CAROL MARINELLI - Scandals Of The Royals - Princess From the Shadows

“That man was a bastard. He took advantage of you, of the fact that you loved him. He cheated both you, and his wife. All of his children. He should carry the shame of this, and I’m willing to bet that he doesn’t.”

She forced a laugh. “I’m sure he doesn’t. I’m sure he doesn’t care enough about either of us.”

He moved his thumb over the back of her hand. “What happened? After he told you, after the last time you were together?”

He kept holding on to her, offering her strength. She looked down at their hands, joined together in her lap. “I had to find my clothes. I gathered them up, and I went into the bathroom. Then I threw up.”

It had been awful, her entire body shaking and then, with Gabriel watching from the bed, she’d had to stumble from the room, be sick right in bathroom, where he could hear. Where he would know just how much pain she was in.

“And then I got dressed, and I walked out. I avoided him the next day and prayed he wouldn’t come back again. I started feeling sick soon after that and then I realized … and I had to tell my father. Everything. He made me tell Gabriel. And then he paid Gabriel a lot of money. To never come back. To keep quiet when the media discovered I was pregnant.”

She breathed in deeply. “It wasn’t like in movies where a woman finds out she’s pregnant and it’s somehow this wonderful moment. I was horrified. Numb. I had to go to the doctor and get tested for every STD under the sun because clearly our birth control efforts had failed, and there was no telling who else he’d been sleeping with. What he might have given me. And I just sort of existed for the next few months. I didn’t want to feel the baby kick. It made it too real. But when Luca was born … that was like the movies. He was just so tiny and vulnerable. And he needed me. But I realized then how much I needed him too. He gave me purpose. He made me want to be better.”

“And better is denying you have sexual desire?” he asked, his voice soft.

“That’s what it’s meant since Gabriel, yes. But it’s not just that. It’s everything. Things that feel good can be wrong. You have to trust in something more than feelings.”

“He was a bastard.”

“For cheating on his wife? Don’t you plan on cheating on me?”

Rodriguez looked down at Carlotta, at her face, streaked with tears he wasn’t even certain she’d noticed. The confession had cost her, and he could well understand why. And now, faced with her question, he felt like he’d been eviscerated by her words.

Yes. He had been planning on carrying on as he’d always done. But he had promised honesty. Surely that changed things? Now though, he didn’t feel like it did.

“I promised you honesty,” he said, his voice rough.

She nodded. “I know.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“Rodriguez …”

“I am not the same as he is.” He said it to convince himself, and the sad part was, he didn’t feel convinced. Not even remotely. He felt like he was deserving of every ounce of scorn he was ready to heap onto the man who had dared play with Carlotta in that way. Who had taken a young woman’s fragile emotions and used them so he could find satisfaction in her body.

And for the first time he wondered how he was different than a man like that. Because he had always assumed his behavior was fine. He always parted with his partners on good terms. They had fun, in bed and out, he bought them gifts, he made them feel good about themselves. He’d never considered it wrong, not for a moment.

Now he wondered if he had ever left a woman feeling like that. If he’d truly only used his lovers.

No, he’d never been guilty of quite what Gabriel had. No children, no cheating.

But he had been planning on doing that. To Carlotta. To Luca. It would have been in the tabloids. Luca would be able to see it.

“I won’t cheat,” he said, the words falling from his lips before he had a chance to think them through.

“What?”

“I will stay faithful to you. If you will do the same for me.”

“Forever?”

“Forever. I can’t promise any deep, abiding emotion I … I can’t.” It was the honest truth, a limitation of his that he had accepted long ago. Embraced. “I just don’t have that. But I can control my actions, and I never want to put you in the position of being hurt or humiliated again. I will never do to you what Gabriel did to his wife. And I don’t want Luca seeing tabloid photos of me out with other women.”

He had never believed he had it in him to be a good father. He still didn’t. He knew nothing about it. The mere thought of his own father made him feel ill. But he wouldn’t flaunt any kind of disrespect for Luca’s mother. Wouldn’t have Luca seeing evidence of infidelity in their marriage.

If Rodriguez had had a mother he could remember, he would have wanted the same.

And he didn’t want to be anything like the man who was Luca’s father in genes only.

She looked up at him, her green eyes rimmed in red from crying. “I promise to be faithful to you too.”

He felt like they were taking vows now. Like everything spoken between them in this room would be binding.

“I need you to promise something else too,” he said.

“What’s that?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

“Gabriel’s not invited into our bed.”

She grimaced. “No problem.”

“I don’t mean literally, and I don’t mean in the sense that I think you might fantasize about him or something. I mean any hang-ups he’s left you with. The guilt. You loved him. It didn’t just go away when he admitted he’d lied to you. I’ve never loved anyone, Carlotta. I know it makes people do things they wouldn’t normally do. And I just want you.”

She drew in a shaking breath. “I don’t know if I can, Rodriguez. What I did was … I can’t forgive myself for it.”

“How long did your affair with him last?”

“Every weekend for about eight weeks.”

“And you fell in love with him?”

“I was a twenty-three-year-old virgin. I thought I was in love with him the moment I went to bed with him, the night that I met him. I saw white dresses and diamond rings and forever.”

“And if you had known he was married when you met, what would you have done?”

“I never would have let him touch me.”

“He waited to tell you until he knew he had you wrapped around his finger. He’s the one who should be ashamed. Deeply. He deceived you. He manipulated you.”

“I still did the wrong thing,” she insisted.

“And I am in no position to throw stones. I’ve made mistakes. That’s another thing I’ll never ask of you. I’ll never ask you to be perfect, because I know I never will be.”

“I think I can do that,” she said, her voice trembling, a small laugh escaping.

“I know this isn’t what either of us expected, but I think we can make it work.” He moved his thumb over her smooth, creamy skin. His body responding to the silken texture, to her scent. Even now, he could remember how it had been to caress the even softer skin of her breasts. A tremor of lust rocked him.

“And you’ll always tell the truth?”

“I will,” he said.

“What are you thinking right now?”

He gritted his teeth. “I’m thinking about how much I want to continue what we started on the beach. How beautiful your breasts are. How much I want to taste them again.”

Her cheeks flushed deep rose, her full lips curving up slightly. “Not exactly what I was expecting.”

“But honest,” he said.

“I want you too, but …”

“Forget everything right now. What do you want?”

“You,” she said. “I want to make love with you. But …”

He leaned in and kissed her. Carlotta closed her eyes and let the touch of Rodriguez’s mouth on her wash everything away. The guilt. The hurt. His kiss cleansed her, left her empty, wanting, then filled her again with desire, need.