His Princess in the Making (17 page)
Read His Princess in the Making Online
Authors: Melissa James
Tags: #American Light Romantic Fiction, #Romance: Modern, #Contemporary, #General, #Romance, #Romance - Contemporary, #Fiction, #Fiction - Romance, #Fire fighters, #Princesses
“Oh…” She blinked back tears of joy. “So…is this why your parents really disowned you?”
He gave her a wry grin. “Even the twenty-five grand Papou paid each of them to sign the papers didn’t make them forgive me for wanting to be a Costa…Marandis.” He shrugged. “I always wondered how Papou could be so financially independent for a humble son of a bricklayer. Apparently he came into a fair few million at his majority, and he managed to take a million of it with him.” He added softly, “You realise my family will expect us to share the wealth? They’ll expect to visit, too, and become at least part-time members of the royal family. In short, becoming a Winder won’t be easy.”
She smiled, but didn’t really care about his family’s expectations or sharing the wealth at the moment. Her worried gaze searched his. “Are you sure you want to marry me, Toby? You said…”
He kissed the hand he held. “I said a lot of things, beloved,
all of which came from a deep sense of unworthiness—to have joined your family in the first place, to be here at all—but mostly I felt unworthy of you, your love.” He gave her that smile again, and she ached to kiss him. “I’ll show you Papou’s letter to me when we’re alone. He was…most persuasive.”
“You’re certain of this?” Her eyes clung to his, begging for truth.
“I’m certain of only one thing at this point, my Giulia—that I can survive without you, but I don’t
live.
I tried to return to my old life, but after a few weeks I knew it was hopeless. I need you with me, beloved. Wherever you are, I have to be. So if you’re a princess, I’m a prince, if that’s what it takes.”
“But you’ll be unhappy with all the attention.”
“Perhaps I will be sometimes—but as I hope I’ve shown you the past ten years, you’re worth any sacrifice, my beloved, beautiful Giulia.
Any
sacrifice. This kind of love comes only once to each man and woman,” he added softly.
And finally, for the first time, she felt true joy inside her, a bubble of purest happiness bursting through her heart and body. It was real; she was loved by one man, wanted and loved for life. And it was her best friend, her lover, her Toby.
Her life’s dream had come true.
Looking up at him with adoring eyes, she dipped into another curtsey. “Will you please accept my hand in marriage, my lord—um—Your Grace? Will you become what you’ve always been to me—my prince? Because you’ve always made me feel like a princess.”
He kissed her hand again, pulling both rings from her right hand and slipping the modest ruby-and-diamond ring onto her left. “Giulia, for ever.”
“Toby, for ever,” she whispered, tears of brilliant, glittering happiness streaming down her face, aching with the need to kiss him. “Toby…”
“I know, beloved, I know. But not only did you have me to
yourself all last night, you embroiled me in this right royal scenario by bringing me home all those years ago. Now you must wait for kisses while I endure the tedious ritual of meeting all my fellow dukes and lords.” He grinned at her. “I hope there are no further motions of historical importance for our perusal today?”
She bit her lip over laughter. “I certainly hope not. A few of ’em look ready to pass out with the shock as it is.”
He winked. “Go and sit, beloved. This may take quite a while.”
In a daze of happiness, Lia returned to her seat. She gave Jazmine and Charlie a blinding smile, and returned their hugs and kisses, whispering thanks.
She turned to Theo Angelis then, who gave her a tender smile. If he’d been outwitted by his cousin after death, he’d still worked for her happiness—and the tiny, almost invisible wink told her he was putting family above bloodline. He loved her.
“Your Highness, may I offer my congratulations at your royal engagement?”
At the head of a line of lords, Max stood, grinning at her, his arms open. Laughing, she hugged him; then she turned her attention to the next lord waiting to congratulate her, and the next. And all the while she kept her gaze on Toby as he met his new peers with the grace and poise Papou had so painstakingly taught him years ago, just as he’d taught him the Hellenican language.
Papou had planned this all along, had prepared them all not merely for royal life, but for the love of a lifetime. And Lia’s heart whispered her thanks to a wise, loving old man who had always seen into their hearts.
Seven months later
“I
CAN
’
T BELIEVE IT
,
look at how you’ve grown in a month! Hello, little one.” Giulia was on her knees, talking to Jazmine’s rounded stomach. “It’s your Aunty Lia, who’s going to teach you so many bad things.”
Jazmine laughed and hugged Giulia, touching her stomach in turn. “Hello, littler one—it’s your Aunt Jazmine, and your mama is telling awful fibs. She’s always been a good girl, and she’ll teach your cousin to dance as beautifully as she does.” The ultrasound had shown that Charlie and Jazmine’s first child was a girl.
From beside him on a brocaded settee—Toby saw Charlie and Jazmine hadn’t simplified the entire palace as yet—Charlie grinned and thumped him on the shoulder. “So, congratulations, Dad-to-be. How does it feel?”
“When Giulia is the mother, it’s perfect. Better than this prince caper, anyway,” he added in haste when Charlie pretended to gag. “Behave yourself, Rip. None of that crassfireman behaviour. Maintain some royal dignity, please.”
The King of Hellenia laughed. “Yeah, right. I’ll have to remember that line for the kids when they come. So how’s life in Malascos?”
“Very much like life in Sydney in some ways, just on a grander scale.” Before their wedding, which had come after Toby had gone through two months of intense social and physical training for the role, he and Giulia had made the decision to make the traditional Marandis home in the beautiful mountainous region of Malascos their own. They had chefs, maids and servants, but twice a week they gave everyone the night off. On those nights they cooked together, cleaned the kitchen, watched TV, danced together in the ballroom, or walked in the extensive gardens. Once a month they took turns flying their small jet to the Summer Palace to spend time with Charlie and Jazmine, and to take tea with Theo Angelis.
On their days off from royal duties they gave their security staff a scare with the mountains they climbed, or by riding their mountain bikes, but Toby figured the security staff needed something to worry about. Orakis was still on the run, Theo Angelis lived in quiet retirement in the northern wing of the Summer Palace with Puck by his side, and Charlie and Jazmine had brought a far more relaxed, happy rule to the country with an emphasis on bringing security and modern living to their people.
And day and night, he was with Giulia. It was all he could ask of life.
“You’re both happy?” Charlie asked as he always did, with a trace of anxiety he’d probably never lose. Toby knew
he
wouldn’t. He’d devoted his life to his wife’s health and happiness for too many years to relax now, even though he knew that, of the two of them, she was the stronger. If he ever lost her…
To banish old shadows, he grinned and called to Giulia, “Wife?”
She turned, her laughing face softening with love. “Husband?”
To outsiders, the terms might seem bland, ordinary—but
they’d fought long and hard for the right to say them. Now they treasured the simple pronouns as others would jewels or money. They’d never take the beauty of their life together for granted.
“Charlie wants to know if we’re happy.”
“Does he, now?” Giulia ran to him, settled on his lap with a breathless laugh, and kissed him, slowly and lingering. Her fingers performed the tiny, almost invisible caresses on his neck that drove him crazy. “It’s been five hours,” she whispered in his ear. “That’s at least an hour too long…”
“Insatiable woman,” he whispered back, too soft for Charlie to hear. No matter how close they were, there were some things men didn’t want to know. Charlie definitely wouldn’t want to know his sister couldn’t get enough of her husband.
“Hmm.” She kissed his ear. “I’ve had the worst case of the hots for you for over fourteen years, Winder. Did you think a few puny months of constant love-making would get rid of it?”
“I certainly hope not, Mrs Winder. Nor in a few years. I fervently hope it lasts a lifetime.”
Sometimes, in the middle of the night when she thought he was sleeping, she’d caress his body with feather-light, tender hands and lips. “My man at last,” she always whispered, “My husband. I’m Lia Winder.” The wonder in her voice made him ache to turn and kiss her every time—but it was her private moment, and, so long as she thought he didn’t know, she kept doing it.
The wonder to him was that, in a life filled with riches, glamour and titles, his princess wife treasured the simple things the most: she treasured
him.
She melted against him when he called her Mrs Winder, as he’d known she would. “Toby…”
The slow caress of her fingertips was making him shudder inside with hot need. “Soon, beloved. Now, behave yourself. I think we’re grossing out your brother.”
Charlie was red-faced, but his eyes were soft as he saw his
sister and best friend so happy. Jazmine was standing behind Charlie, massaging his shoulders, kissing his hair. “Newlyweds,” she teased, laughing. “They just can’t control themselves.”
“Says the old married woman, with five months’ more experience,” Giulia mocked, smiling in turn as Charlie turned his face to kiss his wife’s hand.
“Oh, sorry, I was looking for the bachelor’s pad. Obviously I’ve wandered into Honeymoon Heaven, with
both
my exfianceés. I’d better retreat to the nearest sports bar before the envy kills me.”
All four of them turned and grinned at Max. Charlie waved their friend in. The four royals had made a small circle of intimate friends who knew their king, queen, prince and princess had no desire for any formal bows or titles. “Hey, Max. How did it go?”
Max grinned, blew kisses at Giulia and Jazmine, and flung himself into a chair. “He left Majorca the day I arrived. I just missed him on the Spanish mainland, too. At a best guess, I think he’s somewhere in Africa now.”
Toby didn’t have to guess who Max was speaking of. He’d made it his personal mission to hunt down Orakis, leaving right after the second royal wedding.
As the men talked politics, Jazmine motioned to Lia with her hand. Lia moved off Toby’s lap, trailing her fingers over his shoulder as she left him. She couldn’t be in a room with him, near him, without touching him somehow.
“I don’t think Max was joking about the envy,” Jazmine whispered. “I’ve been thinking…”
Lia laughed and hugged her sister-in-law. “Yiayia and Papou would have loved you. They were so happy together, they were always trying to matchmake somebody they knew. They certainly made sure of Toby and me.”
They turned towards Max, speculating on which lady they knew who could make him happy.
“Uh-oh,” Charlie murmured. “Look at them, Grizz.”
Toby looked at his wife and sister-in-law, both staring at Max with similar expressions. “Um, Max?” he rumbled. “You might want to discourage the women, and fast, before they find you fiancée number three.”
Max was off his seat like a shot, and stalked over to the Queen and Princess with mock-sternness in his dark-blue eyes.
Toby chuckled. “I wonder who they have in mind for him. I’ll have to pump Giulia for the info.”
Charlie laughed. “Bet she doesn’t tell you. Jazmine won’t tell me for love or money. They wouldn’t trust us not to tell him.”
“You’re probably right.” He glanced at them again, at the sumptuous room around them. “Weird, isn’t it, all this? About a year ago, we were single Aussie firemen.”
“Crazy,” Charlie agreed. “I still can’t get used to it. Every day.”
“Crazy, wonderful,” he said, knowing what his friend meant. “How the hell did we ever get this lucky?”
Giulia came over to him at that moment. “Dobber,” she mock-growled, using the irreverent Aussie term for a tittletattle.
He grinned. “Promise to keep it to myself if you tell me who she is.”
She shook her head and laughed, hugging him. “No way.”
Charlie grinned and ambled over to Max and Jazmine, giving them a private moment.
Toby’s brow lifted at her denial. “How can you expect my help in your matchmaking ventures if you don’t confide in your long-suffering husband?”
“Who said I needed your help?” she retorted haughtily. “And, while you’re surely long enough—” she grinned,
looking him up and down to emphasise his height “—you’re not suffering
anything,
my Lord Prince.”
“Listen to your mother, son,” Toby murmured, caressing her belly—they’d just discovered they were having a boy. “Keeping secrets from me after all these years.”
“What are you talking about? I
always
kept secrets from you.”
He chuckled, bent her over his arm and kissed her. She loved those romantic gestures. “Such as how much you adore me…Mrs Winder.”
Her eyes softened again as she whispered her love, and drew him back down for another kiss, ignoring the collective groans of their unwilling audience.
Toby didn’t care what anyone said or what ribbing he received for being madly in love with his wife. Every minute with her, every kiss, still felt like a gift from God. Part of him still expected the alarm to go off, and that he’d be alone in his bed in Ryde, aching for Giulia and unable to speak, so completely unworthy of her.
Instead he awoke in a castle, of all places, with his adoring wife in his arms, a prince to her princess. Their first baby was on the way, and instead of facing fires he had a job he hadn’t known would be as satisfying as it was exhausting when he’d taken it on. When life, the press or the job overwhelmed him, he retreated somewhere with Giulia and within moments she made the world bearable again. Far more than bearable, it was exquisite because she was there. She made every moment of his life rich, with a love so complete he had no room for self-doubt.
With Giulia by his side, he could be anyone, do anything.