Page 52 of The Unwanted Wife

Zoey’s face bursts into a big smile. She nudges Grace, who’s staring at her phone. She looks up, then over her shoulder, and her features soften. "You got this," she mouths to me.

I smile, feeling tears form behind my eyes. I sniff, and Imelda squeezes my arm. We pass by the row with Summer and Sinclair, who has his arm about her. Next to them, is a couple I don’t recognize. I don’t know the couple seated in front of them, either. They must be Nathan’s friends.

On the opposite side of the aisle are his half-brothers. Knox nods in my direction, before looking forward. One of his brothers, who wears specs, flashes me a smile. His other two brothers, however, wear bored expressions. One of them yawns as I pass. The other glowers at something in the distance. Apparently, he’s angry about the world, in general. Jeez, these men take tall, dark and grumpy to another level. It’s clear they’d rather be anywhere else but here.

A slight breeze blows in from the open flap that frames the beach. Nate’s other half-brother, Edward—who used to be a priest, and who agreed to officiate the wedding, and who I met today when he came to introduce himself in the other tent—beams at me. Facing him, with his back toward me, is my future husband. I take a step forward and he stiffens. Then, as if sensing my perusal, he turns to look at me.

28

Nathan

"You may kiss the bride."

My muscles relax, and I frame her face with my palms. She looks up at me with a dazed expression that mirrors how I feel inside.

Throughout the ceremony, a sense of being disassociated from my body, of looking down at the proceedings from afar, engulfed me. Luckily, it’s a small crowd, the noise from them minimal, yet enough that when they fell silent, I knew she’d entered the tent. It might also have to do with the ripple of awareness that swept up my spine.

I turned to face her and had my first sight of my wife-to-be. She was clad in a form-fitting, cream-colored gown that hinted at her cleavage, nipped in at her waist, and outlined her lush thighs, before sweeping down to her feet. As she approached me, I took in her thick blonde hair flowing around her shoulders, her glowing skin, her pink cheeks, and when she came to a halt in front of me, I couldn’t look away from her sparkling eyes.

She is stunning.

My heart skips a beat, and I know. I’ve been fooling myself. I'm in love with her. Possibly have been since I kissed her the day she turned eighteen. I knew she was going to be my wife from the second I laid eyes on her. My wife. This elaborate setup of offering to rescue her bakery in return for her marrying me, is because I'm a coward. I couldn’t risk her turning me down, not after how I walked away from her the first time. So instead, I used her circumstances to ensure she couldn’t say no to marrying me.

"My wife," I whisper against her lips. Her green eyes lighten. Her chest rises and falls. There’s so much emotion in them, so much feeling… So much I haven’t shared with her. What complicated situations we weave in the name of love. It’s because I love her that I did all of this. It’s because I’m never letting go of her that I found a way to bind her to me forever.

I may have fooled myself by saying this arrangement was temporary. That I was marrying her to please my grandfather and consolidate my position in the company. That, once I was confirmed as the CEO, I’d destroy Arthur’s legacy and the future of my half-brothers and walk away from her. The former, I’m close to delivering on. The latter? It's just an elaborate lie I told myself.

She's my past. My present. My future. She's everything. She's mine.

"Mine."

I close my mouth over hers and kiss her. And she melts into me. She parts her lips and lets me take from her. She opens herself up and lets me taste her sweetness, her willingness, her complete acceptance. Her body bends to mine. I wrap my arm about her waist; with the other, I hold her chin in place as I plunder her mouth. And she lets me.

She moans in her throat, and that little sound turns my need into a raging inferno. My thighs are hard, my cock so turgid, it’s a wonder I haven’t stabbed through the crotch of my pants. It’s the agony in my loins which forces me to raise my head. I stare into her flushed features, her closed eyelids, the way her eyelashes fan against her cheekbones. "Open your eyes and look at me, wife," I growl.

She flutters open her eyelids, and her dilated pupils tell me she’s as aroused as I am. I want to scoop her up in my arms, tell everyone here to fuck off, take her home and make love to her. I want to show her I'm the man for her. I want to imprint myself so deeply into her body, her mind, her soul, to absorb her emotions and turn them into my own, to wring enough orgasms from her that she’ll never forget how it feels to have my cock inside her, my fingers marking her skin, my teeth, my mouth biting down on that curve of where her throat meets her shoulder, so everyone knows she belongs to me.

I want to… Bend her over and fuck her, take all of her virgin holes. I want to… Make sweet love to her and paint my name across her skin with my cum. I want to fuck her so thoroughly, she’ll never want to be with another man.

That’s right, be selfish again. Think only of yourself. Your needs, your wants, how you cannot hold yourself back anymore. How you’re going to break her heart. How she’ll never forgive you when she finds out the truth.

I release her and step back. When she sways, I right her with a hold on her shoulder. And when I know she can stand on her own, I grab her hand and turn to face my family and our friends. I ignore the bewilderment on her face and nod at my grandfather, who’s the first to reach us.

"Congratulations." He takes her hands in his and kisses her knuckles. Anger flushes my chest. Possessiveness is a demon that holds me in thrall. My guts twist. I can’t stop myself from putting my arm about her waist and drawing her close.

"Well done." He turns to me. "This might be the first sensible thing you’ve done in your life."

No kidding.

"What an amazing ceremony!" The redheaded woman throws her arms about my wife—my wife—and kisses her on both cheeks. My wife hugs her back. "Oh, my god, you look so beautiful." The redhead sniffs.

"Couldn’t have done it without you, Zoey." My wife smiles, then turns to me. "This is my husband, Nathan Davenport."

"Zoey Malfoy"—she holds out her hand—"no connection to Draco."

I look from her to my wife. "Isn’t that the surname of Harry Potter’s arch enemy?"

My wife gasps. Zoey stares at me with big eyes, then she clutches my wife’s arm. "D-does he know who Draco is?"

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