LITMIR.BIZ

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in the twenty-first century that didn’t have one building built later than the eighteenth. Its mixture of Gothic, Moorish and baroque architecture was considered the best-preserved in the world. Or it used to be. There’d been cuts in the restoration programs over the last twenty years, channeling of funds into venues of a more pressing nature. To her—someone who hadn’t seen Castaldini before those times—the kingdom looked magnificent anyway, even with the disrepair. But Castaldinians said the decline had been noticeable. And though she hadn’t been at her most observant of the outside world these past years, she’d noticed the deterioration deepening.

      Jawara did still feel like a jewel, as its Moorish name proclaimed it to be, sparkling under perpetual sunlight, nestling between the banks of the Boriana River and the Montalbo mountains before giving way to rolling plains to the north and south. But it did look like a cracked jewel the closer you looked. Now it needed the help of its closest peak, the 2,010-meter Odesilia only a few kilometers from the city center, to augment the majestic feel that it was losing. And as they entered the oldest part of the city, which was dominated by the massive royal palace overlooking it on a hill between two smaller mountains, she drew the parallel for the first time.

      The whole place was getting old and tired. Like its ruler.

      That was why it was imperative for a new king to take over.

      A powerhouse like Leandro could be Castaldini’s salvation in so many ways. If he could see that Castaldini needed only revitalization, not reinvention.

      For though he thought the country stuck in time, she saw it as a refuge from the invasion of modernity. Let the rest of the world join that parade. Castaldini felt like the last stronghold of times gone by. And no, she wasn’t romanticizing those times by calling them the good old days. The “old days” had had their share of the bad. And the extremely bad. But though Castaldini wasn’t perfect and was showing its age, she believed it had the potential to become the best possible combination of old and new, under the leadership of the monarch Leandro could be.

      She looked at him now. She couldn’t get enough of looking at him. Never would. But right now, worry was a fist tightening over her heart. How did he see this place? Did it have the same magic and potential in his eyes? Or did he see it through the cast of bitterness and the critical eye of the developer? How did he feel as they approached the royal palace, the place she’d come to call home in the past ten years? The place he’d thought he would call home once, only to have his plans so viciously torn apart?

      She hung on every nuance as his eyes, now as verdant as Castaldini’s meadows, as clear and jewel-like as its shores, roamed the enormous complex of buildings comprising the palace.

      They passed by the National Library, the Royal Museum, the ceremonial halls and government offices on their way to the royal apartments and the king’s state rooms. It took a while to get there, as the palace grounds had a depth of ten miles and the palace itself lay over four hundred thousand square feet.

      She hadn’t been inside even one-quarter of its more than one thousand rooms during her stay. She’d only once visited the rooms most famous for their design and decoration, the king’s and queen’s apartments. It had been a chance visit with Julia about three years ago. Those rooms had indeed been something to see, even if the deceased queen’s apartments had the stale feel of a shrine, and the king’s had shown the most neglect she’d seen anywhere in Castaldini. She’d then thought the visit worth it just for the mural-framed study window from which the king waved to subjects and visitors in the Solarella Square on Fridays and Sundays, and the ceiling frescoes painted by masters who’d inspired Michelangelo and Raphael.

      She regretted ever seeing the apartments. She now had an indelible image of the quarters that would one day be Leandro’s if he accepted the succession—and those that would house the woman Leandro would marry.

      She no longer had the least delusion she’d be that woman. She wondered how she’d harbored it once. She was certainly not queen material. But then, she hadn’t thought of it that way in the past. She’d wanted only to be Leandro’s. She’d never thought about what being his when he became crown prince, then king, would entail.

      She could imagine both apartments revamped for the new, in-their-prime king and queen, saw the connecting room between them, with a king-size bed placed below the magnificent central dome, where Leandro and his…his…

      She tore her eyes away from his face, her thoughts away from the images. But it was no use. She could still see him, caught in the throes of passion as he’d been with her years ago. But this time he was with a faceless woman. Leandro. Growling in pleasure, driven to ferocity by that woman’s touch, that woman’s body and hunger, his magnificent body spread over her, undulating in a fever of arousal, driving between the splay of her greed, roaring in completion, spilling…

      She bit down to stop a surge of tremors. How stupid was it to feel this way, when she’d made a pact with him about the nature of their liaison this time? The kind designed to burn someone out of one’s system? What she did believe she needed?

      The limo glided to a smooth stop at the gates leading to the king’s quarters. She was thankful for the bustle of activity as Leandro descended from the limo and came around to hand her down, as they were met by dozens of people pouring out welcomes and opening doors all the way into the king’s inner sanctum.

      Once they were alone, Leandro exclaimed, “Per Dio, this place is falling apart.”

      Phoebe frowned. The place was in bad shape. King Benedetto hadn’t had any renovations—nor any repairs—done since long before she’d been here. Oh, the work needed to preserve the palace as a national monument had been done, but she now wondered if his total lack of interest in preserving his own living quarters was his way of mourning his wife’s death and his eldest son’s estrangement. And his decision to exile Leandro?

      The king’s secretary interrupted her musings. The king was waiting for Prince Leandro in the Throne Room.

      As the man turned to usher him there, Leandro gestured for him to wait outside, gave the place another sweeping glance, his eyes heavy. “It seems dilapidation is now considered heritage to be preserved in Castaldini. You’re going to have a tough time getting me to change my conviction that Castaldini is stuck in time. It might even change to going back in time.”

      She grasped his forearm, anxious to ameliorate his disappointment. “I do believe the condition of these rooms is a reflection of King Benedetto’s state of mind. Not that that’s good news.”

      “It wouldn’t be as bad if Jawara wasn’t suffering the same signs of neglect.”

      She could protest that. “Jawara is nowhere near this bad.”

      “I hope not, as this is…Dio, this is unacceptable.” She found nothing to say to that. It was. “I hope you’re right about this being exceptionally bad, that on closer inspection Jawara won’t reveal the same level of deterioration, since you’ve been right about many things. Being Castaldinian whether I like it or not, for one. It hurt, physically, just flying into the airspace. Setting foot here again felt like stepping back into the worst days of my life—and that was nothing compared to driving through the streets, feeling the majesty of the place dimmed and seeing my worst projections coming true.”

      She had so much to say. That it wasn’t that bad. That he could make it so much better. But she had no words. All she could think was that she couldn’t bear to see him…subdued like this, almost dejected. Not her imperturbable, indomitable Leandro.

      And she did something she hadn’t thought she ever would. She threw her arms around him and hugged him. Just hugged him. A with-all-her-strength squeeze of empathy and compassion.

      She was about to step back when he caught her back in a compulsive crush. When he let her breathe again, she blinked back her agitation as he touched his forehead to hers, like a lion butting his awesome head against his mate in affection.

      Then his whisper seared her, with its softness, its sensuality. Its sincerity. “Grazie, tesoro mabuba, I needed that.”

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