Cin Wikkid: April Fools For Love (9 page)

“This isn’t right. I wanted our first time to be slow. Beautiful.”

“Fast and beautiful works too. Move inside me, Rafe.”

“Gideon.” His voice was strained, his cock throbbing just inside her. Nostrils white with panting, he lifted his gaze, his eyes gluing to hers as if she was his lifeline. “Gideon Raphael Montoya-Prince is my real name.”

“Your name doesn’t change who you are.” She wiggled on his thigh, trying to get him to move.

“It does for most people.” His fingers tightened on her hips, biting reflexively. “That, and the scars.”

“The scars were never an issue for me, except that they pained you.” Tilting her hips, she managed to wriggle another inch of him inside her. “But they aren’t real.”

“They were at one point. Cin…you win. I think I’ll die if I don’t bury myself in your wet heat. I’d give you flowery words if it was in me…”

“It’s okay.”

And it was. She
felt
his need, his caring, in his actions, more potent than any words. Saw his desire in his blissful, pained expression as he gripped her hips and walked her to the couch. Felt his tenderness and care as he laid her gently on the sofa’s cushions. Experienced the depth of his love as he began to move inside her, gently at first. Then, as their breath quickened together, as mewls of pleasure curled from her throat, he drove deeper and deeper inside her, moving with greater and greater abandonment.

Opening her eyes, she caught him in an utterly unguarded moment.

His eyes burned with love and desire, his face incandescent with emotion. Such intense feeling blazed from him that she shuddered, like walking from a chilled room into the hot sun.

Such incredible passion. Shocking because she’d barely glimpsed it before, not because his feelings didn’t exist, but because they must’ve been buried so deep they never surfaced.

Erupting now, his passion was strong enough to destroy them both.

His fierce desire triggered hers. She cried out as her need contracted to an intense, diamond-hard point. When he roared and exploded like a volcano, she shattered.

Her world blew apart. White light splashed the back of her clamped lids. No sound. A wash of pleasure so big it ruptured her.

Rafe shouted her name, cutting through the soundless wall. Her first wave of climax gave way to a second, bigger, rounder, and a third, fourth, and fifth, so close together, the overlapping waves swamped her.

As her contractions began to ebb, the dull whoosh-whoosh of her own heart seeped through.

He collapsed beside her, dragging her onto his chest, her head pillowed against his pectorals. Under her ear, his heart slowed. Hers slowed with it.

His arms came around her, holding her as if she was the most precious thing in the world.

Whatever had gone before, whatever came next, in that moment all was right with her world.

She smiled and snuggled in. Maybe he didn’t use words, but his lovemaking expressed his true emotions. Not saying, “I love you,” to her, but showing it.

The realization that Rafe loved her made her blissfully happy.

She began to believe she might even have convinced him to stay with her forever.

Then the clock struck ten, and his arms loosened then fell away.

“Cin.”

That wasn’t the sound of an equally blissed-out male. Reluctantly, she roused.

He took her face between his warm palms and searched her eyes. “Cin, I have to pick a bride tonight. I
must
marry by midnight tomorrow.” He jerked one shoulder, as if it didn’t matter, but she could see it did—it mattered a lot. “There’s a great deal at stake.”

“Yes.”
Billions of dollars and a financial empire.
Not Rafe then, but Gideon. She was suddenly cold. Drawing herself from his hands, she sat up beside him on the couch. “I know.”

He sat up too, watching her closely. Whatever he saw in her face made him blurt, “I have to.” Pulling a deep breath, he was more measured as he went on. “Please realize I committed to this contest months before you and I met, back when I despaired of ever finding someone to share my life. What’s done is done. There are sixty women in the final candidate line. You’re one of them—” For the first time, Rafe’s uncertainty, his humanity, shone through Gideon’s eyes. “—if you want to be. Please get in line?”

She stared at him. How could he be asking her this?
S
he wanted to marry Rafe more than anything. But, even if Rafe still existed in this man’s skin, Gideon was running the show.

She could see a future with Rafe, but Gideon Prince and a working-class woman…?

“Why? You don’t want me.” Her eyes stung, as if saying it made it more real. “You want a blue-blooded bride. You want a woman who can stand beside you and run your fancy balls and wear the right clothes—”

“
Want?
Cin, it’s not about want. I
need
you
.
I’m begging you. Get in line. Do the challenge. Do it for me?”

“Want, need, you’re not listening. If you were willing to live in my world…but you’re not.”

He made an exasperated noise. “There isn’t time for this.” His jaw tightened and voice hardened. “Promise me, Cinderella Wikkid. Get in line.”

That tone wasn’t Rafe pleading with her, but Gideon demanding.

As if he was in his royal robes, not naked just like her. As if her time with Rafe had never happened. As if, mere moments ago, their hearts hadn’t slowed together.

When all had been right with her world.

She hiccupped—a laugh, a sob, she couldn’t tell. She hadn’t felt peace like that since her mother died. Rafe gave it back to her. And Gideon stole it away.

She’d thrown it all in, trying to convince him to come down to her level. He’d refused. She had no future here.

She steeled herself to get up and walk out the door.

Chapter Seven

“I’m sorry.” She stood. “I can’t.”

“You must.” He stood too, shockingly tall with her in her bare feet. “You owe it to me.”

She stared at the floor, intensely aware of his heat, his size, his nearness. She did owe Rafe. But while she’d found bits of her Rafe in this powerful man, were there enough?

She opened her mouth to say no.

“Or are you a woman who reneges on her debts? A woman
without character?
”

Her eyes cut up to him, and fury rising inside her. She remembered thinking Rafe’s breathtaking awareness would make being a couple wonderful—but he’d make a terrifying enemy. Here was proof. He knew exactly where to knife her.

“Fine,” she spat. “I’ll never beat your rich women in whatever test you’ve got. But for Rafe, for what we had, I’ll get in your damned line.”

“Thanks.” A sudden grin erased his haughty expression but not the memory of it. He surprised her with a kiss then leaped to dress with quick, efficient motions, as if her answer had energized him.

With another kiss, he was gone.

She dressed, slowly. Her skirt hoops were sadly bent, her hair felt like a rat’s nest. She recombobulated as best she could.

With a final look at the couch, at what might have been, she tottered out.

The moment Cin entered the hallway, she heard an amplified voice announcing names. “Anthony, Elyse. Bell, Aisha. Brown, Bethany. Carter, Paula.” Sounded alphabetical. Sixty finalists? They must’ve just started the roll call.

Following the sound of the loudspeaker, she found the ballroom, where hopefuls fluttered around the podium. As each finalist was announced, after a brief flurry of cheers and good-lucks, the contestant dashed through an archway of golden leaves and pink ceramic flowers into a hallway beyond.

No one paid attention to Cin as she came into the room. But they paid attention plenty as the announcer called, “Wikkid, Ezmrelda. Wikkid, Ylanda. Wikkid, Cinderella.”

With her ambivalence, and her precarious heels and dress bent on killing her, she was already wobbling as she headed for the archway.

But the revolted glares that hit her nearly toppled her. What, was she naked?

“What is wrong with you?” Ez grabbed her arm and shook her. “Are you trying to see how disgusting you can be?”

“No.” Yl giggled. “She’s pretending to be insane.”

Cin caught sight of herself in a mirror beside the archway. Her hair straggled from its updo, her makeup was smudged, and her skirt hoops were lopsided, bent from that mad kiss.

And Prince expected her to compete to marry him?

He
was the insane one.

Trying to push her hair and skirt into some order, she passed with the Steps through the archway, falling in at the end of a line snaking through a long gallery toward a door. The queue moved quickly. Contestants went in glowing with golden excitement but left in various shades of dejection and, strangely, confusion. Out of curiosity, Cin timed the interval.

Each woman was getting an average of two minutes.

“I wonder what the test is,” Yl said to Ez. “I hope it’s not algebra.”

“Algebra?” Ez rolled her eyes. “The man is choosing a bride, Yl, not an accountant.”

Cin winced. Rafe might like a nice accountant wife, but Ez was right. Rich playboy Gideon Prince would want more.

“He wants a scholar,” Yl pouted. “What do you think the test is, then?”

“Something to do with a woman’s suitability for becoming part of the Prince dynasty, no doubt.” Ez lifted her nose as if it was obvious only she was highborn enough to stand at Prince’s side.

“Like best kiss?” Yl clapped her gloved hands, sending out puffs of jasmine-scented air. “Best profession of undying love?”

“Oh, he’ll probably do those. But I bet the final test is something that separates the wheat from the chaff.”

“Like…?”

“Proper guest seating for an elite dinner party. Or gracious comportment.” She swept a supple curtsy worthy of a swan.

Cin’s insides crumpled, her shoulders slumping. What was she doing in this line? Why had Rafe made her take this test?

That’s wrong.
Rafe
wouldn’t—didn’t—make me take this test.

That floored her a moment. Rafe hadn’t ordered her in line, Gideon Prince had. Why? To show how out of place she was in his world? To humiliate her even more than she’d already been?

Rafe would never do that,
she scolded herself.

But she didn’t know about Gideon Prince.

The line moved up. The closer Cin got, the more her insides iced. Prince had to marry because of his inheritance. Another thing proving Prince, not Rafe, was the guiding persona.

Rafe wouldn’t care about the money.

Cin cared about money. Not like Prince did, earth-shattering worries over a massive fortune. Just small anxieties about a tidy little nest egg. All she’d ever wanted was to get a nice job that let her live comfortably on her own. A nine-to-five job in accounting; that was her world.

Rafe had entered her little world. She liked him that size. But the woman who married Gideon Prince would have to be big enough to move in his celestial sphere.

Time passed. Cin had managed to repin her hair and mostly straighten her hoops when a man called, “Francine Smith.”

Leaning out of line, Cin saw they’d gotten within a dozen candidates of the testing room.

Beside the door, a man sat at a desk. He held a paper. “I, Francine Muriella Smith,” he recited from the parchment, “recognize that Gideon Raphael Montoya-Prince must marry within twenty-four hours of his turning twenty-four, that is, by end of day April second. If I am proposed to by Gideon Raphael Montoya-Prince and I accept, I consent to signing the marriage certificate with him before this deadline.”

Placing the paper on the desk before him, he spun it to face the woman and tapped the bottom. “Sign and date.”

“I’m a contract lawyer,” Francine said. “What if I don’t sign?”

His gaze rose abruptly. “Then you’ll be turned away.”

Her hand jutted toward him. “Pen.”

As she signed, the door opened and another frowning woman, clutching an emerald necklace, emerged. A man, dressed in livery, poked his head out. “Next.”

Francine went inside.

As the woman clutching the emeralds passed Cin and the Steps, Yl tapped her arm. “How was it?”

The woman stopped and transferred her frown to Yl. “I’m not…look, I can’t talk about it.”

“Can you tell us who was in there?” Ez asked.

“Prince. A footman. A couple witnesses from the Prince Industry board.” She shook her head. “I have to go.”

The line continued to move quickly. Soon, the man at the desk called out their names. “Ezmrelda, Ylanda, and Cinderella Wikkid.”

Cin’s whole body trembled, as if she suddenly stood at the precipice of a cliff.

The man set out three pages, turned to face Cin and her stepsisters. He rattled off the contract so fast she could barely understand him, but they were the last three, and it was nearly midnight.

“Why are you including them?” As Ez signed, she jerked her chin at Cin and Yl.

“Family members go in together.”

“But I get to go first, right?” She twitched a narrow, cutting gaze at Cin, who, even after all this time, was wearily surprised at the daggers in her eyes. “Obviously, since I’m oldest, I get first dibs on Prince…I mean, the first chance at Prince…I mean, first chance to complete the challenge.”

The man raised one brow, but his voice was perfectly bland as he answered, “The order will be up to Mr. Prince.”

The door opened. The woman before them came out, glancing over her shoulder, brows scrunched like all the others. Confused, as if either she didn’t understand why she’d failed the test—or maybe didn’t even know what the test had been.

The liveried man waved at the three of them. “Enter.”

Cin’s heart beat harder in her ribcage as the man ushered them past a pair of older gentlemen sitting beside the door, the Board witnesses, into Gideon Prince’s presence.

And it definitely was Gideon Raphael Montoya-Prince who stood so regally at the other end of the vast room, straight and tall in front of a larger-than-life-size painting. The rich oil was a family group, an older couple resplendent in fine clothes, the woman’s jewelry discreet but obviously expensive, the young, dark-haired, blue-eyed boy between them just as obviously their cherished son and heir.

With a shiver of premonition, Cin’s gaze was drawn to the boy. The artist hadn’t quite captured the cobalt of Rafe’s eyes, but he’d come close.

“Ezmrelda Wikkid.” Gideon Prince’s deep voice—Cin had a hard time thinking of this man as Rafe—held that commanding quality she’d heard before. Her shivers intensified. The mastery in his voice, memory of those deep tones as he pleasured her, then used her own integrity against her, buffeted her with feelings she couldn’t name, excitement or terror or maybe both.

Ez stepped forward with a charming smile. “I’m the perfect wife for you, as I’m sure you’ll see—”

“Ms. Wikkid.” Prince’s flat tone cut off whatever gracious speech Ez had prepared. “I have an offer for you.”

A marriage proposal, already?
Cin’s thudding heart dropped into her stomach. Just because she couldn’t marry this man didn’t mean she wanted to have to see another woman win him.

Ez shot a triumphant glance at Yl and Cin.

Was this why he’d asked her to stand in line? Distress stabbed her, nearly folding her in two.
Please tell me I don’t have to witness his asking my stepsister to marry him.

He gestured behind him. “Pick one of these, and tell me why you’ve selected it. Whether you win the challenge or not, you can keep the item.”

He stepped aside to reveal a table standing below the painting, white silk cloth bearing three objects.

First was a bouquet of a dozen gorgeous red roses.

Second was a coronet of diamonds.

Third was a simple glass slipper.

Cin blinked. The slipper teased her memory.

Ez stepped confidently to the table. “I pick the crown.” She lifted it and set it on her head. “Your wife will obviously have to rule your social set, and this is the symbol. And yes, I will be your wife.”

But Prince sadly shook his head. “Thank you for coming, but you have not passed.” As Ez reared back in offended surprise, he reached under the table and pulled out a jeweler’s box, opening it as he set it out, replacing the crown with a pair of sapphire earrings. Then he turned front again.

“Ylanda Wikkid, step forward and make your choice.”

Yl gave him a coy smile and sashayed to the table. “Well, obviously you don’t want a wife who is marrying you only for your money.” She pointed at the bouquet. “I choose the roses, and await the sweet words of love you will give me to go with them.” She simpered at him.

Prince picked up the bouquet.

Cin’s heart plummeted again. Yl’s hands joined and thunked against her breastbone, clasped over her heart in the perfect picture of adoring young bride-to-be.

But he handed them to her with another shake of his head. “I am a man of few words and will offer even my bride none of love. Your sister was closer with her reason. The symbol is important.” He threaded the bouquet bottom through Yl’s hands and turned back to the table, to replace the roses with a posy of violets.

“This isn’t fair.” Ez cut angry eyes at Cin. “There’s only one answer left. We know it’s the glass slipper.”

“She’s right, Prince.”

Cin jumped. The well-bred voice had come from the back of the room. She twisted to look.

Both silver-haired men scowled at her as if she was trash about to steal all the valuables and loose change. But she knew which had spoken—the one in tails and white tie, stabbing a bony finger at her. She swallowed hard and turned front.

The man went on, “Having the other two go first was a mistake. They gave away the answer to that one.” His snide, scornful tone made Cin’s stomach contract painfully.

“Perhaps,” Prince murmured. “She knows which. But does she know
why?
” He turned suddenly to the stepsisters, expression sharp. “Do
you
know why? Go on, Ezmrelda Wikkid. I’ll give you what I haven’t given any of the others—a second chance.”

“Well, of course I know why,” Ez sputtered. “It’s like the Princess and the Pea. Only your Princess’s dainty foot will fit.” She strode to the table, picked up the slipper, and tried it on.

Her toes slid in but her heel didn’t fit. Her foot was too long.

“Me, me!” Yl grabbed the fragile slipper from her, and for a moment, Cin was afraid it would break. But Yl wrestled the thing away from Ez, measured it against her foot and crowed when it was obvious hers was short enough. She popped it on her toes—and only managed to fit four. Her foot was too wide.

Prince bent and plucked the slipper from Yl’s foot. “Even if the shoe fit, that wasn’t the reason.” Straightening, he set the glass slipper on the table then turned to Cin and skewered her with his hard blue gaze. “Cinderella Wikkid. Choose.”