That’s right. They had gotten married that morning.
She held up her left hand to admire the simple, classic gold band that now nestled beside the outrageous, T. rex–sized diamond ring. Dragos had a gold band that matched hers. She grinned as she remembered how that particular conversation had gone.
It had been short and sweet, and to the point. They had been standing at a jewelry counter at Tiffany while an attendant showed them rings. Pia admired one particularly sleek, elegant set of his-and-hers wedding bands.
“But I collect jewelry,” said Dragos with a frown. “I don’t wear it.”
She glanced at him. His frown was more bemusement than anything else. He stood very close to her, still dressed in a white shirt and dark suit from his day’s work. He had removed his tie and unbuttoned the first couple of buttons on his shirt. His head was angled as he studied the rings in the black velvet tray, his gold eyes gleaming with acquisitive interest.
She recognized that look. She said telepathically to him, We do not need this whole tray of rings.
His gaze shifted to her. Are you sure?
I’m quite sure. Just beyond his shoulder, she caught sight of a woman standing some twenty feet away from them. The woman was model thin, sleek, intelligent-looking and immaculate. Her makeup, hair and polished nails were color coordinated, and her outfit and accessories hit around the ten-thousand mark. Thanks to Stanford, Pia was getting better at judging that sort of thing.
The woman stared fixedly at Dragos, not even bothering to disguise her naked hunger even though Pia stood right there with him, clearly pregnant, and together they were one of the world’s most recognizable mated Wyr couples.
But neither mating nor marriage had necessarily anything to do with fidelity, and there would always be some sexual predator hoping to get her claws, even for a brief time, into the multibillionaire head of Cuelebre Enterprises.
None of them fazed Dragos for a moment. They were so unimportant to him that they didn’t even register on his radar. Pia wished she could truly be that indifferent, but at best she could only fake it.
Pia turned her attention back to Dragos. She said, “Maybe you don’t wear jewelry as a general rule, but you’re going to wear this ring.”
Amusement played at the edges of his hard, sexy mouth. “You know this because . . . ?”
“Because I get to have everything I want.” And she wanted nothing more in that moment than to put her claim on him so that everybody could see it. Without bothering to lower her voice, she added, “And that includes having lots of fantastic sex whenever I like.”
His smile deepened, and his eyes gleamed molten hot under lowered lids. “That you do.” He bent his head to kiss her, while their attendant grinned and looked away.
Did she do it? Yes, yes, she did. While she sank one hand into Dragos’s silken hair and tilted one foot up, she held up her other hand behind his back, and she flipped up her middle finger as she kissed him. By the time they finished the kiss, the piranha had stalked off.
Dragos wore the ring.
And she did get everything she wanted.
She insisted that she plan the wedding. She told him that he could plan any kind of honeymoon he liked—as long as it was just as they had talked about, some kind of honeymoon where they were truly alone. No household staff, no sentinels, no psychos. No Stanford, no cell phones, no Kristoff “making this one exception” on some business emergency or other. Nobody but them and the peanut.
She could even cook if he wanted. Well, she amended that one pretty quickly. She could reheat any meat that somebody else had precooked for him, if all she had to do was to put a covered package in the oven and then leave the kitchen fast.
By that point, he was laughing at her, and she didn’t blame him. But he agreed to take care of the honeymoon, and she got to plan the wedding of her dreams.
The justice of the peace came to the penthouse for a very simple ceremony. Pia wore the flirty maternity dress she had found at Target, which she loved, even though the sacrilege nearly put Stanford in the hospital. She felt fun and pretty, and she didn’t worry for a minute about spilling anything down the front or ruining a piece of art that had cost a fortune. Dragos wore his best hand-stitched suit, with a silk shirt and platinum cuff links that, he informed her, were not jewelry but simply a necessary part of the suit ensemble.