LITMIR.BIZ

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entire life, gifts had come with a subtle message to her to become something different. Designer clothes in a style unlike the one she favored, athletic shoes that were supposed to encourage her to take up running when she was perfectly happy with her tae kwon do training. Golfing gear, though she hated the game, a tennis racket despite the fact she’d never played.

      But Demyan’s pressies were different. They were all targeted to the woman she was now, with no eye to making her into someone else. He showed an uncanny ability to tap in to her preferences, even when she’d never shared certain things with him.

      Like her addiction to flavored coffees in direct opposition to her frustration over the complicated business of making a good cup of the beverage. So Demyan had found a way to feed the one while minimizing the other.

      And the coffee? Delicious. And so darn easy.

      She couldn’t mess it up even when she got sidetracked by a new algorithm she wanted to try.

      Even when she was sleepy from waking every couple of hours, reaching for him in the bed only to find empty space.

      Demyan had left Seattle in the wee hours of the previous morning for what Chanel assumed was a business trip. She hadn’t asked what it was about and he hadn’t offered the information.

      What she did know was that he wouldn’t be back for two more days and an equal number of nights. Forty-eight more hours without him.

      In the time line of life, it was hardly a blip.

      So why did it feel longer than a particularly depraved man’s purgatory to her?

      Chanel already missed him with an ache that made absolutely no sense to her scientific brain. Okay, so they’d been dating a month now, not just three days. Making love and sleeping together every single night of the past three weeks of that month.

      Still. How could she have become more addicted to his company than caffeine?

      Because Chanel knew without any doubts she could go without coffee a heck of a lot more easily than she was finding it to be without her daily dose of Demyan.

      She didn’t know if she’d fallen in love at first sight like he’d hinted at three weeks ago, but she was in love with him now.

      And that scared her more than a weekend at the spa with her mother.

      * * *

      “How close are you to closing the deal?” Fedir asked without preamble once he and Demyan were alone in the king’s study.

      Demyan’s cousin and Gillian had returned from their honeymoon, and Queen Oxana wanted family time. That meant everyone in their small inner circle had come to the palace for a few days of “bonding.”

      Since his own parents would cheerfully go the rest of their lives without seeing Demyan, he never took Oxana’s desire to spend time as a family for granted.

      Though on this particular occasion, his mother and father and siblings were also staying at the palace in order to get to know their future queen, Gillian, better.

      His father wouldn’t make any effort to spend one-on-one time with Demyan, though. For all intents and purposes, Demyan’s younger brother was his acknowledged oldest son.

      Pushing aside old wounds Demyan no longer gave the power to hurt him, he answered his uncle’s question. “She’s emotionally engaged.”

      “When will you propose?”

      “When I return.”

      Fedir nodded. “Smart. The time apart will leave her feeling vulnerable. She’ll want to cement your bond. Women are like that.”

      Demyan didn’t reply. His uncle was the last man, bar none, he would ask for advice on women.

      “She’ll sign the prenuptial agreement?”

      “Yes.” The more Demyan had gotten to know Chanel, the more apparent it had become that money was not a motivating factor for her.

      She’d sign even the all-contingency prenuptial agreement Fedir’s lawyers had drawn up simply because the financial terms would not matter to her.

      “Good, good.”

      “I’ll want changes made to some of the provisions before I present her with it, though.”

      Fedir frowned. “What? I thought the lawyers did a good job of covering all the bases.”

      “I want more generous monetary allowances for Chanel in the event our marriage ends in divorce or my death.”

      “What? Why?” Fedir’s shock was almost comical. “Has a woman finally gotten under the skin of my untouchable nephew?”

      Of course his uncle would immediately assume an emotional reason behind Demyan’s actions. His sense of justice was a little warped by his all-consuming dedication to the welfare of Volyarus.

      “I will do whatever I need to in order to protect this country, but I will do it with honor,” Demyan replied.

      “Of course, but your integrity is in no way compromised by your actions to insure the healthy future of our country.”

      Demyan wasn’t sure he believed that. Regardless, he would minimize how much tarnish it took. “The terms will be changed to my requirements, or I won’t offer the document to Chanel to sign.”

      As threats went, it wasn’t very powerful. Baron Tanner’s will had been clear and airtight. Chanel lost all claim to the baron’s shares in Yurkovich Tanner upon marriage to any direct relation to the king.

      “And without a prenup, there will be no wedding,” Demyan added after several seconds of silence by his uncle.

      “You don’t mean that.”

      “When have you ever known me to bluff?” Demyan asked.

      Fedir frowned. “She really does mean something to you.”

      “My integrity certainly does.”

      He was a ruthless man. Demyan knew that about himself. He could make the hard choices, but he was an honest man, too. And he didn’t make those choices without counting the cost.

      “A man has to make sacrifices, even in that area for the greater good.”

      Demyan shrugged. “I’ll contact the lawyers with the changes I want made to the agreement.”

      He wasn’t going to debate his uncle’s choices. The other man had to live with them and their consequences. It might be argued that everyone in the palace did, too, but Demyan wasn’t a whiny child, moaning how his uncle’s decisions had cost him his family.

      The truth was, his own parents and their ambition were every bit as culpable.

      “I’ll trust you to be reasonable in your demands.”

      “I appreciate that.”

      “Demyan, you will never be king, but you are no less a son to me than Maksim.” Fedir laid one hand on Demyan’s shoulder and squeezed.

      The words rocked through Demyan. His uncle was not an emotionally demonstrative man, in word or deed. Nor was he known for saying things he did not mean, at least not to family.

      However, Demyan’s cynicism in the face of life’s lessons drove his speech. “A son you call nephew.”

      “A son I and all of Volyarus call prince.”

      “You never adopted me.” According to Volyarussian law, which the king could change should he so desire, doing so would have made Demyan heir to the throne, not the spare.

      He understood that, but it was also a fact that if he were truly every bit as much a son to Fedir, his place in the right of succession wouldn’t have been a deterrent.

      “Your parents refused.”

      Was Fedir trying to imply

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