Page 45 of Promoted To His Princess

Hope that he wouldn’t fail.

And what about her? Hope that you can be a good husband to her?

His hunger rose, everything focusing on the woman in front of him, standing tall in the sunlight, looking as if she was covered in gold.

His golden goddess. His soon-to-be wife.

His.

Her touch was gentle, yet it felt as though she was brushing away years of scar tissue and emptiness, years of feeling nothing, replacing it all with sunshine and heat. With warmth.

He lifted his hands, cupped her face between them, staring into her amber eyes. ‘Oh, Callie,’ he said softly. ‘What did I do to deserve you?’

Her cheeks flushed. ‘It’s the truth.’

‘In that case, it’s a truth no one else saw in me. All my father ever saw was everything I wasn’t.’

‘He was wrong.’ Her gaze was very direct and very fierce. ‘He shouldn’t have done those things to you. Shouldn’t have said those things to you. And he should never, ever have hurt you. A father is supposed to support their child, not undermine them.’

Something caught in her voice, and if he hadn’t been looking right into her eyes he might have missed it. He stroked her cheekbones with his thumbs, her skin soft and hot against his. ‘Yours did?’

‘He did what he could.’

Which wasn’t an answer. But he knew what the answer would be anyway.

‘What didn’t he give you, Callie?’

Her lashes lowered. ‘He wasn’t my mother.’

The mother who’d loved her. The mother who’d walked away from her in the end.

‘You tried to be your mother’s daughter, and then you tried to be your father’s son,’ he murmured. ‘That’s what you told me.’

‘Yes.’ She kept her gaze turned away.

‘But were you anyone’s?’ he asked softly. ‘In the end?’

She tensed and tried to pull away from him, but he firmed his grip, holding her still. And that was his answer. No, she hadn’t been, and it hurt her.

Strong fingers closed around his heart. ‘Did you have anyone, Calista? Anyone at all? A lover at least?’

She was still, but he felt the tension in her. ‘No. Not a lover, either. Not until you.’

He felt no shock or surprise. Only the same sense of fate settling down on him as it had when he’d realised she was pregnant. The sense of rightness, of purpose. Of destiny. He wasn’t only here for his child. He was here for her.

Gently, he tilted her head back, forcing her to meet his gaze. ‘Then that makes you mine,’ he said simply. Then he lowered his head and took her mouth like a vow.

She froze. Her lips were hot and she tasted sweet, the perfect antidote to all that bitterness that had been living inside him. The perfect cure for all that self-loathing that had nearly corroded him away.

He kissed her deeply, slowly and with purpose, because she was his purpose now.

She was the goddess he’d been put on earth to worship.

She was the reason he hadn’t taken that pill all those years ago. Somehow he’d known, even years ago, that there was a reason he had to stay. That it wasn’t only his brother or his anger at his father that was keeping him here. That there was another reason he’d endured, that he’d come back to Axios three years ago, even though he hadn’t wanted to.

She was the reason. He was here for her.

He kissed her more deeply, keeping it slow and gentle, exploring her with thorough deliberation. She made a soft, eager sound and her hands were on his chest, sliding up around his neck. She came up on her toes, her mouth open beneath his, suddenly desperate, clinging onto him as if she were drowning and he was her last chance of rescue.

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