by Millie Adams
Acquiring everything from Monte Blanco that they would need for the wedding was part of that.
When Violet and Javier pulled up to the shop, he parked and got out, leaning against the car.
She made her way toward the shop and looked back at him. He was a dashing figure. And she wanted to take his picture.
“I’m putting you on the internet.”
His expression went hard, but he didn’t say anything. And she snapped the shot, him with his arms crossed over his broad chest, a sharp contrast against the sleek black car and the quaint cobbled streets and stone buildings behind him.
And he was beautiful.
“Thank you.” She smiled and then went into the shop.
Immediately she was swept into a current of movement. She was given champagne and several beautiful dresses. It would be difficult to choose. But the dress that she decided on was simple, with floating sheer cape sleeves and a skirt that floated around her legs as she walked.
She took a photo of a detail of the dress on a hanger and took all the information for the bridal store.
Because when all this was over, anyone with a big wedding coming up this year would want a gown from this shop, from this designer.
When she reappeared, Javier was still standing where she had left him. Looking like a particularly sexy statue.
“All right. Now you have to come with me for the rest of this.”
They went through the rest of the city finding items for the wedding. They created a crowd wherever they went. People were in awe to see Javier walking around with the citizens like a regular person. Not that anything about him could be called regular.
“They love you,” she said as they walked into a flower shop.
He looked improbable standing next to displays of baby’s breath, hyacinth and other similarly soft and pastel-colored things.
“They shouldn’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Nobody should love a person in a position of power. They should demand respect of him.”
“You have some very hard opinions,” she said, reaching out and brushing her fingertips over the baby’s breath.
“I have to have hard opinions.”
He touched the edge of one of the hyacinth blossoms and she snapped a quick picture. She enjoyed the sight of his masculine hand against that femininity. It made her think of a hot evening spent with him. It made her think of sex. Of the way he touched her between her legs.
As if he were thinking the exact same thing, he looked at her, their eyes clashing. And she felt the impact of it low in her stomach.
“I’m definitely feeling a bit of frustration over having not gotten to finish what we started earlier,” he murmured.
“Me too,” she whispered. “But we are out doing our duty. And isn’t that the entire point of this marriage?”
The question felt like it was balanced on the edge of a knife. And her right along with it.
“It is,” he said, taking his hand away from the flower.
“Right. Well. I think I found the flowers that I want.”
She spoke to the shop owner, placing her order. And then the two of them carried on.
“I think we ought to have ice cream for the wedding,” she said, standing outside the store. She was searching for something. For that connection with him that they’d had earlier. That they’d had back when it was forbidden.
“I don’t want any,” he said.
“I... Well. I mean, we can order some for the wedding.”
“I think you can handle that on your own,” he said.
Her heart faltered for a beat. It felt too close to a metaphor for all that they were right now. She could also love him alone. She was doing it. But it hurt, and she didn’t know if she was ever going to be able to close this gap between them.
“Of course,” she responded. “I... I’ll go and order it.”
She did. Then she ordered an ice-cream cone for herself and ignored the pain in her chest. She ignored it all the way through the rest of the shopping, and when they arrived back at the palace and he did not continue where they had left off in his office.
And she tried not to wonder if she had chosen wrong.
She had to cling to the story.
Because eventually the beast would be transformed by love.
The problem was that her beast seemed particularly resistant to it.
And she wasn’t entirely sure she understood why.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE DAY OF the wedding dawned bright and clear. Violet was determined to be optimistic.
It has been a difficult few days. Javier’s moods had been unpredictable. Some days he had been attentive, and others, she hadn’t seen him at all.
He hadn’t made love to her since the day he had given her the jewels.
They hadn’t even come close since the day in his office, where they had been thwarted by her schedule. Something she bitterly resented now.
This distance made her feel brittle. Made her feelings hard and spiky, cutting her like glass each time her heart beat.
What would it mean to be with him like this, if it were this way forever?
When she’d imagined marriage to him, she’d imagined more nights like the ones they’d shared in bed together. With passion ruling, not duty.
But if their marriage would be like this...
She didn’t know if she’d survive it.
She had bought a beautiful dress, a beautiful dress to be the most suitable bride she could be. What else could she do?
She knew that she couldn’t wear the cuffs the way that she had done the day he had given them to her. But she did put two of them on one wrist and attached the gold chain, wrapping it artfully between the cuffs to make it look like an edgy piece of jewelry, rather than an intentional statement of bondage.
The day was made better and easier by the fact that her family was present. Minerva would be Violet’s only bridesmaid.
Minerva looked radiant and beautiful in a green dress that skimmed over the baby bump she was currently sporting. She and Dante had taken to parenthood with zeal. They had been instant parents, given that it was a vulnerable baby that had brought the two of them together. They had adopted her shortly after they’d married, and then had their second child quickly after.
This third one had only waited a year.
“You look beautiful,” Minerva said, smiling broadly.
“So do you,” Violet said.
Falling in love with Dante looked good on her younger sister. Violet would have never matched her sister with her brother’s brooding friend. She would have thought that somebody with such an intense personality would crush her sister’s more sunny nature. But that wasn’t true at all. If anything, Minerva was even sunnier, and Dante had lost some of the darkness that had always hung over him.
He had maintained his intensity; that was for sure.
Of course, when he held their children protectively, when he looked at Minerva like he would kill an entire army to protect her, Violet could certainly see the appeal.
Really, what could she say? She had fallen in love with a beast of a man who was as unknowable as he was feral. She could no longer say that the appeal of an intense partner was lost on her.
“You really are happy to marry him?” Minerva asked gently.
“Yes. It’s complicated, but I think you understand how that can be.”
Minerva laughed. “Definitely.”
“How did you manage it? Loving him, knowing he might never love you back?”
The corners of Minerva’s mouth tipped down. “Well. Mostly I managed it by asking myself if I would be any happier without him. The answer was no. I really wouldn’t have been any happier without him. And the time I did spend without Dante was so... It was so difficult. I loved him s
o much, and I had to wait for him to realize that what he felt for me was love. He couldn’t recognize it right away because... He didn’t know what it felt like. More than that, he was terrified of it. And after everything he had been through, I could hardly blame him.”
“Javier is like that,” Violet said softly. “He’s so fierce. A warrior at heart. And he believes that he isn’t good. But that he has honor, and that’s enough. He doesn’t seem to realize that the reason honor matters to him is that he is good. And I think he’s afraid to feel anything for me.”
“Have you said that to him?”
Violet shook her head. “No. I don’t want him to... I don’t want him to reject me.” It was one thing to be uncertain. In uncertainty, hope still blossomed inside her, fragile and small though it was.
But if she did say the words... If he rejected her definitively... Well, then she would not even have hope left.
“I understand that. But you know, it might be something he needs to hear. Because until he hears it, he’s not going to know. Because he won’t recognize it.”
“I’m thankful for you,” Violet said, wrapping her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “I don’t know very many other people who would understand this.”
“My love was definitely a hard one,” she said. “But I don’t think it was wrong to fight for it. I feel like sometimes people think... If it doesn’t just come together it isn’t worth it. But the kind of love I have with Dante... There’s nothing else like it. There’s no one else for me. He was wounded. He needed time to heal. And it was worth it.”
Minerva put her hand on her rounded stomach and smiled. “It was so worth it.”
Violet smiled, determination filling her. This would be worth it too.
The love that she felt for him was so intense, it had to be.
It had to be enough.
* * *
Javier waited at the head of the aisle. The church was filled with people. Some who were from Violet’s world, and many from his. Though he realized he didn’t actually know any of the people in attendance.
He was disconnected from this. From the social part of his job. A figurehead.
It had been interesting going out into town with her. She drew people to them like a bright, warm flame drawing in moths. He had never experienced such a thing, because he was the sort of man who typically kept people at a distance simply by standing there.
But not Violet.
Everyone seemed to want to be around her. To be near her. He could understand why she had managed to build an empire over the internet. With people who wanted to look like her, be like her. People who wanted to experience a slice of what she was.
She was compelling.
And after today she would be his.
He gritted his teeth, curling his hands into fists and waiting.
She would come.
And the momentary hitch of doubt that he had was assuaged by the appearance of her sister, who walked down the aisle with a small bouquet of flowers.
He had met her sister for the first time this morning. The other woman had seemed cautious around him, and a bit wary. Her husband had been more menacing. As had her brother.
Her father had seemed shamefaced, and Javier felt that was deserved. Her mother had simply seemed excited to be in a palace.
Javier had no concept of a family like this. Large and together, even though they disagreed on things, and it was clear that they did.
Though, he imagined that most families that appeared dysfunctional disagreed on small things, and not whether it was appropriate that one of them sold another into marriage. But at this point, what was done was done.
And she would be here.
She wanted him.
And she seemed committed to serving her role for the country.
That was her primary motivation. She had made that clear in the flower shop.
And it was a good thing. Because he could not afford distractions. He could not afford to start thinking in terms of emotion.
The music changed and he turned his focus again to the doorway. Watching with great attention.
And then, there she was.
The sight of her stole his breath.
She was...
She looked like she did for him. Only for him. Her dark hair was long and loose, the veil that she had soft and flowing down her back. She looked almost as if she didn’t have makeup on at all. Rather, she glowed. Her lips looked shiny and soft, her cheeks catching the light. It was magic. And so was she.
He had held himself back these weeks, because it had felt like something he should do until it was done. But now, here she was. Now she was his.
There would be no turning back.
When she reached the head of the aisle, she took his hand. And he pulled her to him. It was all he could do not to claim her mouth then and there. Not to make a spectacle of them both in front of the congregation.
And that was when he noticed the bracelets.
She had them both on one wrist. But the chain was there as well.
And when she looked into his eyes, he felt the impact of it all the way down to his gut.
She nodded slowly.
An affirmation.
She was choosing to give herself to him. And she was saying that she understood. The bond, the loyalty that traditionally existed here in this country between a royal husband and wife.
But he did not know where ownership fit into that. He did not know where duty and responsibility fit in.
He had told her about it. Mostly because he had wanted to see her wear those for him. Those rubies and nothing more. But also he had... He hadn’t understood. But suddenly, here, with those bracelets on her wrist, in a church, where they were about to make vows... Where she had brought the carnal into the sacred and blended them together, made them one, he could not understand how this bond could remain just another promise he decided to keep.
Because as she spoke her vows, low and grave in a voice that only he could hear, he felt them imprint beneath his skin. Down to his soul. And when he spoke his in return, they were like that gold chain on her wrist. But they wrapped around them both, binding them in a way that he had not anticipated.
He had thought he knew what this meant.
Because that day he had discovered the sorts of treachery his father protected. That day that he had realized that the orders he had taken for years had been in service of an insidious plan, and nothing that protected or bettered his people, he had sworn that he would uphold a set of principles. That he would not be led by his heart.
That he would not be led by anything other than a code of honor.
But now he had made vows to another person, and not an ideal.
When it came time to kiss her, it took all of his self-control not to claim her utterly and completely right there in front of the roomful of people. He touched her face, and he exercised restraint he did not feel, kissing her slowly but firmly, making sure that she knew it was a promise of more. A promise for later.
He had been restrained these past weeks.
But it was over now.
The vows were made. His course was set.
There was no turning back. Not now.
Whatever would become of this. Of them... It was too late.
You chose this.
He gritted his teeth against the truth of it.
It had been easy to say that he had done it for Matteo. That he was doing it to atone for the sin of taking her in the first place. But the fact of the matter was he was far too selfish to turn away from her.
The idea of giving her to another man had been anathema to him. An impossibility. Had his brother insisted on marrying her, he would have...
He would have betrayed him. He would have stolen her. Secreted her out of the country. Abandoned his post. Abandoned all that
they had built.
The truth of that roared in his blood.
Like the beast that he was.
But there was nothing to be done about that now. She was his, so it didn’t matter. She was his, so it couldn’t matter.
He pushed it all away as he continued to kiss her, and when he was through, the congregation was clapping, and they were introduced.
But he didn’t hear any of it.
There was nothing.
Nothing but the pounding of his blood in his veins, the demand that burned through his body like molten lava.
He would endure the reception for as long as he had to. For as long as he had to pretend to care about flowers and ice cream and all manner of things that were only stand-ins for what he had truly wanted all along.
He didn’t care to touch the petals of an alarmingly soft purple flower. He wanted Violet. Her skin beneath his hands. He didn’t wish to lick an ice-cream cone. He wished to lick her.
And he would play the game if he had to, but that was all it was to him. A game. A game until he could get to her. Because that was all that mattered.
She talked to her family, and he knew that he could not rush her away from them. She was speaking, even to her father, and though there was cautiousness between them, he wondered if she might make amends with him. Javier didn’t know how.
He asked her that very question once they got back to their room. In spite of the fact that his blood roared with desire, he had to know.
“I don’t know if it will ever be the same as it was,” she said. “But it was never easy. It was never perfect. I can always see those sorts of tendencies in him. Those beliefs.”
“But you will forgive him.”
“Yes. I think sometimes... If you value your relationship with another person enough, you have to be willing to accept that they are flawed. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to make my father see the world, or me, the way that I want him to. I can keep showing him, though. And in the meantime I can live my life. But cutting him out of it completely wouldn’t fix the wound. It wouldn’t heal anything.”
“It might teach him a lesson,” Javier said.