Page 121 of My Queendom for a Horse

“I guess I’ll take your word for it.” But the second I sink down into the plush leather of the first class seat, which should really be called a bed, I resolve never to question him again. “This is amazing.”

“Think your father would object?” Aleks reaches over slowly and covers my hand with his. “I mean, we’re awfully close here, and we’re reclining.” He lifts his eyebrows. “There’s no telling what I might do to you.”

“Aleks,” I hiss. Then I cut my eyes toward the flight attendant walking past.

He yanks the curtain next to his seat sideways and suddenly we’re in our own little private area.

I giggle. “My father most certainly would not approve.”

“Is this a bad time for me to ask you about that heart diamond?” He frowns. “The one that Sean’s father wants you to return?”

I blink. “Um, a bad time?”

“I heard what he said—he came over to congratulate you, but also to ask you to return a gift.” He shakes his head. “Horribly tacky.”

“Why?” I ask. “When you dumped your many girlfriends, you never asked any of them to return a particularly lovely gemstone?”

His fingers gently stroke the top of my hand. “I never liked any of the women I knew well enough to call them my girlfriend.”

“Oh?” Something about that makes me uneasy. “And you still don’t?”

He twists my hand over then, intertwining our fingers. “I don’t like you well enough, no.” His voice drops even lower then. “Because I love you, Kristiana Liepa.”

My heart skips more than just a beat. It skips all the way around the corner. “You do?”

“I love your laugh. I love your smile. I love your lower lip. I love the way your hair always gets a little fuzzy when you’re riding and the way you brush it back from your face. I love the way you hum to yourself when you’re preoccupied, and it’s never on key, but you don’t seem to notice.”

I swat at him with my free hand. “Stop.”

“You are everything I didn’t know I wanted, and now that I’ve found you, I would never, ever ask you to return anything. If you dumped me, I’d follow you around pathetically, begging. I’d bury you in heart-shaped diamonds.”

I’m laughing now. “Would you?”

“In fact.” He releases my hand, pivots a bit, and drops to one knee. “I did some research, and I know your mother’s American. It’s a little unclear what they do in Latvia, but in America, the men get on one knee to do this for some reason.”

Maybe the plane’s circulation system is malfunctioning, because I suddenly can’t breathe.

“Zaychonuk, I know your dad won’t be pleased. I know Sean will probably cry all night when he hears, and I realized recently that even your stupid jockey friend who rode me the day we met likes you. Every guy around you falls prey to your honest charms, and I’m no different. But please, pick me anyway. Be mine forever.”

I swallow.

He pulls something out of his pocket. It’s not a box. It’s not a bag. It’s a tiny, platinum band, with a huge, pale blue stone set on top of it. It sparkles like a clear lake on a sunny day.

“I need to explain something before you answer me,” he says. “You mentioned past girlfriends, and I think I’ve failed to make something clear.”

“Okay.”

He’s still kneeling, as if it doesn’t bother him at all, even with the plane’s turbulence. “I’ve been alive for quite some time now, and I’ve met a lot of women. I’ve also found quite a lot of stones in my lifetime. Most of them, like the women, were quite beautiful. In fact, each was unique in its own way. The amber I found for you had a butterfly inside of it. Diamonds sparkle in ways that the entire world recognizes as spectacular. I was able to buy your land from you by locating exquisite and rare demantoid garnets on your own property. I also located garnets you had never even noticed were present, they were buried so far beneath the earth.”

“But—”

He holds up the ring. “But this stone can’t be found anywhere on earth, other than a few select mines in India, South Africa, and Australia. This one, specifically, came from India, because it was the closest to me.”

“Wait, you found it?”

“Blue diamonds sell for almost four million US dollars per carat. I did some research and found that this was the single most expensive stone in the world. Of course you needed the largest one that could be found with the most impeccable purity and clarity.”

My jaw drops.

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