LITMIR.BIZ

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she repeated.

      “Yes.” He held her close, his eyes intent on hers. “I do. Almost from the first moment I met you. But I couldn’t admit it. Do you think I routinely wash women’s hair?”

      “I imagine you probably don’t.”

      “Never.” He kissed her lips lightly. “And you imagine I am often captivated by small, burrowing creatures?”

      “I am not a creature.”

      “If you are, you are a creature I love very much. You are unlike any woman, anyone, I have ever known. You wanted to know me. Not the man I pretended to be. You wouldn’t allow me to be false with you. You have stripped my defenses, and that is why you are so dangerous to me. That is why I ran from you. Why I had to push you away. But as I stood there today, outside the church, alone, realizing you wouldn’t be there, I wanted to take it all back. I’ve never wanted to take back one of my actions more in all of my life. Not what I did when my mother left, not what I did to my brother. Your loss. Yours. That was the one I could not survive.”

      “Andres.” She said his name because she could think of nothing else to say. She leaned in and kissed him. In that kiss she poured every word she couldn’t speak, every feeling she couldn’t fully identify. Everything she wanted him to understand.

      When they parted, they were both breathing heavily.

      “Marry me,” he said. “Not because you have to. Not because I have to. But because you want to. Because I would be lost without you.”

      “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

      “You are the best Christmas present I could ever have received. But I don’t want to own you. I simply want to love you. So, as you were given to me, I give myself to you.”

      “I accept,” she said. “And I couldn’t ask for anything better. I love you, Andres. Now and forever. If I had every choice in the entire world open up to me, I would still choose you. Every time.”

      “And I you.”

      “I do hope, though, that this isn’t the only Christmas present I get.”

      “Really? What else do you want?”

      “I was thinking maybe a fruit basket.”

      He let his head fall back, a smile crossing his face, his laughter genuine and perfect and everything she had ever wanted. “That can be arranged. I think, also, that while it might be too late for us to get married with the entire country present, we can still have a Christmas wedding.”

       EPILOGUE

      DARKNESS HAD FALLEN by the time Princess Zara, now of Petras—still not heiress to a throne, but feeling quite happy about the whims of one particular man—walked across the courtyard in her lace gown that glittered like the snow, toward her groom. Her dark hair was left loose and wild, swirling around her in the wind, gold paint dotting her forehead, and beneath her eyes. Only family and close friends of Andres and Kairos were there, but no one mattered to Zara or Andres but each other.

      Soft light was filtering through the stained-glass window in the church, shining out onto the snow, casting colors around their feet. More flakes were falling softly around them, catching in Andres’s dark hair, on his black suit jacket.

      The air was thick with silence, but they weren’t alone. They never would be again. Even when they were apart they would carry their love for each other in their hearts, and with that, emptiness could never have a chance to grow.

      The priest began to speak their vows, his voice piercing the stillness. Zara closed her eyes and let the words wash over her.

      “Do you, Princess Zara Stoica, give yourself to this man?”

      She released her hold on one of his hands, taking a step forward and placing her palm against his cheek, making sure her eyes met his. “I do. I give myself to him, of my own free will. To love, from now to forever.”

      “And do you, Prince Andres Demetriou, give yourself to this woman?”

      “I do,” Andres said, his voice suspiciously rough, his dark eyes shining in the light. “I give myself to her, not out of a sense of honor, or duty to my brother or country, though I love them both. I give myself to her, to you, Zara, because I love you. Now and forever.”

      “Then I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

      Andres didn’t wait for permission to gather her in his arms and kiss her. He had never been very good at waiting for permission, but Zara considered it one of his charms.

      One of his many charms.

      When they parted, she smiled. “When I was a child I lost my home. I lost my family. And today, you have given me both. You are my home. You are my family.”

      He closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers. “And you are mine. You are mine.”

      * * * * *

       Claiming His Christmas Consequence

      Michelle Smart

      “You have one new message...”

      “Know this, Catalina. You might be a princess, you might be wearing my ring, you might have taken 200,000 euros of my money...but you are carrying my child, and I will find you.”

      Catalina had never stepped out of line, until one stolen Christmas night of irresistible passion with French billionaire Nathanial Giroud changed her life forever.

      Now, hidden in the Pyrenees, Catalina is determined to protect the small life growing within her from the anguish of her own royal upbringing. Even if she has to defy the husband she so desperately craves!

      To Geoff & Jan with thanks and love for all the

      support and encouragement xxx

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘YOU WERE RIGHT to end your engagement,’ Nathaniel Giroud murmured, nodding lazily at the dance floor where Prince Helios and his bride were dancing together, clearly enjoying themselves. ‘Helios would have made you unhappy.’

      Princess Catalina Fernandez took a long drink of her champagne. There was the faintest tremor in her hand. ‘How can you be so sure?’

      ‘No chemistry.’ He paused before adding, ‘Not like the chemistry between you and I.’

      Her heart-shaped chin pointed forward and she pushed her chair back from the table they were sitting alone at, the motion sending a small waft of her sultry scent into his path.

      He longed to smell every part of her.

      ‘We cannot have this conversation,’ she said quietly. ‘What you are implying is impossible.’

      He rested a hand on hers before she could get to her feet. ‘Why is it impossible?’

      ‘You know why.’ She slid her hand away and met his gaze. ‘I must save myself for my husband. My purity is my gift for him.’

      ‘A gift?’ The concept was so ludicrous he almost laughed but this was no laughing matter. He thought of Catalina’s brother, heir to the throne of Monte Cleure, sleeping his way around Europe without an ounce of penitence, allowing himself—and being allowed by their father—all the hedonistic delights he would deny his own sister on account of nothing more than the fact she had been born a woman.

      Now she’d been dumped by Helios, whatever the sanitised whitewash of the official press release might have said, the rumours

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