Princes of Castaldini: The Once and Future Prince

OLIVIA GATES has always pursued creative passions—painting, singing and many handicrafts. She still does, but only one of her passions grew gratifying enough, consuming enough, to become an ongoing career: writing.

She is most fulfilled when she is creating worlds and conflicts for her characters, then exploring and untangling them bit by bit, sharing her protagonists’ every heart-wrenching heartache and hope, their every heart-pounding doubt and trial, until she leads them to an indisputably earned and gloriously satisfying happy ending.

When she’s not writing, she is a doctor, a wife to her own alpha male and a mother to one brilliant girl and one demanding Angora cat. Visit Olivia at www.oliviagates. com.

To Melissa Jeglinski.

Thank you for the wonderful new path. I wish you happiness and success in everything you endeavor, MJ.

To Natashya Wilson, my incredible editor.

Can’t be happier that we’re a team, Tashya.

Eight hundred years ago, Antonio D’Agostino founded the Mediterranean kingdom of Castaldini. With a culture mixing Italian and Moorish influences, the kingdom was unique. But what set it apart from the world’s monarchies was the succession law Antonio D’Agostino created. He knew none of his sons was fit to wear a crown after him, so he decreed that the succession would not be by blood but by merit. Anyone from the extensive D’Agostino clan, all now considered the royal family, could prove himself worthy of being the next king. He set stringent rules that had to be satisfied before someone could be a candidate for the crown, including that the selection of the next king had to be with the unanimous approval of the royal council of the reigning king.

And the other rules? That the future king be of impeccable reputation, of sturdy health and no vices, of solid lineage from both sides, a leader people followed due to the power of his character and charisma, and above all, a self-made success of the highest order.

So it had always been—D’Agostino men vying for the crown, striving to deserve it. Throughout history, one D’Agostino man always won over all competitors and claimed the crown. He chose his council from the royal family and during his reign selected the next king to be his crown prince, so that the transition of power occurred smoothly in case anything befell him.

And the kingdom’s motto was Lasci l’uomo migliore vincere.

Let the best man win.

Eight years ago

“Come closer, Phoebe. I won’t bite. Not too hard.”

Leandro’s rumble reverberated in Phoebe’s bones.

She choked on the surge of response, on the breath that was trapped inside her lungs. The breath she’d been holding waiting for him to contact her. The one she always held until he did.

She still couldn’t breathe. He stood as if carved from rock, staring out of his penthouse’s floor-to-ceiling windows at the Manhattan skyline, which glittered like clusters of stars set in arcane patterns. Her starved senses registered only him.

The power of his physique, the silken layers crowning his head, dimmed spotlights overhead caressing copper overtones from the hairs’ deepest mahogany. Her hands stung with the memory of convulsing in that hair as he’d exposed her to the mercilessness of his pleasuring.

His scent invaded her with a maleness and a potency that were only his, an aphrodisiac even from the distance he bade her to eliminate. He’d already gotten her to travel four thousand miles to “come closer.”

Eight hours ago, she’d received a message from Ernesto—Leandro’s right-hand man, and their secret go-between—during Julia’s daily physiotherapy session. She’d thought he was inviting her to yet another clandestine rendezvous, one even more secret because Leandro’s situation in Castaldini was more delicate than ever after his resignation from his ambassador post. But she hadn’t found Leandro. Just his jet. There’d been no word from him all through the seven-hour flight to New York.

There hadn’t been one in four months. She’d feared silence had been his way of informing her it was over. But it wasn’t….

“I turned thirty, two months ago.”

She lurched at his rasp, a twist of longing in her gut. She’d known that. On October 26th. The urge to call him that day had frayed what had remained intact of her nerves. But his rules had been clear. He contacted her. It had seemed he wouldn’t anymore.

“Happy birthday.” She winced as the lame response left her lips.

His huff abraded her. “Indeed. The happiest birthday ever.”

He turned to her then. She would have staggered if she hadn’t been incapable of moving a muscle, even involuntarily.

“Nothing more to say, bella malaki?” My beautiful angel. The endearment shuddered through her, that mix of Italian and Moorish only he used. He prowled toward her, his shirt phosphorescent in the dimness, unbuttoned to his waist, revealing chiseled power that bunched and gleamed with every step. “Shall I make it easier? Give you a lead?” He stopped half a breath away, his emerald eyes flaring and subsiding like pulsars. “Miss me?”