by Dani Collins
These intense sensations were in a class all their own.
Her womb clenched and she knew that if he’d been inside her when this had happened, she would have gotten pregnant. It was too powerful not to have borne fruit.
She bit her lip and met his molten gaze. “And I can’t wait for our wedding night. I used to think sex wasn’t all that.”
“You’ve never had it—how would you know?” he asked with an intimate smile.
“I never cared that I didn’t have it,” she told him. “And just because I never had sex with another person doesn’t mean I didn’t learn my own body’s reactions.”
“Hmm, I’d like to learn some more of your body’s reactions.” He frowned. “But not tonight.” He looked around the garden. “I cannot believe we did that here.”
“Do you regret it?” she asked.
“No.” He helped her straighten her clothes. “But we are lucky we were not discovered. Although only family is allowed in these gardens, any one of them could have walked up on us.”
“That would have been terribly embarrassing,” she acknowledged, but she was still glad she had the effect on him that she did. “Sometimes I get the feeling you don’t want to want me.”
“Of course I do. Believe it, or not, but if I had not found you attractive, I would have found an honorable way around that contract.”
“I believe it.” But that didn’t answer the truth that sometimes he said or did things that implied he refused to allow himself to desire her too much.
And maybe that was the key. The too much. Because Nataliya remembered how he used to look at Tiana. And there had been no tempering in the desire Nikolai had felt for his first wife.
Whatever had happened between the two, it had taught this proud King that sexual desire that went too deep was dangerous.
Putting those thoughts aside because she could not change his past, or her own for that matter, Nataliya focused on their future. “I need a promise from you before we marry.”
“Yes?” Nikolai shifted Nataliya so she was sitting sideways on his lap, but still so close to him their body heat mingled.
“I need your word that you will be faithful.” Nataliya loved both her mother and her Aunt Oxana, but she had no desire to live their lives.
“Haven’t I already given it?” His patrician brows drew together. “I asked you to marry me. And a promise of fidelity will be included in our marriage vows.”
“Yes, but I need you to promise me personally. To say the words and mean them.”
“You know I keep my promises.” There was no little satisfaction in his tone at that truth.
“I do.”
“And you want this one?” Nikolai confirmed.
“Among others.”
“Very well,” he said without asking what the other promises were. “I promise never to have sex with another woman while I am married to you.”
“I promise never to have sex with another man,” Nataliya offered, feeling something profound and right settle inside her.
His gray gaze flared with emotion and she knew she’d done the right thing.
Swallowing, Nataliya forced herself to continue. “I need you to promise that you would never physically hurt me, or the children we will have together.”
She waited for Nikolai to get angry, but he didn’t. He simply nodded.
“I promise to always use my strength to protect you and our children. I promise never to strike you. I promise you will always be safe with me.” He was so serious and she could hear the sincerity lacing his deep, masculine voice.
“I promise you will always be safe with me, too.” A person didn’t have to be stronger, or bigger to hurt someone else. Only willing to do harm. And she wasn’t.
CHAPTER NINE
THE REMAINDER OF Nataliya’s visit to Mirrus went without incident, but there was also no repeat of the explosive passion in the garden.
She enjoyed meeting people at the receptions and was really happy with the plans in place for her wedding to the King. Her mom was over the moon about everything and that just added to Nataliya’s sense of rightness about it all.
Yes, she had to live her life for herself, but knowing her choices were fulfilling some of her mother’s dreams for her only child was nice.
Despite not being aware of Nikolai and Nataliya’s time together in the garden, Prince Evengi and Mama contrived to make sure that Nikolai and Nataliya were not alone together for the remaining days of her trip.
Something Nataliya was seriously regretting as he escorted her to the airfield for her return to Seattle.
They were alone now; even Jenna was riding in another car, but the trip to the airport was not long enough.
“Are you sure you have to return to the States?” Nikolai asked.
His question startled Nataliya, because though he’d made it clear he was looking forward to their marriage, he’d never intimated he wanted her to move to Mirrus any sooner than planned.
Nataliya frowned, her own disappointment in the answer she had to give riding her. “Yes. I’ve barely started packing up my things.”
“We could hire movers.”
She smiled, liking his enthusiasm, but shook her head. “No. I need to sort through stuff and decide what to do with my furniture.” It would be silly to move all of her things only to discard half once they reached Mirrus.
“Donate it.”
She laughed. “I think I’ll post pics to social media first and make sure none of my friends want anything.”
“Your friends would want secondhand furniture?” he asked, sounding just a little shocked.
And Nataliya had to laugh. “Yes, Nikolai. Plenty of people are happy not to have to buy a new kitchen table, or sofa.”
“Surely it will not take three weeks to dispose of your furniture.” His handsome features were cast in frustrated lines.
And she wanted to smile again, but she held back, thinking he might take her attitude the wrong way. But he was a king and this near petulance was charming. “It will take me two weeks to work out my notice and get together with my friends to say goodbye. I’m actually coming back the week before the wedding. I thought you knew that.”
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I am glad of that, but I do not understand why you have to return to Seattle at all.”
“I told you—”
“You have to work out your notice,” he interrupted in a very unroyal-like way. “But Demyan will have to learn to do without you sooner, or later.”
“In two weeks to be exact,” she pointed out. “And there are still my friends.”
“You’re moving to Mirrus, not falling off the face of the earth. You do not have to say goodbye when surely it will be a see-you-again-sometime moment.”
“For some, it may be. Like Jenna. But others I probably won’t ever see again. Their lives and mine won’t cross.”
“Are you upset about that?” he asked.
“I’m a little sad naturally, but if I moved to another part of the country for my job the same thing would happen. Life is full of change.”
“Your mother isn’t happy we’re getting married so quickly.”
“But she is thrilled we are getting married. Mama will adjust to the timing of it.”
Nikolai grimaced. “She pulled me aside and asked if I realized that our expedient marriage would give rise to gossip.”
“She’s probably right.” They’d been over this, or had they? They’d talked about so much.
“You’re not worried about it?”
“No. I’m not.” Nataliya had learned long ago that she could either live in fear of the scandal mongers or ignore them. She chose to do the latter. “If we had anticipated our wedding vows and I had gotten pregnant, it would not have been a tragedy.”
Nikolai looked startled
at that. “Because people are already speculating?”
“That’s one reason.”
“And the other?”
“I would not be embarrassed to walk down the aisle pregnant with your child.”
“You’re something of a rebel in the royal family, aren’t you?”
Nataliya shrugged. “Maybe? My experiences have taught me what is important.”
“And gossip doesn’t make it on the list.”
“No.”
“I will miss you, Nataliya.” Nikolai gave her one of his genuine smiles, the ones that melted her. “I enjoy your company very much.”
“I’ll miss you too,” she admitted.
He kissed her then, a soft, tender kiss that said goodbye and see you soon and I’ll miss you.
She was still in a daze of emotional wonder when she boarded the plane and strapped into a seat beside Jenna.
“I think I’m going to have to break up with Brian,” Jenna mused in a light tone at odds with her words.
Nataliya jerked her head around so she was facing her friend. “What? Why?”
“Because his kisses don’t affect me like that.”
“What kiss?”
“Please. Why else would His Highness have wanted you to himself if it wasn’t to kiss you goodbye without an audience?”
“He did kiss me.”
“I figured. You came on the plane in trance.”
“I wasn’t in a trance.”
“Close enough.” Jenna searched Nataliya’s features. “I understand you agreeing to marry him better now though.”
“Because I get a little spacey after he kisses me?”
“Because you love him.”
Nataliya went still. “It’s not a fairy tale, Jenna.”
“No, but you love the King and he’s pretty darn into you.”
“He doesn’t love me.”
“Does that bother you?” Jenna asked, curiosity but not judgement on her face.
“It should, shouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know. If you were someone who wanted to marry for true love, maybe. But you’re not. Even though they had an arranged marriage, your mom fell hard for your dad and he claimed to love her back, but that wasn’t a recipe for happiness for any of you.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Look, I get it. I’m not sure about the love thing, but I know I’d rather be in a relationship with a man who could kiss me stupid than a man who I don’t miss when I’m away from him for almost a week.”
“You really are going to break up with Brian.”
“Yep.”
“I do love Nikolai and I think he needs to be loved.”
“Whereas you need to be respected and appreciated and I don’t think anyone after these past few days is in any question how highly your future husband esteems you.”
* * *
That esteem was put severely to the test a week later when Count Shevchenko gave a “tell all” interview that barely sideswiped the truth.
Yes, he was her biological father and yes she had signed a contract that included marriage between the two royal houses ten years ago.
But from that point it was pretty much fabrication and fantasy, and nasty fantasy at that.
Furious that he had not been invited to the wedding and even more angry that his daughter’s elevation to Princess would not mean a lift of his own personal exile from Volyarus, the Count gave chapter and verse on the personal aspect to the contract signed ten years ago. He implied that Nataliya had not been content to marry a mere prince and had set her sights on the widowed King.
He painted his daughter as a scheming manipulator whose only interest was in her social position and wealth.
Nataliya was still reading the four-page spread in one of the most notorious gossip rags with international circulation when her phone’s ringtone for Nikolai sounded.
Demyan, who had provided the paper and voiced support for her before she started reading, asked, “Is it King Nikolai?”
She nodded, having made no effort to pick up the phone.
“Are you going to answer it?”
Nataliya shook her head.
“Why?”
“I’m afraid.”
“He’s not going to call off the wedding because your father is a cretin.”
“Won’t he?”
Demyan grabbed Nataliya’s phone and swiped. “No.” Then thrust the phone at her.
She pressed it to her ear.
“Nataliya, kiska, are you there?” It was Nikolai’s voice.
Of course it was Nikolai’s voice. He didn’t sound angry, but then he was a king. He didn’t go around yelling when he got mad.
“Nataliya?” he prompted in an almost gentle tone. “I can hear you breathing. Say something, kiska.”
“I...” She had to clear her throat. “I’m here.”
“Are you all right?”
“Have you read it?” she asked in turn, without answering a question she actually wasn’t sure she had an answer to. Was she all right?
Her father was doing his best to upend her life. Again. The last time he got her exiled from her country and her family. This time? Would he destroy her chance at marrying Nikolai?
A heavy sigh. “Yes, I have read it. I want you to come to Mirrus. I can protect you from the paparazzi here.”
“You want me to come there?” she asked, trying to understand that request in light of how ugly the publicity was likely to get.
“You are not a little girl, Nataliya. He cannot destroy your life again. No one will ever take your home or family from you again. I will not allow it.”
“I don’t have a home.” She wasn’t even sure where the words came from, except a tiny part of her heart that still held the wounds from her childhood.
Seattle had been her home for the last fifteen years, but her apartment was almost empty now, in preparation for her move to Mirrus. Only would Mirrus be her home now? After the article?
“He won’t have only this up his sleeve,” she warned Nikolai. “My father’s probably planning to do a televised interview too.”
“Your home is now the Palace in Mirrus and soon you will be my Princess. He can say what he likes, but nothing will change that.”
“But he’s always going to be a problem.” She realized now how true that was.
Her father had no intention of staying quietly in the background. Apparently, he had no qualms about how he achieved the spotlight either.
“We will determine a plan of action for dealing with the Count, but I don’t want you dealing with the intrusiveness of the media without my support.”
Picturing just how intrusive things could get, Nataliya could feel the color draining from her face. Would the honorable thing to do be to withdraw entirely from her connection to Mirrus? And even her own royal family?
Her thoughts started spiraling and Nataliya felt dizzy with them.
“What’s he saying?” Demyan demanded, putting his hand on her back and encouraging her to lean forward. “Breathe, Nataliya. Just concentrate on breathing.”
“Hold on a second, please, Nikolai,” she said into the phone as she attempted to take a couple of deep, calming breaths.
He cursed. “You are not all right.”
Nataliya just took another breath as the world came back into focus. She sat up, all the while aware that Nikolai was barking out orders to someone on his end of the phone.
“You can call back later, if this is a bad time,” she offered.
“Nyet. No. Do not hang up on me, kiska.”
“Okay.” She looked at Demyan and wondered what he was making of all this.
Her cousin’s expression was grim, but he reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “It is going to be okay, Nataliya.”
Sh
e just shrugged, not at all sure he was right.
“Put me on speaker, please, kiska.”
“Why?” One of the protocols all the royals learned early was never to use the speaker function on their phones. Too easy to be overheard.
“I can hear Prince Demyan,” Nikolai said. “I’d like to speak to him too.”
She still thought it was odd, but Nataliya did as requested.
“What is going on?” Demyan demanded toward the phone.
But Nataliya answered. “Nikolai wants me to go to Mirrus, to avoid the media.”
Something like relief flitted over her cousin’s hard features. “That’s a good idea.”
“I’m not running away.” Her father wasn’t going to make her abandon her job or her plans.
She wouldn’t let him.
“Coming home is not running away,” Nikolai opined.
“Be reasonable, Nataliya,” Demyan added. “The vultures aren’t going to let you go to the grocery store without incident, much less anywhere else.”
“I have commitments throughout next week.” She took another deep breath and let it out slowly, reminding herself that she was not a little girl to be pushed around by her father’s whims. “I’ll be fine. I’ll stay at Mama’s.” She’d been planning to do that anyway, for her last couple of days in Seattle, as the shelter she was donating her bed to was scheduled to pick it up then.
“But your mother is not there. She is here. And her home is not secure.”
“Her condominium is in a gated community. They even have security that do rounds.”
“A rent-a-cop in his golf cart?” Demyan snorted derisively.
Nikolai was worryingly silent.
“Nikolai?” she prompted when he had not replied several seconds later.
“Yes, kiska?”
“I’m going to be fine but thank you for worrying about me.” She had a lot of thinking to do and she knew she wouldn’t make an unbiased choice if she went to Mirrus.
She couldn’t simply consider what she wanted, but what was best for Nikolai and the people of Mirrus.
“You will be fine, yes. Demyan, please keep Nataliya inside the building until I arrive.”
“Arrive? What do you mean arrive? You can’t just drop everything and come here.”