Page 29 of Untamed Billionaire's Innocent Bride
CHAPTER EIGHT
BYMORNINGSHE’D pulled herself together. The tears of the night before seemed to have happened to someone else. Someone far more fragile than Lauren had ever been, particularly in the crisp light of day. She showered in the bathroom off the executive suite, rinsing away any leftover emotion as well as the very long previous day, and changed into one of the complete outfits she kept at the office precisely for mornings like this.
Well. Perhaps not precisely like this. She didn’t often plan and execute her own wedding. She’d worn her highest, most impractical pair of heels as a kind of tribute. And she was absolutely not thinking—much less overthinking—about the many questionable bargains she’d made with the strange man she’d found in the forest.
She knocked briskly on the door to the corporate flat at half nine on the dot, aware as she did that she didn’t expect him to answer. A man as feral as Dominik was as likely to have disappeared in the night as a stray cat, surely—
But the door swung open. And Dominik stood there, dressed in nothing but a pair of casual trousers slung low on his hips, showing off acres and acres of...him.
For a moment—or possibly an hour—Lauren couldn’t seem to do anything but gape at him.
“Did you imagine I would run off in the night?” he asked, reading her mind yet again. And not the most embarrassing part, for a change. She tried to swallow past the dryness in her throat. She tried to stop staring at all those ridges and planes and astonishing displays of honed male flesh. “I might have, of course, but there were restrictions in place.”
She followed him inside the flat, down the small hall to the efficient kitchen, bright in the morning’s summer sunlight. “You mean the security guards?”
He rounded the small counter and then regarded her over his coffee, strong enough that she could smell the rich aroma and blacker than sin. “I mean, Lauren, the fact I gave you my word.”
Lauren had allowed sensation and emotion and all that nonsense to get the best of her last night, but that was over now. It had to be, no matter how steady that gray gaze of his was. Or the brushfires it kicked up inside her, from the knot in her belly to the heat in her cheeks. So she cleared her throat and waved the tablet she carried in his direction, completely ignoring the tiny little hint of something bright like shame that wiggled around in all the knots she seemed to be made of today.
“I’ve sorted everything out,” she told him, aware that she sounded as pinched and knotted as she felt. “We will marry in an hour.”
Dominik didn’t change expression and still, she felt as if he was laughing at her.
“And me without my pretty dress,” he drawled.
“The vicar is a friend of the Combe family,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him. And she had to order herself not to fuss with her own dress, a simple little shift that was perfect for the office. And would do for a fake wedding, as well. “I took the liberty of claiming that ours is a deep and abiding love that requires a special license and speed, so it would be best all round if you do not dispute that.”
“I had no intention of disputing it,” Dominik said in that dark, sardonic voice of his that made her feel singed. “After all, I am nothing but a simple, lonely hermit, good for nothing but following the orders of wealthy aristocrats who cannot be bothered to attend the fake weddings they insisted occur in the first place. I am beside myself with joy and anticipation that I, too, can serve your master from afar in whatever way he sees fit. Truly, this is the family I dreamed of when I was a child in the orphanage.”
He displayed his joy and anticipation by letting that impossible mouth of his crook, very slightly, in one corner, and Lauren hated that it felt like a punch. Directly into her gut.
“It is the romance of it all that makes my heart beat faster, little red,” Dominik continued, sounding very nearly merry. If she overlooked that hard gleam in his eyes. “If you listen, I am certain you can hear it.”
Lauren placed her tablet down on the marble countertop in a manner that could only be described as pointed. Or perhaps aggressive. But she kept her eyes on Dominik as if he really was some kind of wolf. As if looking away—for even an instant—could be the death of her.
And it wasn’t his heart that she could hear, pounding loud enough to take down the nearest wall. It was hers.
“Could you take this seriously?” she demanded. “Could you at least try?”
He studied her for another moment as he lifted his coffee to his mouth and took a deep pull. “I didn’t run off in the night as I assure you I could have done if I wished, regardless of what laughable corporate security you think was in place. The vicar bears down on us even as we speak. How much more seriously do you imagine I can take this?”
“You agreed to do this, repeatedly. I’m not sure that I agreed to submit myself to your...commentary.”
She didn’t expect that smile of his, bright and fierce. “Believe me, Lauren, there are all manner of things you might find yourself submitting to over the course of this day. Do not sell yourself short.”
And she hated when he did that. When he said things in that voice of his, and they swirled around inside her—heat and madness and something like hope—making it clear that he was referring to all those dark and thorny things that she didn’t understand.
That she didn’t want to understand, she told herself stoutly.
“I’ve already agreed,” she reminded him, with more ferocity than was strictly required. But she couldn’t seem to bite it back. She had always been in such control of herself that she’d never learned how to take control of herself. If there were steps toward becoming composed, she didn’t know them, and she could blame that on Dominik, too. “There’s no need for all these insinuations.”
“You’ve agreed? I thought it was I who agreed. To everything. Like a house pet on a chain.”
His voice was mild but his gaze was...not.
“You asked me for a wedding night,” she reminded him, her heart still pounding like it wanted to knock her flat. “And you know that I keep my promises. Every time you’ve asked to kiss me, I’ve allowed it.”
“Surrendered to it, one might even say, with notable enthusiasm. Once you get started.”