Chapter 113

"Will you marry me?"

Cassandra stared down at him, stunned.

Her eyes widened, her lips parting as she struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. Draven Montague, Duke of Norham, one of the most powerful men in Arden, was kneeling before her with a ring held between them and looking at her as though there were nowhere else in the world he would rather be.

"Draven..." She was short of words.

Even his name on her lips sounded uncertain.

As a girl, Cassandra had loved stories about powerful lords who fell hopelessly in love with their heroines. She and Lillian would giggle as they recounted the grand declarations of affection they had read in their favorite books, lingering over the most romantic scenes as though they were sharing some delicious secret.

Back then, Cassandra had imagined herself as one of those heroines. She would picture herself standing beneath the chandeliers of some magnificent ballroom, while a powerful man knelt before her and declared his undying love for her.

It had seemed so wonderfully possible then, so natural that one day such a romance might find her.

But as she grew older, those fanciful imaginings slowly faded. The stories remained on the shelves, but Cassandra no longer saw herself in them. Fairy-tale romances belonged to naive girls.

By the time she became a woman, such things had fallen far beyond the boundaries of what she considered possible.

Even John, who had once pretended to love her, had never knelt before her when he proposed.

He had simply taken the ring he had chosen for her, slipped it onto her finger, and then grinned down at her hand as though the sight of the ring there were some great accomplishment.

And Cassandra had accepted it because that was what she had expected.

And yet Draven had knelt before her.

He had done the very thing she had once dreamed of as a girl. Only he wasn’t confessing his undying love, he was simply fulfilling the next step of their arrangement.

That final thought was all it took to snap back her senses.

"There is no need for you to do all that, I assure you." Cassandra said and she was proud of how confident she sounded.

She reached for the box so she could take the ring and slide it on her finger. But Draven must have anticipated it, moving the box away from her reach just in time before she could.

Draven must have seen the confusion and shock written plainly across her face because his features softened. He reached for her hand, taking her left hand gently between his fingers.

Cassandra barely had time to understand what he intended before he removed the ring from its leather case.

He slid it carefully onto her finger.

It fitted perfectly.

Draven looked up at her, and that beautiful, charming smile appeared—the very smile that had an infuriating habit of making her stomach flutter whenever he directed it at her.

"A perfect fit," he murmured. "It must be serendipitous."

He liked her hands. A sculptor might call them artfully formed.

Her hand was soft and slender in his. He had never seen hands as beautiful as hers and he could hardly look away now that she wore his ring.

It made him entertain thoughts he usually wouldn’t. Dangerous thoughts, ones where he made her his forever.

Cassandra could not help the heat that rushed into her cheeks

The warmth spread quickly, creeping down her neck as she looked at the ring and then back at him, acutely conscious of the fact that his fingers were still wrapped around hers.

She tried to pull her hand free, unsure how to handle such a gesture from someone that was only supposed to be a business partner. He eventually realized her hand but he did so reluctantly.

But she wasn’t free for long.

Draven rose to his feet and once he was standing before her again, he took both of her hands in his.

His hands were large, warm and firm around hers, and Cassandra became embarrassingly aware of how much she liked the feeling of them.

She liked the warmth of them against her skin, the strength in his grip, the way his fingers seemed to enfold hers so naturally.

And, to her own annoyance, she found herself wishing he would hold her hand more often.

That was an entirely ridiculous thought.

He was her business partner.

Her future husband, technically, but only because they had entered into an arrangement that benefited them both. Whatever affection existed between them was supposed to remain within reasonable boundaries. Feelings had never been part of the agreement.

They could not be.

Cassandra lifted her gaze to him as he pressed a tender kiss to each of her palms in turn.

"I am very happy," Draven said quietly, "that despite the nature of our agreement, I shall have the pleasure of calling you my fiancée."

Something in the sincerity of his voice made her chest tighten.

She swallowed. "I feel the same."

It was the safest answer she could give.

Yet even as the words left her mouth, she knew there was another truth beneath them that she would never say aloud.

She could not imagine having made this arrangement with anyone else.

Of all the men she could have chosen, Draven was the only one she would have trusted with it. He was intelligent, capable and honourable. He had treated her with kindness when he had no obligation to do so, respected her decisions and never attempted to make her feel insignificant.

He was, in every possible sense, the best man she could have chosen for this arrangement.

That was all it was. It had to be.

There was no teasing amusement in his eyes now, nor the easy charm he sometimes used when he wished to make her laugh. The blue of his eyes seemed deeper than she remembered, the colour darkening until they appeared almost black in the fading light.

He looked... Cassandra’s thoughts faltered.

Mesmerizing.

She could not remember the last time she looked at a man and found herself so completely unable to look away.

Their gazes remained locked.

She felt almost spellbound by him, caught beneath the intensity of his attention as though some invisible force had made it impossible for her to move.

Then his eyes dropped. Slowly.

To her lips.

Cassandra’s breath caught.

The change was so subtle, yet she felt it immediately. Something seemed to hum between them.

The air itself felt different, crackling with unresolved tension.

She became acutely conscious of how close he was, of the heat radiating off him, of the way his gaze lingered upon her mouth.

A strange urge formed low in her stomach, something she had spent a great deal of time insisting did not exist. There was no undoing it now that she recognized what it was.

Attraction.

She could feel it now, this mind-bending attraction. So sudden and overwhelming, she could get drunk on the feeling.

Cassandra’s heart gave a nervous flutter.

No. She could not go there.

Those feelings were too dangerous to entertain. She tried it once already and look how that ended.

She had already learned what happened when she trusted a man with her heart, and she would not willingly place herself in such a vulnerable position again.

Yet Draven continued looking at her as though he could see through every carefully constructed wall she had built around herself.

Then she felt it. A prickle of awareness at the back of her neck.

Someone was watching them.

Cassandra’s attention snapped away from Draven. She turned her head and swept her gaze across the gardens, searching the surrounding paths and terraces.

At first she saw nothing. After a while, her eyes travelled upward toward the main palace building.

One of the balconies overlooking this portion of the gardens caught her attention.

Someone was standing there.

Cassandra narrowed her eyes.

The distance made the woman’s features difficult to distinguish, but the auburn hair and familiar build hinted at who it might be.

The Queen.

And, as if the sight of Her Majesty standing on a palace balcony were not incriminating enough, Cassandra soon noticed what she was holding. A pair of spy glasses.

The Queen had them raised to her eyes, apparently determined to obtain a far better view of whatever was happening below.

For several seconds, she could do nothing but look at her.

Of course the Queen was spying on them.

She had spent weeks trying to convince Cassandra that Draven was a suitable suitor, and even longer attempting to arrange matches with others.

Now, apparently, the Queen had decided that a private proposal in the palace gardens was an occasion she simply could not afford to miss.

Cassandra shook her head at her and clicked her tongue in disapproval.

Draven chuckled as he followed her gaze and spotted Delphine.

"Don’t laugh. You will only encourage her," Cassandra chastised him.

She could not make out the Queen’s expression clearly from where she stood, but she could almost picture the satisfaction on her face.

Her Majesty was probably gloating.

After all the matchmaking and relentless teasing, Cassandra was now standing in there with Draven’s ring on her finger.

The Queen had won.