The Prince She Had to Marry

And then, slowly, every Bravo-Calabretti head but the youngest ones swiveled in Prince Damien’s direction. Lili wasn’t particularly surprised. Damien was the family jet-setter, famous with the ladies. She knew what they all must be thinking: Who else could it be but Damien? Surely not Rule. Yes, Rule had been expected to propose to Lili for years, but they all knew he thought of her like a sister, that he’d never made any kind of advances toward her. And he was now happily married to the brilliant American, Sydney O’Shea, whom Lili truly admired.

Well, and it hadn’t been Rule. It wasn’t Damien either. But only two people in the room knew that.

King Leo didn’t miss the way everyone glanced in Damien’s direction. “Aha,” he crowed hotly. “So, then. It’s you, Damien. I suspected it might be. Stand,” he commanded, whipping out the ceremonial scimitar he’d strapped on when they’d left the royal jet. How utterly mortifying. Leave it to her father to bring a scimitar. He swung the blade back and forth. It sang through the air of the too-quiet room. And then he assumed a fighting stance, the long, curving sword held high. “Stand and face me, you offal-eating swine.”

Beyond humiliated now, Lili stifled a moan of pure misery. Her father was a fair man and a good ruler—except when his fury was roused. “Papa,” she pleaded, “I beg you. This is not about you. This is between me and the father of my child. I want you to stop this. Now.”

Her father ignored her.

Damien started to stand. Leo lunged forward and Lili opened her mouth to admit that Damien was not the man.

But before she made a sound, Damien’s twin, Alexander, pushed back his chair and rose. “Sir, you have it wrong. Damien is innocent. I am the guilty one.” Alex stood tall, his powerful shoulders drawn back, his haunted eyes level, frighteningly blank.

Lili clapped her hand over her mouth and swallowed bile. Yes, she understood that Alex had no choice but to reveal himself at that point. He couldn’t just sit there and allow her father to take his ridiculous scimitar to poor Damian, who for once was not guilty of seducing someone he shouldn’t have.

But still … dear Holy Virgin, what now?

Everyone was gaping in shock.

They couldn’t believe that Alex was the one, which didn’t surprise Lili. She could hardly believe it herself—and she’d been there when it happened. They all knew that she’d always despised Alex, and that he felt the same way about her. Plus, well, Alex wasn’t interested in women anyway. Not even in women he liked and respected. Not anymore. Not since whatever unspeakable horrors had befallen him in Afghanistan.

And yet …

The two of them did have sex together. Just once, in the second week of April. Once. That was all it had taken to plant a new life inside her, to change her world forever.

Alex. She’d lost her virginity to Alex. She still had trouble believing she’d done that. Because, honestly, how could she?

Her father seemed as shocked as the rest of them. “Alexander?” he asked, his voice suddenly without force, utterly disbelieving.

But then his fury returned full force. With a bloodcurdling shout, he raised his sword again and went for Alex—Alex, who didn’t so much as flinch, but simply stood there, apparently ready to take whatever punishment her father saw fit to inflict upon him.

“Stop!” Lili shouted.

Her father didn’t even break stride. She rushed forward to intercept him.

But Her Sovereign Highness Adrienne, Lili’s dear friend and Alex’s mother, was faster.

Montedoro’s monarch rose lightly to her feet. She had a truly calm, almost-pleased expression on her legendary face. As though she couldn’t have been more delighted to learn that her dark and damaged son had actually lurched back to life long enough to impregnate Lili, whom everyone knew was like another daughter to her.

Adrienne planted her noble person between the enraged king and her third-born son. Her smile turned even sweeter as she faced down Lili’s father. “Leo,” she said gently in warm, melodious tones. “I’m so glad you’ve come. And I think that now would be the perfect opportunity to discuss the wedding, don’t you?”

Chapter Two

There were top secret meetings all that day. Alexander had work he should have been doing. But he put his work aside to be there while negotiations for his marriage to Lili were carried through.

No, there was no question as to the marriage itself. There would be one, and right away. Within the next day or two, everyone agreed—that is, everyone except Lili.

But no one was listening to Lili. They all tuned her out, even though she babbled incessantly. About love. And relationships. And her rights as a twenty-first-century woman.

“This is between Alexander and me,” she insisted. And, “I refuse to marry a man who doesn’t love me.” And, “I just think it’s wrong, that’s all. I just don’t think it’s right and I don’t see how you all can carry on blithely making your plans when I have said over and over that this is my decision—mine and Alex’s—and we need to be left alone to work this out, just the two of us. We need to come to some sort of peace between us, some sort of real understanding as people, as a woman and a man, before we can even begin to discuss something as enormous and life-altering as holy matrimony…. ”

They let her babble. They all knew you couldn’t shut her up if you tried.

More than once, she’d turned those huge aquamarine eyes his way. She reproached him. “Alex. Please. You know we have to talk.”

Whenever she turned those eyes on him, he only stared back at her long and steadily and without expression, until she gave in and looked away. Occasionally, Alex’s mother would pat Lili’s hand or give her a hug. And then the rest of them would go back to deciding what needed to be done.

Alex kept his peace through each of the interminable meetings. He sat at the bargaining table or stood by the door. And other than to make it perfectly clear that of course he and Lili would wed, he said nothing.

What could he say? He was still reeling in shock to learn that Silly Lili, as he always used to call her when they were younger, was carrying his child. He should have read her damned letter, or answered one of her strange, frantic telephone calls. But he hadn’t read the letter. And when she called, she’d mentioned nothing about a pregnancy. He’d assumed she was just being emotional as usual, that she was only after an opportunity to exercise the unpleasant flair for the dramatic that she’d inherited from Leo. He’d been sure she only wanted a chance to cry and carry on, to call him a cad and a defiler of innocent women.

How could he have touched her? He was completely disgusted with himself at what he had done. He wasn’t a defiler of innocent women.

Or he hadn’t been. Until that day two months before, when he’d heard someone sobbing outside his palace apartment. He still had no idea what had possessed him to look and see who it was.

He’d opened his door and stuck his head out. And there was Lili, all in white, kneeling on the inlaid tiles of the corridor floor, her long, pale gold hair falling forward, hiding her pretty face, her slim shoulders shaking with her sobs.

She must have heard the door open because she glanced up. Still sobbing, her eyes red and her perfect nose redder, tears streaming down her cheeks, she caught sight of him in the doorway. With a cry of sheer misery, she leaped to her feet. “Oh, Alex. The most terrible thing has happened. It’s Rule.” She said his older brother’s name with another agonized cry. “He’s married someone else.”

He should have retreated right then. He should have shut the door and locked it and not opened it again.

Instead, he’d pulled the door open wider. She must have taken that as an invitation. She’d thrown herself into his arms and drenched the front of his shirt with her tears.

By that point, he absolutely should have pushed her away and shut the door. But he hadn’t. He’d taken her into his sitting room and sat with her on the sofa and listened as she continued wildly sobbing, as she poured out her misery—that his brother loved another, that Rule would never be marrying her now, that Rule didn’t love her and never had. That she was nothing more than an honorary little sister to him, and always had been.

When she finally paused to suck in a few shaky, hiccupy breaths, he’d handed her a tissue and told her exactly what he was thinking. “Calm yourself, Lili. There is so much true suffering that exists in this world. Don’t you realize how little your petty problems matter in the larger scheme of things?”

His remarks had not gone over well. Lili had responded in her usual way. With an ear-flaying shriek of outrage, she’d drawn back her hand to slap his face.

He should have let her do that, allowed her to vent a little more of her considerable frustration. But no. He’d automatically caught her wrist before she could carry through.

And that was when it happened.

He still had no idea how. Or why.

All at once, she was in his arms. She smelled like her name, like some fine, sweet, exotic flower. She … overwhelmed him. There was no other word for it. Silly Lili overwhelmed him. Somehow, at that moment, having her in his arms was like holding hope and light and all the good things that were lost to him forever. Her skin was so soft and her eyes were the incomparable blue of lapis lazuli.

And then her mouth was under his, opening, sighing….

Something snapped in him. Something gave way.

What happened then was raw and perfect and really quite beautiful.

With Lili.

Lili, of all people.

Afterward, she smiled. So softly. Contentedly. And she reached up and laid her delicate, graceful little hand against his cheek. “Alex,” she whispered, as though his very name held wonder for her now.