Prince of Secrets
His dark eyes met hers, his handsome face stern and unemotional. Yet despite wearing what she’d come to think of as his “corporate king” face, there was an unmistakable soul-deep satisfaction glimmering in his gaze.
He put his hand out toward her. The white-glove-covered appendage hung there, an unexpected beacon. He wasn’t supposed to take her hand yet; he wasn’t supposed to touch her at all. They had been instructed to enter the carriage separately. She was to sit with her back toward the driver and he was to face the people on the slow procession to the Orthodox cathedral.
According to the wedding coordinator and royal tradition, she and Demyan were not supposed to touch so much as fingertips until the priest proclaimed them man and wife.
So this one gesture spoke volumes of her prince’s willingness to put Chanel ahead of protocol.
Without warning, the mental and emotional fog surrounding Chanel fell away, the world coming into stark relief for the first time that day. Though it was early fall, the sun shone bright in the sky, the air around them crisp with autumn chill and filled with a cacophony of voices from the crowds lining the palace drive that were suddenly loud.
Love for Demyan swelled inside Chanel, pushing aside worry and doubt to fill her with a certainty that drove her forward toward the hand held out to her.
Their fingers touched, his curling possessively and decisively around her cold ones. He tugged her forward even as electric current arced between them despite the barrier of his glove.
Devastating emotion shuddered through her, completely dispelling the last of the strange, surreal sensations that had plagued her since waking.
His eyes flared and then he was pulling off the cape from his uniform and wrapping it around her. Several gasps sounded around them and the king said something that Chanel had no doubt was a protest.
She couldn’t hear him, though, not over the blood rushing in her ears. The long military cloak settled around her shoulders. She didn’t argue that she wasn’t really cold, because it carried the fragrance of Demyan’s cologne and skin, making her feel embraced by him.
He helped her into the open landau carriage, further eschewing protocol to sit beside her.
Cameras flashed, people cheered and while all of it registered, none of it really impacted Chanel. She was too focused on the man holding her hand and looking at her with quietly banked joy.
“It’s just you and me,” she said softly, understanding at last.
“Yes.”
He didn’t relate to her as a prince, though he was undeniably that. Demyan related to her as the man who wanted to share his life with her.
That life might be more complicated because of his title, but at the core, it was the life she wanted. Just as at the core, she knew this man and connected to him soul to soul.
The deep happiness reflecting in his gaze darkened to something more serious. “Always believe that, no matter what else might come up, our marriage is about you and me. Full stop.”
“Period,” she finished, her heart filled to bursting with such love for this man.
It didn’t have to make sense, or be rational, she realized. She had fallen for him immediately and she was wholly and completely in love with him now.
They could have waited another year to marry and she wouldn’t be any surer of him than she was right now.
As her mom had said, this man was it for Chanel, the love of her life, and he felt the same. Even if he hadn’t said the words.
Even if he never did.
“I love you,” she said to him, needing to in that moment as much as she needed to breathe.
“I will treasure that gift for the rest of my life, I promise you.”
He made the vow official less than an hour later when he said it in front of the filled-to-capacity cathedral as part of the personal vows they’d agreed to speak. He also promised to care for her, respect her and support her efforts to make the world a better place through science.
Chanel, who never cried, felt hot tears tracking down her cheeks—thank goodness for her mother’s insistence on waterproof makeup—as she spoke her own personal promises, including one to love Demyan for the rest of her life.
It wasn’t hard to promise something she didn’t think she had a choice about anyway.
His name change was also acknowledged for the first time publicly during the wedding ceremony, when the Orthodox priest led them in their formalized vows before pronouncing them married.
A murmur rippled through the crowd, but Demyan seemed oblivious, his attention wholly on Chanel.
The king’s expression was filled with more emotion than Chanel thought the rather standoffish King of Volyarus capable of as he made his official acknowledgment of his son’s new married state.