She shook her head. “That belongs to…to your future wife.”
Coming up behind her, he said softly, “It belongs to you.”
He put the necklace around her neck. She felt the cool, hard stone against her skin, and grief crashed over her like a wave. Closing her eyes, she sagged back against him. He wrapped his arms around her, cradling her against his chest for a single moment.
Then he let her go.
“I will always love you, Breanna,” he said in a low voice. He turned away. “Goodbye.”
Vladimir left their bedroom without looking back. She wanted to chase after him. She wanted to fall at his knees, weeping and begging for his forgiveness.
But she couldn’t. She had the signed contract. Fate had made the decision for her.
It won’t stand up in court, she told herself again, her teeth chattering. After Josie’s safe, I’ll come back. I will somehow make him forgive me….
Bree had no memory of collecting Snowy and her duffel bag. But somehow, twenty minutes later, they were in the back of the limo, driving away from the palace. Her puppy sat in her lap, whining as she looked through the window at Vladimir’s palace, then plaintively up at her mistress.
As Bree looked back at the fairy-tale palace, snow sparkled on Vladimir’s wide fields and on the forest of bare, black trees around the palace of blue and gold. And she realized she was weeping, pressing her hand against the necklace at her throat.
Bree felt something prick her finger. Looking down, she saw the peridot’s sharp edge had pricked her skin. A Russian prince had once sent his beloved wife and child into the safety of exile, with this necklace as their only memento of him, before he’d died alone in Siberia, in ultimate sacrifice.
A sob rose to Bree’s lips. As Vladimir had sacrificed…
Her eyes widened. With an intake of breath, she looked back at the palace.
You knew I would leave?
Yes. His eyes had seared hers, straight through her soul. But I hoped you wouldn’t. I hoped you could—love me—enough.
What had Vladimir sacrificed for her?
Was it possible…that he knew?
“Stop,” she cried to the driver. “Turn around! Go back!”
The puppy barked madly, turning circles in her lap as the limo stopped, struggling to turn around on the long, slender road surrounded by snow.
Bree didn’t care if the signed contract had miraculously fallen into her lap. She didn’t care what the universe might be trying to tell her. The choice was still hers.
All this time, she’d thought she had to choose between the two people she loved. She didn’t.
She just had to choose herself.
Ten years ago, loving Vladimir had changed her. He’d given her a second chance at life. He’d shown her she could be something besides a poker-playing con artist with a flexible conscience. He’d made her want to be more. To be honest and true, not just when it was convenient, but always.
This was the woman she was born to be.
And she would never be anything else ever again. Not for any price.
Before the limo stopped in the courtyard, Bree had thrown open the door, leaving her duffel bag and valuables behind as she leaped headlong into the snow. Her puppy bounded beside her, barking frantically as Bree ran straight back to the only answer her heart had ever wanted.
She found him in his study, standing by the window that overlooked the sea.
“Vladimir,” she cried.
Slowly he turned, his handsome face like granite. It was only when she came closer that she saw the tears sparkling in his eyes.
He wasn’t made of ice. He was flesh and blood. And letting her go had ripped him to the bone.