undo the buttons of her wedding dress. “That didn’t take long. You did that so fast I’m afraid you’ve lost interest already. Last time you took forever.”
“I hope it drove you crazy.” He bit her earlobe gently when he’d finished. “Did it?”
“I’ll never tell.”
Antonio caught her to him and rocked her in his arms for a long, long time.
“Your capacity to love is a gift,” he whispered against her cheek. “I don’t know how I was the one man on earth lucky enough to be loved by you. I’m thankful your mother came to see you on the day we got back from Tuscany. She was able to answer the question that’s always been in your heart. The sadness in your eyes has disappeared.”
Christina threw her arms around his neck and looked into those blue eyes filled with love for her. “You’re right. And now I have one more secret to disclose. You were always the man for me. When you asked me to get engaged, I jumped, leaped at the opportunity. To be honest, deep down I was petrified you would come to Africa and call it off. So I played it cagey, and it paid off!”
After enjoying a meal, they made love again before it was time to go out to greet their guests and enjoy the royal celebration. Guido looked frantic as they approached the balcony.
“Your Highness, we’ve been waiting for your appearance to start the fireworks.”
Antonio hugged her waist. “We’re here now.”
No sooner had they stepped out so everyone could see them than a huge roar of excitement from the throng of people filled the air. Suddenly there was a massive fireworks display that lit up the sky, bursting and bursting, illuminating everything. Antonio looked into Christina’s eyes. Her heart was bursting with happiness.
“Ti amo, Antonio.”
He stared at her. “Darling, you’re crying. What’s wrong?”
“I’m so happy tonight I can’t contain it all.”
Giving the crowd what they wanted by kissing her, he whispered, “My beautiful wife. This is only the beginning. Ti amo, bellissima. Forever.”
Cara Colter
In memory of Hunter 1997–2007
Beloved.
JAKE Ronan took a deep, steadying breath, the same kind he would take and hold right before the shot or the assault or the jump.
No relief. His heart was beating like a deer three steps ahead of a wolf pack. His palms were slick with sweat.
He was a man notorious for keeping his cool. And in the past three years that notoriety had served him well. He’d taken a hijacked plane back from the bad guys, jumped from ten thousand feet in the dead of night into territory controlled by hostiles, rescued fourteen school-children from a hostage taking.
But in the danger-zone department nothing did him in like a wedding. He shrugged, rolled his shoulders, took another deep breath.
His old friend, Colonel Gray Peterson, recently retired, the reason Ronan was here on the tiny tropical-island paradise of B’Ranasha, shifted uneasily beside him. Under his breath he said a word that probably had never been said in a church before. “You don’t have your sideways feeling, do you?” Gray asked.
Ronan was famous among this tough group of men, his comrades-in-arms, for the feeling, a sixth sense that warned him things were about to go wrong, in a big way.
“I just don’t like weddings,” he said, keeping his voice deliberately hushed. “They make me feel uptight.”
Gray contemplated that as an oddity. “Jake,” he finally said reassuringly, his use of Ronan’s first name an oddity in itself, “it’s not as if you’re the one getting married. You’re part of the security team. You don’t even know these people.”
Ronan had never been the one getting married, but his childhood had been littered with his mother’s latest attempt to land the perfect man. His own longing for a normal family, hidden under layers of adolescent belligerence, had usually ended in disillusionment long before the day of yet another elaborate wedding ceremony, his mother exchanging starry-eyed “I do’s” with yet another temporary stepfather.
Ronan had found a family he enjoyed very much when he’d followed in his deceased father’s footsteps, over his mother’s strenuous and tear-filled protests, and joined the Australian military right out of high school. Finally, there had been structure, predictability and genuine camaraderie in his life.
And then he’d been recruited for a multinational military unit that was a first-response team to world crises. The unit, headquartered in England, was comprised of men from the most elite special forces units around the world. They had members from the British Forces SAS, from the French Foreign Legion, from the U.S. SEALs and Delta Force.
His family became a tight-knit brotherhood of warriors. They went where angels feared to go; they did the work no one else wanted to do; they operated in the most dangerous and troubled places in the world. As well as protecting world figures at summits, conferences, peace talks, they dismantled bombs, gathered intelligence, took back planes, rescued hostages, blew up enemy weapons caches. They did the world’s most difficult work. They did it quickly, quietly and anonymously. There were few medals, little acknowledgment, no back-patting ceremonies.
But there was: brutal training, exhausting hours, months of deep cover and more danger than playing patty-cake with a rattlesnake.
When Ronan had been recruited, he had said a resounding yes. A man knew exactly when his natural-born talents intersected with opportunity, and from his first day in the unit, code-named Excalibur, he had known he had found what he was born to do.
A family, other than his brothers in arms, was out of the question. This kind of work was unfair to the women who were left at home. A man so committed to a dangerous lifestyle was not ready to make the responsibilities of a family and a wife his priority.
Which was a happy coincidence for a man who had the wedding thing anyway. Ronan’s most closely guarded secret was that he, fearless fighting man, pride of Excalibur, would probably faint from pure fright if he ever had to stand at an altar like the one at the front of this church as a groom. As a man waiting for his bride.
So far, no one was standing at it, though on this small island, traditions were slightly reversed. He’d been briefed to understand that the bride would come in first and wait for the groom.
Music, lilting and lovely, heralded her arrival, but above the notes Ronan heard the rustle of fabric and slid a look down the aisle of the church. A vision in ivory silk floated slowly toward them. The dress, the typical wedding costume of the Isle of B’Ranasha, covered the bride from head to toe. It was unfathomable how something so unrevealing could be so sensual.
But it was. The gown clung to the bride’s slight curves, accentuated the smooth sensuality of her movements. It was embroidered in gold thread that caught the light and thousands of little pearls that shimmered iridescently.
The reason Ronan was stationed so close to the altar was that this beautiful bride, Princess Shoshauna of B’Ranasha, might be in danger.
Since retiring from Excalibur, Gray had taken the position as head of security for the royal family of B’Ranasha. With the upcoming wedding, he’d asked Ronan if he wanted to take some leave and help provide extra security. At first Gray had presented the job as a