“I know,” she whispered. Her full mouth trembled—for him. She reached for him, ran her fingers through his hair.
“You are the only person who has ever known the truth about me,” he managed to say, from that darkness inside of him that he had denied for so long, and that new, strange wellspring of hope that had appeared with her on a Canadian street, so shining and bright and impossible. “The only one who has seen the worst of me, and stayed with me anyway.”
She made a soft noise of distress, and then leaned forward to press a kiss against his brow, his cheek.
“I love you,” she said simply. “Your darkness as well as your light. How could I do anything but marry you?”
“I told you that you should hate me,” he said. “I meant it.”
“But it is too late,” she whispered. “I have been in love with you since I met you. Perhaps even before. I am the incapable of hating you, I think, despite your best efforts.”
“Tristanne…” But he did not know what he could say, except the prayer of hope that was her name. It was like a song in him. He felt that cracking inside of him again, as if he had been buried deep in ice but the long, bitter winter in him had finally ended. And he was starting, at last, to thaw.
“I do not know what love is, or how to go about it,” he whispered, looking into the chocolate-colored eyes that were all the world to him now. All that mattered. “But I will spend my life trying to love you as you deserve, Tristanne. I swear it. Even if you have to teach me, even if it is remedial, I promise I will learn.”
She smiled then, a real smile, bright and true. He felt something in him ease, even as he began to burn for her anew. Again. Always.
“I think I can meet that challenge,” she said, that strong, sure love in her gaze, changing him as she looked at him. “But first things first, Nikos.”
He remembered his own words, long ago, and found himself smiling.
“First things first?” he echoed.
“Why don’t you greet me properly?” she dared him. “I am your wife.”
“Indeed you are,” he said in a low voice. “And I am your husband.”
“And this is the first night of our married life. Of the future.”
“Our future,” he said, and part of him dared to believe in it.
She opened her arms wide, offering him everything he’d ever wanted, and long since ceased hoping for, until she burned her way into his life. Home. Family. Love.
For her, he would dare. For her.
“Then come here,” she whispered, her eyes full. “We have a lot of ground to cover.”
Princess From
the Past
Caitlin Crews
This one is for Jeff.
CHAPTER ONE
BETHANY Vassal did not have to turn around. She knew exactly who had just entered the exclusive art-gallery in Toronto’s glamorous Yorkville neighborhood. Even if she had not heard the increased buzz from the well-clad, cocktail-sipping crowd, or felt the sudden spike in energy roll through the long, bright space like an earthquake, she would have known. Her body knew and reacted immediately. The back of her neck prickled in warning. Her stomach tensed. Her muscles clenched tight in automatic response. She stopped pretending to gaze at the bold colors and twisted shapes of the painting before her and let her eyes drift closed to ward off the memories. And the pain—so much pain.
He was here. After all this time, after all her agonizing, planning and years of isolation, he was in the same room. She told herself she was ready.
She had to be.
Bethany turned slowly. She had deliberately situated herself in the furthest corner of the upscale gallery so she could see down the gleaming wood and white corridor to the door, so she could prepare herself when he arrived. But the truth, she was forced to admit to herself as she finally twisted all the way around to face the inevitable commotion near the great glass doors, was that there was really no way to prepare. Not for Prince Leopoldo Di Marco.
Her husband.
Soon to be ex-husband, she told herself fiercely. If she told herself the same thing long enough, it had to become true, didn’t it? It had nearly killed her to leave him three years ago, but this was different. She was different.
She had been so broken when she’d met him—still reeling from the death of the bed-ridden father she’d cared for through his last years; still spinning wildly in the knowledge that suddenly, at twenty-three, she could have any life she wanted instead of being a sick man’s care-giver. Except she hadn’t known what to want. The only world she’d ever known had been so small. She had been grieving—and then there had been Leo, like a sudden bright sunrise after years of rain.