Dominique nodded. “Because I know you’ll never love me in return. I can’t live like that, Ronan.” Now that she got the words out, she couldn’t stop. They poured from her.
He stared at her, his gaze so intense that she could almost hear his brain humming with thoughts. She opened her mouth to tell him she was sorry, but he leaned down and swept one arm behind her knees, the other still wrapped around her back.
Dominique shrieked, clinging to his neck as he bounced her into a better position. “What are you doing?” she cried.
“Your little confession changes nothing. We’re still getting married,” he stated, marching toward the door.
“Ronan, stop! Put me down!”
When he reached for the knob, she stuck a foot out and planted it against the door, keeping him from opening it.
Was it completely undignified? Absolutely. But it was still less humiliating than him hauling her out to the gardens like this.
With a grunt of frustration, Ronan lowered her legs but kept his grip on her upper body. He backed her into the door, leaning his heavy weight against her. “You’re not getting out of our bargain, Princess. As I said, you loving me changes nothing. And everything.”
“What do you mean?”
His face was so close to hers that all she could see were his eyes. Those bright blue eyes that seemed to see straight into her soul. She tried to turn her face away, but he gripped her jaw, holding her still. Finally, Dominique stopped struggling and just closed her eyes, shutting him out. She couldn’t stand there and look at him any longer. She needed distance, even if only in her mind.
“Do you know why you’re still going to marry me today, Princess?” he asked, his lips brushing her ear as he leaned even closer.
She made a soft noise in her throat. She couldn’t speak, not when he surrounded her so completely.
“You’re going to marry me because I love you, too. And now that I know you feel the same, I’m never letting you go. Goddess knows I don’t deserve your love, not after the way I treated you, but I’m a selfish bastard, so I’ll take it anyway.” He buried his face against her bare throat. “You’ll marry me today and never leave my side again. And I’ll spend the next lifetime showing you that you made the right choice. I swear it.”
Dominique’s heart thumped so hard in her chest that she wondered if he could feel it. He was telling her all the things she wanted so desperately to hear, but she was afraid to believe it.
“Ronan, I?—”
He lifted his head, his face only an inch or two from hers. “Please give me a chance to make it right, Princess. I know I’ve been an ass, and I will always regret that I said and did things that hurt you. All I can do right now is beg you to forgive me and vow to never hurt you again. Not intentionally.”
Dominique stared into his eyes, unable to believe what she was hearing. Could she be hallucinating?
“You’re not hallucinating, Princess,” he said.
Dominique shut her mouth with a snap. She hadn’t meant to say that.
“Please don’t walk away from me now,” he said. “I am so sorry for how this all started, but I’m not sorry that it brought me to you again. I think I fell in love with you when I was thirteen, before Zephira ever cursed us, because I never forgot about you. Not in all these years.”
Dominique wasn’t sure she could trust what she was hearing. Could pixie hangover remedies cause delusions?
“Please say you’ll marry me,” he demanded, pressing her harder into the door.
“I’ll—” Dominique’s voice broke, her throat still tight and aching from the tears fighting their way through her chest. “I’ll marry you.”
That was when she saw the relief she imagined earlier—not because she was ending this farce of an engagement, but because she was agreeing go through with the ceremony.
Ronan didn’t wait for her to say anything else. He grabbed her hand, opened the door, and dragged her out of the palace and into the royal gardens where the wedding guests and officiant awaited them.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ronan couldn’t believethat Dominique loved him. Or that she was going to refuse to marry him. The thought made him equal parts distraught and enraged. A primal part of him, deep inside, needed to know that she belonged to him. Needed her to say the vows that made Dominique his.
He knew he was walking too fast as he all but hauled her through the gardens to the area where the guests were seated, waiting for the ceremony to begin. They were already a few minutes late, but Ronan didn’t care. They could wait or leave. All that mattered was that Dominique was going to marry him.
He halted just in front of the gaping cleric. “Sorry, for the delay. We’re ready now.”
The young man’s mouth opened and closed several times, clearly taken aback by the breach in protocol for royal weddings.
