Temporarily His Princess - By Olivia Gates Page 0,2
Did you actually believe you were more to me than a convenient lay?”
She jerked as if he’d backhanded her. His trembling hold on restraint slipped another notch. He had to get this over with before he started to rant, exposing the truth.
“I should have known you wouldn’t take the abundant hints. From the way you believed my every word it was clear you lack any astuteness. You sure didn’t become my executive projects manager through merit. But you’re starting to anger me, acting as if I owe you anything. I already paid for your time and services with far more than either was worth.”
Her tears finally overflowed.
They streaked her hectic cheeks in pale tracks, melting the last of his sanity, making him snarl, “Next time a man walks away, let him. If you’d rather not hear the truth about how worthless you were to him….”
“Stop…please…” Her hands rose, as if to block blows. “I know what I felt from you…it was real and intense. If—if you no longer feel this way, just leave me my memories….”
“Is that obliviousness or just obnoxiousness? Seems you’ve forgotten who I am, and don’t know the caliber of women I’m used to. But it’s not too late to give you a reality check. Your replacement is arriving in minutes. Care to hang around and get a sobering, humbling look at her?”
Her disbelief finally disintegrated and resignation seeped in to fill the vacuum it left behind.
She was giving up the act. At last. It was over.
He turned away, feeling like he’d just kicked down the last pillar in his world.
But she wouldn’t let it be over, her tear-soaked words lodging in his back like knives. “I…loved you, Vincenzo. I believed in you…thought you an exceptional human being. Turns out you’re just a sleazy user. And no one will ever know, since you’re also a flawless liar. I wish I’d never seen you…hope one of my ‘replacements’ pays you back…for what you’ve done to me.”
When his last nerve snapped, he rounded on her. “You want to get ugly, you got it. Get out or I won’t only make you wish you’d never seen me, but that you’d never been born.”
His threat had no effect on her; her eyes remained dead. Then, as if fearing she’d fall apart, she turned and exited the room.
He waited until a muted thud told him she’d left. Then he allowed the pain to overwhelm him.
One
The present
Vincenzo Arsenio D’Agostino stared at his king and reached the only logical conclusion.
The man had lost his mind.
He must have buckled under the pressure of ruling Castaldini while steering his multibillion-dollar business empire. And being the most adoring and attentive husband and father who walked the planet. No man could possibly weather all that with his mental faculties intact.
That must be the explanation for what he’d just said.
Ferruccio Selvaggio-D’Agostino—the bastard king, as his opponents called him, relishing it being a literal slur, since Ferruccio was an illegitimate D’Agostino—twisted his lips. “Do pick your jaw off the floor, Vincenzo. And no, I’m not insane. Get. A. Wife. ASAP.”
Dio. He’d said it again.
This time Vincenzo found himself echoing it. “Get a wife.”
Ferruccio nodded. “ASAP.”
“Stop saying that.”
Mockery gleamed in Ferruccio’s steel eyes. “You’ve got only yourself to blame for the rush. I’ve needed you on this job for years, but every time I bring you up to the council they go apoplectic. Even Leandro and Durante wince when your name is mentioned. That playboy image you’ve been diligently cultivating is now so notorious, even gossip columns are beginning to play it down. And that image won’t cut it in the leagues I need you to play in now.”
“That image never hurt you. Just look where you are today. The king of one of the most conservative kingdoms in the world, with the purest woman on earth as your queen.”
Ferruccio shrugged amusedly at his summation. “I was only known as the ‘Savage Ironman’ in reference to my name and business reputation, and my reported…hazard to women was beyond wildly exaggerated. I had no time for women as I clawed my way up from the gutter to the top, then I was in love with Clarissa for six years before she became mine. But your notoriety as one of the world’s premier womanizers won’t do when you’re Castaldini’s emissary to the United Nations. You’ve got to clean up your act and spray on some respectability to clear away the stench of the scandals that hang around you.”
Vincenzo scowled up at him. “If