Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets
Yvonne Lindsay
An arranged marriage means she’s his bride. Her secrets make her much more… Only from USA TODAY bestselling author Yvonne Lindsay!Princess Mila will safeguard her kingdom by marrying a neighboring royal she barely knows. But she refuses to let Prince Thierry perfect his romantic arts with another woman. Disguised as his hired courtesan, the virgin princess plans to seduce her fiancé before their wedding night!The mind-blowing chemistry they discover can’t be taught—or forgotten. Yet Mila’s lie is unforgivable to a man who prizes honor above all. Public scandal threatens all Mila’s dreams and her country’s future…unless this prince can let passion, and his heart, reign supreme.
“I need to know how to seduce my wife.
“Not just physically, but on every level emotionally, too. I never want to see loathing in her eyes when she looks at me, as my mother so often looked at my father. And I never wish to treat her with disdain the way my father treated my mother. I will not have a marriage like that.”
A vein pulsed at the side of Thierry’s brow and while his voice had remained level, Mila could see the strain in his eyes as he turned to face her again.
“I want you to teach me how to make my wife fall in love with me so deeply she will never look to another man for her fulfillment. Can you do this?”
Thierry stared into the glowing amber of his courtesan’s eyes and willed her to give him the answer he craved.
“You want me to teach you to seduce your fiancée’s mind and her senses, and then her body?”
“I do.”
Her eyes shone brightly as she smiled.
“Your demand is not quite what I expected but I will do what you ask.”
* * *
Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets is part of the Courtesan Brides duet: Her pleasure is at his command!
Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets
Yvonne Lindsay
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
A typical Piscean, USA TODAY bestselling author YVONNE LINDSAY has always preferred her imagination to the real world. Married to her blind-date hero and with two adult children, she spends her days crafting the stories of her heart, and in her spare time she can be found with her nose in a book reliving the power of love, or knitting socks and daydreaming. Contact her via her website, www.yvonnelindsay.com (http://www.yvonnelindsay.com).
There are so many people who enrich my life but foremost are the members of my incredible family, so I dedicate this book to them.
Contents
Cover (#u16c5992b-ea06-5e98-9466-594aa5fe68f5)
Introduction (#uab3920d0-b334-5320-b773-74783793d97e)
Title Page (#ud08d8054-7e15-5ffd-8beb-1d450c7531e1)
About the Author (#u01a335fc-d447-5c2d-8639-6b885d797992)
Dedication (#u64319106-ef18-5f1a-a3ed-af36f59232f4)
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
One (#u7a4b7c57-f7f6-5967-9709-57393905521e)
“Isn’t that you?”
Mila shoved an unruly lock of her long black hair off her face and looked up in irritation from the notes she’d been making.
“Is what me?” she asked her friend.
“On the TV, now!”
Mila turned her attention to the flat screen currently blaring the latest entertainment news trailers that so captivated her best friend and felt her stomach lurch. There, for all the world to see, were the unspeakably awful official photos taken at her betrothal to Prince Thierry of Sylvain seven years ago. Overweight, with braces still on her teeth and a haircut that had looked so cute on a Paris model and way less cute on an awkward eighteen-year-old princess—especially one who was desperately attempting to look more sophisticated and who had ended up, instead, looking like a sideshow clown. She shuddered.
“I know it doesn’t look completely like you, but that is you, isn’t it? Princess Mila Angelina of Erminia? Is that really your name?” Sally demanded, one finger pointing at the TV screen while her eyes pinned Mila with a demanding stare.
There was no point in arguing. Hiding a cringe, Mila merely inclined her head. She looked back down at her notes for a thesis she’d likely never be permitted to complete, but her concentration was gone. How would her friend react to this news?
“You’re going to marry a prince?”
Mila couldn’t be certain if Sally was outraged because Mila was actually engaged to a prince, or because she’d never thought to let her best friend in on the secret of her real identity. She sighed and put her pen down. As an uncelebrated princess from a tiny European kingdom, she’d flown under the radar in the United States since her arrival seven years ago, but now it was clearly time to face the music.
She’d known Sally since their freshman year at MIT and, while her friend had sometimes looked a little surprised that Mila—or Angel as she was known here in the States—had a chaperone, didn’t date and had a team of bodyguards whenever she went out, Sally had accepted Angel’s quirks without question. After all, Sally herself was heiress to an IT billionaire and lived with similar, if not quite as binding, constraints. The girls had naturally gravitated to one another.
It was time to be honest with her friend. Mila sighed again. “Yes, I am Mila Angelina of Erminia and, yes, I’m engaged to a prince.”
“And you’re a princess?”
“I’m a princess.”
Mila held her breath, waiting for her friend’s reaction. Would she be angry with her? Would it ruin the friendship she so treasured?
“I feel like I don’t even know you, but seriously, that’s so cool!” Sally gushed.
Mila rolled her eyes and laughed in relief. Of all the things she’d anticipated coming from Sally’s rather forthright mouth, that hadn’t been one of them.
“I always had a feeling there were things you weren’t telling me.” Sally dropped onto the couch beside Mila, scattering her papers to the floor. “So, what’s he like?”
“Who?”
It was Sally’s turn to roll her eyes this time. “The prince of course. C’mon, Angel, you can tell me. Your secret’s safe with me, although I am kind of pissed at you for not telling me about him, or who you really are, any time in, oh, the last seven years!”
Sally softened her words with a smile, but Mila could see that she was still hurt by the omission.
How did you explain to someone that even though you’d been engaged to a man for years, you barely even knew him? One formal meeting, where she’d been so painfully shy she hadn’t even been capable of making eye contact with the guy, followed by sporadic and equally formal letters exchanged by a diplomatic pouch, didn’t add up to much in the relationship stakes.
“I...I don’t really know what he’s like.” Mila took in a deep breath. “I have Googled him, though.”
Her friend laughed out loud. “You have no idea how crazy that just sounded. You’re living a real life fairy tale, y’know? European princess betrothed from childhood—well, okay, the age of eighteen at least—to a reclusive neighboring prince.” Sally sighed and clutched at her chest dramatically. “It’s so romantic—and all you can say is that you’ve Googled him?”
“Now who sounds crazy? I’m marrying him out of duty to my family and my country. Erminia and Sylvain have hovered on the brink of war for the last decade and a half. My marriage to Prince Thierry is supposed to end all that—unite our nations—if you can believe it could be that simple.”
“But don’t you want love?”
“Of course I want love.”
Her response hung in the air between them. Love. It was all Mila had ever wanted. But it was something she knew better than to expect. Groomed from birth as not much more than a political commodity to be utilized to her country’s greatest advantage, she’d realized love didn’t feature very strongly alongside duty. When it came to her engagement, her agreement to the union had never been sought. It had been presented to her as her responsibility—and she’d accepted it. What else could she do?
Meeting the prince back then had been terrifying. Six years older than her, well-educated, charismatically gorgeous and oozing confidence, he’d been everything she was not. And she hadn’t missed the hastily masked look of dismay on his face when they’d initially been introduced. Granted, she hadn’t looked her best, but it had still stung to realize she certainly wasn’t the bride he’d hoped for and it wasn’t as if he could simply tell everyone he’d changed his mind. He, too, was a pawn in their betrothal—a scheme hatched by their respective governments in an attempt to quell the animosity that continued to simmer between their nations.
Mila rubbed a finger between her eyebrows as if by doing so she could ease the nagging throb that had settled there.
“Of course I want love,” she repeated, more softly this time.
She felt Sally’s hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t joke.”
“It’s okay.” Mila reached up and squeezed her friend’s hand to reassure her.
“So, how come you came here to study? If peace was the aim, wouldn’t they have wanted you two to marry as soon as possible?”
Again Mila pictured the look on Prince Thierry’s face when he’d seen her. A look that had made her realize that if she was to be anything to him other than a representation of his duty, she needed to work hard to become his equal. She needed to complete her education and become a worthy companion. Thankfully, her brother, King Rocco of Erminia, had seen the same look on the prince’s face and, later that night, when she’d tearfully appealed to him with her plan to better herself, he’d agreed.
“The agreement was that we’d marry on my twenty-fifth birthday.”
“But that’s at the end of next month!”
“I know.”
“But you haven’t finished your doctorate.”
Mila thought of all the sacrifices she’d made in her life to date. Not completing her PhD would probably be the most painful. While her brother had insisted she at least include some courses in political science, the main focus of her studies had been environmental science—a subject that she’d learned was close to the prince’s heart. After years of study, it was close to hers now, too. Not being able to stand before him with her doctorate in hand, so to speak, was a painful thought to consider, but it was something she’d just have to get over. She certainly hadn’t planned on things taking this long, but being dyslexic had made her first few years at college harder than she’d anticipated and she’d had to retake a number of courses. As Mila formed her reply to her friend, Sally was suddenly distracted.
“Oh, he’s so hot!”
Mila snorted a laugh. “I know what he looks like. I’ve Googled him, remember.”
“No, look, he’s on TV, now. He’s in New York at that environmental summit Professor Winslow told us about weeks ago.”
Mila looked up so quickly she nearly gave herself whiplash. “Prince Thierry is here? In the US?”
She trained her gaze onto the TV screen and, sure enough, there he was. Older than she remembered him and, if it was humanly possible, even better looking. Her heart tumbled in her chest and she felt her throat constrict on a raft of emotions. Fear, attraction—longing.
“You didn’t know he was coming?”
Mila tore her eyes from the screen and fought to inject the right level of nonchalance into her voice. “No, I didn’t. But that’s okay.”
“Okay? You think that’s okay?” Sally’s voice grew shrill. “The guy travels how many thousand miles to the country where you’ve been living for years now and he can’t pick up a phone?”
“He’s obviously only in New York for a short while and I’m sure he’ll have a strict timetable set in place. I’m over here in Boston—he can’t exactly just drop in.” She shrugged. “It’s not like it matters, anyway. We’re getting married in a little over four weeks’ time.”
Her voice cracked on the words. Even though she played at being offhand, deep down it had come as a shock to see him on the TV. Would it have killed him to have let her know he was coming to America?
“Hmph. I can’t believe you’re not seeing each other while he’s here,” Sally continued, clearly not ready to let go of the topic yet. “Don’t you even want to see him?”
“He probably doesn’t have time,” Mila deflected.
She didn’t want to go into what she did or didn’t want when it came to Prince Thierry. Her feelings on the subject were too confusing, even for her. She’d tried to convince herself many times that love at first sight was the construction of moviemakers and romance novelists, but ever since the day of their betrothal, she had yearned for him with a longing that went deep into the very fabric of her being. Was that love? She didn’t know. It wasn’t as if she’d had any stellar examples during her childhood.
“Well, even if he hadn’t told me he was coming here, I’d certainly make time to see him if he was mine.”
Mila forced herself to laugh and to make the kind of comment Sally would expect her to make. “Well, he’s not yours, he’s mine—and I’m not sharing.”
As she expected, Sally joined in with her mirth. Mila kept her eyes glued to the screen for the duration of the segment about Prince Thierry—and tried to ignore the commentary about herself. The reporters were full of speculation as to her whereabouts, which had been kept strictly private for the past several years. Though she realized, if Sally had put two and two together as to who she was, what was to say others wouldn’t, also?
She clung to the hope that no one would think to connect the ugly duckling of her engagement photo with the woman she had become. No longer was she the timid young woman with a mouth too large for her face and chubby cheeks and thighs. Somewhere between nineteen and twenty she’d begun a miraculous late-blooming transformation. The thirty extra pounds of puppy fat had long since melted from her body—her features and her figure fining down to what she was now, still curvy but no longer overweight. And her hair, thank goodness, had grown long and straight and thick. The dreadful cropped cut and frizzy perm she’d insisted on in a vain attempt to look sophisticated before meeting the prince was now nothing more than a humiliating memory. And she’d finally developed the poise that had been sadly lacking when she was just a teenager.
Would her soon-to-be husband find her attractive now? She hated to think he’d be put off by her, especially given how incredibly drawn she was to him.
Sally had been one hundred percent right that Prince Thierry was hot. And all through the broadcast she saw evidence of that special brand of charisma that he unconsciously exuded. Mila watched the way people in the background stopped and stared at the prince—drawn to him as if he was a particularly strong magnet and they were nothing but metal filings inexorably pulled into his field. She knew how they felt. It was the same sensation that had struck her on the day of their betrothal—not to mention since, whenever she’d seen pictures of him or caught a news bulletin on television when she was home on vacation back in Erminia.
She’d return there in just a few weeks. It was time to retrieve the mantle of responsibility she’d so eagerly, even if only temporarily, shrugged off and reassume her position.
She should be looking forward to it. Not only because of the draw she felt toward the prince, but because of what the marriage would mean to both of their countries. The tentative peace between her native Erminia and Sylvain had been shattered many years ago when Prince Thierry’s mother had been caught, in flagrante delicto, with an Erminian diplomat. When both she and her lover had died in a fiery car crash fingers had pointed to both governments in accusation. Military posturing along the borders of their countries ever since had created its own brand of unrest within the populations. She’d understood that her eventual marriage to Prince Thierry would, hopefully, bring all that turmoil to an end—but she wanted something more than a convenient marriage. Was it too much to hope that she could make the prince love her, too?
Mila reached for the remote and muted the sound, ready to turn her attention back to her work, but Sally wasn’t finished on the subject yet.
“You should go to New York and meet him. Turn up at the door to his hotel suite and introduce yourself,” Sally urged.
Mila laughed, but the sound lacked any humor. “Even if I could get away from Boston unchaperoned, I wouldn’t get past his security, trust me. He’s the Crown Prince of Sylvain, the sole heir to the throne. He’s important.”
Sally rolled her eyes. “So are you. You’re his fiancée, for goodness’ sake. Surely he’d make time for you. And, as to Bernadette and the bruiser boys,” Sally said, referring to Mila’s chaperone and round-the-clock bodyguards, “I think I could come up with a way to dodge them—if you were willing to commit to this, that is.”
“I couldn’t. Besides, what if my brother found out?”
Sally didn’t know that Mila’s brother was also the reigning king of Erminia, but she was aware that Rocco had been her guardian since they lost their parents many years ago.
“What could he do? Ground you?” Sally snorted. “C’mon, you’re almost twenty-five years old and you’ve spent the last seven years in another country gaining valuable qualifications you’ll probably never be allowed to use. You have a lifetime of incredibly boring state dinners and stuff like that to look forward to. I think you’re entitled to a bit of fun, don’t you?”
“You make a good point,” Mila answered with a wry grin. As much as Sally’s words pricked at her, her friend was right. “What do you suggest?”
“It’s easy. Professor Winslow said that if we wanted he could get us tickets to the sustainability lecture stream during the summit. Why don’t we take him up on it? The summit starts tomorrow and there’s a lecture we could attend,” she said the latter word with her fingers in the air, mimicking quotation marks, “the next day.”
“Accommodation will be impossible to find at this short notice.”
“My family keeps a suite close to where they said the prince is staying. We could fly to New York by late afternoon tomorrow—Daddy will let me use his jet, I’m sure, especially if I tell him it’s for my studies. Then we check into the hotel and you could suddenly feel ill.” Sally hooked her fingers into mimed quotation marks again. “Bernie and the boys wouldn’t need to be with you if you were tucked up in bed with a migraine, would they? We’ll take a blond wig so you can look more like me. After a couple of hours, I’ll pretend I’m going out but instead I’ll go to your room and go to bed and pull the covers right up so if she checks on you she’ll think you’re out for the count. We’ll swap clothes and you, looking like me, can just slip out for the evening. What do you say?”
“They’ll never fall for it.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to try, though, would it? Otherwise when are you going to get a chance to see the prince again? At your wedding? C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen?”
What was the worst that could happen? They’d get caught. And then what? More reminders of her station and her duty to her country. Growing up in Erminia constant lectures about her duty and reputation had been all she’d known, after all. But after living and attending college in the States for the past few years, Mila had enjoyed a taste—albeit a severely curtailed one—of the kind of freedom she hadn’t even known she craved.
She weighed the idea in her mind. Sally’s plan was so simple and uncomplicated it might just work. Bernadette was always crazy busy—even more so since she’d begun making plans for Mila’s return to Erminia. A side jaunt to New York would throw her schedule completely out—if she even agreed to allowing it. But Mila still had the email from the professor saying how valuable attending the lecture would be. Mila knew she could put some emotional pressure on the chaperone who’d become more like a mother-figure to her and convince her to let her go.
“What’s it going to be, Mila?” Sally prompted.
Mila reached her decision. “I’ll do it.”
She couldn’t believe she’d said the words even as they came from her mouth, but every cell in her body flooded with a sense of anticipation. She was going to meet Prince Thierry. Or, at least, try to meet him.
“Great,” Sally said, rubbing her hands together like the nefarious co-conspirator she was at heart. “Let’s make some plans. This is going to be fun!”
Two (#u7a4b7c57-f7f6-5967-9709-57393905521e)
Dead.
The king was dead. Long live the king.
Oblivious to the panoramic twilight view of New York City as it sparkled below him, Thierry paced in front of the windows of his hotel suite in a state of disbelief.
He was now the King of Sylvain and all its domains—automatically assuming the crown as soon as his father had breathed his last breath.
A flutter of rage beat at the periphery of his thoughts. Rage that his father had slipped away now, rather than after Thierry had returned to his homeland. But it was typical of the man to make things awkward for his son. After all, hadn’t he made a lifetime hobby of it? Even before this trip, knowing he was dying, his father had sent Thierry away. Perhaps he’d known all along that his only son would not be able to return before his demise. He’d never been a fan of emotional displays.
Not that Thierry would likely become emotional. The king had always been a distant person in Thierry’s life. Their interactions had been peppered with reminders of Thierry’s duty to his country and his people and reprimands for the slightest transgression whether real or imagined. Yet, through the frustration and rage that flickered inside him, Thierry felt a swell of grief. Perhaps more for the relationship he had never had with his father, he realized, than the difficult one they’d shared.
“Sire?”
The form of address struck him anew. Sire—not Your Royal Highness or sir.
His aide continued, “Is there anything—?”
“No.” Thierry cut off his aide before he could ask again what he could do.
Since the news had been delivered, his staff had closed around him—all too wary that they were now responsible for not the Crown Prince any longer, but the King of Sylvain. He could feel the walls closing in around him even as he paced. He had to get out. Get some air. Enjoy some space before the news hit worldwide headlines which, no doubt, it would within the next few hours.
Thierry turned to his aide. “I apologize for my rudeness. The news...even though we were expecting it...”
“Yes, sire, it has come as a shock to everyone. We all hoped he would rally again.”
Thierry nodded abruptly. “I’m going out.”
A look of horror passed across the man’s features. “But, sire!”
“Pasquale, I need tonight. Before it all changes,” Thierry said by way of explanation even though no explanation was necessary.
The reality of his new life was already crushing. He’d been trained for this from the cradle and yet it still felt as though he had suddenly become Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“You will take your security detail with you.”
Thierry nodded. That much, he knew, was non-negotiable, but he also knew they’d be discreet. Aside from the film crew that had caught him arriving at his hotel yesterday, his visit to the United States had largely gone untrumpeted. He was a comparatively small fry compared to the other heads of state from around the world who had converged on the city for the summit. That would all change by morning, of course, when news of his father’s death made headlines. He hoped, by then, to be airborne and on his way home.
Thierry strode to his bedroom and ripped the tie from his neck before it strangled him. His elderly valet, Nico, scurried forward.
“Nico, a pair of jeans and a fresh shirt, please.”
“Certainly, sire.”
There it was again. That word. That one word that had created a gulf of distance between himself and his staff and, no doubt, the rest of the world with it. For the briefest moment, Thierry wished he could rage and snarl at the life he’d been dealt, but, as always, he capped the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. He was nothing if not controlled.
A few moments later, after a brief shower, Thierry was dressed and waiting in his suite’s vestibule for his security detail—all ready to go.
“It’s cool out this evening, sire. You’ll be needing these,” Nico said.
The older man’s hands trembled as he helped Thierry into a finely woven casual jacket and passed him a beanie and dark glasses. At the visible sign of his valet’s distress, Thierry once again felt that sense of being crushed by the change to his life. Now, he was faced not only with his own emotions at the news of his father’s death, but with those of his people. So far, his staff had only expressed their condolences to him. It was time he returned that consideration. He turned and allowed his gaze to encompass both Pasquale and Nico.
“Gentlemen, thank you for all your support. I know you, too, have suffered a great loss with the death of my father. You have been in service to my family for longer than I can remember and I am grateful to you. Should you need time to grieve, please know it is yours once we return home.”
Both men spluttered their protestations as they assured him that they would take no leave. That it was their honor to serve him. It was as he’d expected, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t carry a sense of loss deep inside.
“I mean it,” he affirmed. “Nico, will you see to the packing? I believe our plane will be ready by 8 a.m.”
The head of his security, Armaund, entered the suite with three of his team.
“Sire, when you’re ready.”
With a nod of thanks to Pasquale and Nico, Thierry headed for the door. Three security guards fell in formation around him as one went ahead to the private elevator that serviced this floor.
“We thought the side entrance would be best, sire. We can avoid the lobby that way and hotel security have swept for paparazzi already.”
“Thank you, that’s fine.”
He felt like little more than a sheep with a herd of sheep dogs as they exited the elevator downstairs.
“Some space, please, gentlemen,” Thierry said firmly as he picked up his pace and struck out ahead of his team.
He could sense they didn’t like it, but as long as he didn’t look as if he was surrounded by guards, he was relying on the fact that in a big city such as New York he’d soon become just another person on the crowded sidewalk. It was the team who would likely draw attention to him rather than his own position in the world.
Thierry rounded the corner and headed for the exit. Not far now and maybe he could breathe, really breathe for the first time since he’d heard the news.
* * *
“‘Fun,’ she said,” Mila muttered under her breath as she walked the block outside the hotel for the sixth time that evening.
Once she’d overcome the sheer terror that had gripped her as she’d escaped Sally’s family’s hotel suite, anticipation had buoyed her all the way here. But she’d yet to feel that sense of fun that Sally had mentioned. Leaving the suite had been nerve-racking. She’d been sure that Bernadette or one of the guards would have seen past the blond wig she wore and realized that it wasn’t Sally leaving the suite, but they’d only given her a cursory glance.
The walk to the prince’s hotel hadn’t been too bad, but it had given her too much time to think about what on earth she was doing here. And far too much time to begin to regret it—hence the circuits around the block. Any minute now she’d be arrested, she was sure of it. She’d already started getting sideways glances from more than one person.
She took a sip from the coffee she’d bought to steady her nerves and ducked into a doorway at the side of the hotel just as the skies opened with a sudden spring shower of rain. Great, she thought, as she watched the rain fall, making the streets slick and dark and seeming to emphasize just how alone she was at this exact moment, even with the tens of thousands of people who swirled and swelled around her. One of those people jostled her from behind, making her lurch and sending her coffee cup flying to the pavement. She cried out in dismay as some of the scalding liquid splashed on her hand.
“Watch it!” she growled, shaking the residue from her stinging skin and brushing down the front of her—no, she corrected herself, Sally’s—jacket.
So much for making a good impression, she thought. Wet, bewigged and now coffee-stained—she may as well quit and go home. This had been a ridiculous idea from start to finish and there’d be hell to pay if she got caught out.
“My apologies.”
The man’s voice came from behind her. It was rich and deep and sent a tingle thrilling down her spine. She wheeled around, almost bumping into him again as she realized he was closer to her than she’d anticipated.
“I’m sor—” she began and then she looked up.
The man stood in front of her, an apologetic smile curving sinfully beautiful lips. A dark beanie covered the top of his head, hiding the color of his hair, and he wore sunglasses. Odd, given the late hour but, after all, this was New York. But then he hooked his glasses with one long tanned finger and slid them down his nose, exposing thick black brows and eyes the color of slate. Everything—all thought, all logic, all sense—fled her mind.
All she could focus on was him.
Prince Thierry.
Right there.
In the flesh.
Mila had often wondered if people were exaggerating when they talked about the power of immediate physical attraction. She’d convinced herself that her own initial reaction to the prince years ago had been largely due to nerves and a hefty dose of overactive teenage hormones. Now, however, she had her answer. What she’d felt for him then was no exaggeration, since she felt exactly the same way now. Her mouth dried, her heart pounded, her legs trembled and her eyes widened in shock. Even though she had come here with the express purpose of meeting him, the reality was harder to come to terms with than she’d anticipated.
Sally had said he was hot. It had been a gross understatement. The man was incendiary.
Mila lowered her eyes to the base of his throat, exposed by an open collar. A pulse beat there and she found herself mesmerized by the proof he was completely and utterly human. A shiver of yearning trembled through her.
“I’ll get you another coffee.”
“N-no, it-it’s okay,” she answered, tripping over her tongue.
Think! she commanded herself. Introduce yourself. Do something. Anything. But then she looked up again and met his gaze, and she was lost.
His eyes were still as she remembered, but what had faded from her memory was that they were no ordinary gray. They reminded her of the color of the mountain faces that were mined for their pale slate in the north west of her country, and the north east of his. She’d always thought the color to be mundane, but how wrong she had been. It was startling, piercing, as if he could see to the depths of her soul when he looked at her. His irises were rimmed with black and lighter striations of silver shone like starlight within them. And his lashes were so dark they created the perfect frame for his eyes.
Mila realized she was staring and dropped her gaze again, but it did little to slow the rapid beat of her heart or to increase her lung capacity when she most needed a deep and filling breath.
“Si—?”
A man loomed beside them and angled his body between the prince and herself. One muttered phrase from the prince in his home language stopped the man midspeech and he slipped back again. Security, obviously, and none too happy about their prince mixing with the natives. Except she wasn’t native, was she? And, she realized with a shock, he didn’t seem to recognize who she was.
The prince turned his attention back to her and spoke again, his voice laced with concern. “Are you sure you’re okay? Look, your hand is burned.”
Mila started as he took her hand in his and held it so he could examine the pinkness left by the hot coffee. Her breathing hitched a little as his thumb softly traced around the edges of the tender skin. His fingers were gentle and even though he held her loosely—so she could tug herself free at any time—they sent a sizzle of awareness across the surface of her skin that had nothing to do with hot coffee and everything to do with this incredibly hot man.
“It’s nothing, really,” she said, knowing she should pull her hand loose but finding herself apparently unable to do so.
Nothing? It was everything. This was the magnetism she’d seen in action on TV earlier today. She was as helpless against it as everyone else had been.
“Please,” he said, letting go of her and gesturing down the sidewalk. “Allow me to buy you another coffee.”
His simple request was her undoing and she searched his face, seeking any sign that he knew who she was, and fighting back the disappointment that rose within her when he didn’t. Of course he wouldn’t expect to find himself face-to-face with a princess on the streets of New York, let alone his princess, she rationalized. But in spite of herself, Mila felt annoyance quickly take disappointment’s place. Was he so disinterested in her and their eventual union that she wasn’t on his mind at all?
But perhaps she could use this to her advantage. The plan she’d made with Sally had been for her to reintroduce herself to the prince, but what if she didn’t? What if she let herself just be another anonymous person on the streets of New York? Without the weight of their betrothal making them formal or awkward with each other, she could use this chance to get to know him better. To see for herself who this man was, while he was emotionally unguarded and not on show, and to gauge for herself what kind of man she would be marrying.
“Thank you,” she said, quelling her irritation and drawing on every gram of serenity and inner strength that had been instilled in her since her birth. “I would like that.”
His lip quirked up at the corner and, just like that, she found herself mesmerized once again. His eyes gleamed in satisfaction, the faintest of lines appearing at their corners. She forced herself to look away, to the street, to the rain, to basically anything but the man who guided her to walk at his side.
Ahead of them, one of his security team had already scoped out the same small coffee shop where she’d bought her cup earlier, and discreetly gestured an all-clear. It was done so subtly that if she hadn’t been so used to looking for it for herself, she wouldn’t even have noticed.
They entered and went to the counter to order. Mila was struck by how surreal this all felt. He was acting as if he did everyday things like walk down the street for coffee all the time, when she knew he certainly did not. His security team were dotted around the premises, two by the door and one near a table to which the prince guided her once they had their orders.
“Friends of yours?” Mila commented, nodding in the direction of his shadow team.
He made a sound that was something between a snort and a laugh. “Something like that,” he acknowledged. “Do they bother you? I can ask them to leave.”
“Oh, no, don’t worry. They’re fine.”
She settled in her chair and looked at the tray Prince Thierry placed on the table, noticing he’d also ordered a small bowl of ice. She watched in bemusement as he took a pristine white monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped some of the ice inside it.
“Give me your hand,” he commanded.
“Really, it’s not that sore,” Mila protested.
“Your hand?” he repeated, pinning her with that steely gaze and Mila found herself doing as he’d bidden.
He cradled her hand in his while gently applying the makeshift ice pack. Mila tried to ignore the race of her pulse as she watched him in action. Tried and failed.
“I apologize again for my clumsiness,” he continued. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“Seriously, it’s okay,” she answered with a smile.
“Let me be the judge of that,” he said firmly, smiling to take the edge off his words.
Clearly he was a man used to being in command. The idea sent another thrill of excitement coursing through Mila’s veins. Would he take command in all things? She pressed her thighs together on a wave of need that startled her with its intensity.
He looked up. “I’m Hawk, and you are?”
“A-Angel,” Mila answered, defaulting to the diminutive of the name she was known by here in the United States. If he could use a moniker, then why shouldn’t she also? Why shouldn’t they just be two strangers meeting on the street just like anybody else?
“Are you in New York on business?” she asked, even though she knew full well why he was here.
“Yes, but I return home in the morning,” he replied.
She was surprised. The summit was scheduled to last for four days and only started tomorrow. He had just arrived here yesterday and now he was already returning to Sylvain? She wanted to ask why but knew she couldn’t. Not when he was supposed to simply be a stranger she’d just met on the street.
He lifted the makeshift ice pack from her hand and gave a small nod of satisfaction. “That’s looking better.”
“Thank you.”
The prince let go of her hand and Mila felt an irrational sense of loss. His touch had been thrilling and without it she felt as though she’d been cast adrift.
“And you?” he asked.
Mila looked up and stared at him. “Me, what?”
“Are you in New York on business or do you live here?”
The skin around his eyes crinkled again. He was laughing at her, she was sure of it, but not in an unkind way. For a moment she was struck by the awful and overwhelming sense of ineptitude that had marked her first meeting with the prince. She recalled how embarrassed she’d felt back then. How she’d found herself so unworthy of this incredibly striking, self-assured man.
She wasn’t that girl anymore, Mila told herself firmly. And tonight, incognito, she could be anyone she wanted to be. Even someone who could charm a man like Prince Thierry of Sylvain. The thought empowered her and bolstered her courage. She could do this.
“Oh, sorry,” she laughed, injecting a note of lightheartedness to her voice. “You lost me there for a moment.”
“But I have you now,” he countered.
Warmth flooded her as his words sank in.
“Yes,” she said softly. “You do.”
Three (#u7a4b7c57-f7f6-5967-9709-57393905521e)
The air thickened between them—conversation forgotten for the moment as they stared into one another’s eyes.
Thierry found himself willingly drawn into her gaze. Her brows were perfect dark arches, framing unusual amber eyes fringed by thick dark lashes. Their coloring seemed at odds with her long blond hair, but she was no less beautiful for it. If anything, it made her even more striking. Her cheekbones were high and gently sculpted, her nose short and straight. But it was her lips to which his eyes were most often drawn. They were full and lush and as she parted them on an indrawn breath he felt a deeply responsive punch to his gut. Arousal teased at his groin. It was as if he was in a spell of some kind. A spell from which he had no desire to break free.
It was only as someone walked past their table, bumping it and spilling some of her coffee, that the enchantment between them was broken.
Angel laughed and sopped up the mess with a paper napkin. “Seems I’m destined not to finish my coffee this evening. And in answer to your question, no, I live in Boston. I’m only visiting the city.”
“I didn’t think your accent was from around here,” Thierry commented.
With elegant fingers, she balled the napkin and picked up her cup to take a sip of what was left of her drink. He found himself captivated by her every movement. Enthralled by the flick of her tongue across her lip to taste a remnant of the topping of chocolate and milk foam that lingered there. Thierry swallowed against the sudden obstruction in his throat. It was as if his heart had lodged there, hammering wildly.
He shouldn’t be here with this woman. He was engaged to another—someone he barely knew, even though he would be married to her by the end of the month. And yet, not in all his years of bachelorhood had he felt a compulsion to be with someone as he did with the enchanting female sitting opposite him. It was almost as if he knew her already, or felt as if he should. Whatever the sensation was that he felt, he wanted more of it. Hell, he wanted more of her.
Angel put her cup back down. “Actually, I’m in New York to attend a lecture on sustainability initiatives.”
Thierry felt his interest in her sharpen. “You are? I was scheduled to attend that lecture tomorrow myself.”
“And you can’t delay your return home?”
The dark pull of reality crept through him and with it the reminder of what tomorrow would entail. Eight and a half hours by air to Sylvain’s main airport, then another twenty minutes in his private helicopter to the palace. All of which to be followed by meetings with his household and the heads of government. His time wouldn’t be his own until after his father was buried in the family vault near the palace. Maybe not even then.
“Hawk?” Angel prompted him.
He snapped out of his train of thought and gave her his full attention. “No, I must return home. An urgent matter. But enough of that. Tell me, what takes a beautiful young woman like yourself to a dusty old lecture hall?”
She looked affronted by his question. “That’s a little sexist, don’t you think?”
“Forgive me,” he said quickly. “I did not mean to undermine your intelligence, or to sound quite so chauvinistic.”
He was disappointed in himself. It seemed the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree, after all. Thierry’s father had been nothing but old-fashioned in his view that women were for the begetting of heirs and to be a faithful and adoring ornament by his side. His consort had failed miserably at the second part. Instead of considering that he might have made a mistake in his treatment of her, the king had clung more fiercely to his opinions about a woman’s role in the monarchy and it was obvious in palace appointments that his chauvinism guided his choices.
Thierry had recently begun to wonder if part of the reason for his mother’s infidelity had been a lack of self-worth caused by her husband’s condescending treatment. Maybe his actions had meant that she’d desperately sought meaning for her life anywhere but within her marriage. But that mattered little now. She and her lover had died in a fiery car wreck many years ago. The resulting scandal had almost brought two nations to war and it was one of the reasons Thierry had vowed to remain chaste until marriage and then, after he was wed, to remain faithful to his spouse. He also rightly expected the same in return. While he wouldn’t marry for love, his marriage would last. It had to. He had to turn the tide of generations of marital failure and unhappiness. How hard could it be?
Across the table, Angel inclined her head in acknowledgment of his apology. “I’m glad to hear it. I get quite enough of that from my brother.” She softened her words with another smile. “In answer to your question, my professor recommended the lecture.”
For the next hour they discussed her studies, particularly her interest in developing sustainable living solutions, equal opportunities for all people and renewable energy initiatives. He found her fascinating. Her enthusiasm for her causes made her quite animated and he relished the pinkish tinge of excitement that colored her cheeks. The subjects they discussed were dear to his heart as well, and topics he wished to pursue further with his government. His father had seen little point in breaking away from the methods that had been tried and true in Sylvain for centuries, but Thierry was acutely aware of the need for long-term planning to ensure that future generations would continue to benefit from and enjoy his country’s many resources—rather than plunder them all into oblivion. Their discussion was exhilarating and left him feeling mentally stimulated in a way he hadn’t anticipated.
The clientele of the coffee shop had thinned considerably during their talk and Thierry became aware that the members of his security team were beginning to shift uncomfortably at their tables. Angel appeared to notice it, too.
“Oh, I’m sorry to have taken so much of your time. When I get on my pet subjects I can be a little over-excited,” she apologized.
“Not at all. I enjoyed it. I don’t often get to exchange or argue concepts with someone as articulate and well-versed as you are.”
She looked at her watch, its strap a delicate cuff of platinum and, if he wasn’t wrong, diamonds. The subtle but obvious sign of wealth made him even more intrigued about her background.
“It’s getting late. I guess I’d better head back to my hotel,” she said with obvious reluctance. “This has been really nice. Thank you.”
No. Every cell in his body objected to the prospect of saying goodbye. He wasn’t ready to relinquish her company yet. He reached out and took Angel’s hand.
“Don’t go, not yet.” The words surprised him as much as they appeared to surprise her. “Unless you have to, of course.”
Damn. He hadn’t meant to sound so needy. But in the face of the news he’d received tonight, Angel was a delightful distraction in what was soon to be a turbulent sea of chaos. He looked deep into her eyes, struck again by the beauty of their unusual whiskey-colored hue. He’d seen that color before, he realized, but he couldn’t quite remember where. Thierry looked down to where their hands were joined. She hadn’t pulled away. That had to be a good sign, right? He certainly hoped so. He wasn’t ready yet to relinquish her company.
“No, I don’t have to, exactly...” Her voice trailed away and she looked at her watch again before she said more firmly. “No. I don’t have to go.”
“No boyfriend waiting for you at home?” he probed shamelessly, running his thumb over her bare fingers.
Angel chuckled and his heart warmed at the sound.
“No, no boyfriend.”
“Good. Shall we walk together?” he suggested.
“I’d like that.”
She rose with a fluid grace that mesmerized him, and gathered up her coat and bag. He reached for her coat and helped her into it, his fingertips brushing the nape of her neck. He’d felt a shock of awareness when he’d touched her hand, but that was nothing compared to the jolt that struck him now. It was wrong, he knew, to feel such an overpowering attraction to Angel when he was engaged to another woman. Was he no different than his mother, who had been incapable of observing the boundaries of married life?
Thierry pulled his hands away and, balling them into fists, he shoved them deep into his pockets. A sense of shame filled him. This was madness. In a few weeks’ time he’d be marrying Princess Mila and here he was, in New York, desperate to spend more time with someone whose first name was almost the only thing he knew about her. Well, that and her keen intelligence about topics dear to his heart. Even so, it didn’t justify this behavior, he argued silently.
And then she turned to look at him and smiled, and he knew that whatever else was to come in his life, he had to grasp hold of this moment, this night, and make the most of the oasis of peace she unwittingly offered him.
They headed out of the coffee shop and turned toward Seventh Avenue. His security detail melted into the people around them. There, ever vigilant, but not completely visible. The rain had stopped and Thierry began to feel his spirits lift again. This felt so normal, so unscripted. It was a vast departure from his usual daily life.
“Tell me about yourself,” he prompted his silent companion. “Any family?”
“I have a brother. He’s in Europe right now,” Angel said lightly, but he saw the way she pressed her delectable full lips together as if she was holding something back. “How about you?” she asked, almost as if her question was an afterthought.
“An only child.”
“Was it lonely, growing up?”
“Sometimes, although I always had plenty of people around me.”
Angel gestured to the guard in front and the others nearby. “People like them?” she asked.
“And others,” he admitted.
They stopped at a set of lights and she lifted her chin and stared straight ahead. “Sometimes you can be at your most lonely when you’re surrounded by people.”
Her words struck a chord with him. There was something about the way she’d made her statement that made him think she spoke from personal experience. The thought made something tug inside him. He wished he could remove the haunted, empty tone from her voice and fill it with warmth. And what else, a voice inside him asked. He pushed the thought aside. There could be nothing else. Come morning he would be a different man to the rest of the world. A king. This interlude of normality would be nothing but a memory. One, he realized, he would treasure for a long time to come.
“So what do you do?” Angel asked him after they’d crossed the street.
“Do?”
“Yes, for a living. I assume you do work?”
Yes, he worked, but not in the sense she was probably expecting. “I’m in management,” he said, skirting the truth.
“That’s a very broad statement,” she teased, looking up at him with a glimmer of mischief in her tawny eyes.
“I have a very broad range of responsibilities. And you, what do you plan to do once you have completed your studies?”
Her expression changed in an instant—the humor of before replaced with a look of seriousness. Then she blinked and the solemnity was gone.
“Oh, this and that,” she said airily.
“And you accused me of being vague?” he taunted, enjoying their verbal sparring.
“Well, since you asked—I want to go home and make a difference. I want people to listen to me, to really listen, and to take what I have to say on board—not just dismiss me out of hand because I’m female.”
He raised his brows. “Does that happen a lot?”
“You did it to me,” she challenged.
“Yes, I did, and I apologize again for my prejudice. I hope you get your wish.” He drew to a halt beside a food truck. “Have you eaten this evening?”
“No, but you don’t have to—”
“I’m told you haven’t been to New York until you try one of these rib eye sandwiches.”
She inhaled deeply. “They do smell divine, don’t they?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He turned to the head of his security and gave an order in Sylvano. The man grinned in response and lined up at the food-truck window.
They continued to walk as they ate, laughing in between bites as they struggled to contain their food without spilling it.
“I should have taken you to a restaurant,” Thierry said as Angel made a noise of disgust at the mess she had left on her hands when they’d finished.
“Oh, heavens no! Not at all. This is fun...just messy.” She laughed and gingerly extracted a small packet of tissues from her bag so she could wipe her fingers.
Thierry felt his lips pull into a smile again as they had so many times since he’d met her. What was it about her that felt so right when everything else around him felt so wrong?
“I can’t get over this city,” Angel exclaimed. “There’s never a quiet moment. It’s exhilarating.”
“It is,” he agreed and then looked over at her. “Do you dance?”
“Are you asking me if I’m capable of it, or if I want to?” Angel laughed in response.
Thierry shrugged. “Both. Either.” He didn’t care. He suddenly had the urge to hold her in his arms and he figured this would be the only way he could decently do so without compromising his own values.
“I’m not exactly dressed for it,” Angel said doubtfully.
“You look beautiful. I’ve heard of a quiet place not far from here. It’s not big and brash like a lot of the clubs. More intimate, I suppose, and you can dance or talk or just sit and watch the other patrons if that’s all you want to do.”
“It sounds perfect.”
“So, shall we?”
She grinned back. “Okay, I’d like that.”
“Good.” He took her hand in his, again struck by the delicacy of her fingers and the fine texture of her skin.
What would it feel like if she touched him intimately? Would her fingers be firm or soft like a feather? Would she trace the contours of his body with a tantalizing subtlety, or would her touch be more definite, more demanding? He slammed the door on his wayward thoughts. It seemed he had more of his mother in him than he’d suspected. Still, there was nothing wrong with dancing with a woman other than his betrothed, was there? He had to do it at state functions all the time.
He tugged her in the direction of a club he’d visited on his last trip to New York and sent Armaund ahead to ensure they’d gain entry. The night was still young and he wasn’t ready for it to end yet.
Drawing her into his arms on the dance floor was everything he’d hoped for and more. The only problem was that it made him want more—and that was something he’d forbidden himself until marriage. He was determined to hold sacred the act of love and making love. It was something he would share with his wife and his wife alone. He hadn’t remained celibate purely for the hell of it. Sometimes it had been sheer torment refusing to acknowledge the demands of his flesh. But he’d promised himself from a very young age that he would not be that person. He would not allow physical need to cloud all else. Over the centuries his family had almost lost everything several times over because of a lack of physical control.
He’d always believed his forebears’ susceptibility to fleshly pursuits to be a mark of weakness, and nothing had happened in his thirty-one years to change his mind. Except perhaps the young woman dancing with him right now. Even so, he denied himself any more than the sensation of her in his arms—the brush of her breasts against his chest as he held her close, the skim of her warm breath on his throat—they were torments and teases he could overcome. When he boarded the plane a few short hours from now, to return to Sylvain, he would do so with the full knowledge that he had honored his vow to both himself and to the woman he was to marry.
But until then, he’d enjoy this stolen night as much as his duty and honor would allow.
* * *
The night had been magical—something even her wildest imagination could never have dreamed up. In fact, Mila doubted even Sally, with all her romantic ideas, could have come up with something like the night she’d just had. She felt like Cinderella, except in her fairy tale the prince was seeing her home and it was well past midnight. As the limousine, which had been waiting outside the club when they’d left it, pulled up outside her hotel she turned in her seat to face the prince. Tonight, she’d seen a side of him she’d never anticipated—and she was utterly captivated by him.
Maybe it was the champagne they’d drunk at the club, or maybe it was simply the knowledge that at month’s end she’d be standing next to him beneath the ancient vaulted ceilings of the Sylvano palace cathedral and pledging her life to him, but right now she felt as if she was floating on air.
At least now she knew what Thierry was like away from the pomp and ceremony that was attached to his position in the world. Once they were married and had the chance to spend time together alone, without all the trappings and formality of their official lives, she believed that they could become important to one another beyond what their marriage would gain for their respective nations. Tonight she’d had a chance to get to know the man beneath the crown. The man who would be her husband—who would share her days and her nights. And, given the fierce attraction between them, she looked forward to getting to know him even better. In every way.
He’d been the consummate gentleman tonight and, for the first time in her life, she’d felt like a desirable woman—one who could be confident that she would be able to make him happy in their marriage, too.
She turned to face him in the seat of the limo. “Thank you, Hawk. Tonight was incredible. I will never forget it.”
He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, brushing them across her knuckles in a caress that sent a bolt of longing straight to her center.
“Nor I.”
Thierry leaned forward, his intention to kiss her cheek obvious, but at the last minute Mila turned her head, allowing their lips to brush one another. It was the merest touch, sweet and innocent, and yet in that moment she felt something expand in her chest and threaten to consume her. It shook Mila to her core.
Words failed her and she pulled away, blindly reaching for the door handle and stumbling slightly as she left the private cavern of the vehicle. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. If she did she might ask for more and it wasn’t the time or the place to do that.
She moved swiftly through the hotel lobby and to the elevator and swiped her key card to head for the penthouse. In the elevator car she reached up and tugged the blond wig loose and locked her gaze with her reflection in the mirrored walls. She’d been a stranger to Thierry tonight and he’d enjoyed her company. But would he enjoy it quite so much when he met the real Angel, or would he remember the gauche and chubby girl for whom he’d shown a moment of disdain? Only time would tell.
Four (#u7a4b7c57-f7f6-5967-9709-57393905521e)
“Of all the stupid, irresponsible, brainless things to do! What if the media catches wind of this? Did you even stop to think about that? You’ll be crucified and all of Sylvania will reject you before you even cross their border.”
Mila sat back in her chair waiting for her brother’s tirade to subside. It didn’t look as if it would be soon, though. He was working up another head of steam as he paced the priceless Persian carpet on his office floor. She kept her head bowed, her tongue still in her mouth. It was no easy task when she’d become used to offering her opinion—and having it respected.
“You were raised to behave better than this. What made you sneak out like nothing more than a common tramp? Was this idea concocted by that friend of yours in America? Sally what’s-her-name?” Anger and disgust pervaded his tone.
That got her riled. “Now wait a minute—!” she protested, but Rocco cut her off with a glare.
“You are a princess of Erminia. Princesses do not sneak out of hotel rooms in the dead of night and stay out until dawn with strangers.”
Unless you live in a fairy tale, Mila amended silently, remembering her favorite bedtime story about the twelve dancing princesses. But this, her life, was no fairy tale. Besides, Prince—no, King, she reminded herself—Thierry wasn’t a stranger to her anymore. At least, not completely. But she’d endure Rocco’s lecture. For now, it suited her not to tell her brother whom she’d spent her night with. The secret was hers to hold safely in her heart. She didn’t want to share it with her brother who would no doubt worry about the political ramifications of her and Thierry’s impromptu date. Ramifications that would sully her memory of that wonderful, magical night.
Rocco strode to the large arched window set deep into the palace wall, which offered a view of the countryside beyond it. Mila looked past him to the outside—to freedom. A freedom she’d never truly taste again. The anonymity of life in the United States had been a blessing, but now that she was back home for good she was expected to kowtow to protocol—and that meant doing whatever it was her brother decreed. She began to wonder if perhaps it might not have been better not to have known the freedom she’d experienced after all. The comparison made coming home this time so very much harder.
“So, Rocco, what are you going to do? Throw me in the dungeons?”
Her brother turned and she was struck by how much he’d aged since she’d last seen him a year ago. As if stress and worry had become his constant companions, leaving lines of strain on his face and threads of gray at his temples. And some of that strain, and no doubt several of those gray hairs, were due to her, she acknowledged with a pang. She loved her brother dearly, and had no desire to hurt him or cause him distress, but she just wished he’d listen to her once in a while—really listen as if she and what she had to say had value.
“Don’t think I won’t do it,” he growled. “Such flippancy is probably all I can expect from you after allowing you so much leeway these past seven years. I should never have been so lenient. Our advisers recommended that you marry the prince immediately when you turned eighteen but no, I had to allow you to persuade me to send you away—for an education, not so you could bring our family name into disrepute.” He pinched the bridge of his aquiline nose and drew in a deep breath before continuing. “I felt sorry for you back then, Mila. You were no more than a schoolgirl, entering into an engagement with an older man—someone you had barely met, yet alone knew. I understood that you felt stifled by that and, I hazard to say, somewhat terrified at the prospect of what came next. You were so much younger than your years, so innocent.”
He sighed and turned away for a moment. Mila bristled at his description of her. Innocent? Yes, of course she’d been innocent. Given her strict and restrictive upbringing there had been little opportunity to learn anything of the ways of the world and the people within it. It was part of why she’d begged her brother for the chance to study abroad. What kind of ruler could she be if she couldn’t understand her people and the struggles and challenges they lived with every day? Rocco continued to speak.
“And so I agreed when you asked me for time until your twenty-fifth birthday. I thought it was the best thing to do for you and that it might help to make your eventual union a happier one. I should have known it would come to this—that the lack of structure in your life overseas would corrupt you and deviate you from your true path.”
Lack of structure? Mila bit her tongue to keep herself from saying the words out loud. While her life in Boston had not been like her life here in the castle, how on earth did Rocco think she’d attained the measure of academic recognition she’d achieved without structure? And even aside from her scholastic successes—won through hard work and discipline—she’d also dealt with the social restrictions of a team of bodyguards, not to mention a chaperone who vetoed nearly every opportunity to relax or try to make friends. She had barely even socialized with any of the other students on campus.
But her brother was on a roll now. If she tried to explain, he would not listen, and she knew it. To say anything while he was still so angry with her would be a complete waste of time. Instead, she let his words flow over her, like the water that, during a heavy downpour, spouted from the gargoyles positioned around the castle gutters.
“Even I cannot turn back time. You are home now and you will prepare for your marriage. Your wedding takes place four weeks from today. And there will not be one wrong move, one misstep, or one breath of scandal from you. Do you understand me? Too much rides on this, Mila. The stability of our entire nation depends on your ability to do the job you were raised to do.”
The job she was raised to do. There it was—the millstone around her neck. The surety that she had no value as a human being beyond that of being a suitable wife for a powerful man.
“And the late king’s funeral this week? Am I not to attend that with you as a mark of respect?”
“No. You will stay here.”
She wanted to argue, to say she had every right to be there at her fiancé’s side as he bid a final farewell to his father, but she knew the plea would fall on deaf ears. Mila shifted her gaze to look her brother straight in the eyes. She hated seeing him like this—so angry and distraught—so she said the words he was expecting to hear.
“I understand you, brother. I will do as you ask.”
But he hadn’t asked, had he? He’d ordered it from her. Not once, at any stage during this audience with him—for it couldn’t be deemed anything else—had Mila felt as if he was pleased to welcome his baby sister home. Instead she’d felt like nothing more than a disappointment. A burden to be off-loaded. A problem to be corrected.
There hadn’t been a single word of congratulations on her achievements while she’d been away. No mention of her honors degree or the publication of her treatise on Equal Opportunity and Sustainable Development in European Nations. Her only value was in her ability to play the role of a proper fiancée and wife. She was merely a pawn on her brother’s chessboard.
She kept her eyes fixed on Rocco and she saw the minute the tension that held his body began to ease from his shoulders. His eyes, amber like her own, but several shades deeper, softened.
“Thank you. You understand, don’t you? I don’t ask you to do this for myself, but for our people. And for your sake as well, since I couldn’t bear to see you do anything to jeopardize your chance at winning your husband’s trust and respect.”
And there it was. The glimpse of the brother she’d grown up loving more than life itself—the brother who had been her protector and defender all throughout her childhood. But that was all she was permitted to see because the veil of command he perpetually bore took up residence once again on his visage.
“I understand,” she answered with an inclination of her head.
And she did. Even though, inside, her emotions spun in turmoil. It was entirely clear that her value—to her brother and her future husband—came from her chastity and unimpeachable honor. Her knowledge, her insight, her plans to better society and improve conditions for her people, and even the grace, poise and confidence she had gained in her years abroad mattered little to their society compared to her reputation.
Nothing had changed in all the time she’d been away. She didn’t even know why she would have expected it to. Erminia was still locked in the old days where a woman’s place was not beside, but behind her husband, or her father or brother or whichever male figure led her household—her thoughts and ideas to be tolerated but not celebrated or given any respect.
Even in the Erminian parliament women were a rare breed. Mila wanted to see that change, and for their government to acknowledge women’s intelligence and their value as vital members of the very fabric of Erminian society as a whole. But she knew that change would be very slow to come...if it came at all.
“You don’t sound excited about your wedding,” Rocco prompted. “I thought you would be full of chatter about it.”
Mila sighed. “Rocco, I’m not a little girl about to go to a tea party in her favorite dress. I am a full-grown woman with a mind and thoughts of her own, about to enter into a marriage with a man I barely know.”
He stepped closer to her and placed a finger under her chin, lifting her face up to his. “You’ve changed.”
“Of course I’ve changed. I’ve grown up.”
“No, it’s more than that.” A frown furrowed his brow and his eyes narrowed. “Are you still...? Did you...?”
Mila held on to her temper by a thread. “What? You’re actually asking me if I’ve kept myself chaste? Do you really think I’d compromise the crown by throwing my virginity away on a one-night stand?”
Her brother paled. “You will not speak to me in that tone. I might be your brother but, first and foremost, I am your king.”
Mila swept down into a curtsey. “Sire, I beg your forgiveness.”
“Mila, don’t mock me.”
She rose again but did not look directly in his eyes. “I do not mock you, Your Majesty. I am well aware of my position in this world. I will do my duty and you can rest assured that by my wedding day no man will have touched me, with even so much as a kiss, before my future husband does. But, just in case you don’t believe me, please feel free to have the royal physician examine me to ensure that I am indeed a woman of my word.”
“Mila—”
“I believe I have an appointment for a dress fitting now. If you’ll excuse me?” she said, turning before his reaching hand could touch her.
She knew that, deep down, he probably hated the exchange they’d just shared even more than she did. But duty drove him now, and that meant the needs of the country always came first. He couldn’t be the doting older brother who had sheltered her for so many of her younger years. Ten years her senior, Rocco had been forced to prematurely take the crown after their father’s assassination when Rocco had been only nineteen. Mila could barely remember a time since when his shoulders hadn’t borne the weight of responsibility that had descended with the crown. Almost overnight, he’d gone from the teasing and protective older brother she’d adored, to the domineering sovereign she knew today. The man who showed no signs of weakness, no chink in the armor that shrouded his emotions.
As she let herself out of his office and barely held herself back from storming down the ornately decorated corridor of the castle to her suite of rooms, a part of her still mourned the boy he’d been while another continued to rail internally at how he’d spoken to her just now. He still saw her as a silly, empty-headed child; that much was clear. And no matter what she did or said, that would probably never change. She had to learn to accept it as she’d had to learn to accept so much about her life. But maybe, just maybe, she would be in a position to effect change once she was married.
Later, as she fidgeted under the weight of the elegant silk-dupion-and-lace gown that was being fitted to her gentle curves she couldn’t help but think back to that moment when she and Thierry had kissed good-night—or perhaps it had been good morning, she thought. She couldn’t hold back a smile as she remembered the exquisitely gentle pressure of his lips upon hers. If she closed her eyes and concentrated she could almost feel him again, smell the subtle scent of his cologne—a blend of wood and spice that had done crazy things to her inside—and sense the yearning that there could be more. A tiny thrill of excitement rippled through her—a ripple that was rapidly chased away by the sensation of a pin in her thigh.
“I’m so sorry, Your Highness, but if you’d just keep still for me a moment longer...” The couturier’s frustration was evident in her tone.
“No, it is I who should apologize,” Mila hastily assured the woman. “I wasn’t concentrating. It is not your fault.”
She focused on a corner of a picture frame on the wall and kept her body still, turning or lifting and dropping her arms when asked—like a marionette. And that, essentially, was all she was to her brother, she realized with a pang. A puppet to be manipulated for the benefit of all of Erminia. There wouldn’t have been such pressure on her if he had married by now himself. But, when faced with a royal proposal, the girl he’d loved through his late teens and early twenties had decided royal life was not for her, and since then he’d steered clear of romantic entanglements.
Rocco’s crown might sit heavily on his dark curls, Mila thought with a sad sigh, but hers was equally burdensome. But, there was a silver lining, she reminded herself. Her night with Thierry showed they were intellectual equals and he had at least appeared to respect her opinion during their discussions.
If he could give a total stranger his ear, why wouldn’t he extend the same courtesy to his wife?
* * *
It was 2:00 a.m. and Mila was still wide awake. Never a good traveler, she struggled to adjust to the change in time zones. While most of the good people of Erminia would be fast asleep in their beds about now, Mila’s body was on Boston time and for her it was only seven in the evening. Granted, it had been an exhausting day with the hours of travel followed by that awful meeting with her brother. Given how she always suffered severe motion sickness, which left her physically wrung out, logically she should be more than ready to sleep. Sadly, logic was lacking tonight, she accepted with a sigh as she pushed back the covers on her pedestal bed and reached for the light robe she’d cast over the end of her mattress before retiring.
Maybe some warm milk, the way Cookie used to make it for her back when she was a child, would help. After donning her robe, Mila headed for the servants’ stairs toward the back of the castle. Sure, she knew that all she had to do was press a button and someone would bring the milk to her, but a part of her craved the inviting warmth and aromas that permeated the castle kitchens and that were such an intrinsic part of her happier childhood memories.
Her slippers barely made a sound on the old stone stairs and, as opposed to the usual daily busyness that made the castle hum with activity during normal waking hours, the air was still and serene. She could do with some of that serenity right now.
To her surprise, the sound of voices traveled up the corridor toward her. Obviously some staff was on duty around the clock, but it was unusual for the senior household steward to still be afoot at this time of night. Mila recognized Gregor’s voice as it rumbled along the ancient stone walls. For a second she was prepared to ignore it, and the younger female voice she could barely hear murmuring in response, but her ears pricked up when she caught Thierry’s name mentioned.
Mila slowed her steps as she approached the open door of the steward’s office and listened carefully.
“And you’re certain of this?” the steward asked.
Mila was surprised Gregor’s voice sounded so stern. While the man held a position of extreme responsibility, he was well-known for his warm heart and caring nature—it was part of why the royal household ran so smoothly. His brusque tone right now seemed at odds with the person she remembered.
“Yes, sir. My second cousin assists the king of Sylvain’s private secretary. He saw the document soliciting the woman’s—” the young woman hesitated a bit before continuing “—services.”
“What does your cousin plan to do with this information he so willingly shared with you?”
“Oh, sir, he didn’t do so willingly. I mean, it wasn’t meant as gossip.”
“Then what did he mean by it?”
Mila heard the younger woman make a sound, as if holding back tears. “Oh, please, sir. I don’t want him to get into any trouble. It troubled him that the king would seek the services of a courtesan so close to his marriage, especially when it is known within the Sylvano palace that the prince is—was—saving himself for marriage.”
A courtesan? Mila’s ears buzzed, blocking out any other sound as the word reverberated in her skull. Her stomach lurched uncomfortably and she fought the nausea that swirled with a vicious and sudden twist.
A sound from the steward’s office alerted her to the movement of the people inside. She couldn’t be caught here, not like this. Mila turned back down the corridor and slipped into another office, this one dark and unoccupied. With her arms bound tight around her middle, she stared at the closed door framed by a limning of light. Her mind whirled.
Thierry had procured a professional mistress? Why would he even do such a thing? How had she misjudged him so badly? Their time together that night in New York had been wonderful, magical—and entirely chaste, without the slightest hint that he was seeking physical intimacy. It had thrilled her to think that he was staying untouched for her, just as she had done for him. None of what she’d learned about him in the hours they’d spent together made sense against what she’d just overheard.
Mila stiffened as she heard a light pair of footsteps walk briskly down the hallway—the maid, leaving Gregor’s office by the sound of it. She waited, wondering if she’d hear Gregor leaving the same way, and as she waited her mind spun again. What should she do now she had this knowledge? She couldn’t refuse to marry Thierry. That would cause upheaval on both sides of the border. And she didn’t want to, not really. But how could she consider a future with a man who was already in the process of installing a mistress in a home they were meant to share? She had toiled long and hard to make herself into a worthy wife for the man she thought he was. Had she been wrong about him all along? Was he just another ruler who treated marriage as nothing more than a facade—like so many royal marriages that had taken place in the past? Had he already given up on the idea that Mila could possibly make him happy?
Was their marriage really to be nothing more than a peace treaty between neighboring nations? Were they not to share the communion of two adults with shared hopes and dreams for the future? Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them back furiously. She would not succumb to weakness in this. There had to be a way to stop him from taking a mistress, a way to somehow circumvent this. Think! she commanded herself. Here she was, well educated, astute about women’s issues and keen to do something about them, and yet, when faced with a problem all she could do was hide and then fight back tears? How clichéd, she scolded silently. Mila loosened her arms and let them drop to her sides and lifted her chin. She was a princess, it was about time she started to think and act like one.
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