by Maisey Yates
“I’ve asked Alison to marry me,” said Maximo simply. It was all the answer anyone needed.
“So soon after Selena’s death?” His father’s tone and expression were rebuking, and Alison felt a knot of guilt tighten in her stomach.
“It’s been two years,” Maximo said, his voice firm, “and I have chosen Alison to be my wife.”
“It would be best,” Elisabetta said slowly, “if you would wait at least a year for the wedding, out of respect to Selena.”
“The three-year mourning period is outdated,” Maximo said. “I have no intention of waiting another year to make Alison my wife. It is not possible for us to wait so long.”
“That’s very romantic of you, Max.” His younger sister looked positively moonstruck over the perceived romance of the whole situation. If only she knew.
“Romance has very little to do with it,” Maximo said, obviously taking no issue with disabusing his sister of her fantasies. “Alison is pregnant. The wedding needs to take place before she starts to show.”
Alison wanted to crawl under the table and die of mortification. She was treated to a very shocked look from Isabella and to a couple of very disapproving glares from the king and queen.
“Has there been a paternity test?” The king gave her an assessing glare that made her stomach roll.
“That won’t be necessary,” Maximo said through gritted teeth. “I am sure the child is mine, and I never want to hear you suggest otherwise again.”
Maximo’s rage shocked her. It wasn’t as though they were a real couple. He didn’t even necessarily like her all that much. It was probably more related to his masculine ego than anything else.
Luciano gave his son a hard glare. “Then there is nothing else to be done,” he said. “We will begin planning the wedding immediately.”
Queen Elisabetta narrowed her eyes, her mouth pursed. “We know nothing about her, Maximo. Is she suitable? Who are her people?”
Alison shifted in her chair, extremely uncomfortable being discussed as though she wasn’t in the room.
Isabella’s blue eyes lit with anger. “What does it matter who her people are, Mamma? If Max loves her he should marry her. That’s the only reason people should ever marry.”
“This is not about you, Isabella,” Luciano said curtly. “But she is right. It is of no consequence who her people are, or where she comes from. She is pregnant with Maximo’s heir and that is all that matters.”
If King Luciano had stood up from his place at the table and walked over to check her teeth she wouldn’t have been surprised. She felt like some sort of royal broodmare. She was acceptable because of the baby she carried. She imagined that if she really had been the woman Maximo loved, if there hadn’t been a baby, the king wouldn’t be so sanguine about the marriage. He would probably take the stance his wife had. If the damage hadn’t already been done she would have been found wanting based solely on her bloodline or her background. She couldn’t help but wonder if that were the situation, if they were in love and she were the woman Maximo had decided he wanted to marry, whose side he would have taken.
She couldn’t imagine Maximo being intimidated by anyone. He would never give in to his parents’ demands simply because he felt pressured to do so. But he had proven that, above all else, he had the ability to be coldly logical if he needed to be. He didn’t want marriage any more than she did, and yet he had immediately accepted that it was the best course of action for the sake of their child. Would he have made the same choice if he felt that marrying the woman he loved conflicted with the best interests for his country?
Oh, what does it matter?
She would never know. She didn’t need to know, or want to know. She didn’t love Maximo. She didn’t have any feelings for him at all. She respected him. Respected his strength, his drive to do the right and moral thing, his love for their unborn child. But that was all.
He moved his thumb over the tender skin of her wrist and a team of butterflies took flight in her stomach, calling her a liar.
So she was attracted to him? It didn’t mean anything. He was an attractive man. And then there were the pregnancy hormones. But that was all it was. And thank God for that.
“I’m glad we can agree on this,” Maximo said, his tone containing a hint of warning that Alison assumed was meant for his mother.
“We will not have you marry in some civil ceremony,” Luciano said, his tone imperious. It was obvious where Maximo had inherited his arrogance from. “You will marry in church, and we will make a formal engagement announcement. We will not treat it like a dirty secret. You are giving our country an heir and we will celebrate that.”
His mother looked as though she had swallowed a lemon. “I suppose a wedding is preferable to the birth of a royal bastard.”
Alison sucked in a sharp breath. It was no less offensive hearing it said now than it had been to hear Maximo say it earlier. And she knew now that he’d been telling the absolute truth about how their child would have been viewed had they not married. And it wouldn’t have just been the people or the media, but his own family who would have branded their child with that label.
“I won’t tolerate hearing our baby talked about like that!” The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I won’t allow anyone to hurt my child. Ever.”
Maximo cupped her chin and turned her face to him. “No one will hurt our child, cara. I will not allow it.” He gave his mother a dark look. “This is your grandchild, Mamma. Think about that before you ever say such a thing again.”
He stood, and pulled her gently with him. “Alison and I will have dinner in our room.” His mother looked offended at that, but she didn’t say anything.
Alison elevated her chin, careful not to look defeated in any way. They were just rich, titled snobs. They had no right to judge her. And anyway, she’d dealt with far worse from her own mother. She was hardly going to let venom spewed by a complete stranger make her crumble now.
As soon as they were out in the empty corridor he released his grip on her hand.
“That went well,” she said.
“As well as I expected. My mother loved Selena like a daughter. This is difficult for her.”
“Then wouldn’t it be better if they knew how I got pregnant instead of assuming that…”
“Selena did not wish for my mother to know. She did not want my parents to see her as a failure.”
Maximo began to walk back toward his quarters, and she had to take short, quick steps to keep up with his long strides. “That’s ridiculous. Not being able to have children doesn’t make you a failure.”
“It felt that way to my wife.” He paused for a moment. “My mother introduced us. It was her opinion that Selena was perfect for me. Her family was wealthy and well-known, she was talented and cultured. In my mother’s estimation she would make a wonderful princess. A wonderful mother. When Selena could not fulfill that part of what she considered to be her requirements, she became very depressed.”
“But that wasn’t the only thing you loved her for,” Alison said softly.
Maximo turned to face her, his mouth pressed into a grim line. “No.”
“I understand why you don’t want it to become public knowledge. I won’t tell anyone.” It might make things easier in a way, although Alison imagined the queen would dislike her regardless, but she just didn’t want to hurt Maximo by dredging up things from the past. And it would hurt him. His expression was always stoic when he talked about Selena, but she had seen glimpses of devastating pain in his dark eyes. And she cared about that. A lot more than she should.
She shouldn’t be able to feel his pain in her chest, shouldn’t ache for him, want to take his hurts and heal them. She really shouldn’t want that at all. But she did. Her heart hurt for him, felt linked to his. Was that because she was pregnant with his baby? It was a link between them that was impossible to ignore. He was a part of her, in a way.
On the heels of that revelat
ion came a slug of panic. She didn’t want to feel so much for him. Didn’t want to feel anything for him beyond a circumspect amount of tolerance.
Once they were back in Maximo’s quarters he led her into a small dining room that looked as if it belonged in a more casual home. A very, very upscale home, but the room was definitely intended for family use, unlike the massive dining hall in the main portion of the palace.
He sat at the head of the table and it seemed natural for her to sit at the other end. It was easy for her to picture a child sitting between them, chubby fingers gripping a cookie, a big smile on their baby’s face. Would their child be fair like her? Or olive-skinned like Maximo? The thought made her stomach tighten painfully, the image of family, their family, so poignant that it touched her more deeply than she’d imagined possible.
This was a new picture, one that was quickly replacing the original images she’d had of life after her baby was born. Now she couldn’t help but see Maximo, his presence there both physically and in the features of their child. The ache that settled in her heart was both sweet and scary at the same time. She shouldn’t want this. But part of her did. Very, very much.
“Anything special you want to eat?” Maximo asked.
He was so handsome. She couldn’t help but notice. With the overhead lighting from the chandelier above the table throwing the planes and angles of his face into sharp relief, making his cheekbones look more prominent, his jaw even more chiseled, he was almost devastatingly handsome. That was a term she’d never understood before this moment. It had never made sense that a person’s looks could devastate. But his could. And did. Because looking at him filled her with so much longing, for things she shouldn’t want, that it made her heart squeeze tight.
“Honestly, all food sounds basically disgusting to me so it doesn’t really matter.”
He nodded. “Then I will have the staff bring what they prepared for my parents.”
A few minutes later a woman came in pushing a trolley that was laden with silver domed trays. She set two in front of Alison, along with another glass of homemade ginger ale.
Alison didn’t even bother to uncover the trays, but went straight for the ginger ale to calm her perpetually unsettled stomach.
“You need to eat,” Maximo said. “You are too thin.”
She paused midsip. “I’m not too thin! I’ve been to see a doctor and he said I, and the pregnancy, were perfectly healthy.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem like you should allow yourself to get any thinner.” Maximo rose from his spot at the end of the table and leaned over to uncover her food. There was pasta with marinara sauce on one and what looked like half of a beautifully roasted chicken on the other. But the sight of poultry turned her stomach.
“I might be able to try the pasta,” she said, shoving the bird away from her.
Maximo sat in the chair next to her, putting the chicken in front of himself.
“Was your wife on a special diet?” She regretted saying anything the moment the words left her mouth. Usually she was very selective about what she said, but she’d had her fair share of outbursts in the past forty-eight hours. Maximo seemed to have that effect on her.
He shrugged slightly. “Vitamins. Any kind of herbal remedy she could think of. Hormones for the IVF. Plus any food rumored to benefit fertility.”
“She really wanted to be a mother,” Alison said softly, guilt and anguish almost stealing her breath. Selena had tried so hard to have Maximo’s baby, had wanted it so badly, and here Alison was, pregnant with his child. And it had been an accident. It seemed like a cruel joke for fate to play on all of them.
“Yes. She did. We tried IVF three times. We were unsuccessful. She had just taken the final negative test a few hours before her death.”
Alison put her hand over his, the gesture intended to comfort. Heat spiraled through her from the point of contact down to her belly. His skin was warm beneath her hand, the hair on his arm crisp and sexy. She’d never imagined that arm hair could be sexy. His was. It reminded her that he was very much a man, and that she was a woman. A woman who was going to marry him in just a few weeks.
She pulled her hand away and set it in her lap, but she could still feel the burn of his skin on her palm. Her heart pounded hard in her chest and an answering pulse pounded in the core of her body, not letting her deny that what she was feeling was definitely arousal. She looked up at Maximo. His eyes were dark, the heat from them searing her, making the flame that had been smoldering in her belly flare up, the fire threatening to consume her at any moment.
She pushed her chair back and stood, desperate to put distance between them. What was it that he did to her that stole all of her ability to think rationally? Being near him, touching him, it took all of that carefully guarded control of hers and stripped it from her, leaving her bare and unprotected.
“I’m tired,” she said. “I need to…I’m going to go to bed.”
A knowing smile curved his lips. “You are so intent on fighting this thing between us.”
“This isn’t what I want, Max,” she whispered, closing her eyes, trying to block out his handsome face.
“Did someone hurt you?” he asked, his voice suddenly hard.
She shook her head. “Not in the way you mean. But I can’t…don’t ask me to do this.”
“I would never force myself on you.”
She knew that. She had no doubts, none at all, that Maximo was a man of his word. A man of honor. But it wasn’t the idea of him forcing himself on her that she feared. It was the fact that force wasn’t necessary. All he would have to do was touch her, kiss her, and she would forget all of the reasons it was such a bad idea to become physically involved with him.
And she was afraid that, like her mother, if she allowed herself to become dependent she would forget how to take care of herself, and if he left she would just crumble.
She and Maximo were getting married to give their child a family. They were committed to being in each other’s lives for at least the next eighteen years. She was already far too dependent on him due to the nature of the situation, and adding feelings, adding sex, had the potential to make it deadly to her.
“I’m tired,” she said again, turning to go.
“Get some rest,” he said, his voice rough, and she wondered if it was due to arousal; the kind that was making her blood thick and her throat tight. “Tomorrow we will be announcing our engagement to the world.”
Chapter Six
ALISON shifted and winced as the boning in the corset top of her gown took another dig at her side. It was hot. Dear heaven was it hot! And humid. Stray wisps of her hair hung down out of her glamorous updo in lank strands. The air seemed thick, and breathing it in only seemed to increase the nausea that was her constant, reviled companion.
The servant that had helped her get dressed had insisted that this was a formal announcement and would require formal dress. So here she was, made-up, sucked in, pushed up and buffed to a highly glossed sheen, waiting behind a heavy red curtain for her time to step out onto the balcony with Maximo so they could make a horribly clichéd announcement to the television cameras and the citizens who had gathered below.
It wasn’t just the people of Turan that were watching, but the world. Maximo was charismatic and popular, both in his home country and abroad, and his wedding would be attended by the rich and famous from every corner of the world. No pressure, though. She almost laughed at that thought.
She took a deep breath and tried to ignore the fact that her breasts seemed to be trying to make an escape from the sweetheart neckline of the gown. She imagined it was supposed to be demure, in its jewel-tone sapphire color, with cute ruffled cap sleeves. And it might have been, if she hadn’t been quite so generously endowed up top.
She could hear Maximo out on the balcony, on the other side of the curtain, addressing his people, speaking in Italian. If there was a sexier sound in the world she’d never heard it. His voice did things to her, and not
only her. He was an amazing public speaker; she could tell from behind the curtain. He had charisma. She couldn’t understand a word he was saying but it sounded good.
He was the sort of leader that inspired. The sort of leader his country needed.
She straightened and nearly cursed out loud when the boning dug into her again. She was making the right decision. Maximo was a good man. He would be a wonderful example for their child, and a wonderful father. No matter how overwhelming all of it seemed to her, this was her son’s or daughter’s legacy. The people waiting down there were her child’s people. There was no way she could have denied them this chance.
Luigi, the man who coordinated most big events for the royal family, signaled for her to make her entrance onto the balcony. He swept the curtain aside for her, careful to keep himself out of view, and she took a tentative step out into the blinding Mediterranean sunlight.
The height, the heat and vibrating sea of people below made her head swim. She tried to paste a smile on her face, as she had been instructed to do, and took her place at Maximo’s side.
He put his arm around her waist and drew her close. His father, who was standing with the queen, took the center of the balcony and spoke into the microphone. A cheer erupted from the crowd.
Maximo turned to her and brushed her cheek softly with the back of his hand. The light touch sent a shimmer of something wonderful through her. His eyes were intent on her face, his expression serious, but almost caring.
He leaned in and pressed a light kiss to her lips. She hadn’t been expecting a gesture of affection like that and it had her heart pounding so hard she was afraid the microphones would pick it up, and everyone would be able to hear for themselves just what Maximo did to her. He held her tightly against his body, his strong arms cradling her. She shifted and her breasts brushed his hard, masculine chest. Electricity zinged through her.
She couldn’t stop staring at him, couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. Her future husband. He was so handsome dressed in a traditional mandarin-collared suit with a long dark jacket that accentuated his broad chest, slim waist and spare hips. The plain jacket was adorned with medals pinned to the right breast, over his heart. The Latin words written on the pin spoke of duty to God and country.
