Читать книгу The Royals Collection - Ким Лоренс, Rebecca Winters - Страница 48
ОглавлениеHE WAS, THOUGH, and he’d remade the bed with fresh sheets.
“Thank you,” she said, feeling unsure.
“We will be more comfortable sleeping on clean bedding.”
That one small word washed through her like life-giving oxygen. We. He’d said we.
Before she could remark on it, or say anything at all, he started toward the bathroom. “I’ll have my shower now. Get in bed.”
“You said you were only bossy in the bedroom.”
He stopped at the doorway to the bath and looked at her over his shoulder. “We are in the bedroom.”
“Why don’t you just admit you have oldest-child syndrome?”
His expression turned somber, though she didn’t understand why. “Noted.”
She would have teased that wasn’t an admission, but Demyan disappeared into the bathroom.
Chanel didn’t understand what was going on with him, but he wasn’t leaving. She’d take that as a good sign.
Did he regret the implications toward the future he’d made before they had sex? Was he realizing now that he’d gotten his rocks off how ludicrous they’d been?
Maybe he thought she’d try to hold him to his words as if he’d made promises. She wouldn’t.
Perhaps she needed to tell him that.
She crossed the room, but when she tried the door to the bath, it was locked.
She let her hand drop away. Okay, then.
Maybe she just needed to go to bed. Any talking could happen in the morning.
After only a few moments’ deliberation, she opted to wear pajamas to bed. The mint-green jersey knit wasn’t exactly sexy, but it was comfortable.
She was still awake when he joined her some indeterminate time later.
He didn’t pause before pulling her into his arms, though he made a sound of surprise when his hands encountered fabric. “Why are you wearing this?”
Because she’d needed a barrier between them, a level of armor, even if it was just her favorite pair of pj’s. “Why not?” she answered rather than admit that, though.
“Because I prefer naked skin and I think you do, too.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never slept with another person,” she replied a tad acerbically.
“Perhaps it is for the best tonight. You will be too sore tomorrow if we make love again in the night.”
“Oh.” He still wanted her?
That was good, right?
“Do not sound so disappointed. We will make love again. Many times.”
As promises for the future went, that was one she could live with. “I’m glad.”
They were silent for several seconds before she offered, “Thank you for making my first time so special.”
“I lost control.” And there it was.
What was bothering him. She knew it.
“I liked it.”
“I could have hurt you.”
“But you didn’t and I think it would have hurt me if you hadn’t lost yourself just as badly as I did.”
“Yes?” he asked, as if the concept was foreign to him.
“Absolutely.”
“I am very glad to hear it.” He’d turned out the light, but she could still hear the smile in his voice.
“Go to sleep.”
“Your wish is my command.”
She would have said something sarcastic about that blatant fabrication, but her mouth didn’t want to work and she slipped into sleep, comforted by their banter.
* * *
Chanel was astonished by how easily she grew used to sleeping with someone else.
Not to the sex, though. She wasn’t sure she’d ever grow used to the level of pleasure she and Demyan found in one another’s bodies.
He was bossy in bed, just like he’d told her, but it was all targeted toward her enjoyment. Every directive, every withholding of one instant gratification for something more was so that her final satisfaction was so incredibly overwhelming, she lost her mind with it.
But the sleeping together, that was different. That was all-night-long intimacy of another sort.
She, who had never even cuddled a bear in bed, found it difficult to sleep now when Demyan’s arms weren’t wrapped around her, his heartbeat a steady, comforting sound against her ear.
Hence her yawning this morning as she crunched the new data, despite three cups of coffee made in the new Keurig machine Demyan had gotten her.
He liked to buy her things, she’d noticed. Things she would like.
Her entire life, gifts had come with a subtle message to her to become something different. Designer clothes in a style unlike the one she favored, athletic shoes that were supposed to encourage her to take up running when she was perfectly happy with her tae kwon do training. Golfing gear, though she hated the game, a tennis racket despite the fact she’d never played.
But Demyan’s pressies were different. They were all targeted to the woman she was now, with no eye to making her into someone else. He showed an uncanny ability to tap in to her preferences, even when she’d never shared certain things with him.
Like her addiction to flavored coffees in direct opposition to her frustration over the complicated business of making a good cup of the beverage. So Demyan had found a way to feed the one while minimizing the other.
And the coffee? Delicious. And so darn easy.
She couldn’t mess it up even when she got sidetracked by a new algorithm she wanted to try.
Even when she was sleepy from waking every couple of hours, reaching for him in the bed only to find empty space.
Demyan had left Seattle in the wee hours of the previous morning for what Chanel assumed was a business trip. She hadn’t asked what it was about and he hadn’t offered the information.
What she did know was that he wouldn’t be back for two more days and an equal number of nights. Forty-eight more hours without him.
In the time line of life, it was hardly a blip.
So why did it feel longer than a particularly depraved man’s purgatory to her?
Chanel already missed him with an ache that made absolutely no sense to her scientific brain. Okay, so they’d been dating a month now, not just three days. Making love and sleeping together every single night of the past three weeks of that month.
Still. How could she have become more addicted to his company than caffeine?
Because Chanel knew without any doubts she could go without coffee a heck of a lot more easily than she was finding it to be without her daily dose of Demyan.
She didn’t know if she’d fallen in love at first sight like he’d hinted at three weeks ago, but she was in love with him now.
And that scared her more than a weekend at the spa with her mother.
* * *
“How close are you to closing the deal?” Fedir asked without preamble once he and Demyan were alone in the king’s study.
Demyan’s cousin and Gillian had returned from their honeymoon, and Queen Oxana wanted family time. That meant everyone in their small inner circle had come to the palace for a few days of “bonding.”
Since his own parents would cheerfully go the rest of their lives without seeing Demyan, he never took Oxana’s desire to spend time as a family for granted.
Though on this particular occasion, his mother and father and siblings were also staying at the palace in order to get to know their future queen, Gillian, better.
His father wouldn’t make any effort to spend one-on-one time with Demyan, though. For all intents and purposes, Demyan’s younger brother was his acknowledged oldest son.
Pushing aside old wounds Demyan no longer gave the power to hurt him, he answered his uncle’s question. “She’s emotionally engaged.”
“When will you propose?”
“When I return.”
Fedir nodded. “Smart. The time apart will leave her feeling vulnerable. She’ll want to cement your bond. Women are like that.”
Demyan didn’t reply. His uncle was the last man, bar none, he would ask for advice on women.
“She’ll sign the prenuptial agreement?”
“Yes.” The more Demyan had gotten to know Chanel, the more apparent it had become that money was not a motivating factor for her.
She’d sign even the all-contingency prenuptial agreement Fedir’s lawyers had drawn up simply because the financial terms would not matter to her.
“Good, good.”
“I’ll want changes made to some of the provisions before I present her with it, though.”
Fedir frowned. “What? I thought the lawyers did a good job of covering all the bases.”
“I want more generous monetary allowances for Chanel in the event our marriage ends in divorce or my death.”
“What? Why?” Fedir’s shock was almost comical. “Has a woman finally gotten under the skin of my untouchable nephew?”
Of course his uncle would immediately assume an emotional reason behind Demyan’s actions. His sense of justice was a little warped by his all-consuming dedication to the welfare of Volyarus.
“I will do whatever I need to in order to protect this country, but I will do it with honor,” Demyan replied.
“Of course, but your integrity is in no way compromised by your actions to insure the healthy future of our country.”
Demyan wasn’t sure he believed that. Regardless, he would minimize how much tarnish it took. “The terms will be changed to my requirements, or I won’t offer the document to Chanel to sign.”
As threats went, it wasn’t very powerful. Baron Tanner’s will had been clear and airtight. Chanel lost all claim to the baron’s shares in Yurkovich Tanner upon marriage to any direct relation to the king.
“And without a prenup, there will be no wedding,” Demyan added after several seconds of silence by his uncle.
“You don’t mean that.”
“When have you ever known me to bluff?” Demyan asked.
Fedir frowned. “She really does mean something to you.”
“My integrity certainly does.”
He was a ruthless man. Demyan knew that about himself. He could make the hard choices, but he was an honest man, too. And he didn’t make those choices without counting the cost.
“A man has to make sacrifices, even in that area for the greater good.”
Demyan shrugged. “I’ll contact the lawyers with the changes I want made to the agreement.”
He wasn’t going to debate his uncle’s choices. The other man had to live with them and their consequences. It might be argued that everyone in the palace did, too, but Demyan wasn’t a whiny child, moaning how his uncle’s decisions had cost him his family.
The truth was, his own parents and their ambition were every bit as culpable.
“I’ll trust you to be reasonable in your demands.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Demyan, you will never be king, but you are no less a son to me than Maksim.” Fedir laid one hand on Demyan’s shoulder and squeezed.
The words rocked through Demyan. His uncle was not an emotionally demonstrative man, in word or deed. Nor was he known for saying things he did not mean, at least not to family.
However, Demyan’s cynicism in the face of life’s lessons drove his speech. “A son you call nephew.”
“A son I and all of Volyarus call prince.”
“You never adopted me.” According to Volyarussian law, which the king could change should he so desire, doing so would have made Demyan heir to the throne, not the spare.
He understood that, but it was also a fact that if he were truly every bit as much a son to Fedir, his place in the right of succession wouldn’t have been a deterrent.
“Your parents refused.”
Was Fedir trying to imply he’d asked? “I find that difficult to believe. They gave me up completely.”
“But so long as you were legally their son, your father had leverage for his interests. He and your mother categorically refused to give that up.”
His uncle’s words rang true, particularly when weighed against how few of Demyan’s father’s efforts had met with support of the king since he’d become an adult. “I get my ruthlessness from him.”
“But your honor is all your own. You are a better man than either of your fathers, the one by birth and the one by choice.”
Fedir was not a man who gave empty compliments. So, Demyan couldn’t help that the older man’s words sparked emotion deep inside, but he wasn’t about to admit that out loud.
“Oxana feels the same. She is very proud of both of her sons.”
He thought of the excitement the queen had shown when Demyan had warned her that he’d found the one. “She wouldn’t be proud of me if she knew why I’m pursuing Chanel.”
“You’re wrong. I am very proud of you.” Oxana came into the room from the secret passageway entrance. “You have put the welfare of our people and your family ahead of your own happiness. How can I be anything but proud of that?”
Fedir started, clearly shocked his wife had been listening in.
“She’s a special woman. She deserves a real marriage.” It wasn’t a sentiment Demyan would have expressed to Fedir without prompting, but this was Oxana.
She’d sacrificed her entire life for their country and her family. Yet she was not a bitter woman. She loved them all deeply, if not overtly. She deserved to know that Demyan wasn’t going to play Chanel for the sake of her inheritance.
“So, give her one.” Oxana smiled with the same guarded approval she’d given him since he was a boy, though as he’d grown older he’d learned to look deeper for the true emotion. It was there. “She is a very lucky woman to have you.”
Since he wasn’t about to comment on the latter and the former was Demyan’s plan, he merely nodded.
“That’s not a reasonable request,” Fedir said forcefully.
“For you, we all know that is true. But Demyan is a different man. A better man, by your own admission.”
Fedir scowled at his wife of more than three decades. “He is our son. How can you demand he sacrifice the rest of his life for the sake of this girl’s feelings?”
“How can you ask him to sacrifice his personal integrity to save our country?” Oxana countered, deigning to look at Fedir.
“He is not being dishonest.”
“Oh, so you’ve told Chanel about her inheritance?” Oxana asked Demyan.
But he knew she wasn’t talking to him, not really, so he didn’t answer with so much as a shake of his head.
“How do you know about it?” Fedir asked Oxana, with shock lacing his usually forceful tones.
“It is in the historical archives for anyone to read.”
“Anyone with access to the private files.”
“I am queen. I get access.”
Fedir opened his mouth and then shut it again without a word being uttered, his face settling into a frown.
Oxana turned to face Demyan, effectively cutting Fedir out of the conversation. “Promise me one thing.”
“Yes.” He didn’t have to ask what it was. He trusted Oxana in a way he didn’t trust anyone besides Maks.
If she wanted a promise, he would give it to her.
“Don’t tell this woman, Chanel Tanner, that you love her unless you mean it. Love isn’t a bartering tool.”
“She loves me.” Chanel hadn’t said so, but he was sure of it.
It’s what he’d been working toward since he’d first walked into her office.
“No doubt. You are an eminently lovable man, but you owe it to her and to your own sense of honor not to lie about something so important.”
“I never lied to you,” Fedir inserted.
“Nothing has ever hurt as much as realizing Fedir had only said the words to convince me to give him the heir he needed for the throne.”
“I did love you. I do love you.”
Oxana spun to face her husband, but not her lover. “Like a sister. The few times you shared my bed, you called out her name at the critical moment.”
This was so much more than Demyan wanted to know, but he saw no way of extricating himself from the situation. He could walk out easily enough, but he wouldn’t leave Oxana to face the aftereffects of the emotional bloodletting that had been decades in the making.
“You knew about Bhodana from the beginning.”
“You told me you loved me. I thought that meant you were going to let her go.”
“I never promised you that.”
“No, you were very careful not to.”
“Oxana.”
She waved her hand, dismissing him and his words as she turned back to Demyan. “You promise me, be the better man. Do not make declarations you don’t mean.”
“You have my word.”
“I look forward to meeting her.”
“I didn’t plan to bring her here before the wedding.”
“You don’t want to scare her away.”
“No.” Unlike many women, Chanel was less likely to marry a prince than a normal man. “I’ve taken great care not to frighten her off.”
“Does she know the real you?” Oxana asked.
He thought about their time in bed, intimacy during which his plans flew straight to heaven in the face of his body’s response to Chanel. He’d try to convince himself that it would only be the first time, but subsequent sessions of lovemaking had proven otherwise.
“Yes,” Demyan said. “She may not realize it, but definitely.”
“Then all will be well. She is marrying the man you are at your core, Demyan, my son, not your title or the corporate shark who runs our company’s operations so efficiently.”
He hoped once Chanel saw his true persona and position, she would agree with her future mother-in-law. It was the one element to his plan that he could not be absolutely sure about.
With another woman, maybe, but with Chanel...learning he was a de facto prince could turn her right off him.
* * *
Excited anticipation buzzed through Chanel as the limousine taking her to meet Demyan rolled through the wet streets of Seattle.
His flight had arrived that morning, but he’d had a full day of meetings. Thankfully he’d told her about them before she offered to take a vacation day to spend with him.
Needy much?
She cringed at how much she’d missed him and was fairly certain allowing him to see the extent of it might not be the best thing to do. Even someone as socially inept as Chanel realized that.
Still, it had been hard to play it cool and agree to let him send a driver for her without gushing over the idea of seeing him tonight and not having to wait until tomorrow.
They were attending an avant-garde live theater production downtown. No dinner. Demyan’s schedule had not permitted.
Chanel was just glad he hadn’t put off seeing her, but he’d seemed almost as eager to be with her as she felt about seeing him again. Considering the number of times their short phone call had been interrupted, she knew he’d had to force a slot into his schedule for her.
Knowing she was going to see him had made focusing on her work nearly impossible. Chanel had ended up taking the afternoon off and calling her sister for a last-minute shopping trip. Laura had helped Chanel pick out an outfit that was guaranteed to drive the guy crazy.
The sapphire-blue three-quarter-length-sleeve top was deceptively simple. With a scoop neckline outlined by a double line of black stitching and mock tuxedo tucking in the front, it was tailored in along her torso to emphasize her curves. The semi-transparent silk was worn over a bra in the same color. Not overtly slutty with the pleats in front, it still did a lovely job of highlighting Chanel’s femininity.
The black silk trousers appeared conservative enough. Until she sat down, bent over or walked. Then the slit from midthigh to ankle hidden by the tuxedo stripe when she was standing gave intriguing glimpses of naked skin.
She’d never worn anything so revealing, but Laura insisted the peek-a-boo slit was interesting and not cheap. At the prices Chanel had paid for each piece of the outfit, she supposed cheap would not be a term that would ever apply to the clothing.
It had looked sophisticated in the boutique’s full-length mirror, a little more scandalous in her own.
Laura had insisted on styling Chanel’s ensemble as well, adding a demure rope of pearls knotted right below her breasts in an interesting juxtaposition that drew attention to the curves as effectively as the blue silk.
Her heels were strappy black sandals with what Laura called a do-me-baby heel. Chanel hadn’t bothered to admonish her sister about the description.
She’d decided years ago that Laura was light-years ahead of Chanel in the girl-boy department. She didn’t know if her baby sister was still a virgin like Chanel had been when she met Demyan, and honestly she had absolutely no desire to know.
The limousine slid to a halt and Chanel took a calming breath that did exactly no good.
She resisted the urge to pull at the carefully styled curls her sister had worked so hard to effect and waited for the driver to open the door.
It wasn’t the chauffeur’s hand reaching in to help her out of the limousine, though.
It was Demyan’s, and his dark eyes glittered with lust as he took in her exposed thigh before meeting her gaze. “Hello, sérdeńko. I am very happy to see you.”
She made no effort to stifle the smile that took over her features as she surged forward to exit the limo. If he hadn’t been there with a steadying hand and then his arm around her waist, she would have fallen flat on her face.
But he was there and part of her heart was beginning to believe maybe he always would be.
He tucked her into his body protectively before leaning down to kiss her hello, right there in front of the crowd making their way into the theater.
She responded with more enthusiasm than probably was warranted, but he didn’t seem to mind.
The kiss ended and he smiled down at her. “You look beautiful tonight. Very sexy.”
“Laura played stylist.”
“Your younger sister?”
“Yes. She’s got even more acute fashion sense than Mom.”
“Tell her I approve.”
“She said you would.”
His gaze skimmed her body. “Though I am not sure how I feel about everyone else seeing your body.”
“They’re just legs.”
“Nice ones.”
“It’s the tae kwon do.” Chanel’s mother had heard somewhere that taking martial arts could improve Chanel’s grace.
It hadn’t done much for her poise and composure, but Chanel had discovered she enjoyed the classes. She’d insisted on continuing when her mother would have preferred she take a dance class.
Just one of many arguments between her and Beatrice during Chanel’s formative years marked with parent-child acrimony.
“Then I am very grateful for your interest in Korean martial arts.”
“You’ve never asked what color belt I am,” she observed as he led her into the theater.
His thumb brushed up and down against her waist as if he couldn’t help touching her. “What color?”
“Third-level black belt.”
“Sixth-level black in judo,” he said by way of reply.
“Want to spar?” she teased breathlessly.
The silk of her shirt transmitted the heat from his skin to hers and she wondered if she was the one who was going to end up teased to distraction by her outfit tonight.
“I spar with my cousin. I prefer less competitive physical pursuits with you.”
She looked up into the side of his face, loving the line of his jaw, the way he held himself with such confidence. “Me, too.”
He groaned.
“What?”
He stopped in the lobby and pulled her around so their gazes locked.
His was heated. “How can you ask what? You are dressed in a way guaranteed to keep my thoughts off the play and on what I plan to do to you once we get back to my condo.”
