The Illegitimate King (Castaldini Crown 3)

Even if he never loved her, she would always love him.

Clarissa finished watering her plants, then sat down to leaf through the baby magazines Ferruccio had deluged her with.

She looked at all the dimpled, smiling babies and felt she was sinking soundlessly in quicksand. The more she struggled with the determination to make the best of it, the faster she sank.

“Clarissa.”

The lethal growl jammed her heart into her throat. Durante.

She swung around, suddenly seething with anger. “Maledizione, Durante, why did you bark at me like that—?”

The words froze on her lips, followed by the blood in her arteries. He…he looked…rabid.

Had something happened? To their father? To Gabrielle and their baby? But no…he didn’t look agitated, he looked incensed, murderous.

Suspicion bludgeoned her heart.

Ferruccio and Gabrielle…?

His next words confirmed her most insane paranoia. “I had to see you, tell you, before I killed them both.”

She flew to him, threw herself at him. “Durante, no.”

“Those two bastards deserve to die.”

Two bastards? He was talking about two men? Ferruccio must be one of them. Who was the second? Gabrielle had more than one lover?

Could this get more insane?

Durante grabbed her arms. “You have to know how this happened. Before I married Gabrielle, I confronted our father, and he confessed he’d had a mistress for a very long time. I wanted to know the rest of the truth, but he wouldn’t tell me, so I made investigations, found out his mistress was Gabrielle’s mother. I went mad, drove Gabrielle away. Grazie a Dio, she took me back when I came to my senses and realized she had nothing to do with our parents’ affair. But I forgot to call off my investigators. A few days ago their boss called with evidence that Gabrielle’s mother had thirty-eight years ago given birth in Napoli to a son, then given him up for adoption. Along with the other evidence, the suspicion was too much. So I had DNA tests done. And redone. The results are conclusive. That son was Ferruccio. He is our father’s son.”

Chapter Eleven

H ow many times since Ferruccio had entered her life had he caused the world stop for her? Now it had stopped making sense, devolved into absolute chaos and madness.

Durante had said…had said…

Her mind shut down. Then Ferruccio walked in.

He stood at the door, his eyes moving from Durante to her in a slow sweep. Then they closed. He understood what this was all about. And since he did, then he’d…he’d known he was…was…

Ferruccio rushed to her, urgency blazing on his face, vibrating in his voice. “Amore, it is not what you think.”

Durante slammed into him, aborting his momentum, wrestled him by the lapels, roared. “You don’t talk to her, you bastard. Say whatever it is you want to say to me, before I kill you.”

Clarissa noted, with the detachment of total breakdown, Ferruccio breaking Durante’s hold with the explosive economy only a vicious, expert streetfighter could employ.

He staggered away, the turmoil on his face that of a man about to amputate his own arm. “I wanted to take this to my grave, but you’ve cornered me, Durante. I can’t let either of you suspect what you do for one more second. I have to tell you the truth.”

The truth. From the agony in his pleading eyes, it was something worse than anything that had come before. When there could be nothing worse. Yet it seemed there was. And he would finally tell her. Would she survive it? Would she want to?

Ferruccio knew the secrecy was over. He had to confess. It still felt like he was tearing out his own heart. Because he’d tear out Clarissa’s with his confession. He would have given his heart for hers if it would have resolved this, protected her. But it wouldn’t. There was no way out.

“Yes, I am the king’s son.” He panted with the effort of having to deal Clarissa such irreparable damage. Then he did. “It’s you, Clarissa, who is not his daughter.”

Clarissa collapsed.

His heart and skull felt as if they’d exploded.

He was beside her, catching her before she finished her plummet, frantically begging her to come back to him. He barely felt the vise that sank in his shoulder. Durante’s grip.

“Is that the truth?”

He glared up at his half brother. “You think I’d lie about something like this? If you do, why don’t you take a hair from her, too, and run more ‘conclusive tests’?”

Durante seemed about to collapse himself. “Dio…what kind of parents did we have?”

“We still have one around. At least, you and I do. Both of Clarissa’s are dead.” Ferruccio carried Clarissa as if she were made of fragile glass, took her to their bedroom. She was breathing easy. Her nervous system must have shut down to protect her from any real damage. He still called his air ambulance and her doctors, told them to stand by.

He sat down beside her on their bed, which they hadn’t shared for the past week. He’d been dying to have her, and he’d felt her equal need for him, but he hadn’t been able to initiate intimacies. He’d done her enough damage, had wanted her to be the one to seek physical pleasure from him, at her own pace, of her own unpressured volition.

Now all he wanted was to curve himself around her and protect her from her pain and shock, beg her to take of him all she needed to heal herself.

“So you’re my half brother. Why did you never tell me?”

Durante. He was still here.

Ferruccio turned to him, feeling worse than he had after a gang had broken almost every bone in his body.

“For her.” Durante answered his own question. “You never wanted the truth about her parentage to become known, or for this terrible suspicion to stand in the way of your courting her.”

“I’ve always wanted to tell you, but I loved her more. I was content that you thought of me as a friend.”

“Best friend, Ferruccio. And now, brother.”

“Yes. But, my best friend and brother, for now, please leave me alone with my wife.”

Durante pressed his shoulder once, his eyes glittering with emotion, then he turned around.

When he was at the door, Ferruccio called out after him. “And leave King Benedetto alone.”

Durante shook his head, gave a mirthless, ragged laugh. “Now, how did you know confronting him would be the first thing I’d do?”

“I’m serious, Durante. This must stay between us. I don’t want King Benedetto learning that Clarissa has found out the truth. He spent his life protecting her from it. It would serve nothing but to make him desolate.”