The Prodigal Prince's Seduction / The Heir's Scandalous Affair

Durante raised an eyebrow at Gabrielle’s TriBeCa apartment building’s concierge in response to his open surprise and curiosity. Very strange reaction coming from someone whose job description was headed by discretion and diplomacy.

Did the man recognize him? Or was it his tenant’s return dressed in an evening gown in broad daylight, escorted by a strange man?

He did see recognition in the man’s eyes. Which wasn’t strange. Royalty was an endless source of public fascination and romanticizing anywhere in the world. But it was far more so in the States, especially in New York, his adopted home for the last five years. It seemed New Yorkers clamored for anything that would transport them from their hectic lives. Being a prince of an exotic kingdom, combined with his vast wealth, was the stuff of fairy tales to them. That this view did not match the reality of his life had nothing to do with their perception of it. The perception was there to stay.

So the man recognized him. But Durante was still convinced his second interpretation of his reaction was the correct one. Which led to another conviction. The incident had so surprised the man because he hadn’t seen her coming home with a man before. She’d told the truth about first times. As he knew she had.

Not that he was “coming home” with her. He was taking her to her door, had no idea if she’d invite him in.

She’d asked him to take her home after he’d again stressed his open-ended desire, had barely spoken during the ride there. Considering how fluent she’d been up until then, her fraught silence had disturbed him more by the minute. He’d tried to tell himself she was exhausted, that not everyone was an insomniac able to function on sporadic half hours of sleep. But what if this night hadn’t meant as much to her as it had to him? What if she’d decided that it wasn’t prudent to let things develop further?

The sharp ping of the elevator as they reached her tenth-floor apartment cut through his oppressive thoughts. He let her precede him, fell into step with her through the dimly lit corridor leading to her corner apartment, his hand gripping hers as if he were afraid she’d dematerialize. Then they reached her door.

It was the same as all the others. It was also the gateway to the one place on earth he wanted to be.

Behind this door lay the stage of her unseen existence. Where she walked barefoot, dressed and undressed, reflected, shed tears. Where she sang in out-of-tune abandon as she cooked her meals, danced in front of mirrors to snippets of music that blipped inside her head, washed away exhausting days under the spray of hot water, drowned her angers and anxieties in steaming baths and surrendered to oblivion after a book dropped from her hand at the strike of 1 a.m… or after she’d pleasured herself.

Crossing this door into that microcosm became his highest goal. To be allowed into her sanctuary, to be given the privilege to witness her secrets, see to her safety, cater to her needs.

She turned, her eyes overflowing with so much emotion that his mind seized. Then her whisper floated in the silence, impeded, unsteady.

“I wanted to be on my turf when I said this. I-I…”

She was going to say goodbye. No. He couldn’t let her. “Don’t say anything now, bellissima. Just get some sleep. When you’ve taken it all in, let me see you again. We’ll take it from there.”

Her gaze wavered, then she groaned. “God, I’m so stupid. You must be exhausted. Oh, just go please…”

He caught her arm, stopped her babbling. “The last thing I need now is sleep. What did you want to say? If it’s anything other than ‘I don’t think this should go any farther,’ please say it.”

Her flush rose. His whole body bunched as her lips parted on a hectic inhalation and she burst out, “I want this night, Durante. Or this day. Or whenever we are. And I want as many nights and days as I can ha—”

Durante couldn’t wait for her confession to finish exiting her lips before he devoured it along with them. The way she met his ardor halfway with as much ferocity told him everything he needed to know. This time there was no hesitation on her part, as there was no intention of holding back on his.

He stilled the tremors invading the fullness of her lower lip in a bite that made her cry out, arch into him, all lushness and surrender. The taste and feel and scent of her eddied in his arteries, pounded through his system. Her urgency spilled into his mouth in moans and gasps that blanked his mind. He gathered her thighs through the layers of cloth, raised her, opened her for his bulk, pinned her to her door with the force of his hunger. His tongue drove inside her as his erection thrust against her heat through layers of barriers, losing rhythm in the wildness.

Her tongue slid against his, rubbed, tangled, her lips suckled at his, her teeth matching him nip for nip until he slammed against her, rattling the door, the wall that housed it.

This—as she called it—was everything. It couldn’t be spoiled, could only deepen and widen and intensify. This wasn’t rushing things, wasn’t too soon. This was how it should be. They didn’t need time to know this was right. It was. Time would only provide the leisure to explore and savor all the ways of how right it was.

But this totality of response was also frightening. His grip on control was softening, the need to ram inside her, here, now, ride her until she convulsed around him, drenched his flesh with her pleasure and he pumped her full of his, was replacing his mental faculties. And that was after just a kiss.

But it wasn’t a kiss. It was a rehearsal for their mating, enough to portray what that would be like. Something so outside the realm of his experience he couldn’t even begin to imagine it.

He knew that on a fundamental level. He had to know the rest.

He tore his lips from the lock of her passion, shuddered with her cry, her lurch, her demand that he resume their fusion.

He molded her features with his mouth as if mapping them into tactile memory. “Tell me your name, bellissima. I need to know it now, to whisper it into your lips and against your every pleasure point. I need to think it, have it fill my mind as I look on your beauty. I want to roar it as I fill you.”

“Gabrielle…” Her moan penetrated his brain, lodged in his erection. Gabrielle. Yes. Laced with femininity and strength and complexity. It fit her. But then she’d make any name exceptional, magical. “Gabrielle Williamson.”

Everything decelerated as her full name sank into his mind. Then it hit bottom, detonated like a depth mine.

Gabrielle Williamson. The woman who’d recently approached him with an offer he’d refused, as he had dozens of similar ones.

She hadn’t accepted “not interested” for an answer, had contacted just about everyone who had an in with him to secure face time with him. He’d heard from many on her behalf, but it was one of his associates who’d finally roused his curiosity. Gerald Whittaker, as shrewd a businessman as they came, had said she was confident her offer was one he couldn’t refuse. When he’d said that he’d heard the Don Corleone line too many times for it to work, Gerald had had every confidence himself that she must be on to something Durante would want to know about, that he should at least give her a chance.

Out of respect for Gerald’s opinion, he almost had. He’d also wondered what kind of woman had such a rock so taken with her.

But he hadn’t agreed to meet her. Because he’d found out exactly what kind of woman she was. The most casual background check had returned a screaming verdict. Don’t let her within a mile of you.

So he hadn’t. Not because he’d believed himself in any danger from the femme fatale whose favorite snack was billionaires. He’d been disgusted by the picture he’d put together. Of her stringing Gerald around, using him to get to an even bigger prey. Him. The offer he couldn’t refuse would have been the pleasure of having her, no doubt. She’d have been confident that he, like dozens before him, would succumb once she had him in range of her charms. He’d fleetingly entertained agreeing to her panted-after meeting, just to get the message across that he could snack on women like her. If he was into junk food.

He shouldn’t have been so smug. He should have known that she’d have more cards to play. And she’d played them. Played him. And how. She’d reinvented her approach, hit from another angle. And she’d struck the bull’s-eye. He hadn’t only proved himself susceptible to her wiles, but he also must have been her easiest quarry ever.

Gabrielle Williamson. She was the woman with whom he’d spent the most revitalizing, enthralling time of his life, a time he’d planned never to end. The woman who’d made him forget exhaustion and every preconception about himself and what he could feel. The woman who was wrapped around him, her flesh feeling as if it were as vital to him as his own.

She dragged his face back down to hers, whimpering at his momentary withdrawal. It had been only a moment since the lips claiming his had formed the name that had sent reality crashing into him. It had taken only a moment to plunge him from the heights of delight to the depths of disillusion.

His whole being in revolt, he tried to pull back, but she wouldn’t let him. She tightened her vise around his body, his will, her ragged whispers of desire impaling his brain, causing another geyser of response to erupt inside him.

So what if she wasn’t the unique woman for whom he’d broken all his rules, was instead a siren who came with a warning ignored at the price of defamation and destruction? It should change nothing. His body was reaching critical mass, demanding hers. And she was off ering…every thing. He should drag her inside, throw her to the ground and take it all. Then walk away.

Disillusionment bellowed its bitterness over the flames of desire. It wasn’t powerful enough to douse them. Only agony might be.

It tore him apart to think of it all reduced to…this. Rutting. Sexual release. He wanted the unprecedented passion, the sublime emotions along with the all-consuming lust.

But those had all been an illusion. She was everything he abhorred and despised. Nothing like what she’d projected so seamlessly all night. How had she done it? How had she misled his senses to this extent? How had she imbued herself with a vibe that had been so attuned to his? How had she been able to assume a nature so alien to her own? To project characteristics she couldn’t begin to understand, let alone have?

The answer to all that was obvious. She was a chameleon. A black widow. A cold-blooded predator.

“Durante, te voglio bene assai…”

Her words echoed the ones he’d sung—sung—to her. They ripped into him, made him go rigid with the spike of arousal.

For a suspended moment, he let her overwhelm his reason, let himself surrender to the need to forget caution, to deny his realizations. But the very loss of the control finally hurt enough to ignite the deep freeze of rage.

He was just another quarry to her. One she’d gambled she could capture if she got close enough. And he wouldn’t let her win. Not even if he was dying to let her. Especially because he was.

He tore her arms off his body, feeling as if they’d taken off strips of his own skin.

Still oblivious to his awakening, she cupped his face, her own etched with her coup de grâce, an expression that would have brought him to his knees if he hadn’t realized the truth. Total trust, full surrender. Temptation thundered through him.

He staggered away in self-disgust.

This time when he recoiled, he broke free from the prison of her thighs, dropped her back on her own feet. She stumbled, crashed back against the door.

Panic flashed in her eyes. His heart stampeded. Had his involuntary force frightened her, brought back memories of when another man had used his superior strength to hurt her?

Dio, what was he thinking? This was an act. Her sob story about the husband who’d abused her—the husband she’d used and destroyed instead—had been a string of masterfully composed lies.

Sure enough, the panic was turning to an uncanny emulation of pained confusion, then dread. “Durante…what’s wrong?”

Everything, he wanted to roar. You, the woman, the treasure I thought I found, doesn’t exist.

He glared at her, everything he wanted to yell frothing inside him. His body quaked as if on the verge of explosion.

Then, after a long moment filled with labored-breathing, without another word or glance, he turned on his heel and walked away.

He wouldn’t look back. Ever again. The dream was over.

Gabrielle stood plastered to her door, watching Durante walk away.

She couldn’t breathe. Something sharp and burning had lodged in her gut, twisting her to shreds, coagulating into a mass of pain.

A wave of darkness swamped her.

She stumbled around, pressed her clammy face to her door, fumbled inside her purse. Key. Get inside. Damned if she would faint out here. She’d given the tabloids enough fodder for a decade. This would see her to her grave.

Then she was inside. Alone. As she should have remained, as she would from now on. She’d never let anyone close again, never…

All her nerves seemed to snap. She went down in a heap on the ground, her dress swirling around her like a suffocating vortex.

She tore at it. Couldn’t bear the oppression. Had to breathe.

It took forever. Then she was in her panties, staggering up and to her bedroom. She fell onto her bed, folded into a ball of anguish. Her body was still throbbing, demanding him…Stop it.

Misery engulfed her, wrung her, first with dry heaves, then with tears so violent she thought she might dissolve, dissipate.

She’d thought she’d braced herself for the worst when she’d sought him out, preparing for anything from cold dismissal to ireful rejection. But how could she have predicted the events that had dominoed since she’d laid eyes on him, knocking sense and good intentions out of reach until she’d found herself wrapped around him, unaware and uncaring if the world was watching, begging for him to possess her, all but offering him carte blanche with her life?

She’d been certain of what he felt. She’d thought they’d shared something that transcended time and explanations, something real on the most fundamental level.

It had all been an illusion. He’d lied when he’d said he didn’t care about labels. He must have been trying to stimulate his glutted senses by leading on yet another desperate female to see how far she’d go, how much of herself she’d offer.

She’d offered him everything. Her pain and shame and trust. She’d left herself wide open, and the blow had crushed her.

In her mind, the feverish moments played again, filled with the cherishment and pleasure his every word and touch had bestowed. Then he’d demanded her name and she’d given it, delighted to complete his knowledge of her, unable to wait to hear it on his lips in all the ways he’d promised.

More images and sensations rose until she felt she was drowning in black ink. Durante, his body losing its gentle ferocity, stiffening, withdrawing, pushing her away.

For one moment, panic had flashed, fear that he, too, got his kicks abusing women. Worse, that something was wrong with her, like Ed had told her, something that drove otherwise normal men to abuse her.

The fear had passed as soon as it had flared. Not Durante. She wouldn’t let Ed’s vicious psychological sabotage fester again, not for a second. The only one who had something wrong with him was Ed.

But then, something worse than physical abuse had filled Durante’s eyes, twisted his face. The rage and revulsion he’d transmitted would leave a deeper scar than anything Ed had done.

After all they’d shared, she hadn’t warranted the benefit of a moment’s hesitation before he believed the labels she’d been stuck with rather than the reality of her. His decision had been instantaneous, the change in him clearly irreversible. It was the final proof that there was no use. That Ed had won.

He’d been winning for years now, he and his lackeys painting her so black that no one would believe her even if she broke her pact of silence and told the world what a sick bastard he was. And she hadn’t cared. She hadn’t cared for anyone enough to care what they thought of her. Until Durante…

Was this how despair took root in someone’s psyche? Would it now blossom into a monstrous growth that would suffocate everything in its path? Had an injury like this been the origin of her father’s suffering? His mother’s? Would she react the same way, follow in their footsteps down that bottomless spiral…?

She came to no conclusion before the blackness of exhaustion and heartache dragged her under.

Six

Durante was standing in the distance. His eyes were heavy with disparagement, accusation, his fists clenched at his sides.

She began to walk toward him, her steps gaining speed until she was running. She had to beg him to hear her out. She wasn’t what the rumors made her out to be. He of all people knew that. He was the only one she’d shown her real self.

But as she approached him, he turned around and strode away. And she went mad.

She felt her feet lifting off the ground as she caught up with him, sank her fingers in his arm, wrenched. He turned on her with a snarl. And she punched him. In the face. Felt the crunch of cartilage and bones in her hand and his nose, the pain explode through her joints.

She stared up at him in horror as his eyes brimmed with icy rage, and she knew he wouldn’t hit back. She almost wished he would, to show her some reaction besides that chilling disdain.

He gave her nothing, stared down at her as if at a maggot.

Her thoughts were swerving from insisting on paying for the reconstructive surgery that would repair the nose she’d pulverized, to deciding to give him a matching broken jaw to go with it… when she lurched awake.

Her eyes wouldn’t open. She’d cried them shut.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Damn him and damn everyone else in this damn stupid world. 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.