But the biggest damns were reserved for herself and her stupidity.
She was done being stupid. She’d start by never again shedding a tear. Certainly not over Prince Durante D’Agostino.
She spilled from the bed, barely saw herself in the mirror through her turgid lids as she plodded to her bathroom.
She came out an hour later feeling as if the hot bath had homogenized the pain clamping her chest and melted it to seep through her. She now ached down to her toenails.
She called Megan, her PA, and told her she was taking a few days off. She was sick.
She wasn’t lying. She was. Sick of the whole world. Heartache should be at the forefront of ailments one should take sick leave for. And she was taking it.
She needed time to rearrange her mental and emotional papers, invent some priorities, locate her vanished purpose. First on the agenda was purging her memory of Prince Durante D’Agostino.
To do that, she had to admit she owed him a debt of gratitude. He’d made all the slander she’d ever suffered come crashing down on her. She could now face her fury and bitterness, deal with it, put it in perspective and move on.
She should also thank him for curing her of a delusion she’d been suffering from without even realizing it—that miracles happened sometimes and Prince Charming existed somewhere.
Now that she knew for certain that was a load of crap, she could at last have her mind functioning at capacity, unhindered by the insidious virus of such self-sabotaging illusions.
Maybe now she could get rid of all the shackles that had been holding her back. Maybe now she would start to live for real.
Gabrielle looked at her cell phone.
Come on. Do it.
She’d put it off long enough. It had been ten days. She had to call him now. He wouldn’t be happy. But he, too, had to face facts. Like she had.
Facts said she’d back down if she waited another moment.
Do. It. Now. She hit the speed dial button, flinching as if she’d hit a remote for a nearby bomb.
The ringing blared on speaker mode until the line disconnected. Relief that he hadn’t answered and reluctance to try again sent nausea bubbling in her stomach. Coward. Do it. Get it over with.
She pressed the button just as the phone came alive.
She almost dropped it in fright. Then she remembered. She had it on vibration-mode. The caller ID blazed on the screen. The king.
She gulped and hit the answer button.
His voice flowed into her ear, sounding worse than she’d last heard it. “Figlia mia, apologies for the delay in answering.”
“I should have called much sooner. I-I…” The words congealed into a lump, choked her. Just spit them out. “I-it’s about your son. I-I tried and failed. He wouldn’t talk to me.”
That last bit wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was true. All the talking Durante had done had been with his “bella misteriosa.” He hadn’t given her the consideration of one word.
Not that the king who’d told her to do “anything” would take her failure lying down. She braced herself for his arguments, for the brunt of his desperation, the distress of having to disappoint it. Just as she thought she was ready for anything, his exhalation almost deflated her with its dejection.
“It was a desperate gamble, Gaby. I was deluded to hope that Durante would relent. Castaldini and I will have to face our fate without his intervention. Forgive me if I caused you any discomfort by involving you in this.”
A long time later, she didn’t remember what she’d stammered in answer to King Benedetto’s apology and acceptance of defeat.
She knew only that her temperature was rising geometrically.
Durante. That cruel, intractable, holier-than-thou bastard.
So he’d condemned her and walked away without a glance back. Fine. She was no one to him. But she was damned if she’d let him get away with doing the same to his father and live happily ever after with his sanctimonious “disconnection.”
She didn’t care that he thought his position validated. It was still indefensible. And besides, she’d bet he had as much proof of his father’s so-called crimes against his mother as he had of her alleged ones against male-kind.
She didn’t care about the level of demeaning disdain with which he’d no doubt smear her. She was not letting this end without stripping off a few layers of his rhino hide. Maybe she’d even find something beneath to shame into coming through for his father and his kingdom.
She unclasped her death grip on her phone, hit another speed dial button. Megan answered on the first ring.
She fired away. “Megan, I want you to get me every shred of info on Prince Durante D’Agostino of Castaldini. And I don’t mean financial and personal profiles. At least, nothing reported in ‘reliable’ or ‘respected’ sources. Dig me up all the dirt. Make it thick, and make it quick. I need it…ten days ago.”
Durante stared at the wall across his extensive bedroom.
It looked so…tempting. All walls did. He wanted to bang his head against each and every one.
It was the conviction that some explosive pain and serious self-abuse might dampen the volcano seething inside him that tempted him.
How? How had he found himself in this position?
He trusted his instincts, which had steered him through his meteoric rise. But he’d always deferred acting on them until he’d deliberated all ramifications. Instinct didn’t equate with impulse to him. He’d believed that he was without urges, did nothing with spontaneity. His closest people told him he took premeditation to uncharted and aggravating heights. That was, until Gabrielle Williamson. Her.
His instincts hadn’t just totally misled him about her nature. He hadn’t thought once before accepting their verdict, hadn’t found ramifications to ponder as he let himself be swept away in the tide of what he’d thought mutual perfection. She’d satisfied his every demanding taste, his merciless critical eye finding only things to appreciate in her. Even the qualities that she’d put forward as her shortcomings, her hang-ups, had charmed him, secured his unquestioning empathy. And it had all been the practiced routine of a hardened seductress who got ahead in the world by seducing powerful fools like him.
If that night had been her first approach, if he hadn’t researched her in advance, if he’d found out her truth after he’d tasted her for real, he wouldn’t have been able to walk away, would have blinded himself to wallow in the pleasures she offered. He would have signed that contract, and maybe, like her previous victims, would have ended up signing over half his fortune. Or all of it.
And the worst part? His condition seemed hopeless.
He’d known how hopeless it was when his cousin Eduardo had passed by to check on him with that outspoken bride of his, Jade.
Durante
