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Still holding her waist with one hand, Gabriel reached into his back pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. Taking one of her hands in his, he placed the paper in it.
She dipped her gaze to it before closing it tightly in her fingers then locked back on him, another tear falling.
‘My PA gave me this within minutes of you calling me,’ he told her, staring deep into her shining eyes. ‘I’ve kept it in my wallet ever since. I tried to destroy it once. Scrunched it up and threw it in the bin. I went back to the hotel room for it. Alessia...’ A sharp lump had formed in his throat and he had to close his eyes and swallow it away before he could continue. ‘Lessie, I don’t know if love at first sight exists but the first time I looked at you it felt like I’d been struck by lightning. You were everything I thought I didn’t want but the truth is you’re everything I need. All of you. The princess and the woman. The whole of you. I can’t live without you.’
His voice caught and he had to take another moment to compose himself enough to speak. ‘I can’t live without you,’ he repeated, choking and now completely unable to control it. ‘Please, Alessia, forgive me. Take me back. Please, I beg you. I am nothing without you. I can’t go on like this. You are everything to me. I beg you, give me a chance to put things right. Give me a chance to prove that I can be the husband you deserve and the prince you need...’
‘Shh.’ A delicate finger was placed on his lips.
It took a beat for him to register that Alessia had closed the gap between them, another beat to register that her tear-filled face was shining at him.
‘Oh, Gabriel.’ Alessia gazed at the man she’d fallen in love with long before she’d even known it, feeling like she could choke on the emotions that had cracked through her frozen heart and were erupting inside her.
The eyes boring into hers... What she saw in them...
Oh, but it filled her with the glowing warmth of his love.
Dropping the slip of paper, she rose onto her toes, wound her arms around his neck and pressed her nose into the base of his strong throat.
He loved her.
With her lungs filled with that wonderful Gabriel scent she loved so much, she tilted her head back so she could look again into the eyes that always glistened with such wonderful colour.
She would look into them every day for the rest of her life.
‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘With all my heart.’
He closed his eyes as if in prayer.
Loosening one of her hands from his neck, she slid her fingers down his arm and clasped them around his hand.
She smiled up at him. ‘Kiss me,’ she whispered dreamily. ‘Kiss me, dance with me and love me for ever.’
Then she closed her eyes as the heat of his breath filled her senses.
His lips brushing tenderly against hers, Gabriel held her in his arms on the dance floor until the music stopped. And then he loved her for ever.
EPILOGUE
BEAMINGSOHARDshe thought her face might split in two, Alessia gripped tightly to Gabriel’s hand as they walked back up the aisle, their vows renewed. The young bridesmaids who’d carried the twelve-foot train of her wedding dress grinned with varying degrees of gappiness. A heavily pregnant Clara, who’d been tasked with keeping the young bridesmaids in order as part of her chief bridesmaid role, looked like she was only just controlling her urge to jump over the nearest congregants and enthusiastically throw herself into Alessia’s arms.
Outside in the royal chapel gardens, the sun shone down on the happy couple and their two hundred guests. To Alessia’s glee, the sun’s rays were diffused by the avalanche of confetti that was tipped over them, started by Gabriel’s best man, his sister, Mariella. The only guest who didn’t join in was Alessia’s mother, but that was only because she had Alessia and Gabriel’s three-month-old daughter, Mari, in her arms. The queen’s happiness radiated so strongly Alessia felt its waves on her skin every bit as much as the sun’s.
After the professional photographer, who’d been paid a small fortune and made to sign a secrecy order so as to keep this special day entirely private, had finished herding them all into varying orders for the pictures, they all headed inside for the wedding banquet and after-party. When she caught Gabriel’s mother surreptitiously taking photos of the party on her phone and realised he’d clocked her too, their eyes met. He shrugged in a ‘what else can we expect?’ way, and then burst out laughing. Her husband still loathed the press but had become far more adept at tolerating them. Once, he’d even given them a smile that didn’t look completely like a grimace.
When the early hours came and the time for dancing and celebrating was over, an exhausted Alessia walked the lit path back to the stables, holding tightly to her husband’s hand. Every single person she loved had been there to celebrate the love she and Gabriel had found together.
When they reached their huge oak front door, she was about to take the first step up to it when the ground moved beneath her feet and she found herself swept up into Gabriel’s arms.
‘I do believe it’s traditional for the groom to carry the bride over the threshold,’ he murmured, nuzzling his nose into her cheek.
She smiled dreamily at him. ‘Thank you, Prince Gabriel.’
‘No, Princess Alessia. Thank you.’
She tightened her hold around his neck and pressed her cheek against his. ‘Take me to bed.’
‘With pleasure.’
