by Violet Paige
“Bonjour, love.” I smiled.
“Bonjour.” She looked at the gilded cart. “Wow, you must be hungry this morning. And mimosas? Are we celebrating this morning?” She smiled sweetly. She reached for the coffee carafe first.
Why the fuck was I suddenly nervous? I could hear the blood pump between my ears.
“Are these fresh raspberries and kiwi?”
I nodded. “They are.”
“Yum. And I love these croissants.”
The sun washed over her, highlighting the blue in her eyes. She’d never looked more beautiful. More like the queen I wanted to make her.
“I fell asleep before you got in last night. Sorry.” She looked up. “But I do have some crazy news. I talked to Brooklyn for an hour.”
I eyed her. “Is this about Roux?”
“He’s going to leave Carina.”
“What? I haven’t seen his petition.”
“They just decided last night. I’m sure you’ll have it sometime this week. I can’t believe it. I’m so excited for Brooklyn.”
I watched as Molly heaped the ripe berries on her plate. I couldn’t let Sebastian’s idiotic decisions destroy this morning. For two weeks, I had tried to find the perfect place. The perfect time. But the world kept colliding with my plans. I had to make sure Dominic was settled. The irrigation grants had to be finalized. The Boutique Islands were impatient to start the new trade arrangements.
If I waited for everything in the country and my family to have complete peace, I’d never have my queen.
“Damon? Aren’t you going to say something? Brooklyn and Sebastian are going to be together.” She sipped the coffee. “You are going to grant his request, aren’t you?”
“To abdicate his position as duke and leave his wife?”
“Yes. He’s miserable. He loves Brooklyn. It’s obvious the way he looks at her. You can see that, right?”
I didn’t want to argue. I wasn’t going to fight with her this morning about someone else’s love story.
Today was the beginning of ours.
“Damon?”
I walked to the other side of the table. The ring was pressed between my thumb and fingers.
“Yes, I’ll grant it,” I replied. “I don’t want to talk about Roux. I want to talk about you, Molly Washington.”
Her eyes lifted. God, I could get lost in those shades of blue for the rest of my life.
“Me?” she squeaked.
“Mmmhmm.” I ran my fingers through her hair, sweeping it from her shoulder. I lowered to one knee and she gasped.
“Oh my God.”
I grinned. “I want to talk about you. About me. About us, my love.”
She started to shake. “Damon,” she whispered.
“I’ve given a lot of speeches as king. So many lectures and talks, but I’m almost at a loss for words right now.” I gazed into her eyes. “I look at you and I see light, kindness, strength. I see a woman who loves me despite my crown. I see home. I see love. I see a future. Molly, I see the woman I want to love and to protect.” I revealed the ring from behind my back. I held it toward her. “I don’t know what’s ahead for me as king. I can’t promise you normal. This life is far from it. But I can promise to fight for you. To fight for us. To love you. To give you as many mornings like this as I can. And I promise to do my best to consider your counsel.” I winked. I was still working on that one. “I’ve never knelt before anyone. But I’d do far more than this to show you how much I want a future with you. Will you marry me, Molly Washington?”
The ring sparkled between us. I held my breath. It felt as if it was the longest second of my life.
Molly collapsed into my arms. “Yes. Yes. I’ll marry you.”
She crawled into my lap, kissing me. I tasted the salt of her tears on my lips.
“Then I need to give you this.” I threaded the sapphire stone over her knuckle. It fit perfectly.
“I can’t believe this.” She held it toward her face.
“I knew it had to be a sapphire,” I teased. I dragged my lips over hers. “Always my sapphire.”
She giggled. “Yes. Always yours.”
I untangled us from the patio and held her stand. “Let’s have a toast.” I reached for the champagne.
Molly crinkled her nose. “Maybe just the orange juice. Sorry, I think I’m too excited. The champagne would send me over.” She smiled.
“All right.” I handed her orange juice in a fluted crystal glass.
Our glasses clinked. “To the new queen of the House of Sauvage. To our future.”
“To our future,” she echoed.
My hand rounded over her ass as I pulled her to me. “Before we announce this to the world, I could use some time alone with you.”
“Please,” she whispered.
I lifted her in my arms and carried her to bed.
40
Molly
“Oh God.” I fell back on the bed. Every part of my body felt exquisitely sensitive. Sex had never felt like that before. The way he touched me was like lightning shooting from his fingers. My nipples tingled. My clit buzzed. I was still on fire even after three orgasms.
Damon nuzzled behind me. He ran his fingers along my arm, twining them between mine. The ring was the only thing I had on.
“I should have Sutcliffe clear my schedule so we can spend the entire day like this,” he growled. “We could stay in bed all day.”
I nodded. “Can we?”
“I wish. But Galonians might not understand how much we enjoy fucking each other.” He laughed.
I twisted to face him. His body was damp with sweat. I placed my palm over his chest. I could feel his heart still beating wildly. I kissed his tanned skin.
“What is today?” I asked. I lost track of time in the palace.
“The thirtieth. I have a cabinet meeting this afternoon. Why?”
The deadline for accepting the grant to London was tomorrow. I had been a coward for two weeks. Afraid that leaving while Damon dealt with Dominic’s health was too much to ask. He needed me to stay. And the thought of suggesting I leave for six weeks seemed out of the question.
But I hadn’t sent my reply.
I counted back on the calendar. In a month’s time my life had changed more dramatically than any piece of literature I had studied. An entire month of Damon had turned everything upside down.
“Wait, are you sure it’s the thirtieth?”
He nodded. “There is always a cabinet meeting the last day of the month. I’m sure. But I was thinking maybe the middle of next month in between sessions we could go somewhere. A pre-honeymoon, honeymoon.”
“A month,” I whispered.
He tilted his head. “Yes.”
I sat up in bed. “Oh shit.” I hopped off the side and slid a robe on. My phone was on the dining table. I ran through the apartment.
“Molly?” Damon followed me through the apartment naked.
I grabbed my phone from my purse and pulled up the calendar.
I looked at him.
It had been six weeks since my last period.
“Molly, what’s wrong?”
I didn’t know what to say. I sat on one of the chairs embroidered with the Sauvage family crest in the center. My head spun. Was it possible I was pregnant? I had heard stories about IUDs not working, but I couldn’t be one of those cautionary tales, could I? This wasn’t the time to fall into a online rabbit hole of birth control gone-wrong blog posts. I needed the truth.
I had gone to bed last night with a terrible headache. I had blamed it on too much screen time writing. I had fallen asleep two days ago, working on my chapter outlines in the middle of the afternoon. I had been exhausted all week, but my body was a bundle of sexual energy like it never had been. And the smell of the champagne this morning had made my stomach turn. The signs had been creeping up on me the past couple of days, only I hadn’t noticed them—or else I didn’t want to.
“I think I need to buy a pregnancy test,” I
blurted.
He was silent and motionless.
“Damon, did you hear what I said?”
He nodded. “I’ll go get it now.”
“Wait.”
He turned slowly. He was in shock. He had to be.
“It could just be all the stress of the past few weeks.” I looked into his eyes. “I might be overreacting.”
I reached him in the doorway. He cradled my cheeks, drawing my lips upward. “I hope you are pregnant.”
“You do?” My eyes darted back and forth, trying to read his mood. It was the last reaction I expected from him.
“Yes, love.”
The words warmed me, sending heat through my chest. “I-I can’t believe this. You want a baby?” First a proposal, and now this.
His lips burned mine. The kiss was fiery and raw. I tried to catch my breath. I gripped his neck. I was off balance, falling into his arms.
“I want a baby,” he growled.
“Ok.” I nodded.
“Now, I’ll go get what you need. I don’t trust this errand with the staff. Wait here.” He broke free and disappeared to get dressed.
I heard him depart in one of the side tunnels instead of the elevator.
I returned to the chair. I couldn’t move. My hand instinctively moved to my belly. Was this really happening?
“How long did it say?” Damon paced outside the bathroom door.
I tugged on his arm. “It’s only three minutes,” I replied.
The suspense was killing both of us, but he didn’t handle this kind of wait well.
“Did I buy enough boxes?” he asked.
“Yes. I think six is plenty. Hopefully, one will be enough.” I tried to smile, but really all I wanted to do was throw up.
I still wasn’t sure how he had pulled off leaving the palace undetected and buying so many pregnancy tests, but he had learned to maneuver through the system.
“Should we look?” he pressed.
“Thirty seconds.” I held the timer up on my phone.
“Fuck. Someone needs to invent something that works faster.”
I giggled. “That is insane.”
He shot a cutting glare at me.
“Sorry.” I bit my lip. It was comical how ancy he had become. I was used to him pacing because of the cabinet, or the family, but this was different. It was adorable.
He ran his fingers through his hair.
“Damon, it might not be positive.” I tried to steady him. I didn’t want him to be disappointed if there was only one line on the stick.
He finally stopped making a track in front of the bed. He tugged the tie on my silk robe, pushing the fabric off my shoulder.
“Then, we’ll make sure the next one is.”
“You’re serious?” I gulped.
“I’m serious. This morning I asked you to marry me because I knew one day we’d have a family. But as soon as you said it could start now, something kicked in. Something I didn’t know I had in me.” His hand cupped my breast, exposing my sensitive flesh. If I wasn’t pregnant, I had no idea what was going on with my hormones. Every touch sent me over the edge.
I moaned as he lowered his head to my nipple. “I want you to have my baby, Molly.”
I nodded, loving the sensations. “I want to, too.”
My eyes closed as the timer on my phone beeped.
Damon jerked away and my eyes flew open. I twisted my lips together, pulling my robe back together.
No matter what, a baby was in our future. It didn’t have to be today, I tried to convince myself.
We walked into the bathroom. I reached for the stick.
“Well?” he asked. He was about to jump out of his skin.
I grinned. I turned it so he could see the two pink lines. “I’m pregnant.”
Epilogue
I pulled the sunglasses to the edge of my nose. I drank in the long legs on the chaise next to me. I followed her sun-kissed skin up her thighs and along the small swell of her belly, stopping at her full breasts, spilling from the pink bikini top. Damn, she was gorgeous carrying my baby.
She reached into the beach bag between us. She looked up, catching me eying every inch of her.
“Are you checking me out?” she teased.
“I can’t help it if my wife is hot as fuck, can I?”
“Shh,” she hushed me. “We aren’t the only people at this resort. You are a royal scandal waiting to happen.”
I climbed off my chair and straddled hers, sending her into a fit of giggles. “Damon, stop. You can’t do that.” She swatted at me, sliding under me with slippery oiled skin.
I laughed. “Does the queen object to this?” I lowered my mouth to hers. “I can show you a real scandal.”
“Mmm,” she purred, arching toward me, deepening the kiss. “No. The queen likes it.”
“I think I’m going to turn this into a completely private resort.”
She looked at me. “You can’t be serious.”
I nodded. “Oh, I’m fucking serious. I want my wife all to myself.”
Her nails dug into my back. “You have me. You’ve always had me.”
I palmed her stomach. We hadn’t announced the news to anyone yet, but I couldn’t keep my hands off her. Molly pregnant was sexier than I thought possible. And her sexual appetite had exploded. Our honeymoon had been fucking phenomenal.
I returned to my chair, repositioning my sunglasses.
“Have you heard from Sutcliffe this morning?” she asked.
“He sent an addendum with the lodestar.”
She rubbed lotion along her legs. I was mesmerized by her.
“Are the details worked out?”
“You realize we could go about this my way.”
She snapped the cap back in place. “We aren’t doing that. It’s completely unfair to use your position like that.”
“Then what’s the point of being king?” I grumbled.
“We can’t deprive scholars of those texts because you don’t want me to go to London.”
“What I want is my wife.” My hand landed on her knee.
She smiled sweetly. “I know this London thing isn’t your first choice, but if Sutcliffe followed my instructions, then I’ll be home every weekend. You are there the first and last weeks of the project. It will fly by. We will barely spend any time apart.”
“Or we could have the texts flown to the palace and held in the royal library while you complete your work.”
“I love that you want to do that for me. But you know what I love more?”
“What is that?”
“That you let me work this out. You didn’t just shut it down.”
When Molly first told me her grant had been accepted, my gut reaction was to voice a forceful no. I didn’t want to let her go. I especially didn’t want her to leave the country pregnant. But this woman got me. She understood what I needed and when.
And I had to do the same for her. To love her nerdy book habits. To support her work. To loosen my hold, even when it drove me crazy. London was going to be hell. But I knew I’d go through hell for her.
“I would do anything for you, love.”
She settled into the chaise. The warm ocean winds breezed over us.
And I would do anything to keep her safe. To hold her. To protect her. I’d do anything to make her happy. I may not have been the man she deserved the night we met, but I had changed. I had won the love of the most incredible woman.
Turn Over
Copyright © 2016 by Violet Paige
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
1
Luke
Sometimes people are wrong. They’re wrong about what the score will be at the end of the game. They’re wrong about what ro
ute to run. They’re wrong about who they can trust. And fuck it, they’re wrong about people. Wrong about love. I used to be one of those people. Cynical. Egotistical. Selfish. But all it takes is one second. One split second of your life when you think you’ll lose everything. And suddenly it comes into focus. Faster than I take a snap. Faster than I read the defense. I can see all of it. I can see it being ripped away. In a split second all of it can be ruined. There could be a life where she doesn’t exist. Where the mistakes push her away.
They are wrong about me. And the thing about me is I love to prove people wrong.
It was hot as shit on the practice field. The September sun beat down on everyone. It didn’t discriminate between million dollar players or the trainers who took home fifty thousand a year. It was brutal and unrelenting, reminding all of us what it meant to play football in Texas.
Ownership promised we would have an indoor facility soon with air conditioning, but that didn’t do a damn bit of good when my linemen were cramping up on the field and I could barely see from the sting of sweat rolling in my eyes.
I gripped the ball between my fingers, digging into the leather with my nails while the sideline crew ran out to squirt water in the players’ mouths. I didn’t see what good an ounce of water was going to do in this heat, but I waited anyway.
Our rookie tight end, James, walked up to me. “What did you think of that last play?”
“I think it sucked.” I held my helmet under my arm and squirted water on the back of my neck.
I could see him huffing as hard as the rest of the team and he was twenty-two—the youngest guy out here.
“I’ve been asking for pointers since July,” he started.
I didn’t want to hear his excuses or anyone else’s. If you played for the American Football Association, you better have the balls to back it up. James was a top draft pick. He was new to the league, the process, and me.
“You want advice? Get out there and catch the fucking ball when I throw it.” I slammed my helmet over my head, clamping it against my forehead. “Is there anything else you need to know?”