“Terrifying,” Malachi cuts in, his voice suddenly warm and soft the way it always was before. He wraps his arm around me and pulls me close to him, pressing a long, tender kiss to my forehead. “It was terrifying. I was crossing the room to meet her outside, and she tripped and fell while I was too far away to reach her.”
He gently takes my face in his hand, turning it so he can trace a line of soft kisses across my battered cheekbone. I can’t avoid looking right into his eyes. Iknowhe is faking all of this to save face after being exposed in front of his cohorts, but the way he’s looking at me right now isdeceptive.
His thumb strokes the line of my jaw, and along with a massive pang in my chest, I feel my brows knit together and the sting of tears on my eye rims.
“There, there, my sweet Isla,” he murmurs before kissing my bottom lip, which now is on the cusp of trembling.
My sweet Isla.
He hasn’t called me that sincebefore.
Malachi continues to hold me close to him as he turns back to Elizabeth and Weston, acting as though he forgot they were still standing there. “You’ll have to excuse me. Itwasquite upsetting. I can’t help but think of the fact that I’ve been making promises to this sweet young woman since we were children that I’d always keep her safe, and only a few days into our marriage, I dropped the ball in an awful manner.”
Part of me wants to scoffloudly.
But I don’t.
Fake as it is, he’s holding me against him, cocooned in his arms like he has ever since childhood, and Imiss it. He has a scent… not a cologne or some other artificial scent, just something innatelyMalachi. Something that smells likehome. Andsafety. Andlove. And it’s all around me right now, and I just want toweep.
Weston gives a hearty chuckle just as Elizabeth offers a quiet, “Aw.”
“No need to apologize for that, Your Grace,” Weston says, saluting Malachi with his scotch glass. “Enjoy the honeymoon phase while it lasts. It’s all downhill from there.”
Elizabethtsksand swats his forearm. “You’reterrible, Weston.”
Weston chuckles again and reaches his face to kiss her cheek. “I’m teasing, my dear.” He nods at Malachi and me. “If you’ll excuse us, I’m going to escort my very tolerant wife to our table. It was lovely meeting you, Duchess Isla.”
“Likewise,” I return, while Malachi lifts his hand in a wave.
He turns to face me directly as he frames my face with his palms, his silver eyes suddenly unreadable. We’re essentially alone together despite being in a ballroom full of people, and I feel a quake of fear tremble down my spine. I have no idea what he’s about to do now that he can see how blatantly I defied him, and the only safety net I have is the aforementioned room of people.
Apparently, that safety net is enough to fill me with gumption, and I arch an eyebrow at him. “I assume you’re going to hit me again. The question is, will it be here in public, or will you wait until we’re back at yourfortressbefore youbeat mewithin an inch of my life?”
Malachi continues to look back at me for a second with that unreadable expression before he drops his gaze to the floor. His hands remain on my face, still gentle, and he pauses like that for a second before pressing his mouth to mine in a kiss that is far too erotic for such a setting.
He draws his tongue across my bottom lip, and on pure reflex and long-ingrained, though long-dormant habit, I part my lips, and he devours my mouth.
And suddenly, it’s like thousands of moments from before.
Him tugging my arm and both of us ducking into my family’s boathouse and blindly swinging the door shut.
Me nudging him away from one of Mamá’s parties, down the hall and around a corner, where I pushed him against a wall, and we snickered deviously against each other’s lips.
The two of us naked and tangled up in his sheets or mine, him covering my mouth with his to catch and conceal every whimper and moan of pureecstasy.
On the beach, on a blanket, on a warm, breezy summer night, while we both kept our eyes open for once to watch each other and glittering explosions of fireworks against the inky black sky.
Every tear-stained goodbye kiss at his house, or my house, or on the tarmac of the private airstrip.
Just like in every one of those moments, Malachi’s hands stroke my cheeks and then travel down the sides of my neck before sweeping down my dress to my back. He holds me flush against him, my arms looped under his while I suspend my champagne flute at the center of his back.
Nothing about it makes sense. The truly naïve part of my brain believes putting this ugly secret on display in public has somehow made him realize how awful he’s become and convinces me that this is a moment of reconciliation. That we’re going to leave this dinner and go back to the palace to have a long, painfully honest conversation about what went wrong. That he’s going toapologizefor not only striking me, but also for ghosting me and shattering my heart more than a decade ago.
“Duchess,” Malachi suddenly murmurs against my mouth, his forehead pressed to mine.
“Malachi,” I say on an equally quiet breath.
His thumb drags down the center of my spine. “Come home with me.”
