CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER SEVEN

Two months later

I SABELLE brEATHED OUT SLOWLY —but the constriction under her ribs from the corset she wore under antique ivory silk was nothing compared to the constriction in her throat as she observed the seven hundred carefully selected guests from her vantage point in the vestry.

Androvia’s famous White Chapel was looking suitably stunning, its five-hundred-year-old eaves decorated with a thousand ivory and red Alpine roses, accented with edelweiss and local greenery, and artistically arranged by a team of fifty florists. The tall candles tied with velvet bows—which lit her route down the aisle—shimmered in the wintry light that shone through arched stained-glass windows and made the whole scene glow with a timeless beauty.

She stepped back to allow the hairdresser’s assistants to finish fussing with her hair, while the stylist and her team made the final adjustments to her gown and the wedding planner briefed the six pageboys and bridesmaids who had been selected from local schools to carry her train and throw rose petals.

‘You look beautiful, Your Majesty,’ the stylist said in hushed tones. ‘Mr Lord is a lucky man.’

I’m not sure he would agree with you.

Isabelle cut off the errant thought. ‘Thank you, Maria.’

She took another constricted breath as she imagined seeing Travis Lord again, for the first time since their kiss in Sariyelva.

The correspondence between her government officials, the Ruling Council, the wedding planner and Travis’s coterie of assistants and advisers and Lord Culture’s management and PR teams had been fast and furious and at times exceedingly fraught ever since the pictures of their kiss had broken in the press, the morning after their fake date.

The media attention—when the engagement had been officially announced two days later—had been intense and intrusive ever since. Even though Travis had returned to the US that night and she had spent the past two months fulfilling as many of her official duties as was practicable, the whole world had continued to speculate feverishly about every aspect of the ‘fairy-tale romance’ between the ‘bad-boy billionaire and the alpine queen’.

Given the media scrutiny, it had been decided they wouldn’t release official engagement photos as any more meetings in person could only add to the furore. Not to mention distract from the intense planning necessary to arrange a major state occasion—however low-key—in a scant eight weeks.

The Ruling Council had been aghast at her haste, and her privy council had gone into a complete meltdown over the logistics, but they hadn’t objected when she had insisted on a very short engagement. Each time she had repeated the lie though—that she was madly in love with Lord and could not wait to marry him—it had become harder and harder not to panic at the prospect of seeing him again.

Their marriage was a fraud, so why had her nerves only increased as their wedding day drew near?

Ironically, the only things that had alleviated the stress were the texts she had received on her private phone from Travis, himself, which had started when their engagement had been announced and continued every time he had an issue with the wedding protocols—which had turned out to be rather a lot.

Her heart bounced against her ribs as she recalled those unconventional texts—the man’s demands and her increasingly forthright responses...

The truth was, she had begun to anticipate his messages—reaching for her phone first thing each morning to see if another had arrived—almost as often as she had panicked about her wayward response to his kiss, which was also far too frequent an occurrence.

She pulled her phone out from the gown’s secret pocket—as the stylist continued to fuss—and scrolled through their latest exchange from four days ago, while struggling to even her breathing.

Travis: Tell Arne no way am I wearing a uniform when I’m not in the military. A monkey suit is bad enough.

Isabelle: I will tell Arne not to insist, as long as your monkey suit passes muster.

Travis: Don’t u worry about my monkey suit.

The winking and laughing emojis that had accompanied the text had confused her when she had first read the message. Was monkey suit a euphemism of some sort that she was unaware of? She had puzzled for two agonising hours over how to respond appropriately, as she had done with so many of his texts. This time though, with her nerves already on edge, she had become so annoyed with herself she had opened the emoji keyboard for the first time in her life and dashed off one of a hand with a middle finger lifted. Of course, the second after she had pressed send, she had realised how utterly inappropriate her reply was—despite the increasing familiarity that had seeped into their conversations over the past weeks. But while she had still been frantically trying to figure out how to delete her reply, his response had appeared.

Travis: Expect payback for that on our honeymoon.

The thrill that had shot through her had been even more inappropriate—and disturbing—than the impulse to use a profane emoji in the first place.

And after four days, during which her anxiety had continued to build, she still hadn’t been able to figure out where that urge had come from, or how to repress the thrill at the thought of seeing him again, which had only become more pronounced.

‘Shall I take that, Your Majesty?’

Isabelle glanced up to find the wedding planner smiling at her politely.

‘We don’t want it going off while you’re walking down the aisle,’ the woman added.

‘Of course.’ Isabelle switched off the phone and handed it over, but the stab of loss and regret—as the planner tucked the phone into her pocket—only increased her anxiety.

Why had she become so excited by those silly communications over the past weeks? Checking incessantly every morning to find out if he’d sent another? Being secretly thrilled when she opened the app to find one of his disgruntled complaints waiting for her, no matter how contrary? Then procrastinating endlessly over her response.

In the last week, she’d even taken to scrolling through their past conversations, late at night, like a schoolgirl with a silly crush, instead of a queen negotiating with a business partner—albeit a somewhat unconventional one. She’d found his irreverent sense of humour and his dogged determination to ridicule Androvia’s centuries-old traditions amusing, when she should have been appalled. She was Androvia’s monarch, surely it was her job to respect and uphold those traditions, not joke about them?

With those thoughtless exchanges she had blurred the boundaries between them, exactly as she had during their snowball fight and while obsessing about their stunt kiss?

‘Hey, Issy, are you okay? You look kind of spooked.’

Isabelle lifted her head to find Mel standing in front of her. Her best friend handed her the bridal bouquet, while looking beautifully poised and relaxed in her cream silk maid-of-honour gown. But Issy could see the concern in her eyes.

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she managed, pasting on what she hoped was a competent smile. After all, she could hardly confide in Mel the reason for her latest panic attack—because she hadn’t told anyone about her clandestine text conversations with Travis.

She could see she hadn’t fooled Mel though when her friend frowned. ‘It’s not too late to call this whole thing off, you know, Issy,’ she whispered gently.

Of course it was, but even if it weren’t, Isabelle knew she didn’t want to call it off... She refused to examine the reasons why too closely.

‘Really, I’m just tired,’ she tried to reassure Mel, as well as herself. ‘The stylist and the beauticians have been fussing for hours already, and I’m keen to get this over with now.’

The itinerary that had finally been agreed upon for the wedding day included events right up until midnight. But the thought of what would happen after that—when she and Travis were supposed to repair to her private apartments for their wedding night—had her anxiety, and the pulse of yearning that had refused to die for two solid months, spiking.

She ignored it.

Not a real wedding, not a real wedding night. End of.

Thank goodness her apartment in the palace had several bedrooms. And Travis had already agreed to the terms of their marriage. She might have blurred the lines a little over the past weeks—thanks to the wedding stress, and his innate ability to make her do stupid things, not to mention stunt-kiss her senseless—but she would never put her end goal in jeopardy.

Never.

‘Okay, well, if you’re sure,’ Mel said, not looking convinced. ‘By the way, Rene has just arrived. Late. And hungover,’ she added, her voice edged with contempt.

Mel had never liked Androvia’s neighbouring playboy prince. When they had been ten-year-old girls together in the palace, Issy’s friend had often called out the teenage Rene for teasing both her and Isabelle whenever he came on an official visit accompanied by his father. But in recent years, her friend’s contempt for the neighbouring monarch seemed to have intensified.

Isabelle felt a pang of sympathy for the man. ‘I really wish Arne hadn’t asked him to stand up for me,’ she said. ‘I hope he’s not hurt.’

She’d been horrified when her chief courtier and the head of her household had informed her that, as a third cousin twice removed on her mother’s side, Prince Rene was her nearest male relative—and therefore would be expected to walk her down the aisle.

Unfortunately, she’d been unable to come up with a viable excuse not to ask him.

‘Hurt? How can he be hurt, when he doesn’t have any emotions, other than narcissism, arrogance and lust?’ Mel shot back.

‘Because he asked for my hand himself, once,’ Isabelle offered, her guilt mounting. Luckily no one but she and Rene and Mel knew about the proposal, but even so, this situation could not be more awkward.

‘You were eighteen at the time, Issy. And you know as well as I do, he only asked for your hand because he was looking for a royal virgin to be his brood mare. Given the number of women he’s dated since you turned him down, I think he got over your rejection pretty fast.’

‘Then why does he seem upset now?’ Isabelle asked, the guilt still weighing on her. Mel might dislike Rene, but Isabelle had started to believe he had been trapped by his circumstances and might never have been happy with the role assigned to him by fate—unlike her... From what she could remember of Rene’s father, Sven Gaultiere, the previous Prince of Saltzaland, the man had been a cold, cynical and ruthless autocrat. Was it any surprise his son had become a reckless libertine as soon as he had acceded to the throne at eighteen? That said, after ten years, it probably was about time Rene settled into his duties.

‘He’s not upset, he’s hungover,’ Mel hissed.

The delicate strains of the violin solo shimmered on the air, introducing Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D’, played by the chapel’s famous string quartet, and lifted the hairs on Isabelle’s neck. And thoughts of Rene were superseded by a shocking rush of yearning.

Isabelle tensed as everyone took their places—and the knot of anticipation threatened to cut off her air supply.

But as she stepped into the chapel’s nave with Mel and her pageboys and bridesmaids arranged behind her the knot tightened. And throbbed.

Rene appeared from the shadows, resplendent in a dress uniform, and gave a curt bow before offering her his arm. ‘Your Majesty,’ he said, with barely a hint of his usual sarcasm.

He was a strikingly handsome man—if you could ignore the brittle cynicism that never left his eyes—but as Isabelle placed her fingers on his arm, she noticed his complexion did look a little pale, his expression pained.

‘Hello, brat,’ he murmured to her maid of honour.

‘Go to hell, Gaultiere,’ Mel snapped under her breath, because she had never stood on ceremony with Rene.

‘Could you two behave?’ Isabelle whispered, but the familiar animosity had some of the tension in her gut easing. At least a little.

You can do this, Issy. It was your idea and now all you have to do is see it through.

The strings swelled accompanied by the chapel’s antique organ as the canon built to a crescendo—along with Isabelle’s rabbiting heartbeat.

‘Ready?’ Rene asked, with surprising thoughtfulness.

Isabelle nodded, unable to speak.

They headed down the aisle together, her heartbeat going into overdrive as she spotted the tall man standing alone at the altar, his broad shoulders, lean hips and long legs perfectly displayed in the expertly tailored morning suit.

The eyes of the congregation—made up of everyone from European royalty and heads of government to tech billionaires, supermodels and Hollywood stars—followed the bridal procession, the hush somehow pregnant with purpose, but Isabelle couldn’t detach her gaze from the back of her groom’s head, even as she struggled to keep the wave of panic and yearning under strict control.

Then he glanced over his shoulder—and their gazes collided.

Her breath became trapped in her lungs as she found herself marking each minute difference in his appearance since Sariyelva.

He’d had a haircut, she thought inanely, recalling those silky locks against her skin while they’d devoured each other in the café.

His gaze glided down her body, searing and intense—and with a sense of entitlement that made her panicked heartbeat plunge between her thighs.

Did he like what he saw? Why should it matter? When this whole circus was simply for the benefit of their onlookers?

His gaze landed back on her face as she reached him, potent and provocative. Her lips buzzed—almost as if she could feel his mouth branding hers again.

Rene presented her arm to Travis and murmured, ‘Here you go, Lord, you lucky bastard.’

The Prince stepped back. And she forgot all about him as Travis folded her fingers over his arm and brought her to his side. Her constricted lungs filled with the clean, spicy scent of cedarwood and man. And suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Had he got taller? How could he seem even more overwhelming now than he had that afternoon?

He adjusted the collar of his shirt, loosening the grey silk cravat at his neck.

‘I hope to hell that dress is more comfortable than my monkey suit,’ he murmured.

She smiled at his mocking tone—which reminded her of those irreverent texts—not easy given her breathing difficulties and the nerves that were now threatening to strangle her.

‘You lose,’ she whispered back. ‘I’m wearing a corset.’

His gaze raked over her cleavage, which pressed against her décolletage. His eyes darkened and she wanted to bite off her tongue. Why had she said something so provocative? So flirtatious?

He lifted her hand to his lips—watching her as if she were the only person there—and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

She jolted, the firm pressure like a lightning bolt to her already overwrought senses.

‘You win this round, Belle,’ he said.

But as the surge of awareness rioted through her body on a wave of need and panic she suspected she was not the winner of this round.

Because she suddenly felt like that reckless girl again, the girl she had glimpsed again in the forest clearing with him... The one who had once yearned to be loved and cherished, but who had ended up unable to control anything in her life, at all.