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I smile. “I never asked to be the beer heiress. I’m good at running a business and being in charge, but it doesn’t excite me. Making beer doesn’t excite me in the least.”
“What does excite you?”
“Being your wife excites me. Doing something for the greater good of society excites me. Compelling the wealthy to donate huge sums of money to something worthwhile and then writing those gigantic checks for charity excites me,” I say.
His face takes on that familiar smirk. “Oh gods, please tell me I won’t ever have to pose with one of those gigantic checks for a photo.”
I’m not expecting this, and I laugh so loud and hard that I snort. In turn, my husband laughs at the way I laugh, which only makes me laugh harder. And then, the most horrible and inappropriate thing happens. To my horror, I pass gas. Loudly.
“Hell’s bells!” Etienne shouts, and the horrified look on his face is enough to send me into a fresh fit of giggles.
“Pardon me,” I say between gasps of breath, dabbing my eyes.
“You sound like a tortured goose,” he cackles.
“Oh my gods.” I’m shaking, bent over with laughter, and beet red from embarrassment. I bury my face in his chest and curled into a fetal position on the sofa.
“My wife is such a delicate flower,” he says with a wheezing laugh.
And now I’m laughing so hard I make no noise at all.
“Breathe, wife. Breathe.”
The more I try to calm myself and take a breath, the more I burst into more laughter. “It’s nervous gas built up from the meeting,” I tell him.
Etienne sits up and pulls me onto his lap without warning. I gasp at the hard thing pressing against my inner thigh.
“Next time, just let it out in the car like a normal person,” he says, then angles his face up to catch my bottom lip in his mouth.
I groan as Etienne swipes his wicked tongue across my lip. Slowly.
When he lets up, I pull back to look into those clear gray eyes that have had a grip on me since forever. I smooth a strand of hair away from his eyes. “I don’t think anyone would ever accuse us of being normal.”
Etienne cocks his head to examine me. “So, what do you want to do now that you’ve given up your family business?”
I blink down at him, all laughter and humor gone. “Take care of you. Make a home with you. Build a marriage with you.”
His face darkens a little. “That might not turn out to be as pleasant as it sounds, if I’m off the bottle. I’ve not been off the sauce for this long since I can remember, but who knows how unpleasant I’ll be this time next week, next month, next year.”
I bite my lip. “And to that end, I have an idea.”
“Uh-oh. I see that look. What do you have up your sleeve, my love? Do you want to go back to working for the Human Rights Council? I support that completely, but I won’t stand for anything dangerous. You know that, right?”
I don’t know how my husband will take my idea. But I want a do-over on everything. Our honeymoon, our marriage. Everything. And he deserves someone to stick by him and show him unconditional support no matter what. And honestly, I deserve that, too.
“Maybe in some capacity,” I say. “But right now is not the time for me to leave you alone while I’m away at work for days, sometimes weeks at a time.”
He nods, and the nervousness in my belly calms. I feared he would see my idea as too mothering or controlling. But he’s open to it, and I let that little nod propel me along.
“So, here’s what I think we should do…”
37
King Otto
The palace’s chief publicist is sweating through his shirt and hovering like a mayfly while I’m trying to eat my dinner.
“Spit it out, Franc.”
