LITMIR.BIZ

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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 it’s depriving you of sleep, I’ll tone things down. But I certainly won’t ‘get a wife’ to appease some political fossils, aka your council. And I won’t join your, Leandro’s and Durante’s trio of henpecked husbands. You’re all just jealous you can’t have my lifestyle.”

      Ferruccio gave him that look. The one that made Vincenzo feel hollow inside, made him feel like putting his fist through his king’s too-well-arranged face. It was the pitying glance of a man who knew bone-deep contentment and found nothing more pathetic than Vincenzo’s said lifestyle.

      “When you’re representing Castaldini, Vincenzo, I want the media only to cover your achievements on behalf of the kingdom, not your conquests’ surgical enhancements or tell-alls after you exchange them for different models. I don’t want the sensitive diplomatic and economic agendas you’ll be negotiating to be overshadowed or even derailed by the media circus your lifestyle generates. A wife will show the world that you’ve changed your ways and will keep the news on the relevant work you’ll be doing.”

      Vincenzo shook his head in disbelief. “Dio! When did you become such a stick in the mud, Ferruccio?”

      “If you mean when did I become an advocate for marriage and family life, where have you been the last four years? I’m the living, breathing ad for both. And it’s time I did you the favor of shoving you onto that path.”

      “What path? The one to happily ever after? Don’t you know that’s a mirage most men pursue to no avail? Don’t you realize you’ve beaten impossible odds in finding Clarissa? That not a man in a million will find a fraction of the perfection you share with her?”

      Ferruccio pursed his lips. “I don’t know about those odds, Vincenzo. Durante found Gabrielle. Leandro found Phoebe.”

      “Only two more flukes. You all had such terrible things happen during your childhoods and youths, unbelievably good stuff has been happening later in life in compensation. Having lived a blessed life early on, I seem to be destined to have nothing good from now on, to even out the cosmic balance. I will never find anything like the love you all have.”

      “You’re doing everything in your power not to find love, or to let it find you—”

      Vincenzo interrupted him. “I’ve only accepted my fate. Love is not in the cards for me.”

      “And that’s exactly why I want you to get a wife,” Ferruccio interrupted back. “I don’t want you to spend your life without the warmth and intimacy, the allegiance and certainty only a good marriage can bring.”

      “Thanks for the sentiment. But I can’t have any of that.”

      “Because you haven’t found love? Love is a plus, but not a must. Just look at your parents’ example. They started out suitable in theory and turned out right for each other in practice. Pick someone cerebrally and once she’s your wife, the qualities that logically appealed to you will weave a bond between you that will strengthen the longer you are together.”

      “Isn’t that an inverted way of doing things? You loved Clarissa first.”

      “I thought I did, with everything in me. But what I felt for her was a fraction of what I feel for her now. Going by my example, if you start out barely liking your wife, after a year of marriage you’ll be ready to die for her.”

      “Why don’t you just acknowledge that you’re the luckiest bastard alive, Ferruccio? You may be my king and I may have sworn allegiance to you, but it’s not good for your health to keep shoving your happiness in my face when I already told you there’s no chance I’ll find anything like it.”

      “I, too, once believed I had no chance at happiness, either, that emotionally, spiritually, I’d remain vacant, with the one woman I wanted forever out of reach while I was incapable of settling for another.”

      Was Ferruccio just counterarguing with his own example? Or was he putting two and two together and realizing why Vincenzo was so adamant that he’d never find love?

      Suddenly, bitterness and dejection ambushed him as if they’d never subsided.

      Ferruccio went on, “But you’re pushing forty …”

      “I’m thirty-eight!”

      “…and you’ve been alone since your parents died two decades ago …”

      “I’m not alone. I have friends.”

      “Whom you don’t have time for and who don’t have time for you.” Ferruccio raised his hand, aborting Vincenzo’s interjection. “Make a new family, Vincenzo. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself, and incidentally, for the kingdom.”

      “Next you’ll dictate the wife I should ‘get.’”

      “If you don’t decide on one on your own, ASAP, I will.”

      Vincenzo snorted. “Is that crown you’ve been wearing for the last four years too tight? Or is your head getting bigger? Or is it the mind-scrambling domestic bliss?”

      Ferruccio just smiled that inexorable smile of his.

      Knowing the kind of laserlike determination Ferruccio had, Vincenzo knew there was no refusing him.

      Might as well give in. To an extent he found acceptable.

      He sighed. “If I take the position …”

      “If implies this is a negotiation, Vincenzo. It isn’t.”

      “… it will be only for a year …”

      “It will be until I say.”

      “A year. This isn’t up for negotiation, either. There will be no more ‘scandals’ in the rags, so this wife thing …”

      Ferruccio gave him his signature discussion-ending smile. “Is also nonnegotiable. ‘Get a wife’ wasn’t a suggestion or a request. It’s a royal decree.”

      Ferruccio had eventually buckled. On Vincenzo’s one-year proviso. Provided that Vincenzo chose and trained his replacement to his satisfaction.

      He hadn’t budged on the “get a wife” stipulation. He’d even made it official. Vincenzo still couldn’t believe what he was looking at.

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