Page 149 of The Prize

“Because today is our wedding day and no one is going to ruin it.” He listened to the person on the other line. “Adley, it’s me...Yes, fine, thank you. The Palace, that missing painting. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m guessing it went for cleaning or there’s a perfectly good explanation. Has anyone asked Her Majesty?...Sounds like a plan. Call me back...Great, thank you, and you too.” He slammed the phone down and turned to face me. “Happy now?”

“You think that’s going to be enough?”

“All this sun’s gone to your British brain.” He grinned and came toward me. “I thought you’d changed your mind about me.”

Trying to suppress a frown. “Let me go.”

He stepped back and grabbed a towel, then wrapped it around himself.

“What am I going to do?” I whispered.

“Come on.” He took my hand and pulled me down the stairs and along the hallway, retracing the steps Coops had taken. “In here.”

We burst into the living room. He let go and went inside a cupboard. He pointed to the large painting wrapped in white. “This is what you saw?”

“What is it?” My throat was sore from tension.

He rolled his eyes. “Zara.” He lifted it and carried it over to the far end of the room and rested it upright against the table. “My wedding present to you.” He rested his fisted palms on his hips. “I wasn’t expecting to give it to you like this. I had this day planned out. Me dressed as your groom and you in your wedding dress while we sipped champagne as husband and wife. Still, you and I will never follow the rules or live by tradition to such an extent that it comes before our feelings.”

Staring at the wrapping paper, my thoughts raced with what was beneath the white luxury wrapping.

“Do you want to do the honors?” He gestured to it.

Wary still, I shook my head.

“Allow me, then.” He stepped toward it and yanked at a corner and pulled. “Coops collected it from the framer. He was meant to get it into the house without you seeing it. This was meant to be a surprise.” Ripping farther he revealed a canvas and the faint image of a woman’s red gown. I recognized those strappy black shoes as the paper tore away. This was no Benjamin West; those colors and tones weren’t his style, though I did recognize the masterful strokes of thesfumatotechnique—

The painting was of me wearing a red gown and red-and-golden bodice that hugged my curves. Though I’d never posed for this, I had been photographed in this very pose with my auburn locks tumbling over naked shoulders, and my smile was the same one I’d held for Tobias when he’d snapped this shot at a gala at The Wilder two months ago.

“Recognize his work?” Tobias beamed at me.

“Brother Bay?”

“It took me a lot to persuade him to paint from a photo but I twisted his arm in the end.” His gaze swept over the canvas. “You are sublime, Zara.”

My voice was still shaky. “This was why you didn’t want me in New York?”

He came toward me and gently eased my hand from my face. “Feel better?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“That’s because it’s you.”

I waved that off as I held back tears. “No, I meant it’s an incredible gift. I don’t know what to say.”

“Remind me to thank Coops for his suspicious behavior that sent you into a spin.”

“It was my fault. I’m sorry, I—”

“Doubted me.” He pulled me into a hug and squeezed me into him. “I have a lifetime of proving my honesty to you. You’re about to marry the man who was... I deserve your doubt. Don’t be hard on yourself.”

I reached for his face and read forgiveness in his eyes.

“Still, I’m going to need to punish you.” He picked me up and carried me out of there and up the stairs fast and all the way to our bedroom, where he flung me onto the bed.

He pulled off his towel in the style of a matador as though trying to break the tension, and he made me laugh as he climbed onto the end of the bed like a prowling panther. He leaned low to kiss the inside of my ankle and trailed kisses up toward my inner thigh, teasing, kissing and licking close to my sex but not there yet and making me writhe for his touch.

He grazed his lips over mine and then pulled back and stared into my eyes, seemingly reading something, his expression changing, his frown deepening.