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From this point forward, her life was never going to be the same.
* * *
Sofi´a’s stomach was still a mass of knots as she dressed for dinner with the royal family. An announcement of her and Nik’s coming nuptials was being prepared for release the next day, along with an invitation for the toast of Akathinian society to join them to celebrate the royal engagement at a party in two weeks’ time.
She had balked at the tight timeline, but calming her as he would an overexcited filly, Abram had assured it was all easily done by the palace event machine. All she had to do was be a stunning queen-to-be.
A thousand butterflies traced a swooping path through her insides as she smoothed the beautiful violet dress around her hips that she’d chosen from the selection in the wardrobe. The palace was flying in her favorite designer next week with a dozen dresses to choose from for the engagement party, which might seem like overkill, but when you were going to be photographed by the world, your dress pulled apart piece by piece by the fashion media, you made sure you got it right.
Her mother had sounded ecstatic when she’d called, too happy with her own engagement to pick up on the reticence in her daughter’s voice. Dreamy, she’d called Nik. “And a prince at that, Sofi´a.”
The fact that her mother and she were still so far apart emotionally had brought back a familiar ache. The resentment at never really having had a mother who had been there for all the big events of her life, so lost in herself as her mother had been.
How some things never changed.
Pursing her lips, she scooped her hair off her neck and twisted it atop her head rather than ruminate about things she couldn’t change. Up, her hair looked elegant; down, it looked a little wild with the curls the salty Akathinian air was inspiring.
Nik appeared in the mirror behind her, sleek in a dark suit that made him look like a particularly lethal jungle cat. Her pulse sped up into an agitated, jagged rhythm as his blue gaze slid over her in a slow, thorough perusal. “Wear it down.”
She pulled her gaze from him. “It channels a bit of Grace Kelly if I wear it up.”
His mouth curved. “There is no Grace Kelly in you, Sofi´a. You are all fire with some ice thrown in to keep things interesting. Be yourself.”
She reached for a clip and secured the curls into a loose chignon. Nik’s eyes glittered as she turned to face him. “If I told you you look incredible in that dress,” he drawled, “would you put something else on?”
“Quite possibly,” she retorted. “So please refrain. We’re out of time.”
She went to move past him to find her shoes. Nik caught her hand in his. A current ran through her, as if she’d curled her fingers around a dangling electrical wire, jamming her breath in her throat. Dammit. She had to get over this. Him. She hated him for thinking the worst of her.
He lifted his other hand, a jaw-droppingly beautiful square-cut pink sapphire held between his fingers. “This could make a nice accessory.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Surrounded by a double row of tiny white diamonds, the brilliance of the light pink stone was further enhanced by pave-set diamonds that covered the entire band.
It was unbelievably beautiful. Utterly perfect.
“Do you like it?” Nik prodded.
She sank her teeth into her lip. Once, when she and Nik had been walking down Madison Avenue after dinner out, they’d passed a swish jewelry store, the appointment-only kind. She’d jokingly commented to Nik that the pink sapphire in the window could persuade her to get married someday.
He had remembered.
She stifled the desperate urge to tell him she couldn’t put that ring on her finger and perhaps he should take it back and get another.
“You could fund the entire Akathinian army with that ring,” she said huskily.
“I bought it personally. And no, I don’t think it would quite do it.”
He lifted her hand to slide the ring on, moving it past her knuckle to sit on her finger like a blinding pink fire.
“It’s beautiful,” she said woodenly. Minus the heartfelt sentiment behind it.
She pulled away from him and crossed the room to retrieve her shoes. Nik’s piercing blue gaze followed her, probing, assessing. “Are you all right?”
“Perfect.” She bent to slip a shoe on.
“Greet my father first,” he said. “Don’t bow, he hates it, wait for him to take the lead. My mother won’t wish formalities, either.”
“And Stella?”
His mouth tipped up at one corner. “Stella eschews formality whenever she can get away with it.”
