The Illegitimate King (Castaldini Crown 3)

She dove into his arms, felt as if she surged into his being, as she had—lived there now, ruled supreme. “Since I love you endlessly, you’d better make it at least that long.”

He held her tight, then tighter, and they exchanged confessions and pledges and he soothed her turmoil over her discoveries, wallowed in the still wary, yet deepening certainty of their mutual devotion.

When it all threatened to overwhelm them again, and fearing for her health, both emotional and physical, he suddenly tickled her.

“Now I am the king’s bastard and the bastard king. While you are the queen’s bastard and the bastard queen. How’s that for proof we’re made for each other?”

She kissed him, sobbed and giggled. “Uomo cattivo, you wicked man, how dare you make it funny when it isn’t?”

“No, it isn’t. But it’s destiny. Ours.”

“Show me.”

He swept her into his arms and showed her. And with every word and touch, he wrote with her another page in what he was now certain was a destiny that would leave its mark on the world.

Epilogue

Ferrucio looked around the room where his family had gathered.

He still couldn’t believe it. He still woke up suffocating, fearing that the last twenty-one months hadn’t happened. That he was alone, with only work for company and comfort.

Each time, he’d woken up in Clarissa’s arms. Which made him fear even more that he was dreaming.

But he couldn’t have dreamed her. His wildest imaginings wouldn’t have created her, his wife and best friend and ally, his queen and lover. And as if she wasn’t beyond what any mortal deserved, she’d gifted him with more.

Their son.

His heart almost burst yet again, as he watched their determined tyke trying in vain to catch Clarissa’s disdainful—and he suspected, intentionally taunting—cat, Figaro. Love and pride and fear and hope reduced his insides to the consistency of jelly.

It was a whole year today, since their perfect Massimo was born. And the months before he was born had all flowered in escalating harmony and pleasure and joy.

It wasn’t just his and Clarissa’s tiny family that was flourishing. The king—or the ex-king, as he insisted on being called, an insistence which no one heeded—was in the best condition he’d been in since his stroke. Julia, Phoebe’s sister, was in the best state she’d ever been in since her affliction with a rare partial paralysis. Gabrielle and Durante, after their initial confusion, were delighted to share Ferruccio as a sibling, Gabrielle on her mother’s side, Durante on his father’s. While Durante’s and Paolo’s relationship with Clarissa seemed only to deepen, now that the real cause behind their mother’s depression had come to light.

“Admiring the view?”

Ferruccio turned to see Leandro. Durante was a step behind. He greeted his two friends, whom he’d finally been able to tell they were more than that and whom it had taken minimal groveling to get to become his main men on the new Council they’d forged, the one Castaldini needed now.

“What’s not to admire?” Ferruccio said. “Look at her. Have you ever seen anything more miraculous?”

“Uh, actually, yes.” Leandro smirked. “Take a look around.”

Ferruccio did, this time attempting to focus on anyone besides Clarissa and Massimo. Phoebe was at her most radiant, talking animatedly to Julia and Gabrielle and the king. Her and Leandro’s little girl, Joia, now twenty months old, was fast asleep on Phoebe’s round-again tummy. Gabrielle and Durante’s fourteen-month-old boy, Alessandro, was playing with the fifth—and they swore last—addition to Paolo and Julia’s family, with their older kids all over the place yet managing not to be noisy or disruptive, mostly babysitting the younger ones to give adults space to talk.

Durante nodded. “We’re all lucky bastards.”

“Since I’m the literal lucky bastard among you,” Ferruccio said, “I reserve my place as the luckiest among us.”

“Let him have first place, Durante.” Leandro smirked. “He just can’t live if he isn’t the first in everything.”

Ferruccio started to protest, then shook his head and laughed.

He was the luckiest. No need to rub their noses in it.

The other two men joined him in laughter.

Clarissa scooped Massimo off the ground before he grabbed Figaro’s tail. Figaro knew he was a kid, treated him with the condescending tolerance the status deserved. But the imperious tomcat had his limits. His tail was foremost among them.

She turned around at the sound of three men’s laughter, her heart twisting with love as she watched her amore, her king and husband. She hadn’t thought she could possibly love him more, but she did, every day. For who he was, what he did, not only for her, but for all of Castaldini, the kingdom that was once again a haven of peace and prosperity. But one thing made her so grateful to him, so proud of him, she sometimes couldn’t breathe, thinking of it.

The incredible sacrifice he’d so selflessly insisted on, to remain the “bastard king,” as he called himself, to protect his father and her. They’d never let King Benedetto suspect that she knew the truth. She loved him now even more, for being her father when he wasn’t her real father. She felt his eyes on her now.

She walked up to him and whispered in his ear. He nodded.

“Hey, everyone!” she called out, and everyone turned to her, a hush falling over the huge chamber. “King Benedetto—hush, Father—” she shushed him when he protested to being called king now, as he never failed to “—has some news for you!”

As everyone turned to him, all attention, he stood up and took his first steps since Ferruccio’s and Clarissa’s wedding. Strong steps, almost with no visible limp. He’d been practicing, exercising, but hadn’t wanted anyone to know until he was able to walk without his cane. He’d told only her.

The chamber echoed with sounds of delight as everyone surged to congratulate him.

Ferruccio was the last to approach.

Clarissa’s heart ached. Ferruccio still considered King Benedetto her father, not his, and the tension in their relationship was not completely gone. He said he loved the king for being her father, for protecting her as a child, for loving her as she deserved to be loved. She still prayed for the day he’d come to love him for himself, to forgive him his trespasses and guilt.

Now the considering look Ferruccio gave her father rattled her with anxiety. He’d never say anything cutting to him, not anymore, especially not now. But what did that look mean?