Pure Princess, Bartered Bride (Bride On Approval 1)

by Caitlin Crews

  If he’d thought she was in the grip of emotion before, that had been nothing. Her face was pale now, with hectic color high on her cheeks and in her eyes. Yet again she did not crack or crumble. Someone sitting further away would not have seen the difference in her expression at all.

  “I have never done any of those things,” she said in a tight, controlled voice. “I have always thought of Miravakia first!”

  “Do not speak to me of contracts and prices in this way, as if you are the victim of some subterfuge,” he ordered her harshly. “You insult us both.”

  Her gaze flew to his, and he read the crackling temper there. It intrigued him as much as it annoyed him—but either way he could not allow it. There could be no rebellion, no bitterness, no intrigue in this marriage. There could only be his will and her surrender.

  He remembered where they were only because the band chose that moment to begin playing. He sat back in his chair, away from her. She is not merely a business acquisition, he told himself, once more grappling with the urge to protect her—safeguard her. She is not a hotel or a company.

  She was his wife. He could allow her more leeway than he would allow the other things he controlled. At least today.

  “No more of this,” he said, rising to his feet. She looked at him warily. He extended his hand to her and smiled. He could be charming if he chose. “I believe it is time for me to dance with my wife.”

  His smile was devastating.

  Gabrielle gulped back her reaction to it, suddenly worried that she might scream, or weep, or some appalling combination of the two. Anything to release the pressure building inside her, restless and intense all at once. But that smile—

  It changed him. It took stone and forbidding mountain and softened it, illuminating his features—making him magic. He was, she realized with a delicate shiver of foreboding, a dangerously attractive man.

  Dangerous to her, specifically.

  For she was helpless before him. He held out his hand and she placed hers within it. Without comment, without thought. Meekly. Obediently. Despite the fact she’d been trying to keep from touching him for hours now. Was she losing her mind?

  But she did not dare disobey him. Had anyone ever disobeyed him? And lived to tell the tale?

  His smile might have made him momentarily beautiful. His hand was firm around hers, brooking no argument, allowing her no concession as he led her from the high table. The faces of the wedding guests blurred, becoming as indistinct as the flickering candles. She wondered briefly—in a kind of panic—what he would do if she pulled back, tried to move away as she wished. Would he simply tow her along beside him? Or would her body refuse the order and follow his lead without consulting her? She did not think that now—in public, on a dance floor in front of so many onlookers—was the time to test the theory.

  He was no playboy, like the few other suitors her father had considered since Gabrielle had reached her majority. This man did not flirt or cajole. There were no pretty words. Only that brief, glorious smile that had jolted through her like an electric shock. Everything else he would demand. Or he would simply take.

  He led her to the center of the dance floor. Gabrielle’s heavy dress clung to her hips, her legs—made her feel as if she waded through honey. Luc pulled her close, one lean and muscled arm banding around her back, holding her. Caging her.

  It had been hard enough to sit next to him throughout the meal. But this—this was agony.

  In his arms, there was nowhere to hide. Face-to-face with him, she felt exposed, vulnerable. Trapped. Her breasts felt heavy and tight against the brocaded bodice of her gown. It took her long, panicked moments to register the fact that she was not having a dizzy spell, that he was moving them around the ballroom with an easy grace and consummate skill, never releasing her from that commanding gray gaze that seemed to see into her very core.

  She felt as if she were made of glass and might shatter into pieces at any moment.

  “I always wondered what couples talk about,” she blurted out, desperate to lessen the tension between them, to divert her attention from that hard mouth now so breathlessly, intimidatingly close to hers, “when they dance at their weddings.” She laughed nervously. “But then we are not like most couples, I suppose.”

  “Again, you forget yourself,” he said dismissively, though his gray eyes seemed to darken as she stared up at him. “You are surrounded by a collection of aristocrats, some with ancient family names and kingdoms at their disposal. Do you imagine they are all passionately in love with their politically expedient spouses?”

  Infuriating, pompous, rude man. How could he speak to her so condescendingly? How could he be her husband?

  “I’ve never thought about it,” she flared back at him. “I’ve hardly had time to adjust to my own ‘politically expedient’ marriage, much less critique anyone else’s!”

  His expression did not change, though the arm around her back tightened just a fraction—just enough to make Gabrielle gasp, but not enough to make her miss her step as their dance continued. She was suddenly certain that she did not want to hear whatever he might say next.

  “Have you been married before?” she asked hurriedly, hoping to fend him off.

  “Never.” His brows arched, making him seem both regal and inaccessible at once. Gabrielle swallowed nervously.

  “You must have had long-term relationships,” she continued. She had no idea what she was saying. “You are forty, are you not?”

  “Is this a blind date, Gabrielle?” he asked, his voice dangerously low. “Do you plan to sort out my character through a series of inane questions?”

  “I’m trying to get to know you,” she replied evenly, raising her chin in defiance. “It seems a reasonable thing to do, under the circumstances. What else should we talk about? The weather?”

  “You have the rest of your life to get to know me,” he said, with a Gallic sort of shrug. The ultimate dismissal. “Or do you think knowing the way I take my coffee will give you insight? Will it make you more comfortable? The end result is the same. I am your husband.”

  He was hateful. And his derisive tone ignited the temper she’d worked her whole life to keep under wraps.

  “I think you must be the one who is afraid,” she declared, anger making her brave. “Why else react so strongly to simple questions?”

  She expected him to lash back at her—to try to cow her with his dark gaze or that sharp edge in his voice.

  But instead he threw back his head and laughed. It was not long, or loud, but it was real. His gray eyes gleamed almost silver for a moment, and she saw an indentation in his lean jaw—far too masculine to be called a dimple. His eyes crinkled in the corners, and he was once again magical and irresistible.

  Suddenly Gabrielle had the sensation that she was standing on a ledge at the edge of some vast cavern, and the ground beneath her feet was shaky. Again that restless tension swelled inside her, terrifying her. Her skin was too small, too sensitive. He filled her senses. And when he looked down at her again, his expression sobering, she felt something shift inside her. It felt irrevocable. Or possibly insane.

  Nerves, she thought, desperately trying to maintain her calm. Nothing but nerves—and too much champagne on an empty stomach.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ALONE at last in the sumptuous chamber that served as her dressing room, with the reception carrying on below her, Gabrielle stared at herself in the mirror and told herself she was being ridiculous. First, no man could possibly be as intense or overwhelming as Luc Garnier seemed to be. She was letting her imagination run away with her, her emotions heightened by the events of the day. Second, she was forgetting that the tight corset of her dress was probably responsible for her breathless, dizzy reaction to him. He was no magician—able to command her body like some kind of snake charmer. Her gown was simply too uncomfortable—she’d been in it all day.

  She had convinced herself, more or less, and started to remove her heavy diamond and pearl
earrings when the door opened behind her and he stepped into the room.

  Gabrielle froze.

  The cathedral and the ballroom had not prepared her—both were so large, so vast. The dressing room was tiny in comparison and Luc seemed to fill it, pushing all the air out the room as he closed the door behind him.

  Gabrielle was still unable to move. She stared at him through the mirror as his dark eyes flicked along her spine, then met hers. She felt his gaze like fire, licking into her bones, searing her skin.

  “I…” She didn’t know what she meant to say, only that she was pleading with him. She put her earrings down on the vanity table in front of her, and twisted around to face him. He had not moved—he still filled the doorway with his rangy, muscled frame—and yet she felt his closeness as if he held her. “I cannot…”

  She couldn’t say it.

  Sex seemed to crowd into the room then, like a thick fog. It was that hot, hard light in his eyes. It was the way he looked at her—as if he owned her, body and soul. It was the parade of images in her head. All of them decadent and disturbing. All of them involving that unyielding mouth of his and those cool, assessing, knowing eyes.

  She couldn’t bear it.

  “Surely you don’t…?”

  She thought she might burst into tears, but he moved then, and once again she could do nothing but gape at him. He stalked toward her like something wild, untamed. Something fierce and uncompromising came and went across his face, and she knew in a flash that he wanted her—and that she could not survive it.

  She could not survive him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked him, her voice barely a thread of sound, weak to her own ears. He continued toward her, towering above her, forcing her to tilt her head back so she could stare up at him across the great expanse of his rock-hard torso, showed to perfection in his crisp white dress shirt.

  Her mind raced. He had said he was traditional—how traditional? Surely he couldn’t expect that she would fall into bed with a man she had only met hours before? So what if it was the marital bed?

  Could he?

  He did not speak. His eyes were shuttered as he gazed down at her, and then he moved, his big hands catching her around the waist and lifting her to her feet.

  He was incredibly, panic-inducingly strong. Gabrielle’s world tilted and whirled, and then she was in his arms again—but this time they were not on a dance floor, surrounded by witnesses. This time they were all alone, and he pulled her much too close, until she sprawled against him, her breasts flattened against the wall of his chest. They ached. Gabrielle moaned—whether in protest or terror, she did not know.

  “I will not attempt to claim any marital rights tonight, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” he said then, his breath fanning over her face.

  “I…Thank you…” Gabrielle said formally, and was then furious with herself. As if it was his decision to make! As if she did not exist!

  “We will grow into each other, you and I,” he told her. His mouth was so close, and it both tempted and terrified her in equal measure. She remembered the feel of his mouth against hers in the cathedral. Brutal. Territorial. She didn’t know why it made her knees tremble and her core melt.

  “But our wedding night should be commemorated, should it not?” he asked.

  “I don’t—”

  But he wasn’t really asking.

  His mouth came down on hers, as uncompromising and hard as she remembered—as he had been since she’d met him so few hours before. This time he tasted her lips only briefly, before moving across her jaw, her temple, learning the shape of her. His mouth was hot. Gabrielle felt her own fall open in shock—in response. She felt feverish. Outside herself.

  Something in her thrilled to it—to him—even as the rest of her balked at such a naked display of ownership. Her hands flew to his shoulders, though it was like pushing against stone.

  Then, as suddenly, he set her away from him, a very masculine triumph written across his face.

  “You are mine,” he said. Claiming her. He reached over and smoothed an errant strand of her hair back into place, the tenderness of the gesture at odds with the harshness of his words, his expression. “Change into your traveling clothes and meet me outside the ballroom, Gabrielle. We will stay on the other side of the island tonight.” He paused. “Wife.”

  She stood frozen in place for a long time after he left. The air rushed back into the room with his departure. Her heartbeat slowly returned to normal. Her hands eventually stopped shaking.

  But inside her a new resolve hardened, and turned into steel.

  She could not survive him, she had thought in a moment of panic. But she was not panicked now, and she knew that it was true. It was not simply that Luc Garnier was another man like her single-minded father—though she knew that he was. It was not even that he clearly wanted things entirely his own way—what man in his position, having bartered for a royal wife and his own eventual kingdom, would not? It was that she was so detestably weak.

  Weakness had led her here, to this sham of a wedding night. She was married to a man who terrified her on a fundamental level and she had walked calmly to her own slaughter. Her father had not had to coerce her—he had only announced his intentions and Gabrielle had acquiesced, as she always did, because she’d thought that somehow her doing so would impress him. Instead, it had only made him less inclined to consider her feelings at all.

  What a thing to realize now—far too late.

  Gabrielle blew out a shaky breath and knew, on some level, that acquiescing to Luc Garnier would be far more damaging and permanent. She would not survive it intact—not as the Gabrielle she was now. She could not handle his heat or his darkness—and she would not be recognizable to herself if she tried. She would go mad—lose her mind.

  She thought of his fierce gaze, his resolute expression, and felt as if she already had.

  She had never stood up for herself. She had let her father order her around her entire life. Now her husband would do the same. Worse. He would demand even more from her. Suddenly Gabrielle could see her life stretch out before her—one decision made by her husband after another until she ceased to exist. Until she was completely absorbed into him, lost in him. A man like Luc Garnier would accept nothing less than her complete surrender.

  She took a deep breath, then released it. She looked around the chamber as if she’d never seen it before. Perhaps she had simply never realized until now that it was a prison cell.

  And it was past time to escape.

  Luc’s body shouted at him to turn around, return to the dressing room and finish what he’d started.

  He was hard, ready. His blood was pumping and it had nearly killed him to take his hands off of her soft skin.

  Her taste was addictive. Sweet, with an underlying kick.

  He paused in the long corridor outside her door. He wanted to bury himself in her—in his wife—and make them both delirious with need and release. Again and again until they were exhausted from it. It was a complication he hadn’t foreseen—and he had been so sure he’d covered all the angles.

  Tonight he could allow himself some amusement on that score. It was not very often that Luc Garnier was taken by surprise. He had expected to desire her—she was a beautiful woman and he had long had a taste for classic beauty. Who did not? But the need raking through him and tempting him to charge back through the door and claim what was his—that was unexpected.

  Perhaps it was not a complication. Perhaps it was merely a side benefit—confirmation that he’d made the correct choice. The fact that he knew very few men in his position who lusted after their wives meant nothing. When had Luc been at all like other men?

  He forced himself to walk away from her door, to leave her in peace. For tonight, at least.

  They had their whole lives to explore this combustible chemistry. He could allow her one night to come to terms with it.

  His mouth curved at the idea of behaving benevolently—for a
ny reason. It was a new sensation, and not entirely pleasant. He was not a man who denied his appetites.

  But it was only for tonight.

  In the morning he would continue her education. He would touch her until she welcomed it, until she begged him for more.

  And then all bets were off.

  It had been so easy, Gabrielle marveled almost a week later, looking out over the endless sea of lights below her. Los Angeles gleamed and beckoned, sprawled out before her, seeming seductive and immense from Gabrielle’s spot high in the Hollywood Hills.

  Gabrielle couldn’t believe how easy it had been—it made her wonder why she had waited so long to do something simply because she wanted to do it, without worrying about the feelings or opinions or wishes of anyone else.

  Gabrielle had left the palazzo after a quick change of clothes, driven down to the docks, boarded a ferry—and been in Italy by morning. Once she’d made her way to Rome she had booked herself into a hotel for the night and called an old friend from university. Cassandra had not missed a beat, despite the fact she and Gabrielle had not seen each other in ages. She had apologized for the fact that she could not be in California to greet Gabrielle because she was filming in Vancouver, but she had offered Gabrielle the use of her house. Gabrielle had boarded a flight the next morning, had a brief stopover in London, and had been in Los Angeles by early afternoon.

  Not bad for an obedient princess who had never lifted a finger in protest her whole adult life.

  Tonight Gabrielle stood out on Cassandra’s deck and sipped at a glass of white wine. Hollywood was splayed out before her, sparkling into the warm night, the lights and sounds wafting up from the famous Sunset Strip far below. She loved California—what little she’d seen of it in her jetlagged and emotional haze. She loved the eucalyptus and rosemary-scented hills, with columns of cyprus trees scattered here and there. She loved the coyote howls at night and the warm sun during the day. She loved the red-topped houses that reminded her of home, and the hints of the Mediterranean throughout the landscape—houses clinging to the hilltops in clusters and the sea far below.