Temporarily His Princess - By Olivia Gates Page 0,67

over hers. As the power of his kiss dragged her down into a well of craving, she thought she heard hoots of approval and clapping.

He pulled away, groaning, “Gloria mia, ti voglio, ti amo—I’m going crazy wanting you, loving you.”

She felt he was letting her look deep into his soul, letting her see what she’d always thought would remain an impossible fantasy. Vincenzo didn’t only love her, his love was as fierce and total as hers.

But this was why she’d had to walk away. So she wouldn’t disrupt his life and destiny.

She had to protect him, especially since he clearly wasn’t willing to protect himself. “You can’t only consider your heart…you have duties, a status, and I’m…”

He clamped his lips on hers again, aborting her panting protest. “My first duty is to you. My status depends on honoring you first.”

She shook her head. “My family…if the truth comes out…God, Vincenzo, you can’t have them for your in-laws….”

His expression was resoluteness itself. “I already have them as my in-laws, and they’ll always be my in-laws, and I will be proud to have them as the family of our children.”

“Our ch-childr…” With those two magical words, a fierce yearning sheared through her, draining every spark of tension holding her together. She swooned in his hold.

His arms tightened until she felt he was trying to merge them. “Yes, our children, as many and as soon as you want.”

The magnitude of what he was offering, the future he was painting, stunned her into silence as her mind’s eye tremblingly tried to imagine it all. A future, a whole life, filled with love and alliance and trust, with him. Children with him. Even her family back, because of him.

Vincenzo took advantage of her silence and strode away with her still in his arms, talking to many people, then on the phone. She watched everything from the security of his embrace, as if from the depths of a dream. Somewhere it registered that he was arranging their exit after they’d been checked in as far as the boarding gate and arranging for her luggage to be sent back.

Then a sound penetrated the fog of her bliss. A horn.

Her dazed gaze panned around, found Vincenzo’s car with Alonzo at the wheel, waving to them urgently as he stopped in an unloading-only zone.

In seconds, Vincenzo had her inside the cool, dim seclusion of the limo. As Alonzo maneuvered smoothly into the traffic, Vincenzo bundled her onto his lap.

After a kiss that left her breathless, he drew away, his faced gripped in the passion she couldn’t wait to have him expend all over her.

“I have to get this out of the way once and forever, gloriosa mia, then we’ll never speak or think of it again. You had nothing to do with your family’s mistakes. You are the one woman I could ever love, the soul mate I would be forever proud to call mine, and to call myself yours. I truly care nothing about what the world will bring me as long as you’re mine forever.”

Her head rolled over his shoulder, her lids and insides heavy with need. Every nerve alight with delight at his declarations, she caressed the wonder of his hard cheek. “As long as you understand it will probably take the rest of my life to get used to all those unbelievable facts.”

He pressed another urgent, devouring kiss on her lips as if compelled to do it. “I don’t think there is any such thing as ‘getting used’ to this—” he hugged her tighter “—what we share. Just to always marvel at it, be humbled by it and thankful for it.”

Then his smile suddenly dissolved, leaving his face a mask of gravity. Her heart quivered with a tremor of uncertainty.

Then, with all the solemnity of a pledge, he said, “Will you marry me again, Glory? This time with our love declared, because we are each other’s destiny?”

Joy exploded inside her, making her erupt in his arms and rain tears and kisses all over his beloved face and hands. “Yes, Vincenzo. Yes, yes, yes, to everything, forever.”

Smiling elatedly, as choked with emotion as she, his own eyes filling with tears, Vincenzo took her lips, drowning her in the miracle of his love.

Deep from the security of his love and embrace she heard Alonzo exclaiming, “Eccellente. I not only get my princess back, I get to arrange another wedding. But now with true love declared and the catastrophe of separation averted, this calls for a much more