A Royal Wedding(55)

Yet … was that true?

She did not break away from her fleet of handlers. She did not pick up her heavy skirts and run. She did not even stop walking, step by measured step, toward her doom. And when she entered the cathedral and saw the figure standing so tall and proud at the altar, she knew why.

He stood at the head of the long aisle, where a few days before her father’s coffin had been laid out for all to see. Where, so many years ago, she had stood with him once before, in the very same spot, and dreamed of exactly this moment. Yearned for it. Was it the echo of those long-ago dreams that kept her moving, as if it was the very blood in her veins? Or was it the way he turned and looked at her, an expression she could not read on his hard face as she drew close?

He held out his hand, his gray eyes serious and steady on hers—just as he had done in that parking lot in Denver. It seemed like a different life to her now, a different person altogether. She could not imagine who she’d been, however many days ago, before he’d reappeared in her life and altered it so profoundly. She could not reconstruct that last moment before he’d spoken, when she had been lost in whatever thoughts had consumed her then, when she had forgotten he even existed and had no idea she would ever see him again.

She could not imagine it, and maybe that was what compelled her to reach across the distance between them, and once again take his hand.

In the end, it was quick. Too quick.

The priests intoned the sacred words. Adel stood quietly beside her, yet she was so aware of him. Of his slow, deep breathing. Of his broad shoulders, his impressive height. Of the fierce, compelling strength that was so much a part of him. He was every inch the warrior, even now. Even here.

She could think of him as a warrior. As a king. It was the word husband that she could not seem to make sense of—it kept getting tangled up in her head.

And in the final moments, when the priest turned to her and asked her if she came to this union of her own free will, if she gave herself willingly, Lara looked into Adel’s silver eyes, and knew she should say no.

She knew it.

But his gaze was so steady, so calm. So serious.

So very silver, and she felt it wrap around that stone where her heart should be, like a caress. Like a promise.

“He will make you nothing more than a puppet,” Marlena had said.

But there were worse things than that, Lara thought. There were worse things than puppetry, and in any case, she could not remember what it had been like before, what it had been like without that calm silver gaze filling her, making her warm from the inside out, making her feel whole when she had not known anything was missing.

She had wanted this man forever.

“Do you come to this moment of your own free will?” the priest asked again.

And she said yes.

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

She said yes.

Adel was not aware he had been so tense, so rigid and prepared for battle, until it eased from him. Her voice rang through the cathedral, and sounded deep within him. Unmistakable. Unquestionable.

It was done.

She was his.

He had fulfilled the old King’s wishes, to the letter. He had staved off disaster. He had been prepared for anything today. That she might not appear. That she might try to bolt. That she might throw her defiance in his face at this crucial moment. Anything.

He had not been prepared for her beauty. For the way the white gown hugged her figure so tenderly, nor for the way the jewels that adorned her made her seem to sparkle and glow.

He had not, he realized, as he took her hands in his and recited the old words that would make them one, forever, thought much beyond this moment.

He had only thought of marrying her. But he had not spent much time thinking about the marriage itself.

They walked down the aisle, husband and wife, king and queen, and out into their kingdom, together.

She looked up at him, her eyes seeming more blue than silver in the sunlight. Her expression was grave, as if she found this marriage a serious business, requiring much thought and worry.

And he wanted her. God, how he wanted her. Not as the king she had just made him, but as the man who had wanted her since he’d been barely more than a boy. As the man who had tasted her, and touched her, when he had known he should do neither, both twelve years ago and now.

But now … now he did not have to hold back. Now, finally, he could sink into her as he’d longed to do for what felt like much too long. Now he could love her, openly and fully, as he’d always imagined he should.