The Once and Future Prince / Pretend Mistress, Bona Fide Boss. Оливия Гейтс

      She gaped at the man who’d spoken them before she’d even cleared the towering doors to his state room. He was approaching her like a slow-motion, head-on collision.

      She watched King Benedetto limp across the gigantic Castaldini crest that bulls-eyed the carpet sprawling over acres of mosaic hardwood floor. Each shuffle transmitted its struggle to her muscles. His cane thumped the ground to the rhythm of her haywire heartbeats.

      If she hoped she’d misheard what he’d said, he said it again as if to underline the acuteness of her hearing.

      “It all depends on you, figlia mia.”

      Every word from his mouth tugged on a rawness inside her.

      She’d come to love him like the father she’d never had, her own having walked out when she was two and her mother was pregnant with her sister, Julia. But she still couldn’t handle him calling her daughter. She sure didn’t belong in the same place in his heart where his grandchildren and their mother—her sister—reigned supreme. She never knew what to do with the reflected affection, but tried to be of as much use as she could to feel entitled to it. She still wasn’t close to feeling that.

      How could Castaldini’s future depend on her when it was facing dangers only a king could divert?

      She searched his steel-blue eyes for a qualification. They had that look she’d seen during too many crises. It always meant his mind was made up, his decree final. And in her experience, he had yet to be proven wrong.

      King Benedetto hadn’t become the longest-reigning and most beloved king since King Antonio for nothing. In her opinion, he was the shrewdest, most effective ruler of the twentieth century. He was also the most controversial, as his politics had practically segregated Castaldini from the rest of the world during his forty-year reign. But his policies had protected the kingdom from the upheavals that had swept the world during those decades. What’s more, this detachment from the global political scene had boosted Castaldini’s allure, translating into a booming tourist industry.

      That had lasted until the end of the twentieth century. The twenty-first century hadn’t proven to be his domain so far, and everything seemed to be falling apart. To compound problems, he also held another record. He had ruled the longest without choosing a crown prince.

      He’d been a gracefully aging Olympian who everyone believed would live and rule for forty more years, would turn things around in time. Until he’d been struck down by a stroke four months ago. And the lack of a crown prince was now taking on potentially catastrophic meaning.

      King Benedetto stopped a dozen steps from her and leaned on his cane, the asymmetry of his injury exaggerating the spasm of suffering and agitation on his face. “I will never recover enough to continue to rule Castaldini.”

      She couldn’t even blurt out reassurances. His stroke had sheared his life force in half. It hurt her to see him now, his face emaciated, his ornate regal uniform flapping emptily around a once formidable physique. But she could say one thing and mean it. “Your Majesty, you are improving.”

      “No, figlia mia.” He cut across her attempt at qualification. “I’m barely walking, my left side is all but useless and the least illness leaves me bedridden, barely able to breathe.”

      “But it’s not like you need to be in peak physical fitness.”

      Half of his face softened, appreciating her efforts, pointing out their foolishness. “Yes, I do. You know it’s the Castaldinian law. And it goes beyond that. My mental faculties…”

      This she could contest. Vehemently. “Are as sharp as ever!”

      His sigh carried such finality she felt her heart plummet. “That’s not true, no matter how much I or you or my council want to believe it. I forget. I…drift. But even if a miracle happens and I’m back in peak health one day, Castaldini can’t afford to wait in hope anymore. The circling vultures are becoming more daring with each passing day, and finding a successor has become an emergency. I cannot afford to dawdle anymore. I’m guilty of doing that for far too long.”

      She couldn’t listen to him piling guilt on top of desperation and regret that way. “You did no such thing. According to the law, you couldn’t have picked any of the candidates.”

      He shook his head as he limped to the nearest sitting area and slumped into a gilded Aubusson armchair. “But I could have. At least a decade ago. There’s always been not one worthy candidate, but three. Each can take Castaldini forward into this century, which is proving to be even more turbulent than the last, to keep it safe against the dangers hammering down its doors. Yet they are the only three men who will not come forward to be recognized for their eligibility for the crown.”

      So there were three D’Agostino men around who had what it took to be the next king? That was news to her. Another bombshell. One that had her mind veering off on a tangent…

      No. Not the one man who’d once answered all the criteria. He had once come forward to be recognized for his eligibility. So the king couldn’t be counting him among those three men. Could he?

      Her feet started moving again under the influence of curiosity.…and foreboding. “So, what’s their problem?”

      The king let out an uneven exhalation as she came to stand beside him. “Each has one. Each fulfills all criteria but one. A different one in each man’s case, something that makes him unsuitable for the position by Castaldinian law.”

      “Then it isn’t your fault you didn’t settle on any of them.”

      “Oh, I tried to tell myself that for as long as I could afford to. Now I no longer can. Neither can Castaldini. I brought matters to a head with the Council. They argued that defying the laws Castaldini was built around for any reason would lead to the very loss of identity we guard against. I argued that overlooking the ancient laws this once has become a matter of survival, lest the monarchy crumble and Castaldini be absorbed by one of the neighboring nations vying to assimilate our history and resources into their boundaries. Then, yesterday, I had a ten-minute mental blackout during a council session.”

      She gasped. He reached for her hand, squeezed it. He was soothing her? His next words proved that he was. “I couldn’t have asked for a better thing to happen. It seems the reality of my condition was jarring enough that when I regained my senses, my council were singing a different tune. They now unanimously concede that the only way to protect Castaldini is to choose one of the only three men capable of maintaining our sovereignty.”

      She pulled her hand back. She didn’t want him to feel it shake. “Whoa, that’s huge. For them to agree to waive the laws. That’s problem solved, isn’t it?”

      He grimaced with what looked like self-deprecation. Loathing, even. “Not at all. Each of those men has reason enough to turn his back on me and on Castaldini. They’d be fully justified to leave both to our fate without their intervention.”

      “But you’re their king. I know there hasn’t been a precedent for it, but you can draft them into service.”

      His eyes widened as if she’d told him he could pole-vault. Then he barked a gravelly laugh, his face growing more asymmetric with the contortion of mirth. “You have no idea how outside my or anyone’s jurisdiction they are. I not only can’t draft them, I can’t afford to antagonize them any more than I already have, or we’ll lose any chance of having a deserving monarch wear the crown, and with it any hope of saving Castaldini.”

      “A man who has that much power and doesn’t want to use it to save his kingdom—for whatever reason—isn’t worthy of any crown, let alone Castaldini’s. Whatever happened to the merit part?”

      The king’s face settled back into its grimness. “Oh, make no mistake, they all merit it. More than I ever did.”

      “I refuse to believe that.”

      “Thank you for your faith, figlia mia, but I had forty