The Prince She Had to Marry. Christine Rimmer

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, any way. 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 before 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.

      Now, in the final hours of darkness on the morning they would marry, he had to steel himself to keep from reaching out, drawing her close, deepening that light, quick brush of a kiss.

      Blessedly, within a few seconds, she let him go. “Good night, Alex,” she told him softly.

      And then she turned and left him there, holding his empty glass and feeling bereft when he should have been grateful that she had gone.

       Chapter Three

      Lili’s wedding gown wasn’t white. It wasn’t even a gown, really. It was a very ladylike dress by Valentino, a tea-length dress of painted silk, dotted with tiny sprays of pale flowers on a ground of purple so dark it might have been midnight blue. Her suede shoes were deep violet, with ankle straps and very high heels. She smoothed her acres of hair into a simple twist and wore crystal Pavé earrings.

      At a quarter of nine, she stood before the cheval glass in her palace guest apartment, ready to say her vows.

      One of her attendants entered. “His Majesty is here.”

      She greeted him in the sitting room. “Papa.”

      He hesitated, the way he always did after he’d lost his wild Alagonian temper. He looked so hopeful and abashed. “Forgive me?”

      “Always.”

      He came to her and enfolded her in his lean arms, holding her close as he used to do so often when she was a child. When he took her by the shoulders and stepped away a little, he gazed at her admiringly. “You are a beauty, just like your mother.” There was sadness in his eyes when he spoke of his lost queen. “She looked forward so eagerly to your wedding day.”

      Lili kept her smile in place, though her father’s image blurred a little to her misty eyes. “I feel she is watching over us, blessing us. I do, Papa.”

      He touched her cheek, laid his hand lightly against her upswept hair. “She always planned a large, royal wedding for you, a wedding of state, a thing of pomp and glory, at D’Alagon.” D’Alagon was the Alagonian royal palace. It stood proudly on a hill above the capital city and port of Salvia. “I hope you’re not too disappointed, my little love, to have your wedding in secret, to wear a day dress, to marry here in Montedoro rather than at home.”

      She leaned close to him and whispered in his ear, “It’s never the wedding, Papa. You know that. It’s the marriage that matters.”

      His green eyes turned dark and stormy and a muscle twitched in his square jaw. “He’d better treat you well or I’ll have his head on a pike.”

      She straightened his collar. “Papa, stop it. Alex is … troubled. But he’s a good man at heart.” As she said the words, she took comfort from realizing she believed them.

      Her father held her close again. “Be happy, my little love.”

      She thought of her groom again, of his shadowed eyes, his brusque, harsh ways. To be happy with Alex wasn’t going to be easy. Still, she promised her father, “I will, Papa. Happiness is something one chooses. And I do choose it. Gratefully.”