“What an unexpected surprise, finding you here, Princess,” Sawyer said with a smile.
“Of course. Why would I be at a ball hosted by my mother, at which I had no choice but to attend?”
“So they force you to attend these balls, do they?” he said. “Perhaps they should call it a bondage ball.”
Isabella laughed. “It’s obviously not that bad,” she said. “Just maybe after dancing with the twentieth man under the age of forty-five who might be seeking a princess bride, but overall, it could be worse.”
“Ah, the princess bride syndrome,” he said. “I hear there’s a cure for that.”
She arched her eyebrow. “Oh is there, now? And what would that be?”
“Why, to get married, of course.” He steered her toward the dessert table while she shot him a quizzical look.
The music was still playing, and with everyone on the dance floor, no one was really paying attention to the two of them. He grabbed her hand and walked her the rest of the way to the cake he’d made just for her: a two-tiered masterpiece in robin’s egg blue fondant, with wide white fondant ribbons. Of course, any self-respecting woman with a taste for jewelry would readily recognize them as “boxes” from Tiffany & Company. The “lid” of the top cake was ajar, with faux pearl necklaces draped from the opening. Dangling from the bow was an actual Tiffany heart key pendant, this one encrusted with tiny diamonds.
Isabella’s mouth opened wide. “Did you make this? It’s beautiful.”
“On special order of the queen,” he said.
“My mum? Asked you to make the cake for tonight?”
“Far more important than just making a cake for tonight,” he said, “it was to be for a very special young woman. She said it was someone I should try to impress.”
“Oh, really?” she said. “My shy, withdrawn mother, never one to intervene at all, then?”
“One and the same.”
“So, let’s see,” she said. “What have we here?”
Sawyer unclasped the key pendant and draped it around Isabella’s neck. “This, you see,” he said. “Is the key to my heart. It’s very fragile, though, so you’ll need to take extra special care of it.”
Isabella looked into his eyes and smiled. “At the very least I think I owe it to you to do that.”
Sawyer linked hands with her. “Take a look under the lid,” he said. “See what you find.”
“I can’t imagine what it could be,” she said. “After all, you’ve already entrusted me with the most important part of you.”
Isabella carefully lifted the lid so as not to mess up the cake.
She gasped. There in the back corner of the box was a small black velvet box. She extracted it from the cake and looked at Sawyer, her head cocked as if to ask him what this was all about.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Open it.”
Isabella’s hands trembled as she lifted the lid to see a three-carat Tiffany solitaire ring with a band of sparkling channel-set brilliant diamonds.
“Oh, Sawyer,” she said, her hands shaking.
“Princess,” he said. “I can’t get down on one knee right here because I don’t want to draw attention to us. I want this to be our moment. So can we save the knee thing for later? But I need you to know how serious I am about you, Isabella. Against my better judgment, I’ve fallen in love with you.”
“Against your better judgment?”
“Well, you have to admit, I’ve imperiled myself by so doing. A few times there I thought you might completely throttle my very last breath from me.”
Isabella laughed, her eyes filling with tears. “Why didn’t you tell me you loved me?”
Sawyer knit his brow. “Are you mad, woman? I did everything but lie down in front of a speeding train for you. You’re a tough one to woo. I even questioned my sanity in toughing it out. But for some reason, I couldn’t get you out of my head. You seeped into my spirit, Isabella. The more I tried to imagine losing you, the more I knew I needed to let you know I was willing to commit to you forever. Your Highness,” he said, slipping the ring onto Isabella’s finger. “Would you do me the honor of becoming my bride?”
Chapter Forty-Four
Isabella’s heart was pounding in her chest, and she was feeling lightheaded.
“Sawyer, let’s get out of here,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him in the direction of the state apartments.
Once out of the ballroom, she took off her shoes and they both ran to the elevator. When the doors opened, Sawyer pushed Isabella in and she impatiently pounded on the door close button till it obeyed.
“Some things just won’t yield, even to royal decree,” Sawyer said with a broad smile. “Come here.” He pulled her to him, where their mouths met in what seemed like the first time in forever. Sawyer wove his fingers with Bella’s, lifting her arms and pressing her up against the wall of the elevator as their tongues met and tangled. Bella loved feeling Sawyer’s body pressed up against hers, his desire evident as he rubbed against her.
The elevator doors opened and they ran as fast as they could to her apartment, racing inside.
“What are we doing?” Sawyer said. “We have to get back there before it’s time to cut the cake, you know. Your mother will be expecting us.”
“Yes, but I needed to just be with you, to feel you, to smell you, to have you all to myself.” Sawyer’s hands were scrambling over Isabella, pushing away the edge of the bodice of her ball gown, exposing her breasts for his ravenous eyes.
“Please tell me we can do this right now,” he said with desperation in his voice. “I can’t have another episode of blue balls this year or they’ll likely fall off.”
She laughed. “Well, we can’t have that. But it has to be quick,” she said, unbuttoning his pants and reaching for his already hard cock. “Oh, Sawyer, I can’t wait. I want you inside me now.”
He walked her toward the closest wall, and, pushing away the volume of tulle from her ball gown, grabbed her bottom and lifted her up, settling her down on top of him as he gradually entered her inch by inch.
Slowly they began to move, their mouths nipping and biting and licking as they made up for lost time rediscovering each other.
“Sawyer,” she said, gasping for air as she teetered on the edge, so close to climax it was making her crazy with desire.
“Princess,” he said, thrusting into her.
“You sure you want this, with me?” she said, grinding onto him, reaching between them, desperate to go over the crest.
“Are you crazy, Kitten?” he said, pushing hard one more time then groaning loudly, his body shaking with the force of his climax just as Isabella cried out, trembling as her body closed around his. They stood, sweaty and disheveled and unable to move for a minute. “There’s no one else for me but you. You’re my everything.”
~*~
The two of them lay, sweaty and exhausted, on Bella’s sofa, trying to collect themselves before returning to the ball. Isabella held out her left hand, admiring the ring.
“It’s so beautiful, Sawyer,” she said.
“You’re so beautiful, Princess.” He leaned over to kiss her. “My princess.”
~*~
“I hope everyone thinks we’re so disheveled from dancing so long,” Bella said as they returned to the grand ballroom.
“That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.”
They’d made it back just in time, as the queen had indicated it was time for the cake cutting. Sawyer was introduced and Isabella was called forward to make the first cut of the cake. Everyone gathered round to watch.
“We’ve got something to tell you all first,” Isabella said, holding hands with Sawyer. “Sawyer has asked me to marry him, and I’ve said yes.”
The crowd let out a cheer as family and friends rushed toward the couple to congratulate them.
“Sawyer, my friend, I didn’t know you had it in you,” Clementine said when she walked up to him. “But I’m glad you did. You’ll make Isa
bella so very happy.”
Ariana and Enrico joined the happy couple and congratulated them.
“That must have been some cake,” the queen said, winking at Sawyer.
“After all, it was for a very special person,” he said.
Zander came up to congratulate them. “Bella, I’m a little worried, though, I think I might be allergic to your man here,” he said.
Isabella raised an eyebrow at him while Sawyer looked confused.
“I don’t think it’s actually possible for you to be allergic to a person.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but ever since I shook his hand the other day, my eyes have been itchy and I even got some hives.”
Isabella and Sawyer looked at each other and laughed. If the worst outcome of all this was Zander thinking he was allergic to Sawyer, their lives would indeed be happy ever after.
~*~
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Turn the page for a sneak peek at It’s Getting Hot in Heir, book 7 in the It’s Reigning Men series.
IT’S GETTING HOT IN HEIR
Chapter One
It seemed Gabriella Puccini, Contessa of Castiglione Girasole, couldn’t unwrap the sleeve of her Girl Scout Thin Mints cookies fast enough. Which sucked, cause when a girl wants a quick pick-me-up after a devastating break-up, the last thing she needs getting between her and her heartache-therapy cookies is stubborn cellophane. After trying to pull apart the seal at the top of the column of her food binge du jour the logical way, she decided to cut to the chase and open the whole damned stack with her teeth.
“No one else is even going to have a chance to get near my saliva-contaminated cookies,” she said with a grimace as she placed the sleeve edge in her mouth and bit down. “Besides, no doubt the whole damned box of them will be floating in my stomach long before someone else might happen upon them.”
But still the wrapper wouldn’t give, despite Gab’s repeated valiant attempts to tear it with her incisors.
“All right. Looks like this calls for the big guns,” she said, grumbling, as she pulled out a serrated knife from her silverware drawer. With a hard stab—maybe administered with a slight sense of revenge? —she gouged the knife into the package, right between two cookies, to ensure this time she’d get to the source with no more false starts. The plastic wrapper finally gave without a fight, and Gabriella managed to make a healthy dent in that measly little stack of cookies in about four minutes flat. Within the hour, she’d ingested the entire stack and was well on her way into the second.
“Milk,” she said under her breath, rifling around the sink for a quasi-clean cup in the pile of dirty dishes that had accrued since she learned her fiancé was no longer interested in being her fiancé two days ago. “Need. Milk. Now.” She unearthed a cup that didn’t look too dirty, gave it a quick rinse, poured a slug of milk into it, and dropped a cookie in to soak.
But it didn’t take long for her to realize that milk and cookies weren’t gonna do it alone this time.
“Wine,” she finally said, fumbling for an opener. She verbalized this as if it hadn’t already dawned on her that she’d officially bypassed the bury-your-emotions-in-food stage and was now moving on to the drown-them-in-alcohol phase of her freshly-anointed Miserable Rat-Bastard Fiancé Detox Program.
Gabriella found a bottle of her favorite Sangiovese on the wine rack and mercifully opened it with greater ease than she did the cookies. Pulling a glass from the cabinet, she slopped the liquid nearly to the rim of the glass. “What’s one little glass of wine between friends?” she said, wrinkling her nose as she looked down at her dog, Fancy Pants, a yellow Labrador who stared up at her with ever-adoring eyes.
“Salute,” Gabriella said to the dog, tipping her glass as wine sloshed over the brim onto the kitchen floor. She took a big gulp, shook her head against the wince that inevitably came with guzzling a drink meant to be savored in small sips, and then helped herself to some more. Fancy whined in solidarity, but then, with a sigh, she plopped down on the floor, laid her head on her paws, and closed her eyes. Even the dog wasn’t interested in commiserating with her.
“Oh well,” Gab said, bracing for a full-on bender. “Bottoms up.”
~*~
Gabriella woke hours later, curled up on the dog bed, her face creased by the acrylic pile fabric, with Fancy’s paws pressed up against her stomach, her dog-breath hanging in the air a little too close to Gab’s nose for comfort.
Gabriella let out a moan loud enough to scare Fancy out of her deep sleep.
She scruffed the dog’s head. “Back to sleep, girl,” she said, rubbing her own throbbing head as she lifted herself off the floor and took a good, hard look at the mess in her apartment, which seemed all the more symbolic of the shambles her life had become in such a short time. There was a trail of discarded dirty clothes scattered throughout the place. A telltale path of food wrappers and crumbs dotted the countertops. Days worth of dishes were piled all over the sink and counter. It hadn’t helped that two days earlier, she’d cooked a veritable feast for her and Matthew’s six-month engagement anniversary, making use of just about every pan, mixing bowl, utensil and measuring spoon she owned. Unfortunately those dishes now only served as a painful reminder of how quickly you can go from what you thought was the pinnacle of joy to the dregs of heartbreak.
She closed her eyes as the whole scene replayed itself in her head, yet again. She’d spent the better part of that day preparing the meal, a pappardelle with duck ragù like her mother used to make when she was a child. The whole time she prepared the duck—seasoning the legs, browning them, chopping the onions and carrots and celery and garlic, even searing the crap out of her fingertips as she pulled the meat off the bone once it had all cooked down on the stove—she’d thought about how much she wanted what her parents had in a marriage, and how thrilled she was that she was finally going to get that with Matthew.
Matthew... They’d fallen in love on the Metro, of all things. Somewhere on the Red Line between the Woodley Park-Zoo stop and Union Station. She remembered the first time she noticed him. She was busy reading the online version of the Italian newspaper La Republicca on her iPad, but had glanced up to catch him staring at her. She was on her way to her job with a non-profit that helped to resettle war refugees. She’d begun working with the organization years earlier through her cousin Zander’s charity, the Prince’s Trust. She’d worked for a while in a large soup kitchen facility in Rome with her friend Giulia, but eventually wended her way to the States, after trying unsuccessfully to shake off the lingering gloomy clouds after having broken up with her boyfriend Giovanni from university days, who’d joined the Royal Armed Guards in Monaforte post-graduation, with plans to travel non-stop with his job.
Gab should’ve realized then that she wasn’t so great at choosing the right guy for a long-term relationship, as Giovanni picked his career over her, which smarted, badly. The only thing that finally helped her get over that soured relationship was fleeing to America for a while and starting a new life in a new place.
So there she was, living in Washington, on her way to work, minding her business while catching up on the news from back home, when her curiosity was piqued by the man who kept staring at her. This went on regularly during her morning commute, and each day the cute dark-haired stranger seemed to move a little closer to where she was sitting. Finally after at least a week, he sat down next to her and started up a conversation. That night, they went out for dinner and a movie, and before she knew it, they we
re dating exclusively.
Matthew had worked as an assistant legislative director for a senator, and his work hours were burdensome. Which, upon reflection, helped to land Gabriella where she found herself only moments earlier: zonked out on the dog bed with an encroaching Girl Scout cookie- and alcohol-induced hangover looming like an approaching hurricane. While Matt’s commitment to his job was admirable on one level, it also meant pretty much every time she was counting on him to be home on time, he wasn’t. He was like living with an obstetrician, constantly called out to deliver babies at inconvenient times.
If Congress was in session and she and Matthew planned something special like a weekend getaway, they were guaranteed that at the last minute some stupid crisis at work would crop up, killing their plans. In theory the hours he worked when Congress was in session meant he got to slack off when they weren’t, but it seemed more and more lately, Matt had erred on the side of all work and no play. And that made Gab unhappy. Especially after she’d gone to all the trouble to cook an amazing feast, something that resurrected in her so many memories of her childhood spent both in Monaforte and in the tiny Tuscan town of La Quercia Castiglione Girasole.
By the time Matt had finally made it home that fateful night, Gab had not only eaten her share of dinner and powered through three generous glasses of a Super Tuscan she’d been saving for the occasion, but also fed her fiancé’s portion of duck ragù to Fancy, who clearly enjoyed homemade pappardelle more than Matthew did. At least someone—or thing—would enjoy her culinary skills.
Matt tried to give Gab a hug when he finally showed up three hours late, but she turned a cold shoulder to him.
“What?” he said to her with an air of annoyance in his voice.
“I think you know what,” she said, frowning. She started to turn off the lights in the living room, having zero interest in discussing anything with him, but knowing it was inevitable.
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