Crowned for the Prince's Heir

by Sharon Kendrick

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘You like sitting in the dark?’

  ‘There’s nothing I particularly like right now, Luc. But somewhere near the top of my dislikes is having you try to control the situation yet again. If anyone’s going to put the light on, it’s going to be me. Understand?’ She snapped on the nearest lamp, steeling herself against the sight of his powerful body in the immaculate dress suit as he shut the door behind him with a shaking hand. And even though she felt the betraying stir of her senses, her anger was far more powerful than her desire. ‘Do you want to tell me what I’ve done wrong?’ she demanded. ‘What heinous crime I’m supposed to have committed?’

  She could see the tension in his body increase and when he spoke, his words sounded as if they had been chipped from a block of ice. ‘Why the hell did you wear that necklace without running it past me first?’

  For a moment she blinked in surprise. Because he’d told her to choose some jewels from the royal collection. Because Eleonora had drawn her attention to the undoubted star of the collection and quietly suggested that she ‘surprise’ her husband. Lisa opened her mouth to tell him that, but suddenly her curiosity was piqued. ‘I didn’t realise I had to run it past you first. You made no mention of any kind of vetting procedure. What was wrong with me wearing it?’

  There was a pause as his face became shuttered and still his words were icy-cold. ‘That necklace was given to my mother by Princess Sophie’s mother. My mother wore it on her wedding day. It was—’

  ‘It was supposed to be worn by Sophie on the day of her marriage to you,’ finished Lisa dully, her heart clenching. ‘Only you never married her, like you were supposed to do. You married a stranger. A commoner. A woman heavy with your child who appeared at the ball tonight looking like some spectre at the feast. The wrong woman wearing the jewels.’

  Her remarks were greeted by silence, but what could he possibly say? He could hardly deny the truth. Lisa ran her tongue over her lips. She supposed she could tell him it had been Eleonora’s subtle lead which had made her choose the rubies, but what good would that do? She would be like a child in the classroom, telling tales to the teacher. And it wouldn’t change the facts, would it? That she was like a cuckoo in the nest with no real place here. An outsider who would always be just that. The human incubator who carried the royal heir. Reaching up, she unclipped the necklace and pulled it from her neck, dropping it down onto a bureau so that it fell there in a spooling clatter of gems.

  But as her anger bubbled up, so did something else—a powerful wave of frustration, fuelled by the sudden violent see-sawing of her hormones. For weeks now she’d been trying her best to fit in with this strange new life of hers. Night after night she had lain by his side, staring up at the ceiling while he had fallen into a deep sleep. She had been polite to the servants and tried to learn everything she could about Mardovia—only now he was treating her with all the contempt he might have reserved for some passing tramp who had stumbled uninvited into his royal apartment. How dared he? How dared he?

  ‘Well, damn you, Luc Leonidas!’ she cried, and she launched herself across the room and began to batter her fists hard against his chest. ‘Damn you to high heaven!’’

  At first he tried to halt her by imprisoning her wrists, but that only made her kick even harder at his shins and he uttered something soft and eloquent in French—before swooping his mouth down on hers.

  His kiss was hard—and angry—but his probing tongue met no resistance from her. On the contrary, it made her give a shuddering little moan of something like recognition—because she could do anger, too. So she kissed him back just as hard, even though he was now trying to pull away from her, something impossible to achieve when he was still holding her wrists. And then his grip on her loosened and she took that opportunity to stroke her fingertip down his cheek and then over the rasp of his chin. And although he shook his head when she continued down over his chest, he didn’t stop her—not until her hand reached his groin, where he was so hard for her that her body stiffened in anticipation.

  ‘Lisa, no,’ he warned unsteadily as she slid her palm over the rocky ridge beneath his trousers.

  ‘Luc, yes,’ she mimicked as she began to slide down the protesting zip.

  After that there was no turning back. Nothing but urgent and hungry kissing as she freed his erection and gazed down at it with wide-eyed pleasure. But when she began to slide her finger and thumb up and down over the silken shaft, he batted her hand away then picked her up and carried her over to the bed. He set her down beside it, his eyes flicking over the long line of hooks which went all the way down the back of her dress, and his hands were shaking as he reached for the first.

  ‘No,’ she said, wriggling away from him as she pushed him down onto the bed. ‘It will take too long and I’m done with waiting. I’m not going to wait a second longer for this.’ With an air of determination, she began to tug off his trousers and boxer shorts, before slithering out of her panties and climbing on top of him, uncaring of her bulkiness. Not caring that this was wrong—because the powerful hunger which was pulsing through her body was blotting out everything but desire.

  ‘Lisa...’ His words sounded slurred and husky as her bare flesh brushed against his. He swallowed. ‘We can’t...we can’t do this.’

  ‘Oh, but we can. There are many things we can’t do, but this isn’t one of them.’ The red silk dress ballooned around her as she positioned herself over him, and she saw his eyes grow smoky as the tip of him began to push insistently against her wet heat.

  ‘But you’re...pregnant,’ he breathed.

  ‘You think I don’t know that?’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘You think pregnant women don’t have sex? Then I put it to you that you, Luc Leonidas, with all your supposed experience of the female body, are very wrong.’ Slowly she lowered herself down onto his steely shaft, biting out a gasp as that first rush of pleasure hit her.

  He lay there perfectly still as she began to rock forward and back and she could see the almost helpless look of desire on his face as her bulky body accustomed itself to the movements. And she liked seeing him like that. Powerful Prince Luc at her mercy. But her sense of victory only lasted until the first shimmerings of pleasure began to ripple over her body and then, of course, he took over. His hands anchored to her hips, he angled his own to increase the level of penetration while leaning forward to whisper soft little kisses over her satin-covered belly. And it was that which was her undoing. That which made her heart melt. His stupid show of tenderness which didn’t mean a thing.

  Not a thing.

  All it did was make her long for the impossible. For Luc to love her and want her and need her. And that was never going to happen.

  But she could do nothing to stop the orgasm which caught her up and dragged her under, and as her body began to convulse around him she heard his own ragged groan. His arms tightened as he held her against him, his lips buried in the hard swell of her stomach as he kissed it, over and over again. For a while there was nothing but contentment as Lisa clung to him, listening to the muffled pounding of her heart.

  But not for long. Once the pleasure began to ebb away, she forced herself to pull away from him, collapsing back against the pile of pillows and deliberately turning her face to the wall as a deep sense of shame washed over her. How could she? How could she have done that? Climbed on top of him with that out-of-control and wanton desire?

  ‘Lisa?’

  She felt the warmth of his hand as he placed it over one tense shoulder and some illogical part of her wanted to sink back into his embrace and stay there. Because when he touched her it felt as if all the things she didn’t believe in had come true. It felt like love. And she couldn’t afford to think that way because love was nothing but an illusion. Especially with Luc.

  She closed her eyes as she pushed his hand away, because she was through with illusions. With going back on everything she knew to be true and allowing herself to get sucked into fantasy. He
was a man, wasn’t he? And no man could really be trusted. Did she need someone to carve it on a metal disc for her, so she could wear it around her neck? She needed to be strong enough to resist him and, for that, she needed him to go.

  ‘Lisa?’ Luc said again and his ragged sigh ruffled the curls at the back of her neck. ‘Look, I know I overreacted about the necklace and I’m sorry.’

  She pulled away. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It does matter.’

  But she wasn’t in the mood to listen. She made herself yawn as she curled up into a ball—well, as much of a ball as her heavily pregnant state would allow. ‘I just want to go to sleep,’ she mumbled. ‘And I’d prefer to do it alone.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘LISA, WE HAVE to talk about this. We can’t keep pretending nothing has happened.’

  Lisa closed her eyes as Luc’s voice washed over her skin, its rich tone setting her senses tingling the way it always did. It made her think of things she was trying to forget. Things she needed to forget. She swallowed. Like the night of the ball when she’d let her raging hormones get the better of her and had ended up on the bed with him. When passion and anger had fused in an explosive sexual cocktail and, for a short and surreal period, she had found herself yearning for the impossible.

  And now?

  She turned away from the window, where the palace gardens looked like a blurred kaleidoscope before her unseeing eyes.

  Now she felt nothing but a deep sense of sadness as she met his piercing sapphire gaze.

  ‘What is there left to say?’ she questioned tiredly. ‘I thought we’d said it all on the night of the ball. Considering what happened, I thought we’d adapted to a bad situation rather well.’

  ‘You think so?’ His eyebrows arched. ‘With me occupying my former bachelor apartments while you sleep alone in the marital suite?’

  ‘What’s the matter, Luc? It can’t be the sex you’re missing. I mean, it isn’t as if we were at it like rabbits before all this blew up, is it?’

  ‘There’s no need to be crude,’ he snapped.

  If they’d been a normal couple Lisa might have made a wry joke about that remark, but they weren’t. They were about as far from normal as you could get—two strangers living in a huge palace which somehow felt as claustrophobic as if they were stuck in some tenement apartment.

  ‘Are you worried what people are saying?’ she demanded. ‘Is that it? Afraid the servants will gossip about the Prince and Princess leading separate lives?’ She pushed a handful of curls away from her hot face and fixed him with a steady look. ‘Don’t you think that’s something they should get used to?’

  Luc clenched the fists which were stuffed deep in the pockets of his trousers and tried very hard not to react to his wife’s angry taunts. If he’d been worried about gossip he would never have brought her back here. He would never have... He closed his eyes in a moment of frustration. How far back did he have to go to think about all the things he wouldn’t do with her—and why couldn’t he shake off the feeling that somehow all his good intentions were meaningless, because he felt powerless when it came to Lisa?

  He shook his head. ‘No. I’m not worried about what people are saying.’

  ‘Maybe you’re still regretting the other night?’ she said softly. ‘Wishing you hadn’t had sex with me?’

  Luc swallowed as her words conjured up a series of mental images he’d tried to keep off limits but now they hurtled into his mind in vivid and disturbing technicolour. Lisa pushing him back onto the bed. Lisa on top of him in the billowing crimson dress, her face flushed with passion as she rode him. His mouth dried. He wanted to regret what had happened, but how could he when it had been one of the most erotic encounters of his life? He had felt like her puppet. Her slave. And hadn’t that turned him on even more? Dazed and confused, he had left their suite afterwards and stumbled to the library to discover that what she’d said had been true—that pregnant women did have sex. It seemed his wife had been right and there were some things he didn’t know about women.

  Especially about her.

  ‘No, I’m not regretting that.’

  ‘What, then?’

  His gaze bored into her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Eleonora persuaded you to wear the necklace?’

  ‘Why bother shooting the messenger?’ she answered. ‘Eleonora might have had her own agenda but she wasn’t the one who made you react like that. You did that all by yourself.’ She glanced at him from between her lashes. ‘Did she tell you?’

  ‘No,’ he said grimly. ‘I overheard her saying something about it to one of the other aides and asked to see her.’

  ‘Gosh. That must have been a fun discussion,’ she said flippantly. ‘Did she persuade you that it had been a perfectly innocent gesture on her part? Flutter those big eyes at you and tell you that you’d be better off with her beloved Princess Sophie?’

  ‘I wasn’t in the mood for any kind of explanation,’ he bit out angrily. ‘And neither was I in the mood for her hysterical response when I sacked her.’

  Lisa blinked. ‘You...sacked her?’

  ‘Of course I did.’ He fixed her with a cool stare. ‘Do you really think I would tolerate that kind of subversive attitude in my palace? Or have an aide actively trying to make trouble for my wife?’

  Lisa didn’t know what to think. She’d been stupid and gullible in agreeing to Eleonora’s suggestion that she ‘surprise’ Luc, but she shouldn’t allow herself to forget why she had embraced the idea so eagerly in the first place. She had wanted to impress him. To show him she was willing to be a good wife and a good princess. And if she was being brutally honest—hadn’t she been secretly longing for some kind of answering epiphany in him? Hoping that the emotional tide might be about to turn with her first public presentation?

  But it hadn’t and it never would. If anything, the situation was a million times worse. The sex had awoken her sleeping senses but highlighted the great gulf which lay between them. And wouldn’t she be the world’s biggest fool if she started demanding something from a man who was incapable of delivering it?

  She stared at him. ‘So what do you want to talk about?’

  Repressing another frustrated sigh, Luc met her gaze, knowing there was no such thing as an easy solution. But had he expected any different? She was the most complicated and frustrating woman he’d ever met. He gave a bitter smile. And never had he wanted anyone more.

  When she had walked towards him at the Mardovian Embassy in her subdued wedding finery, he had made a silent vow to be the best husband and father he possibly could be, and he had meant it. Yet now he could see that it might have been a challenge too far. Because he didn’t know how to be those things. And for a woman who was naturally suspicious of men— He suspected that he and Lisa were the worst possible combination.

  So did he have the strength to do what he needed to do? To set her free from her palace prison? To release her from a relationship which had been doomed from the start? It wasn’t a question of choice, he realised—but one of necessity. He had to do it. A lump rose in his throat. He could do it for her.

  ‘Do you want to go back to England?’ he questioned quietly. ‘Not straight away, of course. But once the baby is born.’

  Lisa jerked back her head and looked at him with suspicious eyes. ‘You mean you’ll let me go?’

  ‘Yes, Lisa.’ He gave a mocking smile. ‘I’ll release you from your prison.’

  ‘And you’re prepared to discuss shared custody?’ Now she was blinking her eyes very hard. ‘That’s very...civilised of you, Luc.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘None of this sounds remotely civilised to me—but it’s clearly what you want. And I am not so much of a tyrant to keep you here against your will.’

  She lifted her clear gaze to him. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  He walked away from her, increasing the distance between them, removing himself from the tantalising danger of her proximity. But once he had reached the imposing mar
ble fireplace, he halted, his face grave. ‘I guess we should look on the bright side. At least now we’ve had sex, it means that our marriage has been legitimised and our child will be born as the true heir to Mardovia.’

  She stiffened, her lips parting as she stared at him. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I was just stating facts,’ he answered coolly. ‘Up until the other night our marriage wasn’t legal because we hadn’t consummated it.’

  ‘Was that why you did it? Why you let me make love to you?’ she whispered, her face blanching. ‘Just to make our marriage legal?’

  ‘Please don’t insult me, Lisa. We both know why I had sex with you that night and it had nothing to do with legality.’ He met her gaze for a long moment before turning away from her. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me—I have a meeting with my ministers, which I really can’t delay any longer.’

  Lisa watched him go but it wasn’t until he had closed the door behind him that she collapsed on the nearest chair as the significance of his words began to sink in. He was letting her go. After the baby was born, he was going to let her leave the island. She would no longer be forced to stay in this farce of a marriage with a cold man who could only ever express himself in bed. He would probably give her a house, just as he had given one to her sister, and she would be free to live her life on her terms.

  So why did she feel as if someone had twisted her up in tight knots?

  She forced herself to be logical. To think with her head instead of her heart. As Luc’s estranged wife, she would never again have financial worries. And she would work hard at forging an amicable relationship with Luc. That would be a priority. They wouldn’t become one of those bitter divorced couples who made their child’s life a misery by their constant warring.