Forced Wife, Royal Love-Child(17)

‘Then why?’

His thumbs made lazy circles on her hand, lazy circles that sent busy signals vibrating through her veins. ‘Two things. One part of me wanted to prove that a bastard son, the son his father had rejected, could make something of himself, could prove himself to be a worthy ruler.’ He fixed her with eyes full of meaning. ‘It seems that I, too, was blessed with a father who didn’t want me.’

Sienna bristled under his gaze, not at all sure she was comfortable having something in common with him, let alone a reason to empathise with him. ‘And the other?’

‘Because of my mother. She loved her Mediterranean island home and hated being exiled like some criminal simply because she’d borne the Prince a bastard son and daughter. Do you understand? By coming back, I could try to make things right for her. That was my motivation. But I had no idea when I made that decision just how right it would come to feel.’

Sienna shivered, picking up on his use of past tense. His mother was dead. She recalled reading that in a magazine article after Rafe’s coronation. But it hadn’t occurred to her then that it was something else they shared.

She picked up her glass of water in her free hand, desperate for something to do to hide her confusion. She hated being wrong about things, hated knowing she’d made judgements based on assumptions that were misplaced. She’d assumed Rafe had embraced his new role because he’d imagined himself born to rule. Had believed it, considering the way he’d treated her. But given his story and the way the people here seemed to react to him, maybe she’d been wrong about that. Maybe he wasn’t the beast she imagined him to be…

‘I have something for you,’ he said, interrupting her thoughts while he reached into his pocket.

She sat up straight, suddenly defensive, interlocking both hands under the table in case he was about to make some kind of engagement ring gesture. Despite their more civilized conversation tonight, and despite her shifting thoughts, she wasn’t ready for anything like that yet, hoped that tonight wasn’t about that. ‘What is it?’

The ruby-red box looked worn, the velvet scuffed at the corners. ‘It’s my mother’s favourite piece of jewellery. I thought you should have it.’

Sienna shook her head, while he pressed the box towards her until it would have been churlish not to raise her hands and accept it. ‘But it was your mother’s. Shouldn’t it go to your sister?’

‘Open it,’ he urged. She gasped as the case snapped open, revealing the stunning jewels within, gemstones of every hue and shade, suspended at intervals from a diamond-set necklace.

‘It’s beautiful,’ was her first reaction. ‘I can’t accept this,’ was her second. But he was already on his feet, taking the necklace from its setting and fixing it at her throat. She put a hand to the precious piece, the jewels feeling heavy and cool against her skin, whereas the brush of his fingers felt warm at her throat, but all too light and all too brief.

He sat down again, the fire in the gems reflected in the flames in his eyes. ‘They suit you.’ And then, ‘did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?’

She dropped her eyes. ‘Carmelina chose it.’

‘It’s not the dress,’ he said. ‘It’s you. You look radiant.’ He lifted his glass to her. ‘Here’s to you, my future bride, the mother of Montvelatte’s future.’

She trembled, the responsibility of the title he’d just bestowed upon her feeling like a leaded weight. ‘Look, Rafe, I haven’t actually agreed to marry you yet.’

He frowned, her words clearly taking him off guard, before reaching over the table to take her hand. ‘What choice do we have? Soon you will start to show. Do you want this marriage to look like some shotgun wedding?’

Like her parents’ perchance? His words cut through the goodwill they’d built tonight like a scythe, sharp and deep, reopening old wounds and laying them bare. ‘If I did agree to marry you, why shouldn’t it look that way, when that’s exactly what it is?’

‘I prefer to call it a marriage of convenience, for both of us.’

‘And I call it like I see it. You may not be holding a shotgun to my head, but you might as well be. What choice have you given me?’

Candlelight flickered in his dark eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Maybe coming out tonight was premature and you are not yet ready to see sense.’

‘As you are not yet ready to see my point of view!’

He sighed and leant back in his chair, throwing his napkin down onto the table. ‘And what is your point of view? That you can go on your merry way carrying two royal babies and somehow continue your life as a helicopter pilot as if nothing had happened?’ He cursed under his breath and stood, signalling to the waiter for the car to be brought around.

She remained exactly where she was and jagged her chin up higher. ‘I don’t know any more. Two babies—I just don’t know. But I do know that whatever you call it, a marriage between us will have no chance of success while we remain virtual strangers. Look at our conversation tonight, we don’t know the first thing about each other.’

For a moment his jaw looked so set she thought he might just turn and leave without her, and then he breathed out on a sigh and folded himself into his chair again, nodding. ‘Si. You are right. I am rushing you. Would a month be long enough, do you think?’

He was giving her a month to decide? She rolled the proposal around in her head, looking for the catch but happy to take any concession going given the way she’d been railroaded up until now. ‘That would certainly help.’

It did help. Rafe had Sebastiano rearrange his diary to free up his evenings over the course of the next week, taking her to the opera, to the opening of a play and countless magnificent dinners overlooking the lights of the city or the harbour or sometimes even both. They were photographed wherever they went, a buzz around them whenever they were spotted, and while Sienna knew there would be pictures in magazines and articles written about them, she wasn’t uncomfortable with the attention. She’d made no commitment to him. She had her month and she had the time to get to know Rafe better.

At every event, Sienna was reminded of what it was that had put her under Rafe’s spell from the very beginning. He could be so utterly charming, his attention focused one hundred per cent on her and her alone, to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. She’d missed that attention, especially lately. Missed the feeling that she was special for herself. And all the while he’d been the perfect gentleman, never pushing her for so much as a kiss, even though there were times she saw his need in a glance or in the tightness of his movements, like he was trying to keep it in check. She appreciated it. They’d known each other’s bodies before they’d known the first thing about each other. Now they could redress the balance.

And at every outing she saw the people’s reaction when they met their Prince. There was respect there, to be sure, but there was joy too as he mixed with his people, and a kind of elation lifted the crowd.

And she decided he was a good prince for Montvelatte.

They were just leaving an exhibition at an art gallery one day when it happened. A small crowd had assembled outside, cheering behind a cordon of palace guards as they made their exit. A small girl squirmed out from between a guard’s legs and ran towards them carrying a hand-picked posy of flowers that she held up for Sienna to take, her dark eyes wide as if begging her to accept her gift. Sienna smiled and reached down. ‘Grazie,’ she said, and the little girl beamed before throwing herself at Rafe’s legs and wrapping her arms around them in a bear hug. A guard came closer, but Rafe shooed him away, instead picking up the small girl and hoisting her into his arms as he made his way to the crowd and her parents. ‘Ringraziarla, la bella ragazza,’ and the child’s smile widened before she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek.

Sienna’s grip had tightened around the posy, just as a band had twisted around her heart. He wasn’t just a good prince. He would make a damn fine father as well.

Rafe was nothing like her own father. Though it wasn’t as if he’d wanted children so much as heirs, at least he would never tell these babies that they’d ruined his life.



Was that enough?

Could she risk it?

She was almost tempted.





CHAPTER EIGHT



SIENNA sat in the library, a half-eaten sandwich and a forgotten cup of tea by her side, but it wasn’t morning sickness curbing her appetite. Neither was it the Italian language study book, a handbook on royal protocol, and a short history of Montvelatte in twelve volumes that Sebastiano had so generously decided might be worth her while flicking through while Rafe was busy in Rome presenting his fiscal rescue package for Montvelatte to international financiers.

It was the parchment in her hand that had anger welling up inside her until there was space for nothing else. He’d given her a month, he’d said, to give them a chance to get to know each other, but the date on the invitation in front of her told her nothing of the sort.

She would become Rafe’s bride and the new Princess of Montvelatte in less than two weeks. Rafe certainly wasn’t wasting any time inducting her into the family firm or in waiting for her to make up her own mind. Neither was he wasting any time keeping her informed.