Stefano shut his eyes.Celine. What was one more arrow of pain embedded in his heart when he’d already taken so many? She must be the one to have started the rumours because Alessio would say nothing, of that Stefano had no doubt.
When he’d taken the honourable route and resigned from his position, he’d believed Celine would understand. They’d been together for five years, engaged for three, and were planning a future—a dynastic marriage of their own.
A member of Lasserno’s aristocracy, Celine had professed her love for him soon after they’d begun dating. Smiled with apparent joy when he’d proposed. They’d planned to wed after Alessio was crowned... Yet their break-up had followed fast on the heels of Stefano’s resignation and return to Varno. He couldn’t forget her final words, now a poisonous and constant voice in his ear.
‘You’re nothing, Stefano, if you’re not working for the Prince.’
All those years she’d whispered that he was better than the role of private secretary. That he should ask Alessio for something of greater prestige, as if his centuries-old title as the Count of Varno wasn’t enough. He hadn’t cared at the time, since helping his friend navigate the abdication and the financial mire into which his father had plunged Lasserno had been vital work.
Yet Celine had been right. The moment he stood on unstable ground the vultures had circled, fighting to fill the void with their refusal to take his phone calls, their quiet disdain not only of him but of his brother and sister, who didn’t deserve similar contempt.
The brutal ache of realisation burrowed deep. One of the few people he’d thought he could trust had not kept his devastating secret. But, as he well knew, information was currency, and news of his downfall would be more fodder for the aristocratic rumour mill. Celine was only protecting herself from being tarnished by association, making herself queen of the gossip circle at his expense. Anyhow, he had no cause to expect anything else, since he’d betrayed his best friend. In that act he’d shown that no one could really be trusted—most of all himself.
Celine had been right to walk away on her towering heels, without a backward glance. He was not worthy of forgiveness. Disgraced. Untrustworthy. What good was he to anyone now? She’d made that brutally clear. In those final moments of their relationship any hope and all expectation of how his life would play out in front of him had withered and died.
Stefano gripped his phone till the edges cut into his fingers. Whilst his problems were entirely self-inflicted, he didn’t have to lie down and allow himself to be kicked.
‘You shouldn’t listen to pretty little birds. They may sing a lovely song, but all they’re doing is distracting you from the raptor in the clouds above. I sharpen my talons each night. Don’t think you’ll escape my grip when I clasp you tight.’
When he was successful, his mission would allow him to walk into the royal palace with his head held high, rather than slither back on his belly like the snake he’d become. He had nothing left to him but the merest splinter of pride, and he wouldnotlose that as well.
‘You have no evidence bar the words of a known criminal.’
‘I have CCTV,’ Stefano replied. ‘I have Signor Giannotti’s signed statement. I have enough.’
A choking kind of sound was all that came down the line, followed by a few more moments of silence.
‘His Highnessgaveit to me.’
Ah. The whining. Lies first...bargaining second. The pattern was familiar and sickening. Anger tended to come third, and Stefano was spoiling for a fight.
‘The former Prince may have given it to you. The current Prince wants it back. You had no right to keep it. That diamond is the country’s, not yours.’
Which wasn’t entirely true. Being the principality’s absolute monarch meant the Prince or Princess could do anything they pleased.
Cold like a block of glacial ice settled in Stefano’s gut. So long as Gino and Emilia were protected, he would take whatever came his way. He tried not to think of what his future might hold...of the unopened letters in his desk from the palace and the calls he’d ignored. Not yet. Because they signalled nothing good. His attentions must be fixed on the task at hand. He wanted no more pleading. Weasel words sickened him. People should own their actions and make reparation before seeking forgiveness. Nothing else was acceptable.
‘Here’s what will happen,’ he said. ‘You’ll return the diamond to the palace and all will be forgotten.’
Stefano was in no place to make that promise, but so be it. He didn’t care so long as it got him what he wanted.
‘If you don’t, I will storm down upon you like an avalanche from the mountains and youwillbe crushed in my wake. Nothing will remain, I promise you.’
‘It...it may take some time.’
There it was. The capitulation. These people were weak. If you stripped the meat from all of them you’d barely have enough bones to make one spine. At least his family’s centuries-old role as Shield of the Crown was still good for something other than the burden it imposed. He should have made more of it. Fought Alessio for what he believed was right rather than let it go and make the fateful decision to go to the press.
But he could indulge in disgust at his personal failings sometime later, when this job was done.
‘Since I’m a generous man, I’ll give you two days. Only remember. My eyes are everywhere. There is not a jeweller, pawnbroker, thief or fence in Europe who doesn’t know about the missing stones and all are looking for them at my request. Two days.’
He disconnected. Tossed his mobile on the desk, where it landed with a clatter on the burnished wood. Talking to these thieves and fools left him in need of a shower. He might be soiled by his personal actions, but he’d never be as grubby as them, stealing the nation’s heritage.
Stefano stood and walked to the window, staring out at the last of the melting snow. Spring was overdue, and winter not keen to relinquish her grip this year. Luckily he’d sent any remaining staff back to their homes a few days earlier, with the weather reports and a glowering sky hinting that more snow was on its way. The castle’s aged heating, not coping of late, left most of the building’s rooms with an unforgiving chill. There was no point in his staff being trapped in the cold too.
They’d worried about him, being alone here, but he’d only opened few rooms since his return, and he’d assured them he was perfectly capable of looking after himself.
Anyhow, it didn’t matter if the unseasonal mountain weather cut him off from the rest of Lasserno. He’d been cut off from the country ever since that fateful day he’d announced his betrayal to Alessio and handed in his resignation, returning to Castello Varno, where he hadn’t set foot for three years. Still, though his current work wasn’t officially sanctioned, he’d continue until he was done. Stefano wasn’t about to allow his brother and sister to suffer any more for his sins.