Page 69 of Partnering with the Artist

His hesitant smile makes me wish I knew how to paint.

Carefully, he combs his fingers into my hair, grips, and baresmy throat to him. My body melts against his kisses until heat suffuses my every inch. “Do you believe in soulmates, Maelin?” he asks, nipping my jaw.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Some people you just mesh with, and it’s immediate. Some people your heart just seems to…know.”

“I haven’t been able to get you out of my head for a single moment since we met.” His mouth closes over mine, tasting, teasing, learning. He breaks the connection before I’m ready. “I cannot promise feelings. You know that. I’ve told you. But we are compatible in our beliefs and aspirations. I possess a strong sense of duty and justice.” He dips me back, plants me in a mound of pillows. “I’m a good listener. I know how to act around the people I care for, to show them I care, to show them Ilovethem, whether I feel it or justknow.”

“What are you saying?” I ask, breathless.

“I love you, Maelin. I know I do. People piss me off so easily so often. It’s rare I find one I can tolerate. But I’ve not had to tolerate you. The hours we’ve spent together every day over these past weeks would wear me thin even if I were spending that much time with any of my brothers. But with you? I haven’t tolerated a moment. You make me laugh. You surprise me. You are quiet when I need you to be, and you fill the silence when I need to hear anything but my own thoughts. I don’t know how you do it. I just know I have been hanging on your every word since the first one you spoke to me. You are so…sobeautiful. You have claimed my soul.” He traces the line of my cheek bone under my eye, up, and around my ear. “If, after the Creator’s Ball when you see your ex again, you decide you sincerely don’t mind my company… If you can tell in your heart that you care for me not just because I offer above the bare minimum you have known…please.” His forehead rests against mine. “Marry me. That very same day. Outside. Here. In the middle of the night. With the moon reflecting on your skin. Beneath the glitter of thestars. You wrote down that you didn’t care for a wedding…so…please. We don’t need one. Just say you’ll be mine.”

Marry him…in…two weeks?

I swallow the buzz clouding my brain and strive for logic and ration. Marry him. Marry this man I’ve known for a matter of weeks after I’ll have only known him for a little over a month?

Without a wedding.

Without pretense, or forethought, or planning beyondI do?

“My parents,” I say. “You need to meet them before we get married. And I want them and my sister to be at our vows, wherever we take them. It all depends on if they approve.”

“I will beg on my knees for you if that is what it takes.”

That is highly unlikely to be necessary, but I do greatly appreciate the sentiment.

“Is this a tentativeyes?” he asks.

I wet my lips, and I want it to be. I really, really want it to be. I want to trust everything he’s shown me, everything he’s said, everything he’s done. I want to know that all the beautiful parts of him that leave me feeling secure aren’t just his efforts to woo me. I want to know that this, simply, ishim.

I don’t want my desperation to make me stupid again.

I have wanted to get married and be loved ever since I was a little girl. I have always wanted to have someone to callmy person. I just never thought the one I assumed would take that role would betray me. I never knew how blind a person could be in an effort to obtain their dreams.

So, I say, “We’ll see what my parents think of you, okay?”

He stiffens, but nods, and repeats, “I will beg. Whatever it takes. Because I have decided to love you. And I do not make such decisions lightly.”

Somehow, having someonedecideto love me means so much more than when it justhappens. “Zakery,” I whisper.

“Yes, princess?” he implores.

“If my parents approve, I, too, will decide to love you.”

Chapter 25

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Nothing like a little breakdown to spice up the a.m.

Zakery

In most tales of fantasy and high stakes, there comes a point in the story where the hero must face off against the grand villain who has—throughout the entirety of the tale—made his presence known in large or small ways. Oftentimes, however, that grand villain might be obscured beneath the façade of some other, who ultimately does not matter at all.

When I met Maelin, Harry seemed to be the grand villain. We even concocted a great plot to be his undoing.

Oh, how naive I have been.

Feverishly, I work, half delirious, half panicked. Lines fill my canvases, storyboards of wondrous adventure, outcasts, found family. It’s the only thing I can do to keep my mind off Maelin.

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