Page 60 of Some Like It Royal

Personally, she didn’t care where they were going. With the craziness of the wedding plans, the Takahashi contract and the recently announced European deals, she and Daniel hadn’t had five minutes alone together. Armand insisted they spend the night before the wedding apart and he’d hosted her at his recently acquired Petersburg Tower along with the rest of the family, including two dowager aunts, a haphazard collection of cousins and his brothers.

He’d given her a ring for Daniel—she could give it to him after the ceremony. Like her necklace, it carried the family crest and declared him an official member of the Andraste royal family. From blue-collar billionaire to member of the pedigree’d elite, who would have imagined that a random dinner appointment with his attorney would have sat them in her station and led to this day?

“Are you ready, beautiful cousin?” Armand stood in the doorway. She could hear the first stirrings of the music as Rhonda and Lucy preceded her up the aisle.

She exhaled and he held out his arm. So much pomp and circumstance, but none of it mattered. Armand guided her down the hallway and the double doors to the chapel opened. Inside the guests stood and a single photographer, one approved by the family and vetted by Daniel, took her picture. The first bars of the wedding march echoed through the chapel, but Alyx heard none of it.

Standing at the end of that long walk was the sun god who woke her from a long and lonely sleep. She forced Armand to pick up the pace.

She couldn’t wait for their happily ever after.

Epilogue

ALYX

Andraste Grand Duke Armand walked his recently discovered cousin, the Grand Duchess Alyxandretta, down the aisle in Sacramento today. Royal watchers from around the world flooded the city and jammed up YouTube with impromptu video coverage after the family declined to air the wedding on national television. While not invited to the wedding itself, the First Lady and the vice president were invited to the reception along with some two thousand other dignitaries.

The happy couple includes groom Daniel Voldakov, a self-made billionaire and sole owner of Spherecast Technologies. The software giant employs nearly seven hundred people in the Los Angeles area. The fairy tale love story for Grand Duchess will be the subject of a cable movie,The Billionaire and his Pauper Princess. It’s rumored that the grand duchess herself will have a role in the film.

In the meanwhile, royal hopefuls have their eye on the playboy Grand Duke Armand. He broke up with his on-again-off-again girlfriend, model Nikole duMonde, last month in Monte Carlo. We have to wonder if his cousin’s nuptials gave the model ideas and the confirmed bachelor sought to curb her chances at catching the bouquet.

So, which lucky lady will catch his eye next? We can only standby for further developments.

Back to you, Bob.

“What lucky ladywill catch his eye next?” Alyx laughed as she clicked off the entertainment report. “After all the cameras outside the hotel, I thinkthatlucky lady would have to want to live under a microscope to set her sights on him.”

“Hmm, possibly.” They were sprawled in the room of their borrowed Napa estate. Daniel, with Armand and Victor’s help, led the paparazzi on a merry chase. The press thought they were flying out, but instead, they’d driven off in Alyx’s old car of all things.

While everyone searched for a limousine, they’d made their escape in the ten-year-old Volvo.

Daniel traced a finger down her bare leg. “Any regrets?”

She glanced at him, then the crest ring he’d slid on next to his wedding ring. “None. You?”

“Yes.” He nodded solemnly.

Worry bloomed in her chest. He’d insisted on a fast wedding, splitting the difference with her family for six months, rather than their traditional one-year engagement.

She’d been tempted to toss the whole lot, but after seeing how much Armand enjoyed giving her away, and the faces of those friends that were near and dear to them, she’d been satisfied with the choice. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re still sitting at the end of the bed, when I have all this wonderful room up here.”

“Mean,” Alyx accused, laughter writhing through the anxiety. She grabbed a pillow and pounced forward, swinging.

“Foul!” He roared playfully and swatted her with a pillow of his own. They beat on each other until his pillow exploded and he cried mercy. But her moment of triumph was short-lived as he swept her down onto the bed and pinned her in a scorching kiss.

Breathlessly she stared up at him and then pinched his shoulder.

“Ow.” He grinned. “What did I do?”

“Everything. I just have to keep reminding myself that you’re real.”

“Oh, I’m definitely real.” He kissed her again as if to prove his point. “And if you keep pinching me, I won’t give you your wedding present.”

“You got me a present?”

“Hmm-hmm.” He grinned and rolled over to open the bedside drawer. She didn’t know when he’d secreted the present in, but she sat up to accept the flat package wrapped in red and gold foil. No name tag or bow offset the plain elegance of the wrap.

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