Wedding Party Collection: Marrying The Prince: The Prince She Never Knew / His Bride for the Taking / A Queen for the Taking?

He’d never asked her, had never wanted to know. It was enough that she’d agreed, and she’d gone along with it ever since. Just as he had.

Only, unlike him, she had no incentive to please the press, no duty to repair a badly damaged monarchy and increase the tourist revenue for a small and struggling country. No need to pretend to be wildly in love. So why had she agreed all those years ago? Why had she continued to agree?

He had to assume it was because, like him, she wanted this kind of marriage. Or maybe she just wanted this kind of life—the life of a princess and one day a queen. He didn’t fault her for it. She wouldn’t be the first person to have her head turned by wealth and fame. In any case, she’d approached their union with a practical acceptance he admired, and she’d embraced the public as much as they’d embraced her.

Really, she was perfect. So why did he wonder? Why did he now feel a new, creeping uncertainty? The questions—and the lack of answers—annoyed him. He liked certainty and precision; he prided himself on both.

He didn’t want to wonder about his bride on his wedding day. Didn’t want to worry about why she looked so pale and shaky, or why her smile seemed less assured. He wanted things to be simple, straightforward, as they had been for the last six years.

There was no reason for marriage to complicate matters, he told himself.

The carriage came to a stop in front of the palace and he turned to her with a faint smile, determined to banish his brooding thoughts and keep their relationship on the courteous yet impersonal footing they’d maintained for their entire engagement.

‘Shall we?’ he said, one eyebrow lifted, and Alyse managed just as faint a smile back as she took his hand and allowed him to help her out of the carriage.

CHAPTER TWO (#u868a45cb-b13c-511b-ac2c-67cadacd9a70)

THEY WERE ALONE. Every muscle in Alyse’s body ached with exhaustion, yet even so she could not keep a heart-stopping awareness of Leo from streaking through her as he closed the door behind them.

They’d retired to the tower suite, a sumptuous bedroom, bathroom and dressing-room all housed in one of the stone turrets of the ancient royal palace. A fire blazed in the hearth and a huge four-poster bed with silk coverings and sheets took up the main part of the room. Alyse stared at the white silk and lace negligee laid out on the bed and swallowed hard.

She and Leo had never talked about this.

They should have, she supposed, but then they had never really talked about anything. Their relationship—and she could only use that word loosely—had been little more than a long-term publicity stunt. Conversation had been limited to managing their appearances together.

And now they were married. It felt, at least to her, like a complete game-changer. Until now they’d only experienced manufactured moments lived in the public eye; but here, for the first time, they were alone with no need for pretence.

Would this moment be real?

‘Relax,’ Leo said, coming up behind her. Alyse felt his breath on the back of her neck and she suppressed a shiver of both anticipation and nervousness. ‘We’ve been waiting for six years; we don’t need to rush things.’

‘Right,’ she murmured, and then he moved past her to the window. The latticed shutters were thrown open to a starlit sky. Earlier in the evening there had been fireworks all over the city; the celebrations of their marriage had gone on all day.

It was only now that the city’s joy was finally subsiding, everyone heading back to his or her home—and Alyse and Leo to this honeymoon suite.

She watched as Leo loosened his black tie. He’d changed into a tuxedo for the evening party, and she into a designer gown chosen by the team of stylists hired to work on her. It was pale pink, strapless, with a frothy skirt. A Cinderella dress.

‘Do you want to change?’ Leo asked as he undid the top few studs of his shirt. Standing there, framed by the window, the ends of his bow-tie dangling against the crisp whiteness of his shirt, he looked unbearably handsome. His hair was a glossy midnight-black, and rumpled from where he’d carelessly driven his fingers through it.

His eyes were dark too—once Alyse had thought they were black but she’d learned long ago from having had to gaze adoringly up into them so many times they were actually a very dark blue.

And his body... She might not have seen it in all of its bare glory, but he certainly wore a suit well. Broad shoulders, trim hips, long and powerful legs, every part of him declared he was wonderfully, potently male.

Would she see that body tonight? Would she caress and kiss it, give in to the passion she knew she could feel for him if he let her?

And what about him? Would he feel it?

In the course of six years, he’d always been solicitous, considerate, unfailingly polite. She couldn’t fault him, and yet she’d yearned for more. For emotion, passion and, yes, always love. She’d always been drawn to the intensity she felt pulsing latent beneath his coolness, the passion she wanted to believe could be unleashed if he ever freed himself from the bonds of duty and decorum. If he ever revealed himself to her.

Would he tonight, if just a little? Or would this part of their marriage be a masquerade as well?

‘I suppose I’ll change,’ she said, her gaze sliding inexorably to the negligee laid out for both their perusals.

‘You don’t need to wear that,’ Leo said, and he let out an abrupt laugh, the sound without humour. ‘There’s no point, really, is there?’

Wasn’t there? Alyse felt a needle of hurt burrow under her skin, into her soul. What did he want her to wear, if not that?

‘Why don’t you take a bath?’ he suggested. ‘Relax. It’s been a very long day.’ He turned away from her, yanking off his tie, and after a moment Alyse headed to the bathroom, telling herself she was grateful for the temporary reprieve. They could both, perhaps, use a little time apart.

We’ve basically had six years apart.

Swallowing hard, she turned on the taps.

There were no clothes in the bathroom, something she should have realised before she got in the tub. Two sumptuous terry-cloth robes hung on the door, and after soaking in the bath for a good half-hour Alyse slipped one on, the sleeves coming past her hands and the hem nearly skimming her ankles. She tied it securely, wondering what on earth would happen now. What she wanted to happen.

For Leo to gasp at the sight of me and sweep me into his arms, admit the feelings he’s been hiding all along...

Fantasies, pathetic fantasies, and she knew that. She wasn’t expecting a lightning bolt of love to strike Leo; she just wanted to start building something, something real. And that took time.

Tonight was a beginning.

Taking a deep breath, stealing herself for whatever lay ahead, she opened the door.

Leo had changed out of his tuxedo and now wore a pair of navy-blue silk draw-string pyjama bottoms and nothing else. He sat sprawled in a chair by the fire, a tumbler of whisky cradled in his hands, the amber liquid glinting in the firelight.

Alyse barely noticed any of that; her gaze was ensnared by the sight of his bare chest. She’d never seen it before, not in the flesh, although there had been several paparazzi photographs of him in swimming trunks while on holiday—though not with her. They’d never actually had a holiday together in six years’ engagement.

Seeing his chest now, up close and in the glorious flesh, was another thing entirely. His skin was bronzed, the fire casting long shadows on the taut flesh and sculpted muscle. She could see dark whorls of hair on his chest, veeing down to the loose waistband of his trousers slung low on his lean hips, and her heart felt as if it had flipped right over in her chest. He was just so beautiful.

He glanced up as she approached, and his lips twitched in sardonic amusement as he took in her huge robe. ‘I think that one’s mine.’

‘Oh.’ She blushed, and then as she imagined Leo attempting to wear the smaller, woman’s-sized robe, a sudden bubble of nervous laughter escaped her. He arched an eyebrow and she came forward to explain. ‘I was picturing you in the other robe. Mine, apparently.’

‘An interesting image.’ His lips twitched again in a tiny smile and her heart lightened ridiculously. All she needed was a smile. A single smile on which to build a world of dreams.

She sat in the chair opposite his and stretched her bare feet towards the fire. Neither of them spoke for several minutes, the only sound the comforting crackle and spit of the flames.

‘This is strange,’ Alyse finally said softly, her gaze still on the fire. She heard Leo shift in his seat.

‘It’s bound to be, I suppose.’

She glanced upwards and saw his face was half in darkness, the firelight casting flickering shadows over the other half. She could see the hard plane of one cheek, the dark glint of stubble on his jaw, the pouty fullness of his sculpted lips. He had the lips of a screen siren, yet he was unabashedly, arrogantly male.

She’d felt those lips on her own so many times, cool brushes of mouths when what she wanted, what she craved, was hot, mindless passion—tongues tangling, plunging, hands moving and groping...

She forced the images, and the resulting heat, away from her mind and body.

‘Do you realise,’ she said, trying to keep her tone light, and even teasing, although they’d never actually teased each other, ‘we haven’t actually been alone together in about a year?’