Chapter Ten #3
My heart surges into my throat as he stays quiet. “You can always redo it.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “No, this is nice. Really nice.” He looks at me then, appreciation gleaming in his eyes and filling me with warmth. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I reach into my pocket and pull out a black badge rimmed in gold. “Your all-access pass to the palace until we get you your own security codes.”
He takes it before moving to the balcony doors. Calm washes over me as he opens them and the distant sound of the ocean meets my ears. I follow him out, smiling as I take in the soaring pines in front of us, the walnut groves to the left and the sea to the right.
“It’s nice here.”
The approval in his voice makes me smile. “It is.”
He glances back at his room. “Where’s your room?”
“Next door. The nursery will be just past that.”
His eyes latch onto mine. My chest tightens.
“And after the wedding?”
My throat constricts. We need to have this conversation, to get it out of the way.
I had just hoped we might have a little more time to get to know each other, to enjoy these moments of camaraderie first. “My parents keep separate rooms, and I assumed we would, too. It will make it easier when…” My voice trails off as unexpected pain hits me square in the chest. “When we move on.”
“Move on?” His voice has turned bland, almost disinterested.
“I know you didn’t want marriage. Certainly not to someone who’s constantly in the spotlight. You wouldn’t be marrying me if I wasn’t pregnant.”
My voice nearly cracks on that last statement. I really need my hormones to get back under control. I hate being this raw, this vulnerable. I have to remind myself that I had only planned for us to have one night in Venice, too, not a lifetime.
“I don’t expect you to be monogamous, Dominic, just discreet—”
“Enough.”
That one word echoes through the room, a furious command that makes my next words die on my lips.
“Are you planning on sleeping with someone else?” He nods toward the wall separating our suites. “Having another man in there while I’m right next door?”
“No, of course not.”
He steps into the room, the forest and the sea at his back and disgust in his eyes. “Then why the hell do you think I would break my marriage vows before I’ve even said them?”
“Because I’m not going to do what my parents did to each other!
” My breathing comes too fast, shuddering breaths as the dam breaks and my pain pours out.
“My grandfather pushed my father to marry for a political alliance even though my father was in love with someone else. Grandfather told me it was the biggest mistake he ever made. My father retaliated by shutting down and taking a lover before the ink was dry on his marriage license.”
Dominic blurs as tears cloud my eyes. I blink them away.
“I don’t know my mother’s thoughts on what happened, but people have told me she used to be happy. Hopeful that she and my father could make things work. You saw how that worked out. I would rather you have a dozen affairs than look at me the way my parents looked at each other just now.”
We stare at each other for what feels like an eternity. Then, slowly, Dominic walks toward me. I want to turn, run back to my suite and give in to the storm waging inside me.
But I’m not just a princess, a future queen. I’m also a woman who has a few threads of pride left.
Dominic stops in front of me. His hand comes up, his fingers settling lightly on my neck. I inhale sharply as heat blooms beneath his touch. My heartbeat quickens as he trails his fingertips up my neck, along the curve of my jaw, and then rest on my chin. He tilts my head back until our eyes meet.
“Hear me now, Princess. This may be an unconventional marriage, but you’re mine now, just as I’m yours.” He leans down, eyes glittering. “If that doesn’t work for you, tell me. Because if we say our vows and you sleep with another man, I’ll kill him.”
“That seems extreme.”
“It’s not.” He releases me, steps back. “Go rest.” And then he walks back out onto the balcony.
I shiver at the loss of his touch on my skin.
Confused by his dedication to our arrangement, by the stark difference in his attitude toward our impending marriage versus my parents, I can’t think of anything else to say.
Yet I also can’t deny the relief blooming beneath the surface, a gratitude that he’s already taking our vows seriously before we’ve even said them.
Dominic stands gazing out over the sea. He looks like he belongs here, a future leader of Siravelle. The part of me that once dreamed of helping lead this country, a part I’d thought had died with my grandparents, sparks to life.
Be careful, a quiet voice whispers in my ear. He may commit to the marriage, to being a father. That doesn’t mean we’ll have the kind of marriage my grandparents did, the kind of union I once dreamed of for myself.
I leave his suite without another word, closing the door softly behind me. Dominic may look like he belongs here.
But he’ll never truly belong to me.