Nothing about her appearance was extravagant. Her makeup was far more understated than the night he’d met her. Her gown was a creamy satin that draped in a slim column down her graceful form. Her sleeves fell in folds off her shoulders, leaving her upper chest bare but for a silver locket that looked like an heirloom. Her hair fell in big curls held back from her face with a band of white flowers. Her bouquet was only three peach-colored roses with a sprig of greenery.
She was undeniably beautiful, but her true beauty was in the way she looked at her father. The expression on her face wrapped a fist around Axel’s lungs and squeezed.That’s love, he thought as she walked slowly, very slowly, alongside her father’s struggling, lopsided gait. Axel had never seen such a blatant display of that particular emotion. He wouldn’t have known how to recognize it, if he hadn’t had the context of knowing how much that man meant to her.
Guilt pinched his conscience. He had extorted her cooperation by leaning heavily on her love for her father, thinking nothing of taking her away from the warm fold of her family and dropping her into a war zone.
Otto would never look at her the way Paul did, with pride and tender affection.
Joy glanced at Axel, sending another punch into his chest because her expression shone with poignant gratitude.I want my father to walk me down the aisle.
Of all the things he’d bribed her with, this was the one that meant the most to her? A strange lump formed in his throat, one he reflexively cleared, pushing away sentiment.
This marriage was a means to an end for both of them. That was all.
Joy and Paul arrived before him. She stooped so her father could kiss her cheek, then watched him shuffle to his seat before she faced Axel again.
Now there was somberness in her pouted mouth and trepidation in her eyes. The petals on her bouquet trembled.
All Axel could think was that he wanted to touch her. Seize her.
A prickle of alarm went through him. He never allowed himself to feel anything deeply, but this was intense and carnal and sharp. Chaotic. He wanted to claim her as badly—maybe more—than the things their marriage would gain him.
Which should have been a red flag.
It was.
But he ignored it.
“You look beautiful,” he told her, then ordered the officiant, “Begin.”
* * *
“Thank you for being here today,” the officiant began.
Run, the adrenaline in Joy’s veins kept urging.
Call it off, her brother had insisted, not buying for a second that she’d been having a secret affair with a foreign tycoon.What the hell is really going on?
She didn’t know. It had all happened so fast. The twenty-four hours she might have used for second thoughts had been eaten up by lawyer visits and interviewing nursing staff and shopping for a dress.
“I have the chance to meet my birth father,” she had admitted in a whisper to David behind the locked door of her bedroom.
“You don’t have to marry a stranger to do that.”
I want to.She hadn’t said it, but there was a trapped bird inside her that kept batting its wings against her rib cage, panicked and urgent and, for some reason, trying to fly straight to Axel.
Which didn’t make sense. She knew it didn’t. Especially when she stood before him and the ceremony started and each word inched her further and further toward the end of the proverbial plank. Soon she would be over the edge, plummeting into a bottomless ocean that was miles over her head.
Axel’s voice dropped deep into his chest as he made his vows to honor and respect her, to build a marriage that would grow stronger and more caring as time passed, blanketing her in a belief that he meant it.
Her chest filled with currents and eddies as she repeated the words to him, feeling dizzy. The vows felt real, the ring weighty as he slid it onto her finger. His gaze flashed with satisfaction as he did it, and her knees grew weak.
This was a business deal. He was doing this to get a company, she reminded herself, blinking against silly, emotive tears. If she felt an urge to cry, it was only because she hadn’t slept.
“You may seal your bond with a kiss.”
He drew her into his arms, and she stiffened, trying not to give in to whatever this force was that had taken possession of her deepest self. She lifted her mouth, expecting a brush of his lips in a chaste observance of tradition.
But as the strength in his arms and the warmth of his thighs penetrated her gown, this unnamed, shimmering grip he had on her coiled tighter around her. It changed her, molding her to a shape that fit against him like a matching puzzle piece. There was an audible click in her ears that assured her she was exactly where she was meant to be.
