LITMIR.BIZ

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swept into the room, making the huge chamber feel very small all of a sudden.

      “Good morning, Chanel. Beatrice.” The queen gave Chanel’s mother a small incline of her head and then a smile to Laura. “Laura, you look lovely.”

      “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Laura replied with her irrepressible smile.

      “And you, my dear,” the queen said as she focused her considerable attention on Chanel. “You look absolutely perfect. That’s an original by Coco Chanel herself, is it not?”

      “Yes.”

      “She was a brilliant and innovative designer who changed the face of female haute couture almost single-handedly. I find your choice to dress in one of her gowns singularly appropriate as I am sure you will be equally as impacting in your field.”

      It was the first time anyone who mattered to Chanel emotionally had made such a claim. Bittersweet joy squeezed at her heart, even through the layer of numbness surrounding that organ. “Thank you.”

      Oxana smiled. “You are very welcome.” She offered Chanel a medium-sized dark blue velvet box meant for jewelry. “I would be honored if you would wear this.”

      Expecting pearls, or something of that nature, Chanel felt her heart beat in a rapid tattoo of shock at the sight of the diamond-encrusted tiara. It wasn’t anything as imposing as the crown presently resting on the queen’s perfectly coiffed hair, but it was worthy of a princess.

      “I’m not... This is...” Chanel didn’t know what to say, so she closed her mouth on more empty words.

      “Part of my own wedding outfit,” the queen finished for her. “It would please me to see it worn again.”

      “Didn’t Prince Maksim’s wife wear it?” Laura asked, managing to verbalize at least one of the questions swirling through Chanel’s brain.

      “King Fedir gave her his mother’s princess tiara. It was decided between us that mine would be reserved for the wife of our eldest.”

      Chanel’s heart warmed to hear Demyan referred to as the eldest child of the king and queen.

      Somehow, though the stylist had been unaware that a tiara would be added later, the updo she had designed for Chanel lent itself perfectly to the diamond-encrusted accessory.

      Or so her mother told Chanel.

      “Here, see for yourself,” Oxana insisted.

      Both Laura and Beatrice gave her a concerned look. So, they had noticed she hadn’t looked in the mirror since that morning.

      But Chanel didn’t want visual proof that she didn’t look like a princess.

      “I trust your judgment,” Chanel hedged.

      “Then you will trust my instruction to look at yourself, my soon-to-be daughter.” Oxana’s expression did not invite argument.

      Oh, gosh...she’d never even considered this woman would truly consider herself Chanel’s mother-in-law.

      “You look like a princess,” Beatrice said with far more sincerity than such a trite statement deserved.

      “You’re going to knock Demyan on his butt,” Laura added with a little less finesse, but no less certainty.

      Far from offended, the queen laughed and agreed. “Yes, I do believe you will.”

      Taking a breath for courage, Chanel turned to face the impartial judge that could not be gainsaid. The mirror reflected only what was—it made no judgments about that image.

      The woman staring back at Chanel with wide gray eyes did not look like a queen. No layers and layers of organza to look like any princess bride Chanel had ever seen in the tabloids, either, but in this moment she was beautiful.

      The vintage Coco Chanel design fit her like it had been tailored to her figure, the antique lace clinging in all the right places. The single-layer floor-length veil and tiara added elegance Chanel was not used to seeing when she looked in a mirror.

      The makeup artist had managed to bring out the shape and pink tint of Chanel’s lips while making her eyes glow. Her curls had been tamed into perfect corkscrews and then pinned up so that the length of her neck looked almost swanlike.

      This woman would not embarrass Demyan walking up the aisle.

      Chanel turned to her mother and hugged Beatrice with more emotion than she’d allowed herself to show in years with the older woman. “Thank you.”

      “It was my pleasure. It has been a very long time since you allowed me to fuss over you. I enjoyed it.” Beatrice returned the embrace and then stepped back, blinking at the moisture in her eyes.

      Chanel and her mother would probably never agree on what it meant to fuss over someone else, but she began to see that, in her own way, her mother hadn’t abandoned Chanel completely as a child.

      * * *

      Wearing the gold-and-dark-blue official uniform of the Volyarussian Cossack Hetman, Demyan waited at the bottom of the palace steps, as it was his country’s royal tradition that he ride with Chanel in the horse-drawn carriage to the cathedral.

      His dark eyes met hers, his handsome face stern and unemotional. Yet despite wearing what she’d come to think of as his “corporate king” face, there was an unmistakable soul-deep satisfaction glimmering in his gaze.

      He put his hand out toward her. The white-glove-covered appendage hung there, an unexpected beacon. He wasn’t supposed to take her hand yet; he wasn’t supposed to touch her at all. They had been instructed to enter the carriage separately. She was to sit with her back toward the driver and he was to face the people on the slow procession to the Orthodox cathedral.

      According to the wedding coordinator and royal tradition, she and Demyan were not supposed to touch so much as fingertips until the priest proclaimed them man and wife.

      So this one gesture spoke volumes of her prince’s willingness to put Chanel ahead of protocol.

      Without warning, the mental and emotional fog surrounding Chanel fell away, the world coming into stark relief for the first time that day. Though it was early fall, the sun shone bright in the sky, the air around them crisp with autumn chill and filled with a cacophony of voices from the crowds lining the palace drive that were suddenly loud.

      Love for Demyan swelled inside Chanel, pushing aside worry and doubt to fill her with a certainty that drove her forward toward the hand held out to her.

      Their fingers touched, his curling possessively and decisively around her cold ones. He tugged her forward even as electric current arced between them despite the barrier of his glove.

      Devastating emotion shuddered through her, completely dispelling the last of the strange, surreal sensations that had plagued her since waking.

      His eyes flared and then he was pulling off the cape from his uniform and wrapping it around her. Several gasps sounded around them and the king said something that Chanel had no doubt was a protest.

      She couldn’t hear him, though, not over the blood rushing in her ears. The long military cloak settled around her shoulders. She didn’t argue that she wasn’t really cold, because it carried the fragrance of Demyan’s cologne and skin, making her feel embraced by him.

      He helped her into the open landau carriage, further eschewing protocol to sit beside her.

      Cameras flashed, people cheered and while all of it registered, none of it really impacted Chanel. She was too focused on the man holding her hand and looking at her with quietly banked joy.

      “It’s just you and me,” she said softly, understanding at last.

      “Yes.”

      He didn’t relate to her as a prince, though he was undeniably that. Demyan related to her as the man who wanted to share his life with her.

      That life

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