Page 90 of Daddy's Reluctant Queen

Perhaps that’s the right thing to do. Perhaps watching her walk away is the best thing for her. Strange how I find myself back at the same place I was six years ago with another woman.

I take her hands in mine. “If you want to leave,” I tell her, “I’m not going to stop you. But I’d rather you considered staying.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

“Because I don’t want you to go.”

Her eyebrows tilt up. “You… don’t?”

“No, Sofia. I made this mistake once before and I have regretted it every day since. And now, somehow, I’ve been given another chance. I will not make the same mistake again.”

Tears roll down her face and the corners of her lips quiver. “Titus?—”

“Marry me, Sofia. Your place in this world is at my side. I don’t want it any other way. Say you’ll be my queen.”

She squeezes my hands and a smile slowly creeps in through her tears. “Dammit, Titus,” she says. “You would fuck up a perfectly good breakup.”

“Is that a yes?”

She leans into me and whispers, “Yes.” Then she kisses me. Her lips are sweet and warm as they pull me out of my sorrow.

Some men never know the kind of love that I’ve seen. I got to have it twice and this time, I’m doing things the right way.

“I’ll never let you go,” I whisper to her as she runs her fingers through my hair. “I love you, Sofia.”

She smiles against my lips. “I love you, Titus.”

31

SOFIA

“Turn around, dear. Let me see the back.”

I do as I’m told as the seamstress studies the hem of my wedding dress. I sneak another long look at it in the mirror as she kneels behind me to fix a frayed end left over by the alterations.

I look really good. The dress is all white silk. It flows over my shape like oil, clinging to my hips as it falls to the floor. The spaghetti straps over my shoulders have tiny lace motifs of little flowers, and the cleavage is just the right mix of dramatic without showing too much.

I have to smile at myself. My hair and makeup haven’t been done yet, so for now my hair is lying against my bare back. I want to flip it to the front so that I can see the low dip, where it stops right at the lowest part of my waist, right before the top of the crack of my ass.

I want my hair up, though I’m sure there will be plenty of whispers from the wives and grandmothers of Titus’s brotherhood as they, themselves, do their best to ogle mewithout letting Titus catch them in the act. I don’t care. I want them to see. I want them to all be jealous of the fact that I’m marrying Titus today and not any of them.

I want the world to know what he’s got. Most of all, I want him to see me and fall in love all over again.

“There,” the seamstress says in Russian. She’s a middle-aged woman with a pile of curly red hair and dark circles under her eyes. I’m told she’s the best in town, though. I can see why when I look at my ass in this dress.

She stands and looks me over, her eyes cutting to the open back. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take this in a little?” she asks me. “Just for modesty’s sake?”

“No,” I say. “It’s perfect.”

She nods and says, “All right, then. It’s your wedding, after all. If you are happy, then I am ecstatic.”

There’s a knock at the door. “That must be hair and makeup,” she says, walking toward the door. “And just in time. The guests will be arriving in a couple of hours?—”

I see her open the door over my shoulder as I gaze at myself in the mirror, and it is not the makeup lady. Titus stands at the door, his hair tied back in a ponytail and his beard trimmed, but he’s not in his tux. He’s wearing a tight T-shirt and slacks.

The seamstress steps in front of him. In rapid Russian, she says, “Wait. It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”

“It’s fine,” I tell her. “He can come in.”