But he certainly hadn’t said or done anything overt to support this belief. And that had been before Stella—who went around swatting away fawning females from Leandro as she would flies—had told her what Phoebe realized she’d been the last to know. A fact that was widely accepted. That in order to take the crown, Leandro would have to marry an “acceptable” woman. And Phoebe was certainly far less acceptable than the royal-blooded Stella D’Agostino. In fact, Stella herself was second best, and it was just as widely known that she’d get him only if his perfect match and ideal running companion for the crown turned him down. That woman was someone who’d become Phoebe’s friend—Clarissa D’Agostino, the king’s daughter.
Now, finally, she let herself face it. The truth. He’d feared exposure not for the sake of their future together, but for his as king. That Clarissa, or even Stella, boosted his chances and she didn’t—she’d never even been in the running for his future bride. That she’d been cowardly, fearing that if she brought up any of her grievances or suspicions, he would have ended their affair. That she’d been so weak, so in love, she’d forced herself not even to think about it, had buried her head in the sand so that she could take what she could get.
But self-deception hadn’t done a thing to stop her anguish from mounting. Hadn’t she become more distraught the closer he’d gotten to the crown? Hadn’t she subconsciously wished he wouldn’t get it, so that he could settle on her? Hadn’t she feared that if he did take it—and Clarissa or Stella with it—and still wanted her, that she wouldn’t be able say no? She’d started to understand how some women ended up being the “other woman.”
And she’d gotten the wish she’d hidden even from herself. He was not in the running for the crown anymore. And he wanted her. Had said what she’d never thought he’d say. That he needed her.
Yeah. Right. After treating her like a dirty secret for more than a year, then cutting her off for four months without a word?
All her anguish burst out of her. “What do you need me for, Leandro? As your on-demand lover, like before? Or perhaps something a bit more permanent, now that you’ve run out of better options? What would I be in your life at this point? The ever-present outlet for your frustrations? The convenient body when you need sexual relief? Would I even be the only one to provide that? Have I been the only one?”
He gaped at her, as if she’d metamorphosed into an alien being right in front of him. The cold rage that crept into his eyes almost made her cringe and cry out a retraction.
Almost. She stood her ground. She had to. She needed to. It felt as if she’d been slowly poisoned by humiliation.
He tore his hands off her, stood and glared daggers at her enervated body. “You’re accusing me, after all I’ve done, all you’ve cost me? Why don’t you be up-front about what’s really happening here, what I suspected during those four months that you didn’t even bother to pick up the phone to inquire if I was alive or dead? I was worth your while when I was lined up to be the next king. Minutes ago you melted in my arms when you still didn’t know there was no longer any chance of that. Now I’m suddenly patently resistible.”
His aggression and the unjust accusations felt like a one-two combo. But the sting only strengthened her resolve, ignited her anger, sent it raging.
She struggled up. “You can think what you like.”
He swooped down on her, dragged her into his arms. “You’re not turning your back on me, too.”
She looked up and started to push at him and…stopped. Slumped into his hold. His eyes. What she saw there hit her harder than a KO would have. Pain. Such Pain.
And it all slotted in her mind. The loss that must be gnawing at him, corroding his spirit as the realization that he’d ceased to be everything that defined him congealed into reality. Need to absorb his pain, need for him hammered at her. And he’d said he needed her…
No. He didn’t need her. He’d never needed her. He just needed to assert his thwarted will, to placate his wounded pride.
All the pain that she’d been fooling herself she hadn’t been accumulating for the past year and a half ripped through her as she tore out of his arms and jerked on her clothes.
“I hope you’ll be very happy in your new country with your miserable view of others and your self-absorption. They sure are winning you many allies.”
He approached her, his fury causing her to freeze. “So first you throw this out-of-the-blue accusation at me, and when I throw back something relevant, instead of showing me I’m wrong, you use it as the excuse to do what you’d do anyway. Desert me. And I’m supposed to take part in this act? Speak the lines where we pretend I’m the callous offender and you’re the noble accused?”
Indignation thawed her. She yanked up her zipper. “It’s I who’ve been reading the lines you dictated. And I’m through.”
“I dictated that you tell me you only felt fully alive when I touched you, took you? That was an act? That’s why it’s so easy to walk away now? To leave me?”
His harshness no longer shook her, only stirred all the pent-up hurt and humiliation she’d hidden from herself. “Leave you? When was I ever with you? All I ever was to you was the adoring fool who stroked your ego when you could spare me the odd hour. You sure liked hearing me say those things, didn’t you? That colossal ego of yours is wounded, and you need a constant supply of worship.” She stopped, panting. Then another wave of bitterness gushed out. “You don’t need me, Leandro—you just need to know that I need you. But contrary to what I may have let you believe, my life doesn’t revolve around you. I have responsibilities and aspirations—I’m not a toy you can drag out whenever you feel the urge.”
“Yet when I felt that urge you begged for more.” He caught her against his body, his rough breathing a furnace blast against her neck as he nuzzled her, his hands dipping below her clothes, one cupping her breast, the other her core, each knowing probe and caress a jolt of stimulation. “Your body is mine, has just writhed in need beneath me, convulsed in pleasure around me, is still begging for me now even as you say otherwise.”
The cruelty of his manipulation of her emotions and responses even as he exposed his true opinion of her smeared her self-worth in the truth. A truth she’d still been hoping she was wrong about.
He cared nothing for her. She’d merely served a purpose to him. Now that she was refusing to serve it anymore, he’d torn off the mask he’d worn around her. Just like he had with his king and country.
She wrenched out of his arms, ran out of his penthouse.
She didn’t stop until she’d put half a world between them.
Where she prayed she’d never hear of or from him again.
One
The present
“Castaldini’s future depends on you.”
The slightly slurred words hit Phoebe Alexander like a sledgehammer.
She gaped at the man who’d spoken them before she’d even cleared the towering doors to his state room. He was approaching her like a slow-motion, head-on collision.
She watched King Benedetto limp across the gigantic Castaldini crest that bulls-eyed the carpet sprawling over acres of mosaic hardwood floor. Each shuffle transmitted its struggle to her muscles. His cane thumped the ground to the rhythm of her haywire heartbeats.
If she hoped she’d misheard what he’d said, he said it again as if to underline the acuteness of her hearing.
“It all depends on you, figlia mia.”
Every