Royal Marriage Market (26 page)

Just as I’m unclasping her bra, something clatters loudly nearby.

We jerk apart, our feet forced to return to earth. There is a maid staring at us, her mouth opened in shock.

Bloody hell
.

Elsa snatches her shirt and turns around, tugging it on.

The woman curtseys, leaving the small tray she’d dropped on the ground where it landed. “Pardon my interruption, Your um . . . Highnesses. I wasn’t aware the kitchen was in . . . use. I . . . I can . . . I was just getting some . . . But I can . . . I’ll just leave you two . . . to . . . um . . .”

The way she babbles this makes what she’d walked in on sound so seedy, like me finally kissing and touching this gorgeous siren is the equivalent of so many of the other heirs shagging like rabbits upstairs in closets when they don’t think others are listening or watching, instead of the life-altering experience it just was.

I’ve never wanted to bellow at a servant to get the hell out, but I’m pretty damn tempted to right now.

“It is fine.” Elsa’s smile is indulgent and regal, her voice steady as she steps forward, smoothing her hair as if she isn’t affected in the least by what just happened. “We were merely indulging in some late night pie.”

If I wasn’t so pissed, I might laugh, because it’s clear the maid takes
pie
to mean something else, especially when her eyes track down the front of my, well, shite, still open pants. And then I’m incredulous and more than a bit uncomfortable as she continues to stare until I’m forced to clear my throat.

And, you know, tuck myself back in and zip my pants up.

It’s enough to snap her out of whatever trance she was in. Her cheeks flush dark pink and she stammers out something incoherent. Elsa flinches at the barrage of words, paling considerably like she’s just been caught with her hand in a cookie jar.

Fantastic. Bloody fantastic.

The maid quickly reclaims the tray and slides it onto one of the islands. Before another word is spoken, the door slaps shut from the woman’s clipped retreat.

And then Elsa turns to face me, her eyes wide and shiny and worried. And this sight, of all the things I could see, guts me.

I murmur her name when it’s quiet again, this single word of two syllables filled with so many emotions that I don’t have a bloody clue what else to say. Because what does one say to a person who has consumed both heart and mind so completely in four days? I want her. Desperately. She told me on the first day she wanted nothing to do with me romantically and I’m ordered to marry her sister, but I kissed Elsa anyway. This woman, this princess . . . she’s different. Different and lovely and wonderful and witty and desirable. She’s a Valkyrie, come to collect my heart. And that kiss? There’s nothing to compare it to. It was different, like she is. It was
better
. So I can’t help but say her name again, its syllables soft pleas for understanding and an unspoken prayer she feels the same way, because she kissed me back.

Her eyes briefly close; she inhales deeply, fingers resting against her swollen lips. And then she retrieves the pie box from the ground and places it upon the island. “I am departing in a few hours. As are you.”

The smile she offers cuts me off at the knees. It isn’t the smile I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing in secret for days now. This is the one she gives everyone else. The one she gives Mat.

This is the smile she hides behind. Dammit. I’m losing her before I even have the chance to win her.

“It was good pie, wasn’t it?”

My voice is hoarse. “Yes.”

Her eyes are glassy. “You are officially a member of PIN, Christian.”

Fuck PIN. PIN is nothing without Elsa. Neither is the RFC.

She blinks and glances away, a soft hint of a laugh coming out of her. Now that I’ve heard her real laughter, this will never satisfy me. It was beautiful—rich and warm and addictive and exactly like her.

This ghost? This isn’t her. She’s disappearing right before my very eyes.

“You have been a bad influence,” she murmurs, and I swear, my heart drops straight out of my chest. But then she says, “The best kind, actually. I’m glad I got to share so many firsts with you this week.”

There’s so much I want to say to her. I want to tell her that it was a week of firsts for me, too. The first time I’ve ever felt this way. That I want to be there for all the rest of the firsts in her life. Or at least have the chance to see if all our firsts should be together.

She steps away from the island, back toward me. A shaky hand comes up to brush the side of my face. “I was wrong, you know.”

I can barely get the word out. “About?”

“You.” The Valkyrie leans forward, her forehead resting briefly against me before she rises up on her toes to press a lingering kiss on my cheek. And then a softer, sadder one at the corner of my mouth. “What are we going to do, Christian?”

I have no idea. And it is so fucking impossibly unfair to accept that.

I receive another kiss, this time on the lips. But it’s too short. It’s only a hint of a kiss. I want more.

I want her.

“We should probably get some sleep. We both need to be up in a little bit.”

Sleep on the plane, I think. Don’t go.

“Thank you for this week,” she says, as if I took pity on her and am only here because I am bored or have nothing else to do. “I will always hold these memories close.”

A hand is proffered between us; I stare at it in horror. She’s going to do this.
She really is going to do this
. She’s going to shake my hand, say goodnight, and then she will leave for Vattenguldia, and I will go to Aiboland, and . . . and…we—I’m just to go back to life as it was before?

And marry her sister?

Fuck that. No.
No
. This cannot be how our story ends.

“It was good to finally get to know you, Christian.” I flinch at her formality. “I wish you much success. At least now we can be assured that our countries will always have an ally in the other, especially in the MC, once we both assume our respective thrones.”

An ally . . . and bloody in-laws. It isn’t fair. Goddammit, it simply isn’t
fair
.

“What happened to Chris?” I’m not even embarrassed that my voice cracks.

A tear traces a lazy path down her cheek, and it guts me like nothing else. Elsa shakes her head, forcing in a deep breath. And then she extends her hand once more.

When our palms and fingers come together, the sensation is nearly as intimate as our kiss minutes before. Skin on skin, touch to touch. Her fingers curve around mine and mine around hers. Desire once more flares like wildfire through my bloodstream.

I don’t want to let go, not yet, but that matters neither here nor there, because if she needs to walk away from whatever it is that compels my lungs to constrict and my heart to thrum in aching beats, then it’s her right.

Because no matter what I feel otherwise, I can’t have her. She’s a Hereditary Princess; I’m a Hereditary Grand Duke. It would never be allowed. We could never have each other, not forever, not without one or the both of us abdicating our rights to our respective thrones. Who would take over? Lukas? Isabelle?

And yet . . .

So much of me wants to say fuck it and take the risk.

“It was good meeting you, too.” I lie. It was better than good. It was serendipity during truly shitty circumstances.

She lets go first, dropping into a curtsey before me as if we were strangers rather than people who just ate pie and made out like our lives depended on it. In return, I force my waist to bend forward, one of my hands coming across my chest to cover my heart.

Damn, it physically hurts. Aches like a tin can crushed in a fist.

And then, before I straighten, she’s gone.

chapter 39

Elsa

“The week went better than I thought, considering.” Isabelle lays her magazine down on her lap, her hands folding primly across the glossy cover. “Don’t you agree?”

It requires more than a bit of effort not to shout, poor language and all, “Are you bloody kidding?” in the middle of the small private jet we’re currently on. Instead, I say as calmly as one can when they are mentally falling apart, “It had its high and low points.”

She glances over at where our father is; he and Bittner are deep in discussion. Voice lowered, she says, “I texted Alfons before we left. Told him we need to talk.”

I close the folder I have desperately tried to read in hopes of maintaining some semblance of sanity on this wretchedly long flight and set it to the side. It was not helping. And this conversation isn’t, either.

My words are wooden. “I thought you two were on the outs.”

Her head dips toward me, a shiny dark curtain of hair swaying my way. “He didn’t want me to go this week. We fought terribly about it. He wanted us to elope to Geneva instead.”

So now she opens up to me, when all has been said and done. And yet I cannot find myself caring much right now about her personal drama. Not when my heart disintegrated this morning within my chest. “Do you regret not going?”

“To Geneva?” She flips the ends of her hair, brushing the strands back and forth across her chin line. When I nod, she sighs. “I am very conflicted right now, Elsa.”

“What will you tell him?”

Isabelle bites her lip, resting her head back against the leather seat. “The truth, I suppose.” She drops the chunk of hair in order to pat me on the knee. “How are you holding up? I wished to check in with you last night, but you didn’t get in until . . .”

Until it was nearly time to leave.

She and I have always been honest with one another, but our honesty is much like our royal personas: aloof and perfectly presented. Neither of us lied here, but our responses were carefully worded to the point where they straddled the border between fact and fiction.

So I continue our charade. I tell her I am fine. Because technically, I am. Numb, but fine.

She studies me for a long moment, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “You stayed out late last night. Or rather, this morning.”

I reclaim the recently discarded folder. “I suppose I did.”

“You disappeared for hours every single day in the dead of night.”

I slip out a document. “As did you, I imagine. As did most of the heirs.”

“During the late night parties and rendezvous, I never saw Christian, either.”

I want to laugh in her face. “How interesting.”

I’m practically daring her to press the issue, especially since she has no leg to stand upon. But Isabelle backs down, just as I knew she would. Lines of disappointment pinch her face. And I am left to the documents in my hands, ones discussing parliamentary issues for the upcoming meeting next week, which are far preferable to any kind of heart-to-heart with my sister.

chapter 40

Christian

The She-Wolf is reveling in her victory right now; along with numerous glasses of her precious cognac guzzled over the course of the flight home, she’s also high as a kite thanks to various pills I don’t care to know the name of. Thankfully, she wanders into one of the plane’s bedrooms, followed closely behind by one of the flight attendants, so we’re in the clear for at least an hour or so.

Most everyone else, including Parker, are sleeping in hopes of staving off jet lag. But my brother and I are too agitated to follow suit.

“Think it’d be bad form if I call for the press to be on the tarmac when we arrive home?” Lukas mutters. His flask is out, mercifully filled with vodka rather than cognac. “Because I’d frame the shite out of a shot of Her Highness hitting the pavement face first, cackling the whole way down. And then I’d send one to every family member as a Christmas gift.”

Our fists bump one another. I’d cheerfully go in on those gifts.

“Maybe we could even switch out her official portrait with it. And then Aiboland would really see her for the hag she is.”

Most sons have some sort of filial love for their mother, and . . . maybe the two of us do somewhere, but it’s nowhere near the surface.

“Honestly, though, this week was a fucking nightmare, Chris.” Lukas rolls his head toward me. He’s surprisingly sober, considering the amount of booze—correction, cognac—on board the plane and within his flask. “Demeaning as all hell. This is the twenty-first century, not the fifteenth.”