Bound to Be a Bride by Megan Mulry Page B

leaned into him, breathed him in. “But you are a selfless man.”
    He stiffened, misconstruing the direction of her thoughts.
    “In all things but me.”
    He pulled her away to look into her sparkling black eyes.
    “I hope you are always devilishly selfish when it comes to me,” she said, taking hold of his lapels with a fierce, possessive grip. “Because if you ever said you could live without me for even one day, I would hate you for loving me less than I love you.” She shook his jacket for emphasis.
    “Then we go down together.” He gave her a quick kiss.
    “Or up,” she winked.
    He checked the angle of the sun. “Now that you mention it, I think we have just enough time to marry before we board the ship.”
    “What?!” Isabella cried as he pulled her in the direction of the Convent of Jesus.
    “Let us go visit your heroine. The tomb of Saint Joan is there, I believe. I probably have just enough coin to bribe a priest.”
    “Impossible! How could you possibly bribe a priest?” Isabella asked with pure innocence.
    Javi picked up the pace and tried to stifle a laugh. “Quite easily, as it turns out.”
    Within fifteen minutes, they were in a shadowy back chapel of the monastery with a very cheerful and suddenly richer priest eager to formalize their union.
    He licked his thumb and began flipping through the pages of the Bible. “Do you have a preference about the passage?”
    Javier translated the priest’s words from Portuguese to Spanish.
    “Well,” Isabella began, “I have always been fond of the Song of Solomon but there is also that—”
    “Please ignore her and get on with it,” Javier told the priest in Portuguese.
    “Javier! Really! I may not speak the language, but I understood that. ”
    “I meant that in the most respectful way, Isabella,” he continued in soft Spanish. “Please. We might be under attack shortly and I need to be able to present you as my lawful wife if any of us are going to survive.”
    She screwed up her mouth for a few seconds. “Oh, fine. Just marry us any old way.”
    The priest stared at them. “Are you really wanting to get married, then?”
    “ Sí! ” they both cried simultaneously.
    “All right then…” The priest deepened his voice for the occasion. “My dear friends, you have come together in this church so that the Lord may seal and strengthen your love in the presence of the Church’s minister…”
    Isabella knew the words in Spanish and followed along well enough. The priest spoke at a rapid clip, racing to complete the words of the ceremony with an unintelligible garble that seemed to suit Javier just fine. When the breathless man finally finished, maybe fifteen minutes after he had started, Javier pulled Isabella into his arms and bent her backward at the waist, one strong arm supporting her lower back. He kissed her soundly, then pulled her just as swiftly back to a standing position.
    “A good afternoon to you, Doña de la Mina,” he said with more than a hint of mischief.
    She was reeling from that kiss, especially with a man of the cloth in such close proximity, but she found her voice. “It doesn’t sound nearly as bad as I thought it would. In fact, it is quite a sturdy, reliable name.”
    ***
    Within a few minutes, the silhouettes of Marco and Sebastián were clear against the crystalline blue of the sea. When the two men made out that Javier was not alone, Isabella watched as Sebastián tore his cap off and whipped it against his thigh in outrage.
    “It’s all right. I will talk to him.” Javier pulled her closer.
    They were all standing together a few minutes later. The calls and shouts of fishermen, dockworkers, and sailors flew around them.
    Sebastián was furious.
    “Isabella and I are married,” Javier declared.
    Marco’s mouth flew open, then shut just as quickly.
    Sebastián spoke to Javier as if Isabella were not there. “Is she with child?”
    Javier slapped him across the face before Isabella realized what