“Of course you’d say you didn’t know…you’d say anything to get your hands on your heir…”
“Giuro su Dio—I swear to God—I swear by everything, by my love for you…” And he caved in under the brutality of it all, dropped to his knees before her, caught her around the hips, frantic to stem the tide of her anguish. She struggled, pushed him away, her sobs rattling through them both. He clung, his own agony dripping down his cheeks. “I’m only here because I never knew what love was before you, what needing another was. The first time around, I plunged wholly into loving and needing you. I was so submerged that I didn’t realize how I was messing up. I loved you so much more deeply the second time around that I messed up far worse, because I depend on you to the point of total vulnerability. When I heard you talking to Stella…”
She stilled so totally that if she hadn’t been standing, he’d have thought she’d lost consciousness. She realized.
When she finally spoke, her voice was lifeless. “You loved me so much you gutted me the moment you heard something you misinterpreted.”
“And my crime, after all you gave me, after all I knew of you, is irredeemable. I can only beg your understanding. I reacted so viciously because I have been in the hell you wished me to go to, for eight long years. Then we were together again, and though I didn’t I realize it, I was living in dread of losing you again. A word from you can cast me into heaven or into hell. When I heard you, I went out of my mind with pain, with the dread that I meant nothing to you and that I’d plunge into purgatory again, this time forever. I came to my senses the moment you disappeared, and there was no way I could have known you were pregnant then. Ask your family, ask Ernesto. They didn’t tell you I was tearing up the world looking for you because they believed you were better off without me, because they thought I deserved to lose you. I’m here for you, and only you. I’d do anything for you. Remember the night of the fire and you’ll remember I will brave burning to death for you. Just like you would for me. Have mercy, on both of us, Phoebe and forgive me. Be mine and let me be yours.”
He stopped with a huge gasp, buried his face in her abdomen, where their love was taking a life of its own.
Then he told her everything about the past, things he now understood fully, thanks to Ernesto. His life depended on her believing every word.
She finally sagged in his hold, allowed him to have her again, hugged him back into her, let him breathe and let his heart beat again, blessing him with her resurrected belief and passion.
And he told her about the present. And about the future.
“You made me understand myself, hebbi, you opened my eyes to what I must be. And you were right from the start. I am not the right king for Castaldini. I cannot change to the extent the kingdom needs, and it sure can’t handle my modernizing, expanding ways. But I’ll remain regent until they make up their mind to pursue Durante or Ferruccio. I hope to God one of them accepts. And then I’ll return to doing the best job I ever did on behalf of my kingdom—being its ambassador to the world. And I want only the best negotiator, the best deal-maker, the best diplomat I’ve ever known to be my partner, not only through life, but also in representing Castaldini, in bringing it what most suits it from the world. You. My love. My life.”
The import of Leandro’s words sank like depth charges in Phoebe’s mind. Then they exploded.
She pounced on him, dragging him by the arms as if to pull him back from the edge of an abyss. “What have you done? What have I done? I convinced you you’re wrong for Castaldini? God, Leandro, no! I was only trying to make you adjust your expectations and take it easy in your integration-into-the-world plans. You’ll be the best king Castaldini ever had!”
“No, I won’t. I’m too much of a capitalist democrat, remember? But I can be of much use in other capacities. You were right. About everything. Everything, mi galia tesoro.” When she kept squirming and protesting, he suddenly hugged her off the ground, his reddened eyes gleaming wickedness and worship. “Does it disappoint you too much that you won’t be queen?”
“Don’t you dare joke now, or I’ll hit you, as you so wanted me to.”
He guffawed as he spread himself to the hands flailing on his chest. “You are hitting me. And I love it. Hit me some more.”
She oohed. “I knew you had an S-M streak!”
“And I hope you’ll exploit it to your imagination’s content.” He gathered her up and she immediately melted into him. “That’s my one regret. And was half my reasons for accepting the succession. I wanted to give Castaldini the best queen ever, to make you the queen, as you deserve to be.”
She hit him again, hugged him. “I deserve only to be loved by you. Are you getting that, or do I need to use more force?” He drowned her in another kiss, chuckling in elation and relief. As he wrapped her around him and carried her off to bed, she murmured, “I want you to rest your mind on this point, for as sure as I knew I’d never love another, I never thought I was queen material. But you would make the best king!”
“I want only to be king in your eyes.”
“In my eyes, you’re everything.”
It was still after much debate and tears that she came to accept his decision, to believe she hadn’t caused a huge loss to him, to Castaldini, that the path he’d charted was the best one.
Then he knelt before her at the foot of the bed, produced an embossed silver and gold box from the pocket over his heart.
Phoebe stared as he opened it. A ring, and a pendant.
In Castaldini, she’d seen what she’d believed to be the most stunning creations in the world. These surpassed them all in taste and craftsmanship. But it was the significance of the design—her name wrapped around his and his family’s crest—that had tears bursting from her eyes.
And he pledged. “This is you owning me and holding in your hand and near your heart my future and that of my family. Will you be queen of my life, keeper of my heart and destiny?”
She fell to her knees before him. “I’ll be anything you want me to be. Take all of me, my love. You already own it all anyway.”
He swept her up, and to bed, rejoined them, mended forever what had almost been sundered, what could never be parted again.
“It’s a boy?”
Phoebe snuggled up to Leandro. Boy, he was big enough for her to drape herself over in extreme comfort. “So far.”