Chapter Twenty-One
There were few times in Rachelle’s life she considered so beautiful, so perfect, she tried to ingrain them into her memories. The week that followed her early-morning dance with Magnus was one of those magical times.
They stayed at his family home for a couple of days, long enough to have gone into town as a couple. The wonder of seeing Magnus with the people in the town was that he didn’t act like a royal with them. He sat with them, laughed with them, even traded playful insults with a few. Just like the rest of the men in town, he also sat up straighter when Zinnia spoke to him. Rachelle asked him if she’d ever gotten him with her switch. He’d laughed, but he hadn’t denied it.
In the town he called his home, he and Rachelle ate sinfully rich foods, drank too much coffee in cafés, and spent hours talking in the corner of a bar while Benito played modern pop music. Magnus asked her endless questions about her childhood, her interests, her current bucket list. She countered with questions of her own and loved that he held nothing back. Every day she handed a little more of her heart over to him; every night she found pleasure in his arms.
When they finally returned to the capital city, Magnus left her each morning to work but gave her his afternoons and evenings. And, of course, his nights.
Every piece of what had seemed like an impossible puzzle was beginning to fit together. She and Magnus visited with Eric and the children on the other side of the hospital. They met with architects to design housing for families of the sick children and chose a nearby lot that presently housed only a warehouse. Even Delinda was supportive. Well, if the definition of supportive was not actively trying to destroy or devalue her relationship with Magnus, as Rachelle had expected her grandmother to. They hadn’t yet returned to see his father, but the reception for the orphans was that night, and they would see him then. She was attending as Magnus’s official date. Magnus said he would present her to his father again and announce his intentions.
Although Rachelle wasn’t entirely sure what intentions he was referring to, she trusted Magnus. The more time she spent with him, the more she saw that he expressed his feelings with actions rather than words. He didn’t fawn over his people or try to win them with charm, but he delivered each and every time they needed him. They loved him for it in a way that almost no one loved a leader anymore.
How could she not fall for him?
He still said ridiculously sexist things that made her eyes roll skyward, but he wasn’t bothered when in private she took him to task for them. In fact, more than once she’d wondered if he said some of them simply to get a rise out of her.
He was never the type to gush words of love and flattery, but Rachelle had been with a man like that, and none of it had been sincere, anyway. When she’d needed that man, he hadn’t wanted to be bothered with her problems. However much Magnus might sometimes frustrate her, she was beginning to believe he might show his feelings for her the same way he did with his people—with actions rather than words. Measured that way, he put to shame the men who’d come before him.
She smiled as she sat in a chair while having her hair and makeup done. She met her eyes in the mirror and realized she’d never seen herself look happier or more beautiful. Right or wrong, love or only lust, what she had with Magnus was giving her the confidence she’d lacked.
He could have chosen any woman, but he chose me.
Take that, all you girls who got dates every Friday night in high school.
I may have bloomed late, but look at who it brought me.
The past week should have been one of the best for Magnus, but outside of his time with Rachelle, it had been riddled with frustration. He had not planned to return to the capital city until he’d cornered and questioned Alethea Narcharios. Unfortunately, she had proved more elusive than anticipated.
Left without other options, Magnus had gone directly to the source of one of his issues—Delinda Westerly herself. It hadn’t been easy to catch her without his father by her side. Another point of irritation for him.
When he finally caught her alone, he could have asked her what she sought to gain by attempting to hack his life, but instead he’d explained how boundaries were important in any family. At first she’d puffed up like an angry cat, but when he explained that he wanted this clarified before he again asked Rachelle to marry him, she became agitated for another reason.
“Again? You’ve already asked her?” Delinda had asked in a hurt tone. “Why am I hearing this from you and not her?”
“Would the truth change how you behave? Rachelle has told me all about your relationship. Not much of it was good.”
She’d been offended, of course. There were the expected threats, some even involving the contacts she was inviting to the ball she was still organizing with his father.
“What brought you here, Mrs. Westerly? What’s your endgame?”
“I told you—Rachelle.”
“She doesn’t believe that, nor do I.”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
He’d finally lost his patience and growled, “Rachelle loves you, but she won’t let you near anything she cares about. If I were you, I’d ask myself why.”
Their exchange had ended on that sour note. Like everything else he’d tried to accomplish that week, it hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped. His people had followed a money trail connected to Petek’s death back to Vandorra, but they were still working on who had hired him and then killed him off. Which meant the threat to Rachelle might come from any direction. She was presently better protected than he was, but Magnus wouldn’t sleep well at night until he knew why Petek had been hired to follow Rachelle.
All that was forgotten, though, each afternoon when he held Rachelle in his arms again.
In a week that felt like he could do nothing right, she was his reason to keep trying. The more he got to know her, the more he could not imagine his life without her in it. Tonight at the orphan reception, he would present her to his father in an official capacity. Magnus had made his choice, and if their week together was anything to go by, Rachelle had made hers as well.
He had little experience with labeling his emotions, but the more time he spent with her, the less he wanted to be away from her. Often while he was sitting in a meeting, his mind would wander to her, and he ached for her. Ached. He hadn’t known something could feel so good and so bad at the same time.
As Magnus drove toward his palace and Rachelle, he decided he’d attempt to put that feeling into words for her. She’d like that.
Or she’ll tell me how I should have said it.
He hoped she never made things easy for him. She was perfect just the way she was.
And since there was very little chance that he would change, he saw a future full of fiery debates and passionate makeups. The images that followed that thought had him speeding back to her. If he played it right, there was time for one more argument before the reception.