor got to her family, and through them, to her. Younger, vulnerable to her family’s needs, she’d been forced to do their bidding, probably under fear of losing them to imprisonment through their crippling debts. That had been the first thing that had occurred to her when he’d threatened to imprison them.

But she must have hated doing it and soon realized there’d been no excuse for what they’d forced her to do. She had struck out as far away from them as possible, becoming the magnificent force for good she was now.

But after observing her with her family, with her mother especially, he was now certain Glory had no idea that he’d discovered her betrayal, or she would have understood why he’d kicked her out of his life. Her mother clearly hadn’t told her of the climactic confrontations with him. Probably out of shame that she’d exposed her daughter to buy the rest of her family’s salvation.

Or he might be all wrong and there might be another explanation. But whatever it was, he was certain she hadn’t set him up in cold blood, or pretended emotions she hadn’t felt. Everything in him just knew that her involvement with him had been real, and predated whatever she’d been forced to do. And that was the one thing that mattered to him.

Where he was concerned, from the moment he’d told her she was free not to marry him, that past had been wiped out from his mind and heart. Nothing remained in him now but that he wanted her, loved her, far more than he ever had.

But it was clear she had no idea this was how he felt. This must be why she was offering him the prenup. Showing him that he was free to keep his original pact if he wanted.

It was time to make a full admission, to leave her in no doubt what he wanted. Her. As his wife, for real and forever.

He heaved up to his feet, excitement frothing inside him, and swiped the prenup off the desk.

He’d take that piece of paranoid crap he’d regretted ever since it had passed from his hands to hers and tear it to pieces. He’d throw it at her feet along with his heart and his life. He’d…

His phone rang.

Gritting his teeth at the interruption, he answered the call.

A moment later, he wished he hadn’t.

A deep, somber voice poured into his ear, and everything inside him tightened, as if to ward off a blow.

Now what?

*

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice, Prince Vincenzo.”

Vincenzo’s unease rose. Brandon Steele never asked to see him unless there was some catastrophe brewing.

“We’re alone now so drop the titles, please, Brandon.”

The man inclined his head silently, looking, as always, like a strange cross between a suave celebrity and a linebacker. He had a quietly menacing aura hanging over him like a cloak.

Vincenzo had hired him seven years ago to protect his research and businesses against sabotage and intellectual property theft. The agency Brandon owned and ran, Steele Security, had come highly recommended by Vincenzo’s cousin Eduardo as the most effective undercover agency to handle financial fraud and industrial espionage.

Brandon held a spotless track record, had uncovered dozens of masterful infiltrations and conspiracies, saved Vincenzo and his cousins untold millions and smoothed the course of their rise to the top of their respective fields.

But it was one particular achievement that always made Vincenzo loath to see him, more now than ever.

He’d been the one who’d gotten proof of Glory’s espionage six years ago.

Getting to the point as always, Brandon exhaled. “I don’t know how to say this, Vincenzo, but what were you thinking? You married the woman who once spied on you?”

Was that it? Brandon was here to scold him?

“Things aren’t as simple as they look to you, Brandon.”

Brandon cocked one disbelieving eyebrow. “Aren’t they?”

Vincenzo had no time for skepticism. If not for Brandon’s untimely call, he could have been with Glory right now, resolving everything with her.

Vincenzo exhaled. “Did you detect another leak in my operations? And you jumped to the conclusion that the only new thing in my life is Glory, again, so she must be involved somehow?”

Brandon stared at him as if he’d grown a third eye. “I see you’re not concerned about the prospect of a leak.”

It was strange, but he wasn’t. Or if he was, it was only mentally, for all logical reasons and considerations. But there was no trace of the all-out agitation and anger he’d once experienced, when his work had been the central thing in his life. His priorities had changed irrevocably. They all revolved around Glory now.

He sighed. “I thought your security system was now impenetrable.”

Brandon gave a curt nod. “It is. And there is no leak.”

“So you just want to reprimand me for marrying Glory? You don’t know much about who she is now if you’re even worried.”

Brandon gave him a long-suffering look. “It’s my business to know everything about everyone. I know exactly who she is and what she does. The body of work she’s amassed over the past five years is nothing short of phenomenal.”

He exhaled. “Just spit out the ‘but’ you’re here to say.”

“But I think this might be a far more elaborate facade than the one she had six years ago.”

He waved the man’s words away. “I don’t care about the past anymore, Brandon.”

“I’m not talking about the past.”

Everything inside Vincenzo hit pause. “You just said there’s been no leak.”

“Not in your operations, no. But you are deep in negotiations with multinational interests on behalf of Castaldini. I caught leaks of vital info that only you could know, that could end up costing Castaldini the projects and investments you’re on the verge of securing on its behalf.”

Vincenzo’s temperature started to rise, his muscles turning to stone. “The sides I’m negotiating with are privy to the same info, and the leak could be on their side.”

“It isn’t.”

At the curt final statement, he found himself on his feet, agitation no longer in check. “Why on earth are you suspecting Glory when she had no part in any of this?”

“You mean she isn’t privy to the details of your dealings and the innermost workings of your mind this time around?”

He shook his head, felt his brain clanging against his skull. “No—I mean, I do consult with her—you know there’s no one better than her when it comes to negotiations—and she has been advising me, and I’ve used every shred of advice she gave me to my advantage, but that doesn’t mean she—”

Brandon interrupted his ramblings. “Do you observe all the security measures I devised in your shared space?”

Vincenzo hadn’t even given security a thought around her. But… “No. Stop right there. This isn’t Glory’s doing. I’m certain. Whatever happened in the past, it must have been against her will. She’s worked so hard ever since to make good, to turn her life around. With only the power of her benevolence and perseverance she’s done more for more people than I’ve done with all my power and money. I’m never suspecting her again.”

Brandon gave him the look of a disapproving parent. “May I remind you it wasn’t ‘suspicion’ last time? I gave you proof, proof you yourself verified, from her closest people.”

Vincenzo’s voice rose, no longer under his control. “I told you the past has nothing to do with the present. And then it turned out she actually saved me from making the worst mistake of my life.”

“So you should forgive someone because she didn’t succeed in killing you, but inadvertently made you jump and save yourself from falling into a pit? How far are you willing to stretch to make excuses for her, Vincenzo?”

“As far as I need to. When all is said and done, I’m in a much better place now and it is because of what happened.”

“Even if it turns out for the best, a failed attempt at a crime still deserves punishment.”

“And I did punish her,” he bellowed. “I passed sentence on her without a trial, without even giving her the chance to defend herself. And what did all that righteousness get me? Six years of hell, without her. Now I have her back, and I’m never losing her again.”

Brandon gaped at him for a long, long moment.

Then he grimaced. “God, this is worse than I thought. You’re totally under her spell.”

“I love her.”

“And she betrayed you again. What a mess.”

Vincenzo barely held back from punching him. “Stop saying that and look elsewhere, Brandon. You’re not infallible, remember? You made a mistake with Eduardo’s wife.”

“It wasn’t a mistake. Jade was hacking into his system.”

“Under duress,” he gritted out. “And she was doing that in order to fortify it, so no one could infiltrate it again. As I said, everything isn’t always as it seems. You were right, but you were also wrong. You’re wrong again now. I don’t only love Glory, I know her.”

Brandon pinned him with a conflicted gaze before he finally squared his shoulders and held out the dossier he had with him. It had the Steele Security insignia on it. Vincenzo knew from experience those were only used for final reports and verified evidence.

Trepidation overwhelmed Vincenzo as he looked at it. He snatched his gaze back to Brandon’s, as if to escape an image that would sear his retinas if he gazed at it a second more.

Brandon looked at him like someone would look at a patient before amputating a limb. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Vincenzo, but this is a compilation of all emails and text messages leaking the info. The originating addresses were expertly hidden, just not expertly enough to hide them from me. Everything was traced back to Glory’s phone and computer.”