The Prince She Had to Marry Read online

  She didn’t know the details of Alex’s capture and imprisonment. But she did know it had lasted four years. Four endless years during which he must have suffered terribly, during which his friend had lost his life. Four years until, somehow, six months ago, he’d managed to escape.

  Lili flopped back onto the tangled sheets and stared up at the coffered ceiling. All right, she felt a tiny bit...abashed. Looking at that picture reminded her that Alex did have his reasons for being Prince Cold, Mean and Unresponsive. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what he must have endured during his time as a prisoner. She needed to be more understanding, to keep in mind what he’d been through when she wanted to call him unflattering names and slap his expressionless face.

  Lili kicked off her slippers. They plopped to the bedside rug. She promised herself that she would try to be nicer to him. She would keep in mind the awfulness of what he’d survived. From this moment on, she’d make more of an effort to be understanding and patient and not to burst into tears or let her temper get the better of her.

  She was so busy telling herself that she would really try and treat Alex more kindly that she didn’t hear the outer door open or even notice that a light in the sitting room had popped on. She remained stretched across the tousled sheets on her back, her arms spread wide and her bare feet dangling over the side.

  The last thing she expected was to hear Alex say, “Lili, it’s almost four in the morning. What in hell are you doing here?”

  She popped to a sitting position with a shocked little squeak. “Eek! Alex, you scared me.”

  He was dressed in a sweat-drenched T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and a similarly sweaty pair of frayed gray sweatpants. In fact, everything about him was sweaty—his more-granitelike-than-ever face, his close-cropped, thick brown hair, his muscular arms and deep, broad chest.

  There were scars on his arms and on his neck, pinkish-white and rough against his tanned skin. She started to feel real sympathy for him.

  And then he muttered darkly, “I’ll do a lot more than just scare you if you don’t tell me why you’re in my rooms.”

  Softly, she reminded him, “You wouldn’t talk with me yesterday.”

  “That’s because there was nothing to say.”

  I am not going to start shrieking at him. I am not going to slap his smug, cold face, she reminded herself. He has suffered too much and I am going to be understanding and gentle with him.

  Lili straightened her robe, which had fallen open to expose a lot more of her thighs than he needed to see at that moment. And she tried to look dignified, even if he had caught her sprawled in complete dishabille across his bed. “I’ve come to you stealthily in the middle of the night because I saw no other choice in the matter.”

  “No other choice,” he echoed in a growl. “I’ll give you another choice. Return to your rooms. Do it now.”

  No shrieking, she reminded herself again. And then she drew in a slow breath and hitched her chin higher. “Alex, I mean it. We really must talk.”

  * * *

  Alex was certain he’d locked the outer door when he left. It wasn’t a high-security lock, but it certainly should have served to keep Silly Lili out. “How did you get in here?”

  She granted him a coy look from under her astonishingly long, silky eyelashes. “I have my ways.”

  It was no answer, but he realized about then that he probably wouldn’t get an answer from her. The main thing was to get her to go. “Back to your rooms, Lili.”

  She sat even taller. “Not until we talk.”

  How many times did he have to remind her that they had nothing to say to each other? He started toward her, determined to get rid of her.

  She put up a hand. “If you touch me right now, I am going to start screaming. I will scream as I run out your door and down the corridor, without even pausing to put on my slippers. I will wake up every servant and guest in the palace. It will not be pretty and everyone will blame you for abusing an innocent barefoot princess who happens to be dressed only in her nightclothes. And, of course, someone will leak the story to the tabloids, which will wreak havoc on all your carefully engineered plans to make it look as though you and I are passionately and totally in love.”

  He paused in midstep. “They are not my plans.”

  “Oh, I beg your pardon. You fully agreed to them.” She folded her arms under her beautiful, perfect breasts, causing the pink silk of her robe to cling more tightly. Now he could see the faint outline of her nipples. They were very fine nipples, as he remembered all too well.

  He reminded himself that he needed to get rid of her. “We had no choice but to agree to those plans. I saw no other option, given our situation. And now, if you’ll just go back to your—”

  She cut him off. “We do have choices,” she said in a so-noble tone that made his teeth hurt. “We always have choices.”

  “You are not only hopelessly naive, Lili, but you are also thoughtless and self-centered. And wrong.”

  Those enormous blue eyes glittered like sapphires—dangerous sapphires. “Insult me to your heart’s content. It won’t work. I’m not leaving until you talk with me.”

  “Lili,” he said, rough and low. He dared another step.

  She threw out a hand, palm out. “I mean it. I will scream.”

  He held her gleaming gaze with his own, steady on. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  She smiled pleasantly—and stared right back. “Go ahead, try me.”

  He realized he was actually afraid she just might do what she’d threatened. She had him by the short hairs, damn those eyes.

  Without another word, he turned on his heel and headed for the bath. Once through the door, he shut it. Rather harder than necessary. He twisted the privacy lock—even though, apparently, privacy locks were no good against her. Too bad. She would enter the bath at her own risk. He stripped off his sweat-drenched clothing and took a shower. A long shower.

  When he finished, he put on the robe that hung on the peg behind the door and returned to the bedroom.

  She was still there, sitting in the same spot on the bed, her little hands folded in her lap. “I do hope your shower has refreshed you—and possibly even improved your attitude.” She gave a shrug and a sigh. “Well. One can hope.”

  He said nothing to her, only exited back into the sitting room, where he proceeded directly to the liquor cabinet. He grabbed a crystal glass and a decanter of very old scotch and poured himself a stiff one. He was sipping it slowly when she spoke from behind him.

  “We have more than my country and your country to think of, Alex.”

  He turned and faced her. She looked way too determined. And way too beautiful, with those amazing eyes of hers, those full pink lips and all that thick, silky, pale yellow hair. Raising his glass to her, he took another slow sip.

  She laid her hand against her still-flat belly. “There’s the baby. The baby is what matters most of all.”

  “Good. Then don’t allow him to be born a bastard.”

  “Being born illegitimate is not the worst thing that can happen to a child.”

  “Of course it’s not. But I wouldn’t call it a good thing. Would you call it a good thing, Lili?”

  “I didn’t say it was a good thing.”

  He topped off his drink. “Because it’s not a good thing. Not for a child who should have the right to a crown and could be denied that right because his mother refuses to marry his father.”

  “My baby will have a father who loves him—or her,” she announced. “If you can’t love this baby, the baby is better off without you.”

  “All right. I will love the baby.” He set down the decanter. “Happy now?”

  “Not especially. Alex, if you can’t at least try to make a real marriage with me, I won’t marry you.” She spoke more softly then, and her eyes seemed suddenly far away. “All my life, I’ve wanted one thing above all—to have true love like my parents had. Like your mother and father have. Like Max had with Sophia.
” Maximilian was the heir to his mother’s throne. Max’s wife, Sophia, had died while he was in Afghanistan. “Love like Rule and Sydney have found.”

  He studied her for a long time. He pondered the goal: to get her to let him give their child his name. To achieve the goal, he should tell her whatever she needed to hear, which apparently was that he loved her. Deeply and completely. Somehow, he couldn’t wrap his mouth around a lie that large. “I can’t give you what you want, Lili. It’s simply not in me.” He steeled himself for her tears, for one of her big, emotional displays.

  Her eyes remained dry. And when she spoke, it was calmly. Reasonably. “I realize that. I can accept that.”

  Did he believe her? Hardly. She might be the most annoying woman he’d ever known, the most overwrought and emotional, the biggest chatterbox. But within her there lurked a will of iron. If she wanted something strongly enough, she would never rest until she had it.

  Or until she drove anyone who stood in the way of her having it stark, raving mad.

  Plus, beneath all the sweetness and meaningless chatter, she was quite intelligent. Sometimes she behaved stupidly, but there was a perfectly good brain inside that gorgeous head of hers. She was using it now. He could see the cogs turning. She was about to lay down terms.

  He already knew what kind of terms. Terms that would have him agreeing to give her more than he could afford to give, more than he even knew how to give anymore. Five years ago, maybe. But not anymore. Whatever that place was inside a man, that place a woman filled and made warm and good and hopeful. That place was dead in him now. Uninhabitable.

  She went on. “What I want from you is for you to try.”

  He purposely did not make the scoffing sound that rose in his throat. “Try.”

  “Yes. I want you make an effort to be a real husband to me. I want you to spend time with me. I want you to have breakfast with me every day and dinner as well. I want you to give me—to give us—the evenings, that time after dinner. I want us to spend our evenings together, just the two of us. I want you to tell me about your day and I will tell you about mine. I want us to share, Alex.”

  Share. Did it get any worse? She wanted him to share.

  She was still talking. “I want you to read the books I choose for you.”

  “Books. Hold on just a minute. You’re choosing what books I read?”

  “Not all the books you read, of course not.”

  “I suppose you’ll have me studying those romance novels you so enjoy.”

  “Don’t judge romance novels until you’ve read a few of them. One can learn a lot about love and life and relationships from a good romance.”

  He had no words to reply to that one. So he said nothing. He didn’t really need to say much around Lili anyway. She had the talking covered, and then some.

  She said, “No. Actually, I didn’t plan to have you reading romances, though I’m sure it would be good for you if you did.”

  He made a grunting sound and left it at that.

  “But I do think if you would just spend a little time with a few books on how to develop a meaningful and loving relationship with your spouse, it would really help you. Help us. And then once you’ve read the books I choose for you, we can discuss them—and tell me, have you been seeing a counselor or a priest?”

  “For what?”

  “For...help, with all you’ve been through. Surely you’ve noticed that you’ve changed, Alex.”

  “Yes, Lili, I’ve noticed. And no, I haven’t seen a counselor or a priest and I don’t intend to.”

  “Oh, Alex...”

  “And as to those books on love and marriage that you mentioned...”

  “Yes?”

  He knocked back more scotch. “No.”

  Gingerly, she inquired, “No as to...”

  All of it, he thought. He said, “Not the books, Lili. Or the priest. Or the counselor.”

  “Ahem. Well. What about the rest?”

  He saw no other way. He was going to have to pretend to go along, to bargain and then reluctantly come to an agreement. He needed to convince her that he would do what she wanted, that he would try. “Yes to the meals—the breakfasts, the dinners.”

  “And the evenings? What about the evenings?”

  He let the silence draw out before grunting, “All right, damn it. The evenings, too.”

  She actually clapped her hands and the most radiant smile bloomed on those plump, way-too-kissable lips. “Oh, I’m so glad.”

  “But not every evening,” he said. “Two evenings a week.”

  “Six.”

  “Three.”

  “Four.”

  He repeated his previous offer. “Three.”

  She considered, then stipulated, “Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”

  “When possible.”

  “Three at any rate. And you have to try to make them the evenings I just asked for.”

  There was that word again. Try. Such a flexible word. And such a simple thing, to say one was trying when one actually wasn’t. “All right,” he grudgingly agreed.

  “Wonderful. And we will share an apartment—this apartment will be fine.” She was too damn quick by half. He’d been counting on them keeping their separate suites, on her heading back to Alagonia as soon as the ink was dry on their secret marriage license.

  But he supposed there was no help for it. If they were to pretend to be deeply in love for the whole world to see, they certainly couldn’t be living in separate quarters. “Fair enough.”

  “And I will expect you to be my birth coach when the baby arrives. That means we’ll be going to childbirth classes together.”

  He sent her a speaking look, one that told her exactly what he thought of being her birth coach.

  Quickly, she added, “Spare me the put-upon glances. You’ll have time to become accustomed to the idea of the childbirth classes. They won’t even begin for four or five months yet.”

  Anything could happen in four months. And the goal was to get her to marry him tomorrow. “All right.”

  “Wonderful, then. For the first year, I’m willing to live here, in Montedoro, with you.”

  The first year? “How generous of you.”

  She nodded. “I know you have your...secret fighting force that you’re, um, working with.”

  “The CCU is not a secret, Lili,” he informed her flatly. “Montedoro has no standing army. It’s simply expedient for us to have a small, specially trained corps of men at the ready to take action in a critical situation.”

  “Yes. Expedient.” She wore an irritatingly patient expression. “I understand. And as I was saying, you need to be here for that. And as I mentioned earlier, I know you’ve been through a lot.”

  “What does what I’ve ‘been through’ have to do with anything?” he demanded.

  She answered carefully. “I just meant you’ve only been back for six months. I think you need more time here, in Montedoro, at the only home you’ve ever known, more time to...heal.”

  To heal? How so? His wounds no longer festered. He’d put back on the thirty kilos he’d lost during his captivity, and then some. His “healing,” such as it was, was done. But he didn’t say that. He said nothing.

  And she continued, “I’ve always loved Montedoro anyway. So let’s say a year, together, here at the Prince’s Palace. I’ll clear my calendar.”

  “For the entire year?” She was constantly giving speeches at charity functions, working diligently to establish trusts for the needy. “Isn’t a year a bit extreme?”

  “Perhaps, but necessary. I want our marriage to work. There’s the baby to think of, anyway. I’ll want to take it easy from seven months or so on. And then I’ll need a few months to concentrate on our newborn. After the year is up, though, we will discuss a move to Alagonia—or a way to divide our time between our two countries.”

  He had to give her credit. She was quite the negotiator. But it didn’t matter what he agreed to now. She would be fed up with him long b
efore a year had passed. In the end, she would be only too happy for them to lead separate lives. He would make sure of that. “Agreed,” he said.

  She folded her hands in front of her. “I want us to be happy, Alex.”

  That was never going to happen. Not for him, anyway. “I’ll do my best.”

  “And your best is all I can ask of you.” Her eyes were a deeper blue than ever right then, violet-blue. And her lips...

  Better not to think about her lips. “Well, all right,” he said. “It’s settled.”

  “Yes,” she answered quietly. “We’ll be married. This morning.”

  He offered his hand.

  She ignored it, surging forward on tiptoe instead, reaching up to take his shoulders, pulling him down and brushing the sweetest, too-swift kiss across his mouth. His senses flooded with the scent of her and her lips were infinitely soft. Warm.

  He could have so easily broken free of her delicate hold, could have stepped back. But he didn’t.

  He was captured. Disarmed. An all-too-willing prisoner.

  Unbidden images flashed through his mind: Lili as a little girl, all dressed up as a fairy princess in a gossamer froth of purple and green, a foil crown on her head, a handmade wand in her hand. She wore wings, wire wings covered in transparent gauze. There was to be a play, wasn’t there, one of those plays she and his sisters were always putting on? He remembered her out by one of the fountains in the palace gardens, all dressed up to play a fairy princess, arms outstretched, turning in circles, giggling with happiness, her golden head tipped back, her face turned up to the sun.

  The little-girl Lili faded away.

  He saw her on that fateful morning in April, her hair flowing over his hands, her eyes dazed, dreamy. He saw the perfect curve of her hip, the concave temptation of her belly. The golden curls between her long, slim thighs. Her skin that was pale as milk, only faintly stained with pink.