As they posed for the photographer, Daphne couldn’t help noticing that something wasn’t quite right about her fiancé’s expression, as if he was smiling a little too hard.
That was when she felt the touch of Ethan’s gaze on her.
It had always been like that: no matter how many people surrounded them, she would sense Ethan looking at her, and their eyes would meet. And for a moment Daphne would forget where she was—a high school campus, a crowded royal gala, her own rehearsal dinner—because the way Ethan was looking at her seemed to draw her into a separate place, a temporary room of his own creation.
As their eyes met, Daphne realized with sudden, bitter clarity what was wrong about Jefferson’s speech.
St. Ursula’s wasn’t where she and Jefferson had first spoken; it was where she and Ethan had.
* * *
Later, a knock sounded at her suite at the Monmouth Hotel. Daphne went to the door, expecting another delivery of flowers or perhaps a last-minute message from the event planners—and her heart skipped a beat.
“Ethan!” she hissed, tugging him quickly inside. “What are you doing here?”
He was still wearing his tuxedo from the rehearsal dinner, though he’d untied his bow tie the way Jefferson always did, letting it hang jauntily from beneath the corners of his collar. It made Daphne self-conscious about the fact that she was already in her pajamas, her hair falling in loose waves down her back.
“You sent a text that said, ‘Come find me,’ ” Ethan reminded her. “I tried calling, but you didn’t pick up.”
Daphne glanced at her phone. She’d forgotten it was on silent.
He glanced around the suite: at the sleek grand piano in the living room, the kitchenette full of unopened gift baskets, the flower arrangements on nearly every surface. In one corner hung an enormous calendar, which was really just a poster of the entire week with Daphne’s schedule broken into ten-minute increments.
“Remind me why you’re staying here instead of at your house?”
“Jefferson’s mother offered to host me and my parents at the hotel for the week, and I figured, why not? It’s so much more convenient than being at home. So much closer to all the events,” she said tersely.
“Right.”
From the way Ethan looked at her, Daphne knew he understood the real reason she was here. She couldn’t stand to be in her high school bedroom anymore, filled with stale and painful memories. If she was about to become a princess, she wanted a fresh start.
He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I just thought you’d want to know that Gabriella’s dad was taken in for questioning.”
“That’s why I texted!” she cried out, remembering the reason she’d messaged Ethan in the first place. She quickly recounted how she’d confronted Gabriella and negotiated a truce.
A shadow passed over Ethan’s face. “Sounds like you’re in the clear. Your epic royal wedding can happen, exactly as you’ve always dreamed.”
“Exactly,” Daphne replied, though the word didn’t come out as definitive as it should.
Ethan started toward the door. She knew it was best that he leave: walk away from her for the very last time, all their plots and schemes and sexual tension firmly in the past. Where it all belonged.
His hand was on the doorknob when she blurted out, “Ethan—did you write the toast that Jefferson gave tonight?”
Ethan’s hand fell to his side, and his eyes flicked back toward hers. “It’s not that big a deal,” he muttered.
“It is to me.”
“Jeff asked for my help, the same way he asked me to edit his English papers in high school. He was struggling to articulate his feelings for you,” Ethan said gruffly. “So I helped him put it all into words.”
Except that speech wasn’t what Jefferson felt at all; it was what Ethan felt.
These thoughts were dangerous, combustible, and Daphne knew she shouldn’t engage with them.
Instead she said, “It was a beautiful toast. You know me so well.”
A charge sizzled in the air between them. Daphne felt longing and fear battling inside her. She thought of everything she and Ethan had shared—and everything they would never get the chance to. The only time they had held hands in public was at that theme park, when Daphne’s face was hidden behind a mask. God, they had never even been on a date.
When she next spoke, Daphne chose her words very carefully.
“You know me,” she said again, “better than Jefferson ever will.”
Unexpected hurt flashed over Ethan’s face. “That isn’t fair, Daphne.”
“What?” She realized, dimly, that she’d told him the same thing not long ago—that he wasn’t being fair, coming back from Malaysia and ruining everything.
“I’m not a prince! I will never have Jeff’s titles or wealth or position. I will never be as famous or as well liked as he is. I will never be able to give you all of this.” Ethan threw out a hand to indicate the suite, the wedding gifts, the clothes. His face was angry and anguished at once. “I’m not the hero of this story, and I never have been. I’m just a secondary character who failed to get the girl.”
They were poised on the precipice of something dangerous and wild. Daphne knew that she could still send Ethan home, pretend none of this had ever happened.
Her eyes closed as she let her desire for Ethan flood through her. She’d been holding it in for months, for years, letting it gather inside her slowly, like smoke in a burning building.
Jefferson and the wedding felt distant and unimportant, a future that belonged to someone else.
She felt Ethan startle when she stepped forward and kissed him. Some part of her was glad to know she was still capable of surprising him.
Then Ethan’s hands were in her hair and he was kissing her back, and it was nothing like kissing Jefferson. It was the type of kiss that would keep her lying awake at night for weeks afterward, replaying it; the type of kiss that sent currents of hunger swirling through her body. Dimly, Daphne wondered why they hadn’t been doing this from the beginning, instead of wasting months—years—antagonizing each other.
She broke away impatiently and tugged Ethan toward the bedroom. Still, he hesitated.
“Daphne…are you—”
“Yes.” She cut him off with another kiss.
Daphne knew she was risking everything she had worked so hard for. But none of that seemed to weigh anything right now.
Without breaking the kiss, Ethan scooped her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom, then deposited her onto the crisp white duvet. Daphne pulled him down on top of her, hooking her legs around his waist. Her hands slid beneath his waistband, over the dip at his waist, and up the planes of his back.