by Dani Collins
“But you were married.” To the beautiful, sophisticated woman who had become his Queen. Perfect for him in every way, she’d died tragically in a skiing accident. Only later had anyone realized the new Queen had been pregnant at the time.
“And left a widower five years ago.”
A widower who would always love the wife he had lost. The fact that he had shown no interest in another woman since the young Queen’s death showed that. Nataliya could not imagine a less appealing marriage to her.
“But...” She didn’t know what to say. This was insane.
“You cannot want to marry this woman,” Nikolai’s father said, voicing Nataliya’s own thoughts.
And probably the thoughts of everyone else in the room.
Only Demyan was nodding and Maksim looked satisfied. King Fedir looked astounded. Queen Oxana looked enigmatic, like always. But Nataliya’s mom? She looked worried. And that, more than anything, solidified the sense of impending doom settling over Nataliya.
Her mom thought he was serious.
“I cannot?” Nikolai asked imperiously.
“She’s made a spectacle of herself with that ridiculous article and the accompanying blog posts.” Prince Evengi almost looked apologetic in the glance he cast at her. “She’s dated no less than ten men, that we know of!”
“She has not had sex with any of them.”
“How can you know that?” Prince Evengi asked.
But Nataliya wanted to know too. She hadn’t had sex with any of them. Or anyone at all. But how could Nikolai know that?
She’d made sure that even if she was being followed by someone on behalf of the House of Merikov, like Demyan had kept tabs on Prince Konstantin, circumstances would be ambiguous enough that no one could be certain. She’d let two of her dates stay the night. On the sofa, but they hadn’t left her apartment until morning.
So, there was no way he could know she hadn’t had sex.
Only he seemed arrogantly sure of himself.
King Nikolai gave her a measuring look before returning his regard to his father. “Because her integrity would not allow her to do so when the contract is still in place.”
“You heard her—she doesn’t consider the contract a deterrent,” Prince Konstantin said derisively.
“She knows you didn’t consider it such—that does not mean she has not.”
“You expected me to be celibate the last decade?” Konstantin asked, shocked.
Before Nikolai answered, the old King cleared his throat meaningfully. “This is not the place, or time, for this discussion.” He turned to his eldest son. “You are not obligated to fulfill the contract on behalf of your brother.”
“On that, I do not agree.”
And something became very clear to Nataliya, besides the fact that being spoken about like she wasn’t there was extremely annoying. But this man had an entirely different code of ethics and standard of integrity than his brother.
In truth, Nataliya had never doubted it, but then she’d always thought the best of the man who had become King to save his father’s life. The man who she had fallen in love with at age fifteen and had only stopped pining for when she was about twenty.
Funnily enough, it had been his wife’s death that had finally severed Nataliya’s unrequited yearning. She’d hurt for him. Grieved from afar on his behalf at the loss of his beloved wife and unborn child and somewhere in the grief, she’d been able to put away her own longing.
It had just felt so selfish. So wrong.
“I can’t marry you,” she said in a voice much weaker than her normal assertive certainty.
“Oh, but you can, and you will.”
The room erupted into pandemonium.
Even Queen Oxana voiced her disbelief at the turn of events.
But Nikolai? Just sat there, looking immovable.
“The contract stipulates a prince of your house,” Nataliya reminded him, ignoring everyone else. “You cannot insist I fulfill it by marrying you.”
“I was a prince when you signed it, therefore the terms referred to me equally to my brothers.”
“No. That’s not right.”
He just looked at her.
Suddenly, Queen Oxana stood and put her hand out to Nataliya. “That is enough discussion on this topic for present. You and your mother can join me in my apartments.”
Nataliya might have argued, but her mother stood and somehow she found herself swept out of the reception room between the two women.
* * *
“I can’t believe they made you sign that contract!” Gillian, wife to Crown Prince Maksim, exclaimed. “You were just a baby.”
“I was eighteen.”
“Too young to sign your life away.”
“Welcome to life in the royal family,” Nataliya said.
She’d left Mama and Oxana to themselves, knowing the two women needed to have a talk that had been fifteen years coming, and had searched out Gillian and her adorable children, finding them taking advantage of the summer sunshine in the palace gardens.
Nataliya loved watching the children play, knowing that the normalcy surrounding this very royal family was all down to Gillian’s influence.
Gillian frowned, her expression going rock stubborn. “My children will be forced into that kind of agreement over my dead body. They won’t be making any decisions about marriage until they are mature enough to do so.”
“And when might that be?” Maksim asked drolly as he walked up. “When they are fifty?”
“If they aren’t ready to make the decision before then, then yes!” Oh, Gillian was mad. “It’s despicable that Nataliya was pressed into signing away her life at such a young age.”
On Nataliya’s behalf. And Nataliya couldn’t say that didn’t feel good.
Even her beloved mother had wanted her to sign that contract ten years ago.
Maks looked at Nataliya, something like apology in his brown eyes. “I offered to renegotiate the contract on more favorable terms for Mirrus Global if your participation could be removed from it.”
“And?” Gillian demanded when Nataliya remained silent.
“His Highness refused. He considers it a point of family honor for him to fulfill the contract. He’s livid with both his father and his brother for the way they spoke to you.”
“So, he doesn’t agree with the whole misogynistic double standard?” Gillian asked, having gotten the whole story from Nataliya.
“No. He says that neither Nataliya, nor Konstantin were under constraint not to date before a formal engagement was announced.”
“Nice of him to absolve his brother too,” Nataliya couldn’t help saying.
“Did you expect him to be celibate?” Maks asked, sounding like he thought it was unlikely.
“I was,” Nataliya reminded him.
Maks opened his mouth, but Gillian forestalled him. “Think very hard before you speak again, Maks, because my respect for your integrity is on the line here.”
He stared at his wife, like he couldn’t believe she’d said that.
“I know you are arrogant, but are you seriously going to try to say that Nataliya should have been happy to live in limbo while Prince Konstantin was not?”
“No. That’s not what I was going to say at all. I agreed with King Nikolai that neither Nataliya, nor his own brother were under constraints not to date.”
“But if I had slept around, what would you have said?” Nataliya couldn’t help asking.
Maks’s mouth twisted wryly. “That would have depended on the results, wouldn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” Nataliya asked.
Maks looked to where the children played, a soft smile curving his usually firm mouth. “Our firstborn child is testament to how unexpected results can come from a night of passion.”
“And if the little surprise had been the result of one of Konstantin’s many...” Nataliya paused, unsure what term she wanted to use.
Indiscretion implied that Konstantin shouldn’t have been having sex with those women. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to imply that.
She only knew she didn’t want to marry a man who had had so many sexual partners during the ten years he had not made any move to fulfill the terms of the contract they had both signed. Whether Konstantin liked it, or not, to Nataliya, that indicated a man who was both a womanizer and who did not keep his promises. Like her father.
“Sex partners?” Gillian offered, bringing a gasp of outrage from her royal husband.
Gillian rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a prude, Maks.”
“You are a princess now, Gillian. Maybe you could remember that.”
“And this is the twenty-first century. Maybe you could remember that.”
Nataliya found herself grinning despite the stress of the day. “She’s got your number, Maks.”
“And does King Nikolai have yours?”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s completely convinced that you will adhere to the contract.”
She didn’t want to admit that he might be right. Integrity and honor were every bit as important to her as they were to the King of Mirrus. “I just don’t understand why he’s saying he wants to marry me.”
“Well, he has to marry again at some point,” Maks pointed out prosaically.
“But me?”
“Perhaps, I could answer that.” Nikolai’s voice hit Nataliya in the center of her being.
She spun and found him watching her with an implacability that sent a shiver through her.
“I wish you would. This idea that you have to fulfill the contract in place of your brother is ridiculous.”
His enigmatic regard turned forbidding. “My honor is not a matter for ridicule.”
“But it’s not your honor in question.”
Satisfaction gleamed in his steely gray gaze. “So, you acknowledge that it is a matter of honor.”
“Prince Konstantin was the Prince referred to in that contract. Everyone knows that,” she said, sidestepping the honor issue.
The King settled quite casually onto the fountain rim beside where Nataliya sat. “But it was not in fact, my brother who signed the contract.”
“Why wasn’t it?” She’d been required to sign on her own behalf and had only noticed that the former King had signed it on behalf of his son, when she’d read it before embarking on her dating campaign.
“In contracts of that sort, it is quite natural for the reigning sovereign to sign on behalf of his house. When I was crowned King, all promises made by my father in matters of state became mine to fulfill.”
“So, renegotiate the contract.” He had just said he had the power to do so.
“After leaving you and your mother’s lives in limbo for ten years? I think not.”
“But I don’t mind.”
“I do.”
“I’m not queen material.”
“If you marry me, you will be a princess. The title of Queen is bestowed only at my will.”
And of course the wife he didn’t love wouldn’t be worthy of the title, not like the woman he had married and lost. “You know what I mean.”
“But I do not agree.”
“I’m a computer programmer, not a princess.”
“You are a member of the royal family of Volyarus.”
Like she needed reminding. “Not so you would notice. Not for the last fifteen years.”
Maks made a sound of disagreement, but Nataliya just gave him a look. “When your father exiled me and my mom for my dad’s indiscretions, we effectively lost our family. It’s no use pretending anything different.”
“Nevertheless, you are of royal blood, a lady in your own right,” Nikolai pressed.
“No one calls me Lady Nataliya.” At least no one in her current life.
“I’m sure that’s not true. Protocol is observed here in the castle.”
“I don’t spend time here.”
“And yet here you are.”
“To answer for crimes that were not in fact crimes at all.”
His smile did not reach his eyes. “No, not crimes, but you knew exactly what you were doing when you embarked on that article.”
“It was for a perfectly respectable fashion magazine, not a scandal rag.”
He nodded. “Well written and the tie in with fashion that you do not in fact have a great deal of interest in was clever.”
“My friend thought so.”
“Your friend?”
“The contributing editor who wrote the article and blog posts.”
“I wondered how you had arranged the article.”
“Jenna wanted to do the article but she’s in a committed relationship, so she couldn’t do the dates.”
“Commendable.”
“I thought so.”
“Yes, you would.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked belligerently.
He spread his hands in a gesture of no offense. “You are a woman of definite integrity. Your standards for acceptable behavior match my own.”
“How can you say that?” she asked, shocked by how he viewed her. “I hack computers for a living.”
“But not for nefarious purposes or your own gain.”
“No, of course not.” What did he think, she was a criminal?
No, she realized. It was that very certainty that she had standards that made her appealing to him.
“Plenty of women who would love to be a princess have integrity,” she pointed out dryly.
“But you are the one who signed a contract promising to marry a prince of my house.”
“But you aren’t a prince.”
“We’ve been over this.”
“I just don’t understand how you can say you want to marry me.”
“Ten years ago, you were vetted and found acceptable.”
“For your brother!”
“For any prince of the House of Merikov. That was the way the contract was written.”
“That’s not how I read it.”
“It is standard language for such a contract,” Maks pointed out, almost apologetically.
“But that’s draconian.” Gillian sounded shocked.
Neither the Crown Prince or the King looked particularly bothered by that condemnation.
Nikolai brushed the strands of hair away that the gentle wind had blown across Nataliya’s face. She wondered if he even realized he’d done it, but she’d noticed. To the very core of her, a place she’d thought dormant.
Nataliya no longer thought about him that way.
But the simple act of him sitting down beside her, close enough she could feel the heat of his body, sparked undeniable sexual desire.
She realized he was watching her as the silence stretched. One of the children started to cry and both Maks and Gillian went over.
Nataliya and Nikolai weren’t alone, but it felt like they were.
“You agreed that you signed the contract in good faith.” His words didn’t register at first.
She was too busy staring into his gorgeous gray eyes, but then her brain caught up with her mouth and she said, “And your brother reneged in front of witnesses today.”
“But not on behalf of our house, only himself.”
Nataliya surged to her feet. “I’m not eighteen anymore—no one is pushing me into fulfilling that darn contract.”
“If you are the woman I believe you to be, you will convince yourself of the rightness of doing your duty.”
“To marry you?” she asked in disbelief that simply would not go away.
“To marry me.”
“Good luck.”
His smile was even more dangerous this time. “I never leave anything to chance.”
Ignoring manners and protocol, she turned on her heel and headed back into the palace without another word.
* * *
A blooming orchid with tiny buds indicating more flowers to come was sitting on the table in her room when she reached it. Nataliya stopped and stared.
What was this?
She picked up the card sitting beside it and felt a shiver go down her spine at the slashing writing.
With my compliments, Nikolai.
In his own hand. Not typed like the ones she’d had delivered from Konstantin.
She recognized the orchid too, from the very distinctive pot it was planted in. She’d been to the castle in Mirrus for the funeral of Nikolai’s wife.
There was an orchid room where his mother used to grow the plants, now overseen by a world-renowned horticulturist. All of the orchids in that room were planted in the same style of pot with the Merikov crest in fine gold against the eggshell white of the ceramic.
Nataliya had spent a great deal of time in the orchid room during her three-day stay at the castle five years before. And she had learned that every orchid growing there had a special history and most were incredibly rare specimens.
Nikolai had caught her there more than once, because as he’d told her, he found comfort in the room his mother had spent so much time in.
Nataliya had offered to leave, but the young King had refused, asking her to keep him company. And that’s what she’d done, sitting in silence with a man who was grieving the loss of his wife and unborn child.
Nataliya could not make sense of the orchid being here. As gifts went, it was very special. But he couldn’t know that she’d started growing orchids after that visit. Nothing nearly so impressive as the Merikov collection, but lovely plants that gave her peace and joy caring for them.
Even if he had known something almost no one else did, Nikolai could not have gotten the plant delivered since the recent confrontation. Not even with a helicopter or the palace’s personal jet.
Nikolai couldn’t have known he planned to take his brother’s place before the meeting today, so why the orchid?
