The Prince's Nine-Month Scandal

by Caitlin Crews

  “That is a curious statement indeed from the only heir to an ancient throne who spends the bulk of his leisure time courting his own death.” She let that land, that curve to her lips but nothing like a smile in her direct green stare. And she wasn’t done. “Very much as if he was under the impression he did, in fact, owe nothing to his country at all.”

  Rodolfo’s jaw felt like granite. “I can only assume that you are a jealous little thing, desperate to hide what you really want behind all these halfhearted feints and childish games.”

  The princess laughed. It was a smoky sound that felt entirely too much like a caress. “Why am I not surprised that so conceited a man would achieve that conclusion so quickly? Alas, I am hiding nothing, Your Highness.”

  He felt his lips curl in something much too fierce to be polite. “If you want to know whether or not I am marvelously endowed, princess, you need only ask for a demonstration.”

  She rolled her eyes, and perhaps that was what did it. Rodolfo was not used to being dismissed by beautiful women. Quite the contrary, they trailed around after him, begging for the scraps of his attention. He’d become adept at handling them before he’d left his teens. The ones who pretended to dislike him to get his attention, the ones who propositioned him straight out, the ones who acted as if they were shy, the ones so overcome and starstruck they stammered or wept or could only stare in silence. He’d seen it all.

  But he had no way to process what was happening here with this woman he’d dismissed as uninteresting and uninterested within moments of their meeting as adults last fall. He had no idea what to do with a woman who set him on fire from across a room, and then treated him like a somewhat sad and boring joke.

  He could handle just about anything, he realized, save indifference.

  Rodolfo simply reached over and picked the princess up from the settee, hauling her through the air and setting her across his lap.

  It was not a smart move. At best it was a test of that indifference she was flinging around the palace so casually, but it still wasn’t smart.

  But Rodolfo found he didn’t give a damn.

  The princess’s porcelain cheeks flushed red and hot. She was a soft, slight weight against him, but his entire body exulted in the feel of her. Her scent was something so prosaic it hit him as almost shockingly exotic—soap. That was all. Her hands came up to brace against his chest, her copper hair was a silky shower over his arm and she was breathing hard and fast, making her exactly as much of a liar as he’d imagined she was.

  She was many things, his hidden gem of a princess bride, but she was not indifferent to him. It felt like a victory.

  “Do you think I cannot read women?” he asked her, his face temptingly, deliciously close to hers.

  Her gaze was defiant. “There has long been debate about whether or not you can read anything else.”

  “I know you want me, princess. I can see it. I can feel it. The pulse in your throat, the look in your eyes. The way you tremble against me.”

  “That is sheer amazement that you think you can manhandle me this way, nothing more.”

  He moved the arm that wasn’t wrapped around her back, sliding his hand to the delectable bit of thigh that was bared beneath the hem of her dress and just held it there. Her skin was a revelation, warm and soft. And her perfect, aristocratic oval of a face was tipped back, his for the taking.

  Maybe he was the Neanderthal she’d claimed he was, after all. For the first time in his life, he felt as if he was that and more. A beast in every possible way, inside and out.

  “What would happen if I slid my hand up under your skirt?” he asked her, bending even closer, so his mouth was a mere breath from hers.

  “I would summon the royal guard and have you cast into the dungeons, the more medieval the better.”

  He ignored that breathy, insubstantial threat, along with the oddity of the Princess of Murin talking of dungeons in a palace that had never had any in the whole of its storied history. He concentrated on her body instead.

  “What would I find, princess? How wet are you? How much of a liar will your body prove you to be?”

  “Unlike you,” she whispered fiercely, “I don’t feel the need to prove myself in a thousand different sexual arenas.”

  But she didn’t pull away. He noted that she didn’t even try.

  “You don’t need to concern yourself with any arena but this one,” he said, gruff against her mouth and his palm still full of her soft flesh. “And you need not prove yourself to anyone but me.”

  Rodolfo had kissed her once before. It had been a bloodless, mechanical photo op on the steps of Murin Castle. They had held hands and beamed insincerely at the crowds, and then he had pressed a chaste, polite sort of closemouthed kiss against her mouth to seal the deal. No muss, no fuss. It hadn’t been unpleasant in any way. But there hadn’t been anything to it. No fire. No raw, aching need. Rodolfo had experienced more intense handshakes.

  That was not the way he kissed her today. Because everything was different, somehow. Himself included.

  He didn’t bother with any polite, bloodless kiss. Rodolfo took her mouth as if he owned it. As if there was nothing arranged about the two of them and never had been. As if he’d spent the night inside her, making her his in every possible way, and couldn’t contain himself another moment.

  Her taste flooded his senses, making him glad on some distant level that he’d had the accidental foresight to remain seated, because otherwise he thought she might have knocked him off his feet. He opened his mouth over hers, angling his jaw to revel in the slick, hot fit.

  She was a marvel. And she was his, whether she liked it or not. No matter what inflammatory thing she said to rile him up or insult him into an international incident that would shame them both, or whatever the hell she was doing. How had he thought otherwise for even a moment?

  Rodolfo lost his mind.

  And his lovely bride-to-be did not push him off or slap his face. She didn’t lie there in icy indifference. Oh, no.

  She surged against him, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer, and she kissed him back. Again and again and again.

  For a moment there was nothing but that fire that roared between them. Wild. Insane. Unchecked and unmanageable.

  And then in the next moment, she was shoving away from him. She twisted to pull herself from his grasp and then clambered off his lap, and he let her. Of course he bloody let her, and no matter the state of him as she went. That it was a new state—one he’d never experienced before, having about as much experience with frustrated desire as he did with governing the country he would one day rule—was something he kept to himself. Mostly because he hardly knew what to make of it.

  The princess looked distressed as she threw herself across the room and away from him. She was trembling as she caught herself against the carved edge of the stone fireplace, and then she took a deep, long breath. To settle herself, perhaps, if she felt even a fraction of the things he did. Or perhaps she merely needed to steady herself in those shoes.

  “Valentina,” he began, but her name seemed to hit her like a slap. She stiffened, then held up a hand as if to silence him. Yet another new experience.

  And he could still taste her in his mouth. His body was still clamoring for her touch. He wanted her, desperately, so he let her quiet him like an errant schoolboy instead of the heir to an ancient throne.

  “That must never happen again,” she said with soft, intense sincerity, her gaze fixed on the fireplace, where an exultant flower arrangement took the place of the fires that had crackled there in the colder months.

  “Come now, princess.” He didn’t sound like himself. Gruff. Low. “I think you know full well it must. We will make heirs, you and I. It is the primary purpose of our union.”

  She stood taller, then turned to face him, and he was struck by what looked like torment on her face. As if this was hard for her, whatever the hell was happening here, which made no sense. This had alw
ays been her destiny. If not with Rodolfo, then with some other Crown-sanctioned suitor. The woman he’d thought he’d known all these months had always seemed, if not precisely thrilled by the prospect, resigned to it. He imagined the change in her would have been fascinating if he wasn’t half-blind from wanting her so badly.

  “No,” she said, and he was struck again by how different her voice sounded. But how could that be? He shook that off and concentrated instead on what she’d said.

  “You must be aware that there can be no negotiation on this point.” He tamped down on the terrible need making his body over into a stranger’s, and concentrated instead on reality.

  She frowned at him. “What if we can’t produce heirs? It’s more common than you think.”

  “And covered at some length in the contracts we signed,” he agreed, trying to rein in his impatience. “But we must try, Valentina. It is part of our agreement.” He shook his head when she started to speak. “If you plan to tell me that this is medieval, you are correct. It is. Literally. The same provisions have covered every such marriage between people like us since the dawn of time. You cannot have imagined that a royal wedding at our rank would allow for anything else, can you?”

  Something he would have called fierce inhabited her face for a moment, and then was gone.

  “You misunderstand me.” She ran her hands down the front of her dress as if it needed smoothing, but all Rodolfo could think of was the feel of her in his arms and the soft skin of her thigh against his palm. “I have every intention of doing my duty, Your Highness. But I will only be as faithful to you as you are to me.”

  He shook his head. “I am not a man who backs down from a challenge, princess. You must know this.”

  “It’s not a challenge.” Her gaze was dark when it met his. “It’s a fact. As long as you ignore your commitments, I’ll do the same. What have I got to lose? I’ll always know that our children are mine. Let’s hope you can say the same.”

  And on that note—while he remained frozen in his chair, stunned that she would dare threaten him openly with such a thing—Rodolfo’s suddenly fascinating princess pulled herself upright and then swept out of the room.

  He let her go.

  It was clear to him after today that not only did he need to get to know his fiancée a whole lot better than he had so far, he needed to up his game overall where she was concerned. And when it came to games, Rodolfo had the advantage, he knew.

  Because he’d never, ever lost a single game he’d ever played.

  His princess was not going to be the first.

  * * *

  It was difficult to make a dramatic exit when Natalie had no idea where she was going.

  She was on her third wrong turn—and on the verge of frustrated tears—when she hailed a confused-looking maid who, after a stilted conversation in which Natalie tried not to sound as if she was lost in what should have been her home, led her off into a completely different part of the palace and into what were clearly Valentina’s own private rooms. Though “rooms” was an understated way to put it. The series of vast, exquisitely furnished chambers were more like a lavish, sprawling penthouse contained in the palace and sporting among its many rooms a formal dining area, a fully equipped media center and a vast bedroom suite complete with a wide balcony that looked off toward the sea and a series of individual rooms that together formed the princess’s wardrobe. The shoe room alone was larger than the flat Natalie kept on the outskirts of London, yet barely used, thanks to her job.

  Staff bustled about in the outer areas of the large suite, presumably adhering to the princess’s usual schedule, but the bedroom was blessedly empty. It was there that Natalie found a surprisingly comfortable chaise, curled herself up on it with a sigh of something not quite relief and finally gave herself leave to contemplate the sort of person she’d discovered she was today.

  It left a bitter taste in her mouth.

  She’d always harbored a secret fantasy that should she ever stumble over a Prince Charming type—and not be forced into studied courtesy because she represented her employer—she’d shred him to pieces. Because even if the man in question wasn’t the one who’d taught her mother to be so bitter, it was a fair bet that he’d ruined someone else’s life. That was what Prince Charmings did. Even in the fairy tale, the man had left a trail of mutilated feet and broken families behind him everywhere he went. Natalie had been certain she could slap an overconfident ass like that down without even trying very hard.

  And instead, she’d kissed him.

  Oh, she tried to pretend otherwise. She tried to muster up a little outrage at the way Rodolfo had put his hands on her and hauled her onto his lap—but what did any of that matter? He hadn’t held her there against her will. She could have stood up at any time.

  She hadn’t. Quite the contrary.

  And when his mouth had touched hers, she’d imploded.

  Not only had Natalie kissed the kind of man she’d always hated on principle, but she’d kissed one promised to another woman. If that wasn’t enough, she’d threatened to marry him and then present him with children that weren’t his. As punishment? Just to be cruel? She had no idea. She only knew that her mouth had opened and out the threat had come.

  The worst part was, she’d seen that stunned, furious look on the Prince’s face when she’d issued that threat. Natalie had no doubt that he believed that she would do exactly that. Worse, that Princess Valentina was the sort of person who, apparently, thought nothing of that kind of behavior.

  “Great,” she muttered out loud, to the soft chaise beneath her and the soothing landscapes on the walls. “You’ve made everything worse.”

  It was one thing to try to make things better for Valentina, who Natalie imagined was having no fun at all contending with the uncertain temper of Mr. Casilieris. Natalie was used to fixing things. That was what she did with her life—she sorted things out to be easier, smoother, better for others. But Rodolfo hadn’t been as easily managed as she’d expected him to be, and the truth was, she’d never quite recovered from that first, shocking sight of him.

  There was a possibility, Natalie acknowledged as she remained curled up on a posh chaise in a princess’s bedroom like the sort of soft creature she’d never been, that she still hadn’t recovered. And that you never will, chimed in a voice from deep inside her, but she dismissed it as unnecessarily dire.

  Her clutch—Valentina’s clutch—had been delivered here while she’d been off falling for Prince Charming like a ninny, sitting on an engaged man’s lap as if she had no spine or will of her own, and making horrible threats about potential royal heirs in line to a throne. Was that treason in a kingdom like Murin? In Tissely? She didn’t even know.

  “And maybe you should find out before you cause a war,” she snapped at herself.

  What she did know was that she didn’t recognize herself, all dressed up in another woman’s castle as if that life could ever fit her. And she didn’t like it.

  Natalie pushed up off the chaise and went to sweep up the clutch from where it had been left on the padded bench that claimed the real estate at the foot of the great four-poster bed. She’d examined the contents on the plane, fascinated. Princesses apparently carried very little, unlike personal assistants, who could live out of their shoulder bags for weeks in a pinch. There was no money or identification, likely because neither was necessary when you had access to an entire treasury filled with currency stamped with your own face. Valentina carried only her mobile, a tube of extremely high-end lip gloss and a small compact mirror.

  Natalie sat on the bench with Valentina’s mobile in her hand and looked around the quietly elegant bedroom, though she hardly saw it. The adrenaline of the initial switch had given way to sheer anxiety once she’d arrived in Murin. She’d expected to be called out at any moment and forced to explain how and why she was impersonating the princess. But no one had blinked, not even Prince Rodolfo.

  Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised that n
ow that she was finally alone, she felt a little lost. Maybe that was the price anyone could expect to pay when swapping identities with a complete stranger. Especially one who happened to be a royal princess to boot.

  It was times like this that Natalie wished she had the sort of relationship with her mother that other people seemed to have with theirs. She’d like nothing more than to call Erica up and ask for some advice, or maybe just so she could feel soothed, somehow, by the fact of her mother’s existence. But that had never been the way her mother operated. Erica had liked Natalie best when she was a prop. The pretty little girl she could trot out when it suited her, to tug on a heartstring or to prove that she was maternal when, of course, she wasn’t. Not really. Not beyond the telling of the odd fairy tale with a grim ending, which Natalie had learned pretty early on was less for her than for her mother.

  No wonder Natalie had lost herself in school. It didn’t matter where they moved. It didn’t matter what was going on in whatever place Erica was calling home that month. Natalie could always count on her studies. Whether she was behind the class or ahead of it when she showed up as the new kid, who cared? School always gave her a project of one sort or another. She’d viewed getting into college—on a full academic scholarship, of course, because Erica had laughed when Natalie had asked if there would be any parental contributions to her education and then launched into another long story about the evils of rich, selfish men—as her escape. College had been four years of an actual place to call home, at last. Plus classes. Basically nirvana, as far as Natalie had been concerned.