by Dani Collins
Oh, irony, you devil. Initially, she had balked at marrying him, worried this fairy-tale world she’d risen to would be more than she could handle. Now she wanted the whole package. The declaration of love and the happily-ever-after.
It would come with time, she tried telling herself, trying not to cry. Other things were settling into place. Her friendship with Elise was growing by the day, and even she and Henrik shared a laugh now and again. The job of being a princess wasn’t proving too onerous. She looked forward to being a mother.
No, this was old-fashioned bridal nerves, maybe even hormonal changes making her feel like she needed more from Rhys.
As she blinked to clear the blurred vision of the Eiffel Tower, a sixth sense made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. The door clicked behind her and there was a scuffed footstep.
“Well, well, well.”
The voice might as well have been a knife blade tracing down her spine. Sopi’s back went tense and rail straight. She fought the urge to clench her fists as a hot-cold flush of angry dread washed over her.
She knew instantly who the voice belonged to and stole a brief second to erase any traces of despondency from her expression. In the busy days since she had left Canada, she had only fleetingly thought of her stepmother and stepsisters. Francine had mentioned their names in relation to some unpaid invoices, but otherwise, Sopi had not missed any of them one bit.
With a fresh layer of composure in place, she turned and faced Nanette.
Her stepsister wore a striking black gown that plunged down the front to her belly button. The frothy chiffon skirt had a slit to the top of her thigh. She wore gold evening shoes peppered in bling and her bloodred lipstick matched her nails. Her lips parted in a malevolent smile as she approached with the slink of a stalking cat. Or a slithering snake.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
“I didn’t know you were invited,” Sopi said. If she had, she might have taken steps to change that. She wasn’t feeling hostile or vengeful toward her stepfamily, but neither was she eager to speak to any of them again.
“I’m insulted you didn’t make a point of inviting us. I had to come as a plus one. But I suppose you can’t be expected to grasp the finer points of etiquette, given your rustic upbringing.”
Sopi had precious seconds to weigh her options. Making a scene was not one of them, but she couldn’t allow Nanette to intimidate her. The little bit of confidence she had developed in recent weeks had already been battered by the knowledge Rhys wasn’t falling in love with her the way she was falling for him. But her self-worth was too hard-won for her to let this confrontation knock her flat. Rhys would be disappointed in her if she let Nanette get the better of her, and she would be disappointed in herself.
Which left her taking a similar approach to her old one. She kept the peace by grasping at patience and speaking politely while trying to project the sophistication she was desperately trying to develop.
“It’s lovely to see you again either way,” she lied. “Where are you making your home now?”
Nanette laughed, but it was the patronizing chuckle of a superior amused by the antics of a lesser creature. “Full marks for that.”
Sopi didn’t let herself be drawn into whatever crass reaction Nanette was trying to provoke. “Your mother and sister are well?” she persevered.
“Oh, we’re really doing this? Yes, Mummy leased us a bleak little walk-up in Vienna because she had to take what she could get on short notice. Fernanda and I would prefer to be here in Paris. You might have mentioned the royal bloodline.” She narrowed her eyes with malevolence.
“I’m surprised your mother never unearthed it. She’s always found my family to be so enriching.” Okay, now she was descending to Nanette’s level. She glanced to the glass doorway back to the hallway, noting the shift of one of the bodyguards against the glass. She signaled that she was fine and he should let her handle this.
“Well, look who finally grew a pair,” Nanette said after a beat of astonishment.
Sopi realized her hands had closed into fists and consciously loosened them. She and Nanette both wore heels, but the other woman was taller. Sopi had to lift her chin to look down her nose at her.
“Someone told me once that I should set standards for myself and not drop below them,” Sopi said with a meaningless smile. “This conversation is one of those things plummeting past acceptable. Excuse me.”
“Oh, is acknowledging your stepsister beneath you? Now that you have a title and a presumably concussed fiancé?”
“Of course not,” Sopi lied, even though alarm streaked through her veins. “You’ve taken so many pains over the years to tell me that you’re far too well-bred to behave in a crass manner.”
“It’s not crass to pay back a double cross,” Nanette shot back. “It’s survival.”
“You’re accusing me of a double cross?” Sopi choked on a ball of outrage. “You sold my home behind my back!”
“Is that what happened? Because this whole thing feels like a setup. How did you even know him?”
“I didn’t.”
“You must have,” Nanette snapped, growing genuinely angry. “How did he even find out who you were? Is it even real? I can’t believe he actually wants you, title or not. Do you have money? Does he need it?”
“That’s enough.” A hot flush of temper stung her cheeks. “Stop before this turns ugly.”
“Ugly is throwing people out into the snow at midnight.”
“I didn’t ask that you be treated that way.” Was she sorry? Probably not as much as she should be.
“You took control of the hotel that night. Of course that order came from you, you hideous bitch.”
Don’t engage, Sopi told herself. Through the windows, she saw another shift of light, but she was determined to handle this herself.
“I didn’t order it,” she insisted, but she was piqued enough to bite back. “The timing of your departure was always your choice, Nanette. You could have left long ago. Months. Years, in fact.”
“Oh, does the student think she’s becoming the master?” Nanette asked with a hoot of astonishment. “Allow me to demonstrate how much you still have to learn, Sopi. Start compensating me for the insults you’ve delivered or I will go straight back into that ballroom and tell everyone you’re a janitor with a side hustle that looks like brothel work. No one believes you’re in love,” she dismissed scathingly. “You obviously compromised him in some way and now you’re blackmailing him.”
“Who is resorting to blackmail?”
Nanette tilted her head and smiled with false charm. “Make it worth my while to keep my mouth shut or I will.”
Sopi moved closer, driven by old anger and new hurt and feelings that were so fresh and raw, she hadn’t processed them, but she damned sure wasn’t going to be walked on by this harridan ever again. And she wouldn’t let Nanette harm Rhys to get at her, either.
“Think about what you’re doing, Nanette,” she warned in a voice that originated in a grim place behind her heart. She had to tilt back her head and her body was quivering in reaction, but a frightening thrust of power emboldened her. “Look at who I am now. You do not want to start a war with me.”
“I know exactly who you are. You’re a joke, Sopi.”
“My name is Cassiopeia.” She leaned in. “But you can call me Your Highness.”
Nanette struck like a viper with a slap that snapped Sopi’s head to the side. She was so stunned, she stumbled back a few steps, hardly able to make sense of the fact that she’d been struck, let alone retaliate.
The door behind her crashed open. There was a blur of movement as Rhys took hold of Nanette and thrust her toward a bodyguard.
“Get her out of here. Have her arrested for assault.”
“What? You can’t do that to me!” Nanette’s screech of protest and furio
us struggle halted when the bodyguard mentioned handcuffs. With one hate-filled glare, she let the burly man escort her from the balcony.
“Are you hurt?” Rhys positioned himself to block any view of her from the windows.
“I think so.” She ran her tongue in the space between her teeth and cheek and tasted copper. Beneath her testing fingers, her jaw was scorching hot.
She was shaking, though, and stepped closer to him, expecting him to pull her into his arms.
He only shifted to settle one tense arm around her. “We should get ice on that. Let’s go upstairs.”
“What are people going to think if we leave? Did anyone see?”
“I’ll issue a statement. Don’t worry about it.”
He looked so incensed, her stomach flipped with apprehension. He moved to hold the door for her.
Thankfully, the balcony was right off the hallway to the elevators and powder room. They only had to cross to where one of his bodyguards was already waiting with an open car. A handful of people glanced and murmured with speculation, but within seconds they were silently traveling up to their suite.
“I’m really sorry,” she whispered, heart thudding at his granite profile. “I didn’t mean for anything like this to happen. I didn’t even know she was here.”
He looked to the guard. “Find out who brought her. Blackball him.”
The man nodded and touched his ear to repeat the instruction to someone else.
“Rhys.” She set a hand on his arm. He was like iron. Marble. The sort of rough diamonds that came out of the earth flawed and hard and only good for drilling into rock. “I don’t think whoever brought her is to blame.”
“He lied to get her past security. If I’d seen her name on the list, I would have had them turned away.”
They arrived in their suite, and he barked at her assistant to get an ice pack.
Wide-eyed, the young woman complied, hurrying back with a compress wrapped in a hand towel. “Should I call a doctor?”
“I’m fine,” Sopi insisted.
“Write down these names.” Rhys recited Sopi’s stepfamily. “I want alerts on all of them. Reports. Where they live, who they’re seeing. Financials. Any pressure points. Tell Gerard I want my lawyer and PR on the phone as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, sir.” She hurried away, leaving them alone.
“I don’t think she came here planning to hit me. I provoked her,” Sopi admitted miserably. “I should have walked away instead of letting her get under my skin. It was my first chance to push back after all these years and I...” She’d been upset over him and his reaction to her news. She had taken it out on Nanette. “I told her to call me...” She cringed. “Your Highness.”
“She should. It’s who you are,” he asserted coldly.
She shook her head. “No, I was stooping to her level. This is my fault—”
“The hell it is.” She had never seen him so hardhearted. “Has she hit you before? You should have told me.”
“No! Never. I didn’t imagine she was capable of it. That’s why I waved off the bodyguard. But I really don’t think she’ll do anything like it again. You’re overreacting.”
“I am not,” he hurled at her. “This sort of thing gets quashed at the larva stage.” He pointed at the floor. “Otherwise it grows into a goddamned siege.”
Oh. She started to understand what was driving his pitiless rage. She sank onto the sofa and lowered the ice from her face. “Can we please talk this out?” she asked tentatively.
“There’s nothing to talk out. I’m doing what has to be done. We won’t go downstairs again. You can undress, have a bath, make yourself comfortable, but keep that ice on your face.” His gaze bounced off the spot that was probably hued red by the ice. “I shouldn’t have left you alone. I thought you were going to the ladies’ room.” He flinched with self-recrimination before his expression hardened. “It won’t happen again.”
“Rhys, this isn’t your fault.”
Something in the way he gathered himself told her he was traveling inward to a place that wasn’t reachable. Not right now anyway. Not by her.
“A bath sounds nice,” she murmured, wanting some time alone herself. “Call me if you need me.”
* * *
Sopi woke hours later and realized Rhys hadn’t come to bed.
Puzzled, she went in search and found him in the guest room.
“I didn’t want to disturb you,” he said when she hovered in the door. “You should get your rest.”
“It’s nothing, Rhys. I’m totally fine.” A faint red mark, but nothing a sweep of makeup wouldn’t hide. She crossed to lift the covers and join him.
He caught them, stopping her. “What are you doing?”
“I want to sleep with you.” She released the blankets and crossed her arms to catch up her nightgown, smoothly skimming it up and over her head. She dropped it to the floor and stood nude in the moonlight.
“I’m not at my best, Sopi.”
She had noticed, and she didn’t know how to change that except to get close to him physically.
She lowered to sit on the bed, hip aligned to his, and began unraveling the hair she had braided before she went to bed. She did it slowly, in the sort of tease he usually enjoyed.
“I’m not in the mood to play.” He spoke through his teeth, catching at her hands to stop her. “I’m too wound up.”
“Then you need to relax.” She shifted to brace her hands on his shoulders, leaning over him. “Want a massage?” That always turned into lovemaking, but that’s where she was aiming. She desperately needed to reconnect with him and assure herself they were still okay. Was this about her possibly being pregnant? About Nanette? Or was it something deeper? Something she had done?
She didn’t land the kiss she went seeking. In one lithe movement, he had her on her back and loomed over her.
“You shouldn’t be in here, Sopi. I don’t have a good grip on myself.”
“You sound like a werewolf. I’m not afraid of you,” she said with a small laugh, petting his beard but catching enough to give a gentle tug. “You would never hurt me. I know that.” She slid her hand to the back of his head, inviting him to kiss her.
“No, but—” His fingers dug into her shoulders, and his neck muscles bunched in refusal. He really did need a massage. He was gripped by something rigid and painful and clearly needed release.
She lifted her head to press her mouth to his.
With an animalistic groan, he pressed her flat beneath him and raked his lips across her own.
It wasn’t the gentle seduction she was used to. It was raw need. A quest to drag her into some dark place he already occupied. As she moved with greeting beneath him, trying to settle into a more comfortable position, she could feel through the blankets that he was already aroused. He hardened his arms around her, keeping her in place as he scraped his teeth down her neck. His mouth opened in damp suction against her skin before his hand took possession of her breast, plumping it for plundering.
When he sucked, pleasure streaked like golden lightning from her nipple to her loins. They normally built up to this sort of intensity. His boldness threw her into an electrical storm, but she gloried in the wildness of it. This wasn’t the civilized man she knew, but she recognized him in a far more primitive way. Her mate.
She grasped at his straining shoulders and back, encouraging him to keep ravaging her. She grew a little rough herself, catching a fist in his hair and dragging him up to kiss her. She stabbed her tongue into his mouth.
He didn’t let her become the aggressor. He cupped her jaw and took her mouth with blatant eroticism until she was limp beneath him, pulsing all over with anticipation.
Then, with a noise like a wounded animal, he yanked the blankets from between them. One of his strong arms hooked under her leg, hiking it high so she
was utterly helpless as he guided his turgid shape against her wet folds, moving easily in the gathered moisture, stoking the ache and strumming chords of pleasure through her.
“Stop me,” he commanded, the crest of his sex demanding access.
She shook her head, too caught up in her own craven need. “Do it,” she urged.
With a guttural sound, he thrust, driving easily into her slippery depths. As he came flush against her, he gave an extra pulse of his hips to ensure he was firmly seated inside her.
She had never experienced anything so earthy before. So primeval. He smothered her with a kiss, and when she bent her free knee, he gathered that one on his other arm and knelt to brace above her, pinning her with her legs open as he withdrew and thrust, watching her.
She was surrounded by him. Claimed by him and willing to be whatever he needed in this moment. She lost herself in the pools of his blue eyes as he undulated with power and purpose. She wanted to lift to kiss him, but her hair was pinned under her back, holding her head against the mattress. The restraint added an erotic twist to their coupling. She couldn’t move except to caress damp skin stretched taut over hard muscles and sinew and bones.
And she couldn’t escape the pleasure he relentlessly wound tight inside her. She grew sweaty and so acutely aroused, she couldn’t stand it.
“Rhys,” she sobbed.
He shifted, tucked his hands beneath her cheeks to tilt her hips. The new angle meant fresh nerve endings took his next thrust. Lust surged in her. Something pure and sharp and splendid.
He dropped his head to taste her lips, and she licked between his own with utter abandon, submerged in a hot pool of lava, thick and melting and incendiary.
She urged him to keep going, never let this stop, but she couldn’t withstand this intensity. Just when she thought she would burst into flames, the world exploded around her.
He plunged deep and stayed there, pulsing hard within her as she twisted in the throes of her own unbearable pleasure, both of them groaning in carnal ecstasy.