She grins, wicked and lovely. “Always.”
I exhale sharply, grip tightening at her waist. “You’re a menace.” Knowing she’s bare beneath this flimsy dress . . . it’s maddening. “I can barely keep my hands respectable now. All I can think about is getting you alone, slipping away into some shadowed corner where no one can see us.”
She tilts her head up, looking far too pleased with herself. “I think you should remember you need to be a gentleman here. You’ve caused enough chaos for one day.”
The music shifts, the floor filling with other couples. I catch sight of Sophia and Giles, wrapped in their own world. My sistermeets my eye and, to my surprise, smiles. A full, genuine smile, the kind I haven’t seen from her since before the Heroes ball incident.
I glance at Daisy, nodding toward them. “Are you two okay?”
She follows my gaze, watching Sophia for a long moment before exhaling softly. “I think we will be. She seems more relaxed now. I think she’ll be happy when this is over and she can go back to normal life.”
I huff out a quiet laugh. “She’s just relieved the attention has shifted to me. She can’t possibly mess anything up now. I’ve already outdone her spectacularly. Sophia could strip down and do the splits right here on the dance floor and it still wouldn’t be as catastrophic as what I managed this morning—at least, according to our mother.”
Daisy giggles, shaking her head, but then her expression shifts into something softer.
“Edward,” she says.
“Yes?”
She hesitates. “Thank you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “For what, specifically?”
“For choosing me. I wasn’t the easy option. I know that.”
I stop moving, halting us both in the middle of the dance floor.
“Daisy,” I start. “I didn’t have a choice. Not really. Not when it came to you. I just thank god you feel the same.” I pause. “But just so you know, at our wedding, I’m arriving in a Range Rover. No exceptions.”
Her eyes widen. “Do not make jokes like that to me about marriage! It’s not fair.”
“It’s not a joke. Walking down the aisle with you made me realize I’m not doing it again unless it’s with you.”
Her breath catches. “Edward, are you proposing?”
I chuckle. “Not quite. I might be out of practice with dating, but even I know that’s a bit much, considering we only gotback together this morning. Baby steps. But it will happen. Eventually.”
She tries—fails—not to beam. “You’re insufferably arrogant. You don’t evenknowthat I’ll say yes.”
I brush my lips over her knuckles, locking eyes with her. “I’ll make damn sure you do.”
Her breath hitches.
“I’ll love you so completely, so relentlessly, that youwon’t have a choice,” I murmur. “And I’ll tell you, every single day, until you believe it. I’ll do everything in my power to worship you so that you never even notice another man.”
Because the truth is, I would drive a hundred carriages into a hundred lakes for her.
Daisy
Six months later
If I thought being Edward Cavendish’s girlfriend meant living the glamorous billionaire life—Dom Pérignon bath, private jets to St. Barts, lounging in infinity pools in Iceland, and . . . well, basically, whatever the hell Imogen does on her holidays—I could not have been more wrong.
Because right now I am bouncing on top of a particularly smelly horse, clinging for dear life. The horse, I’ve been informed, is named something that translates to “Wild Horse” in Mongolian, which feels redundant, considering every single horse here looks one mood swing away from sprinting off into the abyss and leaving me for dead.
I am sweating in places no self-respecting woman should sweat. I’m going to be walking like a bow-legged cowboy for the foreseeable future. My delicate bits have gone completely numb. There is dirt in crevices where dirt simply does not belong.
Up ahead, Edward glides on his horse like some sort of posh equestrian prince, nodding knowingly at our guide. The very man responsible for this little “surprise” holiday.
