The
limousine pulled down to the end of a narrow, palm-lined road and
drew to a stop. The driver, who had introduced himself as Carlo,
turned around to look at her.
“This is it,” he said. “I’ll escort you down
to the site where Mr. Corinthos is waiting.”
Sonny was waiting.
A knot of nerves settled low in her body as the driver helped her
out of the car. He must have read her nervousness as she smoothed
the skirt of her dress down over her hips.
“You look magnificent, Senorita,” he told her. “Senor
Corinthos is indeed a lucky man.”
The smile that answered his words was beatific; it glowed from the
inside of her. She’d agonized over her choice of dress, but
it felt perfect now. It was a soft white silk that clung lovingly
to every curve as it fell all the way to her feet. A web of crisscrossed
spaghetti straps across her cleavage made an intriguing and intimate
pattern. Sonny’s face came to her mind’s eye. She hoped
he would find her beautiful in it.
This was pretend, she told herself, but her heart wouldn’t
let those words penetrate. All she saw inside herself was his face.
“I’m the lucky one,” she told the driver, and they
walked through a tree-lined entryway.
Before her was the loveliest beach, its white sand glimmering under
the burning orange sunset. Torches mounted on tall bamboo stands
glowed lighting her way. And in front of her feet lay a pathway
on top of the sand made from red rose petals. And that pathway led
directly to Sonny.
Sonny…
She met his eyes and read the intensity there. She saw it…the
pure masculine appreciation of her that he could not mask. And her
heart slammed against her ribcage in an almost involuntary response.
He was standing at the end of the rose petal path beside a minister
waiting for her. Adorned in a light colored suit with a periwinkle
blue shirt opened at the neck to reveal the powerful column of his
throat. His curls rioting against the power of the heavy, humid
Caribbean air. Looking the sexiest and the most relaxed she’d
ever seen him. From his dark head to his bare feet.
Alexis giggled at his toes, then quickly kicked off own her high-heeled
sandals to match him. Beside her the driver offered her his arm
and a small bouquet of gardenias.
“May I escort you, Miss?”
“You may,” she replied, as regal as the princess she was
born to be.
And from somewhere unseen came the sound of violins playing in perfect
harmony. Not the traditional wedding march. But rather a song Alexis
had heard many times and had loved for ages…one that her late
sister Kristina had often sung around their home.
Someone to watch over me…
Was that what she was gaining now? Someone to watch over her and
protect her as no one but Stefan had in her entire life?
She drew close to Sonny’s side and looked into his eyes, and
she saw him. Really saw him. The friend she’d once had, the
friend who had held her secrets and shared his own with her. The
one who had cared enough to hold her close when the world crashed
and burned around her shoulders. The one who cared enough now to
have planned this beautiful day for her.
Someone who’ll watch over me…
Maybe he didn’t feel the love that she wanted, her traitorous
heart whispered, but wasn’t what he clearly did feel for her
enough?
As he took her hand in his and his perfect ring glittered on her
finger, she prayed that what they had together would be enough.
Enough to free him from the dangers that faced him…and enough
to keep him with her even when all that was over and done.
And for the first time in ages and ages, Alexis did something that
defied logic and reason and practicality. She simply closed her
eyes and made a wish.
She wished that this was real.
***
She looked like a dream, he thought. Standing here before
him, her eyes closed as if in deep concentration. He wondered what
she was thinking. He hoped it was of him.
He loved her hair, how its softness had been gathered into a sexy
loose upsweep from which tendrils kept escaping in an enticing cascade.
The hairstyle brought the elegant column of her neck into emphasis,
its smooth skin capturing his attention again as it had the night
they’d made love. He knew she liked to be kissed at the hollow
of her throat. He wondered if he leaned over now and stroked his
lips across…
Her eyes opened and stared right into his, and he swore for a moment
that she could read his rather impure thoughts. Could she tell that
he secretly harbored a fantasy of making tonight’s honeymoon
real? What would she do if he proposed that they enjoy each other
while they were married as any normal couple would? Would she agree?
He grinned at his idiocy. She would think he was a lunatic. Her
feelings for him were long dead. Killed by the many weapons they’d
hurled at each other over these last few years. She would never
trust him again, never want him again. Not when he had lain with
her and promised her they’d be together and had then run right
back into the manipulative hands of his undead wife. Not when his
business had attracted the attention of an evil man who had killed
her sister. There had been too many lines in the sand and he had
crossed them all with her.
He knew that rationally, but somehow when he took her hand just
now and felt it tremble just the slightest bit…when he looked
into those lustrous brown eyes and saw the past…the moments
that were unbearably sweet…and unforgettably powerful…and
indescribably passionate…Somehow when all that came together
inside him, the facts in his head receded and the emotion in his
heart took center stage.
He imagined that her mind was filled with the practicality of matters…how
long they would have to stay together…whether this would free
him of murder charges…how Carly would react when they returned…how
Jax and Ned would treat her.
But his thoughts were anything but practical. He couldn’t hear
the words of the minister spoken in his native tongue of Spanish.
He couldn’t hear the pounding of the waves onto the shore.
All he sensed was the touch of her hand and the beating of his heart
hammering within his chest. He wished that she were more than his
convenient wife. That her feelings had never died. Because no matter
how he had pretended these last few years…no matter how much
he had stuffed his emotion behind a wall of anger and regret…like
the rising tide, it had all returned with a force that would not
be denied.
So he clasped her hand just a little bit tighter. Then he closed
his eyes just as she had done and wished with all his might.
