The Royals Collection. Rebecca Winters

      “Yes.” There was a wealth of meaning in that one word, if he wanted to hear it.

      “Yes as in yes, you miss me, or yes as in you will marry me?” he asked, sounding hopeful but cautious.

      “Both.”

      “I will be there in ten minutes.”

      It was a half-hour drive from his penthouse, but she didn’t argue.

      * * *

      Demyan knocked on Chanel’s door with a minute to spare in the ten he’d promised her.

      What he hadn’t told her when she called was that he was already in the area.

      The door swung open, and Chanel’s eyes widened with disbelief. “How did you get here so fast?”

      “I was already on the road.” Had been for the better part of an hour, driving aimlessly, with each random turn taking him closer and closer to her apartment complex.

      She frowned. “On your way here?”

      “Not consciously.” He’d argued with himself about the wisdom of calling or stopping by after she’d told him she wanted the night to think.

      So far, respecting her wishes had been winning his internal debate.

      “Then what were you doing over here?”

      He gently pushed past her, not interested in having this discussion, or any other, on the stoop outside her door. “I was out for a drive.”

      “On this side of town?” she asked skeptically.

      “Yes.”

      “But you weren’t planning to come by.”

      “No.” And that choice had clearly been the right one, though more difficult to follow through on than he wanted to admit.

      “Do you go out for drives with no purpose often?” she asked, still sounding disbelieving.

      “Not as such, no.” He went through to the kitchen, where he poured himself two fingers of Volyarussian vodka before drinking half of it in two swallows.

      He’d brought the bottle with him one night, telling her that sometimes he enjoyed a shot to unwind. She’d told him he could keep it in the freezer if he liked.

      He did, though he rarely drank from it.

      “Are you okay, Demyan?” she asked from the open archway between her living room and kitchen. “I thought you’d be happy.”

      “I didn’t like the emptiness of my condo tonight.” He should have found the lack of company peaceful.

      A respite.

      He hadn’t. He’d become too accustomed to her presence in the evenings. Even when she only sat curled up with one of her never-ending scientific journals while he answered email, having her there was pleasant.

      Had almost become necessary.

      “I missed you, too.”

      “You wanted your space. To think,” he reminded her, the planning side of his facile brain yelling at him that his reaction wasn’t doing his agenda any favors.

      “It was fruitful. Or have you forgotten what I told you on the phone?”

      He slammed the drink onto the counter, clear liquid splashing over the sides, the smell of vodka wafting up. “I have not forgotten.”

      Her gray eyes flared at his action, but she didn’t look worried. “And you’re happy?”

      “Ecstatic.”

      “You look it.” The words were sarcastic, but an understanding light glowed in her lovely eyes.

      “You are a permanent fixture in my life. It is only natural I would come to rely on your companionship to a certain extent.” He tried to explain away his inability to remain in his empty apartment and work, as he’d planned to.

      A small smile played around her mobile lips. “So, you considered me a permanent fixture before I agreed to marry you?”

      “Yes.” He was not in the habit of losing what he went after.

      “I see. I wasn’t nearly so confident, but I missed you like crazy when you were in Volyarus.”

      “And yet you refused my proposal at first.”

      “I didn’t. I told you I had to think.”

      “That is not agreement.”

      “Life is not that black-and-white.”

      “Isn’t it?”

      “No.” She moved right into his personal space. “I think you’re even more freaked out by how fast everything has gone between us than I am.”

      “I am not.” It had all been part of his plan, everything except this inexplicable reaction to her request for time away from him.

      “You’re acting freaked. Slamming back vodka and driving around like a teenager with his first car.”

      “I assure you, I did not peel rubber at any stoplights.”

      “Do teens still do that?”

      “Some.” He never had.

      It would have not been fitting for a prince.

      “I said yes, Demyan.” She laid her hands on his chest, her eyes soft with emotion.

      His arms automatically went around her, locking her into his embrace. “Why?”

      Her agreement should have been enough, but he needed to know.

      “My mom came by to talk. She told me not to give up on something this powerful just because it scares me.”

      “Your mother?” he asked, finding that one hard to take in.

      “Yes. She wants to try again, on our relationship.”

      “She does realize you are twenty-nine, not nineteen?”

      Chanel smiled, sadness and hope both lurking in the storm-cloud depths of her eyes. “We both do. It’s not happy families all of a sudden, but I’m willing to meet her partway.”

      “You’re a more forgiving person than I am.”

      “I’m not so sure about that, but one thing I do know. Holding bitterness and anger inside hurts me more than anyone who has ever hurt me.”

      A cold wind blew across his soul. Demyan hoped she remembered that if she ever found out the truth about her great-great-grandfather’s will.

      She frowned up at him. “You were driving without your glasses?”

      “I don’t need them to drive.” He didn’t need them at all but wasn’t sure when he was going to break that news to her.

      “You always wear them, except in bed.”

      “They’re not that corrective.” Were in fact just clear plastic.

      “They’re a crutch for you,” she said with that analytical look she got sometimes.

      “You could say that.”

      “Do you need them at all?”

      He didn’t even consider lying in answer to the direct question. “No.”

      He expected anger, or at least the question, why did he wear them? But instead he got a measured glance that implied understanding, which confused him. “If I can step off the precipice and agree to marry you, you can stop wearing the glasses.”

      The tumblers clicked into place. She saw the glasses as the crutch she’d named them for him. Being who she was, it never occurred to her that they were more a prop.

      “Fine.” More than. Remembering