“That’s patently untrue.” Her voice did not waver, but it was true. Her whole body told him that she was about to break.
“You’ve cried more this week than the summer you turned thirteen.”
“What a ridiculous comment.” Her mouth set in a firm line.
“I can get you out of here,” Dieter told her. “We will stand up and walk out. Six of my men will surround us when we open that door. Pierre and his men won’t be able to touch you or talk to you. I’ll radio Friedhelm to pull the SUV around. We’ll have you back at the hotel in Wulf’s suite or an airport before anyone knows you’ve left.”
“I couldn’t leave everyone just sitting there in the church. It’s the social event of the year, maybe the decade.”
“Wulf will tell them that the wedding is off. I think he would take a grim delight in it, to tell you the truth.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Besides, I’ve already married Pierre.”
“The legal ceremony can be annulled in an hour. Wulfram’s lawyers are still here in Paris.”
“That’s not the problem,” she said.
“I will say there was a security threat. You don’t have to cancel the ceremony, but postponing it a few days would give you time to think.”
“Think about what, Dieter? What on God’s green Earth could I think about? This wedding will go on as planned, and tonight the three different receptions will dump millions of dollars,many millions,into my charities.”
“You can’tsellyourself like that, even for charity.”
“Oh, Dieter. You said yourself that we royal people are different. It’s notsellingmyself. It’s just utilizing the opportunity to raise funds.That’smy place, to make the world a better place. This wedding and those receptions will do that.”
“I saw the pictures on the gossip websites. They’re atrocious.”
“That’s just Pierre doing, what is it the Americans say? ‘Sowing his wild oats’ before the wedding? I don’t even care.”
“A wedding isn’t magic. He’s not going to change,Durchlauchtig.”
“Don’tcall me that,” Flicka said, her voice lowering in fury. “I told you to never call me that again.”
Almost two years ago, she had told him never to call her that again. “But the fact—”
“The fact remains that von Hannovers aren’t cut out for love, are we? We’re meant to make an appropriate marriage, just like our royal ancestors, just like my father keeps harping on.”
“Even your father thinks Pierre isn’t good enough for you.”
“So he’s said, over and over.”
“And Wulfram is in love with Rae Stone. She’s not royal. She’s the most absolutely normal woman I’ve ever met.” Rae was Flicka’s brother’s new girlfriend, hisverynew girlfriend, the one he’d fallen suddenly and violently in love with almost as soon as he’d laid eyes on the woman. Dieter would have lost thousands, betting that Wulfram von Hannover would never have fallen in love with anyone, ever.
Flicka rearranged the makeup pots on her desk with quick flips of her fingers. “No, he’s not.”
“I think he is, and I think she loves him. They’re torturing each other with it.”
Flicka snorted half a laugh. “Of course they are, but she’s notenoughfor him, right, Dieter? She’s notappropriate.Wulf would be better off putting her back on that jet back to America and holing up inSchloss Marienburgfor a month in a misguided attempt to drink himself to death to get over her.”
Dieter’s heart caught in his throat. “I’m saying that maybe von Hannovers can fall in love with a good person like Rae, but they shouldn’t have a crush on a person who is a hollow jackass, is running away from other things, is a decade older than they are, and will break them.” He wasn’t talking about Pierre. “Maybe they should fall in love with someonebetter.”
“Well, then, Wulf is luckier than I am, I guess.”
“Flicka, I can get you out of here. Say the word, and I’ll carry you out in my arms if that’s what it takes.”
She looked up at him through the mirror, a reflection of an exquisitely beautiful young woman framed with dark wood in the bridal dressing room of a church, her golden hair shining in the sun. Her white dress blazed in the sunlight, and a diamond tiara sparkled in her hair so blond that it was almost silvery. A gossamer veil flowed down her back and puddled on the floor.
Flicka told him, “We both know that can’t happen.”
