‘But you do want me, Liana,’ Sandro said softly. ‘You want me very much. And even if you try to deny it I’ll know. I’ll feel your response in your lips that open to mine, in your hands that reach for me, in your body that responds to me.’

I know that,’ she choked. ‘I’m not denying anything.’

She turned her face with all its naked emotion away from him.

‘No,’ he agreed, his voice as hard as iron now, as hard as his gunmetal-grey eyes. ‘You’re not denying it. You’re just resisting it with every fibre of your being. Resisting me.’

She let out a shudder and he shook his head.

‘Why, Liana? You agreed to this marriage, as I did. Why can’t we find this pleasurable at least?’

‘Because …’

Because she wasn’t strong enough. She’d open herself up to him just a little and a tidal wave of emotion would rush through her. She wouldn’t be able to hold it back and it would devastate her. She knew it instinctively—knew that giving in just a little to Sandro would crack her right open, shatter her into pieces. She’d never come together again.

How could she explain all of that?

THE DIOMEDI HEIRS

Who will become the next King of Maldinia?

The world’s media is waiting with bated breath for the estranged Diomedi Princes to be reunited and the rightful King—with his chosen Queen—to be seated upon the throne!

Read Prince Leo’s story in:

THE PRINCE SHE NEVER KNEW

To restore the reputation of the monarchy, darkly brooding Prince Leo has sacrificed everything. His marriage might be for show, but the feelings his new bride Alyse evokes in him are threatening his iron-clad control.

Read Prince Alessandro’s story in:

A QUEEN FOR THE TAKING?

Black sheep Prince Alessandro has returned home to claim the throne—and the woman he discarded years ago—but he meets his match in the woman Liana has now become!

A Queen for the Taking?

Kate Hewitt

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KATE HEWITT discovered her first Mills & Boon® romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling and learning to knit.

After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years, and now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children and the possibility of one day getting a dog.

Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website: www.kate-hewitt.com

Recent titles by the same author:

THE PRINCE SHE NEVER KNEW

(The Diomedi Heirs) HIS BRAND OF PASSION (The Bryants: Powerful & Proud) IN THE HEAT OF THE SPOTLIGHT (The Bryants: Powerful & Proud) BENEATH THE VEIL OF PARADISE (The Bryants: Powerful & Proud)

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE

ALESSANDRO DIOMEDI, KING of Maldinia, opened the door to the opulent reception room and gazed resolutely upon the woman intended to be his bride. Liana Aterno, the daughter of the duke of Abruzzo, stood in the centre of the room, her body elegant and straight, her gaze clear and steady and even cold. She looked remarkably composed, considering the situation.

Carefully Sandro closed the door, the final click seeming to sound the end of his freedom. But no, that was being fanciful, for his freedom had surely ended six months ago, when he’d left his life in California to return to Maldinia and accept his place as first in line to the throne. Any tattered remnant of it had gone when he’d buried his father and taken his place as king.

‘Good afternoon.’ His voice seemed to echo through the large room with its gilt walls and frescoed ceilings, the only furniture a few ornate tables of gold and marble set against the walls. Not exactly the most welcoming of spaces, and for a moment Sandro wished he’d specified to put Lady Liana into a more comfortable chamber.

Although, he acknowledged cynically, considering the nature of their imminent discussion—and probable relationship—perhaps this room was appropriate.

‘Good afternoon, Your Highness.’ She didn’t curtsey, which he was glad of, because he hated all the ostentatious trappings of royalty and obeisance, but she did bend her head in a gesture of respect so for a moment he could see the bare, vulnerable nape of her neck. It almost made him soften. Then she lifted her head and pinned him with that cold, clear-eyed gaze and he felt his heart harden once more. He didn’t want this. He never would. But she obviously did.

‘You had a pleasant journey?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

He took a step into the room, studying her. He supposed she was pretty, if you liked women who were colourless. Her hair was so blonde it appeared almost white, and she wore it pulled back in a tight chignon, a few wispy tendrils coming to curl about her small, pearl-studded ears.

She was slight, petite, and yet she carried herself with both pride and grace, and wore a modest, high-necked, long-sleeved dress of pale blue silk belted tightly at the waist, an understated strand of pearls at her throat. She had folded her hands at her waist like some pious nun and stood calmly under his obvious scrutiny, accepting his inspection with a cool and even haughty confidence. All of it made him angry.

‘You know why you’re here.’

‘Yes, Your Highness.’

‘You can dispense with the titles. Since we are considering marriage, you may call me Alessandro, or Sandro, whichever you prefer.’

‘And which do you prefer?’

‘You may call me Sandro.’ Her composed compliance annoyed him, although he knew such a reaction was unreasonable, even unjust. Yet he still felt it, felt the deep-seated desire to wipe that cool little smile off her face and replace it with something real. To feel something real himself.

But he’d left real emotions—honesty, understanding, all of it—behind in California. There was no place for them here, even when discussing his marriage.

‘Very well,’ she answered evenly, yet she didn’t call him anything; she simply waited. Annoyance warred with reluctant amusement and even admiration. Did she have more personality than he’d initially assumed, or was she simply that assured of their possible nuptials?

Their marriage was virtually a sealed deal. He’d invited her to Maldinia to begin negotiations, and she’d agreed with an alacrity he’d found far too telling. So the duke’s daughter wanted to be a queen. What a surprise. Another woman on a cold-hearted quest for money, power, and fame.

Love, of course, wouldn’t enter into it. It never did; he’d learned that lesson too many times already.

Sandro strode farther into the room, his hands shoved into the pockets of his suit trousers. He walked to the window that looked out on the palace’s front courtyard, the gold-tipped spikes of the twelve-foot-high fence that surrounded the entire grounds making his throat tighten. Such a prison. And one he’d reentered willingly. One he’d returned to with a faint, frail hope in his heart that had blown to so much cold ash when he’d actually seen his father again, after fifteen years.

I had no choice. If I could have, I’d have left you to rot in California, or, better yet, in hell.

Sandro swallowed and turned away.

‘Tell me why you’re here, Lady Liana.’ He wanted to hear it from her own mouth, those tightly pursed lips.

A slight pause, and then she answered, her voice low and steady. ‘To discuss the possibility of a marriage between us.’

‘Such a possibility does not distress or concern you, considering we have never even met before?’

Another pause, even slighter, but Sandro still felt it. ‘We have met before, Your Highness. When I was twelve.’

‘Twelve.’ He turned around to inspect her once again, but her cold blonde beauty didn’t trigger any memories. Had she possessed such icy composure, as well as a resolute determination to be queen, at twelve years old? It seemed likely. ‘You are to call me Sandro, remember.’

‘Of course.’

He almost smiled at that. Was she provoking him on purpose? He’d rather that than the icy, emotionless composure. Any emotion was better than none.

‘Where did we meet?’

‘At a birthday party for my father in Milan.’

He didn’t remember the event, but that didn’t really surprise him. If she’d been twelve, he would have been twenty, and about to walk away from his inheritance, his very self, only to return six months ago, when duty demanded he reclaim his soul—or sell it. He still wasn’t sure which he’d done. ‘And you remembered me?’

For a second, no more, she looked...not disconcerted, but something close to it. Something distressing. Shadows flickered in her eyes, which, now that he’d taken a step closer to her, he saw were a rather startling shade of lavender. She wasn’t so colourless, after all. Then she blinked it back and nodded. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘I’m sorry to say I don’t remember you.’

She shrugged, her shoulders barely twitching. ‘I wouldn’t have expected you to. I was little more than a child.’

He nodded, his gaze still sweeping over her, wondering what thoughts and feelings lurked behind that careful, blank mask of a face. What emotion had shadowed her eyes for just a moment?

Or was he being fanciful, sentimental? He had been before. He’d thought he’d learned the lessons, but perhaps he hadn’t.

Liana Aterno had been one of the first names to come up in diplomatic discussions after his father had died, and he’d accepted that he must marry and provide an heir—and soon.

She was related to royalty, had devoted her life to charity work, and her father was prominent in finance and had held various important positions in the European Union—all of which Sandro had to consider, for the sake of his country. She was eminently and irritatingly suitable in every way. The perfect queen consort—and she looked as if she knew it.

‘You have not considered other alliances in the meantime?’ he asked. ‘Other...relationships?’ He watched her pale, heart-shaped face, no emotion visible in her eyes, no tightening of her mouth, no tension apparent in her lithe body. The woman reminded him of a statue, something made of cold, lifeless marble.

No, he realised, what she really reminded him of was his mother. An icy, beautiful bitch: emotionless, soulless, caring only about wealth and status and fame. About being queen.

Was that who this woman really was? Or was he being stupidly judgmental and entirely unfair, based on his own sorry experience? It was impossible to tell what she felt from her carefully blank expression, yet he felt a gut-deep revulsion to the fact that she was here at all, that she’d accepted his summons and was prepared to marry a stranger.

Just as he was.

‘No,’ she said after a moment. ‘I have not...’ She gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. ‘I have devoted myself to charity work.’

Queen or nun. It was a choice women in her elevated position had had to make centuries before, but it seemed archaic now. Absurd.

And yet it was her reality, and very close to his. King or CEO of his own company. Slave or free.

‘No one else?’ he pressed. ‘I have to admit, I am surprised. You’re— What? Twenty-eight years old?’ She gave a slight nod. ‘Surely you’ve had other offers. Other relationships.’

Her mouth tightened, eyes narrowing slightly. ‘As I said, I have devoted myself to charity work.’

‘You can devote yourself to charity work and still be in a relationship,’ he pointed out. ‘Still marry.’

‘Indeed, I hope so, Your Highness.’

A noble sentiment, he supposed, but one he didn’t trust. Clearly only queen would do for this icy, ambitious woman.

Sandro shook his head slowly. Once he’d dreamed of a marriage, a relationship built on love, filled with passion and humour and joy. Once.

Gazing at her now, he knew she would make an able queen, a wonderful queen—clearly she’d been grooming herself for such a role. And the decision of his marriage was not about desire or choice. It was about duty, a duty he’d wilfully and shamefully ignored for far too long already.

He gave a brisk nod. ‘I have obligations in the palace for the rest of this afternoon, but I would like us to have dinner together tonight, if you are amenable.’

She nodded, accepting, unsmiling. ‘Of course, Your Highness.’

‘We can get to know each other a bit better, perhaps, as well as discuss the practical aspects of this union.’

Another nod, just as swift and emotionless. ‘Of course.’

He stared at her hard, wanting her to show some kind of emotion, whether it was uncertainty or hope or simple human interest. He saw nothing in her clear violet gaze, nothing but cool purpose, hard-hearted determination. Suppressing a stab of disappointment, he turned from the room. ‘I’ll send one of my staff in to see to your needs. Enjoy your stay in the palace of Averne, Lady Liana.’

‘Thank you, Your Highness.’

It wasn’t until he’d closed the door behind him that he realised she’d never called him Sandro.

* * *

Liana let out a long, slow breath and pressed her hands to her middle, relieved that the fluttering had stopped. She felt reassuringly calm now, comfortingly numb. So she’d met Alessandro Diomedi, king of Maldinia. Her future husband.

She crossed to the window and gazed out at the palace courtyard and the ancient buildings of Averne beyond the ornate fence, all framed by a cloudless blue sky. The snow-capped peaks of the Alps were just visible if she craned her neck.

She let out another breath and willed the tension to dissipate from her body. That whole conversation with King Alessandro had been surreal; she’d almost felt as if she’d been floating somewhere up by the ceiling, looking down at these two people, strangers who had never met before, at least not properly. And now they intended to marry each other.

She shook her head slowly, the realisation of what her future would hold still possessing the power to surprise and even unnerve her although it had been several weeks since her parents had suggested she consider Alessandro’s suit.

He’s a king, Liana, and you should marry. Have children of your own.

She’d never thought to marry, have children. The responsibility and risk were both too great. But she knew it was what her parents wanted, and a convenient marriage, at least, meant a loveless one. A riskless one.

So marry she would, if King Alessandro would have her. She took a deep breath as the flutters started again, reminded herself of the advantages of such a union.

As queen she could continue to devote herself to her charity work, and raise the profile of Hands To Help. Her position would benefit it so much, and she could not turn away from that, just as she could not turn away from her parents’ wishes for her life.

She owed them too much.

Really, she told herself, it was perfect. It would give her everything she wanted—everything she would let herself want.

Except it didn’t seem the king wanted it. Her. She recalled the slightly sneering, incredulous tone, the way he’d looked at her with a kind of weary derision. She didn’t please him. Or was it simply marriage that didn’t please him?

With a wary unease she recalled his sense of raw, restless power, as if this palace could not contain him, as if his emotions and ideas would bubble over, spill forth.

She wasn’t used to that. Her parents were quiet, reserved people, and she had learned to be even more quiet and reserved than they were. To be invisible.

The only time she let herself be heard was when she was giving a public address for Hands To Help. On stage, talking about what the charity did, she had the words to say and the confidence to say them.

But with King Alessandro? With him looking at her as if... Almost as if he didn’t even like her?

Words had deserted her. She’d cloaked herself in the cool, numbing calm she’d developed over the years, her only way of staying sane. Of surviving, because giving into emotion meant giving into the grief and guilt, and if she did that she knew she’d be lost. She’d drown in the feelings she’d never let herself acknowledge, much less express.

And King Alessandro, of all people, wasn’t meant to call them up. This marriage was meant to be convenient. Cold. She wouldn’t have agreed to it otherwise.

And yet the questions he’d asked her hadn’t been either. And the doubt his voicing of them stirred up in her made her insides lurch with panic.

Tell me why you’re here, Lady Liana.... Such a possibility does not distress or concern you, considering we have never even met before?

He’d almost sounded as if he wanted her to be distressed by the prospect of their marriage.

Perhaps she should have told him that she was.

Except, of course, she wasn’t. Wouldn’t be. Marriage to King Alessandro made sense. Her parents wanted it. She wanted the visibility for Hands To Help. It was the right choice. It had to be.

And yet just the memory of the king’s imposing figure, all restless, rangy muscle and sinewy grace, made her insides quiver and jump. He wore his hair a little too long, ink-black and streaked with silver at the temples, carelessly rumpled as if he’d driven his fingers through it. His eyes were iron-grey, hard and yet compelling. She’d had to work not to quell under that steely gaze, especially when his mouth had twisted with what had looked—and felt—like derision.

What about her displeased him?

What did he want from her, if not a practical and accepting approach to this marriage?

Liana didn’t want to answer that question. She didn’t even want to ask it. She had hoped they would be in agreement about this marriage, or as much as they could considering she hadn’t wanted to marry at all.

But then perhaps King Alessandro didn’t either. Perhaps his seeming resentment was at the situation, rather than his intended bride. Liana’s lips formed a grim smile. Two people who had no desire to be married and yet would soon be saying their vows. Well, hopefully they wouldn’t actually be seeing all that much of each other.

‘Lady Liana?’

She turned to see one of the palace’s liveried staff, his face carefully neutral, standing in the doorway. ‘Yes?’

‘The king requested that I show you to your room, so you may refresh yourself.’

‘Thank you.’ With a brisk nod she followed the man out of the ornate receiving room and down a long, marble-floored corridor to the east wing of the palace. He took her up a curving marble staircase with an impressive gold bannister, and then down yet another marble corridor until he finally arrived at a suite of rooms.

During the entire journey she’d only seen more staff, liveried and stony faced, giving her the uneasy sense that she was alone in this vast building save for the countless nameless employees. She wondered where the king had gone, or, for that matter, the queen dowager. Surely Sandro’s mother, Sophia, intended to receive her?

Although, Liana acknowledged, she couldn’t assume anything. The summons to Maldinia’s royal palace had come so quickly and suddenly, a letter with Alessandro’s royal insignia on top, its few pithy sentences comprising the request for Lady Liana Aterno of Abruzzo to discuss the possibility of marriage. Liana had been in shock; her mother, full of expectation.

This would be so good for you, Liana. You should marry. Why not Alessandro? Why not a king?

Why not, indeed? Her parents were traditional, even old-fashioned. Daughters married, produced heirs. It was perhaps an archaic idea in this modern world, but they clung to it.

And she couldn’t let them down in their hopes for her. She owed them that much at least. She owed them so much more.

‘These will be your rooms for your stay here, my lady. If you need anything, simply press the bell by the door and someone will come to your attention.’

‘Thank you,’ Liana murmured, and stepped into the sumptuous set of rooms. After ensuring she had no further requirements, the staff member left with a quiet click of the door. Liana gazed around the huge bedroom, its opulence a far cry from her modest apartment in Milan.

Acres of plush carpet stretched in every direction, and in the centre of the room, on its own dais, stood a magnificent canopied four-poster bed, piled high with silk pillows. The bed faced a huge stone fireplace with elaborate scrollwork, and several deep armchairs in blue patterned silk flanked it. It was a chilly March day and a fire had already been laid and lit, and now crackled cheerfully in the huge hearth.

Slowly Liana walked towards the fireplace and stretched her hands out to the flames. Her hands were icy; they always went cold when she was nervous. And despite her every attempt to convey the opposite to King Alessandro, she had been nervous.

She hadn’t expected to be, had assumed a marriage such as theirs would be conducted like a corporate merger, their introduction no more than a business meeting. She wasn’t naive; she knew what marriage would entail. Alessandro needed an heir.

But she hadn’t expected his energy, his emotion. He’d been the opposite of her in every way: restless, quick-tempered, seething with something she didn’t understand.

She closed her eyes, wished briefly that she could return to the simple life she’d made for herself working at the foundation, living in Milan, going out on occasion with friends. It probably didn’t look like much to most people, but she’d found a soothing enjoyment in those small things. That was all she’d ever wanted, all she’d ever asked for. The safety of routines had calmed and comforted her, and just one meeting with Sandro Diomedi had ruffled up everything inside her.

Swallowing hard, she opened her eyes. Enough. Her life was not her own, and hadn’t been since she was eight years old. She accepted that as the price she must pay, should pay.

But she wouldn’t think anymore about that. It was as if there were a door in Liana’s mind, and it clanged shut by sheer force of will. She wouldn’t think about Chiara.

She turned away from the fire, crossing to the window to gaze out at the bare gardens still caught in the chill of late winter. Strange to think this view would become familiar when she was wed. This palace, this life, would all become part of her normal existence.

As would the king. Sandro.

She suppressed a shiver. What would marriage to King Alessandro look like? She had a feeling it wouldn’t look or feel like she’d assumed. Convenient. Safe.

She’d never even had a proper boyfriend, never been kissed except for a few quick, sloppy attempts on a couple dates she’d gone on over the years, pressured by her parents to meet a boy, fall in love, even though she hadn’t been interested in either.

But Alessandro would want more than a kiss, and with him she felt it would be neither sloppy nor quick.

She let out a soft huff of laughter, shaking her head at herself. How on earth would she know how Alessandro would kiss?

But you’ll find out soon enough.

She swallowed hard, the thought alone enough to make her palms go icy again. She didn’t want to think about that, not yet.

She gazed around the bedroom, the afternoon stretching emptily in front of her. She couldn’t bear to simply sit and wait in her room; she preferred being busy and active. She’d take a walk through the palace gardens, she decided. The fresh air would be welcome.

She dressed casually but carefully in wool trousers of pale grey and a twin set in mauve cashmere, the kind of bland, conservative clothes she’d chosen for ever.

She styled her hair, leaving it down, and did her discreet make-up and jewellery—pearls, as she always wore. It took her nearly an hour before she was ready, and then as soon as she left her room one of the staff standing to attention in the endless corridor hurried towards her.

‘My lady?’

‘I’d like to go outside, please. To have a stroll around the gardens if I may.’

‘Very good, my lady.’

She followed the man in his blue-and-gold-tasselled uniform down the corridor and then down several others and finally to a pair of French windows that led to a wide terrace with shallow steps leading to the gardens.

‘Would you like an escort—?’ he began, but Liana shook her head.

‘No, thank you. I’ll just walk around by myself.’

She breathed in the fresh, pine-scented mountain air as she took the first twisting path through the carefully clipped box hedges. Even though the palace was in the centre of Maldinia’s capital city of Averne, it was very quiet in the gardens, the only sound the rustle of the wind through the still-bare branches of the trees and shrubs.

Liana dug her hands into the pockets of her coat, the chilly wind stinging her cheeks, glad for an afternoon’s respite from the tension of meeting with the king. As she walked she examined the flowerbeds, trying to identify certain species although it was difficult with everything barely in blossom.

The sun was starting to sink behind the snow-capped peaks on the horizon when Liana finally turned back to the palace. She needed to get ready for her dinner with the king, and already she felt her brief enjoyment of the gardens replaced by a wary concern over the coming evening.

She could not afford to make a single misstep, and yet as she walked back towards the French windows glinting in the late afternoon sun she realised how little information King Alessandro had given her. Was this dinner a formal occasion with members of state, or something smaller and more casual? Would the queen be dining with them, or other members of the royal family? Liana knew that Alessandro’s brother, Leo, and his wife, Alyse, lived in Averne, as did his sister, the princess Alexa.

Her steps slowed as she came up to the terrace; she found herself approaching the evening with both dread and a tiny, treacherous flicker of anticipation. Sandro’s raw, restless energy might disturb her, but it also fascinated her. It was, she knew, a dangerous fascination, and one she needed to get under control if she was going to go ahead with this marriage.

Which she was.

Anything else, at this point, was impossible, involved too much disappointment for too many people.

She forced her worries back along with that fascination as she opened the French windows. As she came inside she stopped short, her breath coming out in a rush, for Alessandro had just emerged from a gilt-panelled door, a frown settled between his dark, straight brows. He glanced up, stilling when he saw her, just as Liana was still.

‘Good evening. You’ve been out for a walk in the gardens?’

She nodded, her mind seeming to have snagged on the sight of him, his rumpled hair, his silvery eyes, his impossibly hard jaw. ‘Yes, Your Highness.’

‘You’re cold.’ To her complete shock Alessandro touched her cheek with his fingertips. The touch was so very slight and yet so much more than she’d expected or ever known. Instinctively she jerked back, and she watched as his mouth, which had been curving into a faint smile, thinned into a hard line.

‘I’ll see you at dinner,’ he said flatly. He turned away and strode down the hall.

Drawing a deep breath, she threw back her shoulders, forced herself to turn towards her own suite of rooms and walk with a firm step even as inside she wondered just what would happen tonight—and how she would handle it.

CHAPTER 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.

CHAPTER THREE

LIANA STUDIED SANDRO’S face and wondered what he was thinking. Her husband-to-be was, so far, an unsettling enigma. She didn’t understand why everything she did, from being polite to trying to eat mussels without splattering herself with butter, seemed to irritate him, but she knew it did. She saw the way his silvery eyes darkened to storm-grey, his mobile mouth tightening into a firm line.

So he didn’t want to marry her. That undeniable truth lodged inside her like a cold, hard stone. She hadn’t expected that, but could she really be surprised? He’d spent fifteen years escaping his royal duty. Just because he’d decided finally to honour his commitments didn’t mean, as he’d admitted himself, that he relished the prospect.

And yet it was hard not to take his annoyance personally. Not to let it hurt—which was foolish, because this marriage wasn’t personal. She didn’t want his love or even his affection, but she had, she realised, hoped for agreement. Understanding.

A footman came in and cleared their plates, and Liana was glad to see the last of the mussels. She felt resentment stir inside her at the memory of Sandro’s mocking smile. He’d enjoyed seeing her discomfited, would have probably laughed aloud if she’d dropped a mussel in her lap or sent it spinning across the table.

Perhaps she should have dived in and smeared her face and fingers with butter; perhaps he would have liked her better then. But a lifetime of careful, quiet choices had kept her from making a mess of anything, even a plate of mussels. She couldn’t change now, not even over something so trivial.

The footman laid their plates down, a main course of lamb garnished with fresh mint.

‘At least this shouldn’t present you with too much trouble,’ Sandro said softly as the door clicked shut. Liana glanced up at him.

She felt irritation flare once more, surprising her, because she usually didn’t let herself feel irritated or angry...or anything. Yet this man called feelings up from deep within her, and she didn’t even know why or how. She definitely didn’t like it. ‘You seem to enjoy amusing yourself at my expense.’

‘I meant only to tease,’ he said quietly. ‘I apologise if I’ve offended you. But you are so very perfect, Lady Liana—and I’d like to see you a little less so.’

Perfect? If only he knew the truth. ‘No one is perfect.’

‘You come close.’

‘That is not, I believe, a compliment.’

His lips twitched, drawing her attention to them. He had such sculpted lips, almost as if they belonged on a statue. She yanked her gaze upwards, but his eyes were no better. Silvery grey and glinting with amusement.

She felt as if a fist had taken hold of her heart, plunged into her belly. Everything quivered, and the sensation was not particularly pleasant. Or perhaps it was too pleasant; she felt that same thrill of fascination that had taken hold of her when she’d first met him.

‘I would like to see you,’ Sandro said, his voice lowering to a husky murmur, ‘with your hair cascading over your shoulders. Your lips rosy and parted, your face flushed.’

And as if he could command it by royal decree, she felt herself begin to blush. The image he painted was so suggestive. And it made that fist inside her squeeze her heart once more, made awareness tauten muscles she’d never even known she had.

‘Why do you wish to see me like that?’ she asked, relieved her voice sounded as calm as always. Almost.

‘Because I think you would look even more beautiful then than you already are. You’d look warm and real and alive.’

She drew back, strangely hurt by his words. ‘I am quite real already. And alive, thank you very much.’

Sandro’s gaze swept over her, assessing, knowing. ‘You remind me of a statue.’

A statue? A statue was cold and lifeless, without blood or bone, thought or feeling. And he thought that was what she was?

Wasn’t it what she’d been for the past twenty years? The thought was like a hammer blow to the heart. She blinked, tried to keep her face expressionless. Blank, just like the statue he accused her of being. ‘Are you trying to be offensive?’ she answered, striving to keep her voice mild and not quite managing it.

His honesty shouldn’t hurt her, she knew. There was certainly truth in it, and yet... She didn’t want to be a statue. Not to this man.

A thought that alarmed her more than anything else.

‘Not trying, no,’ Sandro answered. ‘I suppose it comes naturally.’

‘I suppose it does.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘Do you ever lose your temper? Shout? Curse?’

‘Would you prefer to be marrying a shrew?’ she answered evenly and his mouth quirked in a small smile.

‘Does anything make you angry?’ he asked, and before she could think better of it, she snapped, ‘Right now, you do.’

He laughed, a rich chuckle of amusement, the sound spreading over her like chocolate, warming her in a way she didn’t even understand. This man was frustrating and even hurting her and yet...

She liked his laugh.

‘I am glad for it,’ he told her. ‘Anger is better than indifference.’

‘I have never said I was indifferent.’

‘You have shown it in everything you’ve said or done,’ Sandro replied. ‘Almost.’

‘Almost?’

‘You are not quite,’ he told her in that murmur of a voice, ‘as indifferent as you’d like me to believe—or even to believe yourself.’

She felt her breath bottle in her lungs, catch in her throat. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Your Highness.’

‘Don’t you?’ He leaned forward, his eyes glinting silver in the candlelight. ‘And must I remind you yet again that you are to call me Sandro?’

She felt her blush deepen, every nerve and sinew and sense so agonisingly aware. Feeling this much hurt. She was angry and scared and, most of all, she wanted him...just as he knew she did. ‘I am not inclined,’ she told him, her voice shaking, ‘to call you by your first name just now, Your Highness.’

‘I wonder, under what circumstances would you call me Sandro?’

Her nails dug into her palms. ‘I cannot think of any at the moment.’

Sandro’s silvery gaze swept over her in lingering assessment. ‘I can think of one or two,’ he answered lazily, and everything in her lurched at the sudden predatory intentness in his gaze. She felt her heart beat hard in response, her palms go cold and her mouth dry. ‘Yes, definitely, one or two,’ he murmured, and, throwing his napkin on the table, he rose from the chair.

* * *

She looked, Sandro thought, like a trapped rabbit, although perhaps not quite so frightened a creature. Even in her obvious and wary surprise she clung to her control, to her coldness. He had a fierce urge to strip it away from her and see what lay beneath it. An urge he intended to act on now.

Her eyes had widened and she gazed at him unblinkingly, her hands frozen over her plate, the knife and fork clenched between her slender, white-knuckled fingers.

Sandro moved towards her chair with a loose-limbed, predatory intent; he was acting on instinct now, wanting—needing—to strip away her cold haughtiness, chip away at that damned ice until it shattered all around them. She would call him Sandro. She would melt in his arms.

Gently, yet with firm purpose, he uncurled her clenched fingers from around her cutlery, and the knife and fork clattered onto her plate. She didn’t resist. Her violet gaze was still fastened on him, her lips slightly parted. Her pulse thundered under his thumb as he took her by the wrist and drew her from the chair to stand before him.

Still she didn’t resist, not even as he moved closer to her, nudging his thigh in between her own legs as he lifted his hands to frame her face.

Her skin was cool and unbearably soft, and he brushed his thumb over the fullness of her parted lips, heard her tiny, indrawn grasp, and smiled. He rested his thumb on the soft pad of her lower lip before he slid his hands down to her bare shoulders, her skin like silk under his palms.

He gazed into her eyes, the colour of a bruise, framed by moon-coloured lashes, wide and waiting. Then he bent his head and brushed his mouth across hers, a first kiss that was soft and questioning, and yet she gave no answer.

She remained utterly still, her lips unmoving under his, her hands clenched by her sides. The only movement was the hard beating of her heart that he could feel from where he stood, and Sandro’s determination to make her respond crystallised inside him, diamond hard. He deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into her luscious mouth, the question turning into a demand.

For a woman who was so coldly determined, her mouth tasted incredibly warm and sweet. He wanted more, any sense of purpose be damned, and as he explored the contours of her mouth with his tongue he moved his hands from her shoulders down the silk of her dress to cup the surprising fullness of her breasts. They fitted his hands perfectly, and he brushed his thumbs lightly over the taut peaks. Still she didn’t move.

She was like the statue he’d accused her of being, frozen into place, rigid and unyielding. A shaft of both sexual and emotional frustration blazed through him. He wanted—needed—her to respond. Physically. Emotionally. He needed something from her, something real and alive, and he would do whatever it took to get it.

Sandro tore his mouth from hers and kissed his way along her jawline, revelling in the silkiness of her skin even as a furious determination took hold of him once more.

Yet as his mouth hovered over the sweet hollow where her jaw met her throat he hesitated, unwilling to continue when she was so unresponsive despite the insistence pulsing through him. He had never forced a woman, not for so much as a kiss, and he wasn’t about to start now. Not with his bride. Submission, he thought grimly, was not the same as acceptance. As want.

Then she let out a little gasping shudder and her hand, as if of its own accord, clasped his arm, her nails digging into his skin as she pulled him infinitesimally closer. She tilted her head back just a little to allow him greater access to her throat, her breasts, and triumph surged through him. She wanted this. Him.

He moved lower, kissing his way to the V between her breasts where the diamond-and-pearl pendant nestled. He lifted the jewel and licked the warm skin underneath, tasted salt on his tongue and heard her gasp again, her knees buckling as she sat down hard on the table amidst the detritus of their dinner.

Triumph mixed with pure lust and he fastened his hands on her hips, sliding them down to her thighs so he could spread her legs wider. He stood between them, the silken folds of her dress whispering around him as he kissed her like a starving man feasting at a banquet.

He felt her shy response, her tongue touching his before darting away again, and he was utterly enflamed. He slid the straps of her dress from her shoulders, freeing her breasts from their silken prison.

She wore no bra, and desire ripped through him at the sight of her, her head thrown back, her breath coming in gasps as she surrendered herself to his touch, her face flushed and rosy, her lips parted, her body so wonderfully open to him. This was how he’d wanted to see her. He bent his head, kissing his way down her throat, his hand cupping her bared breast—

And then the door opened and a waitress gasped an apology before closing it again quickly, but the moment, Sandro knew, had broken. Shattered into shock and awkwardness and regret.

Liana wrenched herself from his grasp, holding her dress up to her bare front, her lips swollen, her eyes huge and dazed as she stared at him.

He stared back in both challenge and desire, because as much as she might want to deny what had just happened between them, her response had said otherwise. Her response had told him she really was alive and warm and real beneath all that ice, and he was glad.

‘Don’t—’ she finally managed, the single word choked, and Sandro arched an eyebrow.

‘It’s a little late for that. But obviously, I’ve stopped.’

‘You shouldn’t have—’

‘Stopped?’

‘Started—’

‘And why not? We are to be married, aren’t we?’

She just shook her head, fumbling as she attempted to slide her arms back into the dress, but she couldn’t manage it without ripping the fragile fabric. Sandro came to stand behind her, unzipping the back with one quick tug.

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