“Topolina,” he said with a small kick of his upper lip that belied his amusement at my stunned silence. “Take your husband’s hand.”
Mutely, I did, my hand sliding into his like a key in a lock.
He tugged gently, leading me through the crowd to the middle of the room. He stopped me with my feet on the black marble tile scarred and punctured from the impression of the spike that had held me down in chains.
I looked up from my stilettoed feet on that wounded tile, and Alexander’s face was suddenly up against mine, his eyes everything I could see, his mouth moving against mine.
“You will always be my slave, my beauty,” he whispered just for me. “But you will also always be my duchess.” A kiss pressed like a notary stamp to my lips, legalizing his words, and then he pulled back to face the crowd. “Everyone, may I present to you, Cosima Ruth Lombardi Davenport, Duchess of Greythorn, and my gorgeous bride.”
Everyone clapped, Sebastian throwing in a whistle and Giselle a soft whoop.
My skin was too dark to show a blush, but my flesh caught fire with gentle embarrassment and pride.
“You are the greatest treasure I will ever know,” Xan continued as Riddick stepped up with a large, flat velvet box and handed it to him. “But I wanted to belatedly commemorate our marriage with a gift worthy of you.”
There was a collective gasp as Alexander popped open the jewelry case and countless diamonds erupted under the multifaceted light. My hand flew to my mouth to contain the immensity of my emotions as I stared at the necklace of diamonds constructed to look like thorny leaves and the absolutely sumptuous yellow gold diamond at its base.
To everyone else, it looked like an extravagant present from a lord of the realm to his new(ish) bride.
To me, it looked exactly like what it was—a replacement collar for the one Alexander had told me Noel had cast into the fire.
“Something incomparable for my incomparable bride,” he said as he lifted it in one hand, smoothed my cloak of hair off my shoulders, and settled the heavy, cold weight around my neck.
The weight of the diamonds was so acute, I knew it was deliberate. So that I would always feel the force of his possession around my throat.
Alexander turned me to face him after clasping it closed, his face impassive as he stared at his collar around my neck. He lifted a finger to run the back of it over the smooth rectangular yellow diamond in the hollow of my throat, and then he looked up at me with softly pursed lips to say, “Even L’Incomparable pales next to your money eyes.”
“Only because you love me,” I told him, trying to tease and failing because the words were hoarse with unshed tears.
He shrugged his insolent schoolboy shrug. “Undoubtedly. Now, slave, dance with me.”
Collecting one hand in his, wrapping the other around my waist, Alexander spun me into movement, music flaring to life like the kick of my skirt the second he whirled us into motion.
“Wagner wrote this symphony for his wife, Cosima, for her birthday,” Alexander told me as we danced, and everyone else began to dance with us.
I pressed my cheek to the fabric over his heart. “Why are you doing all of this?”
His chin rested over my head, his hands drawing me closer so that we were flush together, barely dancing. “Because I wanted to show you how serious I was about replacing all the nightmarish memories in this house with new ones, brilliant ones. I wanted to somehow illustrate how sorry I am for all the things I’ve put you through. I want you to understand even when I cannot measure the fathomless depth of love I have for you at the heart of me, how very much I desire you to be happy in this life with me.”
“Xan,” I said, pulling back to tip his head down to me with a hand at his neck, hard over his pulse just to feel it beat. “I would dance with you forever in the dark if it meant being with you. I don’t need the light or the diamonds, I hardly even need my loved ones. You could have dragged me into the cold, dim ballroom, clasped that old chain around my ankle, and I would still love you. I don’t regret the things you’ve done or the events of the past five years. They brought us together and cemented our bond. They made me strong, and they made you worthy.”
“Ours isn’t exactly a romantic story,” he admitted wryly.
I arched a brow, pressed my palm over the brand I knew he wore on the skin over his heart, and dragged one of his hands down my back to my ass where it rested over my own brand. I thought of Helios and my collar, of Xan pulling strings to get me a job with St. Aubyn, of the years he spent longing for me but denying himself to keep me safe. I thought of the way my body felt when I was away from him, like a form without a shadow even in absolute sunlight.