Pure Princess, Bartered Bride (Bride On Approval 1)

by Caitlin Crews

  “I will take that as a no, they do not.” Amusement made her voice rich.

  “Is that how you plan to rule your country?” he asked derisively. “As a popularity contest? I doubt you will find that the most efficient form of government.”

  “There is a difference between fear and respect,” she replied, seeming unperturbed by his harsher tone. It occurred to him that it had been a long time since he’d managed to get under her skin with only a few words. “Surely a good ruler should strive for the latter rather than the former?”

  “This is all very naïve, Gabrielle,” Luc said dismissively. “Yes, it would be delightful if my employees adored me. But what should I care if they do not? As long as they work hard, perform well and remain loyal, they are rewarded. If they wish to be loved in return, perhaps they should adopt a domestic animal.”

  She raised her brows, looking mildly quizzical. “You do not care at all?” she asked. “You are perfectly content for them to hate you, so long as they perform their duties to your specifications? That is all you require?”

  “I am their employer, Gabrielle.” He did not understand why her tone set his teeth on edge, or why he felt suddenly defensive. Nor why she had developed this sudden interest in his business concerns. “Not their lover.”

  “I am not your lover either,” she replied, a flash of anger in her voice, her eyes. “I am merely your wife. Should I hate you? Fear you? Will it matter to you as long as you are obeyed?”

  He stilled. “You compare yourself to my employees?” he asked softly, watching her face closely. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  “I fail to see the difference in our positions,” she replied coolly. Whatever anger he’d sensed in the previous moment was gone, and she was once again composed and easy. She might have been discussing the weather forecast. She even smiled at him. “It is always best to know one’s place.”

  The words struck at him, reminding him of the way her father had said much the same thing back in Paris. As if she were an animal, or a servant. He didn’t know why hearing her repeat the same sentiment bothered him when he’d agreed with it before, more or less. It was unreasonable. Irrational.

  Yet he still reached over and took her shoulders in his hands, pulling her to him, closing the distance between their bodies.

  She came without objection, tilting her face up toward his, though he still sensed that distance in her, no matter how close she might be physically. She was too calm, too collected. Too damned serene.

  He wanted her mindless, uncontrolled, fierce. The way she was beneath him, astride him. On the bed, the floor—wherever they happened to find themselves. He was becoming less and less tolerant of her smooth, perfect exterior when they were in private. She used it to keep him at arm’s length, he was sure of it, and it infuriated him.

  “I will indulge you anything you wish,” he told her, holding her still. “Including this asinine argument you seem determined to have tonight.”

  “Are we arguing?” she asked lightly, her eyes unreadable in the night air. “My apologies. I was merely clarifying.”

  “But I must tell you,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “I had a very different evening in mind.”

  “Oh?” She was so unruffled. So calm. Why did that needle him? Wasn’t a woman with her poise exactly what he’d wanted? What he’d searched for with such single-minded purpose?

  Luc stepped back and reached into the pocket of his trousers. He pulled out the small jeweler’s box, cracked it open, and held it out before her.

  “A small token,” he said quietly. An uncomfortable feeling gripped him. He scowled at her, still holding out the box with the damned ring—an impulse he suddenly regretted. But he still bit out the words. “I hope you approve.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  HIS voice had gone stiff. Formal. He even scowled down at her, as if he wanted to shout at her.

  In another man Gabrielle might have called it shy—even awkward. Odd that her poking at him about her place had had no such effect on him—but his giving her a gift did. Or perhaps it was the gift itself.

  Gabrielle swallowed carefully and looked at the ring nestled in the box, with sparkle enough to rival the hectic flash and shine of the city all around them. She dared to raise her eyes to his, and what she saw there made a fine tremor snake through her.

  He did not kneel. He did not mouth pretty words. He only gazed at her. It took her breath away. Not merely the ring. But the fact that he was giving it to her like this—like some kind of backward proposal for their backward marriage.

  It was perfect, somehow. And she didn’t know why it should matter to her. But it did. Oh, how it mattered—how it caught at her heart and squeezed.

  “The stone belonged to my mother. The original setting would not have suited you, so I had it reset.” Luc took the ring from the box and then took Gabrielle’s hand.

  She already wore the ring he’d put there in the cathedral on their wedding day, but this felt different—deeper, more emotional. Perhaps because she knew him now—knew his scent, his touch, the timbre of his voice. Perhaps because he might be many things she was still only beginning to process, but he was no longer a stranger.

  Her hand felt fragile in his much larger one—breakable.

  She found she was holding her breath as he slipped the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly, as she had known it would. She spread her fingers wide to look at the new ring—feeling far too emotional to look at him in such a fraught moment.

  The stone was a large diamond, cut to dance and shimmer with any hint of light. It sat high on a simple platinum setting, and looked as if it had been specifically made to grace and flatter her hand. Gabrielle had more jewelry than she knew what to do with—she had inherited her mother’s pieces, and had the entire historical collection of Miravakian Crown Jewels at her disposal—yet nothing had ever touched her so much or so deeply as this particular stone from this particular man.

  He doesn’t need to do this, she kept thinking, bemused. They were already married. The ring seemed so…romantic.

  A concept she could not get her head around. Not as it applied to Luc Garnier, the most sensual and least romantic of men.

  “It is beautiful,” she murmured, staring at it, her voice hushed.

  It was as if the world had hushed, too, trapping them in a bubble with only this ring and unspoken undertones that made Gabrielle’s body hum with tension or emotion—she wasn’t sure which.

  She didn’t understand the rush inside of her that threatened to sweep her away. She was afraid to look at him—afraid she might succumb to the heat that threatened to spill from behind her eyes. But she forced herself to do it anyway, and felt the force of his gray gaze burn through her, kicking up brush fires all the way to the soles of her feet and back again.

  His look was fierce. Demanding. And yet she knew, with a flash of feminine intuition, that despite appearances he was at his most vulnerable. Rather than making her feel as if she had an advantage, finally, it humbled her. Made her ache.

  “It suits you,” he said, in the same quiet voice.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, unable to say anything else despite the words that crowded in her throat, nearly choking her. She reached over and laid her trembling hand on his hard cheek, her palm caressing the place where that dent appeared on the rare occasions he laughed. She was not hiding anything from him as she gazed at him—she was wide open, undefended. More naked than ever before.

  It shook her to the core. And yet she couldn’t seem to look away.

  “The car is waiting,” Luc murmured after a moment. He turned his mouth into her hand and his lips curled against her palm. Gabrielle blew out a soft breath. He reached up and laced his strong, clever fingers with hers and gave her a crooked, almost boyish smile that broke her heart into pieces.

  He does not have to do this…

  But she gave no sign of her inner turmoil. She smiled, the way she always did, and followed him out to
dinner.

  Luc lounged against the leather seat in the back of the car and watched Gabrielle. Covertly. She extended her hand when he checked his PDA, tilted the diamond this way and that, so it caught the passing streetlights and sent light cascading around her. He was certain she did not want him to catch her in the act, since she dropped her hand into her lap the moment he slid the PDA back into his pocket.

  “There has been a change of plans,” he said.

  “Our dinner plans?” she asked, turning that serene countenance toward him.

  “No.” He fought the urge to say something sarcastic, just to see if he could pry behind that mask as he had so easily in the beginning. More and more he was convinced he only saw the true Gabrielle when they were in bed. “Tonight we are going into Marin County, to a restaurant I think you will enjoy. An interesting take on classic French cuisine.”

  “It must be good,” Gabrielle said, smiling. An expression he had not seen before—mischievous, he thought—crossed her face. “You are not just half-French, but half-Parisian, aren’t you? Your palate must therefore be held to be even more discerning than a regular Frenchman’s.”

  “Indeed,” Luc said. Shadows hid her face, then bursts of light illuminated her as the car made its way through the city and toward the wild beauty of Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Bridge. “I believe I have been called particularly discerning even for a Parisian.”

  “I feel sorry for the chef,” she said, clearly teasing him now, and Luc felt torn.

  On the one hand he wanted her to continue looking at him with that bright humor in her eyes. He craved it. But on the other he was so unused to being teased that he wasn’t certain what to do—how to respond in kind without becoming overbearing. And then, of course, there was the part of him that didn’t mind being overbearing at all, if it would force her to open up to him and display her secrets.

  He was not used to such indecisiveness.

  “I had hoped to travel into the Napa Valley tomorrow,” he said after a moment, casting the unusual feelings aside and concentrating on facts, as ever. “I have an interest in a vineyard there, and it is beautiful country. But I am afraid business calls me to London.” He shrugged. “We will have to leave.”

  She was quiet for a moment. There was no sign of any frown between her brows, though for some reason Luc was certain there would have been if she’d showed her feelings more. He thought back to their wedding, and to that first night he had hunted her down in Los Angeles. Her feelings had overtaken her then, though she’d hidden them in public. When had she started hiding them in private, too? He didn’t like the sensation that she was hiding from him, specifically. That there were whole worlds in her, perhaps, that he had no access to at all.

  He should at least know that they were there. Shouldn’t he?

  “I have not been to London since last spring,” she said at last. He felt certain that was not at all what she wanted to say. “Do you go there often?”

  “Often enough,” he said.

  “I ask because, as I am sure you know, I have a residence there,” she said. “If you would care to stay in it, we can. I don’t know what your usual arrangements are in London.”

  He remembered, dimly, the house in Belgravia that had been mentioned as part of her holdings in the marriage documents. He was more interested in her periodic return to this stiff, chilly formality with him—though at least she had stopped talking of returning to her friend’s house in Los Angeles. Did that mean she had accepted their marriage after this last passionate month? He found he was not willing to ask—and he didn’t know what to make of such uncharacteristic reticence on his part.

  “That will do,” he said finally, when he realized she was awaiting his response. “I don’t know how long we will stay.” Was he afraid of what she might answer if he did ask? He dismissed that possibility. Since when had he ever been afraid of an answer, no matter how tough the question?

  “However long you wish,” she said. She smiled again. That bright, easy, completely manufactured smile—the one she no doubt used on strangers. It was enraging. “I’ll phone the housekeeper before we leave.”

  The civilized conversation was driving him insane. Luc wanted to reach beneath her manicured veneer and find the truth of her—force it out of her—so he could see it even when she sported all her sophistication and class like some kind of shield.

  And then he thought, why not? Inside the car the barrier was raised, hiding them completely from their driver. The windows were tinted for privacy. Why not, indeed?

  “Take off your panties,” he ordered her, in the silken tone he knew would excite her.

  She gasped. Color flooded her cheeks and her eyes widened.

  “I’m sorry?” she said, her voice betraying her. It was husky as she tried—and failed—to summon up some outrage. “What did you say?”

  “It is of no matter,” he murmured. “I’ll do it myself.”

  He turned to the side, maneuvering himself so that he knelt before her. He parted her long, gorgeously formed legs, taking care to run his hands along the elegant length of each, and kissing the curve of one knee.

  “What…what are you doing?” she whispered, her voice ragged.

  “You can leave your shoes on,” he told her. He was tired of masks, of shields. He wanted the real Gabrielle. And he could think of only one way to access her—immediately. And if that also happened to go a long way toward rattling her composure—well, that was even better.

  His hands streaked up her thighs and hooked around the sides of the flimsy panties she wore. He met her gaze as he drew them down her legs, then over the delicate heel of each shoe—and watched her mouth open on a breath, though no words escaped. He held her eyes with his as he drew one leg over his shoulder, tilting her back against the seat, sliding her bottom toward him, angling her hot center toward his mouth.

  “Luc!” A desperate whisper. “Luc, you cannot…!”

  But he did. He kissed her calf, the turn of her knee, the creamy skin of her inner thigh. And then he moved into the cradle of her thighs and kissed the hot, sweet core of her, already wet and swollen and ready for him. He felt her go rigid beneath him. Her hands burrowed into his hair, her legs clenched around his shoulders.

  He licked the length of her furrow, reveling in her scent, her taste. He sought out the center of her desire and sucked it gently into his mouth, then repeated it all. Again and again. Until she writhed beneath him, sobbing out incoherent sounds that might have been his name.

  She was like cream and truth, all woman, and more delectable than the finest Parisian cuisine. He heard her moans and knew she couldn’t fake that. He felt her body stiffen and shake, and knew with deep satisfaction that she couldn’t smooth that away, hide it behind her manners and breeding.

  She came apart around him, arching up from the seat and crying out his name, and he knew it was real. He could taste it.

  He sat up, gently rearranging her on the seat next to him and tucking her against his shoulder. Her ragged breathing was the only sound in the car—like music to his ears.

  She was his. Entirely his. He couldn’t abide the idea that she was hiding something—herself—from him. He wouldn’t allow it.

  He reached forward and scooped up her panties from the floor of the car as her eyes opened and she blinked. She was bright red, and her eyes were heavy-lidded with leftover passion. He did not have to ask if she was satisfied—he could still taste the rich wine of her arousal against his tongue. She shot him a nervous sort of look, then reached out to take the panties from him.

  “I think not,” he said. He smiled as her eyes widened. He took the panties—a scrap of peach-colored silk and lace that she looked at in some mixture of horror and desire—and tucked them away in the pocket of his trousers. “We can both spend the entire dinner picturing you naked beneath your clothes,” he said softly.

  Her breath left her in a rush. A quick look told Luc that she was aroused as much as she was dazed, a
nd that she didn’t quite know what to do about either.

  But as long as he could read her—as long as he’d shocked her public mask from her face—he didn’t care.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WITHIN moments of meeting Luc’s business associates—brothers from whom he had been attempting to buy a very successful chain of family-friendly hotels in various European Union countries for the past eighteen months—Gabrielle had them all eating out of her hand. Luc could not decide if it was the effortless grace of her manners, the quiet elegance of her subtly sophisticated ensemble, or some special Gabrielle mixture that only she could produce. Whatever it was, she used it well. She had the men and their wives at ease and laughing throughout the long meal in one of London’s finest restaurants, seemingly without exerting herself.

  She caught his eye as he watched her across the table laden with fine linens and delicate china, and he had the pleasure of seeing her gaze warm, though she made no other outward expression. But he knew it was for him only, that private heat, and it filled him with a sense of triumph.

  No masks, no shields. Not when she looked at him. Not anymore.

  “Your wife is truly a gem among women,” one of the men told Luc in a besotted aside during the cheese course. He was the oldest of the three Federer brothers, and the most powerful. There would be no deal without Franz Federer’s approval—which was the only reason Luc had decided not to object to the way the man was staring at Gabrielle’s figure, which she showed to advantage tonight in a sleeveless royal-blue shift. “Who would have expected the infamous Luc Garnier to take a wife, eh?”

  It was clear to Luc that it was not the fact of the wife that stunned the man—but the specific wife that Luc had procured. It was equally clear that being called the infamous Luc Garnier was not exactly a compliment. Luc remembered Gabrielle’s words about fear versus respect in his business, and wondered for the first time if she might have had a point after all. He had never cared much about the distinction. Maybe it was time he started.