Page 126 of Spearcrest Prince

Not someone. Anaïs.

She’s wearing a strappy satin jumpsuit in bright green. The trousers are so wide they almost look like a skirt, flowing around her long legs. Her hair is loose—it’s grown since I first met her, long past her shoulders now. She looks radiant and earthy, like some elusive forest nymph.

I stand up and stride to the trees. Creeping up behind her, I lean down to kiss her bare shoulder. Without turning around, she reaches up to brush her fingertips through my hair.

“You never told me Iakov speaks Japanese,” she says when I stand next to her.

“That’s because I didn’t know.” I wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her to me possessively. “Why? You’re not considering bringing him to Japan instead of me, are you?”

“I don’t know,” she says sweetly. “Iakov, how do you feel about Japan?”

“Kav—don’t.” I glare at him.

“I’ve already been,” he says.

“You have?” My eyes widen as I look at him. Iakov is someone I would trust with my life—but it looks like I barely know anything about him. “When?”

He shrugs. “I’ve been multiple times.”

“Well, you’re always welcome to visit us in Kyoto,” Anaïs says.

Iakov laughs a low, sinister laugh, fixing me with a look. “Don’t worry, Sev. I won’t crash your honeymoon.”

Although both Anaïs and I laugh, my heart stumbles at the thought.

When my parents first told me I was officially engaged to Anaïs Nishihara, the heiress to the Nishihara billionaires, I was so busy being angry that I never imagined what that might actually be like.

Not some forced engagement between two pawns in some financial game, but a proper engagement. A ring on her finger, or around her neck. Kisses and sex—not the transactional hotel sex of two people meeting for an exchange of orgasm, but something different. Sex with someone I want in my bed even after we both come.

The future always seemed so vague and far away to me before. I suppose I never planned for it.

But when I picture the future now, it’s as clear as a photograph in my mind. It’s Anaïs in some outrageous outfit and ochre socks, flecks of paint freckling her cheeks, turning our flat into an art studio. It’s tender morning sex on lazy Sundays, followed by croissants and coffee. It’s Anaïs and me in Japan, in France—anywhere, just together.

And I can picture so much more.

I can picture her in a wedding dress—no boring bridal white, and she’d probably wear trainers just because it would be more comfortable. A honeymoon spent somewhere full of colour and nature. It’s my face between her legs in golden sunlight, her moans drowning out the sound of heavy tropical rain. It’s her radiant face and the thousands of kisses I plan to rain on it.

My heart feels full enough to explode, and I suddenly grab Anaïs, holding her tight. Iakov flicks his cigarette butt to the ground and stomps on it.

“For fuck’s sake,” he grunts. “Get a grip.”

But there’s affection and amusement in his tone, and he winks at me as he walks away. I take Anaïs’s face in my hands. The hazy light of dusk makes her face glow like a star.

“Petite étoile,” I say, gazing into her eyes.

“That’s what Noël calls me,” she says with surprise.

“I know. It suits you.”

“Does that mean I’m no longer your trésor?”

“No, it doesn’t.Tu seras toujours mon trésor. Le trésor de ma vie, de mon corps, de mon cœur.”

“How poetic,” she murmurs, pouting thoughtfully. “Who would have thought you would be such a hopeless romantic?”

I squeeze her cheeks, mushing her face together. “Don’t make fun of me.”

She pokes out her tongue. “Don’t make it so easy, then.”

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