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She braced herself, clutching her bouquet in a death grip, and lifted her chin. At least the veil offered her some protection; she’d be grateful for small mercies.
Rafael stopped in front of her, blocking her view of the altar and Matias, so that all she could see was the wide expanse of his chest.
She swallowed, trying not to shake.
She’d forgotten how tall he was. How massive. How...immovable. He was a man built out of the most adamant of materials, granite and steel and iron. A man who could withstand any shock, any disaster. She’d been a teenager when he’d come to take his place as Regent and everyone had been terrified of him.
His background had been as a CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company, but he’d never looked like a CEO. He’d looked like a general, a warlord. A leader of armies. Dark, frightening, and dangerous, he made the palace guards seem like children merely playing at being soldiers.
He’s not like that, though. Not really.
But that was her stupid heart doing the talking. The heart that had been somehow fascinated by the much older brother of the man she was supposed to marry. The heart that had nothing to do with the lovely, well-behaved daughter of Gian and Violetta De Vita, who’d been brought up and moulded to be the perfect queen. A heart that was dangerous, rebellious, passionate...
And stupid.
Lia stared at that chest, the dove-grey material of his morning suit stretched as it was over rock-hard muscle and bone.
Something quivered inside her.
She didn’t want to look up, but if she didn’t that would signal she had something to hide and he’d know. Then again, he already knew that passionate, dangerous side of her, so what did she have to lose?
You’re a coward.
Yes, she’d been that, too. But maybe not today.
Lia took a breath and then lifted her gaze to his from behind her veil.
The air in her lungs froze solid.
He wasn’t handsome, but then handsomeness was an irrelevant term when it came to the Regent of Santa Castelia. His black hair was cut short and close to his skull, his face all rough planes and hard angles that somehow came together in a way that was both utterly compelling, yet terrifying at the same time.
A man with charisma and an authority that made people want to obey simply through the sheer force of his presence alone.
But it wasn’t his face that struck the fear of God into her heart.
It was his eyes.
Deep-set below winged black eyebrows, they were a light, crystalline grey. Like silver. Like the edge of a sword or a scalpel, sharp enough to cut. To draw blood.
Impossibly beautiful eyes.
Eyes that saw the truth.
Lia couldn’t breathe.
Rafael lifted his hands and grasped the fine silk of her veil, drawing it up and over her face, taking away that last barrier. So there was nothing between herself and the sharp edge of his gaze.
Nowhere to run.
Nowhere to hide.
The expression on his face was impossible to read. But his eyes...they blazed like molten mercury.
‘Did you think you could get away with it?’ His voice was quiet and somehow even more terrible than when it had been louder. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t notice?’
Lia couldn’t have spoken if her life had depended on it. There was a roaring in her ears. All the air in the cathedral had vanished, as though she was standing in an airlock and someone had opened it straight into a hard vacuum.
There was nothing but darkness and ice, and that relentless silver gaze cutting into her.
