elaborate ceremony.”
Glory gaped up at Vincenzo. “There could be anything more elaborate?”
Vincenzo poured indulgence over her, pinching her buttock playfully. “Have you even met Alonzo?”
Carefree giggles burst out of her for the first time in… She didn’t even remember when she’d laughed so freely.
But she still had to make a stand. “While I loved the first ceremony, Alonzo, I really would rather we used all the expenses in something…uh…”
Alonzo smirked at her in the rearview mirror. “Is worthwhile the word you’re looking for?” At her apologetic nod, he sighed. “I can see it’s not going to be as much fun as I thought having a philanthropist for a princess.”
At her chuckling sigh, Vincenzo smoothed the hair he’d mussed off her face lovingly. “How about we have everything? The figure you name for your worthwhile endeavors, the all-out-expenses wedding—” He turned to meet Alonzo’s eyes in the mirror. “Preferably a double wedding this time.”
She looked between both men then exclaimed, “Gio proposed?”
A smile of pure happiness spread Alonzo’s lips, even as his green eyes misted. “Ah, si…and how he did.”
She waited until he stopped at a traffic light, then exploded from Vincenzo’s arms and jumped on Alonzo, hugging him and soundly kissing him on his widely smiling cheek.
After she milked him for details and whooped and exclaimed with excitement over being his matron of honor, he resumed driving.
She returned to the place she never wanted to leave, burrowed deep in Vincenzo’s embrace, letting the last of her tension escape in a long sigh.
Stroking her hair gently, Vincenzo echoed her sigh, the sound of contentment. “Take us home, Alonzo.”
*
Many, many hours later, a delightfully sore and thoroughly sated Glory turned luxuriantly in her lover, prince and husband’s arms, filling her eyes with his beauty. “Is it possible? Could everything be so perfect?”
He shifted to accommodate her closer, sweeping caresses down her back and buttocks, as if imprinting his love into her, coating her with satisfaction. “If you need some imperfections to settle your mind, I have plenty for you. Like having to start my negotiations from scratch and roping you in as my top consultant. Like trying to create a method so I can get hands-on, steady involvements in your missions.”
Her eyes widened with each word. “God, Vincenzo…you mean it?” At his smiling nod, she tackled him on his back and attacked him with kisses and tickles. He was guffawing by the time she pulled back, frowning. “But wait—that’s only more perfection.” She threw herself beside him on her back, covered her eyes and cried out, “Argh, I can’t stand it.”
He rose above her, letting her fill her soul with his unbridled love. Then he suddenly cupped her breast, lazily flicked her nipple, a look of mischief replacing the passion. “You can’t? Shall I leave you to rest then?”
She pulled him on top of her. “Don’t you dare.”
As she took him inside her again, as he joined them into one flesh, one future, she thanked the fates that nothing, not betrayal nor pain, not desperation nor separation, had dimmed this miracle they had between them.
And now she knew. Nothing ever would.
Don’t miss Conveniently His Princess,
the next novel in the Married By Royal Decree series.
Travel back to the exotic desert kingdom of Zohayd,
where a man searching for a home must take
a princess as his convenient bride.
Or so he thinks.
Available September 2013!
Only from Olivia Gates and Harlequin Desire.
Keep reading for an excerpt from A Conflict of Interest by Barbara Dunlop
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One
It was inauguration night in Washington, D.C., and Cara Cranshaw had to choose between her president and her lover. One strode triumphantly though the arches of the Worthington Hotel ballroom to the uplifting strains of “Hail to the Chief” and the cheers of eight hundred well-wishers. The other stared boldly at her from across the ballroom, a shock of unruly, dark hair curling across his forehead, his bow tie slightly askew and his eyes telegraphing the message that he wanted her naked.
For the moment,