Both my heart and stomach did a wild flip, but I turned my chin up and away from him. “You dragged me away from Mamá’s party so you could make me kiss you under the mistletoe?”
“I would nevermake youdo anything, Isla.” He reached for my hand and gently pulled me closer to him, so I turned my head back toward him. Releasing my hand, he brought his to my face, stroking my cheeks with the backs of his fingers. “But I did miss you a lot. And you look so pretty. Your hair…” As his words trailed off, his fingers traced my cheekbone to thread through the strands at my temple. His eyes shone silver in the flicker of candles and the cool glow of moonlight, and his mischievous expression faded to a look that mirrored the feeling in my heart. “I love your hair, Isla.”
I love you,the words nearly escaped, but I stopped them, even though he already knew. The thing hedidn’tknow was that those feelings had recently shifted to an entirely different type of love, and I was suddenly terrified to say it.
Instead, I settled for, “I missed you, too.”
Malachi took a step closer and framed my face with his hands. “Your Papámight run me out of his house if he catches me doing what I want to do right now.”
I giggled quietly as I clasped my hands around his wrists to hold him in place. “He doesn’t have to know.”
“That’s true.” His thumbs stroked my cheeks and he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Can you keep a secret, my sweet Isla?”
Only a breath separated our faces, and I whispered back,“Yes.”
With that, Malachi settled his lips softly onto mine, and what felt like electricity and pure magic twirled like a tornado just below my sternum.
It was the first time I ever kissed anyone, but it only confirmed everything I’d felt for a long time.
Malachi Sterling was the only boy I ever wanted to kiss for as long as I lived.
ISLA
Present
I HAVE NEVER BEEN more grateful for anything than I am for the silk organza veil draping over my face as I stand facing Malachi at the front of the cold, stone cathedral. The translucent ivory barrier hides the fact that I’ve refused to look at him throughout the entire ceremony. We have been holding hands for twenty minutes, and because of that, I’m equally grateful for the white gloves he’s wearing that keep our skin from making contact before it absolutely has to.
The suit he’s wearing is a black, military-style dress uniform indicative of his obligatory four years of service in Corwick’s small Royal Navy. I know without even being able to see us that we look like a damn Disney movie up here like this.
Cinder-fucking-ella.
But he’s no Prince Charming.
I realized that fifteen months ago, but he underscored it when he greeted me upon my arrival at the altar with a quiet growl in my ear.
“If you run from this church, I will ruin your father, and he will disown you.”
No, Malachi, I’m not going to run from this church, but I probably will find the dungeon in your castle and willingly lock myself up in it.
The ceremony is all in ancient Gaelic, so I don’t understand any of it. Not that it matters. The vows, however, are given to us in English, and Malachi is prompted by the priest first.
“I, Malachi Tierney Sterling, Duke of Corwick, take thee, Isla Sofía Reyes, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto, I pledge myself to you.”
For the first eighteen years of my life, I dreamed of the day he would say those words to me. I even foolishly dreamed of it after he disappeared as I held onto naïve hope that he’d somehow turn up again, and we’d sort through whatever it was that went wrong. I never could’ve imagined the circumstances in which he actually ended up saying them.
The contrast causes my battered, scarred heart to electrify with pain, and a lump surges to the top of my throat just in time for the priest to prompt me with the vows.
Fuck.
“I, Isla Sofía Reyes, take thee, Malachi Tierney Sterling, Duke of Corwick, to be my wedded husband,” I eke out through a pinched voice that all but screams to everyone present that I’m biting back tears.
It plays perfectly into the charade that we’re hopelessly in love, and this mother fucker has the unmitigated gall to lift the back of my hand to his lips to kiss it as ifcomforting me.
Fuck. You.
Nevertheless, I finish the vows.
“To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto, I pledge myself to you.”
