A soft groan rumbled from my chest as I continued to back away. “Saints, Quinn—you know I do.”
“I asked you to show me how much you cared.”
“And…under other circumstances—believe me—I would be thrilled to oblige you.”
Her eyes darkened a shade. “Is it a matter of specificity?”
My calves hit the edge of the fountain.
“I think you will find I can be quite specific.” She stood inches from me, gaze locked to mine, and drew slow, deliberate lines down my chest with her fingertips. “Shall I tell you where I want your lips?” she whispered.
Breathing became impossible.
“I want you to unlace this dress, start with my shoulders. My neck. Against my bare skin.” Her voice dropped lower, velvet and lethal. “Then, a trail of kisses…” Her lips curved in a wicked, knowing smile. “Between my breasts. Until you reach my?—”
“My bride,” called Edric’s voice from the doorway.
Quinn and I jolted. I nearly fell into the fountain as we jumped away from each other. We snapped our heads to the king. My pulse thundered. My body was still alight with everything she’d said, everything she’d almost done, and everything I still wanted to do.
“We have many decisions to make before tomorrow,” Edric said.
“Tomorrow?” Quinn and I echoed in unison.
A shallow chuckle rolled from Edric’s lips. Lips I knew he would eventually press against Quinn’s.
My Quinn.
No—she wasn’t mine anymore.
Maybe she never was.
“Of course. The wedding is tomorrow at sunset,” Edric explained as if it were as obvious as his obsession with himself.
The king strode toward her, all smug confidence and unearned ease. He offered his arm to her. I tracked every painstaking second before Quinn forced her hand to move. Her fingers rested lightly on his offered forearm, but her posture was all tension. She dropped the shoes she’d been holding and slipped her feet back into them, wincing.
I wanted to pull her away from him.
Better yet, I wanted to rip his arm clean off.
Thinking better of it, I kept my fists and thoughts to myself, following them back into the castle.
Tomorrow.
Sunset.
And then she’d behis.
The thought soured my stomach.
Quinn’s heels clicked on the marble, a timepiece counting down the minutes until I lost her. Servants flanked us, escorting the so-called happy couple through endless corridors until we reached a set of towering gilded doors.
What lay within knocked the breath from my lungs.
It was the same ballroom we’d danced in the night before during the Spring Jubilee, but it had been transformed into a wedding market. Fabric napkins and table linens hung from an ornate display. Dozens of flower arrangements lined tables set in a wide semi-circle. An entire banquet table was devoted to wedding cakes: four-tiered towers, spun-sugar sculptures. Another displayed bite-sized samplings of the royal kitchens’ dinner options.
And then there were the dresses.
A golden rack spanned nearly half the far wall, hosting ahoard of gowns fit for a pantheon—sequins, silk, lace, chiffon, beadwork so fine it looked like frost. At the center of it all stood a raised platform with a full-length mirror.
