One Night Before The Royal Wedding (Mills & Boon Modern) Read online

  Roman’s mother hadn’t come to the wedding. During a very exciting video call, she had explained that it was their day and she didn’t want to take any attention away from that. But they were planning to visit Missouri during their honeymoon and Zabrina’s brother was very jealous because Kansas City was the setting of one of his favourite films. And Roman was still getting his head around the fact that he had three half-brothers!

  He had also invited her three siblings to stay during the long vacation and said he intended to do this every year if they were keen—and to instruct Alex in the art of kingship at the same time. He was also quietly intending to put a diamond mine in trust, so that her brother should have no financial woes, should he ever inherit a large national debt.

  And when Roman had revealed that the priceless emerald and diamond necklace she’d worn on the night of the ball—and which she hated—had been a placatory gift intended to make amends for his deception on the train, Zabrina had wasted no time in chiding him. But not for very long. She had asked if she might sell it and use the funds raised to open a women’s refuge in Rosumunte and Roman had agreed. As she had observed, the world was going through a bit of a crisis at the moment and people like her needed to lead by example. Because she didn’t need things. The only thing she needed was him.

  He lifted her fingers to his lips and as the trumpets gave their final flourish, he spoke against her skin, but so softly that only she could hear.

  ‘You bring me utter joy, Zabrina. Do you know that?’

  ‘Sssh,’ she said. ‘The congregation will be reading your lips.’

  ‘I don’t care—let them read to their heart’s content. I need to say this and I need to say it now. I think you know how much I love you, my Princess. Just as I think you know I always will.’

  Blinking back tears, she nodded, trying to compose herself in preparation for the sacred vows she would shortly make. Later, she would bring him even more joy when she told him about the baby growing beneath her breast. A baby they hadn’t planned quite so soon, but something told her Roman was going to be a wonderful father.

  She wanted to laugh and she wanted to cry. She was caught in the crossfire of so many powerful and conflicting emotions that suddenly she didn’t care about lip-readers either.

  ‘I love you too, my darling Roman,’ she whispered. ‘I love you so very much.’

  And a single tear of happiness rolled all the way down her cheek and dripped onto the tiny enamel bluebird.

  Coming next month

  HIS STOLEN INNOCENT’S VOW

  Marcella Bell

  “I can’t,” she repeated, her voice low and earnest. “I can’t, because when I went to him as he lay dying, I looked him in his eye and swore to him that the d’Tierrza line would end with me, that there would be no d’Tierrza children to inherit the lands or title and that I would see to it that the family name was wiped from the face of the earth so that everything he had ever worked for, or cared about, was lost to history, the legacy he cared so much about nothing but dust. I swore to him that I would never marry and never have children, that not a trace of his legacy would be left on this planet.”

  For a moment, there was a pause, as if the room itself had sucked in a hiss of irritation. The muscles in his neck tensed, then flexed, though he remained otherwise motionless. He blinked as if in slow motion, the movement a sigh, carrying something much deeper than frustration, though no sound came out. Hel’s chest squeezed as she merely observed him. She felt like she’d let him down in some monumental way though they’d only just become reacquainted. She struggled to understand why the sensation was so familiar until she recognized the experience of being in the presence of her father.

  Then he opened his eyes again, and instead of the cold green disdain her heart expected, they still burned that fascinating warm brown—a heat that was a steady home fire, as comforting as the imaginary family she’d dreamed up as a child—and all of the taut disappointment in the air was gone. loz

  Her vow was a hiccup in his plans. That he had a low tolerance for hiccups was becoming clear. How she knew any of this when he had revealed so little in his reaction, and her mind only now offered up hazy memories of him as a young man, she didn’t know.

  She offered a shrug and an airy laugh in consolation, mildly embarrassed about the whole thing though she was simultaneously unsure as to exactly why. “Otherwise, you know, I’d be all in. Despite the whole abduction…” Her cheeks were hot, likely bright pink, but it couldn’t be helped so she made the joke, anyway, despite the risk that it might bring his eyes to her face, that it might mean their eyes locked again and he stole her breath again.

  Of course, that is what happened. And then there was that smile again, the one that said he knew all about the strange mesmerizing power he had over her, and it pleased him.

  Whether he was the kind of man who used his power for good or evil had yet to be determined.

  Either way, beneath that infuriating smile, deep in his endless brown eyes, was the sharp attunement of a predator locked on its target. “Give me a week.” His face may not have changed, but his voice gave him away, a trace of hoarseness, as if his sails had been slashed and the wind slipped through them, threaded it, a strange hint of something Hel might have described as desperation…if it had come from anyone other than him.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Give me a week to change your mind.”

  Continue reading

  HIS STOLEN INNOCENT’S VOW

  Marcella Bell

  Available next month

  Copyright ©2021 by Marcella Bell

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