a new number. Petr rose to his feet and held out his hand to Naomi. “Will you dance with me?”
A square of space had been left in the center of the courtyard for dancing, and Naomi allowed Petr to lead her out into it. He took her in his arms and they began to sway slowly in time with the music.
“Are you happy?” Petr murmured as he rotated slowly, holding her tight against him.
“This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life,” she said truthfully. “I can’t imagine anything better than tonight.”
“It’s better than our first wedding?”
“I wouldn’t have thought anything could top that, at the time,” she said. “But now that we’re here…yes. This is better.”
“Do you wish we’d waited to get married and just done it now for the first time?” he asked. “I mean, I know you wish I hadn’t tricked you…”
“No,” Naomi said. “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t change anything.”
“Really? Even though our first marriage was based on a lie?”
“That’s not all it was based on,” she said. “We were instantly attracted to one another. We fell for each other more quickly than I would have dreamed possible. That was real.”
“You’re right,” he said. “If someone had told me what would happen between the two of us, I would never have believed them. I barely believed it while it was happening. Half the time, I thought I was dreaming.”
“So did I,” she said. “And now it turns out it’s a dream we never have to wake up from.”
The music came to an end. The wedding guests who had joined Naomi and Petr on the dance floor drifted back to their seats.
Petr hesitated. “Should we have another dance?” he asked. “Or is it time for our toast?”
Naomi’s heart fluttered with excitement. The toast. It was the part of the wedding she had been anticipating the most, the one thing she had been unable to put out of her mind even as she and Petr had stood before their family and friends and recited their vows.
“The toast,” she said. “I think it’s time.”
He smiled, and Naomi could see that he was just as happy and excited for this moment as she was. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her back to their table.
Neither of them sat down. Instead, Petr picked up his champagne glass and tapped it with the edge of his spoon. After a few moments, conversations around the courtyard died down, and everyone turned their attention to him.
“Thank you, friends and family, for taking the time out of your lives to be here with us today,” Petr said. “Everyone here is very important to Naomi and me, and we couldn’t imagine celebrating today without you.”
He glanced at Naomi and winked, and she grinned, understanding the joke. Of course they could imagine celebrating their marriage without their friends and family present—they had done it already. It was just that it was so much nicer to have everyone here with them.
“Most of you have come a very long way to be here today,” Petr continued. “We’re so thankful to all of you for doing so. And we want you, our closest friends and family, to be the first to share in some exciting news as we embark on the next step in our journey together.”
He reached down and took Naomi’s hand. She looked up at him and nodded.
“Naomi and I are expecting our first child in six months,” Petr said, giving her hand a squeeze. “We’re going to have a family.”
Sarah gasped audibly. Petr’s mother pressed her hand to her heart, smiling, and his father let out a triumphant “Ha!”
Petr lifted his glass. “To family,” he said.
“To family,” the wedding guests echoed, lifting their own glasses in response.
As everyone drank, Petr turned toward Naomi and took her in his arms. “And here’s to you and me,” he said, “and to the beginning of a whole new journey for the two of us.”
She smiled and tipped her face up toward his. “To us,” she agreed, and he bent to kiss her.
The End
I hope you’ve enjoyed Naomi and Petr’s story! Keep reading for the first chapter of the previous book in this series, The Prince’s Baby Mystery
Happy reading!
Love, Holly x
The Prince's Baby Mystery
Chapter 1
“Charlotte!”
Charlotte Lange turned to see her leading actress, Emery Masterson, hurrying toward her in a disheveled state. Emery’s makeup was only half applied, and though she was in costume, she still wore her yoga pants under the skirt she would wear