Page 31 of Once Upon A Time

I wish him every happiness.

Dieter watched Rae Stone over Wulf’s shoulder as they said their vows.

Wulf’s cousin William stood between him and Wulf, but that was because William Windsor was family and outranked Dieter.

Everyone outranked Dieter, these days.

Past William’s and Wulf’s shoulders, Rae practically glowed with happiness as they faced each other and repeated what the Mayor of Paris told them to. Her brown eyes glittered with tears, but she grinned as she carefully slipped a ring on Wulf’s hand.

This was what real love looked like.

When Dieter had married Gretchen in a Las Vegas chapel one evening, she had never gazed at him like that. The service had been absolutely perfunctory, an exchange of rings and vows in accented English.

The minister must have assumed it was a green-card wedding.

But it wasn’t. It was a “shotgun wedding,” as Rae’s family would have called it.

Wulf had flown out to Nevada at a moment’s notice to stand up with Dieter. He must have known that something was wrong, but he took them to a ridiculously expensive restaurant on the top floor of some hotel afterward and then rented a huge, stocked suite for their wedding night.

Since Wulf had met Rae just weeks ago, he had been far happier than Dieter had ever seen him.

Well,tormented,but ecstatically so.

Love can be brutal.

On the other side of the room, Flicka smiled the beautiful smile she used for formal occasions.

Her new husband, Pierre Grimaldi, beamed over her shoulder at the couple and, when she turned to him, down at his wife.

But Flicka’s hands gripped her tiny purse like she was strangling it.

Her hands always gave her away.

When she played the piano, her emotion flowed through her strong fingers, and sometimes she couldn’t quite control her hands in social situations.

The tension even reached her creamy shoulders above the pale blue of her dress that brought out her startlingly green eyes.

Her eyes met his for just a moment over Wulf’s shoulder, and she smiled at him.

For just that second of contact, anguish filled her gorgeous eyes.

Was it a signal for Dieter to stop the wedding or to rescue Flicka?

He raised one eyebrow at her, but she settled back into perfect serenity.

She was still returning his gaze, though.

These days, she never did that. She looked away the second she could.

God, she had beautiful eyes. They were as deeply green as emeralds, but warmer, and with the sharp glimmer of intelligence behind them. When they had been together, he’d had a hard time keeping his eyes away from her while he provided the security she needed.

Her slim body enticed him as she swayed when she danced with other men. Her laugh enchanted him when one of the bastards quipped something that amused her.

Her smile during Wulfram’s wedding was the serene, shiny smile that she could show the world whenever she wished, and it didn’t mean a damn thing. If anything, it meant that turmoil was crashing through her behind the beautiful veneer she had so carefully built.

He could almost see the tumult battering her in the total absence of movement or tremor in her body.

He would drop back and make sure she was all right before they ran the gantlet to the cars after the ceremony.