‘What does that mean?’
‘You are everything to me.’
‘Oh, Logan, I feel like I’m dreaming.’
His brow rose with mocking humour. ‘And I’m not even half-naked.’
‘Do not laugh about that,’ she admonished. ‘I felt so embarrassed to walk in on you half-dressed...not to mention totally aroused! I think it changed everything for me.’
‘That’s only fair because you have changed everything for me. You have made me a better person. A less cynical person, although I’m sure I’m not completely reformed.’
‘I don’t want to reform you. I just want to be with you.’
‘Even though your life will never be your own again?’ His expression turned serious. ‘Because the life of a monarch is not for everyone.’
‘I know that.’ She stroked the rough stubble on his jaw. ‘I’m not afraid of hard work and as challenging as it might be, as long as you’re beside me I know that everything will be okay.’
‘Then be with me, Cassidy.’ His hand spanned her face. ‘As my partner in life, as my Princess, as my wife.’
Bursting with the kind of happiness she had never expected to find, least of all with a man, Cassidy smiled giddily. ‘Your wife?’ She tightened her legs around him and heard him groan.
‘Yes, it’s the only role I’m willing to allow you to have in my life.’
Not waiting to hear her response, Logan kissed her with all the patience of a man hanging on by a thread.
‘Aunty Cass—oops!’
‘Oh, my stars, I told you two not to go in there,’ Peta hissed at whichever twin had just opened the door.
‘I need my homework. I didn’t know they’d be fooling around like you and Dan do.’
When her sister squeaked in dismay Cassidy half groaned and half laughed. ‘This is my family,’ she said. ‘Warts and all.’
Logan released her enough to let her feet slide to the floor. ‘Your family is my family now, mi amor. They’re perfect. Just like you.’
Cassidy didn’t think it was possible to fall any harder for the man holding her so strongly in his arms, but she did then.
EPILOGUE
THE DAY OF the wedding dawned bright and blue. The vintage car had just dropped Cassidy at the entrance to the gothic cathedral in the centre of Trinia and the streets were lined with people waving banners and calling her name.
Cassidy had to blink back tears as she waved at ev
eryone in return, her throat thick with emotion at the outpouring of support for her after the harrowing media scandal two months earlier.
Behind her Peta fanned out the train of her wedding dress, while the twins straightened her long veil.
‘You look awesome, Aunty Cassidy,’ April murmured, her wide smile full of joy, her hair fashioned in tiny plaits interspersed with white flowers.
‘Like a real-life princess,’ Amber agreed.
‘You do,’ Peta agreed, coming to stand in front of her, her soft lilac bridesmaid’s gown the same shade as the twins’. ‘You couldn’t look more perfect, which is a surprise considering that your groom rushed the wedding.’
Cassidy grinned from behind her veil. Logan had told her in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to wait to make their relationship official and that he considered two months a lifetime to make her his.
Secretly she’d agreed, but she had wanted to make sure that his mother was completely on board with everything before the wedding went ahead. Family had always been the most important thing for Cassidy, as it was for Logan, and she’d done everything that she could, followed every royal protocol, to prove that she was worthy of him.
That had paid off this morning when his mother had stopped by her room with two footmen in her wake carrying a very old, very intricate chest. Inside was a diamond teardrop tiara that had taken Cassidy’s breath away.