Still, she didn’t say anything, and he had to fight back the temper that kicked in him.
“Am I too late, Valentina? Is this—” He cut himself off and studied her clothes again. He stood before her in a morning coat and she was in jeans. “Are you planning to run out on this wedding? Now? The guests have already started arriving. You will have to pass them on your way out. Is that what you planned?”
“I was planning to run out on the wedding, yes,” she replied, and smiled as she said it, which made no sense. Surely she could not be so flippant about something that would throw both of their kingdoms into disarray—and rip his heart out in the process. Surely he’d only imagined she’d said such a thing. But Valentina nodded across the room. “But the good news is that she looks like she’s planning to stay.”
And on some level he knew before he turned. But it still stole his breath.
His princess was standing in the door to what must have been her dressing room, clad in a long white dress. There was a veil pinned to a shining tiara on her head that flowed to the ground behind her. She was so lovely it made his throat tight, and her green eyes were dark with emotion and shone with tears. He looked back to check, to make sure he wasn’t losing his own mind, but the spitting image of her was still sitting on the end of the bed, still dressed in the wrong clothes.
He’d known something was off about her the moment he’d walked in. His princess lit him up. She gazed at him and he wanted to fly off into the blue Mediterranean sky outside the windows. More, he believed he could.
She was looking at him that way now, and his heart soared.
He thought he could lose himself in those eyes of hers. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Since you walked in the door,” she whispered.
“Natalie,” he said, his voice rough, because she’d heard everything. Because he really had been talking to the right princess after all. “You told me you were Natalie.”
She smiled at him, a tearful, gorgeous smile that changed the world around. “I am,” she whispered. “But I would have been Valentina for you, if that was what you wanted. I tried.”
Valentina was talking, but Rodolfo was no longer listening. He moved to his princess and took her hands in his, and there it was. Fire and need. That sense of homecoming. Life.
He didn’t hesitate. He went down on his knees before her.
“Marry me, Natalie,” he said. Or begged, really. Her hands trembled in his. “Marry me because you want to, not because our fathers decided a prince from Tissely should marry a princess from Murin almost thirty years ago. Marry me because, when you were not pretending to be Valentina and I was not being an ass, I suspect we were halfway to falling in love.”
She pulled a hand from his and slid it down to stroke over his cheek, holding him. Blessing him. Making him whole.
“I suspect it’s a lot more than halfway,” she whispered. “When you said mine, you meant it.” Natalie shook her head, and the cascading veil moved with her, making her look almost ethereal. But the hand at his jaw was all too real. “No one ever meant it, Rodolfo. My mother told me I grew up, you see. And everything else was a job I did, not anything real. Not anything true. Not you.”
“I want to live,” he told her with all the solemnity of the most sacred vow. “I want to live with you, Natalie.”
“I love you,” she whispered, and then she bent down or he surged up, and his mouth was on hers again. At last.
She tasted like love. Like freedom. Like falling end over end through an endless blue sky only with this woman, Rodolfo didn’t care if there was a parachute. He didn’t care if he touched ground. He wanted to carry on falling forever, just like this.
Only when there was the delicate sound of a throat being cleared did he remember that Valentina was still in the room.
He pulled back from Natalie, taking great satisfaction in her flushed cheeks and that hectic gleam in her green eyes. Later, he thought, he would lay her out on a wide, soft bed and learn every single inch of her delectable body. He would let her do the same when he was sated. He estimated that would take only a few years.
Outside, the church bells began to ring.
“I believe that is our cue,” he said, holding fast to her hand.
Natalie’s breath deserted her in a rush, and Rodolfo braced himself.
“I want to marry you,” she said fiercely. “You have no idea how much. I wanted it from the moment I met you, whether I could admit it to myself or not.” She shook her head. “But I can’t. Not like this.”
“Like what?” He lifted her fingers to his mouth. “What can be terrible enough to prevent us from marrying? I haven’t felt alive in two decades, princess. Now that I do, I do not want to waste a single moment of the time I have left. Especially if I get to share that time with you.”
“Rodolfo, listen to me.” She took his hand between hers, frowning up at him. “Your whole life was plotted out for you since the moment you were born. Even when your brother was alive. My mother might have made some questionable choices, but because she did, I got something you didn’t. I lived exactly how I wanted to live. I found out what made me happy and I did it. That’s what you should do. Truly live. I would hate myself if I stood between you and the life you deserve.”
“You love me,” he reminded her, and he slid his hand around to hold the nape of her neck, smiling when she shivered. “You want to marry me. How can it be that even in this, you are defiant and impossible?”
“Oh, she’s more than that,” Valentina chimed in from the bed, and then smiled when they both turned to stare at her. A little too widely, Rodolfo thought. “She’s pregnant.”
His head whipped back to Natalie and he saw the truth in his princess’s eyes, wide and green. He let go of her, letting his gaze move over what little of her body he could see in that flowing, beautiful dress, even though he knew it was ridiculous. He could count—and he knew exactly when he’d been with her on that couch in Rome. To the minute.
He’d longed for her every minute since.
But mostly, he felt a deep, supremely male and wildly possessive triumph course through him like a brand-new kind of fire.
“Bad luck, princesita,” he murmured, and he didn’t try very hard to keep his feelings out of his voice. “That means you’re stuck with me, after all.”
“That’s the point,” she argued. “I don’t want to be stuck. I don’t want you to be stuck!”
He smiled at her, because if she’d thought she was his before, she had no idea what was coming. He’d waited his whole life to love another this much, and now she was more than that. Now she was a family. “But I do.”
And then, to make absolutely sure there would be no talking her way out of this or plotting something new and even more insane than the secret twin sister who was watching all of this from her spot on the bed, he wrenched open the door behind him and called for King Geoffrey himself.
“Make him hurry,” he told the flabbergasted attendants as they raced to do his bidding. “Tell him I’m seeing double.”
* * *
In the end, it all happened so fast.
King Geoffrey strode in, already frowning, only to stop dead when he saw Natalie and Valentina sitting next to each other on the chaise. Waiting for him.
Natalie braced herself as Valentina stood and launched into an explanation. She rose to her feet, too, shooting a nervous look over at Rodolfo where he lounged against one of the bed’s four posters, because she expected the king to rage. To wave it all away the way Erica had. To say or do something horrible—
But instead, the King of Murin made a small, choked sound.
And then he was upon them, pulling both Natalie and Valentina into a long, hard, endless hug.
“I thought you were dead,” he whispered into Natalie’s neck. “She told me you were dead.”
And for a long while, there was nothing but the church bells outside and the three of them, not letting go.
“I f
orget myself,” Geoffrey said at last, wiping at his face as he stepped back from their little knot. Natalie made as if to move away, but Valentina gripped her hand and held her fast. “There is a wedding.”
“My wedding,” Rodolfo agreed from the end of the bed.
The king took his time looking at the man who would be his son-in-law one way or another. Natalie caught her breath.
“You were promised this marriage the moment you became the Crown Prince, of course, as your brother was before you.”
“Yes.” Rodolfo inclined his head. “I am to marry a princess of Murin. But it does not specify which one.”
Valentina blinked. “It doesn’t?”
The king smiled. “Indeed it does not.”
“But everyone expects Valentina,” Natalie heard herself say. Everyone turned to stare at her and she felt her cheeks heat up. “They do. It’s printed in the programs.”
“The programs,” Rodolfo repeated as if he couldn’t believe she’d said that out loud, and his dark gaze glittered as it met hers, promising a very specific kind of retribution.
She couldn’t wait.
“It is of no matter,” King Geoffrey said, sounding every inch the monarch he was. He straightened his exquisite formal coat with a jerk. “This is the Sovereign Kingdom of Murin and last I checked, I am its king. If I wish to marry off a daughter only recently risen from the dead, then that is exactly what I shall do.” He started for the door. “Come, Valentina. There is work to be done.”
“What work?” Valentina frowned at his retreating back. But Natalie noticed she followed after him anyway. Instantly and obediently, like the proper princess she was.
“If I have two daughters, only one of them can marry into the royal house of Tissely,” King Geoffrey said. “Which means you must take a different role altogether. Murin will need a queen of its own, you know.”
Valentina shot Natalie a harried sort of smile over her shoulder and then followed the King out, letting the door fall shut behind her.
Leaving Natalie alone with Rodolfo at last.
It was as if all the emotions and revelations of the day spun around in the center of the room, exploding into the sudden quiet. Or maybe that was Natalie’s head—especially when Rodolfo pushed himself off the bedpost and started for her, his dark gaze intent.
And extraordinarily lethal.
A wise woman would have run, Natalie was certain. But her knees were in collusion with her galloping pulse. She sank down on the chaise and watched instead, her heart pounding, as Rodolfo stalked toward her.
“Valentina arrived in the middle of the night,” she told him as he came toward her, all that easy masculine grace on display in the morning coat he wore entirely too well, every inch of him a prince. And something far more dangerous than merely charming. “I never had a sister growing up, but I think I quite like the idea.”
“If she appears in the dead of night in my bedchamber, princess, it will not end well.” Rodolfo’s hard mouth curved. “It will involve the royal guard.”
He stopped when he was at the chaise and squatted down before her, running his hands up her thighs to find and gently cup her belly through the wedding gown she wore. He didn’t say a word, he just held his palm there, the warmth of him penetrating the layers she wore and sinking deep into her skin. Heating her up the way he always did.
“Would you have told me?” he asked, and though he wasn’t looking at her as he said it, she didn’t confuse it for an idle question.
“Of course,” she whispered.
“Yet you told me to go off and be free, like some dreadfully self-indulgent Kerouac novel.”
“There was a secret, nine-month limit on your freedom,” Natalie said, and her voice wavered a bit when he raised his head. “I was trying to be noble.”
His gaze was dark and direct and filled with light.
“Marry me,” he said.
She whispered his name like a prayer. “There are considerations.”
“Name them.”
Rodolfo inclined his head in that way she found almost too royal to be believed, and yet deeply alluring. It was easy to imagine him sitting on an actual throne somewhere, a crown on his head and a scepter in his hand. A little shiver raced down her spine at the image.
“I didn’t mean to get pregnant,” she told him, very seriously. “I’m not trying to trap you.”
“The hormones must be affecting your brain.” He shook his head, too much gold in his gaze. “You are already trapped. This is an arranged marriage.”
“I wasn’t even sick. Everyone knows the first sign of pregnancy is getting sick, but I didn’t. I had headaches. I was tired. It was Valentina who suggested I might be pregnant. So I counted up the days and she got a test somewhere, and...”
She blew out a breath.
“And,” he agreed. He smiled. “Does that truly require consideration? Because to me it sounds like something of a bonus, to marry the father of your child. But I am alarmingly traditional in some ways, it turns out.”
Natalie scoffed at the famous daredevil prince who had so openly made a mockery of the very institutions he came from, saying such things. “What are you traditional about?”
His dark eyes gleamed. “You.”
Her heart stuttered at that, but she pushed on. “And we’ve only had sex the one time. It could be a fluke. Do you want to base your whole life on a fluke?”
His gaze was intent on hers, with that hint of gold threaded through it, and his hands were warm even through layers and layers of fabric.
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
It felt like a kiss, like fire and need, but Natalie kept going.
“You barely know me. And the little while you have known me, you thought I was someone else. Then when I told you I wasn’t who you thought I was, you were sure I was either trying to con you, or crazy.”
“All true.” His mouth curved. “We can have a nice, long marriage and spend the rest of our days sorting it out.”
“Why are you in such a rush to get married?” she demanded, sounding cross even to her own ears, and he laughed.
It was that rich, marvelous sound. Far better than Valentina’s gold-plated chocolate. Far sweeter, far more complex and infinitely more satisfying.
Rodolfo stood then, rising with an unconscious display of that athletic grace of his that never failed to make her head spin.
“We are dressed for it, after all,” he said. “It seems a pity to waste that dress.”
She gazed up at him, caught by how beautiful he was. How intense. And how focused on her. It was hard to think of a single reason she wouldn’t love him wildly and fiercely until the day she died. Whether with him or not.
Better to be with him.
Better, for once in her life, to stay where she belonged. Where after all this time, she finally belonged.
“Natalie.” And her name—her real name at last—was like a gift on his tongue. “The bells are ringing. The cathedral is full. Your father has given his blessing and your secret twin sister, against all odds, has returned and given us her approval, too, in her fashion. But more important than all of that, you are pregnant with my child. And I have no intention of letting either one of you out of my sight ever again.”
She pulled in a breath, then let it out slowly, as if she’d already decided. As if she’d already stayed.
“I risked death,” Rodolfo said then, something tender in his gaze. “For fun, princess. Imagine what I can do now I have decided to live.”
“Anything at all,” she replied, tears of joy in her voice. Her eyes. Maybe her heart, as well. “I think you’re the only one who doesn’t believe in you, Rodolfo.”
“I may or may not,” he said quietly. “That could change with the tides. But it only matters to me if you do.”
And she didn’t know what she might have done then, because he held out his hand. The way he had on that dance floor in Rome.
Daring her. Challenging her.
Sh
e was the least spontaneous person in all the world, but Rodolfo made it all feel as if it was inevitable. As if she had been put on this earth for no other purpose but to love him and be loved by him in turn.
Starting right this minute, if she let it.
“Come.” His voice was low. His gaze was clear. “Marry me. Be my love. All the rest will sort itself out, princesita, while we make love and babies with equal vigor, and rule my country well. It always does.” And his smile then was brighter than the Mediterranean sun. “I love you, Natalie. Come with me. I promise you, whatever else happens, you will never regret it.”
“I will hold you to that,” she said, her heart in her voice.
And then she slipped her hand into Rodolfo’s and let him lead her out into the glorious dance of the rest of their lives.
* * * * *
EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT
Ariston Kavakos makes impoverished Keeley Turner a proposition: a month’s employment on his island, at his command. Soon her resistance to their sizzling chemistry weakens! But when there’s a consequence, Ariston makes one thing clear: Keeley will become his bride…
Read on for a sneak preview of
THE PREGNANT KAVAKOS BRIDE
‘You’re offering to buy my baby? Are you out of your mind?’
‘I’m giving you the opportunity to make a fresh start.’
‘Without my baby?’
‘A baby will tie you down. I can give this child everything it needs,’ Ariston said, deliberately allowing his gaze to drift around the dingy little room. ‘You cannot.’
‘Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, Ariston,’ Keeley said, her hands clenching. ‘You might have all the houses and yachts and servants in the world, but you have a great big hole where your heart should be—and therefore you’re incapable of giving this child the thing it needs more than anything else!’
‘Which is?’
‘Love!’
Ariston felt his body stiffen. He loved his brother and once he’d loved his mother, but he was aware of his limitations. No, he didn’t do the big showy emotion he suspected she was talking about and why should he, when he knew the brutal heartache it could cause? Yet something told him that trying to defend his own position was pointless. She would fight for this child, he realised. She would fight with all the strength she possessed, and that was going to complicate things. Did she imagine he was going to accept what she’d just told him and play no part in it? Politely dole out payments and have sporadic weekend meetings with his own flesh and blood? Or worse, no meetings at all. He met the green blaze of her eyes.
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