Читать книгу A Queen for the Taking? - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 8
ОглавлениеCHAPTER TWO
ALESSANDRO GAZED DISPASSIONATELY at his reflection as he twitched his black tie into place. This afternoon’s meeting with Lady Liana had gone about as well as he could have expected, and yet it still left him dissatisfied. Restless, as everything about his royal life did.
This palace held too many painful memories, too many hard lessons. Don’t trust. Don’t love. Don’t believe that anyone loves you back.
Every one drilled into him over years of neglect, indifference, and anger.
Sighing, he thrust the thought aside. He might hate returning to the palace, but he’d done it of his own free will. Returned to face his father and take up his kingship because he’d known it was the right thing to do. It was his duty.
And because you, ever naive, thought your father might actually forgive you. Finally love you.
What a blind fool he was.
He wouldn’t, Sandro thought as he fastened his cufflinks, be blind about his wife. He knew exactly what he was getting into, just what he was getting from the lovely Lady Liana.
Yet for a moment, when he’d seen Liana coming through the French windows, her hair streaming over her shoulders like pale satin, the fading sunlight touching it with gold, he’d felt his heart lighten rather ridiculously.
She’d looked so different from the coldly composed woman he’d encountered in the formal receiving room. She’d looked alive and vibrant and beautiful, her lavender eyes sparkling, her cheeks pink from the wind.
He’d felt a leap of hope then that she might not be the cold, ambitious queen-in-waiting she’d seemed just hours ago, but then he’d seen that icy self-possession enter her eyes, she’d jerked back when he had, unthinkingly, touched her, and disappointment had settled in him once more, a leaden weight.
It was too late to wish for something else for his marriage, Sandro knew. For his life. When he’d received the phone call from his father—after fifteen years of stony silence on both sides—he’d given up his right to strive or even wish for anything different. He’d been living for himself, freely, selfishly, for too long already. He’d always known, even if he’d acted as if he hadn’t, that it couldn’t last. Shouldn’t.
And so he’d returned and taken up his kingship and all it required...such as a wife. An ambitious, appropriate, perfect wife.
His expression hardening, he turned from his reflection and went in search of the woman who fitted all those soulless requirements.
He found her already waiting in the private dining room he’d requested be prepared for their meal. She stood by the window, straight and proud, dressed in an evening gown of champagne-coloured silk.
Her face went blank as she caught sight of him, and after a second’s pause she nodded regally as he closed the door behind him.
Sandro let his gaze sweep over her; the dress was by no means immodest and yet it still clung to her slight curves. It had a vaguely Grecian style, with pearl-and-diamond clips at each shoulder and a matching pearl-and-diamond pendant nestled in the V between her breasts.
The dress clung to those small yet shapely breasts, nipping in at her waist before swirling out around her legs and ending in a silken puddle at her feet. She looked both innocent and made of ivory, everything about her so cold and perfect, making Sandro want to add a streak of colour to her cheeks or her lips—would her cheeks turn pink as they’d been before if he touched her again?
What if he kissed her?
Was she aware of his thoughts? Did she feel that sudden tension inside her as well? He couldn’t tell anything from her blank face, her veiled eyes.
She’d pulled her hair back in a tight coil, emphasising her high cheekbones and delicate bone structure, and he had a mad impulse to jerk the diamond-tipped pins from her hair and see it spill over her shoulders in all of its moon-coloured glory. What would she do, he wondered, if he acted on that urge? How would this ice princess in all her white, silken haughtiness respond if he pulled her into his arms and kissed her quite senseless?
Almost as if she could sense the nature of his thoughts she lifted her chin, her eyes sparking violet challenge. Good. Sandro wanted to see emotion crack that icy demeanour; he wanted to sense something real from her, whether it was uncertainty or nervousness, humour or passion.
Passion.
It had been a while since he’d been with a woman, a lot longer since he’d been in a relationship. He felt a kick of lust and was glad for it. Perhaps he would act on it tonight. Perhaps that would melt the ice, and he would find the real woman underneath all that haughtiness...if she existed at all. He hoped, for both of their sakes, that she did.
‘Did you have a pleasant afternoon?’ he asked politely. He moved to the table that was set for two in front of the huge fireplace and took the bottle of wine that had been left open to breathe on the side.
‘Yes, thank you.’ She remained by the window, utterly still, watching him.
Sandro lifted the bottle. ‘May I pour you a glass?’
A hesitation, and then she nodded. ‘Yes, thank you.’
Yes, thank you. He wondered if he could get her to say it a third time. The woman had perfect manners, perfect everything, but he didn’t want perfection. He wanted something real and raw and passionate—something he’d never had with any woman, any person, even though he’d long been looking for it. Searching and striving for it. He suspected Lady Liana was the last person who could satisfy him in that regard.
He poured them both glasses of red wine, the ruby liquid glinting in the dancing light thrown from the flames of the fire. He crossed the room to where she still stood by the window and handed her the glass, letting his fingers brush hers.
He felt her awareness of that little act, her eyes widening slightly before she took the glass with a murmured thanks. So far they’d been alone for five minutes and she’d said thank you three times, and nothing else.
He walked back to the fire, taking a long swallow of his wine, enjoying the way the velvety liquid coated his throat and fired his belly. Needing that warmth. ‘What did you think of the gardens? Were they to your liking?’ he asked, turning around to face her. She held the wine glass in front of her, both hands clasped around it, although she had yet to take a sip.
‘Yes, thank you—’
‘Yes, thank you,’ he mimicked, a sneering, almost cruel tone to his voice. He was reacting out of a deep-seated revulsion to this kind of shallow conversation, this fakery. It reminded him of too much disappointment, too much pain. Too many lies. ‘Do you say anything else?’
She blinked, but otherwise showed no discomfiture. ‘Are you irritated by my manners, Your Highness?’
‘You are meant to call me Sandro, but you have yet to do so.’
‘I apologise. Your first name does not come easily to me.’
He arched an eyebrow, curious yet also still filled with that edgy restlessness that he knew would lead him to say—or do—things they both might regret.
‘And why is that?’ he asked, and she lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug.
‘You are the king of Maldinia.’
‘It’s nothing more than a title.’
Her mouth tightened, eyes flashing before she carefully ironed out her expression, her face smoothing like a blank piece of paper. ‘Is that what you truly think?’
No, it wasn’t. The crown upon his head—the title before his name—was a leaden weight inside him, dragging him down. It always had been, rife with expectations and disappointment. He’d seen how his father had treated that title, and he had no desire to emulate him. No desire to spiral down that destructive path, and yet he did not know if he possessed the strength to do otherwise. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘I think it is an honour and a privilege.’
‘And one you are eager to share.’ He heard the sardonic edge to his words and he knew she did too, even though her expression didn’t change, didn’t even flicker. Funny, how he knew. How he’d somehow become attuned to this ice princess without even trying.
Or maybe he just knew her type, the kind of woman who would do anything to be queen, who didn’t care about love or friendship or any softer emotion. Hadn’t he encountered such women before, starting with his own mother? And Teresa had been the same, interested only in his wealth and status. He’d yet to find a woman who didn’t care about such things, and he no longer had the freedom to search.
‘Of course,’ she answered calmly.
‘Even though you don’t know me.’
She hesitated, and he took another sip of wine, watching her over the rim of his glass. He wondered how far he would have to push her to evoke some response—any response. Further than that, clearly, for she didn’t answer, merely sipped her own wine, her expression coolly serene.
‘It doesn’t bother you,’ he pressed, ‘that we barely know each other? That you are going to pledge your life to a stranger? Your body?’
Awareness flared in her eyes at his provocative remark, and he took a step towards her. He wanted her to admit it did, longed for her to say something real, something about how strange or uncertain or fearful this arrangement was. Something. Anything.
She regarded him for a moment, her expression thoughtful and yet still so shuttered. ‘So you asked me earlier,’ she remarked. ‘And yet I thought that was the point of this evening. To get to know one another.’
‘Yet you came to Maldinia prepared to marry me without such a luxury.’
‘A fact which seems to provoke you, yet I assume you have been prepared to marry me under the same circumstances?’ She was as coolly challenging as he had been, and he felt a flicker of respect, a frisson of interest. At least she’d stopped with her milky thank yous. At least she was being honest, even if he despised such truth.
‘I was and still am,’ he answered. ‘I have a duty to provide an heir.’
The faintest blush touched her cheeks at the mention of heirs and she glanced away. ‘So you are acting out of duty, and I am not?’
‘What duty insists you marry a king?’
‘One it appears you wouldn’t understand.’
‘Oh, I understand,’ he answered, and she pressed her lips together, lifted her chin.
‘Do you? Why don’t you tell me, then, what you understand?’
He stared at her for a moment, and then decided to answer her with honesty. He doubted he’d get even a flicker of response from her. ‘You want a title,’ he stated flatly. ‘A crown. Wealth and power—’
‘And in exchange I will give you my allegiance and service,’ she answered back, as unruffled as he’d suspected. ‘Children and heirs, God willing. Is it not a fair trade?’
He paused, amazed at her plain speaking, even a little admiring of it. At least she wasn’t pretending to him, the way so many others would. He could be thankful for that, at least. ‘I suppose it is,’ he answered slowly. ‘But I would prefer my marriage not to be a trade.’
‘And yet it must be, because you are king. That is not my fault.’
‘No,’ he agreed quietly. ‘But even so—’
‘You think my reasons for this marriage are less than yours,’ Liana finished flatly. ‘Less worthy.’
Her astuteness unnerved him. ‘I suppose I do. You’ve admitted what you want, Lady Liana. Money. Power. Fame. Such things seem shallow to me.’
‘If I wanted them for my own gratification, I suppose they would be.’
He frowned. ‘What else could you possibly want them for?’
She just shook her head. ‘What has made you so cynical?’
‘Life, Lady Liana. Life.’ He glanced away, not wanting to think about what had made him this suspicious, this sure that everyone was just out for something, that people were simply to be manipulated and used. Even your own children.
‘In any case, you clearly don’t relish the prospect of marriage to me,’ she said quietly.
‘No, I don’t,’ he answered after a pause. He turned to meet her clear gaze directly. ‘I’m sorry if that offends you.’
‘It doesn’t offend me,’ she answered. ‘Surprises me, perhaps.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Because I had assumed we were in agreement about the nature of this marriage.’
‘Which is?’ he asked, wanting to hear more despite hating her answers, the reality of their situation.
She blinked, a hint of discomfiture, even uncertainty, in the way she shifted her weight, clutched her wine glass a little more tightly. ‘Convenience.’
‘Ah, yes. Convenience.’ And he supposed it was convenient for her to have a crown. A title. And all the trappings that came with them. ‘At least you’re honest about it.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Most women who have wanted my title or my money have been a bit more coy about what they really want,’ he answered. ‘More conniving.’
‘You’ll find I am neither.’
‘How refreshing.’
She simply raised her eyebrows at his caustic tone and Sandro suppressed a sigh. He certainly couldn’t fault her honesty. ‘Tell me about yourself,’ he finally said, and she lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug.
‘What is it you wish to know?’
‘Anything. Everything. Where have you been living?’
‘In Milan.’
‘Ah, yes. Your charity work.’
Ire flashed in her eyes. ‘Yes, my charity work.’
‘What charity do you support again?’
‘Hands To Help.’
‘Which is?’
‘A foundation that offers support to families with disabled children.’
‘What kind of support?’
‘Counselling, grants to families in need, practical assistance with the day-to-day.’ She spoke confidently, clearly on familiar ground. He saw how her eyes lit up and everything in her suddenly seemed full of energy and determination.
‘This charity,’ he observed. ‘It means a lot to you.’
She nodded, her lips pressed together in a firm line. ‘Everything.’
Everything? Her zeal was admirable, yet also surprising, even strange. ‘Why is that, Lady Liana?’
She jerked back slightly, as if the question offended her. ‘Why shouldn’t it?’
‘As admirable as it is, I am intrigued. Most people don’t live for their philanthropic causes. I would have thought you simply helped out with various charities as a way to bide your time.’
‘Bide my time?’
‘Until you married.’
She let out an abrupt laugh, the sound hard and humourless. ‘You are as traditional as my parents.’
‘Yet you are here.’
‘Meaning?’
He spread his hands. ‘Not many women, not even the daughters of dukes, would enter a loveless marriage, having barely met the man in question, in this day and age.’
She regarded him coolly. ‘Unless, of course, there was something in it for them. Money. Status. A title.’
‘Exactly.’
She shook her head. ‘And what do you see as being in it for you, Your Highness? I’m curious, considering how reluctant you are to marry.’
His lips curved in a humourless smile. ‘Why, all the things you told me, of course. You’ve detailed your own attributes admirably, Lady Liana. I get a wife who will be the perfect queen. Who will stand by my side and serve my country. And of course, God willing, give me an heir. Preferably two.’
A faint blush touched those porcelain cheeks again, intriguing him. She was twenty-eight years old and yet she blushed like an untouched virgin. Surely she’d had relationships before. Lovers.
And yet in their conversation this afternoon, she’d intimated that she hadn’t.
‘That still doesn’t answer my question,’ she said after a moment. ‘I understand your need to marry. But why me in particular?’
Sandro shrugged. ‘You’re a duke’s daughter, you have shown yourself to be philanthropic, your father is an important member of the European Union. You’re fertile, I assume?’
The pink in her cheeks deepened. ‘There is no reason to think otherwise.’
‘I suppose that aspect of unions such as these is always a bit of a risk.’
‘And if I couldn’t have children?’ she asked after a moment. ‘Would we divorce?’
Would they? Everything in him railed against that as much as the actual marriage. It was all so expedient, so cold. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘How comforting.’
‘I can’t pretend to like any of this, Lady Liana. I’d rather have a normal relationship, with a woman who—’ He stopped suddenly, realising he was revealing too much. A woman who chose me. Who loved me for myself, and not because of my money or my crown. No, he wasn’t about to tell this cold-blooded woman any of that.
‘A woman who?’ she prompted.
‘A woman who wasn’t interested in my title.’
‘Why don’t you find one, then?’ she asked, and she didn’t sound hurt or even peeved, just curious. ‘There must be a woman out there who would marry you for your own sake, Your Highness.’
And she clearly wasn’t one of them, a fact that he’d known and accepted yet still, when so baldly stated, made him inwardly flinch. ‘I have yet to find one,’ he answered shortly. ‘And you are meant to call me Sandro.’
‘Then you must call me Liana.’
‘Very well, Liana. It’s rather difficult to find a woman who isn’t interested in my title. The very fact that I have it attracts the kind of woman who is interested in it.’
‘Yet you renounced your inheritance for fifteen years,’ Liana observed. ‘Couldn’t you have found a woman in California?’
He felt a flash of something close to rage, or perhaps just humiliation. She made it sound as if he was pathetic, unable to find a woman to love him for himself.
And maybe he was—but he didn’t like this ice princess knowing about it. Remarking on it.
‘The women I met in California were interested in my wealth and status,’ he said shortly. He thought of Teresa, then pushed the thought away. He’d tumbled into love with her like a foolish puppy; he wouldn’t make that mistake again. He wouldn’t have the choice, he acknowledged. His attempt at relationships ended in this room, with this woman, and love had no place in what was between them.
‘I’m not interested in your wealth,’ Liana said after a moment. ‘I have no desire to drape myself with jewels or prance about in designer dresses—or whatever it is these grasping women do.’
There was a surprising hint of humour in her voice, and his interested snagged on it. ‘These grasping women?’
‘You seem to have met so many, Your— Sandro. I had no idea there were so many cold, ambitious women about, circling like hawks.’
His lips twitched at the image even as a cynical scepticism took its familiar hold. ‘So you do not count yourself among the hawks, Liana?’
‘I do not, but you might. I am interested in being your queen, Sandro. Not for the wealth or the fame, but for the opportunity it avails me.’
‘And what opportunity is that?’
‘To promote the charity I’ve been working for. Hands To Help.’
He stared at her, not bothering to mask his incredulity. Was he really expected to believe such nonsense? ‘I know you said that the charity meant everything to you, but, even so, you are willing to marry a complete stranger in order to give it greater visibility?’
She pursed her lips. ‘Clearly you find that notion incredible.’
‘I do. You are throwing your life away on a good cause.’
‘That’s what marriage to you will be? Throwing my life away?’ She raised her eyebrows, her eyes glinting with violet sparks. ‘You don’t rate yourself highly, then.’
‘I will never love you.’ Even if he had once longed for a loving relationship, he knew he would never find it with this woman. Even if she wanted to be queen for the sake of some charity—a notion that still seemed ridiculous—she still wanted to be queen. Wanted his title, not him. Did the reason why really matter?
‘I’m not interested in love,’ she answered, seeming completely unfazed by his bald statement. ‘And since it appears you aren’t either, I don’t know why our arrangement can’t suit us both. You might not want to marry, Your Highness—’
‘Sandro.’
‘Sandro,’ she amended with a brief nod, ‘but obviously you have to. I have my own reasons for agreeing to this marriage, as you know. Why can we not come to an amicable arrangement instead of festering with resentment over what neither of us can change?’
‘You could change, if you wanted to,’ Sandro pointed out. ‘As much as you might wish to help this charity of yours, you are not bound by duty in quite the same way as I am.’
Her expression shuttered, and he felt instinctively that she was hiding something, some secret sorrow. ‘No,’ she agreed quietly, ‘not in quite the same way.’
She held his gaze for a moment that felt suspended, stretching into something else. All of a sudden, with an intensity that caught him by surprise, he felt his body tighten with both awareness and desire. He wanted to know what the shadows in her eyes hid and he wanted to chase them away. He wanted to see them replaced with the light of desire, the blaze of need.
His gaze swept over her elegant form, her slight yet tempting curves draped in champagne-coloured silk, and desire coiled tighter inside him.
An amicable arrangement, indeed. Why not?
She broke the gaze first, taking a sip of wine, and he forced his mind back to more immediate concerns...such as actually getting to know this woman.
‘So you live in Milan. Your parents have an apartment there?’
‘They do, but I have my own as well.’
‘You enjoy city life?’
She shrugged. ‘It has proved convenient for my work.’
Her charity work, for which she didn’t even get paid. Could she possibly be speaking the truth when she said she was marrying him to promote the charity she supported? It seemed absurd and extreme, yet he had seen the blazing, determined light in her eyes when she spoke of it.
‘What has made you so devoted to that particular charity?’ he asked and everything in her went tense and still.
‘It’s a good cause,’ she answered after a moment, her expression decidedly wary.
‘There are plenty of good causes. What did you say Hands To Help did? Support families with disabled children?’
‘Yes.’
A few moments ago she’d been blazing with confidence as she’d spoken about it, but now every word she spoke was offered reluctantly, every movement repressive. She was hiding something, Sandro thought, but he had no idea what it could be.
‘And did anything in particular draw you to this charity?’ he asked patiently. Getting answers from her now felt akin to drawing blood from a stone.
For a second, no more, she looked conflicted, almost tormented. Her features twisted and her eyes appealed to him with an agony he didn’t understand. Then her expression shuttered once more, like a veil being drawn across her face, and she looked away. ‘Like I said, it’s a good cause.’
And that, Sandro thought bemusedly, was that. Very well. He had plenty of time to discover the secrets his bride-to-be was hiding, should he want to know them. ‘And what about before you moved to Milan? You went to university?’
‘No. I started working with Hands To Help when I was eighteen.’ She shifted restlessly, then pinned a bright smile on her face that Sandro could see straight through.
‘What about you, Sandro?’ she asked, stumbling only slightly over his name. ‘Did you enjoy your university days?’
He thought of those four years at Cambridge, the heady freedom and the bitter disillusionment. Had he enjoyed them? In some respects, yes, but in others he had been too angry and hurt to enjoy anything.
‘They served a purpose,’ he said after a moment, and she cocked her head.
‘Which was?’
‘To educate myself.’
‘You renounced your title upon your graduation, did you not?’
Tension coiled inside him. That much at least was common knowledge, but he still didn’t like talking about it, had no desire for her to dig. They both had secrets, it seemed.
‘I did.’
‘Why?’
Such a bald question. Who had ever asked him that? No one had dared, and yet this slip of a woman with her violet eyes and carefully blank expression did, and without a tremor. ‘It felt necessary at the time.’ He spoke repressively, just as she had, and she accepted it, just as he had. Truce.
Yet stupidly, he felt almost disappointed. She wasn’t interested in him; of course she wasn’t. She’d already said as much. And he didn’t want to talk about it, so why did he care?
He didn’t. He was just being contrary because even as he accepted the necessity of this marriage, everything in him rebelled against it. Rebelled against entering this prison of a palace, with its hateful memories and endless expectations. Rebelled against marrying a woman he would never love, who would never love him. Would their convenient marriage become as bitter and acrimonious as his parents’? He hoped not, but he didn’t know how they would keep themselves from it.
‘We should eat,’ he said, his voice becoming a bit brusque, and he went to pull out her chair, gesturing for her to come forward.
She did, her dress whispering about her legs as she moved, her head held high, her bearing as straight and proud as always. As she sat down, Sandro breathed in the perfumed scent of her, something subtle and floral, perhaps rosewater.
He glanced down at the back of her neck as she sat, the skin so pale with a sprinkling of fine golden hairs. He had the sudden urge to touch that soft bit of skin, to press his lips to it. He imagined how she would react and his mouth curved in a mocking smile. He wondered again if the ice princess was ice all the way through. He would, he decided, find out before too long. Perhaps they could enjoy that aspect of their marriage, if nothing else.
‘What have you been doing in California?’ she asked as one of the palace staff came in with their first course, plates of mussels nestled in their shells and steamed in white wine and butter.
‘I ran my own IT firm.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Very much so.’
‘Yet you gave it up to return to Maldinia.’
It had been the most agonising decision he’d ever made, and yet it had been no decision at all. ‘I did,’ he answered shortly.
She cocked her head, her lavender gaze sweeping thoughtfully over him. ‘Are you glad you did?’
‘Glad doesn’t come into it,’ he replied. ‘It was simply what I needed to do.’
‘Your duty.’
‘Yes.’
Sandro pried a mussel from its shell and ate the succulent meat, draining the shell of its juices. Liana, he noticed, had not touched her meal; her mouth was drawn into a prim little line. He arched an eyebrow.
‘Are mussels not to your liking?’
‘They’re delicious, I’m sure.’ With dainty precision she pierced a mussel with her fork and attempted, delicately, to wrest it from its shell. Sandro watched, amused, as she wrangled with the mussel and failed. This was a food that required greasy fingers and smacking lips, a wholehearted and messy commitment to the endeavour. He sat back in his chair and waited to see what his bride-to-be would do next.
She took a deep breath, pressed her lips together, and tried again. She stabbed the mussel a bit harder this time, and then pulled her fork back. The utensil came away empty and the mussel flew across her plate, the shell clattering against the porcelain. Sandro’s lips twitched.
Liana glanced up, her eyes narrowing. ‘You’re laughing at me.’
‘You need to hold the mussel with your fingers,’ he explained, leaning forward, his mouth curving into a mocking smile. ‘And that means you might actually get them dirty.’
Her gaze was all cool challenge. ‘Or you could provide a knife.’
‘But this is so much more interesting.’ He took another mussel, holding the shell between his fingers, and prised the meat from inside, then slurped the juice and tossed the empty shell into a bowl provided for that purpose. ‘See?’ He lounged back in his chair, licking his fingers with deliberate relish. He enjoyed discomfiting Liana. He’d enjoy seeing her getting her fingers dirty and her mouth smeared with butter even more, actually living life inside of merely observing it, but he trusted she would find a way to eat her dinner without putting a single hair out of place. That was the kind of woman she was.
Liana didn’t respond, just watched him in that chilly way of hers, as if he was a specimen she was meant to examine. And what conclusions would she draw? He doubted whether she could understand what drove him, just as he found her so impossibly cold and distant. They were simply too far apart in their experience of and desire for life to ever see eye to eye on anything, even a plate of mussels.
‘Do you think you’ll manage any of them?’ he asked, nodding towards her still-full plate, and her mouth firmed.
Without replying she reached down and held one shell with the tips of her fingers, stabbing the meat with her fork. With some effort she managed to wrench the mussel from its shell and put it in her mouth, chewing resolutely. She left the juice.
‘Is that what we call compromise?’ Sandro asked softly and she lifted her chin.
‘I call it necessity.’
‘We’ll have to employ both in our marriage.’
‘As you would in any marriage, I imagine,’ she answered evenly, and he acknowledged the point with a terse nod.
Liana laid down her fork; clearly she wasn’t going to attempt another mussel. ‘What exactly is it you dislike about me, Your Highness?’
‘Sandro. My name is Sandro.’ She didn’t respond and he drew a breath, decided for honesty. ‘You ask what I dislike about you? Very well. The fact that you decided on this marriage without even meeting me—save an unremarkable acquaintance fifteen years ago—tells me everything I need to know about you. And I like none of it.’
‘So you have summed me up and dismissed me, all because of one decision I have made? The same decision you have made?’
‘I admit it sounds hypocritical, but I had no choice. You did.’
‘And did it not occur to you,’ she answered back, her voice still so irritatingly calm, ‘that any woman you approached regarding this marriage, any woman who accepted, would do so out of similar purpose? Your wife can’t win, Sandro, whether it’s me or someone else. You are determined to hate your bride, simply because she agreed to marry you.’
Her logic surprised and discomfited him, because he knew she was right. He was acting shamefully, stupidly, taking out his frustration on a woman who was only doing what he’d expected and even requested. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a moment. ‘I realise I am making this more difficult for both of us, and to no purpose. We must marry.’
‘You could choose someone else,’ she answered quietly. ‘Someone more to your liking.’
He raised an eyebrow, wearily amused. ‘Are you suggesting I do?’
‘No, but...’ She shrugged, spreading her hands. ‘I do not wish to be your life sentence.’
‘And will I be yours?’
‘I have accepted the limitations of this marriage in a way it appears you have not.’
Which made him sound like a hopeless romantic. No, he’d accepted the limitations. He was simply railing against them, which as she’d pointed out was to no purpose. And he’d stop right now.
‘Forgive me, Liana. I have been taking out my frustrations on you, and I will not do so any longer. I wish to marry you and no other. You are, as I mentioned before, so very suitable, and I apologise for seeming to hold it against you.’ This little speech sounded stiltedly formal, but he did mean it. He’d made his choices. He needed to live with them.
‘Apology accepted,’ she answered quietly, but with no real warmth. Could he even blame her? He’d hardly endeared himself to her. He wasn’t sure he could.
He reached for his wine glass. ‘In any case, after the debacle of my brother’s marriage, not to mention my parents’, our country needs the stability of a shock-free monarchy.’
‘Your brother? Prince Leo?’
‘You know him?’
‘I’ve met him on several occasions. He’s married to Alyse Barras now.’
‘The wedding of the century, apparently. The love story of the century....’ He shook his head, knowing how his brother must have hated the pretence. ‘And it was all a lie.’
‘But they are still together?’
Sandro nodded. ‘The irony is, they actually do love each other. But they didn’t fall in love until after their marriage.’
‘So their six-year engagement was—?’
‘A sham. And the public isn’t likely to forgive that very easily.’
‘It hardly matters, since Leo will no longer be king.’
God, she was cold. ‘I suppose not.’
‘I only meant,’ she clarified, as if she could read his thoughts, ‘that the publicity isn’t an issue for them anymore.’
‘But it will be for us,’ he filled in, ‘which is why I have chosen to be honest about the convenience of our marriage. No one will ever think we’re in love.’
‘Instead of a fairy tale,’ she said, ‘we will have a business partnership.’
‘I suppose that is as good a way of looking at it as any other.’ Even if the thought of having a marriage like his parents’—one born of convenience and rooted in little more than tolerance—made everything in him revolt. If a marriage had no love and perhaps not even any sympathy between the two people involved, how could it not sour? Turn into something despicable and hate-filled?
How could he not?
He had no other example.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed a discreet button to summon the wait staff. It was time for the next course. Time to move on. Instead of fighting his fate, like the unhappy, defiant boy he’d once been, he needed to accept it—and that meant deciding just how he could survive a marriage to Lady Liana Aterno.
