Chapter Six #2
“Then your reprieve is granted for one night,” he announced. “You must understand that I will need to take away your phone. I can’t have you warning either of our fathers about what I’m planning to do.”
Their fathers were the last people she wanted to call right now. “I want to send a message to my sister. Just so she doesn’t worry too much.”
He eyed her warily, as if he suspected that she might set into motion her own spontaneous PR campaign.
Finally, he nodded. She took out her phone and typed a quick message: Wish you could have been here for the wedding.
I will fill you in in a couple days. She handed him her phone with the message still open.
He read it, then studied her quietly. There was heat in his gaze, but she saw glimmers of something else, something that made her shiver.
“I don’t trust you, but I have to admit I’m intrigued,” he said, and then a dark smile spread across his face. “Still, you must understand that I’m granting a reprieve, not a stay of execution.”
“What a lovely analogy to use,” she said, finding the threads of her anger again. Good. She needed them close. Anger was an arrow that required direction, and she had to use it to save her sister. With a lift of her chin, she added, “Also, I think we both know that no one can see the future.”
He laughed, and she felt as if he had taken her words as a challenge. She sat there, so still, as the light reflected off the water and the bubbles fizzed in their champagne glasses.
Gustav’s eyes glittered. “I very much look forward to tonight.”
* * *
Gustav watched his new wife as she ate their celebratory wedding meal and sipped from her glass of champagne.
Wife. He felt a satisfaction inside him, an uneasy calm that he knew he needed to be wary of.
He hadn’t realized just how much of his desire to make Edvin suffer for his actions was because he’d been going to marry Livia.
Not until now, when a sense of grim satisfaction settled inside him when their vows were spoken and he knew for sure that she was his.
But shouldn’t his, jealousy have dissipated, too?
It hadn’t. The acid still ate at him from the inside.
Had she wanted to marry Edvin instead, regardless of her feelings about royalty?
If there was some explanation, then maybe this restlessness inside him would quiet.
Long ago, this woman had had the power over him, and he could not leave himself vulnerable to her again.
Livia was supposed to be a means to an end.
She was looking out at the coastline, dotted with little islands, all rock and pine, with an occasional lone house peeking out in bright red or yellow.
If this were another kind of wedding day, he might have shown her the inlets where he had sailed his first boat or shown her his favorite fishing spots.
But this was the day she had begged him to keep hold of the royal title she had claimed she hated. And he had granted her a delay.
He frowned and studied her, pushing away the distracting heat and focusing on the measured quality to her movements, as if she were keeping herself under tight control. He had the urge to shake that control, but he could wait, now that the promise of tonight had been dangled in front of him.
“Where are you taking us on our wedding night?” she asked, gazing out into at the endless green of the shoreline. “I see no traces of civilization.”
“The towns are farther north,” he said, gesturing up the shore, “but everything you can see from here is protected wildlife reserve. We will stop for the night at an inlet just a little farther down, with a beach that is only accessible by boat.”
“You know this coastline well?” she asked.
“Since I was young, I have sailed my catamaran here. It’s a good boat for the shallow waters.”
“Were you into sailing back when we met?”
“I won every race for the school’s sailing club.” He could hear the leftover pride in his voice, and he could see by her smile that she did, too.
“Of course you did.”
He rested his hand on her cheek and watched her pulse move in her throat as he traced a line down her cheek. “There’s a lot we don’t know about each other, wouldn’t you agree?”
Had they ever really known each other? If they had spent more of those nights talking about what really mattered, would he have made the same mistakes? It was far too late for regrets, but the present was an open road.
Heat flared in her eyes, and he was almost sure she wanted to look away as the flush rose to her cheeks.
Gustav’s lips tugged up as satisfaction rushed through him.
She was susceptible to him, and he could use that to learn why she was there in the first place.
She claimed not to care for Edwin, and yet all signs pointed in the other direction.
Every time the thought crossed his mind, a sickening jealousy spread through him like poison.
Livia was holding something back. He had to know what it was, and he would use the bedroom to learn the truth.