Temporarily His Princess

Seven

“Our wedding?”

Vincenzo’s heart dipped in his chest at the frown on Glory’s face as she echoed his words.

Was she angry again? After the magical flight here, when she’d gradually relaxed, seeming to accept their situation and then enjoy being with him, he’d almost forgotten how resistant she’d been. But what if her acquiescence had been a lull, and now she’d come to her senses and would start antagonizing him again? He couldn’t stomach a return to friction, would give anything for their newly forged harmony to continue. Even if it meant letting her make the decisions from now on.

She threw her hands in the air. “God, I was determined to stop repeating your words like an incredulous parrot. Then you go and say something that forces me into being one!”

She had sounded and looked deliciously startled frequently in the past couple of days. Was that all? She was annoyed at herself for parroting his declarations?

He watched her intently, considering his response so he wouldn’t trigger a relapse into hostilities. “Why is what I just said worthy of incredulous parroting?”

“When you talk you don’t hear yourself? Or was it one of the other Vincenzos who said our wedding is next week?”

Her smirk blanked out his mind with the memory of having those sassy lips beneath his, soft and pliant, burning with urgency, spilling moans of pleasure. He needed to devour them again. But he had to settle this first.

He backed her up against the balustrade, his gaze sweeping her from her piled-up hair to her turquoise stilettos, hunger an ever-expanding tide inside him. “That was the one and only Vincenzo talking. So is a week too long? I can make it sooner. I probably should. We probably wouldn’t survive a week.”

She picked up her dropping jaw and replaced it with a more bedeviling smirk. “It’s okay, this happens with a newly installed sense of humor. Sometimes you can’t turn it off. Or you’re such a new user, you don’t know how to. Let’s hope you get the hang of it soon.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d made comments to that effect. Had he been that much of a humorless boor before?

He guessed so. He’d been too focused on what he’d thought paramount he’d forgotten to lighten up.

But back then he’d thought his behavior suited her, the driven, dead-serious woman he’d thought her to be. Serious about work and passion. A delightful, challenging wit hadn’t been among the things he’d thought she possessed, what he’d told himself he’d have to live without, with so many qualities to make up for the deficiency. Now he realized being a sourpuss had made her turn her humor off, making him miss knowing this side of her.

How much more had he missed? Was it possible other things he’d believed about her would turn out to be as totally wrong? How, when he’d had proof of them?

No. He was leaving this alone. This bomb had already detonated once and destroyed his world around him. He wasn’t lighting its fuse again.

What mattered now was that she seemed to relish his new lightheartedness. He’d never dreamed they could have anything like the time they’d spent on the flight, filled with not only mounting hunger, but escalating fun, too.

He wanted more.

He went after it.

“You’re right. It’s a joke thinking I can wait a few days. We’ll have the wedding today.”

It was exhilarating. Teasing her, soaking up her reactions, opening himself wide for her retaliations, every barb targeting his humor triggers.

She obliged him with another bull’s-eye. “This is worse than anything I feared. That humor program had a virus that scrambled you up. We’ll have to uninstall everything in your brain and reformat you.”

He pulled her into him, groaning at the electric thrill that arced between their bodies. “I like me all scrambled up like that. So shall I rush the delivery of the catering, minister and guests? I can have everything ready by eight tonight.”

She arched to look up, pressing her lushness closer to him. He’d never remained that hard, that long. And he loved it.

“So he first hits his opponents with a ludicrous offer, then, as they gasp in disbelief, he follows up with an insane one, making them grab for the ludicrous lesser evil.”

“You’re not an opponent.”

At her raised eyebrow, though it was mocking and not cynical, he felt that nip of regret again. One that made him wish he could erase the past, both distant and recent. What he’d give to restart everything from this point, with them who they were today, with no yesterdays to muddy their enjoyment of each other, and no tomorrows to cast shadows over it.

He caressed that elegant, dense eyebrow. “Put that down before someone gets hurt. Namely me. At least more than I’m already hurting.” He ground his beyond-pain hardness into her, showing her she should have mercy on him. The eyes that rivaled Castaldini’s skies darkened, her body yielding, shaping itself to his seeking. Her response, as always, heightened his distress, his delight. He groaned with them both. “So you want to postpone the wedding till next week.”

A choppy laugh shook those globes of perfection against his chest. How he didn’t have them free of their restraints and in his hands and mouth already, he had no idea. “And then he makes it all sound like his opponent’s decision.”

“‘He’ has no opponents here. He’s just negotiating.”

“I can sniff out the faintest scent of negotiating a mile away. I can’t even detect a trace now.”

“It must be because I learned the undetectable negotiation method at the hands of a mistress of the art.”

“Seems I didn’t teach you but transferred it to you. That skill has been nowhere to be found when I most needed it.”

He tugged a loose glossy lock from the satin hair that shone in his homeland’s sun like burnished copper. “But ‘your’ decision to postpone is well-advised. Next week’s forecast says it will be a perfect day for a wedding.”

She curled that dewy, edible lip. “Every day is a perfect day on Castaldini. But…” Something like panic spurted in her eyes. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” At his nod, she grabbed his lapels. “And what do you mean wedding?”

It was his eyebrows’ turn to shoot up. “The word has more meanings than the one agreed on since the dawn of humanity?”

She shook her head, something frantic creeping into her eyes. “I thought we were just going to get a ring, sign a marriage certificate and report to the king so he can officially send you to your UN post.”

It pained him that she expected only a cold ritual to befit the barren deal he’d proposed forty-eight hours ago.

Sorrow filled him for what should have been with this woman his heart and body had chosen, but wasn’t and wouldn’t be.

Suddenly, all levity drained from him, loosening his embrace.

Unable to remain in such intimate contact with her anymore, he stepped away. And saw it. A quiver of insecurity. A crack in the veneer of confidence and cheek.

He should have felt that was the least she deserved. To suffer some uncertainty and trepidation. But he didn’t. It hurt him to see her looking so…bereft. He hated to see vulnerability in those indomitable eyes.

He forced himself to smile at her, to reach a soothing hand to her cheek. “If you didn’t think I was talking about a wedding with all the trimmings, why were you surprised at all when I said next week? Or today? The ceremony you describe could have been concluded in a couple of hours.”

“Forgive me if I’m boggled by the idea of any brand of ceremony. I was never married before, you know, for real or for pretense, and a date, let alone one so soon, makes me feel this is actually happening.”

He watched her lips shaking, attempting a smile of bravado and failing, and could no longer deny it.

His gut was having a fit, sanctioning no evidence but what it sensed. It insisted she wasn’t the hardened manipulator he’d once thought her. That person would have grabbed his deal, would now be working his evident eagerness to milk more from him. But she wasn’t. She was really shaken.

And for the first time, he put himself in her place. Taken away from everything she knew to a strange land, her choice stripped away, her family not only unable to come to her aid, but the reason for her predicament. Her only company and precarious support was the man behind it all. And he kept blowing hot and cold, to boot. She must be feeling lost, helpless. And to a woman who’d been mistress of her own fate for so long, that must be the scariest thing she’d ever experienced.

His gut finally communicated with his brain, reaching a decision.

If he took out the terrible blot of her betrayal from their lives, he could connect the woman he’d once loved with this woman he laughed so easily with, the woman he now wanted more than he’d known he was capable of wanting. And he didn’t want that woman to be under any form of compulsion.

Taking another step back, severing any intimacy, he exhaled. “It doesn’t have to happen.”

More uncertainty flooded her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you don’t have to marry me.”

*

Glory wondered if the sun had overheated her brain.

That would explain feeling and hearing things that couldn’t be real. When Vincenzo had stepped away, she’d felt as if she was teetering on a cliff without his support. Then, because of the distance that had come over him, she’d felt she’d fallen into the abyss of the past, discarded all over again.

That remoteness couldn’t have been real. Not after all his pursuit and passion. And he couldn’t have just said…

“I don’t have to marry you?” There she went, parroting him again. She swallowed the knot of anxiety that rose in her throat. “Just a minute ago you wanted me to marry you in seven hours or seven days, and now… Just what are you playing at?”

He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Nothing. No more games, Glory. But don’t worry. I’ll still help your family. Of course, they can never again as much as forge a note to your nephew’s kindergarten or take a cent from a tip dish.”

Her heart slowed, as if fearing every beat would make this real. “Y-you mean that?” His slow nod, his solemn gaze cleaved into her. “Wh-what will you do about King Ferruccio’s decree?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking on the fly here. Maybe I’ll ask someone else.”

Her heart boomed now, each beat almost tearing it apart.

She couldn’t bear thinking he’d marry someone else, even in pretense. “Why?”

His shrug was heavy; his spectacular face gripped in the brooding she hadn’t seen there since she’d met him again. “It just suddenly hit me, how wrong this whole thing is.”

It suddenly hit her, too. That he wasn’t only confounding. He was nerve-racking. Heartbreaking. And he probably did suffer from a severe bipolar disorder. What else explained the violent pendulum of his mood swings?

He forced out an exhalation. “You can go back as soon as you wish. If you want me to escort you, I will. If not, the royal jet is at your disposal.”

Feeling as if her whole world was being swept from under her, she leaned back on the balustrade before she collapsed.

He meant it. He was setting her free.

But she didn’t want to be free.

She no longer knew what to do with her freedom.

Before he’d reinvaded her life, she’d spent years nurturing the illusion of steadiness. His hurricane had uprooted her simulated peace and exposed the truth of her chaos, the bleakness of her isolation.

But she’d already succumbed and had woven a tapestry of expectations around this time she would have had with him. She’d anticipated its rejuvenation, thought it would see her through the rest of her life. In her worst estimations she’d never thought it would all end before it began.

But it had. He’d suddenly cut her loose, letting her plummet back into her endless spiral of nothingness.

She pushed away from the balustrade as if from a precipice and past the monolith who stood brooding down at her.

She looked around her stunning surroundings, every nerve burning with despondency.

In a different life, Vincenzo would have brought her here because he wanted to share his home with her. If not permanently, then at least sincerely, passionately, for as long the fates let them be together.

In this life, he’d brought her here for all the wrong reasons, only to send her away before she got more than a tantalizing taste of the place that had forged him into the man she loved.

Yes, in spite of the insanity and self-destructiveness of it all, she still loved him.

Now she’d only gotten enough of a glimpse of him in his element to live with their memory gnawing at her, to mourn what hadn’t and could never have been.

Needing to get it over with, she turned and found him still standing where he had been, his back to her, looking up at the sky. Thunder filled her ears as her gaze ached over the sight of his majestic figure…then she realized.

The din didn’t come from her stampeding heart. It was coming from above.

It took a moment to realize its direction then see its origin. A helicopter.

“The Castaldinian Air Force One, rotorcraft edition.” Vincenzo gazed at her over his shoulder, his eyes grave. “Seems Ferruccio couldn’t wait to meet my future bride.”

Hot needles sprouted behind her eyes. She didn’t want to meet anyone. She wasn’t even a counterfeit bride now.

He turned, expression wiped clean. “Please say nothing while he’s here. I’ll resolve things with him later.”

She only nodded numbly, making no reaction when he took her hand and led her from the terrace and down the stairs he’d carried her up what felt like a lifetime ago.

By the time they exited the castle, the helicopter was landing in the courtyard, the revolving blades spraying the fountain water at them. Glory shuddered at the touch of the warm mist, cold spreading in her bones.

As the rotors slowed down, a man stepped down from the pilot’s side. She recognized him on sight. So the king flew himself here. And without guards or fanfare. It said so much about him and his status in Castaldini.

But all photos and footage hadn’t done him justice. He’d looked exceptional in those. But the man was way more than that. He was on par with Vincenzo in looks and physique. He could even pass for his brother.

King Ferruccio rushed in strides laden with urgency and power to the passenger side as it opened. In moments, his arms went around the waist of a golden vision of a woman, lifting her down as if he was handling his own heart.

“And the king has brought his queen,” she heard Vincenzo mutter over the rotor’s dying whirs. “Or maybe it’s the other way around. She must be thrilled to see me entering the gilded cage at last.”

Glory’s heart contracted on what felt like thorns on hearing his words, and more as she watched the regal couple advance hand in hand, their bond blatant in their every nuance.

What attention they didn’t have focused on each other, they had trained on her. She looked from one to the other, feeling like a specimen under a microscope.

Queen Clarissa was what Glory had always imagined fairy queens to look like. In a sleeveless floor-length lilac dress and high-heeled matching sandals, she stood maybe an inch or two taller than Glory, with the body of a woman who’d been ripened by the satisfaction and pampering of a powerful man’s constant passion, by bearing his children. From the top of her golden head to her toes, she glowed in the afternoon sun as if she was made of its radiance. Glory could easily believe she had angels in her lineage.

King Ferruccio was as tall as Vincenzo, another overpoweringly handsome D’Agostino. There was no doubt the same blood ran in their veins. They had almost identical coloring, too. But that was where the similarities ended.

While Vincenzo was imposing, Ferruccio was intimidating. If his wife was the benevolent breed of angel, he was the avenging variety. And it had nothing to do with the way he looked. It was in his eyes. His vibe. This was a man who’d seen and done unspeakable things…and had those things done to him. Which made sense. He’d grown up an illegitimate boy on the streets, one who’d dragged himself from the dirt to the very top. She could only imagine what he’d been through, what had shaped him into the man who was now undisputedly the best king in Castaldini’s history. She felt no one could know the scope of his depths, and those of his sufferings and complexities.

No one but his wife, that was.

They seemed to share a soul.

It hurt to see them together, to feel the love arcing between them in a closed circuit of harmony. What she’d once thought she’d had with Vincenzo.

Vincenzo, who was still holding her hand as they stopped two feet away from the couple, making her feel as if he couldn’t let go of it. When he was letting her go completely.

Hand still entwined with hers Vincenzo bowed before his king and queen, his other hand flat palmed over his heart, in the Castaldinian royal salute.

What was she supposed to do? Bow, too? Curtsy?

Before her muscles unlocked, Vincenzo straightened, his face softening on a smile that she’d only seen before when he’d been talking about Clarissa.

With an arm going around her waist, he gave Queen Clarissa a tender hug with his other arm, kissing her gently on her cheek, before raising one eyebrow at King Ferruccio. “I see you’ve brought your husband with you.”

So he was on teasing terms with his king. Figured. It was clear that though he observed the king’s status officially, he was on the same level personally.

Clarissa chuckled, her thick, long hair blowing around her face in the breeze like strands of sunlight. “You know me, I can’t say no to him.”

Vincenzo’s lips twisted. “I can train you.”

Her chuckle turned to a snicker. “Like you can say no to him.”

Vincenzo teased. “I’m not the woman who has the power to make a yo-yo out of His Majesty. It’s your duty as his queen to save his subjects from his implacability, and as his wife to counteract the toxic level of yeses in his blood.”

Clarissa gave her husband a look full of all they had between them. “I like him intoxicated.” She turned teasing eyes on Vincenzo. “Now shush, Cenzo, and let me meet your much better half.”

Then she turned those eyes on Glory. They were so unbelievable, Glory involuntarily stepped closer to find out if they were contacts. They weren’t. She’d seen so-called violet eyes before, always blue with a violet tinge. But Clarissa’s were pure, luminescent amethysts. Eyes to stare into for hours. Ferruccio evidently wanted to do nothing else for life.

Glory’s lips trembled on a smile in response to Clarissa’s exquisite one as she clasped her in a warm, fragrant embrace.

Already on the brink of tears, Clarissa’s words almost made them escape. “Welcome to Castaldini and to the family, Glory. I’m thrilled to have another friend my age, especially since I hear we have so much in common, our professional training—” she pulled back, her smile becoming mischievous “—and being married to one of our impossible yet irresistible D’Agostino men.”

In spite of her upheaval, her lips moved of their own accord. “Your Majesty…”

Clarissa held out a warning finger. “Stop right there! No YMs and not the Q word, either. Away from all the court stuff, I’m just Rissa—my husband claims exclusivity on Clarissa—” another melting look at her husband “—and I’m just part of a brigade around here, with the other members being Gabrielle, my brother Durante’s wife; Phoebe, my cousin Leandro’s; and Jade, my cousin Eduardo’s. We used to call ourselves the Fabulous Four. Now we’ll be the Fabulous Five.”

Glory swallowed, at a loss on how to answer. Seemed Vincenzo’s advice about saying nothing was the best one to follow in this mess. She smiled weakly at Clarissa, wishing the earth actually opened and swallowed people.

“You’re real.”

The deep, dark burr had goose bumps storming across her body. King Ferruccio.

Without coming closer, he made her feel his presence had enveloped her, immobilizing her for analysis as he cocked his head in contemplation. “I thought Vincenzo was pulling one over on me until I was forced to send him off to his new post, only to discover too late that you were a figment of his very creative mind.”

Her bones tightened under his scrutiny. He felt something wasn’t right. His eyes said he knew it. Shrewd man. That must be how he’d raised himself from destitute illegitimacy to become not only one of the world’s most hard-hitting magnates, but the king who’d brought Castaldini back from the brink of ruin and into unprecedented prosperity in under four years. The intelligence she felt radiating from him was almost frightening, and he must possess all the additional qualities that made others follow him.

Under his probing, words formed on her lips. “I am real, I assure you, Your Majesty. Forgive me if I won’t call you Ruccio, if that’s your name in informal setting, according to the abbreviations I observed your names undergo.”

A ghost of a smile played on Ferruccio’s uncompromising lips. “Come to think of it, that contraction should have been my name’s fate. Seems no one was bold enough to attempt it. But you can call me Ferruccio like everyone is free to, since my wife has her own exclusive names for me. But Your Majesty is certainly not something you’re allowed to use.”

Her smile attempted a semblance of steadiness. “It might be impossible to call you by your name just like that.”

Ferruccio’s gaze leveled on her. “In her incurable kindness, Clarissa has made it a request, but I have no such qualms. Away from the court I order you to call me Ferruccio. As your future king, that’s a royal decree.”

“See what I have to put up with?”

That was Vincenzo, his tone light and teasing, but his eyes made her feel he was following her breaths.

Ignoring him, Ferruccio maintained his focus on her. “But you’re not only real, you’re nothing like I expected. As soon as I had a name to his alleged fiancée, I investigated you.” At Clarissa’s silent reprimand, he caressed the hand that discreetly poked at him, his eyes on Glory. “And now I’m left with an unsolvable question. How was he able to get a woman of your caliber not only to take him seriously, but to agree, and so fast, to take on the onerous task of marrying him?”

Vincenzo snorted a laugh. “And that’s what you say when you’re trying your best to marry me off? What would you have said if you wanted to send her running away screaming?”

Clarissa tugged on her husband arm, her color high with embarrassment. “He must have done exactly what you did to make me undertake the same task with you.” Her eyes turned apologetically on Glory. “Now you see the impossible part I was talking about.”

Suddenly deciding to throw herself into the part Vincenzo expected her to play until his king and queen left, Glory quirked her lips at Clarissa. “And now that I do, I actually feel better about Vincenzo’s exasperating tendencies. I now have proof they’re genetic and therefore beyond his control.”

Clarissa whooped with laughter. “I knew it! I liked you on sight, but now I know I’ll love you! You’re exactly the addition we need to our brigade!”

Ferruccio cast an indulgent look at his wife, then raised an eyebrow at Glory, clearly approving the comeback that bundled him and Vincenzo and put them firmly in their places.

Vincenzo’s arm tightened. “How about we call it quits, Ferruccio, before we’re cut down to an even tinier size?”

Ferruccio gave a tiny bow of his regal head. “By all means. Not that I’ll quit being flabbergasted at your phenomenal luck anytime soon.”

Vincenzo sighed. “Your flattery knows no bounds. Now before you have Glory rethinking her hasty and ill-advised decision to marry me, how about you go do some kingly stuff and leave me to resume what I was about to do before your…surprise inspection? I was about to take Glory to explore the place before dinner.” He turned his eyes to Clarissa. “You, of course, are more than welcome to join us.”

Clarissa looked up into her husband’s eyes, exchanging what Glory had once thought she’d shared with Vincenzo. Such allegiance. Such understanding. Such adoration.

Clarissa pinched her husband’s hard cheek. “See what you’ve done? Now make nice so you can stay for the tour and dinner, too.”

Catching her hand to bury his lips in its palm, Ferruccio looked over at Vincenzo challengingly. “Why make nice when I can order him to invite me? Or better still, invite myself?”

Vincenzo raised him a pitying glance. “Seems you haven’t lived on Castaldini long enough to realize how provincial it remains, don’t realize what power I wield in my ancestral region. Here, I rule supreme. King or no, Ferruccio, one more word and I sic my whole province on you.”

Ferruccio’s eyes gleamed with devilry. “Let’s not start a civil war over the dinner you’ve been cornered into feeding me. Now lead the way, Vincenzo. And try to do your ‘ancestral home’ justice as you act as the guide.”

Grumbling something about getting Ferruccio later when he wasn’t under Clarissa’s protection, Vincenzo did lead the way.

And how he did. He detailed everything with the thoroughness of someone who took the utmost pride in the place that had been in his family for generations. As he should. This place was phenomenal.

And it would be the first and last time she was here. Why not just enjoy the experience while it lasted?

“The architecture of all the buildings is a symbiosis of every culture that makes up Castaldini—Roman, Andalusian, Moorish and some North African influences,” Vincenzo said, his explanations all for her. “Geometric patterns rule, with accessory-heavy decoration, from mosaic to plaster carving to worked metal. The main castle is circular but the other annexed buildings and towers are quadrangular, with all rooms opening onto inner courts.”

It was all right out of a fairy tale. Far grander and better preserved that any of the architectural wonders she’d visited all over the world.

She asked, “How long has this place been in your family?”

“Over five hundred years.”

Wow. That really put into perspective the difference between them. Her family tree was known only three or four generations back on both sides. And there hadn’t been a “family home” in her life, let alone an ancestral one.

Vincenzo underlined the unbridgeable gap between them. “My umpteenth great-grandfather was Castaldini’s founder, King Antonio D’Agostino.”

“Our umpteenth great-grandfather,” Ferruccio put in.

Vincenzo countered, “My line is that of one of his grandsons, who started building this place, but it reached its present size by gradual additions of more quadrangles over two centuries. Leandro, a slightly less obnoxious cousin, inherited a similar place, which King Antonio himself had built. When we were young, we always liked to brag about which is bigger and better.”

Glory’s blood tumbled as her imagination flew on a tangent, to other bigger and better…things.

“You still do,” Ferruccio said, his tone condescending. “I always leave you boys to squabble over size and quality. Mine is the undisputed best of all.”

“But the royal palace isn’t yours, my liege,” Vincenzo calmly retorted. “As per Castaldini’s laws, you’re just the resident caretaker. You really should start building or acquiring a place to pass on to your children.”

Ferruccio suddenly threw his head back and guffawed. “See that, Vincenzo? That’s the take-no-prisoners attitude I want you to have when you’re representing Castaldini.”

Clarissa’s eyes rounded. “You mean you’ve been poking him to get him to bare his fangs?”

Ferruccio grinned down at her. “He’s been getting soft of late. Now that he has Glory, I was afraid he’d turn to putty and be no good to me in the war zone I’m sending him to. I had to do something to remind him how to use his fangs.”

Vincenzo huffed. “Have I told you lately how much I love you, Ferruccio?”

“You’re welcome to renew your oath of allegiance anytime, Vincenzo.”

Clarissa spluttered as she smacked her husband and cousin playfully, and Glory had to join in the laughter.

After that the day flowed, filled with many unprecedented experiences with the most exciting people she’d ever met.

It was past midnight when she and Vincenzo stood in the courtyard, watching the regal couple vanish into the night.

Her heart twisted at the symbolism. This place and Vincenzo would soon disappear from her life as if they’d never been.

The moment she turned to Vincenzo, he turned to her, too, taking a leashed step closer, practically vibrating with intensity.

And she realized. That he was sending her away because he no longer wanted to coerce her. But he still wanted her. And she’d already decided that this passion was worth any risk.

Closing the gap between them, taking both his hands in hers, she took the plunge into the path to eventual heartache.

And she whispered, “I’ll marry you for the year you need, Vincenzo. My choice this time.”