I pressed a hand to my lips just as the door opened to the prime minister’s office. I shot off the chair, feeling suddenly off-kilter, not expecting to see them so soon or for them to catch me with a blush creeping up my cheeks, remembering all the stolen moments we’d had last night.
“I’m so glad we had a chance to chat while you’re up north.” Bryce patted the president on the back, the short man’s face lighting up with a grin as his eyes landed on me.
“I’m glad I did too. The women up here, they are very beautiful, eh?” The president paused when he reached me, eyes traveling up and down my body, hovering for far too long at the dash of cleavage that peeked out of the top of my dress.
Bryce’s eyes landed on mine, flaring with heat before his hands clenched at his sides.
My stomach churned as I imagined the next few minutes playing out in my head and turning into a headline: The Prime Minister Pummels the President of Chile over a Sexist Joke. Oh God, I had to stop this.
Bryce’s jaw clenched, teeth working back and forth as his eyes narrowed in on the president. “We haven’t officially announced it yet.” Bryce forced a smile on his face, directing his eyes to me before real warmth took over. He stretched a hand out, entwining our fingers and pulling me to his side. I fit against him snugly, like I was meant to be from the start. “But Mr. President, I’d like you to meet my fianc?e, Ms. Juliette Alexandre.”
My mouth dropped open just as quickly as the president's eyebrows shot to his hairline. “You're a lucky man.”
I stood stock-still, fingers still twisted with Bryce’s, and summoned everything inside me not to lay into him at this very moment. I’d imagined some horrifying scene out of Fight Club, and here Bryce had gone with a completely different tactic. What the hell was he thinking? He couldn’t just announce stuff like that to the president, in front of other people. Not when he was the prime minister.
I glanced around, noticing a few eyes watching us intently. I frowned, clutching my hand in Bryce’s, letting him know that this wasn’t over, not in the slightest.
“I’m the luckiest man alive, Mr. President. Thanks for saying so.” Bryce inclined his head, giving him one last smile before the president nodded and turned away with his team.
“What the hell was that?”
“A congratulations is probably more in order.” Bryce winked, pulling me along with him and back into his office, shutting the door behind us before smashing me against it. His hands lifted mine above my head, his lips hovered at mine, and his hips danced just out of reach of my aching body. Every nerve in my body was desperate for him, but I wanted a damn explanation for what he’d said out there.
“What if the media catches wind of what you said?”
“S’okay.” He shrugged, hands running up my thighs and lips attaching to my neck, sucking at the soft hollow and pulling a moan from my lips.
“What do you mean, s’okay? That’s a fire we can’t put out. Rumors will be everywhere.”
“They won’t be rumors.”
“Excuse me?” I huffed, finding it harder and harder to concentrate with his hands on my skin.
“I want all of you. Every last piece, Juliette. And I want you to have my name. I want you in my house, in my life, because you’re already in my heart.”
“Bryce…”
I moaned, his lips pressed against mine, tongue waging a gentle war with mine. I was succumbing, falling under, drunk on his spell.
“Say yes, Juliette.”
Fireworks lit my brain, my good sense gone when all I could think about was his hands on my skin. “I can't think when you do that.”
He smiled crookedly. “That’s the point.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Love isn’t fair,” he murmured against my lips. “If it were, I would have found you long before now.”
My heart sped up, beating a bruising tattoo against my rib cage as his words hung in the air between us.
I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I could only feel.
Everything logical in me said to turn and run. I’d only known him a few days, but it’d really been longer than that. So much longer. It’d been weeks. And before that, it’d been months as I’d watched him campaigning nearly every day in my city and on my TV, his life laid bare for every citizen to see.
He was a good man.
He was kind, sexy, completely intoxicating. And with his kisses stealing all my sense, I knew there was only one thing I could say. “Yes, Prime Minister.”
EIGHT
Bryce
A riptide of emotion thundered through me, that one word flooding all of my brain cells on repeat: yes, yes, yes.