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‘And on top of that—’ The King waited for the crowd to subside into silence. ‘On top of that it is with great pleasure that I also announce—’
‘Before you do, Your Majesty, I need a word with your daughter.’
Ava glanced up and gasped as Wolfe strode into the room, the outer door swinging closed behind him. Every head swivelled towards his voice and two of her father’s personal guards rushed him—only to fall back when they recognised who he was.
Ava’s traitorous heart recognised who he was as well, and started beating heavily in her chest. Her eyes ate him up exactly like that first morning when she had met him as she sat on top of that wall at Château Verne. Only this time he wasn’t on a white horse and he wasn’t wearing jodhpurs. Instead he stood before her in a business suit and tie that did little to civilise the lethal glint in his golden-brown eyes.
Her father scowled at the interruption and Lorenzo shifted nervously at her other side.
‘This had better be good, Wolfe,’ her father said.
‘It is.’ Wolfe’s eyes never left hers. ‘Ava?’
Ava’s heart did a mini-somersault at his commanding tone; shock and surprise that he was standing directly in front of her was making her feel light-headed.
‘Surely whatever you have to say to my daughter can wait until after these proceedings are over?’ her father said impatiently.
‘Not if you’re about to announce what I think you are,’ Wolfe returned emphatically.
His expression was perfectly urbane but it reminded Ava of the time he had threatened to drag her behind his horse weeks ago. She knew it would be pointless to argue with him in this mood—at least in public. ‘It’s okay, Father. I’ll speak with Monsieur Wolfe in private.’
Lorenzo half rose out of his seat, as if he might object, but one look from Wolfe had him reluctantly subsiding.
‘Just tell me this.’ Wolfe rounded on her as soon as the footman had closed the door to the small salon she had chosen further down the hall. ‘Are you marrying Lorenzo because you love him or because your father wants you to?’
Ava frowned at him. ‘Since I know your earlier experiences have given you a very skewed view of how women can be, I’m going to let that slide. But you need to know that question is incredibly insulting to me.’
Wolfe surprised her by shaking his head and laughing. ‘Princess, you do have a special way of bringing me back down to size. But the fact that you didn’t answer with an emphatic I love him gives me hope.’
‘Hope about what?’
‘Hope that there’s still a chance I can convince you to fall in love with me.’
Ava stared at him blankly and then blinked as his words stopped spinning inside her head. ‘Why would you want me to do that? You don’t even believe in love,’ she challenged softly.
A rueful smile formed on his lips. ‘I didn’t until I met you.’
‘You’re not making any sense.’ Ava didn’t dare let her mind head down the track it had veered on to in case the excited beating of her heart was wrong. ‘What does that mean?’
It took him three long strides to reach her, and when he did he gripped her fingers in his, his eyes searching hers. ‘It means you have opened my eyes to everything that has been missing in my life and why. It means I’ve been a fool to even think that I could let you walk out of my life.’
He stopped and she watched his throat work as he swallowed, a fleeting moment of nervousness crossing his face.
‘It means that I love you, Ava. More than I ever thought possible.’
Ava’s mind felt as if it was churning through butter as he said words she’d stopped letting herself imagine would ever fall from his lips. ‘Are you serious?’
‘About loving you?’
She nodded, lost for words.
Wolfe’s lips twisted into a wry smile. ‘Absolutely. But I don’t blame you for doubting me. I fought my feelings for you the whole way—imagining that they would weaken me, imagining that you would be as flighty and as unpredictable as my mother.’
‘I’m not like her, Wolfe,’ Ava assured him vehemently. ‘I would never abandon my husband. My child.’
‘I know you wouldn’t, baby. You need to know that when I was younger—about twelve or thirteen—and out looking for my brother for the hundredth time, I made a promise to myself that I would never let myself fall in love. That I would never make myself that vulnerable. And until that bright blue-sky morning at Gilles’s wedding I’ve never had cause to reconsider that promise.’ He paused, drew her hands up to his lips. ‘Then I saw you and...you simply stole the breath from my lungs.’
