The Prodigal Prince's Seduction / The Heir's Scandalous Affair: The Prodigal Prince's Seduction. Jennifer Lewis
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have imagined being spawned.”
He raised his hands, surrendering. “Abbastanza, Gabrielle. Enough. You can stop now. I get it.”
Without a glance at him, she rearranged the papers back into the dossier, bent to pick up her briefcase. He caught her arm.
“We need to talk.” Her blank stare deepened his desperation. He gritted his teeth. “I need to talk.”
“That you do, now, is of no consequence. I am not here to talk. I am here to tell you something. You’re a paranoid bastard who’s so full of your own convictions and hang-ups, you can’t see how your actions injure and maim people around you. If you have one shred of humanity—and according to your lofty opinion of yourself, you’re full of…it—I’m giving you an assignment to find out how much you do possess. Write down a list of all the people in your life. Be honest about their condition today, emotionally, psychologically, financially, and calculate the role your condemning, unforgiving nature has played in it.”
Her accusation slid right off him. Not because it didn’t shame him that it might be true, but because his only concern was for undoing the injury he’d caused her.
Pedestrians and even drivers were slowing down to watch the scene unfolding between their city’s most famous resident royal and the stunning woman who was clearly telling him off. Some were openly gawking. Some were clicking away on their cell phones.
Not that he cared. But he was beginning to realize the role speculation and the media must have played in smearing her reputation.
He had to take her away from prying eyes and wagging tongues. “Come up with me, Gabrielle. Please.”
“No.” She extricated her arm from his urgent grip. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my…vast experience, it’s what to avoid in the interest of self-preservation. I thought being punched black and blue was the worst thing that had happened to me, but now I know how hard you hit, I’d be crazy if I came near you again. Goodbye, Prince Durante.”
He blocked her path. “Per favore, Gabrielle, you must listen to me.”
Her disdain would have annihilated a lesser man. At least a less determined one. “As you listened to me? Oh, wait, you didn’t give me the chance to say anything to listen to. You heard my name, recalled the report some bored assistant collated on me and disregarded everything you learned about me during that night you kept calling magical and unprecedented—the line you handed me when you wanted to score another one-night stand. Funny part is, although your criteria for one-nighters are reportedly pretty flexible, it seems you draw the line somewhere. At my level.”
He surged forward as if to stem the flow of her bitterness. She took two steps back to his every step forward in a wretched parody of a waltz.
He stopped, clenched his fists so he wouldn’t haul her over his shoulder and take her someplace where he could make her listen. “You think I leave functions I sponsor, dedicate whole nights and ignore work—for days on end—for anything, let alone what you make sound like scratching an itch? It was
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