Viktor

I don’t realize I’ve drifted off to sleep until an incessant buzzing wakes me.

There’s a woman asleep and drooling on my chest, my twig and berries are demanding my attention, and I’ve little care over any of it, because I’m quite relaxed and content here on the floor.

There’s a snort on my chest, and a blond head lifts. Our eyes meet, and she shrieks and covers her breasts.

Which is a shame.

I’m decidedly fond of those breasts.

“If this is how you always wake, I’m rather grateful you tend to sleep in,” I tell her with a yawn.

She wrinkles her nose at me, though I see the amusement flash in her bright blue eyes before she angles herself off me with a wince and turns so I merely see a hint of the curve of her breasts and the creamy, freckled skin of her back, hips, and thigh.

Quite modest for a woman who asked for three go-rounds after the first.

“I need to check on Papaya,” she murmurs.

“If she were in trouble—” I stop myself, because my phone is buzzing again, which would be the first manner in which someone would contact me were Papaya in trouble.

I frown.

Truly, I should check that.

“Alexander shan’t let her escape,” I tell Peach. “Has she shown signs of forgetting the lesson with the armor?”

I reach for my phone, because I’m awake and responsible once again.

For a brief moment, I’m rather disappointed in myself for not stretching this afternoon out further.

But duty calls.

“Bloody hell,” I mutter.

She makes a funny face over her shoulder as she shimmies into her pants on the ground.

“Yes, my lady?”

“You said hell. And bloody.”

She’s likely to say far worse when she discovers Alexander covered for me with the Prime Minister this afternoon, which means rumors will undoubtedly circulate that I blew off meetings for a booty call.

And speaking of Peach and profanity—

“I’m afraid I have unfortunate news,” I tell her. As I, too, must finish a pile of paperwork before I can dismiss my staff for the day, I reach for my pants.

“Of course you do.” She’s managed to shield most of her body from view while she pulls her bra back on and clasps it dexterously behind her back.

My tallywacker stirs again.

“The Duke of Prievia has gone to Parliament to challenge the legitimacy of our arrangement.”

She rolls her eyes. “Because he has Amoria’s best interest at heart?”

Why does it warm my chest when she unexpectedly—and perhaps unwittingly—compliments me as only she can? “Never underestimate a man’s desire to hold onto his ego.”

“You should’ve just had his head chopped off.”

“Undoubtedly. But the fact remains, there have been more calls for us to hold a formal wedding ceremony here.”

I take three wise steps back as I deliver the news.

Four or six probably would have been wiser.

“What?”

“’Twould be paid for out of moneys from the various royal estates and holdings, rather than by the taxpayers, and all planning would be handled by palace staff. Unless, of course, you had any particular desire to participate.”

She’s staring at me as though I’m speaking Mandarin.

This is not a good omen.

I tug on my undershirt and follow it with my blue button-down. “I promise the disruption to your daily schedule would be minimal, and I’ve been assured dressmakers could come to you rather than the other way around.”

“So we have to have a big wedding.”

I’m uncertain as to whether the thunderclouds are blooming in her eyes because she’s being told what to do, or if it’s the wedding she objects to.

Most likely both, if I know anything at all about Peach.

Especially coming on the heels of her best friend’s wedding.

“’Tis an unfortunate necessity.”

She purses her lips together. “Just to prove we’re madly in love.”

“’Twould not be for several months, as the country is still in mourning.”

“Over a king who put more money into recreating a brothel in his tower than he did into education for the poor,” she mutters.

“And drove out a man who loved his people more than himself, let us not forget.”

She hits me with the eyeballs of shut your trap, Viktor.

She’s lovely when she’s not amused. “Fine. They’re right,” she declares. “We should have a big wedding. All for the people. The bigger the better. With sixteen bridesmaids. And we can do a random drawing of all the little kids in the kingdom to pick twenty flower girls and ring bearers. And everyone should arrive in hot air balloons, and we should invite everyone who’s ever flown on a Weightless jet and Manning’s whole hockey team and every royal family in Europe, and we’ll have a heart-shaped wedding cake that will feed three thousand people, and we’ll get individual heart-shaped cakes made for every citizen of Amoria so that they can participate in our day of love too.”

Two hours ago, she was breathlessly begging for more sex, and now she’s tamped her heart down tight behind a wall of sarcasm and attitude. “As you wish, my lady.”

“And I’ll get a dress made by some big fashion designer who charges twice my annual salary just to design it, before actual fabric costs and sewing it, and that won’t include the veil. And you’ll wear a kilt, because kilts should be a thing here, but you’ll have to have your own plaid special-made. Oh, and I want fried chicken and grits at the reception. And we’ll fly Paula Deen in to cater it. And we can get on one of those cooking shows about wedding cakes, which means we’ll both have to spend some time in the kitchen if we’re going to make this a publicity stunt, and we’ll have a groom’s cake in the shape of a donkey, because you’re being a total ass.”

If I thought she meant a word, I’d be highly offended. But I rather think she’s retreating into defensive mode rather than dwell on a wedding.

“That sounds marvelous, my lady.”

“No, it doesn’t. It sounds horrible, Viktor.” She stalks across the bedroom and pokes me in the chest. “We can’t stand each other, and we’re supposed to spend an entire day with cameras all over us pretending we’re Harry and Meghan? No one’s going to buy it, you’ll lose your kingdom, and then what are we going to do?”

I catch her fingers and pull them to my mouth. “I’ve no idea what you’re to do, but I intend to picture you naked the entire ceremony.”

Her jaw drops.

I nearly smile, because it’s so rare that I render her speechless. “Also, I notice you said we, my lady. I assume you were referring to you and me? As in, the two of us being in the mess together?”

Her forced anger wavers, but she sticks her chin out and snatches her fingers away. “No, Viktor, you and your other fake wife.”

She’s utterly bloody irresistible.

A challenge on the outside, but I’ve glimpsed that soft heart. The sobs she shed over her sister. Her defense of Miss Gracie this past year. Her loyalty to Joey Diamonte.

Her very bloody marriage to me.

Her pulse is fluttering fast as a hummingbird’s wings in her throat.

“We shall get through this,” I murmur. “Because I have every faith in you.”