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Lucas’s proposal, though it had been a grand and romantic public gesture, hadn’t been made because he was crazy in love with me. He could profess his love all he wanted, but we both knew the truth. The werewolf king had proposed because having a queen would solidify his throne. Bonus points if his new queen happened to be from royal werewolf lineage.
That’s where I came in. Southern werewolf princess, bonded soul mate, and the on-paper perfect queen. On-paper being the operative term. Lucas had come to realize over the last year I wasn’t at all the perfect-princess type, and it had started to wear on our relationship. It didn’t help that I was also soul-bonded to another werewolf, Lucas’s lieutenant Desmond Alvarez.
And it certainly didn’t help that I loved Desmond more than I loved Lucas.
Yet here we were. There was a massive diamond on my finger and a wedding planner with dollar signs in her eyes waiting to yield to my every wedding whim.
Lucas took my hand and kissed it, his lips lingering a few seconds too long as he looked up at me and winked, which sent another thrill down to my toes. Love was such a complicated bitch, more so when the supernatural got thrown into the mix. On a logical level, I knew Lucas was wrong for me. On a metaphysical level, though, a part of me needed him as much as I needed oxygen. Now that our mate bond was complete, we were connected on a level that defied explanation.
I knew he needed this from me, and I couldn’t deny him something as simple as a wedding.
“Let’s talk about bridesmaid dresses,” I said, giving Kimberly my most saccharine smile.
Chapter Three
Two hours later Lucas and I had selected our wedding colors—sunflower yellow and cobalt blue—we’d named our attendants, picked an invitation and the venue was finalized. In three weeks we would become Mr. and Mrs. in the ballroom of Lucas’s own Columbia hotel, with a dazzling reception to follow across the street in Bryant Park. Not since it had been the home of Fashion Week would the park see such a display.
My stomach hurt from spending so much time debating the difference between ivory tablecloths and snowflake white. I was eternally grateful for Lucas’s presence when the question of table runners and low versus high centerpieces came up. He’d grown up in a family who had money to burn and had watched these types of events take place his entire life. He knew what our wealthy guests would expect better than I did.
In the end there was only one point I stuck my ground on with Hurricane Kimberly. She was adamant about a white rose and lily bouquet being the way to go. I wanted yellow gerbera daisies. She claimed gerberas were out of the question. They were too pedestrian, too simple. I wouldn’t yield. It was gerberas or it was a different wedding planner.
I won that particular battle, and my pedestrian bouquet was granted.
It wasn’t until we reached the parking lot that I realized I was clutching a big Tiffany-blue binder with the words Bridal Bible embossed on the cover. Inside were swatches of fabrics, sketches of the way Kimberly envisioned the ceremony and reception sites, and brochures for photographers. I think she’d given us homework, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember anything she had said in the last twenty minutes.
Placing the binder on the hood of my yellow BMW Z4, I dug through my pockets in search of my keys, trying my best to not face Lucas.
“Go ahead and say it,” he said.
“Say what?”
“Whatever it is that’s making you so quiet. I know you’ve got a whole speech stored up about Kimmy at the very least.”
“Kimmy?” I could no longer face away. I turned so he could get the full effect of my stunned expression. “Since when are we on a nickname basis with Our Lady of Tulle and Buttercream?”
He smirked. I had to give him credit for that. In the year we’d known each other he had come a long way in accepting my little foibles. Specifically my penchant for sarcastic outbursts. He answered my question as if I’d asked it in a completely rational manner. “The Carlyle family are old friends of my parents. Kimmy…Kimberly used to babysit Kellen from time to time. She’s a few years younger than Des and me. I hired her because I knew it’s what my parents would have wanted.”
I suppressed the urge to make a face. His logic was sound, and since his parents were both dead, it was difficult for me to question what they would or wouldn’t have wanted.
“Fine.” I found my keys and unlocked the car, chucking the blue binder carelessly into the backseat. “Why are we going through all this?”
“The big wedding, you mean?”
“Yeah. Wouldn’t eloping be easier?”
“Most women can’t wait to hear the words spare no expense when it comes to planning their wedding, Secret.”
“But I don’t care. I don’t care if we serve Moët or Cristal. I don’t care if the girls have Romona Keveza dresses or if I have a frigging diamond tiara. None of this is me.”
He crossed the distance between us, and given his height advantage, I had to look up to see his eyes. With one hand on each of my shoulders, he bent down and gave me a gentle, sweet kiss on the lips. I licked the lower curve of his mouth, hoping for a lingering taste of cinnamon, but tasted nothing there other than the faint salt of his skin. I kissed him back anyway, wrapping my hands around his wrists and letting my tongue explore the bumpy ridges on the roof of his mouth before capturing his lip between my teeth and giving it a playful nip.
“I know you don’t want the big show.” He kissed my nose, then my forehead, and last but not least, each of my closed eyelids. “I know you’re being incredibly patient about this. Or as patient as you can be.” I didn’t miss his little jab. “And if there was any other way to do this, I promise you we would be doing it, but there isn’t any other way.”
“No courthouse steps? A quickie trip to Vegas?” I smiled hopefully.
“It needs to be big. Nothing can be overlooked. News of it has to spread to all the other kingdoms, and they need to see that we are really, truly united. Once that happens, I think we can finally be at peace.”
He was dreaming. For the past several months some of the Alphas of the smaller packs in Lucas’s territory were showing signs of unrest. There were rumors circulating of packs attempting to leave the protection of the East and seek the leadership of the South. My uncle, Callum McQueen, King of the Southern packs, swore he had no part in it, but it was hard to imagine small packs making such a bold move on their own.
