She laughs, tucking a strand of hair behind her hear. "Yeah, I’m a lucky girl," she says. "You could have mentioned the whole – oh, I don't know -- glaring fact that you're a freaking prince."
I shrug. "You never talked about your work."
"That's not even the same thing --" she says, her face upturned. She balls one hand into a fist, obviously frustrated, and the fact that she's at the end of her rope makes her endearing somehow. "I'm not a..."
"Princess?" I ask. "Well, you're going to be."
"Our parents are getting married," she says. "And we just got married. In Vegas. You're a prince. Please tell me you understand there's a potential for huge scandal here. Don't you take anything in life seriously?"
"I try to take all of my marriages seriously."
Her eyes widen. "There are more marriages?" I pause for a beat, and a look of realization spreads across her face. "That's not even remotely funny."
"Don't worry," I say. "You're the only woman I’ve married in Vegas."
"That's hilarious," she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "It was a drunken marriage. You’ve gotten it annulled, haven’t you?"
I shrug. "I had other things to do," I say. Sure I did. Except that's not the whole truth. I could have gotten an annulment. I should have gotten an annulment. Instead, I told myself it was irrelevant. Belle walked away -- and I figured it would be out of sight, out of mind. It was as if it never happened.
That's what I told myself.
Except for the inescapable fact that I couldn't get her out of my head, even half a world away and two weeks later.
A woman taking up two weeks of residence in my brain – especially one I didn't even fuck? That's definitely some kind of record. My style is more of a one and done kind of thing – I prefer not to know the names of the women I screw. Of course, Belle’s name has been on repeat in my brain, playing over and over on a loop. And I didn’t even screw her.
I married her.
"You could have gotten it annulled," I say.
"I was busy," she whispers. "Dealing with my…"
Her voice trails off, and the way she glances away for a moment sends a momentary pang of guilt rushing through me for giving her shit. Her other wedding is what she was going to say. The night I ran into her – the night we got married in one of those Vegas chapels, by an Elvis impersonator, no less – was the night she found out her fiancé was screwing her maid of honor.
That night, she was running through the casino, away from her former best friend and all of her bridesmaids.
She told me everything over tequila shots in the back of a limo as we drove around Vegas – a slurred confession to me, her drunken priest.
Except that I'm the opposite of chaste.
And I've had nothing but the most impure of thoughts when it comes to Isabella Kensington.
"I was busy," she says, clearing her throat.
"I hope you properly disposed of your ex-fiancé’s body," I say, my tone light, joking, except there's a surprising undercurrent of irritation that runs through me at the thought of that asshole who cheated on her with her best friend.
A smile pulls at the corners of her mouth, then disappears just as suddenly. "I'm sure you have people that could do that for me," she says.
"Actually, we do," I say. "There's a secret branch of the military. If you need the ex-fiancé and ex-friend murdered, I'm happy to have it arranged. You are my wife, after all."
"You're a perfect gentleman," she says. “No one’s offered to have anyone murdered for me before.”
I reach up to tuck the wayward lock of her hair that keeps coming undone, back behind her ear, and when I touch her, she closes her eyes lightly, moving her face ever so slightly against my hand. Her lips part, just barely, and I think that if she allowed herself to do it, she'd be moaning right now.
The thought makes me hard as a rock, my cock pushing against the fabric of my pants.
I lean in close to whisper against her ear. "I'm definitely not a gentleman," I say, tracing my finger behind her ear and down the side of her neck. She tilts her head slightly to the side, and her chest rises as she inhales deeply, the top of her breasts exposed above the neckline of her dress. "Although I always let a lady come first."
Belle makes a strangled sound, and reaches up, pushing my hand away from her. “There’s going to be no coming involved.”
“Are you saying you’re not a lady?” I tease.
She narrows her eyes as she looks at me, anger replacing her arousal. “Did you know who I was when you met me? You had to know who I was.”