Angelica woke feeling freer and more amazing than she’d ever felt in her entire life. She opened her eyes and stared at Ludwig’s sleeping face, his lionesque hair splayed out on his pillow around him.  

He is quite possibly the most handsome man I have ever met.  

But that didn’t mean he was good for her. She should get out of bed, get dressed and leave. It was a short flight back to her home, and she did need to get back as quickly as possible. After all, she had a lot of work to prepare for on Monday. Her new reality was starting to crash down on her.

Siobhan wasn’t going to be able to take over the responsibilities of a Crown Princess. There were too many, and her mother was right. Siobhan would have too much to do as the Lektenstaten Princess Consort. So, with that in mind, her reckless night of freedom might have consequences. She might be expected to remain a virgin.  

Although they were living in an era when that was less important. Or, at least, she hoped so.  

She didn’t want to think of the repercussions of her actions last night. She didn’t want to regret it. She’d never felt so…alive as she had the night before.  

She wasn’t worried she might get pregnant. She was on birth control, thanks to a need to regulate her cycles. She was one of the growing number of women who used it for health reasons. Of course, she would have to let that go when she got married so she could have children, but that was a ways off. Maybe not as far as off as she’d hoped, not with her mother looking to find her a husband.  

Wow. I was able to think that thought without cringing from embarrassment. I must be growing.  

Thank goodness. She was tired of feeling ashamed for no good reason. Abelardo had left her. He had dumped her and publicly humiliated her. That was his fault. He should feel the shame.   

Aside from having his name in the papers for a few weeks, he seemed to have survived the scandal rather well. Now, that did rile her nerves.  

What am I doing? I’m lying in bed with a deliciously naked man thinking about the life I will return to…tomorrow. I’m still free today. Or, at least I can pretend it.

What did she want to do?  

And then the thought struck her. She wanted to see his country through his eyes. Incognito. Not as a traveling dignitary, but as a normal person.  

He stirred beside her and smiled. “Morning.”  

“Morning yourself.” She couldn’t stop smiling. She was just so incredibly happy in that moment and she wanted to hold onto it for as long as she could.

The sight of her shook him. Her hair was a wild mess of silk raven around her perfect face. She had the kind of fascinating face that made a man want to look twice. No woman had ever seemed more beautiful. What’s happening to me? He didn’t know, but he also didn’t know if he entirely disliked it. “How long have you been up?”  

She shrugged, the corners of her lips turning down before rising gracefully again.  

His cock stirred, hardening even more. He suddenly needed to feel her skin against his. He snaked his arm out and pulled her toward him. “What do you want to do today?”

She didn’t know. She knew she didn’t want to go back home, but she didn’t have any clothes with her, either. She wanted today to be rather impromptu.  

A pang of hurt beat inside her, a longing for a family that could go to a simple picnic or a stroll around the park, normal things families did. But the Castella y Aragon was not like most families.

Whatever. She rested her forearms on his chest, careful not to dig her elbows in, propped her chin on the back of her hands and looked up at him, feeling as though this was the most natural thing in the world.  

He grinned and rearranged his head on his hands folded on his pillow. “You already have an idea.”  

“I’ve been awake a little while longer than you.”

He licked his lips, his eyes lighting up as she crossed and uncrossed her legs sticking up behind her. “What is it?”  

Her internal fire lit, watching his tongue and the light on those amazingly blue eyes. If he doesn’t ravish me here and now first. “I want to see your country through your eyes.”  

He laughed. “In one day? Lektenstaten is small but not that small.”  

She shook her head and shrugged. “It’s all we have. We both have to go back to work tomorrow.”  

“Actually, I don’t. When do you have to leave?”  

Her heart twinged at the thought. When did I become such a…romantic ninny? She laughed at herself. Who else feels emotions for a man and then calls herself a romantic ninny? But her life had no room for romance. Not really. “Tonight.”  

“Ah, then we have today.” He grinned and then grabbed her, pulling her up until their lips met, claimed her lips, leaving her breathless and wanting. “How are you feeling?”

“How do the Americans say it? Like a million bucks!” She smiled at him. The real world wouldn’t have to invade for another several hours. Until then, the day was hers and she was going to take it.  

He ran his hand over her back and round ass, squeezed it lightly and then his fingers brushed her between her thighs. “No soreness?”

“Oh, there’s that.” And it felt at the same time incredibly awkward and freeing to be having that conversation with him.  

“That’s to be expected.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, a slight disappointed look on his face.

“But it’s a good soreness, and I want to feel it again,” she whispered, taking his lips in a hungry kiss.

Siobhan arched her back as Angus’s fingers trailed down her spine, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Never had she thought in her life that she would be this happy, this content. Angus had been the man she had been waiting for and now he was her husband. She still didn’t believe it.

A rumble of laughter shook his chest. “Do you like that, wife?”

“Say it again,” Siobhan said, pressing a kiss to his chest.

“I will say it forever,” he stated, his hand stopping on her back. “Wife. You are mine.”

Siobhan grinned as she looked up at him, a slight breeze from the ocean stirring his long hair. They lay in a large bed overlooking crystal blue ocean, their skin still damp from the round of sex that had left her crying out his name and not caring who had heard her.

When he had asked where she wanted to honeymoon, Siobhan had pictured the sand and sea, with a warm sun and no one for miles around.

Angus had provided all of it and more. He had made her dreams come true and even though their start was a rocky one, she was glad for it.

“What the hell?”

Startled, Siobhan looked at her husband, seeing the frown marring his rugged features. “What is it?”

He nodded toward the TV mounted on the wall, muted so that they would not be distracted. “Trouble.”

With a sigh, she slid next to him, laying her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest, following his gaze. It was set to a news channel, one that Siobhan knew Angus watched frequently. The reporter was on a split screen, showing a shot of Aragon’s Palacio del Al-Andalus wall.

Instead of the sandstone that Siobhan was used to seeing, there were words scrawled on the stone in black and red, harsh words with a specific meaning in mind.

“The palace belongs to the people!”

“You don’t belong here!”

The reporter spoke rapidly, and they were now showing a clip of the instigators as they were captured, the officials hauling them off while a crowd cheered around them.

Siobhan did not know if the crowd was cheering for the criminals or for the police who had arrested them.

“Shit,” Angus sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Can no one have a moment’s peace?”

Siobhan sighed inwardly and climbed onto her husband’s taut, naked form, blocking his view of the screen as she leaned down, her breasts brushing his bare chest. “Can we just forget the outside world for a little while?”

She knew she had to develop an interest in her country’s affairs but it was the first day of her honeymoon and she wanted to pretend that inside their own little bubble the world was right around them.

“Of course. I apologize.” His expression softened as he clasped her hips, his hands sliding up her sides, and curving around her round belly. “How are my sons?”

“Hungry.” She gave him a smile, but in her heart, she knew that this was far from over. They could not shut out the world forever.