The Prince She Had to Marry (6 page)

He tipped his big head to the side and asked, “Is that a real question?”

“Yes, of course it is.”

“Then here’s your answer, Lili. There
is
no point in trying with me. Stop wasting your breath and your overwrought emotions. Good night.” And with that, he turned on his heel and left her.

She didn’t try to stop him that time. She knew he would only shake off her grip and keep walking.

Yes, she did long to trail after him. She hated giving up. Even now, when he’d made it so achingly clear that he was never going to be a real husband to her, she wanted to follow him, to confront him again, to insist that he talk with her, that he come to some sort of real understanding with her. And failing understanding, she longed to call him any number of horrible names and perhaps throw some small, heavy figurine at his head.

But then she thought of her mother who would never resort to screaming fits or tantrums or displays of violence. Her beloved, lost mum never even had to raise her voice to get her man’s attention. Lili thought of her baby who deserved a mother in command of her emotions. She said a prayer for patience to the Holy Virgin. And she told herself that if she had nothing else at that moment, she had her dignity.

And then she went to the bedroom Alex was apparently never going to share with her and got out her electronic reading device and read a long, delicious romance. In that romance the heroine was fearless and clever and so very resourceful, a woman who saved her hero’s life when they were stranded in the jungle. The handsome, wealthy hero thought he knew everything. At first. There was lovely, snappy dialogue and things got pretty rough for the two of them. Lili almost worried that they wouldn’t end up together. But by the end, love saved the day. The pair settled down to share a lifetime of wedded happiness.

Life should be more like a romance novel. Lili truly believed that.

She put her e-reader away and turned out the light and did her best not to think about Alex, about how she probably should have guessed what he was up to when he promised to try and make a real marriage with her. After all, she’d known him her whole life. He’d been the bane of her existence for as long as she could remember. He’d been telling her not to be a fool, not to be so silly, not to make up stories, not to cry and carry on since...well, since forever.

Leopards don’t make a habit of changing their spots. And Alex wasn’t going to change. Except in the ways he’d already changed after his near-death experiences in Afghanistan—which was to become even more difficult and distant and surly than before.

She wasn’t a quitter. There was a thread of steel within her that few recognized as such. Plus, she was resourceful when she needed to be.

But with Alex, she felt stymied. Stopped. Cut off from the possibility of ever making any sort of real marriage with him.

He not only despised her, he had actually lied to get her to agree to marry him. He’d
tricked
her into marriage.

And now she was stuck. Unwilling to divorce him. Unable to get through to him.

Lili refused to believe that any situation was truly hopeless. All problems had solutions. Even this one. She simply hadn’t found that solution yet. “I will find a way. I will work this out. I will get through to him,
reach
him, somehow...” she whispered to the darkness, like a prayer. Like a mantra.

But her prayer didn’t seem to be helping much. She didn’t believe in giving up. But with a man like Alex, what else was a woman to do?

* * *

By morning, Lili had made a decision. It wasn’t a happy one. But what could she do?

She would stay away from him—for the time being. Until some new approach came to her, she decided she’d be better off to stop beating her head against the stone wall that her new husband had for a heart. She would get on with her life.

The charade that the two of them were deeply in love made it necessary for her to remain in the same apartment with him. So be it. She laid claim to the extra bedroom—the one he wasn’t using to sleep in. On one side of the room, she created an office space where she could keep up her voluminous correspondence and keep track of the large number of charitable organizations to which she contributed. She sat on the boards of three of those organizations, so there was actual office work to do, as well as communications to handle. And then there were her duties as heir presumptive to her father’s throne. She kept abreast of anything and everything that concerned the well-being of her country and her people.

When her charities, her correspondence and her preparation to be queen were dealt with for the day, she painted. She used the other half of the spare bedroom for her art. Lili loved to get lost in her painting. She worked in watercolors. They were so soft and transparent and full of light. She painted butterflies and secret forest glens where cute, spotted fawns gamboled. She painted the gardens at D’Alagon and the courtyards at the Prince’s Palace. She painted unicorns because they were sweet and mystical and innocent. Because they were everything her cold, distant husband seemed to find silly and shallow and without merit.

Beyond the activities she pursued in her new office studio, she spent time with Alex’s sisters and with Sydney, Rule’s wife. At night, she had her romance novels to keep her company, to keep the spark of love and hope alive in her heart.

Three days went by—days in which Lili hardly saw her new husband. Now and then she caught sight of him coming or going from the apartment they shared. She ignored him. She had nothing whatsoever to say to him.

On the fourth day after her wedding, she was in her office studio painting a pair of flamingoes facing each other, beaks pressed together so that their heads and long necks formed a heart, when her father came to say goodbye to her. He was returning to Alagonia. He wanted to tell her he would send her lady-in-waiting to her.

Lili nipped that idea in the bud. “I really have no need of Solange now, Papa. There’s no room for anyone else here in the apartment and my chambermaid, Pilar, is in and out all day, helping wherever I need her. I think it’s time we...set cousin Solange free to go back to her own life.”

“You’re certain, my little love?”

“Yes.”

Then he wanted to know if she was feeling well, and how things were going with Alex.

Lili lied to him outright. She told him that she felt wonderful and that she and Alex were getting along beautifully. She actually did feel better physically, now that she no longer had to agonize over what was going to happen when the truth about the baby came out. But she did feel guilty, very guilty, as she told the big lie about her relationship with her new husband. She also felt somewhat humbled, considering how harshly she’d judged Alex for lying to
her
.

But she told her father the lie anyway. She couldn’t afford not to. Her father was too hotheaded by half. If he thought that Alex was treating her badly, there was no telling what he might do.

She kissed him goodbye and promised to return to Alagonia for a visit very soon. And after he was gone, she thought about Alex, about how he probably really had felt it was necessary to lie to her, how she knew he’d only wanted to do the right thing by her and her child.

So, all right, she could understand why he lied.

But she still felt trapped. She remained angry with him. She just wasn’t willing to try again to get through to him.

Why bother? It wasn’t as though he would ever meet her halfway.

That day, she had a visit from Arabella, the oldest of Alex’s sisters. Belle was a nurse who had received her training in America and who worked long and tirelessly for Nurses Without Borders, an international aid society that Lili actively supported.

“I’m going to South Sudan tomorrow,” Belle said. She often traveled to dangerous places where people desperately needed aid.

Lili set down her watercolor brush and said, “Why don’t I go with you?”

* * *

They were gone for eight days. Paparazzi and more serious newspeople followed them everywhere. That was the point, to use their status as royal celebrities to bring attention to the cause. More than one reporter asked Lili where her new husband the prince might be. Lili told them that her groom had “important work” to do in Montedoro and couldn’t make the trip with her. When asked if she missed him, she answered coolly, “Of course.”

The morning after their return, Lili had breakfast in the sovereign’s private apartment with Adrienne and Evan, and with three of Alex’s sisters, including Belle. Max, the heir, and his children were there. So were Sydney and Rule and their son, Trevor, and Sydney’s dear friend Lani, who lived at the palace with them.

Alex failed to put in an appearance. Most likely, he’d had Rufus fix him something early and then headed off to the training yard to spend the day with his men. Or maybe not. Who knew? Lili certainly didn’t. She hadn’t seen him since she’d caught a glimpse of him going out the door of their apartment the day before she left for Africa with Belle.

As she was leaving the breakfast room, Adrienne caught her hand. “Lili, my darling, I would like a few words with you. My office, at eleven?” Her Sovereign Highness spoke kindly, as always. And with fondness.

Still, a shiver of unease tickled the skin between Lili’s shoulder blades and her stomach felt queasy for the first time in days. She pulled her fingers free of Adrienne’s and replied that of course, she would be there.

* * *

At a few minutes before eleven, Adrienne’s private secretary ushered her into the sovereign’s large, beautifully appointed palace office. Adrienne was there and so was Evan. Alex’s mother greeted her warmly and led her over to the conversation area, which consisted of two large sofas, a coffee table and a couple of Louis XV wingback chairs. She asked her secretary to serve tea for four.

Four. Who else was expected?

Lili didn’t ask. She felt that funny tightness between her shoulder blades again. And then in walked the man she’d made the dreadful error of marrying exactly two weeks before. Her stomach lurched.

And her silly heart ached at the sight of him. He looked so terribly bleak. So tragically self-contained. She
hurt
for him, for his loneliness that he wrapped himself in like a shroud.

She ached for him and then she told herself to stop it. It was his choice to cut himself off from other people—to trick her into marriage and then throw away that marriage without even giving what they might have shared a chance.

He didn’t look the least pleased to see her. “Lili,” he said gruffly, with a regal nod.

“Alex.” She said his name as if by rote.

And then Adrienne hugged him and told him to have a seat. Evan came over and joined them. He kissed Lily and asked how she was feeling and she told him that she was doing fine.

“Feeling well?” Evan asked.

“Yes. Yes, I am. Perfectly well, thank you.” She beamed her warmest smile at Alex’s father and was scrupulously careful not to give her new husband as much as a glance.

Why had they been summoned? What was going on? Lili had a feeling that whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

The secretary entered with a silver tea service. She set it down.

Adrienne, who had gone back over to her enormous, heavily carved antique desk, dismissed the woman. “I will pour. Thank you, Regina.”

“Ma’am,” said the secretary with a nod deep enough to serve as a bow. She left.

Adrienne came back and joined them. She sat on the sofa in front of the tea service. She had something—rolled-up newspapers and magazines?—in her hand. “The tea will need to steep a little,” she said. And then she slid the tray to the side and smoothed the papers she held down onto the coffee table. “My darlings, this will never do.”

Lili’s stomach lurched again as she stared at a photograph of herself and Belle taken a few days before, in a hospital tent in South Sudan.
Princess Lili aids the needy, leaves Prince Alex behind
.

Adrienne spoke again, gently as always. “This article spends a few paragraphs on your history with one another, on how you two never have liked each other and have never gotten on. Then it proceeds to say that nothing has changed, that your marriage is a sham.”

Alex cleared his throat and started to speak.

But his mother put up a hand. “That was only the beginning,” Adrienne continued. “The article speculates that you, Lili, are ‘preggers’—their word.” Adrienne made quote marks in the air. “‘Sources reveal,’ it says here, that the child is not even Alex’s, that Alexander has thrown himself on his proverbial sword to salvage your reputation, Lili. That he’s married you to give your child a name, and for the marriage settlement you bring, and for the chance to be the consort of a queen.” She tossed that tabloid aside and fanned out the ones beneath it. “These others make similar outrageous allegations. We already have our solicitors tackling this problem, of course.”

Lili put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no. Papa will be livid. There’s no telling what he might do.”

Adrienne and Evan shared a speaking look. Then Evan said, “We’ve discussed the problem with His Majesty at length this morning.”

Adrienne gave her husband a fond glance. “We have a plan and Leo is willing to sit back and allow the plan to unfold.”

“Papa? Sit back? Are you sure?”

Adrienne nodded. “He wants the best for you, Lili. For
both
of you.”

“It’s all my fault,” Alex said in a low voice. He was hanging his head.

Lili stared at his big, bent head and wondered if she’d heard right. True, it really
was
his fault. Mostly...

All right, she
had
made love with him. And enthusiastically, too. But he was the one who’d tricked
her
into marriage and then coldly explained to her that they were going to be leading separate lives. How could she pretend to be madly in love when her husband refused to get near her?

Chidingly, Adrienne reminded her son, “You agreed to play the part of the infatuated and doting groom. Yet you and Lili have not been seen in each other’s company since your wedding day.”